Chiron in Aquarius and Humanity

 

February 18, 2005

 

http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/feb18.html

 

 

Dear Eric:

I remember an astrologer talking about the 8th house and the 11th house and sex once. I think it may have been you. Wondering what you can see about the potential changes coming as Chiron moves in to Aquarius? What's possible as far as human beings' relationships in the next six years? Is this the place where we move from 'relationship' to 'relating'? Is this where spirituality and humanity begin to come together? 'In the world but not of the world' or is this 'in the world and of the world'?

 

Blessings

J

 

 

Dear J,

That was indeed me writing on the theme of 8th house sex in contrast to 11th house sexuality. At the end of my reply, I'll provide a link to my original article, on StarIQ.com. A few years have passed since I wrote that article, and I have some additional thoughts, particularly about the 8th house.

 

In our society we do something a little intense, which is that we expect our one-to-one relationships to be perfect systems that include love, sexual passion, companionship, a sense of family, actual family, and economic dependence.

 

In this way, love, sex, reproduction and money all get thrown into the same cauldron, with an added catch: 'till death do us part'. That adds death to an already complicated equation. And then we idealize and worship that relationship form, and then we expect perfect happiness even as human beings grow, change, and develop in 'imperfect' but truly natural ways.

 

The 8th house (associated with Scorpio, the 8th sign) is no ordinary house. It is like this huge central computer where every last bit of our current reality gets processed through before it can go anywhere else. The result is that life is often a huge survival drama when it doesn't really need to be one.

 

When we say 'it all comes back to money' and 'it all comes back to sex' and 'it all comes down to power' and 'everything is about death', these are statements that are true from the 8th house perspective. Then we tend to force everything into that perspective pretty much constantly. But the real volatility and explosiveness comes when we mix love, sex, money, reproduction and death -- and THEN expect it to work perfectly in one-on-one 'loving' relationships. Stated this way, it seems kind of nuts. The result often works out to be intense, unhappy situations wherein people think they own one another, or are bonded to one another permanently, and are not convinced that love exists unless there are jealous episodes and the simultaneous illusion of perfect sexual fidelity.

 

(Nobody said the 8th house was a rational place; it is not. It's also not very romantic, but be careful because romance leads directly there.)

 

My thesis (not particularly original, but somewhat original to astrology) is that we need to move our erotic encounters to a new house; that is, take a new viewpoint on them, which I have proposed is the 11th house. I suggest we relax our expectations for perfect sexual fidelity, and we ease off on the whole business of thinking we own our partners (and then calling that love). The 11th house emphasizes friendship, community, shared resources and ethics. I think that if we build our erotic encounters on these ideas rather than on the principles of ownership and 'till death do us part', we will be a lot happier.

 

The 11th house and all things Aquarian (the 11th sign) call on us to take up the RESPONSIBILITY OF FREEDOM. Part of why the 8th house is so comfortable is that all our decisions are made for us. We don't really have to take responsibility; we just need to surrender. That is appealing, but it's only going to help us express one aspect of our humanity. Eventually, one wants to do something besides possess or be possessed, and that takes dedication, trust, a sense of independence, and actual freedom. And it takes support of the people around us.

 

These themes are the essence of the 11th and of Aquarius.

 

I trust that the process of Chiron in Aquarius is going to make it a lot clearer that we do in fact have one another to depend on, and that we're not in this life alone. Many of us share similar hopes and dreams (an 11th house theme), many of us have a vision for more relaxed relationships that don't come with so many expectations, many of us want a little or a lot more freedom, and many of us are figuring out that if we share our resources, we will be a lot more abundant and a lot happier. I also propose that we would have more loving and stable environments within which to raise our children. The dream of perfect monogamy may be nice, but the results of a long series of failures of that 'institution' make it very difficult for children to have any sense of themselves.

 

I think more than any 8th house themes that we need to outgrow in our relationships is the idea that death must be a factor, and that money must be a factor. Even if we could invent a mode of monogamy that allowed for inner change of individuals, and that allowed for financial independence (or even more gentle interdependence), we would come a long way to liberating ourselves from the seemingly mandatory misery of the one relationship model we are taught by our society. While these are not easy ideas to change, they do in fact change, and they often change a lot faster than we think. So, if we actually think, and have open discussion in our partnerships, and focus on the friendship angle of relating to people, maybe we can think and relate our way to a better and mellower place.

 

The original article is: Beyond Death and Dowry: Astrology Points to a New Sexuality, at this link.

 

I develop the theme at this article, called For the Love of Money, on a site called sexualty.org.