Shifting Sexual Orientation, and Notes from a Stressed Mom

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Wednesday is our Q & A day. This week we have two questions and two comments from the Planet Waves audience. Instructions for participating in this feature are below. Please note that this is not a substitute for either therapy or astrological consulting. A written reply to a query maybe gives 1% of the power of astrology. I don’t get the chance to listen, to check transits or to engage in a dialog — and these are very much elements of the work that I do with people.

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Shifting Sexual Orientation

Dear Eric,

I’ve been following Planet Waves now since Fall 2005, when the first step in my current process began to unfold.

I left a ten year relationship with a woman at the beginning of June after struggling since early December and am working with issues of dependence/independence, the rediscovery of my libido and shifting sexual orientation (which began, I think, in Fall 2005).

All of this has led to decisions driven by intense emotions (after priding myself on rationality for years), intermittent feelings of self-betrayal (I’m no longer who I thought I was, and I ask myself how I’ve destroyed my own life and how I will build it back up again) and, on the flip side, cautious optimism for a future I define on my own.

In the mix is a potential new relationship with a man to whom I am deeply attracted to and respect greatly — and now that something seems to be starting, we are separated by an ocean indefinitely. I seem to be going through some pretty serious Pluto squares, in addition to Saturn entering my sign, and I’m wondering where the light is at the end of the tunnel. I also wonder how my T-squares fit into all of this and influence the situation. How can I best negotiate these changes and stay sane?

– Shifting

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Dear Shifting:

I would say that your sexual orientation is not the only thing that’s shifting. Your entire identity resembles an earthquake simulator.

First I would like to take a sentence or two and debunk the myth of a fixed sexual orientation. You are personal evidence of this fact. There is no such thing, unless you’re a concrete yard ornament, and I’m not even sure about them. Every person has their own individual sexual orientation, and it is mutable. It changes as we change and grow. So to me it seems natural enough that you are orienting for what may be the second or third time. If you look at your life carefully, you may have gone through several more than that, even during the time that you were lesbian-identified. For example, I think that we (clearly) shift sexual orientations each time we change lovers.

Let’s be astrologers and look at your chart.

You have important planets in the 12th house (particularly the Sun), which is like saying your life is one long quest for identity. And you have a very late degree Mercury exactly rising, which is the image, in your own chart, of the kind of changing identity that you describe. You are always “on the line” and that line is an idea about yourself. But what I hear is that you’re taking this out on yourself. You describe “priding myself on rationality for years,” your “intermittent feelings of self-betrayal” and “how I’ve destroyed my own life.”

And all of this for no longer being who you thought you were? I think you’re exaggerating a little, even though it doesn’t feel that way: Mercury is exactly square Jupiter. This is a struggle between “realism” and “idealism” and hey it’s getting a big old Pluto transit.

Now, I recognize that I’m talking to someone with Mars, the Sun, Mercury and the ascendant in Virgo. You could go to the Post Office and change your name to Self Critical. In fact, they would probably deliver mail addressed that way right to you without even asking. I think that is the issue — not the details you describe. You do have a lot of ideas about yourself and, yes, a lot of them are based in rationality. And while many of your planets are in a mutable sign, the thing that mutable signs mutate between is fixed and cardinal. In other words, you have two modes: assertive/aggressive; and wedged in/just as you are. Currently you seem to be straddling the line (much like your Mercury on the Virgo/Libra cusp).

You may think of yourself as distinctly one thing. Actually, you are very much on the edge, nearly all the time. I could see wanting to be a little more one way or the other, given this. In other words, given that you’re so accustomed to being on the edge, I could see wanting to retreat into one way of being to the exclusion of another. It’s quite a trick for a human to learn how to integrate themselves.

At the moment (and a very long moment it is) you have outer planets working on your chart: Pluto is squaring your Sun/Mercury/ascendant, and has been for about 18 months. Uranus is opposing your Mars, and will soon oppose your Sun, Mercury and ascendant. If you don’t change now, you better hook up the ECG and check for cardiac activity.

Change is the purpose and theme of your life now, and the truth is you ain’t seen nothing yet. You, Miss, have just about every darned thing in your chart at or near 29+ degrees of the mutable signs. Okay I exaggerate — just about half of your chart, but half is plenty. At the moment, Pluto is doing them all. In just a few short generations of geckos, Uranus will show up in the last degrees of Pisces and it, too, will do them all.

So I suggest you hang loose. Like, really loose. The gods of change are upon you and I assure you, based on what you’re describing, it could be worse — a lot worse, and I’m going to cast a little spell and make sure it stays this way (unless you have some motive to indulge in some extra chaos). Chaos, however, is mostly about resisting what is obviously necessary; and what is obviously necessary is that you need some progress and some pick-up-and-go and some gitalong and (as you suggest) a man.

Oh that. There is such a thing as bisexual. I have heard that dyed-in-the-wool queers don’t think so, but a lot of other people think that they don’t exist. I understand that when one’s sexual orientation shifts, it can seem to take the rest of you with it. There are matters of pride involved, and the crisis can be far reaching. People have an odd way of feeling guilty when their sexual orientation changes, though many report feeling liberated. There is a kind of internal death; a letting go of a way of being. People who don’t think that sexuality is at the core of the psyche have not gone through the kind of change you are describing.

While I’m here, one last note. We are always our own lover first, if we are anyone’s. While there are definitely people who are more self-oriented erotically, I think that self-sexuality is the first and most meaningful sexual orientation and the one we need to hold at the core of existence. And as long as we’re loving and making love to ourselves, we’re always queer, because we’re always the same sex as who we are – physically, anyway.

So, cheers to life, love and sex with yourself and who you want, and when you want, if you can arrange it. And hey, remember – we’re all Queer.

Yours & truly,

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Confessions of a Stressed Mom

Dear Eric,

Being a mother feels like some of the most important spiritual work I will do in this lifetime. I share custody of my child with my ex. We separated a year ago, and I am struggling to rebuild a life that had become very constrained, cold and soul-numbing.

At this difficult time in our family’s life, my child needs (I think) a mother who is stable, reliable, steady, and reassuring. Instead, what she has is me: stressed, emotionally maxed out, isolated (but working on it), weepy and inconveniently rediscovering her sexuality. My child, reasonably enough, is reacting to all this with lots of bossy demands, whining and annoying behavior. The dynamic between us is draining.

Rationally, I see before me a child who is desperately grasping for her mother, and I am grasping back, but it feels like we cannot reach each other, and that terrifies me, as if this might be the fork in the road where she begins to be one of the people who have lots of heavy-duty healing to do around childhood. Is there anything in my chart or our synastry that suggests what I need to be doing to reconnect to myself and my child right now? And is our situation as perilous as it feels?

Thank you,

Stressed Mom

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Dear Mom:

First, a question – what was your life like in 1977? It will tell you a lot about your life in total.

Second, it’s great that you’re getting your concerns out onto the table. You are admitting that you have a situation that you need to address. This is a good start. In terms of assessing the damage or potential damage that one is doing to one’s kids, the main theme that divides the universe is awareness. If you are aware, you can address your situation.

Generally, the kinds of things you’re describing are usually passed from one generation to the next. Let’s take a look at your chart for clues. The first place to look is your 5th house, the house of children, childhood, taking risks and experiencing pleasure.

You have two planets here – Saturn and Chiron. Saturn in the 5th is not so much fun. Chiron in the 5th wants a lot: a lot of fun. This is the picture of a raging child that never got to have quite the fun that it wanted to have. This child, if not contacted and spoken to and in a sense raised consciously, will wreak havoc. You can pass this onto your own child if you don’t address it. So I think you need to remember that your child is a child, and you were not really able to be one of those.

Note that during the next year, Uranus is going to make contact with this conjunction; there will be a lot of Pisces activity in your 5th house. This whole theme needs to be front and center. Note also that the 5th house is the house of creativity, and you have plenty of that. Despite being a parent, you need to learn to express yourself and grow into the creative person that you are. In other words, don’t avoid living your life and doing your thing and blame it on your child.

Allow me to ask you an exceedingly personal question: who exactly taught you to be a mom? I mean it. Try to figure this out, and then ask yourself if they were qualified to be a mother, much less train you to be one. So you may want to get some training. Training usually comes in the form of therapy.

Once there was a guy named Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, and among his very good points was that if parents are concerned about their kids, get therapy. This is not so shocking of an idea – if you need to help the people around you, particularly if they need you to be emotionally available, and at peace with yourself, then you need to get a grip on your existence and basically grow up. I know you’ve been trying to do this for a while, though I think that we really do need help. Here is an article about someone born right around when you were who does work with young mothers (second section down).

Your chart says you have a lot of unmet relationship needs. I suggest you find a way to express those needs without creating a disruption in your kid’s life. That is to say, keep your boyfriends and romantic intrigues out of the way of your kid, until you have tested them and you are pretty sure the relationship is stable. In my opinion the most disturbing thing in a child’s life is the parent or parents not having a stable relationship(s). You obviously need to experiment, and you may need to get a little wild. So just figure out a way to keep that project separate from your parenting project.

One interesting thing in your chart is that you have the Moon in Cancer, but it’s conjunct Vesta. This speaks to both you as a lover, and you as a mother. That can combine the property of mothering with the property of sacrifice, and sexuality with the property of being a kind of sacred whore. First things first. I suggest you either go for it and give yourself totally to being a mom to the exclusion of everything else (unlikely) or work to process through and eliminate the notion of sacrifice. Can you really do this? Well, you can. But you need to get really serious about getting your needs met; at least some of them and, over time, hopefully more of them. This is doubly true with Vesta close to your Moon – your tendency will be to give to others erotically; Vesta is the one who bestows erotic gifts on others, and she can do a lot of doing without herself.

I know — this may be the last thing you think you can do, but it’s probably going to be the only thing that works. And I know I say this a lot, but find a cool therapist who is a lot smarter than you and get yourself together. You will never regret it.

Yours & truly,

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Reader Comments

Eric and Staff,

Thank you very much for your response to my question. A tip of the cap to all of you. I can’t express how much my eyes have opened to the world events through your writing and associated articles except to say I was a Bush lovin’, Iraq hatin’, Republican until I was turned on to your site by a friend.

Regards,

Gary Burris (Mr. Cardinal)

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Dear Planet Waves:

I thought Eric missed the point when responding to a reader question last week (the would-be artist who was also drawn to lead a cloistered life). On the one hand, the advice was good: do the work you are called to do and deal with the consequences as they come. But I thought it was a bit hard to say that this reluctance is the result of being too self-involved. Maybe it is in her case, I don’t know, but I do know more than one artist who has really struggled with this dilemma. In each case they have found a way to continue to work, while dodging the mainstream because they haven’t felt up to playing the games that are part of success. They know success isn’t guaranteed in any case but, if I understand them correctly, they also value the freedom that comes when you live a relatively obscure life: the privacy, the lack of pressure, the sense of being more grounded, more part of the everyday.

— K

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