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Dear Friend and Reader:
Today we have two reader questions for you, with replies. For those of you who found Planet Waves through the old Astrology Secrets project on Cainer.com, my fingers are pleased to inform you that I won’t be writing any 5,000 word replies, or at least I don’t plan to. I will do my best to give a concise, relevant response to the questions we select, and Genevieve Salerno will be assisting me in this. Rachel Asher, our associate editor, will also see your questions. Please send them to: questions -at- planetwaves.net with the word QUESTION somewhere in the subject header (this helps us sort the mail). We will not use your last name in any response, though we may publish your birth chart anonymously.
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Does location have an impact on my writing career?
Dear Eric,
You seem to know the impact of your writing pretty well, so I’ll just try to nudge on past my impulse to gush and fawn in the opening paragraph of this letter. But *thank you* for opening this door. And for the June access as well.
My question has to do with location and sidereal influence. I am a writer and my career has been off-and-on, mostly because I keep fussing with the definition of what I do (variously: grant writer, art manager, muse, diseuse, etc). [Note, a diseuse is a woman who is a skilled and usually professional performer of monologues.-efc] But I am also beginning to think that longitude/latitude might be playing in. If I move, will my focus and traction improve? I have lovers and kids and longterm ties here in Austin, but something here feels dead(ish), unyielding in both my being and place.
Born July 6, 1955, at 5:20 in the afternoon, in Corpus Christi, TX. Just started my 3rd 26-year cycle on this planet. Yippee.
Thank you again,
Mysti
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Dear Mysti:
Looking at your chart, it seems clear that you are obsessed with relationships, or that they are obsessed with you. The people around you are important to you, and you need deep contact. You seem to have an electrifying presence; this chart is glowing (Moon conjunct Chiron in Aquarius; plenty of Gemini in the 7th house; Sun/Uranus/Mars/Vesta/Jupiter in the 8th house). But more than that, you have a lot of energy to blow off, and you seem to do it through various means of eroticism and emotional contact.
While you might expect me to say that sex is good for creativity, there arrives that point where the distractions of relating and processing relationship material can diffuse even your abundant energy. These relationships clearly feed you and I would guess from that Moon conjunct Chiron that people gravitate toward you, and they will no matter where you happen to be. You know the old saying, wherever you go, there you are.
The thing about location is that it shifts one’s realty. It confronts you with who you are; travel does this, and living different places does it as well. You have a 9th house Pluto and you live pretty close to where you were born (and I do I know that Austin is not Corpus Christi). That Pluto tells me you might be as obsessed with travel as you are with relationships. I wonder how much traveling you’ve done, which would help you get to know yourself outside the context of one-to-one (or two- or three-to-one bonding as the case may be).
Moving locations would shift the emphasis of your chart, but it would also reorient your mind and put you in a position of needing to adapt. That, in turn, would stir the pot and get you thinking in new ways. And unless you are Emily Dickinson, this is almost always good for writing.
However, you raise the issue of how you define yourself. I would say that you’re probably caught in a kind of psychic hall of mirrors of trying to see how others define you; or of attempting to define yourself differently for different people in order to have their approval. In the end, who cares what you call yourself? You don’t sell writing with a business card, you sell it with good writing. An editor looking at your story about ancient Egyptian sex cults doesn’t care that you like to go bass fishing with your friends once a month. They care about whether your ideas are coherent and your piece is on time.
If you’re a professional writer, you need to master the writing business; and you need to focus on projects that represent your interests and will also pay the bills.
I think that from a financial standpoint, you have two things you need to watch. Your 2nd house Ceres in Capricorn is saying that you have a survival mentality, that is, you have defined eating as the bottom line. Usually you need to go past that in order to thrive. Second, you have the Moon conjunct Chiron in the 2nd house; and by itself, the Moon in that house can represent some extreme financial cycles.
But a 2nd house Chiron suggests that the deeper issue involves self-esteem. Do you feel you have the right to be a writer? If you did, you might feel you had the energy and focus to create projects that work as part of the writing business. And if you did that, you would probably find some good sources of income.
I suggest you write about the subjects that get you going the hottest. You know what they are.
Thanks for your question. Please let me know if my response was even vaguely relevant.
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How do I break my old patterns?
Dear Eric:
Thank you for offering your insight. I was born Feb. 14, 1955 in Salzburg, Austria. I don’t have a birth time however my mother remembered it was in the am, as the shift of nurses were changing.
Question: I can see what I want to change. I can feel the energy of the change, the possibility of such changes are sitting and waiting…that is what it feels like.
I don’t know how to break my old patterns, and they are breaking me down causing more difficulty maintaining the “old”. But I am still keeping the “old” despite the pain ….
I would appreciate some guidance on how to make the changes…how to move through the old patterns…
Warm Regards,
Ann
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Dear Ann,
I am not sure what patterns you are talking about. I have my theories based on your chart (you have the Moon and Juno conjunct Saturn in Scorpio, which is a heavy emotional cast; and it is square your Sun/Mercury, making it difficult for you to discuss your feelings even though you want to). It would help a lot to have a single example of a pattern that you are thinking of.
I am also not sure what methods you are using to break out of your patterns, or what your concept of your own psyche is, which would tell us how you might navigate your inner territory. All these things make a difference in how one might go about shifting their state of existence.
Finally, what we call patterns often protect us from what is new. They are like armor. Whatever their job is, they probably have one; they do something for you, and if you can connect with that purpose, you may decide you no longer need it. But everything in this world has a purpose, whether it be constructive or not.
This all being said, I think that what you’re really dragging around is your mother’s negativity. In particular, she seemed to be extremely negative toward sex, and it’s clear enough that you were (like a lot of people) programmed with the idea that the only sexual relationship was or should be marriage (this is Juno in Scorpio mixed in with all this influence).
Your dad, for his part, was a very different kind of man. But he did not express his feelings easily, and neither do you; you have the same influence from both parents, though it has different origins. Your father seemed to be more progressive than your mom, but he kept his mouth shut so as not to get mixed up with her. Nobody talked; you did not learn how to express your basic feelings as a kid, much less lay the truth on the line of who you are and what you need.
That is what I suggest you do. I suggest you talk about all the most difficult things first, which means finding someone to talk to about them. There are probably a lot of very bright people in your circle of friends, but you have to find someone with whom you have no fear and who you know will not abuse the power you give them by divulging everything, and I do mean everything. A very open minded therapist would be a great start — preferably somebody without a Ph.D., unless of course you trust and adore that person. Whoever it is, you need to choose a therapist you want to become like, because that is basically what happens.
You are basically sinking under the weight of all that you have not said. And that may be the pattern that is the most difficult of all. Writing to us here counts as a good start. Keep going.
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Today’s Oracle takes us to May 14, 1999 – SCORPIO – Weekly
For all the hype about sex in our culture, it remains one of the great mysteries of human existence. In Greek mythology, the prophet Tiresias, who had lived for years as both genders, was blinded for revealing that women derive more physical pleasure than men during sex. This may be true, in many cases, but it also remains true that despite their depth and power, few women are conscious of what they possess within themselves, and, not surprisingly, few men can fathom the depth of female emotional experience. Unusual aspects suggest that these difficult boundaries of awareness and communication can now be stretched in some new directions.
Wednesday 23 July 2008
Venus (12+ Leo) square Psyche (12+ Scorpio)
Venus (12+ Leo) trine Ixion (12+ Sagittarius Rx)
Apollo (23+ Leo) quintile Chariklo (5+ Scorpio)
Venus (12+ Leo) semisquare Hades (27+ Gemini)
Arachne (10+ Libra) septile Hylonome (2+ Sagittarius Rx)
Pallas (25+ Taurus) conjunct Admetos (25+ Taurus)
Mercury (23+ Cancer) quincunx Neptune (23+ Aquarius Rx)
Sisyphus (13+ Libra) trine Nessus (13+ Aquarius Rx)
Mars (13+ Virgo) quincunx Nessus (13+ Aquarius Rx)
Venus (13+ Leo) opposite Nessus (13+ Aquarius Rx)
Venus (13+ Leo) sextile Sisyphus (13+ Libra)
Mercury (23+ Cancer) septile Amor (2+ Gemini)
Sun (1+ Leo) sextile M87 (1+ Libra)
Vesta (7+ Taurus) quintile Varuna (19+ Cancer)
Mercury (23+ Cancer) square 1992 QB1 (23+ Aries)
Vesta (7+ Taurus) semisquare Uranus (22+ Pisces Rx)
Eros (8+ Leo) square Asbolus (8+ Taurus)
Saturn (6+ Virgo) sesquiquadrate Eris (21+ Aries Rx)
Amor (2+ Gemini) opposite Hylonome (2+ Sagittarius Rx)
Sun (1+ Leo) quintile Sisyphus (13+ Libra)
Apollo (23+ Leo) trine 1992 QB1 (23+ Aries)
My dad never talked, but we later learned that he had shot down a US airplane during the attack on Pearl Harbor – friendly fire. I didn’t learn that until after he died, and oh how i wish he had talked about it more. Then I learned that while he was in the service my dad sent money to his father’s second wife because she didn’t have enough to feed and keep the four children he left behind after he died. He had deserted my grandmother, yet my father did what he could to help the ‘other woman’. He maintained friendly relations with all of them until he died.
Ann, he never talked and I was somewhat ashamed of him until after he was gone and different people started sharing stories. He couldn’t talk about Pearl harbor without crying.
Perhaps you could find out more about your dad – and perhaps that impacted your mother’s life more than you could possibly know. My dad was generous with everyone, but was heavy handed with discipline that bordered on abusive. I think he was punishing himself all over again, for the father who ran away and the pilot he killed at Pearl.
Most importantly, my mother knew, and always understood him and never criticized – but how I wish she had shared the information. But — They were from a different era, as your parents were. If your mother is still living, perhaps you can work through it together.
Blessings
Hi Eric… the question of location really has to do with the flow of my work. My creative partner and I both work *much* more generatively during or immediately after sex; this is something of which we’ve both been aware for years. So, sex, as a nutrient for the creative process, is non-negotiable. But he’s been abducted by aliens (that’s the simplest way to put it), so that has put a major stunner on the flow of writing. (I write under pseudonymia, honey… so googling me won’t give you much).
As for shaping myself to other’s expectations … yes and no. Most of my friends and family would shout NO! since I am famously intent on getting done what I must here, howsoever unruly or unconventional the process may seem to others. But that Ceres in Cap thing may be contributing to the constant shifting to see how to keep the bills paid. The various roles come about as others assume that the energy they see in me is infinitely adaptable, and I – not necessarily complaisant, but in ‘why not’ mode – jump in.
You are spot on with the economics. Money is most definitely boom/bust and when it is bust, it’s ridiculous. I just wonder what astrologers mean when they say: You need to ‘go past that.’ Uh, sure. Visualizations? Suzie Orme? Feng shui? Work, work and more work (the wealthiest people I know don’t)? Capricorn is a fearsome sign for me for various reasons, so somehow I just need to go talk to that Ceres/Chiron placement? How?
Okay, back to the sugarmines here.
Good to read your voice as it flows through my worlds.
Besitos,
Myst