I’ve done a lot of couples readings lately, so the astrology of relationships is especially front of mind. I want to share something astrology has helped me realize, that I say in all my couples and family readings. Perhaps it could be of use to you even if you’re not getting a reading any time soon.
A major insight astrology has offered me over the years comes from what happens when we look at two charts together. Someone’s Saturn, for example, might be conjunct (on top of) another person’s Moon. In this instance, The person with the Moon can feel a sense that the person with the Saturn is grounding them, helping them come down to earth. They also might feel that grounding as a sense of limitation in their lives, due to the presence of this person with the Saturn. This sensation of the presence of the Saturn person as limiting them and or grounding them, happens whether or not the Saturn person is conscious of it, or trying to do that, or not. It’s very easy to see this when the Saturn person is a baby, right? Because obvious the baby is not consciously acting upon the Moon person in any way— and yet their presence produces all kinds of influences and changes! These influences are present all kinds of relationships, regardless of the age of the people.
So we’re distinguishing between the way someone is and what their presence feels like to us. That those are two different things. And that their presence in our lives offers us something that is likely very different than it offers someone else! And that it often has very little to do with how they are in their own lives, or what their experience of themselves feels like!
The potential here is that we can depersonalize the ways that we feel to each other. We can wonder at the ecosystem nature of relationships. We can look at the other person’s chart and marvel at their specificity. And we can also look at the ways their chart is acting on ours, and it’s a whole different set of things we’re noticing, that doesn’t have so much to do with them!
We can practice receiving what might feel difficult about another as an offering, a perfect shape to fit with ours in such a way that gives us another opportunity to grow. Like, this person’s Saturn is on my Moon, of course it feels like this! What might this interaction—as apparently separate beings—be here to offer me? And what might I be offering others that I couldn’t have even tried to consciously?
If we let it, this can also help us get a little more space around the persistent delusion that we’re in control of way more than we really are.
These ways we feel to each other, these lessons we’re gifting each other, as articulated by astrology, can also help us to look out for how something difficult might be a support to our growth in an unexpected way. Something difficult might even look beautiful to us one day, we might even become grateful for it.
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Another thing I notice in talking to a lot of people about relationships is the persistent belief we have all adopted, to varying degrees, that it should be easy or it should be hard or any other “should be.”
Let’s come back to what it’s like as a human being on earth, if we’re lucky enough to live a long time. What has it been like with oneself over all these years?! It’s been everything! It’s been all the feelings. It’s been difficult. It’s been hard. It’s been beautiful. It’s been fun. It’s been devastating. It’s been confusing. These are the states of human experience, as far as I can tell. And therefore, how or why would we think being in any kind of relationship longer than a few weeks would be anything other than EVERYTHING, ALSO? Like if we’re intimate with each other for long enough, it’s gonna feel EVERY way. It seems very strange to imagine that it would be otherwise.
I say this because I find it relieving to remember it’s not “supposed to” be any way, relationships and life on earth never stops astounding with its variety and diversity on all levels. “Supposed to be” is an overlay of the mind that can cause a lot of suffering. Those thoughts are going to arise, we don’t have to stop them. But looking at the astrological picture between two people can really help us remember it looks ALL the ways between people. And that’s a sacred beautiful mystery. Sometimes giving these dynamics between us these astrological names brings us the equanimity we long for. Sometimes it makes us laugh at something very difficult, and that is enough to help us keep going. Sometimes it helps us not skip over something easeful, and we remember to celebrate more.
Relationships are a sacred mess, so much more full of heartbreak and joy and beauty and grossness than we were ever taught to embrace. But we can do it now! We can embrace the sacred mess right now.
Blessings to you and your relationships today! Let’s give them the space to be as they are in this moment and see what happens in that spaciousness.