2 posts tagged “affinities”

I didn't write this, but I probably could have written something similar (except my Venus is in a different sign, and Saturn doesn't rule my 7th. Venus rules my 7th and Saturn squares it. Maybe that's equivalent?).

I am constantly being disappointed in love. The men whom I could love simply don’t love me back. The only guy who ever stuck around for me was the one I wasn’t in love with. When I was a child my father rejected me, and ever since then the same thing has been happening with the men that I care for.

I fall for hypnotic, charismatic men who know how to influence their surroundings. They are capable of deep and powerful love. Unfortunately, I am never the person who receives it. To make it worse, two men I fell for are now madly in love with the same woman, who is ten years older than me. At the same time, after all this time I still don’t feel like I’ve met the person who can truly sweep me off my feet.

In other areas of my life I am independent and in charge, but in love I just feel like a victim. I’m starting to believe I have this terrible deep inadequacy that can never be erased. I need a lover who is as strong as I am, but my partners never seem to recognize my best qualities. What can I do? Am I simply destined to be unloved?

Elsa's answer:

I don’t believe anyone is destined to be unloved, but I know for sure that loves comes easier to some than others. And with Saturn ruling your 7th house and Venus in Scorpio square Saturn, you are clearly one of the others and for that I am sorry and I will try to help.

Saturn tied to Venus delays love in most cases, and if you read around you’ll be told that love comes later in life but I’d say there is no such guarantee. Love comes later in life to those willing to work for it. And I am sorry but this is just a fact and thinking otherwise is sort of like believing we all get rich in the end. Er… no we don’t!

No arguments with that...

So yes, Venus Saturn can love and be loved but you have to accept the conditions which most people just will not do. And I don’t mean to make this about me but I am going to use my personal life to illustrate this because I can’t see any other way to offer you something of substance that might actually help.

I don’t know if you read my blog regularly but I have a great love with a man I call the soldier. And our relationship is basically impossible. We are constantly thwarted. We are pounded in every way you can possibly imagine. With Saturn highly emphasized in both the synastry (aspects between charts) and the composite, we are delayed, screwed, blued and tattooed on a routine basis but we love each other and we hang in.

Once again...this comes up. I think in a sick way, I also find that sort of thing fascinating. I know I'd hate it if I was actually in that kind of relationship IRL, but part of me really does want to see how it'd come out. Even though I KNOW it'd be badly, and it's not like I am looking for stress in relationships. (Obviously, it finds me anyway.) Hell, one could say that Older Ex was someone I already had that kind of relationship with, but it wasn't as binding as one would think in the end. (Though if he still thinks of me, maybe it was more than I thought.)

Sorta off-topic, I am currently working on the astrological charts of a friend of mine and her husband- he has been in Pissy Bitch mode for a few months now and it is worrisome. So far I can't say I've seen why he is having Pissy Bitch mode now, since he doesn't have any major transits that would cause such going on, and he's got a massive stellium in Aquarius. I was assuming he must be a Scorpio rising (my friend is a Scorpio), but nope, Sag rising. In my experience, it takes a hell of a lot for an Aquarius to get pissy and yell, and Sags aren't inclined in that direction so much either. (I was flabbergasted when a friend of mine with two planets in Aquarius admitted to getting annoyed at someone last week.) But it turns out he has Mars conjunct Saturn, and she has Mars opposed to Saturn. Well, there ya go. Oof.

The synastry isn't massively Saturninan other than them both having that particular affinity, but their composite chart has a whopping moon/Jupiter/Saturn/Uranus conjuction in Capricorn- almost all of their planets are there, except for some stray Saggishness. Heck, the planets away from the bottom are in their 6th and 10th houses. I said, "Wow, this looks a lot more like an ideal business partnership than a schmoopy relationship." She was all, "No way would we go into business together." I don't know...

Okay, back on topic.

And we have found that by accepting the conditions and the limitations, the universe does support the relationship, but hey! No whining. No whining when sometimes weeks pass and we can’t see each other. No whining because other couples have it easier than we do. No whining even though we are pretty sure it will probably be years before we can actually be together. Getting the idea? Who would sign up for this?

Well you would if you were smart. Because the love is real and it is deep and with a chart like yours anything less well never satisfy. So here’s the point:

Forget the love that other people have because it has nothing to do with you.

Heh. Yeah... I do get jealous of other people's loves. A lot of them seem to be fairly easy- fall in, stay in, all is snuggly, happened when they were 18 years old... okay, you know what I mean. It's frustrating.

Be willing to redefine what it is you think you want because as you have noticed you’re not getting it. If you are consistently denied what you want, it might be productive to want something else.

Well, in my case, I am choosing to want singlehood... which mostly works out very nicely, thank you. (Especially lately because so many people are having astro-weirding warping their love lives in the last month. I am really hoping that crappity wears off soon before divorces happen.)

But.

For example, I want convenience! I want a man who lives right down the street who loves me like the man who does not live right down the street. And I want this new hologram man to be of the same quality of the man who comes with all the challenges and guess what? Too bad! That man does not exist. So I can pine for this thing that doesn’t exist or I can live in reality, yes? And you can do the same.

Ask the universe to send you a real love, not a fantasy love. Ask for something singular and hand-picked to challenge you. Then commit to doing absolutely whatever it takes to feed and maintain the relationship. And accept that pain is part of the deal. With a chart like yours, relationship at times will be absolutely grueling. You will be made to face your fear when you are scared to death but I can tell you firsthand the reward is in proportion.

That sounds right...fucking horrible, but "right." That is generally how relationships go for me. (Chiron in the mix too.)

"What you’re doing is working the deprivation side of Saturn. No love is safe, see? No love = control. You’re going to have to work much, much harder. Believe it or not you’re shirking your duties here. It is much easier to say I don’t have or I will never get, then it is to go out and work for it.

....

Um. Yeah. True and true.

"And I am sorry but if I wrote this any other way this would have been crap for your purposes. La la la, you’ll find love late in life just isn’t going to cut it. The love is there, you’re just going to have to swim upstream to get it but here’s the trick: if you decide to do this you will find it exhilarating and incredibly satisfying. It’s the difference between working for your money and being handed it. Which of those experiences do you think is peak? Come to recognize you’ve got no interest in tutti-fruitti easy-peasy light-fare love and you’ll be on your way."

I was going to review this book I dug up in a used bookstore on Sunday for this site (Intimate Relationships: The Astrology of Attraction), but it doesn't even exist in Amazon any more, so I'm not sure what the point of such would be. (But if YOU ever find it in a used bookstore, grab it.)

But anyhoo, I wanted to comment on a chapter in it about affinities. According to the author, it's not quite synastry (sounds close enough to me, ahem), but it's more about checking where your energy patterns and the other person's energy patterns are similar/match up.

Here's an example (the author is Richard Roess):

"If a personal planet (Moon, Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars) is hooked up to one or more of the transpersonal planets (Uranus, Neptune, Pluto), that planet has a transpersonal function. It's an unconscious driving force that requires you to be you by finding that spot within the collective that is yours. You'll relate to life from this unconscious function.

If you have Moon/Neptune and run into another person with a Moon/Neptune aspect, there'll be a sort of dreamy "We've met before!" type of feeling. If you've been together for a few days, you may feel like your coming together "was made in Heaven!" In some ways, Neptune has to do with the universal soul. Since the Moon has to do with the emotional sense of one's identity, there'll be an unconscious feeling that you've met your soul mate, even if you both have Moon/Neptune aspects inharmonious with each other. What you're identifying through the other person is your own connection with the universal soul. Since you're both connected, you share that connection."

His big example is people with some kind of Saturn connection will look for someone else with a Saturn connection. Like a Mars/Saturn dude will hang with Mars/Saturn and Sun/Saturn dudes, and when it comes for chicks, will get involved with Moon/Saturn and Venus/Saturn chicks. (Speaking as one of each, uh-oh.) There's two methods of dealing with the energy- the "inadequate man" hooks up with the "inadequate woman" so he won't have to deliver and she won't expect him to, and the bumps match the holes. And suddenly uh, I have to wonder about my exes now. Or alternately, he'll hook up with a Mars/Saturn chick so she'll expect him to be dysfunctional and he'll keep on being inadequate.

Well, that's depressing and I feel like drinking now.

"This doesn't indicate that the relationship won't make it. It does, however, suggest that both share related scripts and through this area in their lives they identify with each other. Initially, they say to each other, "Gee. We're alike!" At first it's attractive, but later it becomes an issue that has to be addressed if the relationship is to continue."

"Affinities involving Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are what I call relationship saboteurs. These relationships often have sabotage built into them from the beginning."

"While these Saturn aspects may represent affiliation difficulties, they are also a driving force toward a relationship that will put the person into the relating theater again and again in order to work out the script behind the prophecy."

If you are in a relationship that has Saturnine affinities, remember that Saturn is what holds relationships together. These sort of affinities have to be talked about and shared, for only through sharing will the restrictions be lifted."

Well, okay, I don't feel like drinking SO much any more.

To check affinities, note similar connections for each planet. What similar Moon connections there are (any kind of aspect, not just the exact same aspect in both charts), similar angles, same signs on house cusps, if any planets are in the same houses. The more affinities there are between the charts, the more you identify with each other. They'll have similar feelings and beliefs that they share because if they identify with each other.

Sounds soul-matey, eh? Well, here's what he's got to say about that. (Okay, so I am not a believer in soul mates personally at this uber-cynical point in my life- my usual answer to such is "My soul doesn't mate"- but astrologically, it is interesting to find those really alike charts.)

"I sometimes wonder if maybe this is the astrological definition of soul mates. So many people seem to be looking for their soul mates. I wonder if most really know what it means to find and be in a relationship with a soul mate. From what I have heard, most people think that when they meet their soul mate life will become wonderful, as if by magic; everything will be extraordinary and they'll find peace and happiness- life will be fulfilled. My understanding is that a relationship with a soul mate will teach me what I need to know about myself. If I am in denial (which most of us are, to some degree), then I may not like what I have to face. This is where you have the opportunity to face yourself and do something about it. I think of "Bridge Across Forever" by Richard Bach. He meets the woman of his dreams and then does everything he can to run away from himself, and her, until he finally faces up to himself. It isn't easy, and certainly isn't without personal pain and anguish. If you don't want to do the work, don't invite the laboratory."

I kinda like it... that makes a lot of sense to me. Then again, I am probably in some deep kinda denial :P

Regarding outer planets:

• He says that those with Uranus affinities have come together to find out who each other is, but they'll have to come together, separate, come back together...repeat, repeat, repeat until they can exist together as separate people. Oh, and they come across as weird. Hm, yeah, that sounds like me (I'm quite Uranian wacky).
  
• Neptune people may be two creative people coming together in such a way that each other's individual creativity enhances the other's..or they're just trying to escape reality. Could be good, could be bad.
• Pluto affinities... uh-oh, emotional losses galore. Two people with this will put each other through hell.
• And the Chiron bit made me laugh my head off. I don't know why, because I probably do it :P
  

"Wounded Healer. What a cop-out. It's just an excuse not to get on with what your life is all about. Think of a relationship built around the idea that we are wounded! Sounds neat, right? If you have a relationship with Chiron/personal planet affinities, then it's time to grow up and get on with what you came here to do. Chiron didn't have a childhood and he did okay in spite of it, so why do you make such a big deal about what happened in the past?"

Anyway, I rather liked this idea of people comparisons.