Astrology, Jealousy, and Illumination

[bookofmirrors]

There's a passage in the book (I think they also put it in the movie) Charlotte's Web that says something to the effect of "When your stomach is empty, and your mind is full, it's hard to sleep." Well, even though blckwngdorcl and I went to Mt. Fuji last night, and I still feel rather physically satisfied from that, it has been about 10 hours since I ate last. The other portion of that quote is correct, at any rate. In fact, I went to sleep last night with the seeds of these thoughts floating around in my head, and when I first woke up this morning, they immediately came back to my mind. From my perspective, I'm not entirely sure I've gotten enough sleep, but I kept poring over these thoughts, and they just beg to be written.



As you may or may not know, blckwngdorcl and lunenoire are taking Lyn Hammond-Gray's beginning astrology classes at P&D. I've been fascinated and impressed by what I've heard about what they've learned, and it's been very interesting to apply what they've learned to my own chart, and see how it affects interpersonal relationships.

One of the things I learned from blckwngdorcl was about the masculine/feminine aspects of one's sun, moon, Mars and Venus (why are the planets capitalized, but not the sun and moon, anyway?) affect one's relationships - it affects how you relate to men, how you relate to women, and how you act/react in the courtship phase of relationships versus the time when the relationship changes to a long-term situation. He gave an example of a girl in his class who has a masculine/feminine sun/moon/mars/venus combination of FFMM. Apparently, the sun and moon indicate how you are during courtship (which doesn't imply a romantic relationship, by the way), and the Mars and Venus indicate how you are in the long-term phase. In class, Lyn had said that a configuration like this girl had could lead to "mixed messages", since she would behave differently in the courtship phase of the relationship, but would change when the relationship became long term. He and I noted that I have the exact same configuration for those planets. (Sun/Libra, Moon/Leo, Mars/Virgo, Venus/Scorpio, if anyone's interested.) I asked him if I had changed much during the course of our relationship, and he said he really hadn't thought I had. Certainly, conveying mixed messages isn't something I want to be doing, so I was please with that. But so many other things seemed to work within the astrological profile, it kinda stayed on my mind.

So yesterday, lunenoire and I were spending the day together, and we got to talking about this. He said that the use of the phrase "mixed messages" wasn't entirely accurate, and that it was more of a case of differing expectations - both mine of a relationship in any given phase, and what the other person could expect from me. This mollified me, since it wasn't quite the negative connotation of mixed messages. He also clarified how I could be expected to react during the courtship period versus the long-term period. During courtship, I'm likely to be very feminine - I want my partner to take charge. I wanted to be wined, dined, 69-ed, treated like a goddess. (This doesn't always happen, mind you, and I'm good with it if it doesn't... but, now that he mentions it, it IS my ideal.) Once the relationship takes a turn towards long-term (or as he put it, once I become SECURE in the relationship - pay attention, boys and girls - this becomes important later), I tend to become a bit more dominant, at least in day-to-day affairs. I tend to be a take-charge sort of person, mostly because I'm good at getting things done, and I'm often impatient when others aren't, so it's easier for me to just do it than try to train someone how to do it. (Although I try to curtail this as much as possible, since it doesn't do the other person any favors.)

An interesting aside that just occurred to me as I was writing this... In BDSM relationships, at least in the bedroom, I remain feminine throughout. I may have 5 minutes ago been the take-charge person who was handling everything, but once the cuffs go on (literally or figuratively), I become very passive again. I wonder if this is a case of that relationship (at least in that moment) being less than a long-term relationship in my mind. If you think about it, it's sort of like Jean Grey's explanation in X2... "you marry the good guy". Society expects that, if you're in a long-term relationship, it follows your basic WASP-y heterosexual norms. BDSM is (allegedly) an anomoly, and must, therefore, by that definition/expectation be a short-term relationship... perhaps I have internalized that to some extent. On the other hand, it can also be the case that everyone in a long-term relationship wants to feel the rush of that courtship phase again (NRE, if you will), and by placing myself in that situation, I get that rush again. I may have to expore this later. I compare these thoughts to what Core teaches about that type of relationship (BDSM), and I'd like to try to reconcile the two, or see which ideology I resonate more with, or how one explains the other or vice versa. Hmmm... something to think about.

Anyway, the above diversion aside, that was mostly the extent of the conversation.

So, part two of what happened is that lunenoire went to a party last night, where he made a connection of sorts. When he told me about it, I felt a twinge of jealousy. Which sorta confused me. Also, a while back, I made a rather cryptic entry, which was cryptic on purpose, since I hadn't discussed those feelings with the persons to whom they were related. Since then, I have, so I don't mind de-crypting the entry now, since it will no longer come as a surprise to either one of them. I had found myself jealous of the relationship that simplysakka and lunenoire have. As I mentioned in that entry, it's an unreasonable feeling that I have no use for, but it was plaguing me nonetheless, and I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. It didn't even seem to help that I had an extremely good relationship myself with lunenoire. *rolls eyes* Anyway, no reason for said jealousy. I've been feeling it less since we all 3 talked about it, but it's been humming a bit in the background. So, last night, like I said, jealousy struck again. So, what's up with that? I noticed that, in the case of last night, I was able to pull it out, examine it, find it wanting, and discard it, with no residual effects. The contrast of being able to do that versus doing it with his relationship with simplysakka intrigued me.

So, all this percolated for several hours in my unconscious mind, as I watched Chris Rock on HBO (funny-ass-muthafucka) while the delight of Mt. Fuji digested. And it solidified sometime between last night and this morning.

OK, so let's throw several disjointed truths out there. I've never been jealous of any interests that blckwngdorcl has. (I don't count the insecurity I used to feel when he scoped out hot chicks at the mall - that's a low-self-image thing. And really, even if I were to classify that as jealousy, it still pretty much fits with what I've discovered, anyway.) I wasn't jealous of anyone Leo was interested in. These are/were long-term relationships, in which I was in love, and felt secure.

OK, so on what occassions HAVE I been jealous? Well, the aforementioned jealousies, of course. But, when else? Fig and Jessica. dai_syn and waterfall_sh. (That one didn't even happen - but I was jealous of the IDEA of it.) And another one, which I'll get into later, because it's slightly different.

So, what's the difference between those times which I've been jealous, and those times I haven't? Remember I said that something I wrote earlier would be important later? This is it, kiddies. Security. In the cases of Leo and Glenn, I felt/feel very secure in those relationships. I know my place, and I feel comfortable there. Outside relationships are no threat to me. In the cases in the previous paragraph where I felt jealous, I was unclear on my relationship with the object of my affection. In both cases, I wanted more than they were willing to give, and I knew they weren't going to reciprocate in the ways I wanted to. In both cases, though, I had very strong and close friendships. I felt very much in love with both of them. But THAT (nonexistent) part of those relationships was insecure. So, jealousy. Similarly, I was very unclear as to my role (and his, for that matter) in my relationship with lunenoire when it first started. My jealousy feelings began in that stage, and have lingered. Since then, I've become much more secure in our roles, and I understand how we relate to each other. I think my quickly discarded jealousy reaction last night was a knee-jerk reaction from that old mindset, and I think I was able to discard because I've recently moved (am moving) into a new mindset about our relationship. Has this cured my jealousy regarding simplysakka? Not sure yet. At this point, I'm so delighted that I figured out why I've been jealous in the first place, that I'm still absorbing that. I do intend to put this knowledge to good use later, though, so I'm sure once I do that, I'll be "cured".

So, what have I learned? In a relationship in which I feel secure, I don't feel jealousy. In a relationship in which I don't feel secure, I feel jealousy in some cases. I haven't figured out yet the criteria for why I feel jealous in some cases but not others, although I suspect that it's a combination of how I instinctively know a relationship is going to go (or not go), and also how I relate personally to the person of whom I'm jealous. (I resonate strongly with aspects of simplysakka, waterfall_sh, and Jessica that I don't like in myself. Mirror, mirror - go figure.) I've also noticed that it makes a difference whether I love a person, or am in love with that person. If I "merely" love a person, jealousy doesn't seem to be as much of a factor. This may be somehow related to security in the relationship, as well. If I'm not in love with a person (and assume that they're similarly not in love with me), then my expectations of that relationship are somewhat less, and I think that precludes jealousy. Actually... yeah... the more I mull it over in my mind, all my jealousy/non-jealousy issues seem to stem from a combination of my security with the relationship, and my expectations of it - which are somewhat tied up in how secure I am.

Also, (and this sentence is an addition/edit from the original entry) I note that jealousy is stereotypically a feminine trait, which ties it back to my tendency to react in a feminine manner in the courtship phase of a relationship.

So, there ya go. Astrology, Jealousy, and Illumination.

I have a bit more to say in this vein, but this particular entry feels done, so I'm going to make my other observations in a separate entry.

Comments

[lunenoire.livejournal.com]

Wow. (In a good way.)

This is one of those "when you think about it, it *does* make sense" in hindsight.

I myself have learned that while I'm something of a sensitive man, there are certain degrees of jealousy that don't show up on my radar. Therefore, I can be as clueless as any other man might be, and I think the *expression* of jealousy is as much a tool for learning as the existence of jealousy.

Thanks for posting this. :)

[ex-boastful.livejournal.com]

hmmm...you know..i can relate....thanks..gives me something to think about...:)

[bookofmirrors.livejournal.com]

:) No problem. It's always good when my meanderings help someone besides myself.