Ask Me Again Once the Scales Shift

10.23.05


Lying in bed, trying to stretch sleeptime out longer than my body intends, I catch a dreamed image of myself sitting down to write to you.

I begin with, 'It's been an extraordinarily different week.' I pause to save the file. I title it 'Tough Week'.

Then I wake up, and panic mildly that I'm now awake. I can no longer hide in the recesses of my slumber, flipping position every time my consciousness dares to return to real alive-and-kicking concerns, hoping to drown out the necessity of eye-opening with another fifteen minutes' snooze. I might as well rise and purport to shine and head to the computer to do my work.

It literally hurts to invite waking life to return. If only my dream had continued long enough for me to author this entire entry, then I could just get up and copy everything already written in my head onto the computer screen without much thought, and get on with my day. I could eat and drink and watch TV and read a magazine and waste my time, all the while rapt in guilt for wasting time instead of doing my work, so I can wake up tomorrow and feel the same as I feel today, hurting. Hmm.

I've been wanting to write to you for days now, but I haven't been able to maintain an even enough keel to complete a thought, and God forbid I should allow myself creative license to voice incomplete thoughts on my own website. My responsibility is to you, my dear readers… not myself. Right? Only sometimes I resist this responsibility, or any responsibility at all. I want only to indulge me. That doesn't feel any better, though. Creative fulfillment comes from doing work, meeting responsibility—sharing of myself for you, in a happy balance of the two.

When I put it that way, it sure reminds me of the archetype of Libra, the sign of our most recent solar eclipse, which is still weighing weighty in our lives. Contrary to popular wishful-thinking, Libra's scales never really balance—they are in perpetual back-and-forth motion, constantly tinkering in the dance of seeking balance, an idealized state to aim for while knowing it can't ever be attained in our ever-present imperfection.

Sometimes, the backs and forths are subtle, graceful, almost effortless. Other times, they swing so wildly from one extreme to the other, we're liable to lose our bearings and fall right off.

One minute I'm inspired and confident and flowing smoothly through my day, and the next my ego is tired and my body sad and I wonder how I've sustained the fraud of being me for so long. I have work to get done, clients and readers and partners and friends who count on me, as I lavishly wallow in my moody mess and declare how I have no business advising or supporting anyone, since I can't even find my own way out of a cardboard box. Then I do just that—I get out of my own way—and successfully, gallantly even, show up for my duties and fulfill them all, and I'm victorious and valuable and worthwhile once more.

But a tearful moment later, I can't leave the house or bear to be seen. Still, knowing the best path to healing insists I present myself as I am to those who love me, to speak my shame and allow them to state all the comforting truths I'm normally able to tell myself, I leave the house anyway. I collect hugs and helpful counsel. I'm back again.

It's no wonder the vacillations are so severe, when we look at how strongly Mars has resisted the attempts to balance. Mars, geographically closer to Earth than usual, continues the retrograde he began earlier this month. He is strong, slow, stubborn and heavy in Taurus, his longtime home-away-from-home since this past summer and through Feb 06. From here, he isn't the easiest guy to get along with, unless you feed and stroke him.

At the Oct 3 solar eclipse, Mars was almost exactly opposed to Venus, the ruler of eclipse's sign… and has made no particularly pleasant aspects to the other planets since. With Mon Oct 17's lunar eclipse in Mars-ruled Aries, he reasserted his obstinate sway over our emotions, reestablishing 'self-centered' over 'whatever makes you happy'. Though our attentions stray to fresh topics or energies as we try to make progress and move and reconnect, lately Mars always seems to return us to our same-old reality, resituating his boulder-like butt onto his end of the scale… and catapulting whatever's on the other side off its mark, and into a brawl.

This past Sat Oct 22, it was Mercury in Scorpio opposing Mars… pitting deep, difficult, challenging thought against stable, conservative, materially comfortable action. We can visualize transformation by investigating what lurks behind our reactions and complexes, intelligently facing our demons by asking the difficult questions, and learning more. But our hungry, needy bodies don't give a shit. They want what they want… now.

Both sides know their approach is the right one. There is no compromise. Likely results? Forceful words, short tempers, knee-jerk reactions, poor listening skills, defensiveness creeping into innocent affairs, minds being numbed into submission to bodily urges, a need to step away from attempting resolution, more to it than a simple yes or no.

As this aspect has already peaked, I suppose I should have warned you a few days earlier, but, sorry, I was out living this crap, snapping at those who chose not to jaywalk with me, crying about how enough is never enough, carelessly misplacing valuables, beating myself up, then finding the misplaced valuables and, relieved, promising never to do it again… and starting all over. Edgy, I had nothing productive to offer until now, or so I told myself.

Those of us (myself included) with strong chart placements in the fixed signs—Taurus, Leo, Scorpio and Aquarius—have suffered the worst of it, and aren't done yet. The eclipse-wild lunar cycle has one more week in store… and Mars continues to grind against the other planets, making one more unpleasant aspect to Venus (an under-the-surface inconjunct) on Tue Oct 25, just as Venus joins up with unstoppable Pluto.

Go ahead, run for the farthest bounds. It's tougher than you'd think, with bulky rocks jammed in your pockets, weighing you down.

Permit yourself to aim far but walk at a modest pace, taking the time to unburden the load, pebble by pebble. It's still progress, even when it seems to creep along.

Though tempting as it sounds, going back to bed doesn't make it go away.