Greeting and glad tidings to Jen, and a cornucopia of thank yous for taking the plunge into my challenge (go here if you want to know more about the challenge), for joining in the fun, and for asking this question:
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“You’ve said somewhere recently that you’re a hermit. I’m curious if you feel that is something to overcome or not? I’m not sure exactly how to phrase this question. Generally I’ve seen a more negative stance towards someone being a hermit than positive, so I wonder what your thoughts are on the subject as a self-identified hermit.”
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I love this!!!
It is the sort of question which stirs my soul, is close to my heart, is marrow in my bones, and which my mind loves to ask as life has asked it of me repeatedly in one form or another, and the mind tends to get things which repeat stuck in its labyrinth, trying to figure them out like puzzles, perhaps just to exorcise these things which haunt it.
I’m not sure if I’ve found an answer to this puzzle. There are plenty of answers to any question, but are they really answers or more questions in disguise, excuses, reasons, or… tangents, detours, and ways and means to wander forever lost.
So… the hermit. Where do I begin with this riddle?
Why do I see myself as a hermit? Why am I a self-identified hermit?
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Am I really a hermit or am I just saying that for some complicated human psyche reason, or is it an ego thingy?
Recently in a post I made the claim – I’m not just shy, not just an introvert, I’m a hermit. When I wrote those words I truly felt them, but afterwards I cringed at them, because the statement sounded pretentious. I can be very pretentious, usually it’s a defensive mechanism, I feel vulnerable and under attack so I get on a high horse… and eventually it bucks, I fall off, get kicked in the head, but for a fraction of a moment I’m safe and have time to assess from a distance.
Having time to assess, pause for thought, reflect, self-reflect, etc, is important for me. In that fraction of a moment I can quickly ask – Is the situation what I think it is or is it something else? Is this person who I think they are or are they someone else? WTF is really going on? This can make the difference between me going to war with someone or making peace with them. I can be rash, when what I’d like to be is rational. I want to ask questions before I shoot… although sometimes I should just shoot and ask questions later. Both tactics have their flaws… and consequences.
Which side of regret is the right one to be on?
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So, why don’t I just settle for being shy or an introvert?
Well, part of that can be answered by some aspects associated with Introversion which just don’t fit me. I read a psychology article, actually more than one (hence no links… well, no links because I didn’t bookmark them and can’t find them now), which was challenging the perception of Introversion that has become popular online. Apparently all of us who think we’re introverts are wrong about what we think Introversion is… so… so I decided to steer clear of this label as I’m confused enough as it is.
Shyness, as a label, fits me better, is one I’ve worn for a long time… but I’m not actually timid on the inside. This wallflower at the party sometimes has fantasies of being Carrie at the Prom. Leave me alone… and I’ll leave you alone. Bother me when I want to be left alone (nod to Greta Garbo in Grand Hotel)… and you’re entering a world of pain (nod to John Goodman in The Big Lebowski) brought on yourself by you, don’t blame me for it, use me to hurt yourself, although some of the fault may be mine… but you messed with me when I told you not to do it, and said it, warned you, more than once in more than one way – you refused to listen.
I know, that sounds a bit extreme, and I’m too lazy to be that negatively pro-active. I wouldn’t do it even if I was less lazy, but I do sometimes think it. Mind ain’t as lazy as body.
I like company, and welcome it… but a certain type of company which isn’t of the mind-control, body-snatching, soul-stealing, emotional leech kind. Which is often asking too much…
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The archetype of the Hermit is one I came across when I was quite young. It appealed to me in the same way that we imagine it will be like when you meet a soulmate.
In the Hermit, I found myself. I have many snapshots of me as a hermit in my mind’s eye, my photo album of memory (it can be faulty, but… that doesn’t mean it is wrong).
My favourite TV shows, cartoons, films, all featured a character who was a hermit, and that character was the one with whom I identified. Later on when I was exploring the vast world of literature, again my favourite characters, with whom I bonded, were all hermits. When I delved into philosophies… Hermeticism called to me the most, although there were too many rules, a hierarchy and a ‘society’ which sounded like it wasn’t a hermit’s home at all.
My longing as a child was to be alone because alone was pleasure, and company was a pain of one sort or another.
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I was often required to live a double life as a child, and criticised either way by hypocrites, liars… adults. These very same adults punished me for lying, I wasn’t supposed to lie, not to them anyway, even if they lied to me. Be respectful to the disrespectful. But I was supposed to lie when they wanted me to lie, to them or others, and to myself about them and others.
The adults in my early environment hated socialising, but did it anyway, claiming they loved it while stabbing it with hate behind its back. They expected me to do as they did, unless it bothered them. If I looked pained, I was told to wipe the pain off of my face because it was rude. But I had to listen to and witness their pain about doing it, and somehow be unaffected by it… unless they needed me to be affected by it, but only on their terms and conditions.
Shortly before I’d be once again dragged to an adult party, I listened to the bitching, whining and horrors which spewed from the mouths of the adults taking me to the party about their hosts and those attending. We’d get there and everyone would pretend it was a love fest at the love shack. I was expected to support the pretense… yet not be pretentious, unless this was what was needed from me.
Adults love a precocious child when it feeds their ego, makes them feel pride in themselves, says what they can’t say but it can because it’s a child and makes them chuckle… good monkey… until they hate the child for being that way because it bursts their ego bubble… bad monkey.
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There is always a fine line between negative and positive, one which keeps moving, is squiggly and erratic because people use broken rulers – rulers they broke or bent to make their version of reality draw irregular shapes which they then tell you are the norm and totally regular.
My godfather, whom I was supposed to call Uncle, was openly gay at a time when this was quite radical and not always a good thing for the most part in society. I knew he was gay, I knew what that meant, it seemed fine to me. I was a child, accepting things is easy for a child as they are open-minded. He was a child psychologist… who was shocked to the point of terror when he realised that I knew he was gay and what that meant. Adults! What a mess of complications they create for themselves and then pass on to others!
He was one of the many adults who made me feel bad about being a natural hermit, often at the behest of my parents (who, it has to be noted, often got him to mess with me because they were messing with him and me, because that’s what they did to distract themselves from their own shit). Was I supposed to feel bad about my natural self because he felt bad about his natural self, due to someone else making him feel bad about it? Is that the game?
He was always berating me for avoiding other children. He forced other children upon me in an effort to make bad better. What he didn’t take into account was (pretty much everything about everyone else) that my parents would not allow me to socialise with other children, even if they pretended that this was their wish for me. His ability to be blindsided by them was without limits… due to his own fear and the power he gave them because of his fear, transferred. And stuff like that which adults do.
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If I wasn’t born a hermit, my parents and other adults certainly nurtured it into me… often by trying to nurture it out of me in a non-nurturing manner.
You see… I was a child of narcissists, surrounded by their acolytes, so even if I was scum to them, I was still more precious and special than other children (as an extension of them, not because I was special or precious in my own right – you learn this quickly, it’s not about you, you are not about you, you are about them), and so I had to be kept isolated. Or some bullshit like that.
With narcissists, you are always wrong, no matter what you do, even if you do exactly what they tell you to do. And it’s not just your narcissist parents who teach you that, no, it is pummelled into you by their acolytes, and those who don’t even know them. Society wants you to be putty in its hands. To be who it wants you to be for it… to be what it wants to be. Your shape has to complement it, make it feel right about itself even if you have to feel wrong about yourself to do that.
Why does society do this? Because it was done to those who make up what we call society. Society is us, even when we think it is others. Therefore what was done to us, we do it to others, even when we try desperately not to do it… that wound is hard wired into us, and hard to not pass on.
Even if you do the hermit thing.
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Just today I got a comment on one of my narcissism posts – When Narcissists Claim to be Victims of Narcissists – Who is the Narcissist? – which told me that I was not allowed to let others decide if I was a narcissist or not. Apparently I’m supposed to tell you that I am a narcissist or that I am not a narcissist, and you’re supposed to accept what I tell you. If I insist on letting you think for yourselves, make your own decisions, determinations, and question me… I should cease to exist online.
Or something like that… You can read the comment, it’s been approved, I just haven’t answered it yet because I’m in rash mode about this at the moment, I need time to be rational about it. I need to assess, remember that people lash out at others when they’re in pain, and don’t realise they’re causing the pain they’re feeling… or do they realise it and that’s why they’re sharing it?
As a friend of mine often replies to human created conundrums like this – Rightio! – I love this friend for it! Wish I was that cool!
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Things like this make me want to retreat further and further away from the world of people (but then again there are people like Jen, who make me move in the opposite direction). It encourages the hermit in me to be a hermit, even when the hermit might think that being that way is probably not as good as it feels.
Takes me back to my childhood, my child self… trying to do and be who I naturally wasn’t inclined to be and do because I was told that overcoming your natural tendencies was what you were supposed to do (mostly though to serve others). Every time I emerged from my shell, I would end up wishing I hadn’t bothered.
Too sensitive, perhaps… not insensitive enough, definitely.
You can’t stay in your shell forever… I tried to test this out but my shell was always being invaded by people telling me to get out of it (from the safety of their shells).
Makes me chuckle sometimes… with that laugh of pain lived over and over. People telling you who to be while they are not who they’re telling you to be, and they aren’t even trying to live up to their hypocrisy, they’re just foisting it upon you.
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I wish I loved the Human Race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I liked the way it walks;
I wish I liked the way it talks;
And when I’m introduced to one,
I wish I thought “What Jolly Fun!”
– Sir Walter Alexander Raleigh
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We all wish many things, especially of ourselves… but why?
When faced with any issue pertaining to yourself, especially if it is a natural thing which you have been told is wrong by others (perhaps because they have forsaken their own nature or because it is in their nature to make you forsake your nature), ask yourself if their version of positive is actually as positive as they say it is, and if their version of negative is as negative as they say it is. Make sure their right and wrong is in tune with your version of those things.
Is that a negative or a positive? A good thing or a bad thing?
See what I did there…?
TBH (to be honest, as any human can be…) I almost missed what I did there, except… I have dyslexia and coping mechanisms which go with something others view as a disability, a bad thing, a negative, whatever… and I tend to compulsively check everything I say and do, and sometimes notice things (illusions?) because of the dyslexia induced OCD of sorts.
I seem to have Freudian slipped in a way and associated a negative with a good thing, and a positive with a bad thing. Don’t worry if you don’t get it… I grew up in mind f*** land, where everything good is bad, every bad is good, everything negative becomes positive and everything positive becomes negative… and your mind ends up screaming trying to make sense of nonsense.
But…
Somewhere inside of all the crazy is a nugget of a core of a smidgeon of a natural quirk and quark – is it charm, down, up, or strange?
(you might want to turn your volume down for this song… it grates a bit)
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There are times when all the world’s asleep,
The questions run too deep
For such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.
– Supertramp, The Logical Song
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No need to tell me who I am, I know who I am… I’m someone who is done with being told who I am by those who don’t know who they are.
Know what I’ve found… tell people who you are enough times, with a certain confidence about it, and they’ll start repeating that back to you, believing it about you, because they don’t question others in a caring manner. They only question you when it bothers them and who they’re trying to be…
Tell people you’re a hermit enough times and they’ll leave you alone because… they don’t know what do to with that, right or wrong, negative or positive… and a part of them kind of likes that about you, because a part of them is a hermit too.
Something like that… over to you!
An Upturned Soul 
“No need to tell me who I am, I know who I am… I’m someone who is done with being told who I am by those who don’t know who they are.”
…Or by those who don’t know or care who I AM.
YES. YES. YES.
THANK YOU.
Reminds me of what you wrote not too long ago about Chiron in the 7th — that basically, other people are a pain in your ass!
I’m a natal Chiron in the 7th too (at 0 Aries, eek!), and hoo boy do I feel ya on that…it’s mainly why I too am a lover of hermitude.
Just curious (but don’t answer if you don’t want to): are you, like me, dealing with both natal Chiron and North Node in Aries in the 7th? Maybe that’s one reason why your thoughts resonate so deeply with me.
Anyway, lady, please keep seeking all the loveliness of you, and expressing it here when the spirit moves you to. You are a treasure.
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Hm, my chiron is in the 7th as well. Hermit, I like it and others dont. People close to me say I need to get out more. It’s annoying. I’m a gemini chiron though.
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Thanks so much, Ursula. You take us down many interesting alleyways in your posts. When you say “own nature” it made me wonder if archetypes can choose us before we’re even aware of them?
We seem to be caught in an endless tug between collective and individual. It’s probably why we think we’re so special and different from other living things. My cat just doesn’t care and I admire that. I’m not against the collective per se… it’s the compusive doing machine that society has morphed into. Who are we unless we’re busy with our role in the circus? All I know is I’d make a terrible clown. Fool, maybe, with all the talk of Chiron placement.
Wow, listening to Roger Hodgson does wonders. 😉
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Thank you very much 🙂
I did go off on some wild tangents with this, had fun though. I’m always straying here, there and everywhere, but I somehow know where I’m at all the while.
I have to admit that when he said – Let’s begin by going back to school… – I thought Nooooooo! I often forgot my books and had no idea what was going on, never fit in (except in that one school full of misfits) 😉
When I was younger and prone to being particularly pretentious, when people asked me what I did, I used to tell them that I did nothing, as someone had to do nothing to balance out all those people doing something. Needless to say that was not a good answer. But I knew they were asking me that question to pigeonhole me, and to decide how I figured into their ladder to somewhere. I liked being the wonky step which might break if they stepped on it and cause them a bit of a delay in their climb. A pause for thought, maybe.
One guy I said that to, I thought he was going to get a hernia from the shock of it, but instead he got one from laughing – but this was at a New Age festival, you know, those kind of places which make money and do an awful lot of busy while selling everyone a do nothing, go with the flow cure. He was trying to sell me something holistic, so I paid him in kind. He was holding a needle, so I probably shouldn’t have needled him, but it all worked out okay.
It’s true that the world has been caught up in the go, go, go… but where are we going? I think a lot of people are asking this of themselves, and things are gradually slowing down enough for each of us to catch a breath and think a bit more about where we’re going with all our busy doings. And maybe appreciate where we are a bit more. Who knows.
Loved your question! My answer was a tad influenced by reading this strange post recently – http://www.astroinquiry.com/2015/06/create-your-own-archetype-and-call-it-you/
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“Where are we going?” That’s a very good question. Did they expound on that at the New Age festival? Seems like it should be on their menu. The last time I attended a psychic fair was at a convention center where half the room was taken up by a reptile show for some reason! There were tanks of scaly things on one side and tables of tarot readers on the other. Kinda strange. The tarot readers had hungrier eyes I think.
Yes, it is interesting the selling of ‘doing nothing’ now that you mention it. Quite a bit of effort goes into that, networking and such. Not sure how one does nothing while being so entwined in communities and public events. Just from my own persective, that would conflict.
Thanks for the astro article by the way. I’ve been guilty of ruminating a lot on symbolism and taking detours via connections that might not mean anything at all. I can understand where he’s coming from when he suggests letting go of the head stuff to focus on living. I’m also sensitive to Terrence McKenna’s warning that if you don’t have a plan you become part of somebody else’s plan!
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Last night I watched a strange film about nothing and everything. It was one of those dystopian future type of films – Advantageous (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3090670/) – future dystopia is rather popular at the moment. If you take into account what the collective sees as the future for the human race, you get a picture of what’s going on right now in the human psyche, a bit all for one and one for all kind of collective malaise, dis-ease (that’s a new age way of reading words). We’re all a bit jaded, feeling a bit used up and worn out, thinking a bit along the lines of – we’re going nowhere fast and for what.
I don’t think things are as bleak as they can sometimes feel, and the chaos going on isn’t as awful as the need to tidy it up and wrap it up with pretty paper and a bow.
I gave up on the New Age stuff a while ago when I found it to be more desperate than anything else. Like you, I saw hungry eyes and those eyes were human not in any other nature. It’s kind of interesting that the New Age movement (as well as the Self Help category) was sort of birthed at about the same time as the whole ‘Greed is Good’ thing. Greed is Good took over and… eventually crashed, but still limps along.
Symbolism is worth exploring, especially reviewing what we do with it on a personal level. We may not ever be able to understand the bigger picture, but our attempts to do so inform us about ourselves, and sometimes about others too, because for all our differences, the human race shares many similarities – we’re all still searching for the meaning of life, of our life, and it ain’t 42… but maybe it is 😉
Follow your bliss, as they say, or your search for some kind of bliss in the crazy of being… where it leads, I guess we’ll find out when we get there, but then we’ll be focused once again on where we’re going, not where we are… evolution?
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Gemini is one of those signs that loves to communicate but also retreat from interaction. Intriguing that you have Chiron in the 7th too – the Chiron wound often comes from personal relationships, and may cause a shrinking back from others to avoid pain or just relax in one’s own company, but the healing of the wound is in the wound, so the hermit must emerge from the shell from time to time too. Do you have any placements in the 1st house?
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Sun is the big one. Mercury, Neptune and Saturn are in first house. And same sign. I’m slowly getting out there. Mostly through my schooling and jobs. Personally I’d rather be home when I’m forced to be out. Haha.
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That’s quite a mixture to have in the 1st! Neptune blurs everything, Saturn wants to define things but refining it down to its bare bones, and Mercury… Mercury wants to have fun, but what kind of fun?
Best thing to learn is… do things your way! Hardest lesson in life to learn, but very worth it! 🙂
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That’s quite a combo to have in the 1st. Neptune + Saturn is a weird mix, one is diffuse and the other is restrictive, both are happier having some time alone (Saturn is associated with the hermit). Mercury though loves to interact, communicate.
It helps to find a home within, then if you’re out you take your home with you and so can do a bit of both 😉
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Okay. I lied. Haha. Sorry. In order for degrees away from AC still in the first house, Sun, Saturn, Uranus, and neptune. Mercury is a few degrees before the AC, but same sign as 1st house planets except neptune. Hmm. Quite the combo. I’m guessing the less degrees in each planet and between means they are more strongly expressed. Hm. Would seem my sun and Saturn are indeed first in the 1st house. Still want to analysis my chiron though.
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I get my chart placements mixed up all the time no matter how often I look at it 🙂
You should check out Astrodienst (astro.com)’s Astro Click Portrait (it’s fun and free and will give you loads of info about your chart to work with – but it doesn’t do interpretations for Chiron yet).
For Chiron, check out something like this – http://johnsandbach.com/?cat=36 – he has loads of pages with info on it, which gives a good place to start.
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Awesome, thanks. Heh.
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TY 😀 Have fun!
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Thank you very much 🙂
My Chiron and NN are conjunct in the 7th but not in the same sign. This is a fun take on Chiron conjunct NN from a fun astro blog – http://astrofix.net/2014/09/11/chiron-conjunct-north-node/#.VYrhvqZBQnU
I have the end of cycle 29th degree with Chiron, in Pisces. My NN is in Aries. So it’s a bit of a mix of energies.
0 degrees is all about the new, so even with the eek factor it’s kind of cool working alongside your NN. You’re on an adventure in daring 🙂
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Thanks! Great link, too. I love the AstroFix blog.
Adventure in daring…that’s not just eek, that’s…ulp!
Your blend of Aries-Pisces in the 7th seems to shine in what you write here — you’re daring too, you show the way by revealing a great deal about relationship dynamics in your quiet healing way, yet you retain veils of mystery around things where you feel it appropriate.
That makes for simple healing power in your work. Beautifully done, too. And all the images and quotes and videos you scrounge up — fabulous. 🙂
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Thank you very much 🙂
I think that a Chiron in 7th, especially if NN is there too, needs to put themselves out there, interact, share, yet also keep to themselves, maintain a balance between self and other. Aries involved in the dynamic is quite complex and intriguing, because Aries is a loner who charges ahead, initiates, but then moves on. Whereas Pisces, when it moves on, tends to swim in a circle of sorts.
It’s interesting to look at the 7th from several angles. If you look at it as also being the sort of people who you tend to attract and to whom you are attracted, it adds dimension to the placements there, especially for Chiron and NN, which require that we learn from others and also teach others, and learn from teaching, and so on (that’s my Pisces there swimming in a circle). That which creates the wound also heals it, etc. My Aries side just wants to get out of Dodge 😉
Since the 7th is the first house of a trio of relating houses, from a personal perspective, of houses where we interact with others, and others dominate in certain ways, but not in all ways, of partnerships, it helps to try to incorporate what’s going on in the 8th and 9th with the 7th, before we reach the houses of the greater collective, and others on a social scale.
If Aries is in the 7th, is it also in the 8th (it is with me, with a rather annoying Saturn ‘in fall’ in Aries (chomping at the bit)), and then there is Taurus – the sensual and sensory sign. Is it trying to make things comfortable, but for who? Then there’s the interactions between the relating houses and the personal ones. 1,2,3. What’s going on in those houses and how are they aspecting the others? Is there a push me/pull you going on between self and other?
And what brings it all together?
Madness! Yup, sharing our individual crazy is what brings it all together, and brings us all together 😉
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A wonderful conversation going here. Hope you won’t mind if I keep it going a bit longer. Really good food for thought.
I love your “swimming in a circle” fishie metaphor. With my Moon in the 6th in early Pisces, and DC late in the sign, I can relate. You are so right — the two energies are an odd mix…cardinal fire and mutable water…initiation and transcendence together…
Yep, my Aries side also wants to head for the hills. 🙂 I too have Saturn (Rx) in Aries, in the 8th (Aries on the cusp), plus Vesta (also Rx) and PoF in the 8th in early Taurus. Only Lilith in my 9th, in Gemini. I’d never thought of reading the 7th in light of the 8th and 9th…wow, intriguing…this needs some pondering.
In the 1st, there’s Uranus on 0 Libra (exactly opp Chiron), Sun and SN conjunct around 10 Libra. In the 2nd, Mercury and Pallas in early Scorp exactly oppose that Taurus Vesta and PoF. In Scorp too are Venus, Juno, Ceres, and Neptune (the latter two in the 3rd house according to Placidus).
So, OH yeah, there’s a crap-ton of push-pull. (That Sun conjunct SN in Libra has been a much bigger bear than I ever knew until recently. It explains a lot, though. I now call myself a “recovering Libra”!)
Then too there are three power-brokers in my 12th in Virgo: Mars (opp that Pisces Moon), Jupiter, and Pluto (the latter two conjunct my Asc). So the “pull away” urge to 12th-house inwardness is especially strong, and particularly because of my intense bent toward creative endeavors.
For a few months now, I’ve been trying to get a handle on Saturn in Aries, what it means for me — largely because Saturn is the apex of several natal Yods and so, apparently really key to getting any sort of grasp on my upside-downness. 😉 I too have found it annoying and alienating until just lately, when I began to perceive what a friend Saturn has been over time…more so than Jupiter, in my case.
Here’s a list of some Aries Saturn “keyphrases” I came up with, besides the standard “limit/renounce your desires, forget about inheriting any money” stuff…maybe they would be useful to you?
Saturn in Aries =
life form
controlled burn
permission to live freely
define your desire
my time is my own
be my own boss
obey my instincts
maintain creative control
focus passion
disciplined, patient warrior
patience + courage
focused fire
the authority of genuine selfhood
holding Authority’s feet to the fire
determined honesty
building selfhood
generating one’s own rules
delayed action
develop individuality
passionate decider
maintain the flame
disciplined existence
wise action
calculated risk
“If I asked you to KEEP your soul, would you understand why that’s much harder? (i.e., than to sell it — a quote from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead)
Looking at my Saturn placement in this way has got me feeling interested in life again — my own kind of life — for the first time in many years. And with good reason. Who wants to spend a whole friggin’ lifetime chomping at the bit, as you put it? That just makes for depression in the long run. Nah. Been there and got several t-shirts, all in tatters by now. Time to turn things around to suit the better aspects of me.
Anyway…I just love your “individual crazy.” Thanks so much for sharing it!
Just curious: Do you do astro readings regularly? You’d do an excellent job. (But that’s not to say that this is what you SHOULD do. Do whatever the hell you want to…or nothing!) You bring sensitivity and quirkiness, and a palpable underlying wisdom blended with curiosity, to the interaction.
Cheers and blessings!
Beth
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Sorry to reply to my own comment! I meant to include a link you might like about the Aries North Node: http://raginguniverse.blogspot.com/2007/04/north-node-in-aries-or-first-house.html. 🙂
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That’s an excellent article on Aries NN, thank you for sharing it!
And there is everything right about replying to your own comment, so no worries!
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Thank you 🙂 That’s awesome!
I don’t do astro readings for anyone other than myself. I did try a couple of times with others, reminding them that I’m an amateur, whose approach to astrology is intuitive rather than professional or precise or whatnot, but… well, I decided that what works for me is a spoonful of salt and people usually prefer sugar, and I sometimes get the two substances confused 😉
I had a friend who became an astrologer, and kept trying to read my chart even though I kept saying don’t do it, every time she interpreted a bit of my chart it always missed the mark for me, but described her perfectly, so her version of me was just her talking about herself. That reminded me of the times I’ve had my chart done by a pro and ended up feeling that they were just injecting themselves into what they were reading. You can see that in some of the interpretations written by astrologers, their chart can’t help leaking into their view of the planets and aspects and transits and so on.
We are always in what we see, even when we think we’re being detached. So when two people have similar charts, then things work out the best for both, for when you talk about yourself, you’re also talking about me, and vice versa, is certain ways.
There’s a site which I quite enjoy using as it has all these weird tangents to other systems – http://astromatrix.org/ – they keep messing around with their layout and I can’t always find stuff, but it’s got some intriguing phrases to go with aspects. Such as Saturn square Sun (which I have) is ‘The Struggle for Success’. So question is – what is success? And what’s the struggle? And so on… I’m after my own answers, but sometimes the answers of others help me find mine.
I like doing something similar with planets etc, to what you have done with Saturn in Aries. Find your own interpretation, because your experience of it is interlaced with more than just that one point in your chart, it syncs with the whole of your chart and you. Each aspect and interaction is a conversation going on within and between. Sometimes those conversations are clear – the push me/ pull you ones are often loud, and astrology gives shape to what is innate.
So for each association you’ve made to Aries Saturn, you could tie them with other influences, aspects, etc. Your Saturn is a focal point for diverse energies merging.
My fav astro book is The Twelve Houses by Howard Sasportas. He has a section which shows you how the houses interact, and the possible conversations between them based on aspect. It adds dimension to each part by tying it into the whole. The chart is sectioned up into varying different sections, and if you have a section which is full then that part of you, your life, is going to have more activity, and may be more crowded with sound and conversations.
I have Eris (discord) in the 8th conjunct NN in the 7th. And t-Eris is messing with my Saturn, as is t-Uranus. Eric Francis wrote an intriguing view of Eris in Astrology – http://planetwavesweekly.com/resources/eris.pdf – which I think could tie in a bit with your stream of consciousness about Saturn and NN and Chiron because I think Eris is a slow mover, so should be in a similar position in your chart too.
Btw, t-NN is in Libra at the moment, so you’re about to have a reversed nodal return – http://rubyslipper.ca/ruby-slipper-astrology/2014/02/the-nodal-returns-meeting-your-future
It’s fascinating to explore oneself using astrology, I especially like the acceptance of duality in the system. Many other systems are a bit too black or white about things, about the psyche, and that confuses matters, at least it does for me.
I grew up trying to figure out what was wrong with me, and astrology asked me – what if what is wrong with you is actually what is right with you? – that changed a lot for me 😉
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Is it that solitude which is a deep experience of inner connection scares the bejesus out of those who never made friends with an inner world?
Ive had similar responses so many times from others. A while back i nearly convinced myself they were right…now it doesnt bother me so much..
I think its black white logic to say a person is either entirely extrovert or introvert although people oribably rend towards one extreme.
There is so much beauty in deep introversion and we can love wrapping a protective cloak around a soul thats smarting from harsh misjudgement and insensitivity growing a warm skin inside which we are able to heal and find nuture and creative time.
Others often wont get it. My ex accused me Iif being agraphobic…i love wide open spaces but at times i want to hole up in a cosy room by the warm fire literalky and metaphorically.
I thank God for those beautiful souls such as yourself who like the hermit on the tarot card hold up a wisdom lamp for others. ♡☆♡
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Sorry for typos btw was typing on phone 🙂
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No need to apologise for typos, my posts are full of them, and they have a certain spontaneous magic 😉
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Thank you very much 🙂
We tend to make others feel awkward about who they are most often when we feel awkward about who we are. It’s human. Sometimes it’s worth exploring another way of being, and opinions on our way of being… while keeping in mind that perhaps someone else is just pointing something out because of who they are, rather than who we are.
I think a certain amount of introversion gives us time to get to know ourselves, but we can get lost in there, so a certain amount of extroversion is also needed, get to know others and their world. Try to find a balance between the two. Something like that.
Archetypes are fascinating, aren’t they. Most of those I tend to bond with are often also hermits 🙂
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So true about needing both introversion and extraversion two different versions of relating and being.
Its lovrly to feel safe being out as well as in.
🙂
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Indeed! 🙂 One of the reason I love the internet, as both can work in unison!
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I love that Supertramp song and really connected with it when I was in my late teens/early 20s. I felt that I had known who I was but that it had gotten lost in all the noise about how I should be someone else, and never the same someone else, either. I think I know who I am now. 🙂
The idea of being a hermit is perhaps more apropos than introvert. I’ve been “hermiting” over the last week or so since I found out that I have to stay in this particular job for another year. It’s a budget thing, but also partly the fault of my employer. Anyway, the point is that I needed to just internalize and examine the situation, not talk, talk talk about it. I needed to process, and that can take a while, for me, anyway. If being hermetical is a way of processing life and one’s relationship with it, then I guess I’m a hermit. Being left alone is a necessary step, neither good nor bad. It just is, like eye colour. One of the difficulties that I’ve had over the years it that people feel they have to cast judgement on it though, especially those who are deemed to be in some sort of position of authority or experience. If that person or people are narcissists, then there’s trouble.
Good post. I like the synthesis of ideas. 🙂
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Thank you very much 🙂
Do you remember those dolls which used to be advertised in comics books which allowed you to change their eye colour? I used to wish that I could do that with my own eye colour… but then I learned to like my own eyes. I think that’s what much of life is about, we go through stages and phases, and eventually come home to ourselves. And most of us have a hermit mode, which allows us to be with ourselves and get to know ourselves, and like our eyes… whether we like what they see is another matter 😉
You definitely give off that energy of someone in tune with who they are, those who have that tend to be more open to others being who they are 🙂
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Wow! Well, first of all, thank ***you*** very much.
I’m really glad you liked the Aries NN link and Saturn in Aries thoughts. You might also enjoy Tracy Marks’s work, such as The Astrology of Self-Discovery. Thanks for your suggestions — I will check them out!
Eris in the 8th — wowsers! Intense…apple of discord, envy, and all that. Mine is in the 7th, conjunct NN and opposite Sun.
Yep, nodal reversal was this past spring for me…and it lasted a couple of months because of the back-and-forthing…but like so many heavy transits the past two years since I started seriously studying astrology (including last year’s Cardinal Grand Cross bang on my Sun and Nodes), nothing tangible or practical came of it.
Oh, there’s been a great deal of deep inner insight coming into awareness, and some wonderful moments of surprising grace and joy, but nothing *useful*…
…and when you’ve been living off-grid in a tent and a shack for over a year because that’s all you can afford, and you’ve got bills to pay, and you’ve used up what savings you had, yet everything you go after and hope for shuts you out or down, well…useful, tangible, practical benefits are what you desperately seek…
…but enough of that. I think I know pretty well what you mean about other people’s contexts seeping into their interpretations. I’m glad that you too prefer to keep your studies individual and personal. I think it would be a terrible responsibility to try to give anyone else answers when I haven’t figured any out for myself yet!
Like you, I enjoy comparing notes and blending ideas from the astro-sources that I find most down-to-earth, and also surprising or unusual or intriguing in a good way. Black-and-white thinking is so limiting…but then duality, while it expands horizons, can be confusing in its own way! (Maybe I only say that because of my upside-down seesaw opposition-filled chart.) You put it so well: “I’m after my own answers, but sometimes the answers of others help me find mine.” Yes, just that.
Do you find that some planetary transits affect you strongly, for good or ill, and others little or not at all? I’m so pissed at the whole Jupiter thing lately. 😉
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Yikes. No idea why this comment posted up here at the top…I wrote it as a reply down at the bottom of the comment list…sorry ’bout that…the comment form did freeze up at one point…
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It’s caused by the settings on my blog. I have reply threads set to max, but they have a small limit, so when it reaches the limit it creates a new comment, which appears at the top because I have my comments set upside down – latest comment appears first under the post. And that’s not including the glitches which regularly occur on WordPress as the tech team fiddle with things behind the scenes all the time. Every now and then they change things in such a way that I have no idea how to use this anymore, and have to relearn it. I get lazy and often just don’t bother, let it be as it will and I just do whatever – that attitude has developed since Neptune has been transiting my 6th, I have gone from being rather uptight about being tidy, trying to do things properly, to being a complete slob and doings things however they get done (if they get done at all) 😉
So, yes, sometimes I definitely feel a transit, usually I feel it before I read up on it and reading about it explains what’s going on. I prefer to do things that way, back to front, rather than try to predict what may happen. I’ve tried reading the transits ahead to prepare for what may happen, but it just tends to make me anxious due to a tendency to expect the worst of it, and the negative side of a transit often jumps off the page and pokes me in the eye.
Your description of your living situation sounds not dissimilar to some of the experiences I had while Pluto transiting my 4th house (especially while in Sagittarius and when it squared natal Pluto) – home, roots, family, security – all of those underwent major upheavals. I felt like a raggedy leaf being tossed around by a capricious wind. I was so relieved when Pluto got out of the 4th, and it did coincide with things finally settling down a bit. Took me forever to relax – Neptune transiting the 6th did help with that by affecting my health, about the time that I had my Nep square Nep, but then Chiron was in the 6th then too, so it could have been due to Chiron. I was forced to lie on my back for weeks, and when I could finally get up I could barely move around. I became a bit of a blob. Too much pain, too much fear, just too much and I sort of switched myself off. Then Uranus opp Uranus/Jupiter kicked in and suddenly I had loads of energy and did a bunch of crazy stuff – like get involved in social media 😉 That particular Uranus transit was like being amped up, when it ended I was like – WTF did I do!?!
I tend to notice outer planet transits more than the personal planets in transit. Even though with my chart being a Locomotive shape with the Moon as its engine, I should feel the Moon most strongly. I sort of do, my moods tend to follow it around, but it’s so subtle. With Mercury as my Dominant, I do see how my mind tends to go with it around the chart, but again it can be too subtle. So how much is astro and how much just me reading astro into things?
It’s funny that you should mention transiting Jupiter. I rarely feel Jupiter in its transits. Since it’s been in Leo I haven’t noticed any of the things it’s supposed to be doing. I might notice it once it’s in Virgo and conjuncts my Moon there, but since that’s in the 12th… it may all be unconscious. Except when it hits the Moon, it’ll hit my T-square, but that’s very Neptunian, so who knows.
As I see it, we notice what we’re meant to notice when we’re meant to notice it. And since transits when they hit a natal planet hit everything that planet connects to, the effects may be subverted and mixed up in all the other stuff. It’s never as clear as it is in an interpretation, even if you get an astrologer to read your chart, they’re still applying the separate interpretations to something which is a part of a whole, and has many tangents. Like with what you did while exploring Saturn, perhaps to understand a transit you need to write out your associations with it, see what comes out, see how that may tie in, if it does, to what is going on in your life, inside and out.
You mentioned that you started seriously studying astrology about two years ago – what does this connect with? What transits occurred then? Which one pushed you to study astrology and look at transits?
And you keep talking about wanting things to be useful, tangible, practical – what’s the astro on that desire? What’s the astro which is opposing the achievement of that desire? What’s the challenge being presented, the block, the obstacle between what you want and what you have? How can you synthesise what you have and what you want to have? What is that which will create a bridge between the two? Can the impractical, intangible, ‘useless’ perhaps become practical, tangible, useful? Is there something which has to be confronted to transform one into the other?
Whenever I am in a quandary along the lines of yours, feeling thwarted in my plans and desires by life and its plans and desires for me, I try to find where it is that I need to undergo an inner change of perspective, as I’m usually the one causing the problem with my attitude, mental or otherwise outlook. I’m usually looking at things from an old stance, and I need a new stance. But that’s my Pluto in the first which always demands a self death and rebirth, often with a trip to hell in between the two.
It’s weird really because one of the things I think about myself is that I’m useless, impractical and my abilities are intangible, however I excel at those things, so how can I make them practical, useful, tangible. My attempts to answer that are a mess, but now and then something comes of it, and that something is sometimes awesome or something like that 😉
So perhaps all the things you think are impractical, useless, intangible, have something practical, tangible and useful… just have to tweak your perspective until it comes into focus. Living off the grid in a tent and shack, struggling to make ends meet… rather than seeing this as the end result of hope being shut down, maybe this is an experience which is the source of something far better than hope? What could you do with what you have here and now?
What you did with Saturn, do it with your life right now.
I should shut up now, I’m probably saying a lot of stupid things… might as well say one more, if I’m going to dig a hole for myself, might as well turn it into a tunnel through the core of the earth.
Would you like to share your story on my blog, tell it like it is?
If I was you I would blog it! Your experience is very Pluto in Capricorn, but don’t forget Uranus in Aries is still in the mix – expect the unexpected by taking the unusual initiative.
Really shutting my trap now! 🙂
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Ohmygoodness, thank you so much for your marvelously perceptive words. Not a silly or dull point in the bunch — perish the thought! — every sentence is balm.
So much here to ponder…You are so right, and I have been trying my best to understand the astro, the inner urgings, the delayed rebellions. More work needed on that. Thank you for your excellent pointers.
I truly don’t know what the astro explanation is for money struggles in my case…it’s been a long unhappy struggle, my whole adult life really…yet astrologers have told me, “You shouldn’t have any trouble attracting money.” I have Venus in the 2nd (Libra on the cusp, so Venus is in a house it double-rules, since the 2nd is the natural house of Taurus), in Scorpio.
But my Midheaven is challenged by Pluto/Jupiter/Chiron T-squares, and a quincunx from Neptune. And then there’s that darn Saturn in the 8th, afflicted by multiple quincunxes and by being in its sign of fall.
Heh…oh, yes, my situation is very “Pluto in Capricorn”. It would actually be quite apropos for your blog, because things really hit the fan a couple of years ago when I saw no option but to resign from the “best” job I’ve had, where my director was a crazymaking malignant narcissist who had been lying to and defrauding me, and breaking the law in the process (that’s just one instance). She was a Cap Sun, and tr-Pluto was conjuncting her Sun while it was squaring mine…jeez, who’s gonna win that war?
And tr-Pluto will be in my 4th (opposing my empty 10th) for another 7 or 8 years…
Yep, tr-Neptune and tr-Chiron have been in my 6th for a while now, deepening that work-life wound and — I hope — getting some healing going behind the scenes. I’m planning some form of blogging/writing, not as revenge but as a door opening into the *right* kind of life. So my Saturn-work has surprised and energized me lately — I didn’t expect Saturn to have the same kind of lessons for me as, say, natal Pluto and Uranus (and Jupiter) conjunct Asc.
You can relate to at least some of that, can’t ya? 😉 It’s a relief to hear that the transiting outers changing houses do, in time, shift things back to bearable or better.
You might be interested in this link I found while working on my upcoming Mars return chart. (Your question about why I started studying astrology two years ago relates to my Mars cycle, I think.) It’s an article on Mars return cycles for men and women, and how they interact with the archetype of the “sacred marriage.” If you’re about my age (and given the happy relationship you have alluded to now in your life), you might find this really intriguing. http://shamanicastrology.com/archives/2813
Thanks very much for letting me run my virtual mouth with you. 🙂 I so appreciate your wonderful conversation.
Oh — and “a locomotive with the Moon as its engine” is pure POETRY. Seriously…
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Thank you 🙂
The 2nd house is layered, as are all the houses, and although it can indicate finances/money, it is also descriptive of our personal values, and may show how our personal values affect our relationship with material things.
People invest in the meaning of money – to some money is power, to others it is the enemy, or freedom, or comfort, or safety, or danger, or a lover, to some it’s an unrequited love. It is a means to an end and perhaps what the 2nd house shows is what it means to us and what end we are aiming for, rather than how easily or hard it is for us to come by.
So, Venus in the 2nd… does that mean money will be attracted to you no matter what you do or does it mean that you have a love of money. And does it show if money loves you back or not.
I’ve read those interpretations, either for a transit or natal position, which say things like ‘Venus in the 2nd makes people very lucky in finance, money loves them and just drops into their laps’. I’ve read something similar for Jupiter in the 2nd. These are simplifications and generalisations based on data of one sort or another which is usually about as accurate as saying that chocolate makes us happy. There is truth in there based on a study, some science, but it’s diluted and isolated from other factors, and doesn’t take the individual’s system into account.
With a chart it’s never simple, because of all the connections going on.
Saturn in the 8th will affect Venus in the 2nd because of the relationship between those two houses. There’s also the matter of NN and Chiron in the 7th which will have impact because things like making money require interactions with other people – if you have something to sell you need someone to buy it, if you have an ability you need someone to appreciate it, etc. Perhaps your problems with money aren’t problems with money, money is simply a symptom/symbol of another problem.
With Libra on the cusp of the 2nd, there will be a certain yo-yo-ing of material things, finances, etc, because the scales only achieve balance as they move between extremes. Experiencing extremes is a necessary part of the Libran energy. Also it is a sign which values fairness, and it may cause much chaos while trying to find the perfect formula it considers to be just – going through phases of giving too much and not giving enough, being too generous and being a miser, getting rid of everything and hoarding, holding back and letting go.
Also with SN in the 1st, it means that your natural inclination is to be selfish, put yourself first, but NN in the 7th is urging you to put others first and be selfless – however the nodes need to meet and join up, like the Yin/Yang symbol, so self and other have to find a workable union, where we have been and where we are going need to work together. The other planets, signs and aspects which tie in with the nodes have to be considered too.
Every tie between the placements in a chart is a conversation, which is part of a conversation, which is part of a collective discussion, that makes a whole you. And the transits highlight which part of the conversation is loudest and needs attention, both of listening and of investing yourself fully in the debate to find out as much as you can about the whole of it, and therefore the whole of you.
I have found with my own chart, especially the self vs other dynamic, that if you help yourself, self-nourish, without taking anything from anyone else to do so, that others often offer nourishment because they can give to you without feeling that you’re going to latch on and suck them dry, or that there’s an obligation or expectation which then makes giving a dutybound bondage. When you self-nourish, you no longer ‘need’ others for that, and can enjoy interacting with them not out of need but due to pleasure, interest, etc. Your interest in them is free, and they are free to take it or leave it, and free from the ties which bind and makes relationships so fraught with IOU’s, and your pleasure and interest nourishes them, and when others feel nourished they tend to share the fruits of that with you. So they nourish you because you nourished them, they help you because you helped them, they give to you because you give to them. But it has to be genuine, and authentic, otherwise it will spiral into complications.
But before I figured that out I went through a lot of not figuring anything out, and making a big old mess, being ripped apart by the push/pull. Pluto transiting the 4th stripped me right back to the bare bones, and during that time I had a doozy of a Saturn transit to my Moon which stripped even more away. So sometimes we have to have absolutely nothing left, be in a sandless, skyless, sunless desert, to find everything (or the seed of everything). Everything is a bit of an exaggeration, but when you have nothing a small seed can become an everything.
Hope this makes sense, I’m a bit floaty in the brain at the moment.
I love chatting with you, your ideas inspire me, you inspire me with ideas 🙂
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