Yes, power.

First, our local NPR station featured an interview with two Woodbury University professors: Architecture Department Chair Norman Millar and Architecture [...]]]> In the last 24 hours, without even trying, I came across two news stories that caught me up in the Libra energy now swirling around the ether: ideas of love, beauty, partnership, seduction — and power.

Yes, power.

First, our local NPR station featured an interview with two Woodbury University professors: Architecture Department Chair Norman Millar and Architecture Professor Paulette Singley.

The topic, delectably risque, was Architecture and Seduction.

Now, let’s just be up-front about this: Libra, by no means, corners the market on seduction. There are plenty of other signs — Scorpio, for instance, or Leo — with their own unique brands of come-hither. But Libra is the quintessential sign of relationship and art, so it was intriguing to hear the two topics linked up in discussion, with nary a mention of astrology.

The discussion was a preview of a panel held last night at UCLA’s Hammer Museum, which is running an exhibition on John Lautner’s work, “Between Earth and Heaven,” through October 12th. The pair (of course!) exchanged opinions and insights about how a home could be laid out (pun intended) and accessorized to seduce a lover from front porch to kitchen to hallway to bedroom. It was agreed, for instance, that there was something very, very sexy about an open floor plan, about glass.

This struck me as very Libran: A whole environment designed not to bonk a potential bedmate over the head with garish flirtations but, instead, to evoke an atmosphere that slowly draws the lover into your embrace. Venus in Libra might be a little headier than, for example, sensual Venus in Taurus — perhaps engaging in a lively debate that stirs the passions — but it still knows how to evoke an atmosphere. After all, at its best, Libra, ruled by Venus, wants you to agree to follow her lead through the house. Where’s the fun, the challenge, in dragging you?

I drove home slowly, thoughts of a seductive house twirling about in my brain. I parked the car in the driveway, grabbed the mail from the box and slowly opened the door.

There were model train tracks on the floor, a pile of clean diapers on the easy chair and breakfast dishes still strewn on the kitchen table. The lair of a temptress this was not.

I sighed and forgot about the story. I had an evening packed with power struggles with my preschooler. I went to sleep feeling unsettled and pessimistic. When and how would these power struggles ever end? Would we ever just have fun together again? Why can’t he just do what I say?

I didn’t sleep well.

When I logged onto my e-mail this morning, another unwittingly Libran message awaited me. The same message, really, just from a different perspective. It read, in part:

When parents model the “healthy selfishness” of partnership and don’t resist their children’s narcissism, the children eventually learn that it feels good to care for others.

Today, notice all the ways in which *giving* makes you feel good, and how others feel good when you allow them to give to you. Let the line between giving and receiving dissolve. That’s the magic of partnership! (Source)

Hmmmm, indeed.Perhaps I don’t need to seduce my husband as much as I need to charm my child.

Because between the lines of the Libra impulse to compromise, agree and charm is really a question of power. As one of yesterday’s radio panelists put it, a bachelor pad is a place designed to get someone to give up a certain amount of power, to bend that person to your will, to make them want to go to bed with you.

To make them want. There is power there, no matter how much sugar you pour on it.

We often tell our child that hitting us isn’t a good way to get what he wants. Ditto whining, yelling and stomping. So why would I think anger would work well going the other direction? Last night, and many nights before, I tried to force this child to bend to my will and go to sleep before he’s ready. But Louise Huber’s seed thought for Libra goes like this:

I choose the way which leads between two great lines of force. (Source)

What way leads between the two forces, instead of toppling everyone over to one or the other? How can we move beyond either-or into a space where all boats rise, where a third alternative is viable and good? How can we acknowledge the powerful forces that snarl within each of us, but not enable them to dominate? How can we reframe our goal to be not power-over but power-with?

What would happen if we asked questions like this in public life as well as in our private lives?

Photo credits: bachelor pad, messy house, candidates

For the record, I don’t have a beard in waking life.

I awoke in the full mood of fall and went about the tasks of the morning [...]]]> Last night I dreamt I shaved off my beard — a stylized goatee that came to a perfect point at the bottom, the sides curving around my jaws like little arms.

For the record, I don’t have a beard in waking life.

I awoke in the full mood of fall and went about the tasks of the morning without thinking much about it. But when the boys were gone, NPR was turned off and the dishes had settled in their stacks, the dream came back quietly.

In essence, I think, it was about shedding what had grown: saying goodbye to the old, getting ready for the new. It was an appropriate, if funny, dream for the change of season.

Even though it’s not officially fall yet, the summer cycle is definitely closing: Ask anyone who has school-age children, or arthritis. Last week on our midwest visit, there was talk of sweaters, hayrides and apple presses. Even here in southern California, the air is a little crisper and the traffic much thicker than last week. And Starbucks has mercifully brought back its pumpkin spice latté.

This is the time of year when, in my quieter moments, I tend to remember the ancient myth of Persephone, who picked a flower and was whisked away into the underworld by Hades (Pluto) himself. Persephone’s mother, the earth goddess Demeter, mourned the loss of her child and withheld the harvest from the people until Zeus (Jupiter) brokered a deal: Persephone would stay in the underworld with Hades for one-third of each year and reunite with her mother during the remaining eight months. The separation, disappearance, change in cycles was necessary for the growth of both mother and daughter.

There are more complexities to the story, but its core truth lies in these simple details; and we see that truth reflected, also, in the horoscope chart. Bruno and Louise Huber identified a way to interpret the chart as a “life clock” — starting with birth at the ascendant and spending six years in each house. At a certain point in each house, people tend to turn inward. They feel their active energy thwarted or stilled. They are forced to take stock and turn the season of their life toward the next more active, more outwardly-effective cycle.

This internal period can often be felt as a crisis point — the point where, like Demeter, no matter how hard you try, you simply cannot get what you want. Waiting is necessary, and that can be frustrating. It can even feel like death — like being dragged into the underworld against your will, like being taken away from everything light and abundant and familiar.

But the Demeter story, and the Hubers’ work, and astrology in general remind us, each in their own ways, that life happens in cycles, and thus the underworld period is essential. Shortcuts and bypasses are decidedly not advised.

See: The flower germinates; it blossoms; it dies. The school year begins; it proceeds; it ends. Babies are born; the family coheres; the children grow up and move away. Before the third phase of each cycle, we must catch our breaths, because in truth that third phase is just the preparation for the next cycle: As it dies, the flower must seed the next crop. As the school year ends, the student must make ready for the next. As they grow up and move away, our children prepare to give birth themselves.

I know a lot of people who say they feel nostalgic every year as fall begins. Maybe some of the nostalgia is a longing for eternal summer, but there’s something deeper going on there, too, I think: a wistfulness for the cycle that was, perhaps; an uncomfortable acknowledgment that time always urges us forward; a wish for the familiar footprints we’ve already put down. We know that place behind us. Why can’t we just stay there, or jump forward to the next activity? Why must we power down a bit now?

And yet we know the fall, too. Its familiarity, it smells and its slower tempo are ancient and comforting. Its darker days cloister us indoors, where we are forced to face the internal. We survive the cold, and the dark, and the frightening because we must — and because our fiber is thicker and heartier than we give ourselves credit for in the bright sweat of summer.

Yet it’s often as surprising to remember our own strength, and our own tenacity, and our own depth, as it is to dream of a woman shaving off her pointed goatee to prepare for what’s next.

Go to Meditations for the End of Summer

Photo credits: Bearded lady, life cycles, autumn

She knew, I guess, that such a lesson was due me, my own Virgo Moon highly charged [...]]]> When our child was born — three years ago today — with Virgo Sun, Virgo Moon and Virgo rising, my astrology mentor raised her eyebrows, looked at me pointedly and said, “Now you’ll get a deep, deeeeeeep lesson in Virgo!”

She knew, I guess, that such a lesson was due me, my own Virgo Moon highly charged in the powerful embrace of Pluto and Uranus.

The Dragon, born at home on the cusp of sunrise, came out of my body with his eyes closed. No tears, no screaming, no wild “Where am I?” glances around the room. He passed his Apgar tests with flying colors but remained quiet and kept his eyes closed for hours, as if he were focusing hard on a task. His new surroundings, the sudden dryness of air, the finally unmuffled voices: None of these things seemed to distract him or even spark his interest.

We finally realized that he was, indeed, deeply immersed in a struggle to breathe.

How like this triple-Virgo, to focus first, and deeply, on the proper execution of the body before turning his attention to the more dramatic developments unfolding around him. As our midwife and her apprentice swirled around with life-saving equipment and decision-making; as my two dear friends brought food and talked me through what was happening; as my husband, Alan, and I tried to make sense of the sudden turn of events, the Dragon just kept his eyes closed and breathed, and breathed. Focused.

We saw his eyes once, briefly, in the ambulance, and then not again for another three days — once the worst of his infection had passed and he started weaning from the painkillers.

He came back home just shy of two weeks old.

At first, we were so immersed in parenting an infant, and sneaking sleep whenever we could, that we didn’t much notice the astrological psychology of our baby: It just wasn’t, obviously, the priority. I barely even looked at his chart for the first year of his life.

Then, when he was 14 months old, I wrote this entry on our family blog:

When I put [the Dragon] in the bath last night, he noticed a shampoo bottle in a place it doesn’t normally sit. He pointed at it and yelled, “Aaa!” then looked at me and pointed to the shelf where it usually goes.

“Yes,” I said, smiling, “you’re right. It usually goes up there.” I continued to wash his hair and squirt the rubber duckie at him.

He dodged the rubber duckie, looking a little cross. “Aaa!” he said again, pointing to the shampoo bottle and then to the shelf where it usually belongs.

“Yes,” I agreed. “You’re so smart! It usually does go up there.” I started rinsing the soap out of his hair.

“AAA-AA!” he shouted, pointing to the bottle, then to the shelf. He was really kind of perturbed now.

“Okay,” I said, and moved the shampoo bottle to its normal resting place. “That better?”

He picked up a ball and started splashing, happy again. The rest of the evening was a breeze.

He could use a few words by then, but a month or so later they were coming fast. He knew “Mama,” “Daddy,” “ball,” “doggie” and dozens of other nouns by the New Year. Then one day in early spring, he took the broom from me and started pushing it proudly across the kitchen. As he did, he showed off the use of his first verb:

“I helping!” he said excitedly, looking back to make sure we were watching.

Aaaah, Virgo, I thought.

A few months later, as we returned from a big grocery store trip, Alan and I were busy ferrying bags from the car to the kitchen. We got all the bags in during the time it took our son to carry one loaf of bread inside. When the child returned for more, only to find out there were none to be had, he burst into tears and stood facing the corner of the room.

My heart sank. He was very ashamed about something — but what? I crouched down to him and tried to find out, but he was crying too hard to get the words out. I turned him toward me and held him until the sobbing subsided. Then he said simply, “I didn’t help.”

A couple months later, the same message: He screamed when I strapped him into the grocery cart — not, I finally found out, because he wanted to roam free but, as he put it, “Because then I’m not helping.”

And even later: “Can I help make pancakes?” “Can I help fold clothes?” “Can I help plant carrots?”

And proudly, and often: “I helped! I helped!” Gleefully, even.

It sank in slowly, this lesson in Virgo. The Dragon not only values helping but actually identifies as a helper, deeply. It’s what he feels he has to bring to the world. When he’s doing it, he feels so completely in his element that he glows.

And yet, of course, the downside of Virgo is there in spades, too. The Dragon regularly corrects people’s word usage and pronunciation. He is very hard on himself when he does something “wrong,” by his definition or ours. His bedroom must be in such precise order that it often takes more than an hour to settle him into sleep. (But his definition of “precise order” changes on a daily basis, so we can never guess what’s right from day to day!) Certain clothes are verboten (but, again, we never know which ones) because they’re the wrong color, or the wrong picture, or too tickley today. He is a very picky eater. He must have clean hands.

And then there are the trés Virgo quirks. He cannot abide “breaks” between lines in drawing or writing; every corner and connection must be closed. He seems to have a Rain Man kind of photographic mind. He insists that the driver not start the car before everyone is inside with doors closed. He collects small rocks. He loves feeding fish.

I’m convinced that, without knowing the Dragon’s chart, I would miss the connections between these things. They might simply be funny stories to share, traits to wonder at, irritants to quell. But knowing his chart, I believe, helps me tolerate and celebrate even the things I would normally find annoying (except for the sleep challenges. I don’t think I’ll ever like that).

Mothering the Dragon has made me a fuller person, presented me with my own Virgo-ness in a way that helps me cope with it better, grow into it, embrace it. From that very first look at his silent, focused face, until this morning when we laughed together at how the birthday candles melted into his pancakes, we have all grown deeper into ourselves because of this child.

And so. Happy Birthday to all of us.

I’m working on fleshing the ideas out into a full-length article but I’m itching [...]]]> Yesterday marked the fourth workshop in our Astro-Play series at Yoga Grounds, with Vera on yoga and myself on astrology. Yesterday’s theme was the process of goal-setting and goal-getting, as prismed through the Capricorn archetype, as illustrated through the Grimm Brothers fairy-tale Rapunzel.

I’m working on fleshing the ideas out into a full-length article but I’m itching to share a couple themes that I didn’t get to in the short time allotted. I hope participants will find this an interesting supplement to the workshop (and that others will find it merely interesting).

The recurring symbol I’m most interested in exploring is the use of stone in the Rapunzel story. It is especially intriguing, I think, since Capricorn is an earth sign — signaling practicality, patience, tactility, solidity and determination. These are all traits that can assist in setting and reaching goals. But look at what happens to the image of stone at three key points throughout the story.

Stone Wall: The first appearance of stone comes when the poor miller, father of Rapunzel herself, jumps the stone wall dividing his garden from the witch’s. The wall is meant to be a boundary, a dividing line that signals a limitation, a law, a social custom that demarcates one person’s property from another’s. But the miller steals over the wall at night — breaches the accepted boundary when he believes he won’t be seen — in order to take something that the law says he must not take: radishes that his pregnant wife craves that are growing not in his garden, but in the garden of the witch next door.

The wall is a symbol for limits (when we stonewall something, we put up our hand and say “no,” refusing all arguments and pleas). But it turns out to be an ineffective one. In the context of pursuing goals, the message here is that, faced with a powerful craving or temptation — and lacking the capacity for resistance — we are vulnerable to crossing the line that separates achievement of the goal from lack thereof. Unless we are aware of the temptation, and work consciously to build our own strength against it, we will continually find ways to breach the wall. We will repeatedly keep ourselves separate from our goal.

For example, if our goal is to lose weight, we may breach the wall through excuses like, “Just one cookie won’t hurt” or “She spent so long making dinner — it would be impolite to refuse.” In our workshop, we looked at a cross-section of a stone wall and noted how much it looks like a spine — each vertebra stacked upon the next. When that wall is not strong, we become spineless against our temptations. In fact, the idea of “spinelessness” seemed to echo the miller’s actions not just because he stole the radishes (he apparently never considered knocking on the witch’s door and explaining the situation) but also because, ultimately, he gave into the witch’s demand for the baby Rapunzel as exorbitant payment for his crime.

If you find yourself prone to breaching the boundaries you have set for yourself — whether in pursuit of a goal or for some other purpose — you might consider doing some spine-strengthening yoga. We did some last night, preceded by muscle-testing with various substances. After the yoga, we muscle-tested again and found ourselves much better able to resist things like coffee, sugar and other temptations that tend to thwart our goals.

Stone Tower: The witch indeed takes Rapunzel, on the day she is born, as restitution for her father’s crime. When Rapunzel is 12 years old, the witch locks her in the topmost room of a stone tower without door or stairs. Now the image of stone — of the patience, determination and solidity that were utterly lacking in her father and in the stone wall — has become a tall, imposing structure. Much in contrast to the long, low line of stones along the ground, which was probably crumbling and easy to breach, the tower is imagined as a rigid, impenetrable structure that is impervious to callers who lack the secret words.

The stone tower is so impenetrable, in fact, that it imprisons the girl Rapunzel in a state of innocence (literally, not-knowing) — infantilized and atrophied at a point in life when she should be growing, blossoming and experiencing the pleasures of the world on the ground. This is the polar opposite of the spinelessness of the stone wall. Here, the spine is rigid from the imposition of too much authority, from the totalitarian-style treatment of Rapunzel by the witch. And after a time, certainly, the witch’s demeanor becomes so engraved on Rapunzel’s psyche that the girl begins to believe, herself, that she cannot exist outside the stone walls of a high, impenetrable tower: She internalizes the rigidity imposed upon her from without.

This might not be so terrible if growth or juice or lust for life existed for Rapunzel in the confines of the tower. But the suggestion is one of sameness, boredom and loneliness — a stultifying existence contrary to growth and blossoming. This might look, in modern life, like a person who has stayed too long in the same job “for the sake of the children” or “because Dad always wanted me to take over the family business.” Reluctance to risk other people’s needs or desires can imprison our own passion, enslave us to other people’s ideas of who we should be. Obligation, submission, fear, guilt and shame all live in this place.

If you find yourself pursuing a goal that has lost its juice for you — because of obligation, politeness, habit, whatever — your yoga might be one of flexibility. Like the ability to stand up for yourself and adhere to important limits, flexibility is also centered on the spine. Think about the obligations, assumptions and habits that have built up around your goal. Do some work on building flexibility in both your mind and your body, and see what kind of twists and turns the “can’ts” and “shoulds” in your life end up taking.

Stone Well: The prince begins visiting Rapunzel each night, and the two hatch a plan to get her out of the tower. But the girl lets it slip that she has a lover and, furious, the witch cuts off Rapunzel’s famous hair and throws her — pregnant with twins — out of the tower to wander in the desert. That night, the prince comes and, when he sees the witch in Rapunzel’s room, falls off the tower, blinding himself on the thorns below. He, too, wanders the desert for many years. And then one day, he hears Rapunzel singing as she draws water from a well.

While the tower represents rigidity, and the wall represents spinelessness, the stone well represents practical, purposeful and effective limits. The well is both a signal that something unseen is close by — that the goal is within reach — and a structure to protect that thing while also allowing access to it: neither totally confining like the tower nor totally open like the wall. Even imagistically, a well is halfway between a wall and a tower: a low wall, really, in the circular shape of a tower, which can be entered from above but that descends far below the earth to welcome water into its deep, narrow bowl.

In astrology and other symbol systems, water represents, among other things, the feeling function. Drawn from deep within the earth, the suggestion is one of unconscious feeling being brought up into consciousness. Capricorn, like Rapunzel in the desert, must survive on its own, drawing on its own resources to climb to the top. This process is often practical, tedious, tangible and necessarily patient: earth energy. Rapunzel learns how to survive the worst imaginable circumstances. Now, when water appears in the story, we know that she is ready for relationship to flow back into her life.

Capricorn is usually signaled by a mountain goat, but its esoteric animal is the mythic sea goat. Half-goat, half-fish, it embodies the intrepid independence of the mountain goat while also suggesting the need to integrate the feeling function that lives opposite it in the chart, in Cancer. In traditional astrology, Cancer and its ruler, the Moon, are identified with the mother, but in Huber astrology that honor goes to Saturn, the ruler of Capricorn. In either case, the suggestion is that Rapunzel has now become an integrated mother who can draw on deep feeling for her children while also imposing the fair limits they will need in order to become thriving adults.

And the love relationship for which Rapunzel is now ready is drawn on her own established internal authority — her knowledge that she has built her own foundation from which to act freely. She is not a dewy dumpling confined in a tower or a frightened girl thrown into the desert. She has survived the desert, raised two children in it and become a bona fide woman on her own terms. The pinnacle of the story is that, within this harsh environment, she even finds water — finds the capacity to love and relate, to give and take, drawn up from the harsh ground of her solitary survival. The stone well surrounding this new adventure is an assurance (or a caution?) that she will neither succumb to the dewy nature of naive love, nor allow it to calcify into a prison of her own making.

These are the balance points in the pursuit of any goal: How to observe the limits without becoming enslaved to them; how to stick with a plan while maintaining flexibility within it; how to keep alive passion for the work while also surviving the harsh desert in which you may find yourself. Strength and flexibility; passion and practicality.

***
In the end, the blind prince follows the sound of Rapunzel’s voice to the well. The family is reunited, Rapunzel’s tears restore the prince’s sight, and the couple and their children go off to live in the castle — happily ever after, of course: the ultimate goal.

The castle is a metaphor for the final fulfillment of Rapunzel’s dream. She has gone from victim of her father’s tender spinelessness, to victim of her stepmother’s rigid fury, to solitary survivor, to the embodiment of alive, integrated wholeness.

The delightful thing about a castle is that it is so complex. There are turrets and moats, towers and keeps, chapels and stables and kitchens and courts. It is really a symbol of the rich inner life each of us has, of all 360 degrees of possibility embodied in the horoscope chart. Some rooms get used more than others; some are uncomfortable; some are adored. Some are open in the summer and closed in the winter. Some are private while others are public.

The possibilities are, as they say, endless.

***
The other theme I would like to have touched on in yesterday’s workshop was the appearance of various head coverings throughout the Rapunzel story. Though the Grimm Brothers might not have envisioned it this way, the phrase “witch’s hat” conjures a clear and striking image in modern culture. A handsome prince must necessarily come with a jeweled crown. Of course Rapunzel herself is distinguished by her long hair — and then by her shorn locks later in the story. We can even imagine the miller with a dilapidated cap and his wife with a scarf tied over her hair.

As Capricorn symbolizes the archetype of individuation, of distinguishing oneself from others in the process of fulfilling your destiny — and as its energy is encompassed in the 10th house at the top of the chart — it seems appropriate to look at how we treat our hair, our hats, our brains and other things up top for a look at another aspect of this archetype.

But that’s for another time.

One day he and a Norwegian gentleman, who was spending some time on the trap with him, rowed ashore for a break from the waves and the wide-open sea. They spied a group of [...]]]> When my dad was a young man, he spent summers working in the canneries and crab traps in Alaska to pay for college.

One day he and a Norwegian gentleman, who was spending some time on the trap with him, rowed ashore for a break from the waves and the wide-open sea. They spied a group of mother bears relaxing in the river — splashing, bathing and lolling about on sunny rocks. One mother bear’s cubs kept tumbling down the hill and splashing into the water, only to be swatted away by their mother. They retreated back up the hill, waited until her back was turned, then tumbled down into the water again.

After three or four turns at this game, the mother bear got frustrated and charged her cubs, growling and scolding at them. She turned her back — and the cubs chased after her yet again. The Norwegian gentleman — apparently trying to help the mother bear — bent down, picked up a rock and, with no warning at all, hurled it at the cubs. My dad yelped a garbled protest and ran for his life, the Norwegian and the mother bear in hot pursuit. The humans barely made it to the boat and back out to sea.

Now, most people are aware of this basic life lesson, but just to be clear: You have to be very, very careful with other people’s children.

I’ve been thinking about this lately because of the effects of transiting Saturn in Virgo. It’s currently criss-crossing our two-year-old son’s natal Moon and my own progressed Saturn, both in the first house. In other words, the boy and I are being challenged right now to define, shore up and secure our identities vis-a-vis one another (Saturn: the mother; Moon: the child).

So there is a lot of jockeying for position, much back-and-forth of “I want,” “I need” and “You can’t have” — from both of us. Limits are being set. Lines are being drawn. Laws are being laid down. Tears are being shed. The sweet, snuggly oneness of infancy has dissolved into memory.

At the same time, it is thrilling to see his growth. He’s expressive and intentional. He identifies what he wants and sets out to get it. He’s learning, it seems, in leaps and bounds — puzzles, colors, shapes, numbers. Where things go. What words mean. How to use his body. How to control it.

Now, I banked on both these developments even before the boy was born. I knew about the so-called “terrible twos” and even felt excited to see how we would negotiate the terrain. And my husband is a wonderful parenting partner; we’ve fallen into a great tag-teaming system to make sure we can both give our best and avoid the overwhelm that can come easily with parenting.

What I didn’t bank on was the difficulty of bringing a third parent — a daycare provider — into the mix. Saturn is getting my ire up, bringing out the mother bear when I watch how his teachers (another aspect of Saturn) interact with their two-year-old charges. And I don’t always like what I see.

Saturn’s instinct is toward protection and safety; this can sometimes result in defensiveness and growling. Lately, these instincts in me have been directed toward the militant approach one of his teachers takes toward art.

I observe her over-directing the kids’ process, criticizing their methods and inhibiting their free expression. This morning she wouldn’t let them turn over the construction paper they were painting to look at the other side. She wouldn’t let them glue pieces of dried popcorn onto their paper one at a time because she “needed” (her word) them to drop a handful onto the glue all at once. This morning, she barked to one of them, “I didn’t tell you to explore. I told you to work.”

These are two-year-olds.

And as much as I might get on this child about eating his vegetables, wearing a jacket when it’s cold and going back to sleep when he wakes at three a.m., I would never presume to tell him how he should make art — express his feeling life in tangible, living, breathing form. Art is self-expression, any time of life, but especially at two years old. The Saturnine response to his core emotional needs he must be experiencing right now cannot only be coming from the limits set by me, the chief Saturn figure in his life, and his father. It is also coming from other teacher/mother figures.

And when it’s done poorly, when it’s done in a way that threatens his playfulness and expressiveness and sense of competence and sense of self, when it’s intrusive and know-it-all and demanding, that brings out the mother bear in me. It fuels a feeling of being hunted, of having my protective, nurturing, growth-encouraging approach stalked and choked by someone who is not comfortable with fluid limits, someone who must be in control all the time, someone who seems to fear play and spontaneity and self-expression — all those constricted, intolerant, shadowy aspects of Saturn — someone who would throw rocks at someone else’s bear cub when it’s engaged in play.

By my own definition, attachment is the ability of the child to develop a sense of security and self (or not) through [...]]]> The Huber way of analyzing family dynamics through the birth chart dovetails beautifully with attachment theory — and adds one critical dimension that mainstream psychology has so far only been able to lightly sketch out.

By my own definition, attachment is the ability of the child to develop a sense of security and self (or not) through relationship to the parents (or parental figures). Without a strong, secure, positive relationship, the child’s security and sense of self founder. Insecurity and low self-esteem result. Relationships throughout life are deeply and directly impacted by the quality of attachment in the child’s early years.

There are three basic “attachment types” that children (and the adults they become) exhibit:

• Secure attachment results from parents’ consistent and empathic attunement with the child. These children — and the adults they become — are likely to be curious, engaged and generally not fearful of relationships. They are playful, empathic, resilient and resourceful.
  
• Avoidant attachment stems from lack of parental attunement and from perhaps inappropriate demands for the child’s independence. These children can grow into adults whose defenses include disengagement or lack of commitment; some may display anger, antipathy or compulsive self-reliance.
  
• Ambivalent attachment is rooted in the parents’ inconsistent response to the child — sometimes warm, sometimes cold. These personalities can be reactive, volatile or anxious as well as co-dependent or not fully self-reliant.

Psychologists can determine developing attachment styles by watching children’s response to separation from the parent(s). Interventions can be taught that help the parent better and more consistently attune to their child’s emotional and physical needs — and so possibly change the course of the child’s lifelong relationship style, self-esteem and sense of security in the world. This is an amazing development!

But Huber astrology can contribute to intervention through prevention with a thoughtful and sensitive reading of the child’s chart. My caveat is that it’s not an exact or foolproof match for the three attachment types noted above — consciousness, environment and other astrological factors certainly impact attachment styles and how relationships develop. However, my instinct is that the Huber reading of family dynamics in the birth chart can help us detect the child’s inherent tendencies in the area of attachment. For example:

• Secure attachment may have the best chance when there is an indirect connection between Moon (child) and Sun (father) and/or Saturn (mother). An indirect aspect ensures a connection that allows approach and attunement — but one that has enough slack to allow the child to grow into himself over time. This jives with the notion that secure attachment is rooted in the “secure base” — a sense of safety provided by the parent, and eventually internalized by the child, that allows the youngster to venture ever-further out into the world: a growing practice of healthy separation, identity formation and individuation.
• Avoidant attachment may loom when there are no connections between Moon and the other two ego planets. This is because the parents expect (even unconsciously) the child to be independent and self-reliant right from the get-go. The child has the early impression that he or she is alone in the world, that the safety net must be completely created and maintained by himself. (However, I have seen children with no such connections whose parents are warm, connected and attuned.)
• Ambivalent attachment may occur when Moon makes a direct aspect to Sun or Saturn. The obvious danger here, particularly with Sun-Moon or Saturn-Moon conjunctions, is enmeshment — that is, the tendency to get so wrapped up in each other’s needs, wants and identity that it’s hard to separate the parent from the child. But enmeshment does not mean attunement (sometimes precisely the opposite!), so while the child may sometimes feel attuned to, at other times his or her needs may be so subsumed by the parents’ that the child can feel lost and confused. The closeness feels nice, but there’s something amiss in it.

It’s important to note that a child can display one attachment style with one parent but something entirely different with the other — further validating the Huber model that considers father and mother separately. And yet, of course, there are a lot of other factors to consider when attachment issues are afoot, including placement of the ego planets within the chart, strength and sign of each planet, interceptions and so forth. Still, simply observing the aspect relationships of the ego planets may help us conduct intervention so early that it could legitimately be called prevention. Consciousness can go a long way in mitigating what could otherwise become an insecure attachment.

As I believe early attachment experiences are the root of emotional stability, there may be no more important consideration when reading a chart, whether that chart is for a newborn or a wizened elder — because no matter how old, having our particular attachment style understood, interpreted and validated can only be healing.

Has anyone out there observed the intersection of astrology and attachment types — either formally or anecdotally? If so, I’d love to know!