Post by clementine on Jun 19, 2018 6:56:56 GMT
I love working with hard aspects as a way of honing in on what your creative energy is focused on in this lifetime. These are the problems that keep us up at night, year after year, as we look at them from different angles. All that energy, all that pulling our hair out, it often becomes where we have the most insight and skill and creativity over time. Like, we're here to solve this specific problem in our own unique way, and as we do so we create meaningful lives.
I look for whatever planets have the tightest orb square, opposition, or conjunction to a personal planet. There is such a rich story there, if you look for it.
I'll share first—my tightest hard aspect is Neptune (13°23 Sag) square Mercury (13°56 Virgo).
For the first few decades of my life, Neptune was a real problem—I come from a family with a lot of mental illness, and escapism was definitely my coping mechanism. Drugs, fantasy worlds, codependent relationships, getting obsessed with spiritual movements—every Neptunian shadow side story you can think, I've experienced. In school teachers called me brilliant and failed me anyway because I couldn't come to class regularly or turn in my homework. I made up stories about my life all the time, not expecting them to be believed, and got confused when people did believe them. I had debilitating anxiety attacks that made me drop out of college. Absolute worst were the frequent episodes of sleep paralysis. I couldn't move but could overhear all kinds of conversations in the psychic realms that were painfully irrelevant and boring to me. Like being stuck on a bus listening to strangers talk about people you don't know. But you're paralyzed, and trying to sleep. I've also had chronic health problems for many years that are related to a fried nervous system, which I blame Neptune for at least in part (it opens you up even if you'd be better protected closed off).
Anyway, needing to solve Neptune-Mercury problems motivated me to: get completely sober, go to therapy, go to Codependents Anonymous, read all about neurobiology and trauma, start studying somatics, start studying earth-based spirituality, get trained as a counselor, become a consulting astrologer, study energy healing, learn energetic boundaries, and start channeling the Neptunian needs for escape and fantasy into my daily life in more constructive ways. I write fiction and poetry now, and I allow myself time every morning to space out for an hour and think about my dreams before I get up. Instead of feeling ashamed that I'm always fantasizing, I use the images I generate all the time in my work. And I use my intense sensitivity as a healing tool, now, as it helps me pick up on what my clients need within the first few seconds of meeting them. I'm still no good at being on time, but can do it 90% of the time if I try. I still need a lot of alone time to space out and let my mind wander, but I don't have panic attacks hardly ever anymore. Oh, and I can see auras and have some basic psychic skills. Once I realized these were real experiences, I stopped worrying I was losing my mind. But I don't think it would be wise for me to ever use drugs again! I'm close enough to being in an altered reality on my own.
I'm not saying I'm "done" working on this tight square, but I am really grateful for what I've had to learn in response to it. I have so many skills (can you hear my Virgo Mercury bragging?) now that I wouldn't have felt compelled to develop otherwise (Virgo-Sag connections: all the wild experiences can be useful, I swear! Learn from the chaos! Someday this will all make a good story!).
Anyway, not everyone has a Sag rising so I don't expect all of you to be as open about everything or as long-winded, but I'd love to hear other people's stories about their tightest hard aspects!
I look for whatever planets have the tightest orb square, opposition, or conjunction to a personal planet. There is such a rich story there, if you look for it.
I'll share first—my tightest hard aspect is Neptune (13°23 Sag) square Mercury (13°56 Virgo).
For the first few decades of my life, Neptune was a real problem—I come from a family with a lot of mental illness, and escapism was definitely my coping mechanism. Drugs, fantasy worlds, codependent relationships, getting obsessed with spiritual movements—every Neptunian shadow side story you can think, I've experienced. In school teachers called me brilliant and failed me anyway because I couldn't come to class regularly or turn in my homework. I made up stories about my life all the time, not expecting them to be believed, and got confused when people did believe them. I had debilitating anxiety attacks that made me drop out of college. Absolute worst were the frequent episodes of sleep paralysis. I couldn't move but could overhear all kinds of conversations in the psychic realms that were painfully irrelevant and boring to me. Like being stuck on a bus listening to strangers talk about people you don't know. But you're paralyzed, and trying to sleep. I've also had chronic health problems for many years that are related to a fried nervous system, which I blame Neptune for at least in part (it opens you up even if you'd be better protected closed off).
Anyway, needing to solve Neptune-Mercury problems motivated me to: get completely sober, go to therapy, go to Codependents Anonymous, read all about neurobiology and trauma, start studying somatics, start studying earth-based spirituality, get trained as a counselor, become a consulting astrologer, study energy healing, learn energetic boundaries, and start channeling the Neptunian needs for escape and fantasy into my daily life in more constructive ways. I write fiction and poetry now, and I allow myself time every morning to space out for an hour and think about my dreams before I get up. Instead of feeling ashamed that I'm always fantasizing, I use the images I generate all the time in my work. And I use my intense sensitivity as a healing tool, now, as it helps me pick up on what my clients need within the first few seconds of meeting them. I'm still no good at being on time, but can do it 90% of the time if I try. I still need a lot of alone time to space out and let my mind wander, but I don't have panic attacks hardly ever anymore. Oh, and I can see auras and have some basic psychic skills. Once I realized these were real experiences, I stopped worrying I was losing my mind. But I don't think it would be wise for me to ever use drugs again! I'm close enough to being in an altered reality on my own.
I'm not saying I'm "done" working on this tight square, but I am really grateful for what I've had to learn in response to it. I have so many skills (can you hear my Virgo Mercury bragging?) now that I wouldn't have felt compelled to develop otherwise (Virgo-Sag connections: all the wild experiences can be useful, I swear! Learn from the chaos! Someday this will all make a good story!).
Anyway, not everyone has a Sag rising so I don't expect all of you to be as open about everything or as long-winded, but I'd love to hear other people's stories about their tightest hard aspects!
