posted November 07, 2006 04:25 PM              

Who they were, what they were like, what signs they were and how this manifested in their character and behaviour.

What did you learn from them? How are you now because of that?

How strong is your masculinity and how does it show itself? Seems most of the time the ladies discuss these things but rarely do men touch on them.

I am reading a book on Mothers and sons (I have a difficult relationship with mine - a double Cancer) and have never really known my Father other than a few meetings over the years and what I've been told (He's a Virgo and the first cousin of the deceased Shah of Iran - but thats another story entirely).

As I am all Water in the big 3 I have more feminine that masculine energy, though with Aqua Merc and Venus and Gemini Mars and Aries Jupiter this is pretty balanced.

I wonder what other men think of themselves when considering their masculinity sometimes.

Part of me is a sensitive little boy lost in a big world, part is an intuitive and wise warrior, but I guess generally I'm confused.

I have a feeling my Neptune in Sag in the 1st induced self-identity crisis is driving this.....

posted November 07, 2006 04:41 PM              

Your Grandfather sounds great, I wish I had been fortunate enough to have had someone like that around.

It's interesting that you say you are drawn (or draw) towards certain men because of him, but I guess that is universal with the best archetype we know of the opposite sex.

My own archetype for women was Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman, Mum was too chaotic, and this may explain my inability to find the right woman lol!

posted November 07, 2006 04:49 PM            

Swerve I always say this and I make sure that my kids both boys see the very strong and stable side of me. The loving side of me. That supportive side of me. That kick Ass side of me. Do I get tired hell yeah but I keep it together for them. I want them to choose decent stong loving women. I want them to have healthy relationships with all women..I always wanted to see a change in the men in my generation,but I have no control over that, but I have contol over the type of men I raise...

posted November 07, 2006 06:20 PM            

On my mother's side, my grandfather has gotten better with age and I applaud him for that. He used to be a heavy drinker and I think that maybe his wife's death woke him up...I'm not too sure.

posted November 07, 2006 08:21 PM            

A psychiatrist I know keeps trying to get me to read this:
http://www.amazon.com/Identity- Youth-Crisis-Austen-Monograph/dp/0393311449/sr=8-2/qid=1162945379/ref=sr_1_2/104-7052506-0235124?ie=UTF8&s=books

Maybe you can do something with it.

I am a walking identity crisis. Those who know me personally can testify to that effect. I've been called "a changeling" and a "shapeshifter". I could point to a half dozen factors in my natal chart to explain, support, and corroborate this. I was just talking about it with my shrink earlier today. It's ridiculous.

Although there is a lack of security (to say nothing of practicality) in being without a solid ego-form, it does allow a person to remain dynamic, manifold, in dialogue with oneself.

It's frustrating, though, when you want to come to a conclusion, and, instead, you find more and more sides of the story to listen to.

It takes such a long time to find out where we really stand on so many things, and modern life hardly leaves room to begin the process.

So we live half-dead, to survive, and content ourselves with occassional moments of reflection, which only frustrate our appetites all the more with the questions they raise and the ones they fail to answer.

Then, one day (or every few seconds), life circumstances positively FORCE us to take a position on some matter or other, and even if we opt out, we are still taking a position. "What then? What rests?"

In retrospect, we can wonder if we did the right thing.
But there is just no time to do the math.

Our ancestors have been sliding the rule back and forth on all these matters for centuries. The pages of history are full of algebraic equations. Our familiar, daily problems, amassed and reduced into a few noble, warring, root principles.

Nietzsche said we need a re-evaluation of all values. We need priorities. Until we find that one thing which ought to be the center of our lives, we will not know what is second in importance to that thing, or what is third, fourth, etc.

We will live as chaos amidst chaos, desperately juggling inconsequentials, while dropping the proverbial ball.

So, what is your one thing?

What is more important to you than anything?

"BNNNNNNNTTTTT!!!!!!!!!"

Times up.

Did you figure it out?

Be still.
Breathe.
Hum, if you have to.
Sing, if you are a singer.
Dance, if you are a dancer.
Did you find your thing?

love,
HSC

ps. I had no real male role models. None that I considered more than equals. I was often friendly with adults, though. I was often teacher's favorite. I played chess with my math teacher, sophmore year in high school, and hung out in his apartment watching cartoons. I was more or less that way with many of my teachers. But my role models were always larger than life, often dead, celebrities. Kurt Cobain and J.D. Salinger were closer to me than my own blood (I have heard it is common for 9th house Suns to identify with people who are personally unknown to them). Both were (is Salinger dead yet?) bitter men, fatally wounded idealists, and classically tortured artists, who felt persecuted by their contemporaries. One was a bi-polar heroin addict who committed suicide with a shotgun, the other shut himself away from the world and refused to share any more of his sensitive musings with an ungrateful and unsympathetic public.

Cobain's chart is incredible.
The conjunction of Pluto and Uranus to the Ascendant,
oppositioning 4 planets involved in a grand water trine w/ jupiter and neptune!
The moon angular in Cancer,
practically unaspected (lonely).
And the trine from mars in scorpio
to sun in pisces is EXACT, to the minute!,
and almost to the second!! http://www.khaldea.com/charts/images/kurtcobain.gif

Salinger's birth time is not known,
but his Sun was conjunct the
Moon in Capricorn,
with apparently both planets
oppositioning Pluto and Jupiter.
It looks like the Sun is exactly inconjunct Neptune. http://www.astrotheme.fr/en/portraits/pAz3Sq9HJrCW.htm

Finding myself, while tripping in the vast shadows of these two (and many, many others like them), has not been an easy process.

I identify with so many contradictory character types. I am child, I am matron, I am turtle - anything my (inner or outer) eye comes upon is sure to find its reflection in my sense of being. I move in and out of them by instinct (but not at will); each one inviting, by provocation and antagonization, the fateful approach of the next.

Like characters revolving across a stage,
my life, my self, unfolds.

posted November 07, 2006 09:07 PM              

He gave me a home and stability when my parents couldn't and that alone changed the direction my life could have taken. It would not have been pretty-trust me.

Geez, you got me all verklempt,now. Papa's been gone for many years now but I can still see is face and hear his voice when I close my eyes. He was truly one of the good ones.

Oh, Aquarius sun, Taurus moon.

posted November 08, 2006 08:01 AM              

What has inspired this thread is this book http://www.amazon.com/Mo thers-Sons-Lovers-Relationship-Affects/dp/0877739455/sr=8-1/qid=1162991089/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/002-0425836-4693613?ie=UTF8&s=books

Now what he says, and says very very well I have to add, is that a boy is dancing in his Mother's "mirror". She holds this up so he can perform for her and be her "little man".

He goes on to say how many Mothers don't understand the power they possess and likewise the figure of the King to the Prince is usually absent, either in spirit or physically, as the Queen wants that connection to be hers with the Prince for lots of complicated reasons.

He teaches how in older cultures there were rites of passage for young men with other men and this helped them develop a healthy masculine identity, while respecting and acknowledging the feminine side of themselves and others.

This would mean less frustration and anger and a much healthier relationship with women, rather than perhaps having to resent women to grant himself space from them.

There is much more to it than that of course, but the final word is that a man should dance in his own mirror.

I have to add that the book DOES NOT bash mothers and women, quite the opposite. The aim to is to raise men who are confident in themselves and their relationships to the fairer sex. Rather than say a woman having to train a man after she marries him, as the mother may not have done such a bang up job. Problem is, then you are more a mother than a wife.

The missing figure in all of this is usually the Father as men have become marginalised in intimate family connections and most married men know better than to try to win an argument with the wife......or so I hear all the time.

Plus a lot of men are just losers anyway, sometimes with reason, sometimes not.

I do honesty believe that real masculinity is absent in today's society on the whole - with men either being "jerks" or "nice guys" and not quite getting that balance right.

But it may just be that women have played as large a part in that as men, maybe more....

All interesting to me and very relevant as I am discovering the man inside right now.

Astrology is where I started with this self-analysis as a kid. I didn't intend this thread to be about me though, more the wider issues that I have mentioned here.

Thoughts anyone?

posted November 08, 2006 10:13 AM              

My father is a Sag sun/Leo or Cancer moon/Mercury in Scorpio (conjunct my moon). His Sag sun almost exactly conjuncts my Sag ascendant. A lot of people in our family have said that we look alike and act the exact same way. He was the funniest guy I know, always making people laugh. He was also a very strong person, and I thought of him as even stronger when he passed away from lung cancer when I was 11.

posted November 08, 2006 10:40 AM            

I'm glad you found my response helpful. That book sounds really interesting. It made me think of R.D. Laing's psychological classic meditation on civilization and the family, "The Poltics of Experience". Laing and Erikson both spoke of the absence of ritual from modern life, and the resulting loss of direction and guidance in personal transitions from one phase of life to the next. Laing emphasized the importance of the family unit as an influence upon the psychological health of individuals. He also took a very different view of neurotic and psychotic experiences than his contemporaries. He saw them as shamanic journeys, with purpose, and, often, with higher resolutions.
http://www.amazon.com/Politics-Experienc e-R-D-Laing/dp/039471475X/sr=8-1/qid=1162995732/ref=sr_1_1/104-7052506-0235124?ie=UTF8&s=books

I was definitely a little performer for my mother, growing up. I never felt loved by her (Cappy Ascendant Square Pluto, 1st house Moon in Aquarius square Chiron, Retrograde Venus in Scorpio conjunct uranus and opposition Chiron....). She is generally very cold (although she cries easily at movies and popular novels), and fearful. Many people, I find, are brimming over with fear (especially in New England), and that accounts for a great many problems we have with them, and they have with themselves. My mom has Sun in Virgo (4th house), Moon in Leo (3rd house) conjunct Pluto and square Mars, a Gemini Ascendant conjunct Uranus, Venus square Mars and semi-square Sun, and Saturn on the IC. She has criticised everything I have ever presented to her in the hope of winning her admiration, esteem, and love. As a child, I would eagerly hand her my poems and short stories, and they would come back defaced in red ink. She thought she was helping me. Instead, I almost stopped writing or wanting to write. When she was proud of me, that was almost as upsetting. I was into acting when i was young; I went to a famous acting camp, took classes in the city at a renouned school, appeared in productions, etc. Oddly, she didnt criticize these efforts, but, rather, encouraged them in such a way that made them distasteful to me. But, they formed my identity, in large part. She introduced me as her sensitive, artistic son. Growing up, I often overheard her speaking about me to other people, and she always seemed to be trying to excuse my eccentricities on account of my artistic sensitivity. I failed in everything "normal", and every failure had to be explained and excused to her friends (and often to strangers) by the fact that I was "very sensitive". I think I stiffled my creativity partly out of spite for someone who could not love me unless I could produce something external to myself for her to show off.

She steam-rolls over my father. He is a good man, dutiful and kind, but insecure and lacking backbone. She criticizes everything he does, all his efforts to please her, offerred up with such childlike enthusiasm and hope. I see his hopes dashed on the daily, and still he looks to her for validation. I have long sensed that they have an unsatisfying sex life, which corresponds to her being somewhat frigid and him being somewhat impotent (not a winning combination in a man and a woman). At least, that is the tone they set outside the bedroom.

My dad is very simple and loves his sports. I never considered him a role model. He is a triple Aquarius, but not very Aquarian. All that fixity, and the first house sun and moon, tend to make him very conventional, simple, and childlike. Perhaps he would not be a bad role model for another type of son, but, for me, he would not do. I also felt pressure to perform artistically for him, and my assumption of an archetypal artist identity was partly a reaction to the fact that I was not into sports, and felt i had to distinguish myself by other means. He wanted a quaterback for a son, but he got a fey philosopher instead (I tend to float between identifying myself as artist, philosopher, healer, and sometimes mystic). Poor guy. Worst of it is that even this fey thinker is proving a threat to his masculinity. Perhaps the fact that I am fey, and still manage to stand up for myself (especially with my mother), is especially threatening to his manhood.

I think the whole Pluto in Libra generation is dealing with these things pretty seriously. The women are asserting traits which are traditionally considered masculine, and the men are beginning to demand the same freedom to assert their more "feminine" traits. It is confusing, especially if you or your partner are holding tightly to traditional expectations.

I found an amazing woman who is extremely sensitive and understanding, but also very strong and far more practical than me in many ways. She loves how I am. She encourages me to be even more vulnerable. To her, adrogyny is one of my most attractive qualities. I provide her with the best of both worlds. She swoons. She feels understood. She is strong enough in herself to not need a typically strong man to lean on. She says I am one of the strongest people she has ever known. She sees things a little differently than most. She has Sun in Aquarius (8th house) trine Pluto and almost exactly trine Neptune, Moon in Libra (perfect trine to mercury in Aquarius), Cancer Ascendant, Saturn in Cancer (1st house), Mars in Cap square Pluto, and a grand water trine between the Cancer Ascendant, Venus in Pisces, and Uranus in Scorpio. Jupiter and MC are also in Pisces.

Former girlfriends (one in particular) did a job on me. I realize, I've let insensitive, coarse, even vulgar people convince me, time and again, that I was weak, - that the qualities I possessed are not to be valued, and the qualities to be valued are none I possess. But, I am begining to see the light.

No matter who the people are, every relationship must allow for the natural vicissitudes of life and human nature. Sometimes, the man is feeling strong and the woman isnt, sometimes the woman is feeling strong and the man isnt. Power changes hands in small ways every few minutes, and, in larger ways, every few weeks, months, or years. It is just something to accept. The important thing is to remember that the imbalance reverses itself, and this is a kind of balance in itself. Do not become intoxicated with your power or powerlessness in a relationship. If you are astute to the strengths and weaknesses which you both possess, you will see power change hands frequently, and that is exactly how it should be.

Many healing relationships begin with one or both of the partners playing mother. It is important to remember that this is temporary. If the surrogate "mother" is any good, the other will mature quickly (with a vengence, one might say). If you can avoid becoming entrenched in patterns and expectations, you can be surprised by all the forms your love can take. The best couples are not man and woman (or man and man, or woman and woman). The best couples are soul and soul. That way, you can be friend, lover, brother, sister, mother, father, teacher, student, doctor, patient, child, and anything else you can imagine and feel like being to one another. It is truly miraculous.

HSC

posted November 08, 2006 10:44 AM            

---------

If we are marked to die, we are enow to do our country loss,
And if to live, the fewer men, the greater share of honor.
God's will! I pray thee wish not one man more.
By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost.
It yearns me not if men my garments wear,
Such outward things dwell not in my desires.
But if it be a sin to covet honor,
I am the most offending soul alive.
No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England.
God's peace! I would not lose so great an honor
As one man more, methinks, would share from me
For the best hope I have. Oh, do not wish one more!
Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
That he which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart.
His passport shall be made and crowns for convoy put into his purse.
We would not die in that man's company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.
This day is called the feast of Crispian.
He that outlives this day and comes safe home will stand a-tiptoe
When this day is named and rouse him at the name of Crispian.
Be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition.
He that shall live this day and see old age will yearly
On the vigil, feast his neighbors and say, 'Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.'
Then he will strip his sleeve and show his scars,
And say, 'These wounds I had on Crispin's Day.'
Old men forget, yet all shall be forgot,
But he'll remember with advantages what feats he did that day,
Then shall our names, familiar in his mouth as household words,
Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, Warwick and Talbot,
Salisbury and Gloucester, be in their flowing cups freshly remembered.
This story shall the good man teach his son,
And Crispin, Crispian shall ne'er go by, from this day
To the ending of the world, but we in it shall be remembered—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers
For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother.
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us on Saint Crispin's Day.

posted November 08, 2006 11:51 AM            

quote:

---

the final word is that a man should dance in his own mirror.

---

posted November 08, 2006 01:21 PM              

You had me engaged in that last posting of yours. So, honest and from the heart. And not at all indulgent. And very sincere. I do indeed feel the artist in you. Because the artist can reach inside of themselves, tell of themselves and as a result enlighten others. And basically, that's why you're a true artist. And the thing about your parents relationship. I think it's more common than nought, however I think you, unlike many others, have the ability to SEE the truth of the situation. And that's what I call the EYE of the Artist. The ability to replicate the world in any particular artform so that IT can see ITSELF.

posted November 09, 2006 12:12 PM            

this "one" is for you:

Natural One - folk implosion

I'm the one natural one, make it easy
we can take it inside
where I can love how I like if I want it
whatever keeps me high

yeah, we can take it
good and loose on an endless spree
good because we made it
and when momma's not around
there's no telling what we'll do when we're free

I'm the one natural one, make it easy
we can take it inside
I can have it cause I act like I love it
it's a matter of pride

yeah, we can take it
good excuse for an endless spree
good because we made it
and if the world is falling down,
it may as well crash with me

when I'm numb natural one
(...)
it's the one natural one
(there's no telling what we'll do when we're free)
when I'm numb natural one
(there's no telling what we'll do when we're free)
it's the one natural one
(and you may as well crash with me)
when I'm numb natural one
(there's no telling what we'll do when we're free)
it's the one natural one
(there's no telling what we'll do when we're free)
when I'm numb natural one
(there's no telling what we'll do when we're free)
it's the one natural one
(and you may as well crash with me)

posted November 09, 2006 12:40 PM              

That poem of yours is very complex and deep.
One of those explored in an English class!

But, I get it, it's about rules, values, mores or this existing world, and how binding they can be. How they're watched over and made to exist. However, the hope is the artist, the one working outside of them to change them. And how we naturally work together to do that.

Am I correct?

posted November 09, 2006 01:01 PM            

Basically I've a skin allergy problem, Anyways it was my best friends birthday party on that day and I was having a severe allergy problem, scratching my hands/face the full time, it was embarrasing really but it was a problem. I'd to borrow her shirt since it'd be better for my problem which lessened but was still kind of severe so we had to go for this show on cars or something, and I met a man who was with his daughter, he was sitting next to me, he was quite old, I suppose old enough to by my grandfather but normally I'm kind of accustomed to distance from people who look at me scratching and decide to ignore me but he was just a very positive person and past all that kind of shallowness. He wasn't loud or flamboyant but more of serene, calm and contented. He wasn't a 'wimpy' type of nice guy, no, he had that inner strength which just enabled him to be encouraging and kind, because he'd gone through a lot and still managed to enjoy the little pleasures of life as he said and at such an old age, he loved learning more and more and I think he knew 11/12 languages. He was quite patient and the sort of person who lets you be yourself freely and doesn't judge you. Anyways after meeting him I felt much much better. I didn't know him that well, but I seriously wish I would get to meet him again, but anyways yeah he's definately the sort of guy who'd be my role-model.

posted November 09, 2006 01:48 PM            

My Fathers dad was very loving to my grandmother. He would always do the dishes after dinner, so my grandmother could relax after cooking a nice meal. He would help around the house and yard. He always played with the grandchildren and great grandchildren. I used to spend every summer with them.

My Mothers dad was also very loving to my grandmother. He shows his love to her in different ways then my other grandfather. He buys things for her on top of helping around the house and yard. He didnt play with the grandchildren as much but he loves to give hugs and kisses. We had most of the big holidays at his house, ie Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, and the fourth of July.

I have taken alot from them both and applied it to the way I am. I love to help my wife around the house to include cooking, cleaning, buying her flowers and cards. It is our way of showing love for each other and it is wonderful. I think both of them also had good communication with their wifes. Me and pidaua talk about anything and everything.

I was previously married for quite a while. She didnt appreciate anything I did and took everything for granted. Now that I am married to Pidaua, I know what true love really is and feels like.

posted November 09, 2006 04:29 PM              

Amazing thread! I had both a mom & dad. He was a strong, funny, musically artistic, man who lost faith in dreams. He became a brick-layer, worked hard, and believed he was suppossed to be the MAN/boss of the house - Leo.

It was in the last 13 yars that I got to hear my mom's story. She was much different than I "knew" her to be. She was an Aqua; she died almost two years ago. Life changed her into someone she was not allowed to be. By nature she was fun, adventurous, & playful. I didn't get to see that growing up.

Many things in family dynamics are not as they seem. I struggle to find my own soul. I am more artistic, but in the family I grew up in, it wasn't really allowed to be artistic of different. They (older siblings too) were/are very stoic. I tried to follow the path of my family, but I wasn't able to.

***quote***
But it may just be that women have played as large a part in that as men, maybe more....

In many cultures it is the woman who has to "raise" the children. Now more than ever, with single parent homes, we try to work with, or around, what we were taught.

On another thread in FFA we made fun of how American 1950-60s women had a role that they were to conform to. Many of those ideals are still around.

Swerve,

With a double Cancer mom I can see where she might try to "smother" you. I have 2 adult children. The relationship with my son is way different than with my daughter.

My son has some special needs, so it becomes a real challenge to work with him toward self-sufficiency without him becoming a "mamma's boy". He teaches me a lot as well(they both do). He is the one teaching me how to be more myself. He is a self proclaimed "Nerd" (Gem). If you call him a geek, he will earnestly say thank you. He drug me to see X-men at the theatre; Now I'm hooked! I LET him teach me about his passions in life. I didn't know it was ok to do that.

Men & women, both, have preconcieved ideas about what the role of their gender is suppossed to be. It takes a very open mind to teach a parent, or to be taught by someone society has told us WE are suppossed to teach. It really is confusing for both genders. I know I am confused!

HSC,

Great input! My son's name is Stephen too.

posted November 10, 2006 10:03 PM            

And honestly, I'm fairly androgynous - not too masculine at all, but still not a flaming queen, either. I'm pretty soft-spoken, I don't like sports, more into being social than being active - my big physical activity is dance! Haha, I go to a fine and performing arts high school where I study acting, jazz, and modern dance.

I have 7 planets in Earth or Water signs (Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto), and 3 planets in Fire and Air (Sun, Moon, Mars). On top of that, the majority of the signs on the cusps of the houses in my chart are female. (Virgo-Libra-Scorpio-Sagittarius-Capricorn-Pisces-Pisces-Aries-Taurus-Gemini-Cancer-Virgo).

posted November 15, 2006 01:28 PM            

Shakespeare, le sigh!

I think the poem is about action,
among other things,
and the present cost of future glory.
It is about sacrificing immediate gratification
for the deeper consolation of having done what is right.
Or, else, resting on our laurels,
only to find ourselves ashamed
for having taken the low road
(and not "the road less travelled").
It is about courage, fortitude,
and the spirit of fellowship enjoyed
by those who have not shrunk from life's challenges,
and, so, do not shrink from looking each other in the eye.

Again, thank you.

And thank you, PhoenixFlight.

hsc