My rational/irrational mind

Lately, I’ve been reading a lot about astrology – my natal chart, which planets were in which house, which angles were formed between which planets at the moment I was born. If you’ve known me for years, this won’t surprise you, because it’s an interest that goes back a few decades – I can remember going over my chart with my dad as a ten year old – and it’s not a secret. I mean, read the title of this blog.

Perhaps by now you are used to this quirk of mine, and put it in the same category as my dislike of ice cream and chocolate – weird, but not that important in real life. But yesterday I read something that made me stop and consider. I’m not generally thought to be irrational (at least, if so, you haven’t told me). I’m not superstitious about shoes on the bed or keeping wishes to yourself (I remember the bewilderment I felt when my drugged, post-appendectomied sister, who could barely sit up and say her name, mumbled a stern reproach at me for daring to rest her flip-flops on the hospital bed for a minute, as a sign not of poor hygiene but bad luck – and even more so, when I related her bizarre behavior to my mother and she responded with, “You never put shoes on the bed!” – I mean, did I grow up in the same family as these people? When did we learn that?). I have a perhaps too intense interest in evolution and am an agnostic because I see neither concrete evidence for nor against the existence of God. My mother once woke up in the middle of the night back when I was in high school, convinced my spirit had come to her as a sign I was in trouble. My predominant reaction was not gratitude or sympathy but excruciating embarrassment, since she had called all my friends' parents at one o’clock in the morning. I did not for one second believe that my “essence” had communicated with my mother (the fact that I was home watching TV in the basement while this happened didn’t help).

Having firmly established myself, then, as a rational and logical thinker, how do I explain my belief – or, more accurately, my absence of disbelief – that the location of the planets at the moment I was born can possibly reflect my sense of self, emotional temperament, and social maneuverings? I mean, logically looked at, that’s just crazy talk.

This morning, I randomly picked up Malcolm Gladwell’s book Blink and started to read it. It’s about our “adaptive unconscious” – AKA our intuition – and how it makes accurate judgments before we have sorted and analyzed information to form a conclusion. This is the part of myself I am most uncomfortable with. Often, I ignore my intuition because I don’t want to face what it is telling me. I remember a few moments with Alex, for example, when I just knew that the emotions between us would not keep us together. Raising this point to him one night, he insisted I was wrong, and pointed to our many mutual interests in writing, language, travel, family, etc. as evidence that we had every reason to expect our paths to continue running together. And of course, less than a month later, we were as emotionally distant as I’ve ever been from an ex-partner. 

This is not to say that I think I can solve my problems through my birth chart. But maybe I can learn something about myself, even if the most important thing I learn is to accept myself both as a logical, rational thinker and as a feeling, sensitive, intuiter – someone who is interested in both fossils and the rising sign at the same time. Rather than seeing these things as oppositions within me, I can see them as existing side by side – maybe even harmoniously. That I can be emotional and irrational is uncomfortable for me. This whole weekend, in fact, I have felt in desperate flux, as if I were vibrating along an out of tune piano string. I didn’t feel “grounded” – my stomach was in knots – I felt “off.” These metaphors are difficult to analyze logically (How can a person feel or not feel grounded? What exactly does that mean?) and the disconnect between my prefrontal cortex and my hyperactive limbic system left me jittering like someone on a caffeine high. I am therefore attempting to breathe deeply, watch the ocean, and get out of the house today. Do regular, normal things that put you in contact with friendly strangers. I should really go play tennis, but I don’t own a racket myself (nor do I have a tennis partner, come to think of it) so the strenuous exercise therapy will have to continue tomorrow when Mr. Gelli sends me jogging around the court and tortures me with practicing my forehand (side-note: Learning to play tennis is just as difficult for me as learning to drive a manual car was. It is SO hard for someone with my lack of multi-tasking ability to concentrate on that many different things at once! Keep your elbow out! Finish the stroke! Keep your body side-ways! Keep the racket parallel to the net! Distance yourself from the ball! Don’t move your body forward! Do hit the ball with the racket forward! I mean, ahhhhhhhh!!!!! Fortunately, I have the experience of eventually becoming a proficient manual driver behind me to give me hope that one day it will all “come together” and I’ll be able to do all this crap automatically and just focus on hitting the damn ball!).

My point, I think, is that I am not an entirely rational person and rather than scorning that side of myself as contemptible (in my first year of college, I actually articulated a belief that needing others made you weak and pathetic . No wonder I was single that year!), I should try, instead, to understand it, accept it, and breathe through the psychic discomfort. 

In case you’re interested, below are a few of the passages from the book that made me start this rambling…

North Node in Cancer:

This lifetime is about your emotions and intuition. You’re here to discover what makes you feel secure and how to establish that base so that you can fulfill your potential. When you work from a centered place within your own feelings, your life unfolds right on track. Open your heart. You probably feel that it’s a sign of weakness to depend on other people or reveal too much about your feelings. But it’s to your advantage to look inward and tend to your inner life.

Sun Square Moon:

Your feelings and sense of identity pull in differing directions. This challenges the ego. It is difficult to feel good emotionally and achieve ego satisfaction simultaneously. What satisfies the emotions pulls at the ego, and vice versa. This may create inner restlessness… A big enough vision of life must be created to include satisfaction of all needs rather than alternatively choosing some needs and then others. 

Neptune in the 4^th House:

You have close emotional ties to family, coupled with an idealized picture of how family life should be. This is the way you see your own family – as better than or worse than they are, but not realistically. As a child, you may have been placed in a care-giving role. As an adult, you have a compelling sense of obligation. You are loving and nurturing towards family. A part of you feels the need to mother the world… Living by, or being near, the ocean can provide much needed tranquility.

Saturn in Libra:

Relationships are taken seriously, and you may have fears of relational loss or social disapproval. This can make setting appropriate boundaries with people difficult. The tendency is to either inappropriately go along with other people’s demands, or to set rigid standards of relational behavior. It is important to distinguish when compromise and acceptance represent the best course of action and when standing up for principles is more appropriate.

Moon in Taurus in the 9^th House:

You value harmony and dislike conflict. In most situations, you are easygoing and avoid disagreements. However, you are much more stubborn than you appear to be, and once you make up your mind you are unlikely to change it, even when you should… You are emotionally comfortable any place in the world. You have a yearning to experience different cultures and a desire to know what is around the next corner. Your worldview, including religious, ethical, moral, and philosophical beliefs, is influenced by your travels. Yet this worldview is also colored by your emotions.

Jupiter in Scorpio in the 3^rd House:

You value justice and admire truth. You are intense about your standards. There is an attraction to the mysteries of life, getting to the underlying meaning of situations, and uncovering the true motivations of people. Your thinking is expansive and your outlook broad. This placement conveys intelligence and expands your interest in intellectual horizons. Interests may lie in writing, publishing, and communicating. At the very least, you are a good talker.