Dear Kendra: Old Loves and the Saturn Returns

Dear Kendra~

I loved what you wrote about Carl Jung and how he would understand this Cardinal Cross. You're so right about holding the tension of these opposites in the cross made between Uranus, Saturn, and Pluto. I will write more about this to you in my next letter, but first I want to share this personal piece with you, as some tense things seem to be developing in my life....in my Saturn Return--

So, this morning I found this poem I wrote for Alistair and I-- years before our separation--and it made me cry. I wrote it after we returned from a trip to France, and I believe there was a wonderful Neptune/Venus aspect happening at the time.


 Neptune rules nostalgia, film and photographs, yearning, illusions, and combined with Venus it nurtures romantic idealism at its best. I remember thinking Alistair and I would be together always…such a 'sense of severance' I feel now…


I called the poem "Old Photographs" as I was imagining us looking together at photographs in years to come-- and now it has been over two years that we have been apart. I don't know how we will ever come around to finalizing the seperation into a divorce; I certainly can't do it. It all makes me sad. This must be a part of Saturn conjuncting my Sun in the 7th house of marriage. Since Saturn takes over 2 years to travel through each section of the chart, each house, I wonder how it will play out for us? I suppose Saturn here is also capable of re-uniting us, but I haven't seen signs of it....


OLD PHOTOGRAPHS

"I was in the café, sitting in front of the potted geraniums

wearing the straw hat I just bought.

I was writing a postcard to my mother

when I looked up to see the shadows

of the early autumn evening

dancing on the stucco walls.



Then you walked by—you were taking pictures of the light.

I watched you… trying to imagine what you were seeing there.

And then you turned your gaze on me

and shot this one here—

a little out of focus—but it was then that I saw them—

the tenderest eyes I’d ever seen.



Look. This is where we found ourselves standing later

by the edge of the river—the one Van Gogh painted.

We walked for hours feeling Van Gogh.

You talked apertures, lens and focus.



This was the hotel, Le D’Arlatan…

Do you remember wandering the back streets—

lost in the cobbled labyrinths—

till we found ourselves here?



The oversized antique bed held expectations. I felt shy.

You said—“Pull the curtains,” and I pulled the heavy curtains back.

I read you a poem by candlelight.

You smiled right into my soul—then served us farmer’s wine

in the opalescent glasses we’d bought that day.



I put the photographs down.

“It was so good,” you say.

“Like the wisp of a dream I can barely remember.”

I lean into your eyes; those milky apertures

transparent with the film of a lifetime.



Now, I offer you wine and pull the curtains open

catching the last dance of light on the peach colored walls.

You put on the old songs…

We sit in chairs by the window,

admiring the blue hydrangeas

our knees will touch, and we will speak about how

the quality of light makes everything different

and everything the same."


With love,

Isabelle

10th Letter: the Cardinal Cross and 2012~

  

Dear Isabelle~

Now you have me worried! What are you looking at in your chart? Is it that cardinal cross?  It was so special that you sent me your chart and a copy of your personal journal, but what changes are you seeing there that send you "out of your head and up to the art studio?" 

I know that the Cardinal Cross--with Saturn in Libra, Pluto in Capricorn, and Uranus in Aries is coming into formation as we head towards 2012. And from what I've read, it's both an ending and a beginning--and a challenge to face the realities of our lives or stay stuck--what do you think Carl Jung would say about holding the tension of this cross? Would he say that Uranus in Aries would be about radical new beginnings? It could bring an unexpected rising of a third, more "numinous Way"---a way for the tension of the cross to be released? I hope we are ready for this....

With love,

Kendra 

Private Journal, August 26

Private Journal, August 26, 2010








This language of astrology has become a voice for me. But it’s strange how ambivalent I feel about it! I hate cocktail-talk astrology, and just don’t do it. And when I called Kendra after the last letter about her miscarriage, I certainly didn’t want to “talk astrology” but the language of the heart.

Just remembered that it was today, Aug 26th, 1920 that women got the right to vote--those suffragettes struggled to have a "voice" and we each still struggle to find our true voice and express it....why am I so reluctant at times?



When I told Kendra that I feel like a “reluctant astrologer” she asked me what this meant--and I couldn’t find the words! So now as I sit here writing in this journal I’m going to try to “think it out” and find my voice that is so often reluctant and ambivalent about astrology….



First there’s the good: this language has given me a voice so that I can speak and counsel others without pathologizing, blaming or shaming. It’s short term therapy—and all therapies—seem to me to me to be the same at the core. Different techniques, yes, and some better at different times, but doesn’t it all come down to: LOVE heals & INSIGHT heals. That’s the heart of it: understanding, catharsis/crying, and love. Love heals.



When astrology “normalizes” experience, as in “yes, that’s one of the ways that a Saturn Return will play out in your life” there’s comfort there, as one can feel connected to a larger sense of meaning and patterns—even a God—something that is not all about random chaos, and luck or the lack of it—or will power and the lack of it.



And when an astrologer listens well—there can be a sense of loving connection between them as well as this connection to a larger pattern of things—even if it’s only to sacred wounds we all carry.



There are times when astrology is “eerily” on target—when what I say and the details of the story of their life synchronize strangely. How could I know those things if astrology wasn’t at least partially true? How could I know that the key to a Pluto transit is about letting go and surrender, whereas the key to a Jupiter transit is “be careful what you wish for, as you may get it?” Hmm… Jupiter transits sound like a coaching session---“do you know what you really want?” whereas a Neptune focused session might be more like: “No, you’re not losing your mind or getting Alzheimer’s, but you just need to let it be OK to “not know” right now…and don’t sign on the dotted line either till this transit passes…!”



So….what’s the problem then….with astrology? With me? Bottom line: there is no way I or anyone else can say how a particular sign or aspect or transit will be played out. Too much variation; no tight foretelling or “signatures” for events. So when a planet, like Saturn, crosses the 4th house cusp, I can see that one's going to start thinking about moving, or at the least, about radical re-modeling a home—because there's a correspondence between your inner sense of home and the outer physical home--yes, there’s a change coming in remaking this foundation, but no way of knowing how it will be acted out.



I wonder if it doesn’t all come down to the fact that we have free will being separate Souls making different choices….and astrology being more like a weather forecast than a fortune teller’s prediction. I think if a fortune teller or psychic is right, it’s more likely that a person is in their default habitual pattern of doing things, and not aware of all their possibilities. I guess that’s what astrology should do….make us aware of these opportunities and challenges so that we make the best choices.



But still…I remain reluctant. What happens when we see multiple aspects that are challenging all at the same time? Like what I am facing in the next few years…I wonder if it plants a seed of anxiety? But maybe that’s not bad? I get to sense my mortality, so my decisions might be better. The Buddhists seem to think that meditating upon impermanence is a good idea. I’m not sure…. I think I'm going to go to my studio and paint--get out of my head for awhile, and then maybe send Kendra some of these ponderings....

Letter #9: Astro-Jargon and the Language of the Heart

Dear Kendra~

Last night I was sitting at dinner between two astrologers who were talking voraciously about their techniques--the rightness of the Placidus or Koch house systems, their views on declinations, mid-points, and orbs, and the disparity between Vedic and Western astrology. I found myself in a strangely quiet mood. They seemed like two jewelers exclaiming the beauty of their gems, the profundity of their skills—and their suspicious interplay left me hungry. I listened to their astro-jargon, thinking all the while that they were like bees gathering no nectar. By the time we got to the dessert, I finally found space in the conversation—and was aggravated enough to offer a different opinion.



" We need to know how to translate astro-jargon into plain English--we need to go deeper than this, and find profound useful insights for our clients!"  I challenged them-- "We need to understand the basics better--because what we need to know is there--but only if we go deep enough! For example, I asked them what they would say to seeing Neptune squaring Mars in a chart and how they would explain that without insulting a client. Well, they said, rather shyly, it would depend....and indeed it would. It would depend on how the rest of the chart looked. This aspect can be weak willed and prone towards sleazy or victim-type behavior or a mark of a highly spiritual person who backs up their actions with deep considerations. Hm....the word "considerations" literally means "with pondering of the stars" or seeing the larger picture.


 And so I mentioned the simple “rule of three” where one looks to see if a psychological pattern is repeated three times in order to gage its importance. And finally I asked them if they knew that the Nodes have a way of pulling the whole chart together—they didn’t know that. The South Node is the underlying magnet of the client's karmic inheritance, and the North Node is its "homeopathic remedy." It is a person's North Star. I guess by the time we finished our cappucino's I was talking more than them.....ah....hope it wasn't eot, but I do fear that astrologers get lost in the confusion of techniques...and paradoxes. We need to go to the basics--and then go deeper into them.



Perhaps I was not in a mood for astro-jargon because I was thinking about how to reply to your heartfelt letter. There wasn’t going to be any quick astrological answers or astro-jargon that would make it better—other than the reflection you gave about the Moon and Pluto, and your feeling that the resonance between what happened and the astrological symbolism made you feel that you were part of a whole, and you had been through a sacred wounding known to many women. It was a wise letter.



So just now, instead of talking Saturn Returns and astrological aspects, I’d rather share with you these feelings that came up as I was having my morning coffee—this is what I wrote in my journal:



“When someone deeply listens to you, the fist-muscle of the heart relaxes and opens, in sweet surprise. When someone deeply listens to you, you begin to breathe. The heart extends itself like a child’s up-reaching hand and is held. It’s as if a cup that was half-empty now fills with waters of unexpected grace, and the touch of their eyes on your Soul opens the floodgates to healing tears. When someone holds you in their heart, listening deeply with words both said and unsaid, the heart rejoices… and you come to know yourself for the first time as worthy, whole and holy. In this sacred moment of time, there is love.”

I hope I have listened to you this way. I hold you in my heart….and this is what I send to you this morning, Kendra~

Isabelle

8th Letter: Miscarriage, Abortion, Mother Problems: Pluto Aspects to Moon

Dear Isabelle~

I lost the baby last night. The bleeding started slowly yesterday morning, and—since you know I wasn’t far along in this pregnancy—I thought it might just stop. Well it didn’t, and close to midnight I was in pain and going out of my mind—like the worst case of PMS and cramps—and then a final letting go…it all came out of me.

The good news is that I didn’t have to make a decision whether to keep the baby or have an abortion. I hadn’t decided—I couldn’t seem to….instead I just kept talking to this little Soul who was choosing to come through me and asking it if this was the right time, and explaining the situation, and then I’d begin crying and raging at this baby's father for everything—blaming and shaming myself as well as him. Well, I guess this little Soul decided to wait for another opportunity to come through me, or else….who knows? A mystery….



This morning I was looking at it all with astrological eyes. I saw the Moon was aspecting Pluto and I looked it up in my books—and sure enough, Moon coupled with Pluto in hard aspect can signify miscarriage, abortion, and all kinds of “mother” problems. Pluto reflects change we can’t control, only surrender to, and it often transforms a situation through a death—either literal or symbolic. I know you always tell me that most of these “deaths” are metaphorical and that Pluto comes in strong, but leaves like a glowing phoenix. But it all takes so much time. Ah…and the Moon—how synchronistic and symbolic it was—the Moon signifying mother, moods, the feminine, the womb, and all things lunar—including feeling like a lunatic!



Now, I’m trying to accept these Pluto endings—my relationship, the pregnancy, and the void I feel…..trying to trust that the process that my life is unfolding as it’s meant to—that's what I think astrology gives us. We are tuned into a larger symbolic process, and somehow seeing that makes me feel that I can believe there is a God—a Higher Power, or some pattern of Sacred Mystery that we are deeply interconnected with.



So, seeing the astrological symbolism of Pluto and Moon, and knowing that I’m in my Saturn Return as well,  makes me feel as if these changes are normal, though hard (!) and the only response I can think of is acceptance. Very sobering, but somehow I feel spiritually connected to a greater story that’s unfolding as it’s meant to….I don’t like it or understand it, but these powerful transits--these life cycles—I’m in awe of these patterns that are moving in the heavens and somehow inside me as well… somehow knowing I’m in this connection to a larger story there is peace. Do you know what I mean? I hope when I meet “Mr Right” someday, that this little Soul who tried to come through me, will choose to come through me again. Who knows?

Pluto plus Moon=tears, and remembrance of things past, especially with my mother. I think I cried for her too... Ooh…! Strange how I just remembered that today is actually the day she died, five years ago... today. I'm grateful to have you in my life now.

New Phoenix-like beginnings? I guess….but first I need to go inside and grieve….

Love,

Kendra