PLANETARY FORCES AS SEXUAL REALITIES

ANTERO ALLI

PLANETARY FORCES AS SEXUAL REALITIES

By Antero Alli 1998, 2002

the circle

Cover Illustration Holger Lippmann http://www.flickr.com/photos/lumicon/

PLANETARY FORCES AS SEXUAL REALITIES

ANTERO ALLI

PART ONE: SUN, MOON, VENUS, AND MARS By Antero Alli 1998, 2002 It seems odd to me how astrology in general and astrologers alike shy away from addressing sexually related issues. Why is this? I think that it stems in part from culturally conditioned misrepresentations about the human sexual experience. This confusion is understandable when you study the way our language attempts to articulate sexual realities. For example, our so-called sexual labels--heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, pansexual, asexual, transsexual--do not refer to sexual realities as much as political ones. They are political insofar as they help to categorize our personal needs for security, status, sociopolitical identity, and a sense of tribal belonging. More essentially, these terms act as political names for various sexual tribes, each claiming their own distinct customs, rituals, fetishes, icons, codes, and overall force of culture--or subculture--as the case may be. A tribe's indigenous sexual rituals make up but one, albeit important, portion of the larger fabric of that tribe's cultural survival and political identity. As most people in America are actively heterosexual, the "hetero tribe" obviously forms the dominator culture around which all other sexual tribes struggle to maintain sovereignty (by demanding partner rights taken for granted by heterosexuals, i.e. marriage, welfare, child rearing, etc.). I think it foolish to assume that astrologers can ascertain gender or sexual preference by chart interpretation alone. However, I do believe that astrology can be used to articulate sexual realities regardless of gender, sexual tribe, or orientation, especially if astrologers can bypass the old-world assignment of heavenly bodies to gender, i.e. Mars = masculine or Venus = feminine. With a little common sense, I think astrologers can crack the sexual code of a chart with straight talk and specific information. Towards this end, I suggest that all the planets, including the Sun and the Moon, represent various degrees of sexual complexity reflecting the larger mystery and diversity of human sexual response. Part one of this essay will address the more psychological implications symbolized by the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars; part two will address the more social and transpersonal sexual realities symbolized by Jupiter, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.

THE SOLAR SEX OF DANCING STARS Solar sex ignites the being. What is "the being"? It is not your understanding of being but its very existence. For the being, to exist is enough; to be is enough. How can one know this being? By the radiance of life-force emanating from you, when you are affirmed for who you are. When the state of your very existence is confirmed then, astrologically speaking, your Sun sign has been

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turned on. Solar sex rarely leaves you feeling insignificant, diminished, or small; solar sex increases your sense of selfhood. Like the Sun itself, when your being is turned on, you transmit warmth and light to those confirming your reality. Astrologically, this can happen when certain forces (like the Moon, Venus, Jupiter, or Neptune) in your lover's chart conjunct your natal Sun or when your Sun is under the influence of a self-affirming transit during a given relationship. Sun sex--no matter what tribe or orientation--leaves you feeling in your element, feeling more of yourself. Brought to its extremes, Sun sex can excite sexual generosity and performance for others. Taken to the hilt, you have the uninhibited thrills of outright sexual exhibitionism. In more conservative relationship structures--regardless of gender or orientation--one person often plays out the Sun to the other's Moon; the lunar person's life tends to revolve more around the more predominantly solar partner. Some lovers prefer the lunar function, just as others need to be the only star in the house. Yet, everybody is a star--at least, in potential. And to become a star is to self-realize. Solar sex nurtures the process of self-realization by affirming your most stellar qualities. The courtship of two self-realizing individuals, or stars--whose romance revolves around a third mutual point of gravity (like joint employment or a shared creative project)--initiates a kind of "stellar polarity"; two stars dancing out a dynamic rapport from the level of their being. These interstellar relationships demand more consciousness (more light and heat) from both parties to rise above the socially-approved, traditional solar/lunar ideals and moralities of romantic love, marriage and domestication. Any "marriage" of stellar polarities is rare and difficult to maintain, especially amid the mores of our dominator-culture. Yet, more and more self-realizing stars are finding each other and refusing to settle for old-world, conventionally defined marriages. Stellar polarities have their problems, too. The multiple and tempestuous marriages between Richard Burton (a Scorpio Sun) and Elizabeth Taylor (a Pisces Sun) show how two dancing stars generated torrents of heat, light, and grand passion alongside equally splendorous explosions of chaos and destruction. The dark side of Sun love is called selfish sex: the "me first" ego-based sexuality of self-centered hedonism. In groups, this manifests as the unbridled personality worship behind cult figures. Whether it's self-worship or worship from another or from a mass of others, this kind of ego inflation (or overemphasis of the individual Sun sign) inevitably collapses under the weight of its own hubris, arrogance, delusions, and paranoia. Hundreds of cult leaders, from Jim Jones to David Koresh, have built empires on their egos in part, I believe, as an attempt to contain the powerful devotional force evoked from their followers. Many of these cult leaders also demand from their followers multiple sex partners to maintain cult cohesion and to support the leader's immortality, or genetic survival, through procreation. For centuries, traditional religious gurus have attached themselves to colonies of sunyassins, or disciples, to circulate the dense accumulations of love, attention, and power accrued through their exalted positions.

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VOODOO LOVE: OF BONDAGE AND BONDING In those sexual encounters where you are left feeling attached, most likely the Moon has been turned on. Not all sex is emotional but when the Moon is involved, consider yourself attached. Emotions don't always wait for your approval or comprehension to make their move. Emotional sex comes with emotional attachment, whether you want it or not. Emotional sex seems to fulfill an important and often times unknown and unmet infantile need for security and/or trust. Emotions have lives of their own and represent a powerful animistic force not always subject to the rules of intellect or moral judgment. Emotions dwell within your body until excited by another body showing profound receptivity to yours. Once excited, emotions can move to make a home in someone else and become part of their astral make up, if you will. Emotions love making a home wherever they are most comfortably accepted on their own terms. If this sounds like voodoo love, that's because emotional sex is sometimes like that. It puts you on pins and needles. If you're physically absent from somebody that your emotions have made a home in, you may find yourself irrationally longing for them when what you may actually be missing are your own displaced emotions. Emotional sex can act out a subconscious attempt to establish an emotional bond with someone, regardless of one's romantic ideals or images regarding the "perfect partner" or "dream lover." Emotional sex can be the animal body's desperate attempt to establish meaningful connection with someone else to cope with the pressures of an otherwise meaningless life; you may not want the attachment but you may need it. With emotional sex, you may notice an instant yet unexplainable familiarity with the other; strange and familiar. "How can I know this person so well after only one night?" If certain familial feelings accompany a small internal voice that tells you "This person could be my wife" or "my husband" or, for that matter, "my brother" or "my mother" perhaps deeper karmic implications are at work. Sometimes emotional, or lunar sex, engages types of taboo-ridden incestual lust and sadomasochistic bondage rituals. Being tied up and physically immobilized can produce a profound sense of internal security to those whose early infantile security needs were never met, if these rituals are performed in a climate of complete mutual trust. Lunar sex can also create a kind of familial romance with someone who acts on you like an emotional mother or father or big brother or little sister figure. Incestual love, not to be confused with literal incest, can trigger feelings of annoyance, animosity, sibling rivalry, and tug-of-war power struggles. Incestual relations can make lunatics of us if they damage our sense of dignity and self-respect and when important personal boundaries are traded down for loss of self in the other. Note those married couples who actually begin looking like each other over the years; some of these couples love that kind of thing. Others struggle and fight to regain personal territory and self-control in an emotionally oppressive need structure. Power struggles are fairly common to emotional sex. Once exposed for the infantile territorial surges they are, perhaps some sexual maturity can emerge. This however depends on the open admittance of everybody involved. As long as anybody is blaming anybody else, nothing really changes. The need for emotional sex can be symbolized by how your natal lunar placements are influenced by the

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lover's natal nadir and Moon; add to this the conglomeration of other forces, natally and by transit, that come into play. An Eighth House Moon, for example, may need emotional sex to accelerate personal growth. A Cancer Moon may indicate an emotional sex drive based on a deep need for emotional security and bonding. Emotions surface in our most vulnerable states. To stay vulnerable with another, a shared sense of trust becomes essential. Real emotional bonds also emerge without any attempt to create them. Sometimes without warning lovers undergo waking nightmares together--abortion, loss of child, extramarital affairs, domestic violence, divorce, etc.--and grow closer for it. Emotional bonds between soldiers at war show another example of bonding amidst adversity and dangerous circumstances; note the emotional bonds between police officers.

THE AMBISEXUAL VOYEURISM OF HERMES Mercurial sex is symbolic of those encounters that leave you chatty, either by talking to yourself or chewing the ears off lovers who'll listen. Watch for a lot of phone. The tendency towards mental sex is telling you that you may need more communication before you are sexually turned on. For Mercury, communication and intelligence act as aphrodisiacs. To whatever degree Mercury is involved, you're probably talking before sex, during sex, and after sex. Of all the astrological forces, this archetype mythologizes the ambisexual Hermes, who can travel between realms--underworld and overworld-without becoming residential to either. The human Hermes, or puer eternal, can travel between bedrooms without becoming residential to any of them. Some astrologers and mythologists have naively associated Mercury with the bisexuality that "swings both ways." I prefer the term "ambisexual" or "given to sexual ambivalences," if only to respect the real life tribe of bisexuals. Ambivalence is not a bisexual condition but a universal condition common to all people regardless of sexual orientation. Ambivalence is a signal of wavering intent amidst a questionable excitement and suggests a gray zone of a complexity beyond simplistic black-and-white responses or answers. This may be why Mercury and Hermes also symbolize the arts, intelligence, and fickleness. Astrological Mercury can represent ambivalence towards the sexual experience itself, leading to periods of celibacy or allegiance to the tribe of asexuals. Sometimes when Mercury is over-emphasized--as in the Third House or in Gemini or conjuncting the South node or Jupiter or Uranus--it can produce an all talk and no action attitude towards sex. Or more thinking and fantasizing about sex than surrendering to the actual experience. Sometimes excessive talking dissipates sexual heat and chemistry. Too much talking about, or "processing", of interpersonal problems might also be a legitimate symptom of relevant ambivalence; maybe these lovers really don't want sex right now but only think they do. Sometimes the sexual forces between lovers need to go underground to nurture their subconscious processes, to stagnate, die, or resurrect. Sexual energies transform themselves constantly. In these instances, talking can act as a protective measure to inhibit the lovers from having more "dead sex" than is necessary. When there's no sexual heat, it may be a better time to read in bed together or take in a movie. Perhaps, it may be time to cultivate deeper social values of a lasting friendship if only to buy more time for these subconscious sexual transformations to occur. If lovers cannot become friends, maybe it's

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best they parted ways to avoid more damaging dead sex. Astrological Mercury also symbolizes the ability to monitor our actions and the actions of others. From a sexual perspective, Mercury symbolizes sexual voyeurism: the thrill that depends on physical distance and strong visual stimulus. When you are turned on by watching your partner enjoying sex with himself, herself, or with another, you are entertaining serious voyeuristic passions. Hence, heavy Mercury connections between lovers may indicate latent voyeuristic fantasies. Talking about sexual fantasies, writing erotic stories, and engaging in phone sex are three obvious outlets for the voyeuristic forces of ambisexual Mercury. Ambiguous sex requires no commitment beyond the moment to stay turned on and as such, permits greater uncertainty and the ability to follow wherever the excitement goes. In this way, Mercury can symbolize a kind of amoral sexuality unconcerned with right or wrong just so long as the sexual energy keeps moving, changing, and remaining within the field of one's attention or the attention of those watching.

MIRACULOUS VENUSIAN SEX Venus symbolizes what I'll call acts of miraculous sex. When a sexual experience leaves you feeling that you may actually like or love this person on their own merits, it is miraculous. It is miraculous when you think about how many people fall in love with people they don't actually like. Simple as it sounds, miraculous love is rare in a world all charged up with instant gratification and the hype of projected ideals (the anima and the animus tango). Falling in love may have little to do with actually loving the other person. The natal placement of Venus, along with its sign and how it aspects other planets, can indicate something about how we have grown accustomed to being loved and consequently, how we have learned to define love itself. The way of love, or Venus, probably originates in the way we were loved as children and what we had to do and how we had to behave, to be loved. What were you loved for? Look to the natal placement of Venus. My natal 2nd House Venus in Sagittarius was loved for being consistently bighearted about family problems and difficulties; I was loved for my constant understanding. Today I am also loved for the constant understanding I bring to others. As sex blossoms from a ground of shared affinity, certain kinds of Venusian sex can feel like sex between friends. Genuinely friendly sex also feels friendly after the act. When sex lacks love it may prove impossible to become friends with your lover. Lovers can show great passion for each other (the Mars function) yet, without Venus, making love easily turns to the more Martial heat of "fucking or fighting." According to the Venus archetype within us, love is everything. In the face of cruelty, disillusionment, loss, bitterness, cynicism, egotism, arrogance, hatred, fear, greed, envy, jealousy, and the countless other demons of human frustration, only love itself can love how cruel, disillusioned, lost, cynical, egocentric, arrogant, hateful, afraid, greedy, and jealous we have become. Only love can dissolve away all negative emotion with the heartfelt embrace of self-acceptance and compassion. On the earth plane, Venus makes an eloquent symbol for the powers of the vegetable kingdom, which

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include all species of flower, flora, fungus, fruit, vegetable, and vine. As with love, the spirit of vegetation enters the heart of the world as a seed in fertile soil. Weather permitting, this seed sprouts and breaks ground to absorb the Sun's rays. Also like love, these vulnerable seedlings require care and protection to survive. Many more seedlings die long before they blossom and bear fruit. If the seedling receives enough support, it climbs up to the sky. If it is a flower, it blossoms. If it is a tree, perhaps it bears fruit. No matter what form it takes, the spirit of vegetation pervades the land and, like love, offers itself freely to anyone with ears to hear, eyes to see, and the heart to be loved. Venusian sex is sex in the garden, metaphorically and literally.

MARTIAL SEX IS HOT FAST, AND DANGEROUS Mars symbolizes the most visceral forms of sexuality. Martial sex leaves you feeling vitalized in such a way as you feel you have to do something with the energy (differing from the Sun's revitalization of being). The Mars force responds well to physical heat and reacts with excitement. As the Mars force grows stronger within us, it turns combustive and explosive, seeking expression through impulsive and spontaneous sex, hot sex, power sex, angry sex, aggressive sex, combative and rough sex and on into sexual violence and outright rape, which is not sex but the cruelest of tyrannies (which sometimes happen during Pluto or Saturn aspects and transits to natal Mars). The stronger the Mars force grows, the more blind we become to the sexual reality of another unless their Mars force also escalates with ours. In the sexual acceleration of the Mars force, some male homosexuals know more about sexual violence than their heterosexual counterparts. A horrid example can be found in any country's prison system. In researching his book, You Are Going To Prison (Loompanics Press, 1994), Jim Hogshire discovered that twice as many men are raped inside American prison walls each year than women are raped on the outside. The over-accumulation of sheer martial force with nowhere to go often sparks off violent, chaotic sex--sex riots, out of control and imminently dangerous. Sexual heat is a very big criteria for those whose predatory sexuality is defined primarily by the Martial force of aggression. For others, with perhaps a weaker natal Mars, may feel excited to have someone who expresses a stronger Mars force act on them. In this way, the weaker Mars person can (through sexual osmosis with the stronger Mars person), jumpstart their own weaker Mars. A weaker natal Mars may also signify a greater need to be motivated by external sources, just as a stronger natal Mars can show a greater self-motivation. These tendencies are subject to change with the passage of transits over natal Mars by conjunction, square or opposition especially from Saturn, Uranus, Neptune or Pluto. The growth hormone testosterone exists in both men and women, yet the biological truth is that testosterone exists in twice the amount in most men than in women. Researcher June Reinisch of Rutgers University discovered that increased testosterone levels in the body produce immediate aggression. Physiologist Julian Davidson performed a study on males with low sex drives. When given more testosterone, all showed an increase in sexual fantasy and desire leading Davidson to conclude that testosterone is "the biological substrate of desire, at least in men." It may not be scientifically sound but it makes astrological sense that men and women with strong natal Mars placements are subject to

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greater-than-average testosterone production and tend towards higher physical energy states and aggressive, competitive, and confrontive behavior, as well as stronger sex drives in general. When the natal Mars force enters a state of shock through any combination of transpersonal transits (from Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto) testosterone levels may fluctuate wildly and influence the sex drive accordingly. Periods of larger-than-life sexual heat and arousal can often unexpectedly dissipate into utter absence of libido as the martial force undergoes shock and suspension. This, of course, depends on many factors like aspects, placements, and whom you are sleeping with at the time. As the Mars force within you fluctuates, so does the overall drive and passion connected with it. Perhaps more than any other force, the sexuality of Mars acts as the seat of our spirituality insofar as the will to survive depends on a realization of what we are living for. The motivation to stay alive pulsates at the very root of our earthbound existence. Without an active knowledge of what we are living for, we often undergo apathetic phases as living suicides who--whether consciously or not--live in order to die. By periodically reassessing our will to live--by questioning our motives and challenging our current assumptions--we stand a far greater chance of resurrecting the Mars force within us and enflaming our reasons for being here. NOTE: Part Two will explore the sexual realities symbolized by the planetary forces of Jupiter, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto.

Planetary Forces as Sexual Realities Part 2: Jupiter, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune & Pluto 2000 Antero Alli

PART ONE of this essay retranslated the astrological symbols for the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars as a spectrum of human sexual realities. I also suggested that terms such as "heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, pansexual, etc.," were not sexual but political categories insofar as they represent customs, rituals, fetishes and icons of specific sexual tribes, i.e., the bisexual tribe, the pansexual tribe, the asexual tribe, etc. With this next installment, my intent is to disclose a much larger category of human sexuality in which all the previous sub-categories are also included. Here now is Part Two, where the astrological forces of Jupiter, Saturn, Chiron, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are revisioned as increasingly deeper, stranger and more mysterious aspects of our human sexual potential.

Jupiter: Sex Without Guilt or Guilt Without Sex ? Jupiter is a complex symbol for the development of morality and ethics. Yet the terms "morality" and "ethics" are often confused to mean the same thing. To me, a morality is an inherited belief system passed down from ancestral spiritual tradition and the dogmas of all organized religions; the domain of

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churches, synagogues, temples and Sunday schools. Violate any morality that you were taught to believe in and you experience the reflex of guilt Ethics, however, evolves from our most personal responses to tough choices around human quandaries of good and evil, right and wrong. An ethos expresses your personal position by virtue of defining these terms-good and evil, right and wrong-according to your own conscience. When you violate your ethics, you experience self-created guilt. The difference between these two guilts? One is an inherited habit and the other, a self-created warning sign; one is mechanical and the other is creative. Who hasnt felt guilty before, during or after certain sexual experiences? But what kind of guilt was it? Mechanical or creative? Was it the entrained punishment for violating past religious, or parental, dogmas or the personal dread of betraying your own code of living, our conscience? Both kinds of guilt represent a spectrum of the Jupiter force and can be activated whenever natal Jupiter is touched by a planet in your lovers chart. " Mind-Expanding Sex Another form of Jupiter sex involves those high-flying adventures expanding your consciousness beyond belief. This kind of exotic eroticism can be aroused by courting unfamiliar, foreign experience. When there is a strong attraction to someone of a different ethnic, ideological, cultural and/or racial background, Jupiter may be involved. In extreme instances, these foreign affairs can turn into consciousness-expansion experiments disguised as relationships. Though this kind of consciousness expanding intimacy can expand personal awareness, it does not necessarily guarantee any genuine awareness of the other. They can overlook the deeper ethnic, ideological and cultural differences that undermine compatibility. Imagine two people in love who do not speak the same language. Love at first sight can be very romantic, but imagine trying to explain yourself. Lovers with profound ideological differences may also attempt to convert the other to their own cultural or moral values in an attempt to stay together. All these examples could be symbolized by natal Jupiter conjunct Descendant or in the 8th House, Venus in Sagittarius or the 9th House, Gemini Rising, and other transits and aspects involving Jupiter. Sometimes when natal Jupiter is activated, we seek out the non-committal sex of liaisons with the already married or unavailable, sex with emotionally immature (teenagers) and sex with anyone you dont really care about. All these sexual experiences invariably expand your consciousness but only "via negativa," by negative example. Sometimes our conscience seeks out ethically challenging confrontations just to test itself. As our consciousness expands through these tests, it naturally creates more recognition of what we actually can care for. With enough consciousness expansion, conscience. As sex becomes more ethical, the beloved ceases to exist as an extension of oneself. Instead, the beloved is seen in his, or her, own light; what Martin Buber refers to as, "Thou." Ive seen this occur when transiting Jupiter crosses the natal Descendant.

Sexy Saturns Holding Patterns Saturn represents a coherency of psychological factors attempting to consolidate a way to manifest a life in the material world. The "material world," as used here, means all things possessing material properties that exist in time and space and are therefore subject to breaking down. The material world is a mess in this way. Defects abound; flaws surround us. The world is filled with things that go wrong, collapse and otherwise gather inertia and entropy. Saturn symbolizes that psychological muscle for asserting effort, structure and persistence of pressure to hold and to keep things together amidst a world committed to falling apart. When Saturn is a strong force in any relationship, there are obvious holding patterns.

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When someone elses natal Saturn closely aspects your natal Sun, Moon, Mars or Venus, their holding patterns are acting on you in specific ways. Their saturnine pressures may be forging a cohesion in a part of your life thats falling apart at the seams; you may even like it and, maybe, like it a lot. These holding patterns can give you the feeling of being contained by your lover; this can be good or it can be very scary, depending on our needs. Often enough, harder Saturn aspects (squares, oppositions, conjunctions) between lovers can symbolize latent parent-child dynamics. Here gender is not as important as the ongoing exposure of immature, infantile need structures. One lover tends to play out the child aspect of their personality and the other, the adult or parent role. Saturn sex tests the integrity and staying power of any relationship. The lover who plays out the parental role may find him or herself holding the other to more responsibility than that person previously expressed. If one lovers Saturn conjuncts or opposes the others Sun, the Sun persons selfcommitment and selfhood are tested. Sometime this holding pattern can be very exciting and hot, as when natal Mars is involved. Sometimes Saturn can make us feel very secure, especially when the Moon is involved. Other times, these same saturnine holding patterns can manifest as control trips and boundary disputes. With more responsibility, these same power trips can be played out on purpose in the sexual arena of ritual sadomasochism. Saturn as Dominatrix/Master With mutual consent, unconscious power-tripping can be transformed into power sex by the playful dramatization of scenarios involving various postures of trusting dominance and willing submission. Traditional S/M (sadomasochist) sex culture incorporates whips, chains, leathers and other sex toys for ritualized power sex games. And, power sex doesnt exist without a dominatrix or master, and a slave. The masochistic slave and dominatrix, or master, agree on the saturnine game plans. Whether these introduce literal harnesses, chains and handcuffs or vocal commands, the "master" seeks to increase the "slaves" experience of pleasure, pressure, intensified sensation and then, pain, inside a climate of total trust. This threshold of pain is relative to each slave and so the element of trust is paramount for respecting limitations. Though traditional S/M tribal sex culture relies on a vast array of ritual paraphernalia, none of it is necessary for power sex between consenting adults. The key element, is the trust between players and the ritual structure itself, which emerges with open expression of personal needs, fantasies and desires. Some of us have a greater need for being acted on by the saturnine holding pattern of another; others need to be the ones holding that power that acts on the other. As this sexual give-and-take process is openly explored, trust is built alongside a greater sexual self-knowledge and a truer understanding of the beloveds sexual needs. Unfortunately, too many S/M rituals are acted out unconsciously whenever lovers avoid disclosing their actual power needs: to be dominated &/or, to dominate. Domestic violence demonstrates a horrific power sex game gone wrong as a result of communication breakdowns and the frustration of real needs. Unconscious S/M relationships are often doomed to tragic closure by mutual ignorance of power dynamics. Perhaps this kind of ignorance poisoned the roots of O.J. and Nicole Simpsons marriage. Was there an undercurrent of sexual dominance and submission? I think so. Why else would so many Americans sit mesmerized by the media coverage? The violence? Maybe. A hidden, underlying subtext of power sex? More likely. Reverse the Roles, Save the Marriage When Mars, Moon, Sun and Venus are aspecting Saturn in the composite charts between lovers, it can indicate latent "power sex" dynamics in the relationship; latent because Saturn requires time to work itself out. Often enough, the more volatile and passionate relationships require a shared structure to

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continually stabilize itself. The greater the power dynamic, the more creative outlets are required to bypass self-destruction. Without outlets, the incumbent pressures mount. With no place to go, they can only implode and/or explode. As lovers grow more aware of their shared power struggles-by accepting them and structuring creative outlets for their safer expression-they can integrate difficult yet rewarding Saturn karma; perhaps work out at the gym together or take long walks or join a volleyball team or, play many, many sets of tennis. Saturns traditional exaltation in Libra suggests how these holding patters ultimately seek equilibrium (Libra) to restabilize. If either lover over identifies and fixates on one side of the dominant/submissive polarity, balance is lost. Identifying with one side of yourself creates a one-sided self-image and a kind of rigidity of ego. In any given relationship where dominant-submissive patterns prevail, its only a matter of time before roles get fixed and tensions start mounting. The passively identified grow more demure and meek; the dominantly identified, more aggressive and cruel. Sooner or later, these pressures force confrontations, outbursts and explosions. Violence erupts. If this is happening in your love life, perhaps you are ready for a little role reversal. The purpose of role reversal is to balance relationship energies and to create opportunities to see through the others eyes. This doesnt mean the men wear bras and wash dishes but it might. Nor does it mean women wear the pants and take out the garbage but it might. If power-sex lovers cannot agree to walk in each others shoes once in a while, their relationship dynamic remains rigid and unstable. If domestic role reversals dont work, try the bedroom. Let the old master become the new slave; the old slave, the new master. Excitement for role reversals can sometimes restore equilibrium. When lovers share strong Saturn aspects, their sex life and the relationship itself may require a consensual, or mutually agreed upon, structure to continue functioning. This kind of relationship is more like a mutually understood arrangement, than any attempt to realize or fantasize an ideal. This kind of effort requires considerable maturity, if only to get beyond our precious but mechanically conditioned ideals, if only to address the existing real needs of consenting adults. Sexual realities associated with the astrological forces of the Sun on out to and including Saturn represent an ego-based, or self-centered, approach to sexual satisfaction. The ego-personality develops through these stages and explores those sexual experiences furthering its own needs to know and express itself. Transpersonal sex, symbolized by Chiron, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, occurs when you are aroused by electrical, dreamtime and planetary forces expressing greater intentions than personal gratification. Forces are transpersonal when they originate beyond ego and become sexual by using the medium of your sexuality for expressing their intentions.

Transpersonal Sex and Chirotic Reactions The transpersonal forces of astrology begin with the comet Chiron, which orbits between Saturn and Uranus. Chirotic (rhymes with erotic) sex arouses the sleeping serpent of kundalini; the enlivened spinal cord undulating with pulsating electrical charge. The study of chiropractics provides a valuable metaphor to understanding Chiron. Chiropractors manipulate the interactions between spinal/skeletal systems (SATURN) and the various electrical Nervous Systems (URANUS). Chiron mediates between Saturns structural integrity and Uranus white hot electrical power. When lovers are connected chirotically-by transit and/or aspect-they enter a tantric initiation of the third point. When sexual energies between lovers escalate beyond what either lover can contain, that energy either disperses or is redirected to serve a third point of awareness beyond each ego. Chirotic sex releases an enveloping sense of animal

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magnetism, exploding the ego beyond previous self-concepts and beliefs. Transpersonal sex shocks ego past itself for information and new ways of responding to energies greater than itself.

Uranus, Brain Pleasure & Sex Magick What the Chiron sparks, Uranus electrifies. Electric sex hums throughout the subtle medium of our Central Nervous System (CNS), igniting the astral lightbody (aura & chakras). Psychic or electric sex occurs through physical love, but can also happen without touching. When the CNS is energetically on fire, sensuality transmutes into the supersensual brain pleasure of neurological orgasm. As the CNS becomes self-aware, lovers respond to the warm, glowing rushes of neuro-electronic signals racing within, around and between them. This electrical energy is enjoyed in extended moments of telepathy, clairvoyance, synchronicity and psychic abilities previously unimagined. Electric sex can also erupt, as if by accident. In the instance of spontaneous and wildly uninhibited physical sex, signals traverse between the brain and the rest of the body with less resistance and more speed. Electrical energy-more heat and more light-races through the muscles, giving the CNS more freedom of expression. Very Uranus. When lovers desire higher levels of electrical intimacy, what can possibly stop them from turning up the heat and the light? Ego. When either or both lovers need to slow things down, they often start acting out previously neurotic habits of self-preoccupation and the flow slows down. In this way, ego acts as a kind of emergency brake for minimizing pleasure too intense to contain. How much ecstasy can one allow? When our capacity for ecstasy is overwhelmed, its natural and even necessary to fixate on something as familiar, banal and mundane as our personal problems or to project these onto our lover. When lovers rise to the occasion of electric sex with less ego and more intention, they enter the esoteric traditions of sex magick. Occult lodges such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the O.T.O. and their numerous offshoots practice their various ritual technologies for raising kundalini through electrical sex practices. One long-term effect of sex magick is the radical transformation of the CNS. In some sex magick adepts this change is so remarkable that, when compared to the majority of human beings, they seem like alien space beings. Theres probably good reason why these more esoteric magickal ritual disciplines remain esoteric or hidden from mainstream view. I suspect its because sex magick isnt for everybody.

Dreamtime Lovers of Neptune Neptune symbolizes the numinous webwork of individual, collective and planetary dreambodies making up what aboriginal people call dreamtime. Also woven into this ethereal design are glittering strands of glamour, illusion, hallucination, madness, and the human poetic genius of the Collective Imagination and the Music of the Spheres. The Neptune archetype beckons us from realms so far beyond human imagination-so utterly alien and extraterrestrial-that we must stretch our imaginations just to catch fleeting glimpses. Neptune governs our weirdest out-of-body experiences, soul travel and those sexual experiences inducing various forms of astral projection. Neptune also symbolizes the dream lover archetype in its truest and most delusional forms. Neptune transits can also trigger our wildest, most delusional love

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affairs yielding no hope for manifesting any real or lasting intimacy in the material world. Neptune can be very severe and slippery that way, combining our highest hopes and dreams with our most devastating disillusionments. Neptune also governs enlightenment. This is sex between dreambodies; the sexual escapades of our night dreams, as well as daytime sexual fantasies. Dreambody sex can also occur without actually fucking. Lovers under the influence of Neptune can be enchanted by merely holding hands and getting lost in dreamy glances. The potency of the dreambody provides multidimensionality to sexual experience. Neptunian sex undermines ego, or self-image, by dissolving self-created boundaries and subjecting us to indelible impressions of allencompassing unity. Neptune transits to natal Venus, Moon or Mercury can coincide with love affairs that begin and maintain themselves almost entirely by psychic projection via what Jung calls "anima/animus transference." Amidst and "anima attack," a man can become dogmatically convinced he has met "the woman of his dreams" whether or not the actual flesh-and-blood outside woman cares for him at all. He may have met the woman of his dreams, but only as she was projected out of his own psyche and onto the outside woman. These delusions collapse when the real woman fails to live up to the mans unrealistic demands on her to act lie a goddess. In the near future, novel forms of illusory Neptunian sex will become popular as pornography industries incorporate sophisticated virtual reality (VR) immersion software. Consumers will be promised virtual sex "beyond their wildest dreams"; many people will choose corporate-simulations of sex over the real thing. Milder versions of this same scenario are happening right now on online community bulletin boards, CD-ROM interactive sex games and chatroom sexual fantasy role-playing.

Genetic, Plutonic Planetary Sex If Pluto symbolizes an overtone of Mars (Mars as the physical passion of intercourse), then it may represent the invisible processes of conception. Plutonic sex erupts whenever the genetic conduits, or the DNA matrix, between lovers are engaged. In its most literal expression, these lovers are overwhelmed by a strong mutual desire to procreate. Beyond the procreation contracts between lovers, less literal modes of plutonic sex do not reproduce offspring yet contribute significantly to furthering the evolutionary goals of DNA. Under some Pluto transits involving conjunctions and oppositions-especially to the Moon, Venus, Mars, and Sun-powerful transformative sexual encounters can be triggered that have little or nothing to do with falling in love, getting married, having babies or buying furniture. These experiences may also defy the usual categories of "hot, casual sex," "one-night stands," "affairs" and any other concept our mind struggles to pigeonhole the event. Earth Surrender Rites Sometimes, the planet (yes, our planet Earth) arranges for meetings between certain individuals for mysterious purposes: "earth surrender rites". The lovers involved in these mysteries may feel a pull of fate towards each other. Or, a kind of "persona meltdown" where personal pretenses dissolve and leave the lovers in a terribly vulnerable, essence-to-essence fusion experience. Without any apparent choice in the matter, the heat and light of bio-psychic energies rapidly escalate between them. Many images surface to consciousness, as their minds grapple with categories and behaviors to match the immediately confounding reality. No image fits; many explode, as if into thin air.

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Realizing all this, the lovers either run from each other or stay together and surrender to the experience. If they surrender, new information emerges about why they met and what they must do with these intense transformative energies. With continual surrender, the lovers dawn on the solemn revelation that the Earth Herself has arranged their meeting and that the energies evoked are not for personal gratification but for feeding Her. They may still make love, but do so as part of a larger cosmic ceremony involving a third partner, who happens to be planet Earth; a planetary menage-a-trois. Each ceremony differs depending on the personal resistance and excitements, culturally-conditioned programs and intuitive sensibilities of the lovers. For more details on this, please read my book, The Akashic Record Player: A Non-Stop Geomantic Conspiracy. Obsessive Sex: The Dark Side of Pluto The dark side of Plutonic sex is obsessive sex. Sex gone wrong; gone out of control in a destructive way. In and of itself, obsession is not bad or evil; nor is being out of control. Losing control in the name of creation remains one of the highest aims of Art. Obsessions reveals where you are intuitively and directly linked to your greatest sources of energy. Obsessions express where all your energy is wrapped up. When obsessed, you are passionately concentrated into one area that generates significant heat and force. When the consequences of that obsession produce destructive effects, you have lost control in the name of destruction and not creation. Natal Pluto can articulate any given charts point of greatest obsession and where that person goes for their most direct, intuitive connection with life energies. First House Plutos tend to self-obsess as much as Seventh House Plutos other-obsess in their pursuit of direct contact with life force. Sixth House Plutos tend to work-obsess, as Ninth House Plutos develop an obsession around their visions and beliefs. Natal Pluto can reveal clues as to where and how sexual obsession also occurs; I leave that to your imagination. All the sexual experiences conveyed throughout this two-part essay are not limited to natal, transit or synastry astrology. They can happen anytime to anyone without noticeable transits or synastry connections. The spectrum of human sexuality can show astrologically but not always. Your own most direct experience is or should be your final source of authority especially when it comes to sex. The living territory of life itself is where the truth is. Maps, if interpreted accurately, can at most guide you to that territory.

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