The rise of short tempers

By Cal Garrison

This week’s Horoscopes are coming out under the light of a Gemini Moon that will turn Void-of-Course then enter Cancer.

The business of being in quarantine has been a mixed bag for me. I have definitely enjoyed the peace and quiet and the long afternoon naps in the sun, but I noticed that I wasn’t as “Namaste” as I thought I was, when I was out doing errands a couple of days ago. A woman went into a fit of road rage because I pulled out in front of her with about 200 yards to spare. It’s not my style to let things like this get to me, but when she started leaning on her horn I got so pissed off, just to make a point, I slowed down to a crawl, took a quick look in the rear-view mirror, and when she got close enough to see me, I flipped her the bird. There you go: a month’s worth of meditation and self-reflection went right up in smoke. It might have had something to do with the fact that transiting Mars, the planet that among other things, governs anger, happened to be opposing my natal Pluto (Mars on steroids), and the asteroid Toro (macho displays, aggression) in the Third House (traffic).

Prior to this I noticed that I was experiencing waves of deep sadness, the kind of stuff that keeps you awake at night, ruminating on what’s left of the past. This grief followed me around during the day, too. I had a hard time working I felt so sad. I kept thinking it had something to do with being cooped up for too long, until I realized I couldn’t blame these feelings on the quarantine; they were too intense.

Whenever things get like this I get out my horoscope to see if the stars can shed any light on what’s going on. Looking at my transits, I saw that Orpheus, the asteroid of grief and sadness, was sitting right on top of my Aries Moon. At the most mundane level of interpretation, the Moon is our feelings. With Orpheus perched on my feeling center, is it any wonder that I felt sad? When I progressed my horoscope, I cracked up laughing, because my progressed Scorpio Moon had been all over my progressed Orpheus for over a month. This was an unusual double whammy that explained why I had been feeling so damned depressed. It took three days for Orpheus to drift over my Moon and the grief that had been so overwhelming, blew away right along with it.

This is why I say to people: “Whatever’s going on right in front of your nose will be reflected in the horoscope every time, because the ‘As Above, So Below’ axiom always applies.” To show you what I am getting at, let me use an example from one of the charts that I looked at last week. This one belongs to a young woman who is smack in the middle of a huge turnaround. Her request for a session was preceded by the following message:

“Lately I feel so heavy and lost. I either don’t sleep well, or I sleep far too much. I feel a shift that isn’t scary but leaves me feeling overly exposed. I’m a full-time caregiver at work and at home. I’m overwhelmed and have pangs of heavy guilt often. I love that people want to talk to me and I feel comfortable doing so. I also hate it at times because I don’t have the answers nor do I know how to help them. I am so consumed in my pool of life issues it’s like a weight pushing me deeper in the water. I notice that I’ve become angrier, and short-tempered with my family, I dislike that most as I feel icky when I’m that way. I’m scared to make the wrong move on the chessboard of life that involves more than just my own. I feel a knocking at the door. I can sense and feel that. As badly as I wish to open it, fear stops my hands at the knob. I feel like the new me and the old me are colliding and I don’t know who to trust. Things, moments, words spark me and I know they’re right but I don’t know what they mean, or are meant for. I’m looking for some guidance, outside of conversations with friends/family, outside of journaling and chewing this same old cud by myself in a field alone. I reach out to you for help. Since reading your pages this last year I feel at home in a way that I don’t other places.”

Looking at her charts, the first thing I notice is that she was born with a Moon/Siwa conjunction. This means a lot of things. Its primary meaning involves the idea that in regularly timed cycles she will have the rug pulled out from under the fabric of her life. For X number of years she will go along living in a reality structure that provides her with a sense of safety and security, until boom, all of a sudden, everything it represents will start to crumble. In those moments when things fall apart, she will undergo feelings of being lost, disoriented, and confused. At the moment, transiting Pluto sits at the midpoint of her natal Neptune, and her Siwa/Moon conjunction. Under this influence it should be considered perfectly normal for her to be experiencing, “A shift that isn’t scary but leaves me feeling overly exposed.” If she wasn’t feeling totally at odds with herself, she would be missing the point!!! Right now her awareness of her meltdown is a clear sign that she is right on the ball!!

What also sticks out is the fact that she has an Aquarius Moon. People who are born under this influence are not from this planet. Their souls come from a much higher level of consciousness. Because of this, Aquarius Moon people have a real hard time adjusting to the baseness, or the coarseness, and the superficiality that permeates the 3rd dimension. They have no idea how to adjust, or fit in when the “vibe” is this low. It takes them a long time to figure out how to bring who they really are into manifestation. She is basically a stranger in a strange land who needs to find a way to be OK with that.

Sometimes Aquarius Moon types go to great lengths to try to be like everyone else. In this case, with her Scorpio Sun at the midpoint between Venus, (The “let me see how cooperative I can be” planet), and Hebe (The cosmic “waitress” or co-dependent) it’s obvious that this gal is totally into being and doing whatever other people expect her to be and do. Hence: “I am a full time caregiver for work and home. I love it that people want to talk to me and am comfortable to do so. I also hate it because I don’t have answers or know how to help…I’ve become angrier, short-tempered with my family…I feel icky when I am that way”. Do you see the connection? She has the people pleaser thing going on, big-time. A secondary aspect between Hebe and Siva tells me that her further growth and spiritual evolution rely heavily upon “the eradication of the need to please.”

At the moment she’s getting angry because it’s time for who she really is to bust through her “nicest woman on the planet” routine and come out from behind the door. When she says, “I feel like the new me and the old me are colliding” it’s a clear sign that she’s 100% in touch with herself. Why do I say this? Because she’s approaching her Uranus opposition, a major transit that happens anywhere between age 38 and 44. This transit forms the back bone for the expression “Life begins at 40.” It turns people’s lives upside down because it’s where they either wake up to their purpose for living, or they fall asleep next to their illusions and turn into a “Muggle.” The fact that she says, “I feel a knocking on the door…as badly as I wish to open it, fear stops my hand at the knob.” Oh baby! Her words indicate that her soul is right on target. Believe me when I tell you, it matters what she does right now. Her free will has to summon up the courage to make changes that will challenge everything she thinks she is.

To add to all of this, transiting Uranus is opposing her natal Sun-Venus conjunction, and transiting Saturn is squaring the same points. She says, “I’m scared to make the wrong move on the chessboard of life” – anyone would feel this way when the most change oriented planet in the solar system is whacking her primary relationships, her values (Venus) and her whole sense of identity (the Sun). The fact that Saturn (the status-quo, the sense of duty, her worst fears, and her sense of guilt) is T-boning the same issues tells me, that she’s giving herself a real hard time at a point in her life where it would be an insult to God if she chose to let anything interfere with whatever it takes to figure out who she really is.

This woman’s chart has way more to it, but maybe this is enough for you to get the picture. She is approaching changes that will alter absolutely everything. Her feelings are symptoms. If she heeds them, they will lead her to unlock her purpose. When I say the “As-Above-So-Below” axiom is always in play, I mean that if you just keep your eyes open, pay attention to the truth of your experience, and let whatever’s going on be whatever it is, instead of making it wrong, or trying to change it, it gives you a chance to be transformed by it. Life is always showing us the way. It’s totally OK to get pissed off. It’s just as OK to feel grief stricken, or lost, or confused, or afraid – as long as you know how to go deep enough inside yourself to transmute those feelings from dark to light, instead of suppressing, wallowing, or getting stuck in them. Let me leave you with that and invite you to take what you can from this week’s ‘scopes.