Welcome to my Astro Advice Column! If you subscribe to my Astro-Kats or Star Kids Club groups you are able to ask me questions about astrology for this advice column.


Hi!

I have a question about where to locate selfishness, or a selfish nature within my chart, and how to balance being selfish in a healthy way VS selfish behavior in an ugly way, as I tend to have a mean streak. I find that lately in my life I am reaching a turning point of leaving parts of my "self" behind which no longer serve me, and having to embrace new perspectives which come from the "others" around me. I have Scorpio as my Ascendant with Taurus as my Descendant, so I have chalked this up to the Lunar Nodes making their moves in my 1st/7th houses.

In this timeframe, I have been seeing a selfishness within myself that I don't like very much, but am also trying to decipher if it's really selfishness, or there are things I need to stick up for myself to hang onto in a healthy way. Or, if I need to do a 180 with how my life is going, because maybe I am doing everything against what my true nature needs. As a Scorpio Rising, I tend to work in extremes on any spectrum. There are parts of me and what I value/believe that I am trying desperately to defend, but wonder if I don't need those things anymore, if they make me react and defend myself with such a poor attitude/nastiness in my verbal communication. I guess it just sounds like I either don't know myself well enough to stick up for what I need, or I know myself so much (especially my dark parts) that where I am at in life is just all wrong, and I don't want to face the music of making huge adjustments.

I have this mantra I repeat to myself sometimes: I calmly and firmly honor my needs. However, saying a mantra and actually following through is not very easy. I tend to do just the opposite, and get extremely defensive, sharp, and angry to try and honor my needs, when someone (in particular my boyfriend) presents me with an idea, perspective, debate, or information. I grew up feeling the world was against me, not really understanding what actual good healthy love is in relationships, and not being very educated in larger world matters going into adulthood. I am not saying I am unintelligent; I just don't feel "educated" like most others my age come off to be (I am 31). I think for a long time now I have been frozen at a precipice of knowing what I need to do to make healthy mindset/attitude/behavior changes, and actually making the changes in real time. But I have come to think that maybe, I am just a selfish person in an ugly way, and not in the healthy way one would be selfish for themselves.

This makes me feel extremely depressed, especially for my boyfriend, who is the closest living being near me, so he gets the brunt of my razor sharp tongue. A lot of the time, I don't even really mean what I say, it's just a reaction. But sometimes, I think deeply to myself how it hurts me to have to vocalize my thoughts, in fear of them not being accepted or starting a fight, because I would rather avoid social interaction altogether than be constantly challenged at every turn of my existence. In my lowest moments, I wonder why it always has to be ME that has to change. It's in those moments where I want to learn how to better weigh what is something I can sacrifice, and SHOULD sacrifice as a good human being, and what I should not sacrifice as it's something inherently apart of who I am that is something I should not forsake.

But now I think I am beyond wondering if I have too much anger. Now I am wondering if there's a lot of selfishness, greed, or vanity. If it's not any of these things, then just what is my biggest crux I should work with in my chart? I am just not seeing what it is specifically or collectively, that makes me so difficult to be with in relationships. I wonder if I am even remotely capable of social interconnectivity in a close partnership/relationship or in a collective setting. Sometimes a life all by myself sounds better, so I wouldn't hurt so many people. I feel like my big 3 alone () is enough to send people running for the hills.

Please feel free to not post this as an advice column answer if it's too lengthy/in depth. I would much rather have another reading with you as soon as I can afford it. But, if there's a small piece of this large puzzle I have placed in front of you that you can answer on the advice column, I am happy to make an edit to my question, resubmit, and go from there on what you can do for me at this time in a more simple way for you.

Thank you for your consideration!

—Prickly Crybaby Ice Queen


Oh, Prickly Crybaby Ice Queen. I do remember you and I remember you asking this question about Gemini Mars. But I will try to speak to this question in a more general way for this advice column and I have left out some of the more personal details that you provided me for this article. I hope that is okay. You mentioned giving me some free reign on posting this so I decided to take it and to try to give you a little more privacy on the specifics of your placements. I hope this doesn’t misrepresent your question.

In his lecture about essential dignities for the modern age, Sam Reynolds mentioned that exalted Mercury, Virgo Mercury that is, can sometimes be cruel. He talks about how exalted planets can be so busy doing what it is that they do well that they have trouble finding the pace at which to consider other aspects other than productivity.

Cruelty can be a hard word to swallow—an exalted, a planet that has what it takes to be cruel, isn’t cruel because it’s cruel. It’s simply a planet that has learned that it is singularly responsible for defending you. It’s a powerful planet that, when scared, may enact cruelty.

Let’s not even focus on cruelty towards others or relationships first. We’re working with you right now. Let’s focus on the cruelty with which you treat yourself. You used some pretty cruel words to describe yourself—anger, greed, vanity, and selfishness. Is that how you have been talking to yourself?

That hit me, Prickly Crybaby Ice Queen. It hurts me to hear you talk to yourself like this because I’m another living person who knows that doesn’t feel nice.

Anger, greed, vanity, and selfishness—these aren’t bags of grain that we can stockpile and end up with too much of. These things you’ve named are emotional responses. Some of them are also moral judgments which is just another type of moral judgment. We all have emotional responses that can be angry, greedy, vain, or selfish. I know I do though mine are maybe shaped differently than yours. Moral judgments don’t always carry the best advice because many moral judgments don’t often see the entirety of you.

The point is—you’ve chosen some cruel words to use on yourself. What is the concern that motivates this cruelty with self? What might this cruelty trying to protect you from?

What is it like to be you, knowing and feeling this cruelty upon yourself all of the time and, still, being more concerned about exacting it onto other people? Exacting this cruelty of judgment onto yourself for having a defense system at all? What is it like to be you, expecting yourself to be kind to other people, while choosing cruel words for yourself? Does that feel safer? Inflicting cruelty upon yourself?

If so—why?

You mentioned feeling that it is unfair that you must change—that you must sacrifice yourself. What a cruel expectation to expect you to sacrifice yourself! Guess what? You don’t have to do this. Change doesn’t even happen like this. It doesn’t happen through cruel self sacrifice, discipline, or calling yourself the meanest words that you can find to somehow control a Pavlonian response through some cognitive and behavioral trick.

Change only happens through self acceptance.

Your defense systems, that sharp and powerful tongue—they’ve done so much for you haven’t they? It’s kept you alive for many, many years. It’s utterly exhausted doing what it feels it has to do. Feel that tiredness now. That exalted Mercury, in charge of Gemini Mars, it’s feeling overworked. An exalted planet is a tired planet. It needs to know that you understand what it’s trying to do and it needs to know that, as one planet—one archetype—it doesn’t convey the wholeness of your experience. It needs to acknowledge that it’s done it’s job and that it’s appreciated but that there are aspects of you that it just can’t understand. Only you—as yourself—can know your wholeness.

Guess what—you don’t get to leave your defense system behind in order to provoke growth. They grow right alongside you because they’re actually important parts of you.

You should be able to feel defensive. That is important to feeling human.

What could it be like to honor that defensiveness, to honor that tenderness, and to also honor that utter exhaustion? I understand that these are very different pieces with very different needs but, in the end, they all live within you. And you are responsible for acknowledging and guiding them together.

Let your Mercury in Virgo, responsible for Gemini Mars, know that you got this. You know boundary systems that are fast and sharp and precise but you also know how to protect yourself in other ways. Guess what? Virgo Mercury isn’t singularly responsible for defending you. It can’t be. Like all exalted planets, like any star student, it needs to learn how to accept help. It gets help. It is able to receive help. You get to find ways of helping it. It might be a bit resistant to help because exalted planets tend to want to do it all by themselves but it can’t defend you alone. It doesn’t know enough about your wholeness.

It has to. An exalted planet must learn to trust you, this imperfectly shaped alive thing. Exalted planets must also learn to trust imperfection.

So, you’re you. You’re all the parts that you mentioned explicitly. You’re also all of the parts that you didn’t make explicit—that deep compassion and that unrelenting desire to be a good person. You don’t want to hurt other people. I can see that and feel that so clearly through your words. You’d rather isolate than hurt other people. Wow.

That’s something. That’s called empathy.

So, you’re here living as you are right now. Your prickliness is part of your aliveness right now. Your crybaby is part of your aliveness right now. Your ice queen is part of your aliveness right now. These are all parts of the living you, who is changing just by staying alive, right now. Love these pieces of you as yourself if you can find it within you but, if you can’t—don’t even worry about it! In the end, change is just an aspect of life. It’s not about reconditioning but about the inevitability of time passing. We change when we stay alive. Allow cruelty to live in you, know that it kept you alive, and see if it’s possible to trust that cruelty will always change when you stay alive.