Last time, I wrote about a Scorpio with Taurus rising who is facing unusual marital circumstances (congratulations to the future and Mr. and Mrs. Charles Manson!). This time around I would like to talk about an infinitely more pleasant Scorpio with Taurus rising.
(Which reminds me: if you’re getting into astrology and you see a person that has two or three factors in common with someone terrible, don’t let that prejudice you. I am a Sagittarius with Moon in Cancer, and if you ask me about people with that combination I will tell you all about Harpo Marx or Jimi Hendrix or Mos Def. I am much less likely to bring up the example of serial killer Richard Speck. I do seem to share some personality traits with the first three people I mentioned (but none of the musical talent), but I swear there are absolutely no bodies in my fridge. Well, except for that chicken, and it was that way when I found it. Honest!)
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Anyway, the Scorpio with Taurus rising is a client of mine named Amy (okay that’s not really her name, but I’m a firm believer in anonymity). She is experiencing Saturn transiting through her Seventh House. Specifically, transiting Saturn is conjunct her natal Descendant, which is the single most important point in the chart regarding long-term relationships. Even though Saturn will be entering Sagittarius in December, thanks to a retrograde it will be conjunct her descendant until well into next year.
Saturn brings challenges wherever it goes, and Amy’s situation was challenging in the first place. You see, Amy has landed herself in one of the classic dilemmas of the Modern Age. She’s crazy in love with a guy — let’s call him Rory — and he feels the same way about her. They have great communication and get along well. The only problem is that she lives in California and he lives in Scotland. They haven’t actually met yet, although they’ve been talking for a long time. Naturally they want to meet in person. But Saturn is in a bad place for that now, isn’t it? Surely, since all astrologers cower in terror at Saturn transits, the matter is doomed isn’t it?
No. Not at all.
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If you’ve seen Stanley Kubrick’s classic film 2001 A Space Odyssey, you know this scenario: A perfectly ordered environment run by a perfect intelligence decides for perfectly logical reasons, that the human crew has to be killed off for the sake of the mission. The lone surviving astronaut is stranded outside the ship without a helmet for his spacesuit, inside a space pod. The easy decision would probably be to sit out there for a couple of weeks and starve to death. The alternative is for the astronaut to blast himself into space and across to the ship without a helmet on, and hope he make that jump correctly and can grab another helmet and get some air before he dies. Now that’s Saturn forcing your hand.
If you haven’t seen it before, watch this. Even if you have seen it, watch it again because Kubrick is awesome.
Breakups aren’t easy, even with a computer
For both perfectly good logical and dramatic reasons, the astronaut decides to make the jump.
(By the way: you might wonder if someone could actually survive 14 seconds without a helmet in the vacuum of space. It appears that you probably could, although the end result would be pretty painful and damaging. We know this because the US Air Force performed a bunch of experiments on the matter with chimps in the 1960s. Remember that next time you’re complaining about your job: at least you aren’t a chimp working for the US Air Force in the 1960s.)
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Astrologically, if Amy waits for the all-clear signal from Saturn, she’s going to be waiting for nearly a year. Yes, Saturn passing over one’s Descendant is a difficult time to form a long-term relationship. That’s true. But what are you supposed to do, sit around and wait? Is another year really going to make the outcome any better? Nope.
Consider this: this situation is in many ways fraught with potential peril, and even if things work out as perfectly as they could, there will still be difficulty.
-If Amy goes to Scotland and meets Rory in person and everything is absolutely wonderful, there is still the matter of Amy packing up her life and moving to another country. Saturn brings difficulty, and that would certainly be difficult… but still, a happy ending.
-If Amy goes to Scotland and something goes wrong, that’s obviously bad news. That sort of thing can happen: people can bond on the Internet and by long-distance, but it is undeniable that there are things one can only tell from in-person experience in a relationship. For one thing, a relationship has to pass the smell test… literally. Biochemistry cannot be ignored.
-Then there is the most likely outcome of all: suppose Amy and Rory meet and discover they do love each other and want to be together, but discover that they are also in fact human beings with all the flaws that come with that condition? Believe me. In my experience, relationships are most likely to fail because one or both parties are in fact human beings. Such creatures should be approached with extreme caution only.
-Finally, Amy could just sit back and put things off for another year. And how burdensome and terrible would that be?
Thanks a lot, Saturn.
***
Astronaut David Bowman eventually got back on the ship and took control of the situation with some manual adjustments to the computer. He then went on to a far more amazing outcome than any of the scenarios that NASA had predicted.
Now: take a deep breath and jump out of the pod, Amy. You know you want to. It won’t be perfect, but it might just be amazing.
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