Lucy Looking Upward

I Was a Teenage Astrologer: An Astrology Reference Guide for Teens

March 12, 2010

This article is for teenagers who have decided to pursue advanced study of astrology (or for anyone who knows such a teenager). If you’ve made it this far, you probably already understand that there is much more to it than just “I’m a Leo and he’s a Pisces and that means we don’t get along because- oh, look, a new XKCD.” Is there ever!

Understanding astrology in-depth has so many benefits: you sharpen your intuition, you pay closer attention to cultural trends, and you learn to trust your inner voice in a way that most people don’t in their entire lifetime (let alone at one of the most stressful periods of their entire life, when it’s most needed). Not to mention that the astrological community has some sweeping generational gaps, and is always excited about new blood.

I don’t think there’s necessarily a “right” or “wrong” way to go about studying astrology. I do, however, think there’s a smart way. I first started studying astrology in 1998 at age fourteen. I didn’t really have a serious study plan; I just read whatever I could as I could, without doing a great many chart readings until I was well out of my teens, which could be smart depending on who you ask. Susan Miller, one of the most well known mainstream astrologers, writes that per her instructor, she didn’t read anyone’s chart until she had been studying for ten years. I do think that’s a bit much, but I agree that there are a few things you’ll want to be solid on before you dive into reading charts.

Astrology is continuous; since it operates on archetype, one planet or aspect could have many different meanings, and as you advance in your study you will set yourself apart from others on the strength of your ability to use your imagination. But for now, if you’re just starting out, you want to be solid on things like modalities, elements (my 7^th grade best friend insisted that Aquarius is a water sign because it has “aqua” in it, and as expected of an Aquarius, not even Linda Goodman’s book could change her mind- Rachel, if you’re reading this, Aquarius is still an air sign), houses, rulerships (traditional and modern), essential dignities, etc., and also on what a secondary progression is or what a transit is. Make yourself flashcards if you have to. It’s a lot like learning a foreign language, but it makes all the difference in how easily you’ll be able to absorb substantive information later on. The book that really got the ball rolling for me was The Only Astrology Book You’ll Ever Need by Joanna Martine Woolfolk. For an introductory book, it’s very comprehensive and very easy to read, and Woolfolk’s definitions provide a really good framework for the basics.

I also suggest that you get yourself an ephemeris- actually, two of them. Even though you can look up most anything online, it’s still a good idea to have a 20^th century and 21^st century ephemeris (I like Michelsen’s American Ephemeris at midnight) to quickly eyeball progressions and transits and track all kinds of things like planetary stations and eclipses. (And trust me, until you can cough up the $300-400 for SolarFire, unless you are some kind of human computer or Nick Dagan Best, you WILL be eyeballing your progressions and transits.)

While we’re on the subject of the Internet, let me extol the virtues of using the Internet for studying astrology, and tell you how lucky you are to be able to take its efficiency for granted. When I began studying in 1998, the average person’s dial-up Internet (i.e. mine) was incredibly janky. My attempts to find legitimate astrological study aids were interrupted every time the phone would ring, and by the time most pages finished loading I would have already finished most of my homework. Thankfully, it is so not like that anymore. The Internet has become a lot faster and more user-friendly, and aside from the legendary astro.com, there are so many more resources that have become available in barely the last decade. You can accurately and readily calculate charts. You can search for and locate out-of-print books, or purchase e-books, or even peruse your library catalogue right from home. I highly recommend milking astro.com for all it’s worth, because there is a lot more to that site than meets the eye- and it’s one of the few astrology reference sites that is totally legit and is frequently updated. I also recommend the newly introduced planetwatcher.com, which was developed by my friend Kirk Kahn, to refine your ephemeris searches. It’s an up-to-the-minute, live layout of current transits that can be progressed backwards or forwards to the month, day, and even the hour.

Networking is pretty key in accelerating your study of astrology as well. In the past, teenagers interested in astrology (or any esoteric or taboo subject, for that matter) often had to go to extreme measures to make sure their study would be kept secret from well-meaning but unsophisticated parents or flat-out intolerant school officials, and often that meant it had to be a solitary practice. Personally, my astrological prowess literally exploded once I was able to engage with other astrologers and see a variety of different perspectives. I recently had the opportunity to attend my first astrological conference, and meeting some of my astrology heroes who I’d been reading for ages was pretty mind-blowing. (Most astrologers are really nice! And not intimidating at all!) Of course, you do have to keep your guard up a little as you’re starting to network, especially if you are still “illegal.” (Without naming any names, there are a few known fruitbats who are spreading misinformation or pushing an agenda in astrology, just as there would be in any other field, who love to feast on your teenage flesh.) But making friends with other quality astrologers of all ages will really set you on a good course, and having astrology friends close to your age is incredibly validating. I personally love everybody at the Association for Young Astrologers (AYA); becoming a member of AYA costs less than an iTunes gift card. I also like to peruse astrodispatch.com, which is an aggregator site of all the very best astrology blogs out there. Another site I can’t recommend enough is horoscopicastrologyblog.com, which is operated entirely by young astrologers (by young, I mean early 20’s-early 40’s tops).

As you continue to study and network, you’ll see that astrology doesn’t necessarily stop at just reading charts. It also includes events, blogs, cultural discussions, and a far deeper appreciation for subtext (not to mention mythology, literature, science, and pretty much anything else that could hold your interest). And with the upcoming Uranus ingress into Aries, you can probably think of tons more genius constructive uses for it, and the community wants to hear them! Best of luck with your studies- you’ll thank yourself for it later!

Lucy has been studying astrology since the tender age of fourteen and has been semi-pro for the past year and a half. She firmly believes that astrology imitates life and can be applied constructively not only to real people, but also to unpack long-standing cultural memes; she demonstrates this in her blog, Lucy Looking Upward, and in the advice she dispenses.

This article is featured in Uranus in Aries: Claiming a Self-Reliant Future published on Auntie Moon as Part of the 2010 International Astrology Day Blogathon. The purpose of this web-based event is to create a permanent library of articles about how to deal with the stresses of the Cardinal T-Square of Pluto, Saturn and Uranus. The main page for the Blogathon collections is at The Cardinal T-Square of 2010: Saturn, Uranus, Pluto.

Related links:
10 Tips for Learning Astrology

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged astrology, International Astrology Day Blogathon, resource guide, teenagers, Uranus | 4 Comments »

Heavy angel, chicken woman: the astrology of Mia Zapata

February 13, 2010

There comes a time in every young astrologer’s life when she starts to notice that her astrological interests are not a coincidence. That inevitably, if there is astrological significance in anything else she cares about, it will eventually show itself. It happened earlier this year with Herculine Barbin, and it’s happening again right now with Mia Zapata, former frontwoman of Seattle punk band The Gits. The Gits formed at Antioch College in Ohio in the late 1980’s and relocated to Seattle to be part of the city’s growing music scene. Their home and workspace The Rat House was a major hub for emerging Seattle bands, including DC Beggars and 7 Year Bitch. The Gits enjoyed great underground success, due in no small part to singer Mia Zapata’s dynamic stage presence and spine-tingling blues-y voice. They had just been signed to Atlantic Records and were optimistic about their future when tragically, on July 7, 1993, Mia Zapata was savagely beaten, raped and murdered while walking home from a friend’s house. She was a little over one month away from turning 28.

Mia Zapata, 1965-1993

The Gits were actually a punk band, but they are often incorrectly classified as grunge (due to their connection with Seattle grunge bands Nirvana and Soundgarden) or as part of the riot grrrl movement. It’s true that the horrible circumstances of Mia Zapata’s death were exactly the kind of thing that riot grrrl bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile were writing about, and seemed to drive home the grisly reality of violence against women- that even punk women and riot grrrls were not impervious to sexual violence, that it is a serious problem that needs addressing. (The non-profit Home Alive was founded by members of the Seattle music community in memory of Mia Zapata.) But Mia Zapata herself never explicitly wrote about political issues in her songs. They primarily have to do with addiction, with loneliness, with loss- but it’s hard to say exactly what she was thinking when she wrote them. In a recent documentary The Gits by Kerri O’Kane, guitarist Joe Spleen describes what an extremely private person Mia Zapata was. Onstage, her former bandmates say, she was raw and abrasive, and commanded respect. Offstage, however, she was “modest, affectionate, private, and gentle.” They describe a somewhat awkward and badly-timed sense of humor; the name “chicken woman” in the title comes from a college friend’s description of her gawky posture. But there is nothing awkward or gawky about the “heavy angel” voice and energy that came out onstage, and it’s easy to see why she was seen as a welcome ally to a movement that was all about female empowerment.

Mia Zapata was born August 25, 1965 in Louisville, KY. I don’t have a birth time for her, but the chart I generated is for noon. As such, my analysis is pretty limited; I’m sure if I had angles, I could analyze for days. It came as no surprise to me, though, that the two sides of Mia Zapata- the charismatic, powerful punk singer and the more solitary poet- were pretty apparent right away.

Mia Zapata's natal chart, no birth time (courtesy of astro.com)

It may seem as if these two sides are total opposites, but in fact, they’re incredibly well-integrated. Mia’s Virgo Sun and Leo Mercury (which is conjoined almost exactly with her Moon and exactly squaring her Neptune) are in mutual reception. All that raw power that could overwhelm the average Virgo has a voice- literally, an enviably rich and throaty voice. Even if she had wanted to suppress the energy she had, she probably would have been unable to. Being a singer in a punk band provided a fortunate outlet for this intensity, where she could successfully command well-deserved attention and her most intimate thoughts could take on a fiery edge- although, as quoted in the documentary, she could have sung any genre she wanted and done so incredibly. For that reason, it’s also worth noting that making punk her genre of choice was no accident- she has Saturn retrograde in Pisces opposing Uranus conjunct Pluto in Virgo. This outer-planet conjunction is part of the reason that music from the early 90’s is so awesome, because you have intensity, darkness, and a completely original sound funneled through perfect musicianship. (Kurt Cobain and Billy Corgan, among many other rock heavyweights, were also born during this conjunction.) Her Venus is dignified in Libra, but unaspected; it’s not clear if Mia ever had any serious romantic involvements, but guitarist Joe Spleen refers to her as his “music soul mate.” However, at age 20, her progressed Venus went into Scorpio, which underscores the rawness of her Leo-Mercury conjunction; this probably prompted, if not an actual sexual awakening, an awareness of the incredible magnetism she possessed and an openness to using it.

Still, though, with all of that perfect rock star material, that’s not all there was to Mia Zapata. Her Saturn in Pisces is retrograde, and would probably have stayed that way all her life. People with Saturn retrograde, if not actual loners, tend to see the world quite differently from everyone else; in fact, it’s fair to say that they’ve created their own world. Not only is Mia’s Saturn retrograde in Pisces, but it is the handle of her bucket chart and widely conjunct Chiron. It wasn’t her dynamic stage presence that really drove her to be who she was; it was her sensitivity, the hidden part of her that no one could really know. Her wide Saturn-Chiron conjunction makes an inconjunct to her Moon-Mercury conjunction, which is probably what drove her to express feelings of loneliness and inner conflict in a way that sounds empowered and proactive. It’s interesting that her lyrics dealt with self-effacing material, as one thing among many that Mia was noted for was her (Virgo-Pisces) modesty and total lack of pretense. More reserved than ego-driven, she made it a point to make herself and her bandmates available to other up-and-coming bands. She actively mentored 7 Year Bitch at The Rat House as they were forming, and remained friends with the band even as they commercially surpassed The Gits. Her father is quoted as saying that “Mia had a complete and total social conscience. She cared about people.” And this social conscience came back to her, even after her untimely death. The remaining Gits released a posthumous album, Enter The Conquering Chicken, in Mia’s memory, and the entire Seattle music community, with the help of major figures like Joan Jett and Kurt Cobain, pulled together to fund their own investigation of her murder and to start up Home Alive.

Mia Zapata’s murder remained an unsolved mystery for ten years, until a DNA profile was able to be matched from a saliva sample on her body. The saliva was traced to Jesus Mezquia, a fisherman who had been living in Seattle at the time of the murder and had a history of convictions for violence against women. The unanimous guilty verdict that put Mezquia in prison for more than 36 years was not only a major breakthrough for Mia’s family and friends, but it was legally significant as well- it was one of the first incidences of DNA evidence being instrumental in a conviction.

At the time of her death, Mia had just had her progressed lunar return, putting her in the “27 Club” of musicians who died on or around their progressed lunar returns at age 27. She was still a year and a half away from her Saturn return, but it was already starting to create a stir- and transiting Jupiter was exactly conjunct her natal Venus. Mia was getting excited about the new direction her career was taking, and the amount of mainstream spotlight she would soon be enjoying (and no doubt her Saturn return would have had her reconciling her private side with this seriously different kind of celeb-reality). The frightening astrological part about her murder comes with (who else?) Pluto: transiting Pluto was trining her natal Chiron and squaring her Moon-Mercury conjunction. I have to wonder: what did her killer see when he descended upon her? Did he see a woman who appeared strong and charismatic, and was therefore some kind of “threat” to him? Or did he see a vulnerable, awkward-looking woman, who was clearly “easy prey”? Did he see both? Or ultimately, did it even matter? Clearly, though, the love for this incredibly talented woman outweighs the savagery of what was done to her. She (like so many other victims) was so much more than her death.

From one of The Gits’ last shows, about a week before Mia Zapata’s murder:

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 27 Club, astrology, Mia Zapata, punk, The Gits | 2 Comments »

Progress! An observation about progressions

February 1, 2010

So wow, I just realized that it has been a really, really long time since I last posted anything. Part of it was due to being extremely busy in the past month- I was on winter break, but I still went in to work in the neuropsych lab for most of it, and when I wasn’t doing that, I was getting ready for this semester, seriously falling behind on a lot of blog-reading, and working on a couple of other projects that have yet to be disclosed. Additionally, I managed to further compromise my CFS by completely reversing my circadian rhythm such that I may as well have added “and drinking blood” to the previous sentence. Classes have begun, so getting it back to normal has become an imperative and not just something I’ll do if I have time. But more than just being busy (which is not exactly a new state of affairs for me), I wasn’t really sensing that I had anything urgent to write about. I go back and forth between watching transits obsessively and forgetting that even I know astrology, but even in the moments when I’m forgetting, I will nonetheless feel it and notice it if something hits me really hard. At the moment, nothing is really “hitting” me, unless you count Neptune, which doesn’t exactly “hit.” It smothers, it drugs, or it drowns, and I haven’t really been feeling that either, not lately, anyway.

Surely you all remember The Clusterfuck of Doom. Neptune and Chiron are still on my MC and my Venus; however, they feel far less Clusterfuck-y than they did last year. This is true for several reasons: 1) they have both gone direct, so their energies can be utilized the way they’re actually supposed to be, i.e. not liquifying my insides and making me really sick, 2) Jupiter, having just ingressed into Pisces, is no longer attached to them, so it translates to just a little bit of fog and not agonizing Clusterfuck-y madness, and 3) I had kind of a “Soylent Green is people!” realization about why it felt particularly difficult this whole time, which sort of ties in with an upcoming undisclosed project.

As I’ve come to understand the higher implications of what it means to have Venus in Aquarius on as prominent of an angle as the MC, I’m finally owning how much I love it. Seriously, I LOVE having Venus in Aquarius on my MC, like LOVE, L-U-V. I could have eliminated so much earlier heartache if I’d only realized just how amazing it is sooner. In all my gung ho newfound appreciation, though, I was so completely confused as to why the Neptune-Chiron transit appeared to be messing it up. But here’s what I realized: your natal placements are not the only thing at work at any given time. They’re the only thing a lot of people use, because there is of course such a thing as too much information. But sometimes when transits or whatever don’t match up the way they’re “supposed” to, some people will get into a simplistic huff and decide that astrology must not work- when actually, if you just look from a slightly different angle, there is a reason for the cognitive dissonance somewhere. Maybe you have to look at your progressed chart. Maybe you have to use another house system. The debate over which is better, tropical or sidereal time, is always popular, but I think it’s totally pointless and ridiculous, because neither is “better”; they’re different. But they’re all relevant, if you’re willing to include them all.

I realized that the Clusterfuck of Doom was that much more confounding because despite having natal Venus and my MC in Aquarius, I’ve also had my progressed Venus and MC in Pisces for a really long time (Venus since I was five, MC I don’t know because it’s late and I’m too lazy to calculate it right now, but probably about the same). It goes without saying that Venus in Aquarius and Venus in Pisces are very, very different. But it explains a lot about the trajectory of my life until recently, and why I’ve often been really confused about how I could have such significant Aquarius placements when I felt like “SUCH a Pisces.” I mean, that’s one whopping fucking dose of Neptune and Jupiter. It’s seriously kind of amazing that I’m not fried on drugs or a Christian Scientist right now. It’s reassuring to realize that progressions are strong influences, but they are not actually who you really are. Nothing against Pisces, but its energy can be seriously overwhelming if unfiltered, and it’s not like I don’t have enough other placements and aspects in my natal chart that make me ridiculously oversensitive as is. Being able to put the former Clusterfuck of Doom in perspective that way, to realize that it only felt as strong as it did because of the complete excess of Pisces/Neptune energy I’ve been swimming in (*rimshot*) all this time, makes me think I should have chosen a more appropriate name for it, like The Biggest Margarita You’ve Ever Drank. When I think about it, in a lot of ways I really embody my Venus and MC in Aquarius much more than I’d previously given myself credit for. Like, for instance, the fact that I have never and would never sacrifice anything I was doing professionally for a relationship. The Venus in Pisces by progression has put me in situations where that’s been an issue, and you’d think I would have- but the idea of doing so always felt really, really wrong to me, even when I was in early high school. Or the fact that even while I was actively making and enjoying art, something about doing it as a career didn’t sit right with me. Or the fact that there are certain things about the culture we live in that I am simply not okay with and am not willing to ignore or let slide, where the Pisces influence would have me “forgiving,” “accepting,” “living and letting live.” Or hell, even the fact that I write my blog the way I do, that despite being extremely interested in astrology and the occult and magic, I’ve always treated it kind of academically and managed to be one of the least New Age-y people I’ve ever met.

Part of my growth in studying astrology has included not being married to what one chart says to the point where I doubt my own intuition and gut sense. So I’d say that being able to tease out what’s actually me and what’s just an outside influence is kind of empowering. And now I’m more excited about what I’m going to do next than EVAR, because it involves significant pieces of everything described above. YES.

Has anyone else had a similar “Soylent Green is people!” moment in astrology?

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged astrology, Clusterfuck of Doom, MC in Aquarius, Pisces, progressions, Venus in Aquarius | 13 Comments »

Turn that Mars upside-down: Mars retrograde and some thoughts about anger

December 23, 2009

It would seem that on a personal level, something like a Mars retrograde has only a handful of potential manifestations, chiefly turning inward to better understand your expression of anger. A lot of my favorite astro-bloggers have been covering Mars’ retrograde and writing about that exact subject, so at first I thought I would pass on blogging about it, because what more could I really add to the discussion? But then, something happened to make me rethink that, because astrology is wonderful that way.

Yesterday marked my very last exam, and the end of the semester. THANK CHRIST. So fittingly, upon returning home, I took off my pants and settled into bed with my Kettle chips and Coke for a Netflix Instant binge. On Monday, a whole mess of movies on my queue had become available for instant viewing (among them Brian DePalma’s Sisters OMG and Kurosawa’s Yojimbo OMG). After watching a couple of movies successfully, I went back to my queue only to find that where all the “play” buttons should have been on these new movies, it once again said “Available 12/21/2009,” which was… Monday. Technical difficulty, I was sure. So I called up the customer service hotline, calmly explained the problem and asked if this was a regular occurrence because I’d never had it happen before. The voice on the other end (which had an obscenely Deep Southern drawl to it) thoroughly answered my question and helped me figure out what the problem was. Until I said one more time, “That’s so odd, I’ve honestly never had that happen to me before,” and he said, “Okay, well, try not to have a nervous breakdown.” Um. What? “Who’s having a nervous breakdown?” I asked. After some more double-checking that the problem was solved, he said, “Okay, now does that answer your question? Can you calm down and take a deep breath?” Well, sure, if I… hadn’t been calm to begin with.

That kind of shit pisses me off royally, not only because you know he would never have spoken to a man that way, and because of the persistent implication that if a woman isn’t giggling and half-flirting her way through any interaction with a man in a wispy fairy voice then she must be yelling. Incidents like the one with this customer service douche make me extremely unnecessarily self-conscious. My 3rd House cusp is at 29+ Cancer, so transiting Mars has been in my 3rd House since its entry into Leo. I know that I have kind of a loud voice, but I do not yell. In fact, I make a serious conscious effort to keep my voice as low and calm as possible, even and especially when I am visibly furious. My father had an anger management problem and was extremely verbally abusive for most of my childhood; watching him, I learned that you do not get the help you need when you are yelling and calling people names. That said, though, you also don’t get it (especially if you’re a woman) when you whisper, “Um, hi, this is gonna sound like the stupidest question ever, but, um… where are the drill bits? I’m sooooo bad at finding things” or “Um, listen, I’m sooooooo sorry to ask this, but would it be okay for me to get almond milk instead of skim in my smoothie? I’m sooooo sorry, it’s totally okay if you can’t, I’m just allergic, it’s so stupid…” When I’m told to “calm down” when I already am calm, or I’m told to “try not to have a nervous breakdown” when I’m simply asking a question in a firmer version of my normal speaking voice, even though I know that I’m not yelling, part of me wonders: “AM I yelling? Is that what my voice just sounds like?”

I’m glad to have Mars in my 3rd House by transit. Since it’s been there, I’ve given successful class presentations, I’ve approached professors about research and volunteer work (and gotten it), and I’ve been able to openly admit when I need help with something. And it also poses another question to chew on during this retrograde period: do you feel justified in your anger, or at least in your right to assert your will and desires? And how much is too much? I am completely within my right to demand (pleasant, unpatronizing) help from a customer service hotline, and doing so should not make me wonder if I was actually “inappropriate”- and even if I had been yelling, it would have been the rep’s responsibility to assist me regardless. I never use the phrase “I’m sorry” or put myself down when I’m requesting help or information. Because I’m not sorry. I want my Netflix Instant fixed. I want to know where the drill bits are. I want almond milk instead of skim in my smoothie. And I’m not stupid or crazy for wanting any of these things. Similar to how I’ve learned not to yell by watching my father, I’ve learned not to apologize or put myself down for wanting my needs met by watching my mother. She is less notorious for apologizing to the other party than she is for demanding validation from the other party by shrieking, “God, what’s wrong with me???” or muttering, “God, I am so stupid!!!” As I’m getting more aware of it, I’ve had to reprimand her about it several times recently. Because not only is it incredibly tiring to listen to, especially over bullshit like buying the wrong kind of cat food, it’s exactly what men like the Netflix rep want to hear. “I desire something from you, so that makes me crazy and hysterical.” “I need help, so that makes me stupid.”

I think that as we go on with the Mars retrograde, it might be a valuable question to ask yourselves, as you reconsider your approach to anger, if for you the opposite of assertiveness is self-effacement. Because while you don’t want to alienate people in your anger, you also don’t want to alienate yourself by being ashamed to express it. You don’t need to yell, but it’s also not your responsibility to whisper and apologize. Just get what it is you fucking want.

p.s. I totally wrote an angry complaint to Netflix in which I detailed the entire exchange and singled out the representative by name. Try telling women to calm down and not have a nervous breakdown on the UNEMPLOYMENT LINE, asshat.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged anger, assertiveness, astrology, Mars retrograde | 9 Comments »

Fun Astrology Meme

December 10, 2009

Weirdly enough, for someone who’s a double-Gemini, I’m extremely against e-mail memes and chain letters and “send this to all your friends!!!!!1″ propaganda. However, if it’s serving a noble purpose, like getting to know fellow astrologers in their own words, I’m more than happy to play along. This one that follows is five astrology-related questions. I got them from Neeti Ray of Astrology Expressed; Neeti’s interviewed me and lots of other astrologers before, and she’s an exemplary interviewer as well as writer and astrologer, so any time she can interview me, I’m game. And it’s a great opportunity for me to work on my own interview skills.

Here’s how it works: if you want to be interviewed, you have to ask the author of the post you’re reading (in this case, me) to interview you. They’ll (I’ll, what the fuck am I writing they for?) send you five unique questions that you have to answer and post in your own blog. Here are my answers to Neeti’s questions:

1. Have you gone to weird lengths to obtain someone’s birth data? If yes, please tell us about it.
Weird lengths? Hmm. I think the weirdest thing I’ve ever done to get birth data was to ask someone’s mom. Most people just give me their info if I ask for it, but if I ask and someone says no, I don’t push it. If I’m really curious for myself, I’ll just look in the ephemeris. Fortunately in cases of emergency I’m pretty desensitized to going to weird lengths for information. I once had to look at this guy’s mail when he was out of the room because we’d been on like three dates already and he refused to tell me his last name. Birth data is the least of my concerns.

2. Do you discuss astrology with your non-astrology friends?
Immediately I’d say no, I don’t. But my non-astrology friends would say, “Yeah, you do.” A couple months ago my best friend told me she was watching that VH1 show My Antonio, and one of the contestants was supposed to go zip-lining and she said, “Oh my God, I’m supposed to go zip-lining when there’s a solar eclipse AND it’s Mercury retrograde?!”, and my friend thought to herself, “Oh my God, it’s Lucy.” I said, “Oh, come on, I don’t do that.” And she said, “Actually, a lot of the time you’ll talk about other people and say things like, ‘Well, he’s Libra with Pisces rising, OF COURSE he’s being like this,’ and I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.” Okay, okay.

3. Which planet do you struggle with in your own chart?
My two angular planets (the Moon and Venus) are double-edged swords, just because while they have a lot of advantages, they’re SO DAMN PRONOUNCED I can’t escape them. I feel like I’m as oversensitive as I am not because my Sun is in Pisces, but because my Moon is on the Ascendant, all hanging out for everyone to see, and even when I think I’m making an effort to conceal it, other people can still pick up on it. It’s kind of like how even when I’m wearing a totally un-revealing turtleneck sweater, my mom hassles me because my breasts are still visibly gigantic. My Venus in Aquarius on the MC just confounds me, because I’m sure there is a constructive way to own it, and I have not found it yet, except for dressing for the job I would want if it was 1948 or 1972 and being incredibly ornery and non-flirtatious.

4. Which branch of astrology did you find challenging to learn?
I really don’t have a ton of experience with most branches of astrology outside Western tropical, which I badly need to change. I tried to teach myself Vedic in college when I was procrastinating writing my conference papers, and that was kind of hard to wrap my head around at the time, not just because it was a whole different system of calculation, but because what I was reading seemed to be more predictive than analytical (which now I know isn’t always the case). I’m interested in learning about Gauquelin’s methods as well simply because I’m embarking on a more scientific leg of my career, and I think it might be interesting to sort of pare down what I do know of Western astrology so I’m using it more effectively. Sort of how most psychologists acknowledge Freud for making the field of psychotherapy what it is today, but don’t necessarily believe (actually, don’t believe at all) that psychoanalysis is the be all and end all of the human experience.

5. Imagine your perfect man. Now describe some important aspects of his chart.
Hmm. In reality, I would never not date or marry someone because of astrology, and I do know that good synastry isn’t all there is to it. (I can’t remember who said it, but I heard an astrologer once say, “There is no bad synastry, only bad relationships,” and it’s SO TRUE.) But for the sake of the interview, I’ll bite. First of all, his chart would go very easy on the Libra and Sagittarius, because I’ve had awful experiences with both signs and I’m sick of it. If he had a Moon in the 1st House as well, or even in any angular house, I would really appreciate that- because then we could actually have genuine emotional conversations and there wouldn’t be that stupid game-playing you see so often. He would also have strong Saturn or Pluto, because 1) I don’t really like fluff, and 2) he would probably have a better-timed, more dry sense of humor. No, he really would- I know way more funny Capricorns and Scorpios and so forth, way funnier than someone who was like ALL Venus or ALL Gemini and never knew when the hell to stop. It would be great if he had Venus in Scorpio and Mars in Aquarius, because 1) that’s the opposite of my Venus and my Mars, 2) my Pluto final dispositor would actually be kind of an aphrodisiac, and 3) the sex would be AWESOME.

If you want to be interviewed, do the following:
1) Leave me a comment saying, “Interview me.”
2) I will respond by e-mailing you five questions (that I pick).
3) You then update your blog with the questions and your answers.
4) Include this explanation and offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5) When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will come up with five questions to ask each of them.

Who’s next?

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

One Hundred Twenty Days of Saturn: Saturn and Pluto teach Lucy something about relationships

December 1, 2009

You want a post on Saturn squaring Pluto? Okay, here’s your post on Saturn squaring Pluto.

As a rule, I have a pretty bad track record with relationships. (“YOU?! REALLY?!” my readers gasp. You’re funny, guys.) As a therapist’s kid, as someone who read Deborah Tannen when she was six, as someone who’s spent considerable time observing and evaluating other peoples’ relationships professionally and just because they interest me, you’d think I’d be awesome at them- and I am, when giving advice to other people. When dealing with my own, however, I’m ashamed but forced to admit that at worst I can be a little bit like a twelve-year-old Jennifer Jason Leigh. Typically, this has been blamed on my natal Neptune-Jupiter conjunction in my 7th House. “You give other people the benefit of the doubt too much!” “You idealize other people too much!” “You’re a Pisces, need we say more?”

Well, yes and no. The first two are true- I know I do these things, and although it might not look like it, I’m very mindful of when I’m doing it and whether or not it’s getting out of control. I get better at modulating it every time. However, even when I think I’m doing so much better that this time will be different, inevitably I end up falling into the same trap. And after ages of agonizing over IS IT ME OMFG WHAT AM I DOING WRONG, I kind of realized what’s actually happening here. (Well, Saturn squaring Pluto in my 5th and 7th Houses made me realizing what’s actually happening here.)

This is what’s actually happening here: Okay, yes, I’m very Piscean in my affections. Yes, I have let certain relationships carry on way, way too long because I was not willing to acknowledge very serious red flags- or at least terminate the relationship when I was good and mad enough instead of letting someone else break me. But I’ve made efforts, very strong efforts, to move past that. I’ve dissected and examined and analyzed nearly every pattern of mine in relationships, I’ve spent years of my life modifying my behavior so that I’d be better equipped to have successful relationships, and I’ve realized that at a certain point there’s really only so much that I can do. I may have Piscean tendencies in relationships, but I also have Venus in Aquarius at the top of my chart. As far as girlfriends go, I am not a clingy girlfriend. I am not a high-maintenance girlfriend. I do not immediately drop all of my interests and goals when a relationship ends because they were actually my boyfriend’s interests and goals that I had taken on for lack of my own. For the most part, the only thing I’m really doing “wrong” is being emotionally forthright and having strong opinions- which I can’t just stop doing, and wouldn’t stop doing to appease someone else. That would be a lousy relationship.

No, amazingly enough, the Pisces self-blame has to step back: it’s not me. I realized how my Neptune-Jupiter conjunction in the 7th House has been playing out for most of my adult relationships (and by adult, I mean out of college- it’s such a different dynamic when you’re not in college anymore). See, the 7th House isn’t just your attitude towards relationships- it’s also YOU in relationships, that is, the role you play. “Isn’t that your Ascendant?” you might be asking. “No, not quite,” I reply. Your Ascendant might not be who you truly are, but ultimately it bears qualities that are important to you, that consciously or not you want the world to see. This is not necessarily true in an intimate relationship. Your Descendant, the Ascendant’s opposite, reflects the type of person who complements you, who makes up for what you lack- but the planets in the 7th House reflect what kind of partner you can be to that person, to that prospective complement.

So take me, for instance. I have a Sagittarius Descendant, and without fail, I always, ALWAYS end up involved with Sagittarius Suns or Sagittarius Risings. Like literally, it’s to the point where I’m shocked if someone I like is not one of those. Yet I keep coming back. Clearly something about Sagittarius is attractive to me- is it the good attitude? The sophistication, real or imagined? The height? The build? Whatever. The point is, after so many disappointments with this type of person, I’m very well aware of the potential hazards, and I do try to protect myself. But nonetheless, my Neptune-Jupiter conjunction plays out, and not the way you’d think. It’s not so much that I idealize the other- and this took me a while to get to intellectually, even to admit- it’s that they end up idealizing me.

Not idealizing me in the sense of “I love you too, Dream Woman!” I mean that in the Neptunian sense of the word- the Pisces sense, of escapism and illusion and fantasy. Although I don’t try to, I end up being literally whatever some guy wants me to be. I remember when I was thirteen or so, I read one of those Sydney Omarr books about Pisces in which he wrote that “Pisces is the most dangerous ‘other woman’ of the zodiac,” and being a Jan Brady thirteen-year-old who’d been to second base over my shirt once I was like YEAH RIGHT WHATEVER. But as a more experienced adult, I can say with certainty that IT’S SO TRUE. If a man is not actually using me to cheat on his girlfriend, he is using me as a distraction from something else- his dissertation, some encroaching sense of melancholy, fear that everyone will think he’s crazy if he doesn’t have a girlfriend RIGHT NOW. I can’t ever just be “the girlfriend,” like the real, down-to-earth, non-intimidating girlfriend. I always have to represent something larger than or totally different from his experience. His girlfriend is almost always skinny and flat-chested and mousy and wears no make-up, so he can give himself a cookie for being attracted to me, who looks kind of like a Rubenesque redheaded Stevie Nicks without all the blow. His dissertation is almost always on some boring ivory tower shit that even he finds repellent, so he feels titillated but at the same time somewhat dirty being with someone who actually, you know, worked for three years between undergrad and (almost) grad school. His encroaching sense of melancholy is almost always totally his own fault, because he can’t be honest with himself about what it is he actually wants, so the idea of a woman who actually is really smart and knows about a lot of subjects and has diverse interests like gender studies and horror films and astrology and the occult and makes proactive decisions about her future is like WHA-AT.

And since for the most part I exist to the other solely as a distraction, as their distraction, it’s imperative that I don’t change. This is usually where things will start to go south- when it becomes apparent to the other that *gasp* I am not solely what they imagined me to be. I’m not talking about a situation where, for instance, someone is totally nice to you for the entire duration and then breaks up with you by screaming in your face that you meant nothing to him and calling you an unhinged lunatic. (That is called… I don’t know what, but it’s freaking nuts.) What I’m talking about is this crazy idea that women have different moods and aspects, just like men do! Whoa! The men who appreciate that I can be sweet and affectionate are put off and intimidated when they discover that I actually have really strong opinions and will call them out on dumb shit they do. On the other hand, the men who appreciate that I have really strong opinions and will call them out on dumb shit they do are disappointed and pissed off when they discover that I can be sweet and affectionate. If that’s not Neptune-Jupiter at work, I don’t know what the hell is. I mean, Christ, we wouldn’t even have mythology if the gods were incapable of getting angry or jealous or self-righteous or acting differently than we’d expect of them. How could anyone possibly think it might be okay to expect that of me? Or of any human?

So what am I supposed to do about that? Well, there’s always Jung’s transcendent function, or some way out of a problem that really has nothing to do explicitly with any of the variables. I’ve been following Donna Cunningham’s incredible Pluto-Saturn Preparedness Kit, which you should also check out if you haven’t already. Following Donna’s guide, I’ve made inquiries into volunteer programs with an academic focus, I’m revisiting Julia Cameron and the idea of “morning pages” (or “evening pages,” for the days I have to get up at 5 a.m.), and I’m making more of a conscious effort to include social time with my solid friends between studying and sleeping. All fantastic, helpful things- but ultimately, I still have to get around this relationship bugbear somehow.

Do I treat others the way that they treat me? No, of course not. As much as I’ve fantasized about emotionally destroying some perfectly nice boy (Pluto final dispositor), I would never actually do it. While it may look to me on the wounded outside that the people rejecting and using me have boundaries, they probably actually don’t- it takes a serious miscalculation of risk to be able to do that to someone, and not just, you know, get help for your mental problems or freaking break up with your girlfriend if you hate her so much.

What I have to do for myself is to learn to exercise real boundaries, and to be incredibly Saturnian about how I start to view potential partners. It’s really unfortunate, but I’ve gotten to the point that if it seems someone likes me, I can’t totally trust it. But I’m starting to think that’s a good thing. “Oh, no, Lucy, you’re only twenty-five and a half, how can you be so jaded???? How come you can’t do what I did in 1979 and just go out and meet someone at a bar????” (Because I know someone out there is thinking that, and whoever you are, you need a nice tall glass of shut the fuck up.) I need to start holding people to a higher standard. I think I’ve done more than enough of my fair share to make sure I’m emotionally equipped to be in a relationship, even in pursuit of ambitious personal goals. That’s not to say I don’t want to be in a relationship at all- I do, for Christ’s sake, I really do. I just don’t think I deserve to waste my time on someone who doesn’t care that much about me- or hell, even about themselves. Plutonian sacrifice, well, I know all about that. It just has to be directed towards the right place. My health, I can’t afford to sacrifice. My education, certainly not. A short-lived relationship with someone who’s probably using me because he can’t get his shit together? Yeah, I don’t think I need that.

In the meantime, I will be sitting up with the Greek gods and the Orishas, being imperfect.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 7th House, astrology, Neptune, projection, relationships, saturn-pluto square | 16 Comments »

What a fate was mine! The astrology of Herculine Barbin

November 7, 2009

In what I hope will be a more frequent occurrence for my blog in the future, I thought it would be interesting to write astrologically about things that coincide with my coursework, since after all, astrology and pretty much everything in the world are not mutually exclusive. In my biopsych class, we just finished the unit on reproductive behaviors, in which we covered intersexuality and gender identity, and I remembered that in an anthropology class a few years ago we’d read a primary source written by an intersex individual, Herculine Barbin, in the 1860’s, so for extra credit in biopsych I did a presentation on the case. Herculine Barbin’s memoirs are pretty well-known; they were found in the archives of the French Department of Public Hygiene by Michel Foucault, they were the basis for the novel Middlesex, and November 8th, Herculine Barbin’s birthday, has actually been designated as Intersex Solidarity Day, in which LGBTQ organizations are encouraged to raise awareness about intersexuality and further efforts not to pathologize intersex conditions. They’re so well-known, in fact, that Herculine Barbin’s natal chart is actually in the AstroDataBank, which pleased me enormously. So I thought that in the spirit of Intersex Solidarity Day, in addition to the scientific analysis I did of the memoirs, I might add an astrological analysis too.

First, a brief biography. Herculine Barbin was born November 8th, 1838, in Saint-Jean-d’Angély, France, and raised as a girl. Her father died when she was very young, probably not even five years old, and she and her mother lived in poverty for most of her childhood. However, there was a hospital attached to an Ursuline convent in the town in which she lived, and at about age seven, she was given an opportunity to study at the convent school. Herculine (who was also affectionately called “Alexina” or “Camille”) did extremely well in school and quite enjoyed it. She briefly left school at age fifteen to work as a handmaid alongside her mother, but with the encouragement of her employers resumed school at age seventeen, being accepted to a very selective teacher’s college. After passing her examinations and receiving her teaching certificate, she was almost immediately placed as a teacher in a girls’ boarding school. There she met her dear friend Sara, another teacher and the headmistress’ daughter, who would later become her lover. Their relationship was kept secret for pretty much the entire duration, although it was always viewed with a suspect eye by the students and school officials. Herculine was passionately devoted to Sara, but still felt twinges of guilt over the forbidden nature of the relationship; she even spoke of her feelings of attraction to women during confession to a priest at the school, who promptly berated and insulted her in between telling her how many Hail Marys to say, which did nothing to reassure her. The real scandal, however, would come when Herculine was twenty-one. She had been suffering from chronic abdominal pains, but having been a sick child and wanting to appear strong, she downplayed them. Sara, however, was concerned and alerted her mother the headmistress to call a doctor, who discovered upon examining Herculine that (to the surprise of everyone, even Herculine herself) she was not actually a she after all. The findings were confirmed by another doctor in Herculine’s hometown, and to avoid further scandal and protect the school’s reputation, he (formerly she) would have to leave quietly, with the majority of the school community believing that “she” was leaving to become a nun. His sex was legally reassigned to male, his name was changed from Herculine to Abel Barbin, and he moved to Paris, where he worked as a railroad worker, a valet, and other odd jobs while struggling to adapt to his new gender identity. Abel wrote his memoirs at approximately age twenty-five, which become increasingly bleak as he describes living alone and away from everything and everyone he had ever known. At age thirty, Abel Barbin was found dead in his shabby Paris apartment. He had committed suicide by asphyxiation in his charcoal stove, leaving only his writings.

(From this point on, to avoid confusion, I will refer to Barbin as “Herculine,” but I will use the pronoun “he.”) In the medical dossier and autopsy report (which are published along with the memoirs), and even in Foucault’s commentary, it is never clearly defined what type of intersex condition Herculine Barbin had, beyond “male pseudohermaphroditism”- probably because they did not know as much about the hundreds of different variations that exist as we do today. Herculine describes himself as having a flat chest and slim hips, not resembling in any way the figures of his female classmates. He writes about how as a female, he was embarrassed about his abundant body hair, and went so far as to trim his facial hair and cover his arms and legs whenever possible. It is easy to understand why he would have been believed to be female his entire life- he appeared to have female genitalia with a larger than normal clitoris. However, although he did have a shallow vaginal opening, his “clitoris” was actually a two-inch penis with only the glans protruding from folds of skin, and his “labia” was actually a divided scrotum with one descended testicle; the other testicle had not descended, hence his chronic abdominal pain. Herculine never menstruated, and upon his autopsy, they discovered that he indeed had no ovaries or uterus, but that his testes produced sperm. From what I had learned about intersex conditions, it sounded like he had something called 5-ª reductase deficiency, which is where a biological male is missing an enzyme that converts testosterone into dihydrotestosterone, which is necessary for masculinizing male genitals. So what will happen is that from birth onwards, it will appear that the child is female- until puberty, at which point the body makes increased amounts of another enzyme that converts more testosterone, accounting for rapid maturation of male genitals. So Herculine matured normally for a pubescent male, even though his external genitals still looked basically female. Still, that’s only a guess. But regardless, it’s a fascinating story historically and scientifically, and it’s no less fascinating astrologically.

Herculine Barbin's natal chart- November 8, 1838, Saint-Jean-d'Angély, France (Courtesy of AstroDataBank)

I know that some people believe that a chart can reveal gender and sexual orientation; I personally don’t, and this chart is a really strong example of why. It’s also part of the reason that I won’t just do cold reads on charts without knowing the person’s gender, which I’ve been asked to do before- because even though the same symbols can present themselves in multiple charts, they play out differently according to familial, social, and cultural norms expected for that individual’s gender. It sounds so freaking obvious, right? But so many astrologers and novices completely ignore them when interpreting charts, oversimplifying the aspects’ implications for the sake of “the astrology” and ultimately disregarding the individual’s experience. For instance, take Herculine Barbin’s Mars in Virgo in the 1st House. Without paying attention to gender, you could say that someone with that placement has a strong personality, an exacting mind and focused drive, and a distinctive way of saying exactly what they mean. That’s good… right? But then again, look at the cultural context. In 1838, that would have be applauded in a boy, but not necessarily something worth noting in a girl- unless it was getting her into trouble. And as humans, we have an inexplicable tendency to assume the best possible scenario whenever we can. So if you didn’t know the gender, it’s likely that you might see this chart and assume this individual was male. Well, he was- but he was raised as a female in exclusively female environments until age twenty-one. So how do you explain that? Context is everything.

Starting with that Mars in Virgo in the 1st, I also have to point out that I don’t always think the Ascendant and the 1st House are total indicators of physical appearance either, but it is interesting that Herculine’s appearance was, while primarily androgynous, definitely less typically female than it was male. He wasn’t well-known for his beauty, but he definitely stood out for being smart and driven, which helped to advance him as far as he did in his education and into one of the only acceptable careers for women at the time. This placement and also his full-up 3rd House (where the Sun, his chart ruler, Mercury and Venus live) were probably what drove him to actually pen his experiences and his depressed mental state. He couldn’t possibly know that his memoirs would be the most important primary account of intersexuality in Western history, but someone with those placements and his level of intellect wouldn’t record his life story if he didn’t think it would someday be useful for something. While we’re on the subject of his 3rd House Scorpio stellium, let’s notice how it makes an inconjunct to Pluto in Aries on the 9th House cusp. The Scorpio/Pluto emphasis not only highlights the taboo sexual nature of his whole story, and how it was viewed by the medical establishment and the press at the time as more salacious than clinically significant, but also the way it came to light in the 20th century. I see Michel Foucault as being a direct agent of Pluto in Herculine’s natal chart- Foucault, a philosopher (9th House) who among other things did critical work on the relationship between sexuality and power (Pluto) literally unearthed Herculine’s memoirs, medical dossier and autopsy report by accident while perusing the Department of Hygiene’s archives. Quite a happy accident, no? Something that was largely misunderstood in its own time found relevance in an entirely new cultural context, which fits nicely with the notion of the inconjunct as being a sort of “adjustment.”

Other interesting observations: his Moon in Leo in the 12th House makes an opposition to his Neptune in Aquarius in the 6th House, and this opposition makes a T-square to his Venus in Scorpio (which is in detriment) in the 3rd House. Also, his Mars in the 1st House opposes his Uranus in Pisces in the 7th House. The biggest stress Herculine suffered prior to discovering his intersexuality was trying to reconcile the love he felt for his Catholic faith and his religious institutions with the love he felt for women, particularly for his friend Sara. A 12th House Moon shows someone whose emotions are not totally externally apparent but are nonetheless deeply felt, and they also indicate a strong spiritual lean. Herculine loved the Catholic Church, and the nuns who raised him. He bore no grudge against the institution that ultimately rejected him, even later in life as a man, although interestingly, the only animosity he does reveal is directed towards men- the curé of the boarding school, to whom he confessed only to be shamed, and the doctors who dealt with him so insensitively and patronizingly. In his later writings, he regrets the stealth and caution with which he handled his relationship with Sara, in the hopes of concealing it from her mother the headmistress. “Here again my inexperience was my undoing,” he writes. “I cannot doubt that if I had known how to manage the situation… today, perhaps, I would be her [the headmistress'] son-in-law.” An important distinction I made in my presentation for class was that sexual assignment and sexual orientation are not one and the same- that is, Herculine did not like women because he was actually a man. Whether or not he had ever discovered the true nature of his biology, Herculine would have regardless been attracted to women- an attraction which was, unfortunately, fraught with anxiety for him either way. It stood up against his faith, his sense of family, his social standing, and even his own sense of self, or at least what he thought he should be.

I’m not sure if Herculine had had his Saturn return yet when he died at age thirty, but there is additional tragedy in his death as far as his Nodes go. His South Node in Libra in the 2nd House, conjunct Jupiter, completely and accurately describes his early experience: he always felt safe and well-loved among other girls in his friendships and later in his love relationship with Sara- but nonetheless, it was draining and difficult, because unbeknownst to him, it was not who he truly was. His North Node in Aries in the 8th House happened for him forcefully- literally thrust out of his comfort zone, he used his newfound male independence without familiar companionship to plunge into the depths of his soul through writing his memoirs, but he was unhappy; he unfortunately ended his life before he could fully come into his own as a man, enjoying the same kind of confidence and peace of mind he did as a young girl. The only thing that was able to nurture and sustain him was his 12th House Leo Moon, his unwavering love for God- “…You remain to me, my God!” he writes. “…Though I am a sad disinherited creature, I can still lift up my eyes to You, for You at least will not reject me!”

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged astrology, gender theory, Herculine Barbin, Intersex Solidarity Day, intersexuality | 7 Comments »

Halloween falls during Sun in Scorpio for a REASON, y’all.

October 30, 2009

Everyone has been really excited that Saturn has finally gone into Libra, and it is kind of an exciting thing, really, considering that Saturn is exalted in Libra. I’ve been reading a lot about finding balance in relationships, rediscovering the importance of fairness, taking beauty seriously- all very good stuff. It’s sweet but not too sweet, like salty caramel.

HOWEVER. The Sun and Mercury are still in Scorpio and in a wide-ish sextile with Pluto. And the Moon and Mars are currently in a fire trine. And tomorrow is Halloween for God’s sake, you guys! Come on! Saturn will be in Libra for a LONG time. Let’s enjoy some dark and scary and definitely NOT pretty while it’s traditionally appropriate.

Here are some treats:

I will be back later this week with a meaningful post on Saturn in Libra, because believe it or not, I have quite a bit to say about it. All is not quiet on the Saturn front lately.

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged astrology, Halloween, music videos, The Cramps, The Misfits | 3 Comments »

Internalizing the “bad mother”: Lilith stars in A Tale of Two Sisters

October 25, 2009

So a couple of weeks ago, we firmly established that Lucy loves horror movies. And it’s almost Halloween, so I think I want to build on this theme- specifically by exploring Lilith, which I’m seriously loving on right now (thank you, full 5th House by transit with natal asteroid Lilith in it). I’ve been using several different references to understand the exact differences between asteroid Lilith and Black Moon Lilith, chiefly Marina’s excellent 8th House/Lilith-centric blog, and I also found a great resource in Aquamoonlight Astrology. There I learned that even though asteroid Lilith and Black Moon Lilith are different bodies, they have roughly the same connotation- Lilith energy symbolizes a “dark side we prefer not to acknowledge… a subtle refusal to see what part we may have played in some unpleasant drama of our lives.” And when I read that, I thought, “ZOMG, that’s EXACTLY what that movie A Tale of Two Sisters is about!” So I forced myself to watch it again (with the light on this time, well before bedtime), and now, in the spirit of upcoming Halloween, I present you with another astro-film-critique.

A Tale of Two Sisters by Ji-woon Kim was one of the first Asian horror films that started that whole trend of “let’s do mediocre American remakes of incredible Asian horror, that all have to feature a female specter with long matted hair.” It’s based on a classic Korean folktale called “Rose Flower and Red Lotus” about two sisters who exact revenge on their evil stepmother from beyond the grave. Looking at the poster, you might imagine (as I initially did) a gratuitous splatterfest. Surprisingly, there’s about *thismuch* actual violence in it; the focus is really on the very Lilith-esque theme of how frightening one’s own psyche can actually be. I’ll do a synopsis of the film, which may seem long, but it’s pretty necessary to understand how Lilith features so prominently in this story. (My critique contains spoilers. But don’t let that stop you from watching the actual movie, because it’s a-MA-zing. And unlike a lot of films, it actually improves with multiple viewings.)

Sisters Su-mi and Su-yeon return home with their father after being in the hospital following the death of their mother. Su-mi, presumably the elder sister, is the more outgoing and aggressive one; younger Su-yeon is timid and barely speaks at all. The sisters are greeted by their cold and abusive stepmother; Su-yeon appears to be afraid of her. That night, Su-yeon wakes up and sees someone (or something) coming into her room. She goes to Su-mi’s room, where her sister comforts her and agrees that the house is strange; Su-mi promises that she will always be there for her sister, and they fall asleep in each other’s arms. Early the next morning, Su-mi awakens from a nightmare of running in the woods and a bloody hand grabbing her. She is realizing it was just a dream when she suddenly catches sight of something crawling at the foot of her bed, and is horrified to see the shape of a ghostly-looking woman rise up into the air, with her head limp as if her neck is broken, until she is right over Su-mi, at which point blood pours down her legs and a hand reaches out from under her dress. Su-mi wakes up for real this time, only to find that she and Su-yeon have begun their periods- and oddly, so has their stepmother. Later that day, Su-mi and Su-yeon look at pictures of their deceased mother, and see that their stepmother appears in later pictures, in a nurse’s uniform; it is at this point that Su-mi notices bruises on Su-yeon’s arms, and immediately accuses the stepmother. The father finds Su-mi upset and tries to talk to her, but she is indignant and tells him that “from now on… [you are] responsible for it all.” That night, the girls’ uncle and his wife come for dinner, which is cut short when the uncle’s wife has a violent seizure. On their way home, she tells her husband that she saw a girl under the kitchen sink. At the house, the stepmother hears a sound in the kitchen and goes to investigate; in her peripheral vision she sees a girl in a green dress sitting at the dining room table, and when she looks down again, a bloody hand shoots out from under the sink and grabs her. Frantic, she tries to tell the girls’ father that strange things have been happening in the house since the girls came home, but the father tells her not to say stupid things and gives her pills to calm down.

Late that night, the stepmother finds her pet bird dead in Su-yeon’s bed, which is just as much of a shock to Su-yeon; furious, the stepmother locks Su-yeon in her wardrobe and ignores her screams. Su-mi hears her sister’s cries and lets her out, apologizing that she could not protect her. Su-mi, hysterical, tells her father that the stepmother keeps hurting Su-yeon; her father tells her to stop, because Su-yeon is dead. Su-yeon’s image begins to shake, and she screams. The father is seen on the phone with someone, telling them to come tomorrow because he “can’t do it alone and she’s getting worse.” The next morning, Su-mi thinks she sees her stepmother dragging a bloody bag through the house and beating it with a poker. As Su-mi attempts to free her sister, a violent struggle ensues between her and her stepmother, and she is rendered unconscious.

Su-mi confronts her stepmother

When Su-mi regains consciousness, her stepmother is sitting over her. The stepmother asks her, “Don’t you get it yet?… Remember when I said, ‘You’ll regret it someday’?… You want to forget something… but you never can… and it follows you around like a ghost.” As the stepmother is about to kill Su-mi, the father suddenly comes in- but all he sees are a groggy Su-mi and a bloody bag with a doll in it. He goes to get her some pills, and when he returns, the stepmother is sitting on the couch instead of Su-mi. She asks where Su-mi is, and the father tells her to stop this, because he is sick of it. The doorbell rings, and the father goes to answer it. The stepmother looks up and gasps in horror as someone comes into the room: it is herself, looking sympathetic and concerned. The camera rotates back to show Su-mi sitting on the couch.

Su-mi has a multiple personality disorder, and she has been acting as herself, her stepmother, and her sister. She remembers that she was the one beating the doll in the bag, she killed the pet bird, and she exited the car alone when she returned home from the hospital at the beginning of the film. The father and stepmother return Su-mi to the hospital, where Su-mi begins to remember what she was trying to forget. When her and Su-yeon’s real mother was alive, she was very ill (and she looked quite a lot like the ghostly woman from Su-mi’s nightmare), and the stepmother was her nurse. The sisters noticed that their father and future stepmother seemed to be flirting, and the stepmother was very mean to Su-yeon. At the house, the stepmother, apparently remembering as well, hears a noise upstairs. She goes to Su-yeon’s room, where she turns on the light just in time to see something darting out the window. When she opens the shades to see, the door slams shut and she is trapped in the room. The wardrobe doors open, and a ghostly woman slides out, and a scream is heard from inside the house. Back at the hospital, Su-mi’s flashback continues. Su-yeon woke up in her room one day to find that their mother, probably depressed over her worsening condition and the apparent attraction between her husband and her nurse, had hanged herself in Su-yeon’s wardrobe. As Su-yeon struggled to pull her mother’s body out, she accidentally pulled the wardrobe down, crushing herself underneath it. The stepmother heard the wardrobe fall, went into the room, and saw Su-yeon struggling, but ran out. As she changed her mind and was about to go in and help Su-yeon, Su-mi came out of her room, unaware that there had just been an accident, and told the stepmother to stay out of their lives. The stepmother told her (which Su-mi recalled during their final fight), “You might regret this moment. Keep that in mind.” During this interchange, Su-yeon weakly whispered, “Help me, Su-mi,” before she died. Su-mi, still angry at her stepmother, went out of the house, presumably not finding out about her sister’s death until later that day.

The Lilith symbols in this story are strikingly clear, and not just because it’s a story about girls and mothers. Lilith energy is present in both genders, as sort of a foil to the archetype of the mother represented by the Moon. Where the Moon shows the deepest place we can be hurt, Lilith shows the ways in which we can actually hurt others, a dark part of us that not everyone likes to admit they have. Even when we have not actually done anything to anyone, our guilt can escalate to make us feel totally responsible- and in the subconscious mind, it doesn’t matter what the truth is; it hurts all the same. Children who blame themselves when their parents are divorcing, people who narrowly escape fatal accidents and think, “If only it had been me getting into that car…”, not to mention people who actually have done wrong by others and only come around to realize it later- all territory of Lilith. In A Tale of Two Sisters, Su-mi’s guilt has extreme consequences. Because she subconsciously believes that she is responsible for her sister’s death (by unknowingly delaying help), Su-mi internalizes the most horrible parts of her stepmother, who was truly responsible for letting Su-yeon die. She also internalizes the weakest and most timid parts of her sister, whom she failed to protect as she had promised. As the stepmother, the Lilith aspect, Su-mi is free to act out all the rage she feels over the deaths of her mother and sister (in the form of brutalizing her “sister” in the wardrobe, beating the doll, killing the bird), and further, her anger at herself for her perceived part in the tragedy (when the stepmother aspect tells her, “I’m the only one you can call Mother now, whether you like it or not”; on some level, that is all Su-mi feels she deserves). When she acts as the stepmother, she can punish herself for the fact that she has no “right” to feel the pain she does. However, as her sister, the victimized Moon aspect, Su-mi can indulge in a vulnerability she could never consciously allow herself. When she acts as her sister, she reminds herself that she is still hurting, that she needs to be cared for, and it’s easier to transfer that nurturing onto what she imagines to be her sister rather than give it to herself. Reminders of her real mother, intangibly in her nightmares and tangibly in her sudden onset of menstruation, are her subconscious attempt to fuse the two extremes of Stepmother and Sister, of Lilith and the Moon, to come to terms with them, release the trauma, and grow up as normally as she can manage. But it’s not easy. Her realization that Su-yeon is a construct of her subconscious literally shakes her, and her attempt to deconstruct her internalization of her stepmother is similarly a literal fight. Furthermore, the fact that all of these manifestations are subconscious allow Su-mi to maintain a bearable boundary between herself and her father, at whom she is still furious for his apparent obtuseness and inability to take any blame or feel any grief at what has happened.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, but to me, A Tale of Two Sisters is a valuable lesson about trauma, about what Lilith has to offer but what most of us are too afraid to accept. There is a staggeringly large continuum of emotions that occur with trauma, and it’s difficult to stomach the more painful, violent and angry sides of that continuum because for the most part we suppress them. We don’t want to stomach them. We don’t even want to look at them. But they will show up eventually. Shirley Soffer is always saying that “you can either be a victim or a survivor”; she jokes that she once said this to her son and he replied, “I don’t want to be either, I want to be a perpetrator.” There is truth in that statement. Although victim and survivor are more popular “phenotypes” of trauma, a good amount of perpetrating takes place as well- towards ourselves, when we say, “I should be over this by now,” or “I can’t believe I’m still upset about this when much worse things have happened to other people,” or “I deserved for this to happen.” The sooner we can acknowledge the equal validity of our sadness, our vulnerability, and our anger, the sooner we integrate them- and the sooner the memory of the trauma becomes bearable, and in fact strengthens us.

While you’re thinking about that, I am now going to watch some MST3K. (I re-viewed A Tale of Two Sisters, and I just spent four hours reading and writing about it. I think I’ve fulfilled my Lilith quotient for the day. After all, I do have to sleep at some point.)

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged A Tale of Two Sisters, astrology, horror films, K-horror, Lilith, moon, trauma | 4 Comments »

Let’s Scare Lucy to Death: a sudden insight into my dark Plutonian 5th and 6th Houses

October 6, 2009

It’s been a little while since I blogged, and I didn’t want to lose my touch, so I thought I’d come back. The time has mostly been spent studying for exams (and acing exams- A+ on the first big biopsych test!) and weathering out some more stressful home and health situations that again played out beautifully in an astrological sense but not so much in the true sense (Saturn-Uranus opposition, I’m looking at you). I’ve found that for the most part if I just do what Stephanie Gailing tells me to do, I should be okay. And I’m realizing now more than ever that I kind of really need her advice. (I shall explain.)

I feel like there are certain elements of my natal chart that I understand forwards and backwards, but there have always been a couple of things that elude me a little- namely my 5th and 6th Houses. The 5th and 6th Houses, naturally ruled by Leo and Virgo, in certain respects seem to be polar opposites. Leo is self-serving; Virgo is all about service to others. The 5th House is play; the 6th House is work. The Leo 5th House is sex, and the Virgo 6th House is condoms and dental dams and baby wipes. The natural Leo 5th House and natural Virgo 6th House, mind you. But of course, mine can’t be simple that way. My natal 5th House begins in Virgo and contains asteroid Lilith in Libra (which is intercepted) and Pluto in Scorpio. My natal 6 House begins in Scorpio and contains Mars and Saturn in Scorpio, as well as Uranus in Sagittarius.

I’ve been pretty stumped about the 5th House, because all most cookbooks have told me is that I’ll probably never be able to have children. (So if anyone else wants to shed light, knock yourself out. It’s too dark in there.) I was given some vague insight into my 6th House around age eighteen, when my boyfriend-at-the-time joined a cult group of shamans and Jim Jones the leader of the group said that having Mars, Saturn and Pluto, the most highly concentrated masculine planetary energies, in Scorpio implied that in a past life I had been some kind of all-powerful warlock who was forced to hide my craft for fear of being persecuted. He said that was why, in this life, I seemed to be resentful of the cult’s group’s practice and how much closer to enlightenment they were than I would allow myself to be. (Actually, I was concerned that my boyfriend-at-the-time would suddenly break out in a roaring “OOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMM” when we were in public, was now unable to do anything without calculating the mystical numbers of everything he touched and constantly carried around this giant glass walking stick because it had “exactly 72 spirals,” and had started to demand that I visualize a blue triangle with an eye in the center while we had sex. No, I’m totally not exaggerating.) Then he offered me some Kool-Aid. Good times.

Somehow, I have this hunch that being a formerly all-powerful warlock is not all there is to it, as much as I love The Craft. But it wasn’t until over this weekend that I finally figured out what it could actually mean in a way that’s relevant. Two nights ago I watched this Korean horror film called A Tale of Two Sisters. This has become something I frequently do, as I’m sure regular readers have gathered by now- I will watch one or more horror films just before I intend to retire for the night, and regardless of how scary they are in reality, due to my overactive imagination they become ten thousand times scarier as I continue thinking about them. Obviously, I’m most often alone at that hour of the night, but even if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t trust another person to make me feel less afraid- the last time I slept in a bed with someone else right after watching a horror movie, she spent a good part of the night waiting until I was almost asleep only to make that “CH-CH-CH-AHH-AHH-AHH” sound from Friday the 13th. So alone, I’ll spend the next several hours (or hell, the rest of the night if it was scary enough) watching episodes of The Muppet Show or The Office and not actually feel ready to go to bed until the sun has risen. Which is what happened two nights ago- A Tale of Two Sisters is more than scary enough, and in fact, I waited until about eight a.m. to actually fall asleep because one of the most frightening scenes in the entire film takes place at exactly dawn. Needless to say, I felt pretty rough when I finally staggered out of bed around 12:45 p.m. (One reason among many that I was so grateful to be working freelance.)

When people hear that this is a regular occurrence- nay, practically a ritual, they’re always like, “Why do you do this to yourself? If you’re so scared of these movies, why do you watch them? It’s not good to stay up all night!” (STOP THE PRESSES!) Well, it occurred to me yesterday morning (afternoon, whatever) that there are several reasons why I do this to myself, chiefly:

1) I have Mars and Saturn conjunct in Scorpio in my 6th House. Mars and Saturn are the two dichotomies of pushing yourself, and when they’re together, what you end up with is this jerky kind of stop-start energy that gradually gathers momentum but will eventually run you down. And while I mostly tend to think that Scorpio gets a bad rap, seeing how it plays out in my 6th House, as far as my health and my daily routines are concerned, I can totally grok the sadomasochistic, obsessive, destructive side of it. Even as I’m becoming healthier in certain areas, such as body image, my relationship with food, thinking less about aesthetics and more about my actual health, there is definitely a pervasive Scorpionic aspect of wanting to see just how far I can push myself until I literally burn out. Working in television, what with the occupational hazards of constant traveling and 14-20-hour days and minimum of five Diet Cokes a day and (secondhand) chain-smoking and practically medicinal drinking that occurred after hours, was a fortunate outlet for that impulse. Now that I’m not doing that anymore, I have no excuse- but maybe I miss it. Stranger things have happened.

2) I watch horror movies even though they terrify me because I have Pluto and Lilith in my 5th House. On some level, I must really love being scared. My former roommate (a double-Capricorn and equally avid horror-and-exploitation buff) and I once had a conversation about how even as the current quality of films is declining on the whole, the horror genre has not exactly suffered as much, because in a sense it’s the purest genre, and the most truthful. It’s the easiest with which to identify. Not everyone finds love eventually, not everyone thinks that all the same things are funny, not everyone has the intelligence to understand that a movie based on an actual event is not necessarily historical truth- but everyone- everyone- gets scared. And even if you’re not literally scared of what is actually being portrayed in any given horror film, it still probably has some latent content that’s relevant to everyone subconsciously. That’s where my former roommate and I differed; in typical Capricorn fashion, he insisted that I read too closely into things. But I’m not looking for these things, per se- that’s what I experience when I watch these films. I’ve been interested in horror films academically since college, but I notice that my interest has especially peaked since my attack last year; perhaps it’s a further attempt to make sense of feeling abjectly terrified, and to find an outlet for the frustration I feel at expectations of certain behavior I’m supposed to have in order to somehow not be victimized. In a similar fashion, taking into account that the 5th House deals with “children of the body and children of the mind” and my own little addendum, “inner children frozen in time in the damaged psyche,” it could also be a less literal (and ultimately less anxiety-inducing) way of driving home the reality that I am actually an adult now, and if I don’t start to make more responsible decisions, adulthood will be full of fear. I was never allowed to watch these kinds of films as a child. My (Taurus) parents understood that I was super-sensitive, but they kind of took it to an extreme and in a lot of ways treated me like I was in a glass box. And even though I’ve been independent and I’m very accomplished, there are a lot of times when I still do feel like I’m in a glass box, and I’m looking at other adults from inside and wondering about being grown-up, as if I were still a child. Somehow if I can scare myself shitless, I’ll be able to catch up realizing something about adulthood that maybe I should have been better prepared for a long time ago.

When I’d finally shaken myself conscious, I went to a yoga class that afternoon. I’ve started yoga again and it’s making a gigantic difference in my stress levels, even when things are still pretty stress-y. The theme of the class was about balance, and somewhere in my practice it occurred to me that my 5th-6th House confusion also requires balance. With Pluto dignified in the 5th and Scorpio ruling the 6th, I can understand now why I would be conflating super-serious psychological work I have to do in the form of a really stupid-seeming pastime with physically pummeling myself in the form of too little sleep and an erratic diet. I think- no, I KNOW that despite Scorpio, it is possible to face deep darkness without totally destroying oneself, and that being kind to my body will not decrease my capacity for catharsis or my appreciation of Dario Argento. Not to mention that in several weeks, transiting Ceres is going to enter Scorpio and then my 6th House- at which point I will probably have no choice but to start pruning away more of the destructive behaviors so I can actually feel ready to take better care of myself.

With that in mind, I am going to actually go to bed now. I have a feeling I’m going to be mining through this one for quite some time. But somehow, it seems less scary now than, for instance, A Tale of Two Sisters.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged 5th House, 6th House, adulthood, astrology, health, horror films, Lilith, Pluto, Scorpio, trauma | 5 Comments »

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