psychology

I’ve been wanting to write a post about Pluto in Aquarius for a while now, but have held back because I feel pressure to predict which dark & dismal events will occur since this is what astrologers are supposed to do. But my heart is being pulled in a different direction, possibly infected by Aquarius’s optimistic spirit already.

So I am going to give you 11 reasons why I am excited for Pluto to enter Aquarius this spring. We have really been buried alive by depressing Saturnine energy in recent years, which- combined with Neptune in Pisces- has created a insular culture where people spend their lives picking lint out of navels in the name of self-care then wondering why they are depressed and taking drugs to fix it.

But the age of drugs, nutrition & laziness is over. Aquarius brings a new player into the mix- your mind. We will focus less on what we are putting into the body and more on what our mind and spirit are putting out into the world. If someone is struggling we will consider their thoughts, beliefs, spirit & failure to circulate in the world as likely causes of the problem.

So anyway, here are 11 breaths of fresh air that Aquarius will bring to us. Start developing these qualities now & be ahead of the game this time.

Optimism. Once upon a time we understood how a person’s attitude influenced their overall well-being and those days are back. Depression is no longer a chemical imbalance y’all. It is now the consequence of negative thoughts and beliefs. And what is anxiety? The absence of faith. And both are products of a self-absorbed spirit.

Not only will we recognize the importance of our attitude, we will realize we have the power to transform it and then the sky becomes the limit.
Selflessness. An obsessive focus on the self will come to be considered the cause of many problems. We gain lightness from remembering we are part of a whole. When we care for others as we care for ourselves our hearts open and burdens drop from our shoulders. Joy fills our lives.
Faith. Faith in a higher power gives us wings. It elevates our spirits and once again burdens fall from us.
Mind over matter. The material world may not be as objective as it seems. Rather than our psychological health having a physical basis, perhaps our physical health has a psychological one. We will come to see that what happens in our minds exercises a tremendous influence over all aspects of our life.
Big Picture Thinking. In recent years our gaze kept shrinking inward. Only focus on the present moment! Only focus on the feeling of your breath against the back of your throat! We called this meditation & mindfulness.

But what if we did the opposite and expanded our awareness so that it included the future, all of time, all beings, everywhere, everything?! The goal of Aquarius is to see the largest panoramic view of which a human is capable. Why must we limit ourselves to the present? What if we stretch our mind 10,000 years into the future or view life from the perspective of all eternity? What if we soar above our present feelings and instead feel our oneness with everything that exists? How would this change our perspective and our choices?

Expanse brings exhilaration. The future brings brightness to the present.
Dreaming. As our minds open, we begin to dream. When we have faith in God and faith in the power of our minds we begin to believe in our dreams. When we feel our oneness with others we know that we share a dream and all work together towards it. And we have all of eternity for dreams to come true. With so much spiritual power, time, and friends on our side, our dreams will certainly become realities.
Get out of bed & leave the house. When we were focused on our feelings, home was the place we were safe. But now we are looking for God, striving for the future, seeking exhilaration. None of this can happen in a bathtub. The emotional comfort of curling into a ball will pale next to the feeling of openness and possibility we get from charging out into the world to face the unknown.

(In recent years, people probably would have tried to seek God in a bathtub. However, our concept of God is about to change. He is no longer that cozy feeling in your chest, but a humongous, awe inspiring presence, jaw dropping in scope. We find him through faith and opening to the world, not retreat.)
Fun & Laughter. While these are not goals that Aquarius seeks, they are by-products of the lightened spirit & open heart he brings.
Inspiration. In recent years, people became obsessed with facts, research, experts, education and science. All thoughts needed footnotes in order to count. But with Aquarius ideas can just pop into your head from the blue. We can think thoughts that no one has ever thought before.
Friends, friends & more friends. Friends will be everything. They are the wind beneath our winds. They bring joy to our heart. We will form brotherhoods & lesbian fellowships that span the globe, singing and holding hands. We will bounce out of the house eager to say hi to new and old acquaintances. In past years, friends were outside the self, and therefore a potential threat to our comfort. 99% of humans came to see themselves as introverts.

But from an Aquarian perspective these people are pieces of our spirit and share our same spiritual destiny. We are the original friends who have been together since time began and will be here when time has ended. Friends are part of us. Saying hi to them is saying hi to a little piece of ourselves. We are all one.
Birds, butterflies, balloons, airplanes, angels & everything that flies. Including the sky and God. All these things come more into play. Please forget that this is Pluto entering Aquarius and don’t worry about how scary he can be. Just imagine butterflies flying everywhere, as far as the eye can see in every direction. This is the future.

Although you probably hear the word “projection” being thrown around a lot, if you are like me (or at least the person I was until yesterday) you might not have a clear idea of how psychological projection works.

I vaguely saw projecting as the act of imagining others to have qualities they don’t actually possess. But what I’ve realized is that projecting is more about actively trying to dissociate from a specific part of yourself, which you then try to see in others. But seeing this quality in others is more of a side effect. The heart of projection is trying to detach from a part of yourself.

Another aspect of projection is that you don’t realize you are doing it. And while it is easy to imagine other people doing things unawares, it can come as a shock to realize you have been doing this yourself.

Yesterday, I experienced this shock when I became aware of a projection I have been carrying on throughout my life. I realized I have always tried to divorce myself from being in any way intellectual, educated, or sophisticated. Instead, I would project these traits onto others and feel in awe of their cosmopolitan qualities, despite the fact that they would frequently be people less “cultured” than myself.

This may seem like a strange aspect of oneself to project, since many people view sophistication as a desirable quality. Astrologically, though, it makes sense. There are a few factors in a person’s chart that determine which parts of themselves they desire to offload onto others. For example, the qualities of any planet opposite to Venus at the time of birth, will tend to get projected. I was born with Venus opposite Jupiter, who rules higher education, philosophy, wealth, and the high brow parts of a culture in general. Therefore, I would want to see scholarly, urbane qualities in others, but never in myself.

I grew up wealthy and as a child my identity was the smart, intellectual one, which never made me feel especially cute. Perhaps this is why I dreamed of being an uneducated hayseed from the country. When I first read Rousseau, his glamorization of the Noble Savage went straight to my heart. I wanted so badly to be that natural, lovable person, uncorrupted by human culture. And it seemed to me that poor people were somehow closer to Rousseau’s ideal.

Eventually I began trying (subconsciously) to associate myself with everything the opposite of the wealthy world I knew. My favorite wine had to be Boone’s Farm, Strawberry-Kiwi. I tried to read harlequin novels and listen to cheesiest forms of country music. I attempted to become a secretary, a stripper, a worker at KFC. Some of which are noble jobs, but to the culture I came from, they were shocking and inappropriate choices. Especially secretary.

It was probably this same projection which caused me to move to West Virginia. I remember as a child how Kentucky (where I lived) was generally ranked second to last in everything. This made me proud. But West Virginia was always dead last in education, wealth, etc, which made me jealous. Being in last place made West Virginia pure. Beautiful.

And the more I convinced myself that I was, in fact, a rube, the more I would take pleasure in being wowed by the wealth and sophistication of those around me. If someone spoke a few words of another language, attended an art gallery, or took a plane ride to another country, I would be floored with admiration. Impressed. Delightfully intimidated. Feelings that gave me an almost sexual thrill. It made me feel warm and rosy to be a nothing, looking up in astonishment at someone else. Again, this was happening subconsciously, at the reptile level.

Over time, the projections grew more extreme. At first, it took a person’s trip to Africa to impress me. Eventually, their trip to the Olive Garden would do the trick. There was a point when I came close to being institutionalized for mental retardation, while just a few years earlier I had been getting scholarships to Ivy League schools. So why did I feel such a desperate need to separate myself from the gloss of education and wealth? What was I trying to gain?

I don’t know. Maybe I felt more feminine and lovable as a simpleton. Maybe I felt restricted by my identity as a smart person. One drawback to being tagged intelligent is that you can only keep that label by expressing ideas that other people find intelligent. While for me, the ideas closest to my heart usually fall into realms which society finds fruit loopy, or sometimes just too far our and individualistic to be considered at all.

Maybe I felt confined by growing up wealthy. When your dinner chairs are valuable antiques, you can’t paint purple polka dots on them when the mood strikes. No one glues dinosaur figurines to a brand new Mercedes. It always seemed as though “the poor” had more options for how to express themselves. Of course, now I see things differently. Whimsical life choices are far more appealing when money is all around. When you are really poor, you don’t want to glue dinosaurs to your car.

Or it could be that we project aspects of ourselves as a response to external pressure. Another person convinces us to leave parts of ourselves behind so he can feed off them. After all, my obsession with being lowly made me eager to give away anything of value that I did possess, and to treat those around me like nobles. Maybe there were people encouraging me.

Causes aside, it is easy to see the damage this sort of projection can cause. Of course, people can project their “negative” qualities as well. If, for example, someone has a testy planet like Mars or Pluto opposite Venus, they will tend to see anger, hatred, and manipulation in those around them. Nonetheless, these projections are still damaging to the one doing them, because we can’t project our aggression onto someone else without giving them our power and agency as well.

So, that is all I have to say. My hope is that by sharing my longstanding pattern of projection with the wide and faceless world, it will be harder for me to keep doing it! 🙂