Bob Makransky's Magical Sampler
by Bob Makransky
A delightful smorgasbord of Bob's best writings on Relationships, Self-Transformation, Self-Healing, White Witchcraft, Paganism, Astrology, Mayan Shamanism, humorous short stories, and cartoons
Published by Dear Brutus Press at Smashwords
Copyright © 2010 by Bob Makransky
Bob Makransky’s Introduction to Magic Series:
What is Magic?, the introductory book, can be sampled and purchased at:
http://smashwords.com/b/132491
Magical Living, the sequel to What is Magic?, can be sampled and purchased at:
Thought Forms, the sequel to Magical Living, can be sampled and purchased at:
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
Thank you for downloading this free ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please return to Smashwords.com to discover other works by this author. Thank you for your support.
Dear Brutus Press
* * * * * * * * *
Table of Contents (Listed both as Excerpts and as Topics)
Excerpts from Magical Living -
Excerpts from What is Magic? -
Excerpts from The Great Wheel -
Excerpts from Planetary Strength -
Topics:
Excerpts from Bob's books:
Excerpts from Magical Living -
Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily
Excerpts from What is Magic? -
Excerpts from The Great Wheel -
Excerpts from Planetary Strength -
Topics:
Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily
Treatment of Cancer and AIDS with Jorobté
The Mercury Cycle: Shame and Glory
Barack Obama's Mayan Horoscope
Barack Obama's Mayan Horoscope
When the Guerrillas Came to San Juan
* * * * * * * * *
Relationships:
Why Love Relationships Fail
Love relationships fail because at no time in our training by society are we given a factual model of what a love relationship is, or how to make one succeed. There are fundamentally three levels on which intimate relationships operate, and our social training only prepares us to deal with one of them – the most superficial one – and even that one ineptly. This superficial level is called the expectations level. It is usually the only level we address consciously.
The expectations level consists of all our self-images and self-importance. When we primp ourselves in front of a mirror, what we are primping is our expectations of other people. It’s the level of our daydreams and fantasies, whereon everyone is as impressed with us as we are with ourselves.
On the expectations level what interests us the most about a prospective partner is his or her physical attractiveness, manner of dress and bearing, social and educational background, future prospects, how “cool” he or she is, how he or she reflects back on us, what others will think of us for having chosen this partner.
On the expectations level a “love relationship” is actually an approval agreement, a contract, To Wit: “The party of the first part hereby agrees to pretend to honor, love, cherish and obey the party of the second part; in return for which considerations the party of the second part agrees not to hurt, betray, nor expose to public embarrassment the party of the first part (see appended schedule of specific acts which shall be deemed to constitute ‘hurt’, ‘betrayal’, and ‘public embarrassment’). Any violation of this agreement by either party shall be considered valid grounds for spitefulness, vengeance, and all manner of carrying on like a big baby.”
On the expectations level we submit ourselves to another person not for love, but for approval. Love and approval have nothing to do with one another. Love is a light, joyous, happy feeling; receiving approval is a tight, clinging, possessive feeling, which does, however, have an ego rush behind it. That ego rush is not joy – it’s glory, self-importance, which we have been trained to seek instead of love.
The expectations level must eventually wear out because its basic premise is getting something for nothing. On this level everything we’re putting out (“giving”) is phony – it’s just to impress other people, or to get something more in return. We’re putting out phoniness in the hope of getting something real (happiness) back. And that’s not how the universe is set up. There are no free lunches or free rides out there.
What fools us is that most of the messages we receive – from our parents and peers, our teachers and preachers, our leaders and the media – are that the expectations level works; and if it doesn’t, that’s our fault and we should be ashamed of ourselves.
For whom is it working? Look around. How many truly happy marriages are you aware of (of more than ten years’ duration, since it can take that long or longer for the expectations level to wear thin). Sure, there are some, but not many; and usually the people involved in truly happy marriages are very, very special people in their own right.
Isn’t this true? But there are also lots of relationships which appear to be happy on the surface, but are actually miserable underneath: both partners have learned to repress their true feelings and resign themselves to unhappiness without showing it. These people never get beyond the expectations level.
The reason why the expectations level inevitably crashes – although it can and often does mellow into true love after the crash – is because it is wholly narcissistic: it doesn’t include the other person. It does not permit the other person to be a person, but only a reflection of our own fondest self-images. It doesn’t allow the other person space to be real – to have feelings of his or her own.
For example, is our partner permitted to have sex with whomever he / she wishes? Is our partner even permitted to be sexually turned on by anyone but us? Is our partner permitted to tell us that we are not a satisfying lover? The list could go on and on. Only sexual expectations are mentioned here because those are practically universal, but we have all sorts of other fences we try to erect around our partners to keep them pristine and unsullied for us – expectations that they will agree with us about money, child raising, career, religion, etc.; expectations that they will forego making their own decisions in order to support us.
The expectations level must eventually crash under its own weight by sheer exhaustion. When people are involved with one another in an approval agreement, or any agenda that is not love, then everyone has to work overtime in order to convince the other or to convince oneself; and this is painful to bear.
The expectations level would be problematical and contradictory enough if it were the only level on which we relate with other people. Unfortunately, there are two deeper levels which actually govern the course of our relationships, and these deeper levels contradict the expectations level.
The level which underlies and controls the expectations level, which assures that the expectations level will eventually crash, or be maintained in great suffering, is the conditioning level. It’s the level of our basic conditioning by society, which is to hate ourselves. Beneath the glitter and glory of our expectations, our self-images, is the grim truth that we are actually ashamed of ourselves. We are taught to be dissatisfied with ourselves by our parents and society.
Whereas the expectations level is set up so that people will be “nice” to each other (make the agreement: “I won’t expose you as a liar and phony if you won’t expose me as a liar and phony”), the conditioning level is set up to divide people, to make them fear and distrust each other. We are not trained to relate intimately with one another, but rather to wage war upon one another – to feel hurt, jealous, competitive, critical; to pick at each other and bend each other out of shape – rather than to be happy and accepting. The parent / child relationship is the basic war setup; the man / woman war is grafted on top.
While on an expectations level we tell ourselves that what we want is to live happily ever after, we are conditioned by our society to hate ourselves and to deny ourselves the very love which we consciously tell ourselves that we are seeking. We are trained by our parents to hate ourselves in precisely the same fashion in which our parents hated themselves.
The conditioning level is the level which psychotherapy addresses (unfortunately, after the damage is already done). We are so overwhelmed by our parents when we are little – so awed by their divinity – that we are afraid to express, or allow ourselves to feel openly, anger at them, or any other feeling of which they would not approve – which contradicts their expectations. Thus our parents’ expectations level becomes our conditioning level.
Society calls infatuation with our own self-images “love”; and so on an expectations level we tell ourselves that we are going into relationships to get “love”; whereas on a conditioning level we are going into relationships to deny ourselves love – to pinpoint, through the mirroring of another person, precisely how we ourselves are incapable of giving and receiving love.
One might well wonder why people would want to reenact the situations out of their childhood which brought them the most pain and trauma. The reason is that those wounds never healed properly. They are still raw and suppurating, and extremely tender to the touch. Only by tearing those wounds back open again and cleaning out all the dreck, the self-hatred, can a true healing occur. And only by staging a situation similar to the one which produced those wounds originally can the wounds be reopened (actually this isn’t the only way of doing it; there are far more skillful ways of doing it, such as Active Imagination. However, this is the most popular way of doing it).
Just as on the expectations level our goal is the validation of our images, on the conditioning level our goal is to recreate all the emotional turmoil our parents inflicted on us, but this time around to grab the brass ring of love which our parents denied us.
Up until recently society has had the fifth Commandment and a raft of social sanctions in place against examining the conditioning level too closely. Freud was one of the first to take a good, hard look at this level of human interaction. And at the present time there are lots of good popular books available on the subject of toxic parents, how we all marry our father or mother, and seek in marriage the precise same hurt and nonfulfillment which our principle caregivers made us feel in infancy. The problem is that we don’t bother reading these books until our relationships are already in deep trouble. These books should be required reading for all high school students.
“Don’t blame your parents! Just wait until you’re a parent yourself!” they (our parents) tell us. Well, that’s wrong; we should blame our parents, because only by consciously blaming them are we in a position to consciously forgive them. Only when we can see that it was their own self-hatred which their parents laid on them that impelled them to do what they did to us; only when we can see them as people in as much or more pain as we, who really did try to do the best for us they knew how; only then can we forgive our parents. And only then can we forgive ourselves, and let go of our own self-hatred, no longer needing to reenact it or to blame ourselves over and over because we loved our parents, and all they cared about was being right.
The third (and deepest) level of relationship is the karma level – the level of the lessons we are trying to learn from certain people, based upon our experiences with them in other lifetimes and realities. Anything which is wrong or out-of-kilter in a relationship originates on the karma level. Our gut-level, first impressions of people are often good indicators of the kind of karma we have going with them; but our conscious minds often bury such information directly as it is perceived.
For example, it could happen that the reason we are sexually turned on by a certain person is that in a previous life we raped and tortured that person; for some aeons, perhaps, that individual has been itching for a lifetime in which to right matters. That might be the karma we have set up with someone; but all our conscious mind knows, on its level of expectation, is that we are sexually turned on by that person and want the person to validate it by having sex with us. And so we put our head in that person’s noose, and wonder later on why things aren’t working out as we’d imagined.
The karma and conditioning levels work in tandem to control the actual circumstances and course of a relationship. For example, if on the conditioning level we decide to reenact a parent’s abandonment of us and we choose a partner who will abandon us, we might select for that role someone whom in a previous lifetime we abandoned. This can be considered a penance; but we can also look at it as a kind of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” – like saying, “I made you suffer in that lifetime, and now I want to know how you felt – to feel the feelings I made you feel.” On the karma level, as on the conditioning level, we try to restage events which will produce a resonance with some unresolved emotional issue in the totality of our being.
The agendas we have set up with other people on the karma level are often revealed in the very first impressions we have of them and which we immediately repress. It’s hard to describe this, and it’s different for everyone, but often upon meeting someone with whom we have a heavy karmic agenda going, we get a FLASH, a conscious feeling or thought, of something we desire or feel threatened by about that person. And then we immediately “forget” what we just felt, because if we have bad karma going with the person, then that flash was of a side of ourselves which we don’t want to consciously face or acknowledge – a side we are calling upon that person to enact openly for us, to ram down our throat for us, until we’re forced to acknowledge it. Thus we “forget” this first impression, and later on pretend we don’t understand why the person we loved and trusted so much could have changed so.
Of course, we can run past-life regressions to check what sort of karma we have going with someone before getting seriously involved with them – sort of like running a credit or AIDS check on a prospective spouse. In India astrology has been historically relied upon for this sort of information. But we can also avoid difficulties just by being alert to our own gut feelings and intuitive impressions of other people, rather than ignoring this most essential information in a relationship.
Thus the basic intensity or emotional theme of a relationship is set up on the karma level; the particular script, the sequence of events which will unfold in a relationship, is set up on the conditioning level; and the costuming, the superficial appearances or show put on for the benefit of the neighbors, is set up on the expectations level.
The glare of the expectations level blinds us to what is happening on the two deeper levels; and the expectations level is a lie. What is actually going on in a relationship on the conditioning and karma levels is always quite visible; but we pretend we don’t see it, we pretend we don’t understand it, in order to uphold our expectations as long as possible.
By “lie” is meant something that we feel, but which we suppress or conceal. For example, if our sex partner is doing something that doesn’t feel good and turns us off, and we lay there and take it because we’re too embarrassed to speak up and possibly hurt our partner’s feelings, then that’s a lie. Any time we do not communicate something we are feeling because we are embarrassed to do so, or because we don’t want to hurt or provoke the other person or become a target for his or her disapproval, we are lying. Lying leads to sneaking around behind the other person’s back. Lies lead to more lies.
We can tell if lying is taking place in a relationship this way: if there is an area in which we don’t trust the other person; where we withhold from the other person; where we are afraid of the other person (his / her disapproval or rejection); where we feel something other than GOOD about the person; then that is a place where we are lying. We are trained to lie to other people, and then to feel betrayed when our lies are exposed.
All a lie is, is a contradiction. Lies must always exist in pairs, whereas the truth – love – just is. For example, on the level of our expectations we might set up the pair: “I want you to be honest with me” and “I don’t want to hear how turned on you are by someone else.” On the level of our conditioning we might set up the pair: “I truly love you, mommy!” and “I’ll never question your love for me!” On the level of karma lies don’t exist per se (it’s repressing this level that makes a lie out of it); but one could say that the basic lie or duality of the karma level is: “You and I are two” and “You and I are one.”
All the lies in a relationship are laid down right at the beginning. By “laid down” is meant: conscious. Conscious for a moment, and then – just as consciously – repressed, ignored, “forgotten”. The basic lies of the karma level may be laid down in the first few seconds of a relationship. The lies of the conditioning level (the game plan of who’s going to hurt whom, and how) are usually laid down at the time the relationship is formalized – when the mutual decision is made to commit, to get serious as it were. And the expectations level is a complete lie from the first pop.
Anyone with their eyes open could see what’s going on. Sometimes our parents, friends, or other people who care about us try to pass us warnings. But we’re “so much in love” and “love is blind” and we’re so “happy” that we don’t want to see it. We don’t want anything to call us down from this lovely cloud we’re on; this lovely lie we’re telling ourselves.
And for each and every lie, the piper must be paid. There’s a karmic law at work in all this, and EVERY single lie, no matter how teensy-weensy, will someday have to be brought into the open and admitted, else the relationship is doomed – doomed to be something other than a love relationship, because in a love relationship there is no room whatsoever for lies of any kind, at any time, for any reason.
All the alarm about the soaring divorce rate in our society, the call for a return to “traditional values”, is a bunch of baloney. Those traditional values were a total lie, and it’s amazing that the human race put up with that lie as long as it did. Traditional values means you get married on the expectations level and you never question it. You learn somehow to live with a lie, with unhappiness, and you bite your tongue because the social sanctions (what the neighbors might think) against divorce were so stringent. Instead of returning to living out lies, our society ought to stop glorifying the expectations level. As is the case also with war, when society stops glorifying infatuation people will stop seeking it.
Love relationships fail because we go into them with a lot of la-de-da thought forms about who we are and what we expect to get, and we run smack into heavy karma and conditioning agendas we had no conscious idea even existed. We are not consciously aware of what expectations we have until those expectations aren’t fulfilled; and we don’t understand what our parents did to us until we find our partner doing the same thing – make us feel that old, familiar feeling in the pit of our stomach.
As long as we’re relating to the other person on one of these three levels, we’re not relating to an actual person at all, but only to our own self-reflection, our childhood wounds, or our deep-seated fears and insecurities. On the expectations level our attention is focused on the future; on the conditioning level it’s focused on the past; and on the karma level it’s focused on the remote past. A true love relationship, however, involves relating to a real, live person in the now moment.
(Excerpted from Magical Living)
* * * * * * * * *
Kidraising for Fun and Profit
It isn’t all that hard to be a good parent. We all want to be good parents; we all try to be good parents; so with that motivation we’re bound to succeed. Being a good parent is simply a matter of: 1) following our own hearts, and 2) ignoring everything society has taught us about childraising.
Fundamentally, it’s not our job as parents to teach our kids how to get along in society – to worry about their achievements or how well they’re doing socially – much less to chastise them for not “measuring up”. Society has its Gestapo of teachers, coaches, clergymen, scout leaders, etc. – not to mention the pressure of peers, advertisers, and the media – to whip kids into line, to teach them to be “good citizens” and “team players”, to “fit in” and “belong”. So kids don’t need more of that crap when they get home.
What kids need from their parents is love. They don’t need criticism, blame, or guilt; they don’t need unfavorable comparisons with other kids; they don’t need to be belittled or patronized, or to be treated rudely because their parent had a bad day at work.
When our kids come home with a lousy report card, or when they’ve committed some other atrocity against society, do we chastise them and make them feel bad; or do we commiserate with them and try to make them feel good? They already feel bad at having transgressed society’s expectations (even if they feign defiance). Therefore, to clamp down on them, to try to impose our will on them, is not going to help them any; and if they have any gumption at all, some day they’ll spit it all back in our faces.
Babies do not come into this world grumpy and truculent and spoiling for a fight. Babies come into this world too spaced-out and vulnerable to be pugnacious. Therefore, if there is anger and fighting going on in a parent-child relationship, then it is logical to assume that the parent is 100% to blame for the situation.
Parents are confused, they are cowed and daunted by the sanctions society has in place if they fail in their role as taskmasters. Parents have to understand that it’s okay if their kids are failing their grade or getting into fights or doing drugs or are unmarried and pregnant. If the kids are doing antisocial things or inviting dire consequences by their behavior, then obviously they’re unhappy and out of kilter with their environment. It’s a parent’s duty then to say, “Hey, what’s bugging you?” rather then “Shape up or ship out!” And if they don’t want to talk to you, then you leave them alone. You give them space, respect their feelings and their right to make their own decisions.
Parents have to stop worrying about how their kids’ behavior and achievements reflect back on them. Who cares what the teachers and the neighbors think? Our kids’ feelings are more important. It’s not a question of taking sides with the kids, but rather entails seeing things from the kids’ point of view. It’s not so much a matter of standing up for the kids, as standing by them. The teacher has the whole system backing him or her up; surely the kids deserve an impartial advocate, even if they’re guilty as hell.
Society drives a wedge of guilt into the parent-child relationship even before the kids are born. The common fear (particularly with a first baby) that our kid might be born crippled or handicapped or something is actually fear that we won’t be able to love the baby if it doesn’t fulfill society’s expectations.
Society puts a lot of heavy guilt trips on parents to make them feel ashamed of their kids (“Have you heard what Sarah’s boy has done now?”); and parents pass those same guilt and shame trips on to their kids (“You have failed me, son.”). Parents have to be reassured that no matter how their kids turn out, it doesn’t mean that they failed as parents. Even if the kids turn out to be like Heliogabalus, if the parents gave them true love, then they did their job well. Even if the kids are truly weird or nasty – even if they masturbate publicly or torch the neighbor’s cats – that is not the parents’ fault, responsibility, or problem. It’s the kids’ problem.
It is not the parents’ job to mold kids’ characters or guide their development; to see that they have all the advantages or to teach them how to compete and succeed. The parents’ only job is to love their kids, to be able to say to them, “Well, you certainly screwed up there, but don’t take it to heart. You learned a lesson, you’ll go on living and breathing, etc. etc.” – whatever the kids need to hear at that moment to cheer up, to recover their sense of self-worth. That’s what kids need from their parents, and it’s the only thing they need – ultimate acceptance, no matter what they’ve done. And it’s the parents’ job to supply this.
We’re not talking about indulging kids, letting them run rampant. In a “normal” parent-child relationship, the kids are taught to fear the parents’ disapproval. But there are some parents who reverse the usual roles, and fear their kids’ disapproval. Usually these kids become real hellions and grow up drunk with power, with little respect for other people’s space. We’re not talking about switching approval / disapproval roles; we’re talking about dispensing with approval / disapproval altogether. Approval is as damaging as disapproval. To say to a kid, “I love you because you fulfill my expectations and make other parents envy me.” is as nasty a thing to say to a kid as, “I don’t love you because you bring me no glory.” To discipline our kids, all we have to do is say to them, “Hey, I don’t like what you did there for these reasons ….” Period. Say it once, calmly, as you would do with another adult. Don’t hammer at the kids and wipe your bad vibes all over them.
We must be willing to apologize to our kids when we’ve overstepped ourselves and made them feel bad needlessly; and this doesn’t mean a half-hearted, “Oh well, maybe I overreacted there, but still you shouldn’t have … .” It means a full, complete cop: “Sorry. I guess I got on your case about nothing.”
The way we can tell if we’re blowing it is: if we feel annoyed or disappointed in our kids, then we’re wrong. If we ever feel anything other than good about our kids, accepting of our kids, sympathetic to our kids, then we’re wrong. If we can’t feel good about our kids at all times, then we’re blowing it. This is why raising kids is such a terrific spiritual reality check – it shows us precisely how far away we are from enlightenment.
The trick is to tell kids what they’re doing wrong calmly and collectedly, without releasing a dart of anger, impatience, or annoyance. Of course, to be able to do this we have to have our own self-importance under control – to be light and detached (rather than to permit ourselves to be sucked into our kids’ bad moods).
If parents were enlightened beings, perhaps then they would have a moral right to interfere in their kids’ lives. If parents were exalted beings (as their kids believe them to be), maybe then their approval or disapproval would have value. But the fact is that parents don’t have any more of a clue as to what’s really going on than their kids do. The only guide they’ve got is what their own parents drummed into them: fear of disapproval.
We should act towards our kids exactly the same way that we wished our parents had done for us when we were kids. It’s trite to say it, but inevitably, 100% of the time, when we are angry at our kids about something, what we are angry at is precisely what our parents used to get angry at us about.
From whom did we learn that this behavior (what our kid is doing) is unacceptable? Why does this behavior anger us? Not the ostensible reason – what we are telling ourselves and the kid – but rather the actual reason why we find such-and-such a behavior objectionable: what our kid is doing openly that our parents forced us to repress. See, we all tell ourselves that we’re angry at our kids because of this or that very valid reason. We all have impeccably logical reasons why we must bend our kids out of shape; close our hearts to them by labeling their feelings “acceptable” or “unacceptable”; force them to knuckle under to us in exactly the same fashion that our parents forced us to knuckle under to them. We thereby pass our own anger at our parents for having forced us to knuckle under on to our kids, as if to say to our parents, “See, Mommy and Daddy! I forgive you for having closed your hearts to me and having put more importance on your images than on my true feelings – my need as a completely vulnerable infant for the greatest tenderness, delicacy, and respect – for I have done the same thing to my own children!” And so it goes: the torch of self-hatred is handed down from generation to generation. It only stops if we quit getting angry at our kids altogether, no matter what they do or don’t do. This is not all that hard to do once we make the connection that in spite of all our wonderful logic and self-justification, all we’re doing when we’re angry with our kids is upholding that side of our own parents which we despised the most.
To a kid his parents are God incarnate. If a kid feels he can trust his parents, then later on he’ll naturally trust in God. Another way of saying this is, upon becoming parents we take upon ourselves the mantle of Godhood willy-nilly. This is a very serious presumption and responsibility. Most of us blow it. But the point is, since we are masquerading as God, we should at least do a good job of faking it.
This means giving our kids 100% acceptance and forgiveness, no matter what they’ve done (just as God does for us). Check out how God deals with us: when we screw up, does God dramatically appear in a burning bush and give us hell? No, God doesn’t do that; God leaves us alone to stew in our own juice and to figure things out for ourselves. To treat our kids like God treats us means not making them feel worse about themselves, but rather better, as if they were still worthwhile beings, worthy of salvation and redemption, no matter how sinful they may have been. It means not being angry with them but rather tender with them; feeling what they feel instead of trying to make them feel our feelings (agree with us).
Most parents have truly loving impulses; but society sends parents the wrong messages – it makes them feel guilty about being “weak” or “soft-hearted” or “spoiling” kids. Parents just have to know that feeling with their kids – withholding all negative judgment, criticism, and blame, is okay; that it’s fine to be completely tender and sympathetic all the time; that it’s not a sign of weakness to understand things from the kids’ viewpoint.
When you get annoyed with your kids, think of this: if they were to die in the next moment, would you still give a damn about whatever you are angry at them about? Is that what you would want your last message to them to be – annoyance over some stupid triviality?
The next time you jump on your kids for something, think about how you would feel if they were to die in your arms in the next moment; and ask yourself if whatever you’re on their case about is worth trashing the short time you will spend on this earth together.
(Excerpted from Magical Living)
* * * * * * * * *
Are You Two Compatible?
Comparing the Ascendants, Suns, and Moons in Two People’s Horoscopes
People have been having problems with their relationships for as long as they have been having relationships. Even Adam and Eve, under the most ideal conditions imaginable, failed to make a decent go of it. It's not surprising, therefore, that synastry-the astrology of relationships – has always been one of the most popular branches of the stellar art. In the second century A.D. Claudius Ptolemy wrote: “Concord between two persons is produced by an harmonious figuration of the stars, indicative of the matter whereby good will is constituted, in the nativity of either person. Love and hatred are discernible, as well from the concord and discord of the luminaries, as from the ascendants of both nativities.”1
Ptolemy's method was to compare the suns, moons, and ascendants in the two horoscopes because these are the points where the natives are in closest touch with the world outside of themselves. All of the other planets, cusps, parts, etc., are derivative from these three, both in terms of their mathematical motion, and in the psychological sense of being more conditioned or subject to karma. It is in the three vital centers that one looks for the natives’ free will – the ability to recognize and discard choices that have outlived their usefulness, and go on to make new ones. This is why a comparison of the harmonies and disharmonies between the vital centers in two horoscopes is so revealing of the internal adjustments two people have to make when they join together in a relationship.
Note that this technique doesn’t provide the entire story by any means – the cross-aspects between planets in the two horoscopes describe the situation in greater detail.2 However comparison of the vital centers is a good place to begin. In what follows, marriage will be given primary attention, but the same technique can be used to evaluate any relationship between two people.
Two centers are harmonious if they are either both in masculine signs, or if they are both in feminine signs. If one is in a masculine sign and the other is in a feminine sign, then they are disharmonious. A single sign is harmonious with itself, so two centers that lie in the same sign are in harmony with each other. For example, Leo is harmonious with Gemini, since both are masculine; and Capricorn is harmonious with Cancer, since both are feminine. But Leo is disharmonious with Capricorn, since the former is masculine and the latter is feminine. The procedure is to compare separately the two sun signs, then the two moon signs, and then the two rising signs, to ascertain which of these pairs of vital centers are harmonious or disharmonious.
All of the signs of the same gender are taken to be harmonious with one another because in this context “harmony” means similarity, or likeness. When a pair of vital centers lies in harmonious signs, then those centers operate in much the same way. The two parties to the relationship can always rely upon one another in that respect, or take that facet of the relationship completely for granted. If the two sun signs are harmonious, then each person respects the other's views on life and living, and they can help one another to follow out the dictates of their individual consciences and destinies. If the two moons lie in harmonious signs, then there is a feeling of good will that underpins the relationship; both parties have a genuine liking for each other, and truly wish one another the best. If the two rising signs are harmonious, then there is a commonality of everyday interests and habits that bind the two people together; they fulfill each other’s images of what they are seeking in a partner.
When a pair of vital centers lies in disharmonious signs, then there is a point of conscious difference in the relationship that can become a matter of concern or even conflict. Contrasts always impose themselves upon the awareness more forcefully than similarities do, so the attention tends to go to them. When the two sun signs are in disharmonious signs, there is a clash of wills. The two parties often find it difficult to unite their goals and aims in life. When the two moon signs are disharmonious, there is a polarity in the feelings which often shows up as a lack of emotional warmth or sympathy. When the two rising signs are disharmonious, there is a conflict in the way in which the two people express themselves, and a tendency for communications between them to break down.
Ptolemy’s technique illustrates an important principle of astrological interpretation, which Dr. Marc Edmund Jones termed “Negative Indication”3: if all but one criteria in a well-defined set are present in a natal horoscope (e.g. planets in earth-air-water but not fire; planets in succedent and cadent houses but not angular; etc.), then the emphasis goes to the absent criteria, but with a twist of the symbolism – like a parody of what it should mean – as if in overcompensation for a felt psychological lack or need. In the present case, if only one pair of the vital centers is disharmonious, then the attention in the relationship tends to dwell upon the disharmony, like an itch that can’t quite be reached and scratched, often at the expense of the enjoyment of other areas in which there is a natural accord. Instead of focusing on where there is agreement – which is what happens when only one pair of vital centers is harmonious – the focus tends to dwell upon areas of disagreement. That is to say, relationships in which only one pair of vital centers is in harmonious signs tend to be smoother, less fractious than relationships in which two pairs of vital centers are in harmonious signs.
From the foregoing it might appear that the ideal relationship occurs when the two sun signs, moon signs, and rising signs are all harmonious, but this is not necessarily the case. If that were true then Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky would be the ideal couple, since they have all three pairs of vital centers in identical signs (Leo suns, Taurus moons, and Libra ascendants)! Too much harmony in a relationship can produce a static or stagnant situation. Have you ever met someone and recognized in him or her some quality or trait remarkably similar to one of your own? You immediately understand that part of the person, but at the same time you are left with an unsettled feeling, or an unresolved question, like a gear that encounters another cog where it should have meshed with a space. Similarities tend to reinforce themselves on one level, rather than move to new levels. Relationships mature through a continual giving way or relinquishing of individual desires in order to maintain a greater unity. Few of us are strong enough to give up our desires by ourselves; we need other people whose desires conflict with ours to give us a reason to change and mature. Relationships, like pearls, seem to require a certain amount of irritation in order to grow. But when all three pairs of vital centers are in harmonious signs, this irritation – and with it something very vital – is largely missing. The relationship may seem somewhat nebulous or insubstantial since there aren't any solid differences to grab onto or push against. Instead of being a challenge, the relationship may become a competition, or a game of one-upmanship. For example, in the words of one of the Fitzgerald’s biographers, “Both Scott and Zelda had entered a new period in their lives: both drinking heavily, and seemingly to dare each other to ever more reckless and outrageous acts. … They both dived into the Mediterranean from a great height, and drove their car too fast along winding roads. Once, after a fight with Scott, Zelda threw herself under the wheels of their car and dared him to run over her - and he even started to move the car.”4 When all three vital centers are harmonious, each party tends to confirm him or herself all the more in their own individual resolve, rather than join with the other to move to some new level of realization. The focus of attention, therefore, has to be kept outside of the relationship itself if it is to lead anywhere. Some outside objective or goal to which both parties are dedicated should always be kept in view. These people have many common interests: the more they can concentrate on the final result rather than on who is going to have the privilege of accomplishing it, the more will the harmony between them pay off in a smooth efficiency and ability to avoid getting side-tracked.
The converse situation, when all three pairs of vital centers are in disharmonious signs, makes for rather intriguing relationships, on the principle that opposites attract. People who are quite unlike us can provide us with a fascinating complement by helping us to recognize exactly where our strengths and limitations lie. They embolden us to exhibit different facets of ourselves, to try out different roles, to experiment. We can learn a great deal from these people, not only because they present us with an alternative point of view and way of doing things, but also because in the mirror of their reactions to us we see ourselves and our aspirations standing out in bold relief. There is a sense of newness and freshness that grows out of the continual awareness of differences –you never know what to expect next! As an example, consider the first meeting of Isadora Duncan and Gordon Craig: “Here stood before me brilliant youth, beauty, genius; and, all inflamed with sudden love, I flew into his arms with all the magnetic willingness of a temperament which had for two years lain dormant, but waiting to spring forth. Here I found an answering temperament, worthy of my metal (sic). In him I had met the flesh of my flesh, the blood of my blood.”5 This type of relationship, however, is generally better for romance than for marriage, since the fact that none of the pairs of vital centers is harmonious means that the paths in life diverge sharply, and so a frustrating gap between the two people can come into being. At every turn there are differences of approach that must be reconciled; one or the other must always give way. Hence an exceptional amount of inner adjustment is incumbent on both parties in order to make the relationship work. Each must learn to recognize when the other is more in tune with the situation at hand, and forgo their own inclinations and impulses at such times. By the same token, each must learn to sort out their own ideas and feelings to determine where they must “draw the line” and let their own desires prevail. These relationships both bestow and require a peculiar fluidity and ability to adapt.
When the two sun signs are harmonious, while the two moon and rising signs are disharmonious, then there is a basic similarity of outlook on life, or a sense that the two lives are heading in the same direction. These people can come back together again after years of separation and pick right up where they left off, because the essential thing is the long view: life in its more ultimate or long-range aspects. Friendship, therefore, seems to be the most pronounced feature of the relationship. However, there are numerous areas of more superficial division: the two personalities are quite distinct, and opinions are apt to differ on how things are to be done in actual practice. Nonetheless each is willing to free the other to go their own way and do what they feel they must do to fulfill themselves. Whether they cherish or obey is moot, but they certainly honor one another. An example consider John F. and Jacqueline Kennedy: “The marriage had become, by now, little more than a matter of mutual convenience – a union of two mercurial, strong-willed, stubborn people who, like so many children of the rich, were rather used to getting their own way, and were not happy when they didn’t. Any romantic love that might have once existed between them had long since evaporated. … And so a perfectly sensible business deal was struck during those first White House months. She would supply the elegance, the charm, the class that he wanted. And he, in turn would let her do pretty much whatever else she chose.”6
When only the two sun signs are disharmonious (with harmony between the two moon and rising signs), then there is likely to be disagreement with regard to life philosophies, and ultimate aims and goals. Often the backgrounds and upbringings contrast; in any case the two parties have very different views of the world and their places in it, and they shape their lives toward different ends. There may be some possessiveness, or a tendency for each to try to force the relationship to fit their own image of how it ought to be. The resulting conflict of wills can make mutual commitment over the long haul a matter of concern, especially in the initial stages of the relationship. In the case of Elvis and Priscilla Presley, “Elvis would ‘lock’ his women in. It was rough for her because Elvis was a pretty jealous man, too, and with a woman as beautiful and fine as Cilla, you could see why. … Hence the double standard that developed in Elvis’s treatment of his wife. (Elvis’s producer) wanted to cast Priscilla in movies. She also had numerous other opportunities. Nobody knows exactly what happened to these opportunities, but it is assumed that she disregarded them at Elvis’s command.”7 In counterbalance to this separative tendency on the ideological level, there is a strong emotional bond and usually a shared set of everyday interests and tastes. Both like to do the same sorts of things, and they like to do them together. When only the sun signs are harmonious, it is everyday functioning that becomes a problem; when only the sun signs are disharmonious, it is the overview, the question of where the relationship is heading in terms of each party's individual aspirations, that is at issue. Each must learn to let the other make their own way in life, and respect the other person’s choices.
When two people have their moons in harmonious signs (while the two sun and rising signs are disharmonious), then their personalities and temperaments are in accord. Their reactions to things and feelings about life are similar, so they can be perfectly candid and reveal their deepest feelings to one another. There is a strong empathy and tenderness between them; rarely do they need to explain themselves or justify their actions to one other. Each intuitively understands the other’s motivations and accepts them for what they are, rather like a mother accepts her children for what they are, unquestioningly. And like a mother who knows her children will leave her when they grow up, these people are aware that their life paths diverge, and that each will want to make their own place in the world. There is a recognition that there are limits to what they will able to accomplish working together, that they can help each other best by providing moral support, and cheering the other on in their struggle with life’s vicissitudes. They know they always have someone who is receptive and kindly disposed towards them to whom they can return to unburden themselves and rest their spirits. For example, after Jane Fonda’s separation from Ted Turner after eight years of marriage, she commented: “Ted is a soul mate. I care about him. He means the world to me. He taught me to be happy.” They separated, she said, “because we changed. I changed. ... Are we happier by ourselves than we were together? It's not clear.”8
When only the two moon signs are disharmonious (with both sun and rising signs harmonious), then the feelings tend to be at odds, or at least not meeting. Individual likes and dislikes are apt to differ. Frequently the parties have separate outside friendships rather than share the same friends in common, since each needs people outside the relationship with whom they can hope and dream. Within the relationship there is often a distance or detachment where a sympathy and understanding would normally be. Each party may feel at pains to fulfill real or imagined expectations of the other, and so find it difficult to relax comfortably in the relationship and just be themselves. There may be an air of formality and impersonality, with the two parties hurting one another either inadvertently or quite consciously as they struggle to express their needs to each other. Breakups are especially acrimonious and spiteful; Prince Charles and Princess Diana are a good example, as are Woody Allen and Mia Farrow who “had a huge, explosive break-up when Farrow found porno pictures in Allen's apartment of her daughter Soon-Yi with Allen on 1/13/1992. Their split was official in August 1992, complete with bitter accusations and legal volleys.”9 On the other hand, in these relationships there is a sense of common direction in life and a mutual moral commitment, as well as the ability to see past the momentary emotional obstacles that occasionally keep them apart. Each party has to keep their own preferences and inclinations on a leash, and learn to take satisfaction in the happiness of the other, neither judging nor rejecting that which the other person holds sacred.
When the two rising signs are harmonious (while the two sun and moon signs are disharmonious), then there is a similarity in the roles that the two people play in life. Each is willing to accept the other pretty much on his or her own terms, in hail-fellow-well-met fashion. Their fondest images of themselves are mutually reinforcing: they do things like walk in the rain and watch sunsets together. They can really sit down and talk to one another; even without talking they understand each other very well, because their relationship is based on an instantaneous communication. This is one reason why it is helpful for an astrologer to have his or her rising sign harmonious with that of a client. Nevertheless, the parties in such a relationship recognize that there are wide differences between them on deeper levels, which inclines them to maintain their distances and not place undue reliance upon one another to come through in a pinch. Even though they have the best of intentions towards each other, they are not always able to supply the kind of emotional support that the other needs. These people help each other most, in bad times as well as good, by supplying an abundance of friendly interest and help in not taking things too seriously. For example, after going public and receiving approbation for her outspoken opinions on such matters as women’s rights and abortion, Betty Ford felt “it bothered me that while I was getting so much praise Jerry was getting criticism. He was a good sport. He was proud of me and even in cases where he didn’t agree with my views, he was all for my spouting them. … You know, if you bring up a subject long enough with a man, why finally he gets so tired of it he agrees to anything. There might be a woman on the Supreme Court now if I’d just brought it up more often.”10
When only the two rising signs are disharmonious (with both sun and moon signs harmonious), then there is some source of misunderstanding or non-communication that often bogs down an otherwise smooth relationship. Each party wants to talk while the other is interrupting. They are able to see through one another quite clearly, and so they may become impatient with each other's posturing on the one hand, and overly thin-skinned or sensitive to criticism on the other. They may try to outguess or keep one jump ahead of each other, or keep bringing up the same old divisive issues as if for the sport of contention. They allow the present moment to escape them in a welter of verbiage. They may try to force one another to live up to an impossible image. For example, after a trip to India to visit the birthplace of his idol Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr. “felt, as in India, that much of the corruption in our society stems from the desire to acquire material things – houses and land and cars. Martin would have preferred to have none of these things. He finally said to me, ‘You know, a man who dedicates himself to a cause doesn’t need a family.’ I was not hurt by this statement. I realized that it did not mean he loved me and the children less, but that he was giving his life to the Movement and felt he therefore could not do as much for his family as he might in other circumstances. He saw a conflict between duty and love … But I knew that, being the kind of man he was, Martin needed us.”11 The inability to communicate can be very frustrating, since there is usually a profound emotional tie that binds them: a good deal of what each has to accomplish in life as an individual, the two of them can accomplish as well together. Each must learn to put aside their own train of thought and really listen to the other, permitting them their whims and peculiarities, and taking care not to tread upon their aplomb.
The foregoing descriptions of the various combinations of harmony and disharmony may appear somewhat extreme. The individual case will be more or less so, depending upon the type of relationship involved (since we tolerate different things in our intimate relations than in our casual acquaintances), and also upon the maturity of the two people. Learning how to turn obstacles into advantages is what growth is all about. In synastry, as in every department of astrology, free will is the overriding factor.
(Excerpted from The Mountain Astrologer magazine, issue # 130, 12/2006-1/2007)
Notes
1 Centiloquy XXXII. J. M Ashmand, Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblos, Foulsham London 1917, page 228.
2 For example, the principal astrological signature of sexual attraction between two people is shown when a man’s sun, Mars or Jupiter conjoins or opposes a woman’s moon or Venus. Of these cross-aspects between horoscopes, the sun-moon and Mars-Venus combinations are the most powerful sexual bell-ringers. Take up to 10° orbs of inexactitude, but only consider conjunctions and oppositions. Note that the reverse case (e.g. man’s moon or Venus conjunct or opposed to woman’s sun or Mars) is not a sexual signature – it merely indicates that the woman is the leader or initiator in the relationship.
For gay men sexual attraction is shown when one man’s sun, Mars or Jupiter conjoins or opposes the other’s sun, Mars, or Jupiter. Here the sun-Mars combination is the strongest. For lesbian women sexual attraction is shown when one woman’s moon or Venus conjoins or opposes the other woman’s moon or Venus. The moon-Venus combination is stronger than two moons or two Venus’s.
The absence of any sexual signature between two peoples’ horoscopes doesn’t necessarily deny sexual attraction, particularly if one or the other party has natal sun, Venus, or Mars in Scorpio. However, without a sexual cross-aspect there could be a problem due to one or the other person becoming bored with the sexual relationship.
Other features of relationships (apart from sexual attraction) are shown by other cross-aspects between planets – e.g. Saturn-Jupiter contacts indicate trust; Venus-Saturn or moon-Saturn aspects indicate that the delicate sensibilities of the Venus or moon person will feel hurt by the brusqueness of the Saturn person, who in turn dislikes being clung to. And so on and so forth. The cross-aspects tell little stories. They are like little scripts of karma from previous lifetimes together, which have to be acted out again in this present lifetime.
Download this book for your ebook reader.
(Pages 1-29 show above.)