Love & relationships in Astrology

People rarely come to get their reading done because life is nice and peachy, but because they are encountering some challenges and need answers to their questions. The 2 main questions invariably revolve around career and money, and love. I guess that if we have a career we like, enough money to live, and are with the love of our life, then things are good. Right? Finding a good relationship is not easy but it is not impossible. At the end of this article I’ll give you one way to attract the person of your dreams. So… what does Astrology have to say about relationships ?

As you know, a natal chart is a picture of the heavens based on our full date, time, and place of birth. In that sense, we are each a crystallization of a moment in time and space.

Because each of us is unique, we are thankfully not all attracted to the same things in relationships.

Astrology, in its wisdom, separates friendship (Xith house), romance (5th house), marriage (7th house) and sex (8th house). And it makes  perfect sense. We can love someone we shall never be intimate with or marry. Or, not advised for many energetic and spiritual reasons, we can marry or have sex with someone we don’t love. Or, sadly, we can be married to someone we do not have sex with. The best case scenario of course is to be married to the person we love, are best friends with, and enjoy sex with.

It is easy to feel we are enlightened when we are alone with ourselves. But the truth is we are social creatures. No one is really separate from anyone else, and relationships are both powerful mirrors and teachers.

The consequences of a love relationship are extremely complex and far reaching. Depending on whom we are with, it will change our life, exert a powerful influence on our social circle, our career, where we live, our finances, our family connections, our hobbies, the activities we engage in, even our ideas, and most of all how we are hindered or supported in our personal growth, or best case scenario, enriched.

Many enter a relationship  out of fear of staying alone, for comfort, or for security or status reasons, but  the only good reason should be because of true love. But even love is often misunderstood. In spiritual circles we hear a lot people claiming they met their soulmate, or their twin flame… These are very big words that cannot be proven and that most of the time relate to just plain lust. So, be careful! We also often focus on what we have in common with another. Yet, it has been proven that it is our differences that keep us together.

The 10 planets (actually there are 12, but that is another story for another time) each represent a principle of life. In that, we can safely ascertain that they reveal the path to what a good relationship looks like. It requires that we have  compatible personalities and can admire each other (the Sun), similar views on how to live daily life (the Moon), good communication (Mercury), are in love (Venus) -that’s kind of basic, right?, are sexually compatible (Mars), have integrity, are honest and can trust each other (Jupiter), have high standards, respect for each other,  are dependable and responsible, and have clear boundaries (Saturn) and this is important because we all have things that are deal breakers and should be clearly stated in a relationship for it to be viable. It is also essential that we are best friends  with each other,  and retain our  independence and unique individuality (Uranus), are connected spiritually (Neptune), and are fiercely loyal to each other and deeply passionate (Pluto).

Knowing our own and each other’s strengths,  weaknesses, and what we need to develop to become better human beings, gives us a chance to become more tolerant and understanding of each other.

While it is impossible to find an absolutely perfect compatibility between 2 people, some couples are much more harmoniously matched than others.

Personally, I would never discourage two people who are in love from being together, because 1. Who am I to judge? And 2. There can be many different reasons for being attracted to someone, even if this is not the person for us for the rest of our lives, it could be a karmic debt we have to resolve, or a lesson we have to learn, or a test we have to go through. Either way, that relationship, even if it doesn’t last, if we are open and willing to learn, has something valuable to bring us.

Astrology offers us 2 basic ways of determining how 2 people get along: Synastry and composite charts.

Synastry  is the comparison of the birth chart of one to the birth chart of the other.

For example, if one has Mercury in Gemini which makes him/her super social, extremely talkative, mentally scattered, and immensely curious about everything in the world, while the other who has Mercury in Scorpio, is deep, secretive, capable of intense concentration, poker faced, and highly psychic, they will likely clash, unless they are open and flexible enough to appreciate and learn from each other.

Their respective Venuses should be aligned in order for them to have a similar approach to love.In a woman’s chart Venus indicates how she expresses her femininity, and in the chart of a man, what he is looking for in a woman.

For example, A woman with Venus in Sagittarius is adventurous, enthusiastic, has a lot of faith in love, and more than anything, places a lot of value on honesty and integrity.

A man who has Venus in Virgo seeks a woman who is reasonably good looking even though that would not be as important to him than her intelligence, cleanliness, and punctuality. He would want a woman who is orderly, discreet, and kind.

The position of Mars indicates our sexual needs. In a man’s chart, it shows who he is as a man, and in the chart of a woman, what kind of man she’s attracted to.

For example, woman who has Mars in Capricorn will fall for a man who is ambitious, strong, solid, hard-working, mature, and responsible.

A man who has Mars in Scorpio is passionate, intense, and extremely loyal.

Because Capricorn and Scorpio are in harmony with each other, that woman and that man would be sexually compatible.

The positions of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto are also important in terms of the aspects (angular relationships) they form to the personal planets (the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars) of another.

For example, in the charts of a man and woman of compatible age, if the Pluto of one is conjunct the Venus of another, there will be an intense sexual attraction that is most likely karmic in nature, meaning that they have already being lovers in many lifetimes.

If the Uranus of one is square the Moon of the other, it could be difficult for those two people to live together in a traditional manner. They might adopt a very unconventional lifestyle. May be married, but not sharing the same home. Or one could be traveling a lot which creates regular separations. Or their home could be filled with activities, and friends coming and going.

The other way to determine the purpose of 2 people coming together is by establishing their composite chart. We take the positions of both their Suns, and their mid-point determines the position of their composite Sun, and repeat with all their other planets.

Their composite chart shows how they appear as a couple in the world. We have all known people whom we saw a certain way, and when we met  them with their significant other, a different image emerged.

For example the composite chart of Prince William and Kate Middleton emphasizes the Vith house showing that their public persona as a couple is one of  work and service.

If nothing is more wonderful than being in a good relationship, being in a toxic one can prove extremely destructive. I believe, that ultimately, it is essential to know ourselves first and be content living alone. There is an ancient, wise law in England that states that we should allow 7 years between a divorce and a re-marriage. Which from an astrological point of view makes total sense, in that this is a quarter of a Saturn cycle, and Saturn represents the wisdom that comes from discipline, responsibility, and maturity.  Btw Astrology is not preoccupied by the legal aspect of “marriage”. From an astrological point of view, marriage is a commitment of two people to each other and  a common vision.

Hollywood movies have seduced us into thinking that once we meet our perfect partner, all becomes magical in our lives, and in the best case scenario, this can be true, but we can only attract our significant other once we have fallen in love with ourselves and our lives, and are self-sufficient. We may still WANT a relationship, but we don’t NEED one. If we are waiting for someone to save us, boost our self-esteem, or make us complete, we are only going to attract half- baked individuals looking for the same, and 2 fragmented beings can never create wholeness/holiness. They will always remain co-dependent of each other and eventually implode or find that they have to sacrifice important parts of themselves to survive in the relationship. A true marriage can only happen between two people who are each complete in their own right, thus becoming the 2 pillars of the temple between whom life can flow.

I promised you I would tell you one  of the most effective ways of attracting the person we want in our lives. My natal Moon being in Virgo, I  love making lists 😊. Start on a Monday. Take a notebook and describe what you want in your partner as precisely as possible, in a series of bullet points, 3rd person, present tense, and all positive. So, for example,  my life partner is - positive, -hard working, -mature, -responsible, - sober, - fit, - educated, - loves to travel, -has a work he/she can do from anywhere in the world, etc… and let’s not forget the obvious because the universe has sometimes a wicked sense of humor. I had a friend who created such a list for finding the right home for herself. She wanted a spiraling staircase , which she got…. as a decoration in a corner! Because she thought this was obvious, she had omitted to mention she wanted a second floor. To her dismay, she found out the hard way, that the universe needed specifics! So, don’t forget to write  someone  - who is free, -ready to commit, -madly in love with me etc. The only thing we would not write down is their age and physical appearance. We need to focus on the contents of our relationship. Its form will be the Universe’s surprise for us. Once we are done with this list, let us scotch tape the 2 pages and the next day, without reading what we wrote the previous day, we shall start our complete list all over again. We may write exactly the same things, some new elements might emerge. Some could be omitted. It doesn’t matter. Each day will be a new day. And we’ll do this 5 days in a row, from Monday to Friday. Leave our notebook alone for the week-end.

The second week, same thing, from Monday to Friday. Alone for the week-end.

And 3rd week, same thing, from Monday to Friday, Alone for the week-end.

The idea of recreating our complete list 15 times, is to dig deeper in ourselves. It will force us to look at our past relationships, what worked, what didn’t, movies we saw, novels we read, friends we have, what works and what doesn’t. It is an incredibly empowering process.

The 4th week, the first day, we shall cut all our scotch tapes and read our notebook from beginning to end as if it were somebody else’s. The second day, we’ll do nothing, and the 3rd, we’ll make the exhaustive list of what came up during those 3 weeks. Obviously, if we repeated something every day, it only goes once in our list. But if something came up only once but feels important, it goes in our final list. We can then throw our notebook away, it has served its purpose, and we’ll make 2 copies of that final list: one that will go in a beautiful box in our bedroom and the other, that we shall read leisurely from time to time, thanking that person for already being in our life. And that is another secret. Most people fail in creating the love of their dreams because they focus on the distance between their present reality as a single person and what the kind of couple scenario they want, thus creating more of the gap. The more we visualize what we want as having ALREADY happened, the sooner it will manifest. Another benefit of making this list, is that we can then clearly see what we may need to improve in ourselves to be worthy of that person we wish to share our life with. If we want someone who is cultured, being a couch potato only watching sitcoms, is not going to cut it. We may need to start reading, taking an interest in documentaries, visiting museums, taking classes, traveling….  You get the idea!

I ‘d like to end with a little story. I was once giving a conference in Colorado where I met an elderly American Indian grey-haired couple who looked absolutely radiant. The lady introduced the man she was with, as her Lover. To my surprise, I found out later that they had been married for 40 years and yet, she was still introducing him as her lover. I thought this was so beautiful. Especially in our day and age, when sex devoid of love , pornography, has become so normalized that it  prevails everywhere, in music, film, fashion, advertisement… basically the new black magic, I think it’s important to return to the sacredness of marriage. And again, I am not necessarily talking about marriage in a legal way, but as the  deep, intimate connection between just 2 people who  out of respect for themselves and each other, should never allow themselves to engage in seemingly innocent flirting or touching anyone but their Beloved.

In Loving Light.

Michelle Karén, M.A., D.F.Astrol.S.

www.MichelleKaren.com