Profile & Current Events: New York Governor Eliot Spitzer
First of all, I usually stay away from analyzing the astrology of public persons who meet with dramatic turns. Mostly, I just never want to be the astrologer who says, “Oh, lookie! You can see why [name of public figure] [verbed] [horrible and tragic life circumstance]!” A fundamental truth of humans is that we have free will, and people respond to the energies being called up in their lives with choice.
Now, our choices are based in our conditioning - who we think we are, what we believe we’re supposed to do, etc. - and I’m clear that the themes of our conditioning can be seen in our charts. So of course I know I don’t have to be that kind of astrologer, but it usually doesn’t interest me on that level enough to dive into their charts.
But.
But as I listened a second time to the public statement by Eliot Spitzer following revelations that he’s been a customer of a prostitution ring, I had to go straight to his chart. Maybe I’d got used to hearing remorse or regret in the voices of politicians who are revealed to be two-timers or whatever?, yet what I heard in his voice was impatience.
An impatience to have to deal with the whole situation.
Which surprised me, so I was drawn into his chart (June 10, 1959, Bronx NY, time unknown).
First thing to see is South Node in Aries, with the ruler Mars in Leo conjunct Venus, with both of them quincunxing (inconjuncting - 150 degrees) a retrograde Saturn in Capricorn…which is square the nodes. With transiting Saturn retrograding in early Virgo trining that Saturn…and nearing a conjunction with his natal Pluto, retrograde in early Virgo…
Yeah, yeah, I know - that’s a mouthful. I’ll spell out what it said to me:
South Node in Aries: He’s coming from a karmic past full of Marsy experience. He’s used to the fight. He expects the world to be about Aries issues, and he will be drawn into them in this life in one way or another.
South Node ruler Mars in Leo, conjunct Venus: His role centers on being proud, good with people, direct, a man of action.
natal Saturn retro in Capricorn and square the nodes: The issues of work, balancing life in the public sphere, the sense of and the right sort of maturity to develop, are unresolved issues (squares to the nodes represent something we know some about but need to learn to make different choices about).
that Saturn quincunx that Mars-Venus in Leo: Whatever is misunderstood about work, life in the public sphere, and appropriate maturity development are having what feels a power struggle within him - and everything in astrology works in our external lives so that we can have opportunities to explore our internal conflicts.
transiting Saturn trining natal Saturn and conjuncting natal Pluto: Major lessons of authority (Saturn in Cap) & self-responsibility (Pluto in Virgo) are being helped along by transiting Saturn.
Oh, but then hey, the transiting North Node is right on his natal Chiron, at 27 Aquarius…
Putting all this together, I can’t help but feel that the opportunity he has is to be humbled & connect with his vulnerabilities (Tr. NN on Chiron), to choose to allow his reputation to be reframed in terms of the reality of his behavior and choices (Saturn transits). And to spend some time with himself to check in with how and why he does what he does (Saturn retro transit to conjunct natal retro Pluto).
Oh but then with the asteroid Arjunsuri (20300) natally on his Libra North Node, conjunct Pallas Athene and Juno in Libra, there’s a call to learn to listen to others (NN in Libra) who stick with him (Juno-Pallas Athene in Libra), to learn a new level of give and take (Libra NN) that works in conjunction with the parameters of his conscience (Arjunsuri) and how co-operative life with others works (Juno-Pallas Athene on Libra NN). But also to allow his conscience to guide him (Arjunsuri on the NN).
The latest news tonight was that he’s planning to spend time with his family in the short term - no word as of yet if he’ll stay in office. Developing the stuff mentioned the previous paragraph could be very much needed, and to make time and space for whatever in our lives is much needed, some of us have the knack of clearing our schedules in sometimes rather dramatic ways, just to make sure we have the opportunity.
March 10, 2008 By Tom Jacobs
A Thought on Conditioning
After being related a story by a friend just back from a rather intense family Thanksgiving visit, I loaned her a favorite book of mine, What Do You Say After You Say Hello?, by Eric Berne, MD. If you’ve ever wondered why people do the things they do, check out this book. It’s a pretty easy read, given it’s a text for psychoanalysts.
So, what is it that you say after you say hello? It depends on what you’re trying to get from any given interaction. Berne outlines the scripts people live, and shows how we’re conditioned by our early home environments to perform certain roles.
SO, then, again: conditioning. The roles we play aren’t indicative of our true natures. An astrological birth chart is a map of possibilities, and two major factors determine which sets of realities we create from those possibilities: conditioning and free will.
Our free will is often, by our beliefs of what’s possible, shaped by that conditioning. Okay, so I’m really saying that it’s often not even two factors that determine what reality we’ll create; there are times when it’s all about conditioning.
Last week I gave a talk on a new view of spirituality in the birth chart. When dealing with any issue, including spirituality, key is a client’s conditioning. Regarding matters of spirit, we have to look not only at Neptune/Pisces/12th house, but also Jupiter/Sagittarius/9th house to understand the conditioning surrounding belief. We have to look at the asteroid Lucifer (1930) to understand the conditioning around a person’s relationship with the idea of and the reality of the existence of a higher power. We have to look at the asteriod Arjunsuri (20300) to understand the person’s relationship with his or her own conscience (whose voice/authority is considered the ultimate authority?). The picture is pretty complex when you get deeply into any individual chart, but it all comes down to conditioning.
As long as we’re on the subject, I’ll note that every interaction you have with your family and those with whom you’ve been close for a long time, offer the opportunity to see your conditioning. If you’re someone who has difficulty dealing on some level dealing with family/where you came from and yet are going back for upcoming holiday festivities of some sort or other, see if you can catch yourself in however you want to react to any stressful situations and hold up a second. Wait a minute, and instead of reacting how you perhaps always have, make a different choice. That’s how you start breaking conditioning!
Brought to you by the “Down With Outmoded Conditioning” Committee, with additional support from the “Pluto in Libra ‘Can’t We All Get Along?’” Cabal.
Tom is available for spirit-guided karmic astrology readings. Contact him via his website.
November 25, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
Scorpio New Moon: Conjunct true Black Moon Lilith, opposing Rx Arjunsuri-Ceres
The new Moon at 3:03 PM Pacific time at 17 Scorpio is conjunct true Black Moon Lilith, at 13 Scorpio, and opposing Arjunsuri and Ceres, both retrograde in Taurus at 18 and 16, respectively.
For starters, some basic thoughts on Lilith can be found here and here.
With Lilith conjunct the new Moon, we’re talking about the probably-buried suspicion of your true, raw, animal nature that has an “in” to your more-conscious feeling nature at this time. The period that’s beginning with this new moon includes what could be considered an invitation to you to admit, if you haven’t done so already, that Lilith exists within you. She can appear in many different forms, but I suspect you’ll notice yourself wanting to edit an honest and sort of raw response to something in the moment because you’re clear that it’s socially unacceptable. And because you’re either not sure of what heinous response you’d get, or unwilling to get the kind of heinous response you know you’d get. And yet new Moon energy is about, in a sense, trial and error - stepping into experience without knowing precisely what we’re doing or where it’s going; forgiving ourselves for learning through experience and, thereby, risking pain and failure.
By house and sign, you can get a flavor for the ways in which you experience (and refuse to experience) Lilith in your life. With this energy conjunct the new moon, however, the opportunity for any of us is to allow more of our real natures time and space in our lives. Forget for a minute the details of any of Lilith’s stories that you may be familiar with - forget the subject matter of her experience for a moment, in other words - and understand that the edgy side of your animalness and it’s natural presence in you is what’s in question.
I’m not advising you to turn on the faucet of inexplicable crazy that you might think, or might have heard, is the key to Lilith energy. The fear that it’s too much to look at and deal with is what keeps it too much to look at and deal with, and so being willing to open to the energy and see that there are indeed parts of us that are kept far from the light of day may be more important than freaking out with suppressed anger, etc. - but it really just depends on what’s on tap for you right now.
Arjunsuri (asteroid 20300) opposing the new moon is a statement about the need to check the Scorpio intensity of expression with some Taurus grounding in the why we’re doing what we’re doing, specifically in being clear on whose voice we honor when we open up our personal Scorpio floodgates of feeling and get all Scorpio with ourselves or others. That the asteroid is retrograde suggests that revisiting our motivation for what we do (whose agenda are we supporting) is part of the question the moment asks. It’s conjunct retrograde Ceres, adding to the question of the moment a note on defining ourselves by the roles we perform for others. And this happens in Taurus, the sign of self-reliance.
Tying this all together, we’re looking at the opportunity to ask ourselves if the depths we’re either passionate about exploring or adamant about hiding (/hiding from) are informed by what we think about what we need to take care of ourselves, or what we’ve been told about what we need to take care of ourselves.
When the Sun’s in Scorpio, we’re always confronted with issues of where and how we meet others in the tight spaces of intimate relating. Scorpio’s the energy of wanting to penetrate another (person, thing, idea) in order to experience what it’s like to be it, which is to say be one with it. The conjunction of Lilith with the new moon and the opposition of Rx Arjunrsuri/Rx Ceres invites us to take a step toward deeper understanding of how we invite, create, recognize and interact in those tight spaces of intimacy - whose passion? whose desire? whose ideas of appropriateness? whose agenda?
This can manifest in our lives in many forms. Sex and sexuality are not the only playing grounds of Scorpio. Naked, absolute honesty is an area associated with Scorpio energy, as is removing the veneers of anything to see what’s happening below the surface. And it can of course come in the domain of shared material resources, but that’s often just a red herring for the issues of honesty and truth that’re behind all such transactions/interactions.
That said, those who are open to anything that might come up will in all likelihood see in themselves conditioning surrounding sexuality. In the ways that you understand yourself as a sexual being, one tack goes, what kinds of programming do you carry about what to do with that? What about how to do it? And as long as I’m throwing the “w” questions out there: With whom, why and when? (This could almost be another long post by itself, but, briefly: If you have control-based rules about whom you love, what it takes for you to love them, and what conditions make it okay for you/give you a green light to love, there’s an opportunity to sort out which of those rules are inherited/absorbed as a result of your conditioning and which are of your own design & manufacture, and which from each category are worth keeping and maintaining.)
This is happening on my Sun-Lucifer-Juno conjunction in my 2nd house, so I’m off to ask myself the hard version of the questions I so casually typed out for you above…
Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.
November 9, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
Transit Lab: Everything transiting everything else (or so it seems)
Mercury’s stationing on the cusp of my 2nd…the new Moon tonight is on my 1st house Uranus, squaring my Cancer/10th South Node, opposing Rx Chiron on the DSC…Mars is transiting the 9th opposes my natal Jupiter in 3rd and squares Pluto in 12th…
Which seems to have resulted in me choosing to take a long-distance trip for reasons I would not have possibly guessed I might (the Mars t-square), but choosing my desired method of transport, no matter what anyone says (Uranus in 1st).
Okay, I’ll just tell you: I’m sailing back to the Midwest for a family funeral in my boat made out of drinking straws.
That wasn’t so hard.
For some reason, I’m just very sure I’m not flying for this trip. Also, piloting my straw boat through the Gulf of Mexico and up the Mississipi always helps me calm down, stay focused and ground, and that’s needed now.
A couple of days after I received the news, I did an interview with another evolutionary astrologer about a new archetype I’m working with, Arjunsuri (asteroid 20300). She’s producing a podcast regularly, providing a forum for some cool ideas. You can find the podcast here: http://www.denadecastro.com/Site/Podcast/Podcast.html.
I listened to it and was shocked at how clear I am. How together, how with-it. Apparently, I work well under pressure. Can you tell I’d just heard about a death in the family? It never occurred to me to postpone it - how’s that for a good little 10th house South Node?
A woman called me today to wish me well in my work, and to tell me that if I want to, I “can rise above astrology.” She meant the stereotypes and negativity so prevalent in the field. I thanked her and told her I’m doing just that. I guess she found an ad of mine, or my site - I didn’t ask. That’s Mars in Cancer/9th opposing Jupiter in Capricorn/3rd - why, I’m very sure I already do that, thank you was the unconscious impulse.
But isn’t that nice? Someone calling just to wish you well?
When home, I’m going to reconnect with some friends I haven’t kept up with in a long time - oh, I just got that it’s the Mercury Rx - in Scorpio - reconnecting with friends because of a death. And also my sister, who seems to find me inexplicable (though she’s a Pisces/3rd Moon, it’s sextile 1st house Mercury in Capricorn on my North Node - she springs into dedicated action at the drop of a hat, and doesn’t get why I can get in emotional circles sometimes and be, um, somewhat less than productive). And my step-father, who thinks I’m crazy because I choose not to have the kind of job that everyone he ever knew had. And former teachers…and who knows who else who shows up to the memorial service. I think I’m going to tell them I’m an acrobat with the circus, and that I got in with my little belly and not-buff physique because of affirmative action.
When I was a kid, I was asked no fewer than eighteen hundred thousand million times if I was going to grow up to be on the radio, be just like my dad. I had the precociousness, but unfortunately not the prescience or vocabulary, to tell them no (but not that I have retrograde Saturn inconjuncting my 2nd house Sun, and that I probably would not choose to do that).
But, there’s that podcast…that fun podcast…the opportunity-to-get-your-ideas-out podcast…
Given the amount that my mouth moves and emits words and/or ideas in order to alleviate the crowding in my brain, maybe that’s a good way to go? Let me know what you think after you listen to the podcast.
Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.
October 10, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
Transit Lab: Saturn in Virgo square Black Moon Lilith/Neptune
I’ve been organizing by thoughts on Lilith as they’ve come through the last couple of months, organizing them into something useful (Virgo) that I’ll use for teaching in the future (Saturn’s transiting my 11th house).
As Saturn’s still on Arjunsuri, which natally squares BML/Neptune, accessing my own ideas about Lilith via determined, focused work is a plan for the week. Saturn squaring it has also manifested as a few clients the last few days who are ready to hear their Lilith stories and begin to heal the debris surrounding their experience. Actually, two clients yesterday were intimately familiar with Lilith (one on SN and the other in the 1st). Oh, hey, wait a minute: Work (Saturn) came to me in the form of other people very focused on their goals (11th house) and seeking healing (Virgo).
Colleagues have reminded me repeatedly re my own chart that Sagittarius is the sign of focus, but I seem to have developed a habit of being all over the place with my Sag energy. It’s true that I often surprise people by being able to return to my original thread after exploring a substantial tangent, but I observe myself as actually unfocused. Saturn squaring the Neptune I feel as a little less room to maneuver freely the totality of creation; I’m readily aware that there are things that need to be done.
And while the transit through the 11th highlights what I’m doing now to support future realities, I admit to eagerness coursing through my whole being to share what I’m developing. But isn’t Jupiter in my 3rd at the same time? Where Jupiter is natally? Why, yesss, it is…
Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation
September 21, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
Transit Lab: Saturn in Virgo conjunct Arjunsuri
Yesterday I returned from a 10-day Vipassana meditation course, having learned this technique recovered by the Buddha 2500 years ago. The ultimate aim of it is the end of suffering, and it’s possible for every person to do this, given a commitment to patience, ardent work, awareness, perseverance and persistance.
Sound like a list of keywords for Saturn in Virgo, doesn’t it?
This is the kind of thing most of think we could never do, but each of us can choose to do it. I heard about it from a friend who has in common with me a strong mental and communicative energy (Mars-Mercury in Leo in 11th-12th, with a 10th-house Gemini stellium I totally jive with), and a desire for progress that shapes a work ethic that keeps one going going going, that keeps one driven. She told me she’d done one of these courses a while ago, and I was inspired that if she could cause herself to do it, I could cause myself to do it.
Each of the things I knew about it before going in were entries on my well-established and -entrenched list of not-to-dos: sitting still, focusing the awareness on only the breath, following the ethical code central to the technique (read: someone else’s rules), refraining from any communication with other students for the duration of the course, no exercise other than walking, and - here’s the big one - no reading or writing of any kind. I mean, go down the list of attitudes and behaviors I’ve used to define myself, and each needed to be shelved for the duration of the course if I wanted to give myself the chance to suceed with the technique.
But in the face of the opportunity to take better care of myself, and to get to the bottom of a couple of personal issues I wanted to heal, I was willing to do a little Saturn-in-Virgo…which was, I desperately need to tell someone mean, a lot of Saturn-in-Virgo. A lot. I’ve never worked as hard as I did during the course. Never. As a matter of fact, I realized while I was doing it that I can’t remember even a handful of times I chose to challenge myself and work extremely hard in order to achieve something I wanted. When I chose to sideline the rules I’ve developed for myself and submit to someone else’s program (that Mars-Uranus in the 1st bristles at the notion of someone else’s rules, and my Rx Saturn in Gemini/9th and Jupiter in Capricorn/3rd are pretty sure I know what’s good for me and probably that no one else could).
When I studied music, it came easily to me. When I studied philosophy, I couldn’t find the point of most of it and didn’t work very hard, until I found Albert Camus’ brand of life-affirming existentialism and was armed with something eminently useful. When I began writing poetry and satire, it just poured out like you wouldn’t believe (it took a while to bring out my own voice in each, but that was less a matter of hard work than one of doing it enough that other people’s voices played themselves out in me and fell away). When I began with astrology, I dove in and it was, frankly, pretty easy. I seemed primed to incorporate it into the vocabulary I had already been developing about the meaning of life, etc. (building on my work with Camus, in fact). There have been questions and issues along the way in my astrology education that have caused more perplexation than others, but, generally speaking, it was just sitting there and I drank it in in giant gulps.
Okay, so, channeling class was difficult, but in a specific way. I simply had to make sure I didn’t turn down the opportunity every week for four months to confront my fear of doing it; I had to make sure I showed up to do the work and chose to be willing to learn what I needed to learn. And those four months, each weekly installment of which I dreaded like nothing else, were nothing compared with the challenge of sitting still to meditate for ten days and not communicating with anyone.
Do you know many people with Pluto in Libra (those born 1971-1984) who are willing to sit still for 10 days and not communicate with anyone at all? I realized that that in itself was a healing opportunity for me, giving myself the chance to develop a stronger relationship with myself. The soul wound in these people is in relationship, the relating function: the area of fairness, equality and balance - in the area of dealing with others as equals. To learn to sit with one’s self and get grounded in a deep understanding of and relating to that self is Pluto-in-Aries work, or Pluto-in-Libra polarity point work. Doing this is precisely what a Pluto-in-Libra person needs to do when stuck in cycles of Libra misfirings, malfunctionings and junk…which I admit to being prone to be in my more robotic, unaware moments.
The shiny experience worth noting here in terms of Saturn is that the eclipse at 18 Virgo squared from the 12th my own Saturn, Rx in Gemini/9th. I learned something critical about owning up (Virgo) to having compassion (12th house) that I allowed to override (square) an extremely fixed guiding principle I’ve carried (Rx Saturn in Gemini/9th) that no longer serves me. Okay, I’ll just say it: It hasn’t served me for hundreds of years. Even in a past-life regression taking me back to the 1080s, I had this fixed idea! It’s what I’ve known about myself, what I understand as me. I haven’t known any other baseline. So, understandably, I can’t wait to see what will happen next - it’s anybody’s guess.
I work with an archetype I’m introducing to astrology, associated with asteroid 20300, Arjunsuri. This asteroid is in my chart at the first minute of Virgo, so when Saturn entered Virgo, I was in need of some hard work of figuring out to whom to listen. The basic story of Arjunsuri has to do with the process of seeking Truth externally and ultimately learning to listen to your conscience as your guide, allowing the inner voice of knowing to be your final authority. “Finding Conscience on the Path to Truth,” the title of the article I’ve completed describing the archetype, is a good summary of the process.
The meditation course for me, then, had to do with doing some real, some hard Saturn-in-Virgo work, but also with developing a closer relationship with my conscience. One of the conditions students agree to before taking a Vipassana course is to refrain from killing anything, which includes eating meat (as I understand it, if you eat it, you’re participating in a process that began with the killing of the animal). I found myself yesterday on the way home from the course at a restaurant, evaluating the excitingly extensive omelet list. (Omelets with the trimmings are my favorite meal these days, and if I’m going out to eat, I’m going to gravitate toward homey places that serve such things.) Aware that the meditation technique is built on a foundation of vegetarianism, and aware that I’m presently beginning a practice of that technique, I opted not to choose a meat-ridden omelet. I recognized this choice as a Saturn-transiting-Virgoan-Arjunsuri choice: My conscience, with its commitment to giving the technique a real chance in my normal life, overrode my love of meat-riddled omelets. And this asteroid is in my 11th house, indicating how I look to the future and realize goals. My mouth was a little disappointed, but the rest of me felt great in making an informed, healthy choice (Virgo) that supports achieving my goals (11th house).
If you’re interested in learning more about Vipassana meditation, check out: http://www.dhamma.org.
If you’re interested in learning more about asteroid 20300 Arjunsuri, sign up for my mailing list at http://www.tdjacobs.com. It’s the best way to keep up with my activities in introducing this archetype to the astrological community. Within the next few months I’ll be doing a podcast interview about it, and I’ve written an article that will in one form or another be published in the near future, both of which will be announced via my mailing list.
Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.
September 17, 2007 By Tom Jacobs