Today’s Oracle takes us to the Scorpio daily of Aug. 9, 2005
The truth is you have more meaningful things to think about than conflict. This was not always so but thankfully life on Earth offers many opportunities for maturity. It may seem that your current goals exceed your ability to feel safe and secure within yourself. It’s clear enough that you’re stretching your potential including your emotional strength and your ability to believe in yourself when you have few tangible reasons to do so. This is easy enough but not when one’s mind is involved in a cycle of attack and revenge; in sum conflict undermines faith in ourselves. Just remember that if somebody pisses you off.
(The Daily Oracle is a random selection from one of 10,000 Eric Francis horoscopes. New horoscopes by Eric are published weekly plus twice a month in Planet Waves Astrology News and Planet Waves Light. The Oracle itself is a divination tool available to subscribers to either of these services.)
Apropos of nothing, I just added a comment on house systems to the Astrology Bloggers board and thought I wold cross post it here. The question is, “What astrological house do you use and why?”
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The house system topic is an interesting one. Briefly, I set my computer to read Koch houses (after many years of using Topocentric) and then in the background I use whole signs houses, which means sign as house; whether 1 Aries or 30 Aries risin…g, that counts as 1 Aries. I find it works just fine to use a house system and whole signs simultaneously. As a horoscope writer I use whole signs all day anyway, ignoring house cusps; the house cusps (such as from Koch or Placidus) work great when there is a time to work with, and whole signs give another layer of information that can add detail.
This would be easier to explain with chart examples, but imagine a person with 28 Taurus rising, and many planets in the “12th house” in Taurus. It’s possible to do a psychological maneuver in the reading where I can draw back the veil on all those planets that feel like they are in the 12th but, by whole signs, are right out in the open.
By extension, the planets that seem to be in the 11th (in Aries, the whole sign 12th) can be the actual factors that are working in that behind-the-scenes way we associate with the 12th — even though the client might have an idea they are acting like an 11th house influence, or be reaching for them as if they are more accessible than they are.
In a few words, the overlay of a house system and whole sign houses creates some truly interesting psychological equations that can help us reveal odd quirks of inner nature and help give a picture of why things seem one way and in practice behave another way.
My choice to use Koch is that it creates interesting patterns within the wheel, tending to spread wider and have certain houses cover more territory. I also like that it’s a modern house system. Topocentric is a good one to use when your houses start to fall apart at northern or southern latitudes. It was designed to be more stable at the extremes of latitude and is also part of a bigger (and rarely discussed) system of astrology.
One other thing, pointed out by Debbi Kempton Smith, William Lilly and others — a fact that makes the house system “debate” a little less shrill. The house cusps are fuzzy. (Sign cusps tend to be clean lines, though the anaretic degrees of signs, 29 and 30, tend to have a special role.)
Though sometimes there can be dramatic images that pop out where the houses appear in precise ways, they work more like a gradient. Lilly tells us that when a planet is within five degrees of a house cusp, it’s going to start acting like it’s in the next house. It’s easy to interpret this dual house phenomenon (for example, the 6th cusp is where playspace gradually turns to workspace; the blend of an art studio and an office, etc.).
But for example when a natal planet is squashed up against the 8th house cusp but is still technically in the 7th, I read an 8th house value first and a 7th house value second, and focus on the gradient (in this example, such as “relationship becomes commitment or agreement”). The 12 cusps each evoke a set of images of the borders where two environments meet — it’s fun stuff to play with.
Actually got into a highly educational conflict last night in my role as editor of a small newsletter. I’m new to this role and don’t have a strong handle on it yet. The woman confronting me I realize now was feeling anxious which made me feel anxious, and then there were other issues clouding her confrontation that we had to sort out before we could get down to the bottom of the problem. But we did eventually get everything sorted out and I learned an important lesson about being an editor. My growth right now is around feeling and releasing my feelings while hanging onto self-care and healthy choices. I get so much support for that from Planetwaves. Thank you Planetwaves and bless you and all who sail in you. susy