this feels oddly like rocket fuel

The planets Uranus and Jupiter have just moved in to Aries, which is an impulsive, active fire energy. I believe I can feel that shift palpably, and my blood pressure has risen ten points, according the person who checked it last week. It feels like there's rocket fuel in my system, and just about anything will bring it to the surface and ignite it.

But, when I'm trying to find my way through the world, I notice my usual strategy is to try adapting on the fly, shifting things around automatically to accommodate people if I believe it will get me what I've determined is the thing I need or want. I'm philosophical about it, too, trying to find nuances. I study the problem, looking for ways to find it fascinating rather than facing it squarely and firmly.

Well, Uranus and Jupiter in Aries are having none of that candy-ass shit, and Pluto, backing over my natal Mercury now, feels like the volcanic event that it is.

Until my session today, I had been complaining about the way the energy felt (and worrying that others would think I was devolving if I admitted to doing so). I guess I was coming at it from a perspective of holding things apart while I weigh them, balancing needs for others over my own if it didn't create too many problems, and trying to be responsible and aware by incorporating all I'm learning and reading about into all my decisions. And, just to appear appropriately non-depressed as well as appropriately responsible and up to date, I was trying to "have fun," i.e., convince myself I was enjoying doing things "everyone should enjoy doing," though, to be honest, there was little heart involved in the effort, and not much actual reason for trying (other than to avoid being a total recluse, which is important).

All that effort to cover pretty obvious inclinations has mostly resulted in my feeling very depressed and acting in what I can only describe, in retrospect, as extremely and transparently passive aggressive (almost to the point of being a little funny) whenever a set of challenging issues surface.

I've had some actual challenges in the past few weeks - my car wasn't running well, bringing back memories of July 1993 when my Mitsu Colt committed hari kari at a gas station in suburban St. Paul; I had a new health concern surface - a little blood after I urinated - that looked like it needed to be addressed, and that isn't something I usually have to deal with, even though I almost always seem to worry about doing something for my health; I don't know if I'm working with others the way I should in my job, and, more immediately, it feels like it has been taking over my personality, even though that pay and the routine interaction with my compatriots are probably two of the things I need most for my well-being. I meet new friends and feel like I don't know how to adapt enough to their ways of doing things - or keep myself from over-adapting, let alone simply relax and do normal things with others.

I feel like I'm using a lot of other people's words here, but like the symbols in astrology, they're serving the purpose to express both my understanding of what is going on and documenting the fact that I'm making an effort to do so, which seems inordinately important to me - I have a twelfth house Mercury in Capricorn.

Back to Pluto and Uranus and Jupiter saying "Enough!" Enough figuring out, enough fine tuning, enough sampling this and that. Okay, I'm listening. But what do I need to accept your perspective, to trust their energy to get me where I need to be going?

I guess you could say my life is like a house of cards, having been precariously built with extreme precision and easily blown to the four winds. I also think of my process as doing a puzzle - scanning all my experiences and learned skills and the facts that I've gathered (the assembled puzzle pieces) to find the exact place (or set of words) to fit the piece (or feeling) that belongs exactly there. Which is fine, but sooner or later all that hunching over, close scrutiny, and balancing of cards or fitting of pieces gets to feel really cramped, and I can't help but conclude that my complaints about this new feeling of "rocket fuel" in my system might be stemming from the way I am forcing myself to keep working on that puzzle or add "just one more" story to the perfectly balanced house of cards when there are other kinds of activities that are called for to respond to this new energy.

I started my session today with the complaint/joke that the only thing Uranus and Jupiter have done for me in Aries is to raise my blood pressure and make frustration erupt onto the surface more quickly and easily than I've ever felt before. The analyst asked if I would listen to a suggestion, which was that I start providing details about the events that were causing this frustration to surface. I got into a few of the details and was trying to construct a story with a definite beginning and end, then all these other details and associations poured out at the same time, but that was okay - I may be all over the place these days, but unlike before, I know I will get where I want to go if I can just get myself underway. It doesn't have to be polished.

Where we finally arrived (with more than a few loose ends I was still trying to tie up as I was exiting the room at the end of the session), was at the fears I had about what would happen if I gave away the events of my life in a detailed manner - how I would expose my secret fantasies and vulnerable feelings that provided the structure of my house of cards, and how that would make me feel open to embarrassment or even rejection from those I had or believed I now do depend on for security. This was not hard to articulate. There was no elaborate story with tortured filtering and distracting sidebars; rather, I replied by quickly stringing a few thoughts together that drew on things I have been reading and thinking about and free admissions to the thoughts that were probably behind the feelings I was actually having.

I generally feel solidly confident in my ability to convey an understanding of myself this way, but it does take time. I have to find some comfort first, before things flow. Without that basic requirement met, I'm an anxious mess!

Astrology: Haumea (an idea, based on a web page interpretation that seems to fit my experience well) tightly conjunct natal Moon trined to Mercury, but Moon is coming into opposition to Saturn and squares the North Node in Gemini. As a side note, the South Node ruler, Jupiter (in detriment) quincunxes Neptune and the Ascendant (which I bet accounts for the odd, inaccessible physical sensations that would be so distracting and worrisome when I was blabbling at the mouth in a classroom - and i do mean blabbling - that was a useful criticism of an ineffectually applied fifth house Gemini Jupiter).

So, the security concern was based on feeling unsure about how much to share and what details to include. It was met, not by solving the problem - fixing it, in other words - but by articulating it! That released the pressure and created a significant shift in what seems to have been a pattern of thinking in which I was stuck. Because...while driving home through West Philly a half hour later, I became aware of my mind connecting the complaints I was trumpeting about the new energy of Aries and the Pluto transit to my demonstrated ability to articulate my needs, feelings, and concerns. I suddenly believed that the energy I was trying to convince myself was unhelpful was actually helping me to release the pent up anger and frustration by pushing it past the fears.

I think the key was that once I saw that I could still put what I needed to into actual words that were articulate and being heard by someone else I had grown to trust on a feeling level (even when we're fighting on an intellectual level), I felt okay about the energy and being open to the potential it was offering me to keep growing (the planets are coming into a sextile with my natal North Node). I didn't have to be afraid of releasing this crap inside me, since I knew that I wouldn't lose what I had gained in terms of confidence and communication skill, nor would my sense of a healthier, more level-headed responsibility disappear just because I felt more easily angered - that a little blood in my eyes wouldn't blind me, but might actually help me get to a calmer, stronger place.

Immediately after that I thought of a situation where an assertion of my new insight would be challenged, and the energy sunk wordlessly below the surface. It will be a challenge to not simply swallow assertion whenever someone shames me for being "unthoughtful." Or whenever I'm fretting over finding the perfect words and wondering how to convince others that they are valid. Just as it is always a challenge to stave off the desire to grab hold of some argumentative, aggressive energy and fight my way to the "right" position (that ol' South Node Sagittarius).

This I seem to strongly believe - that sometimes its more important in healing to allow a person to stumble or thrash their way to the real words they need to describe their feeling or their idea than to demand a refined, pleasant exchange from the outset. Now, who be demanding that? Hmm...where's the mirror? (Also sounds suspiciously like that aggressive energy I was talking about in the previous paragraph. Moving on...)

The interesting thing about all this is that I've just realized that I've been having a similar issue with regard to my father and my finances, which he in part provides. My father doesn't know how to be diplomatic or clear about financial arrangements, and I literally felt threatened by his inappropriate and patronizing demand to know every detail of my spending habits. What was really strange was how free and honest I felt when I accommodated his demands and felt my anguish and struggle - as well as the threatening energy from him - disappear. Not because I was the "errant son" who came clean, but because when I found that I could be honest in a situation and not be harmed. It was as if some kind of grace entered into the equation and the threat disappeared. I don't really how to describe it, but it isn't the first time this has happened.

Once when I was really angry at my dad - I was a teenager, and he wasn't giving me my freedom, most likely, as he still doesn't really know how to do - but I responded differently. Instead of arguing myself into a tense, insomnia-filled night, I wrote the letters "D" "A" "D" on a card envelope that I had in my bedroom, over and over in all shapes and sizes until the entire envelope was filled, and magically, in that process, the ranting anger and frustration transformed into a feeling of love and appreciation - not for the way he behaved, or the way I did, but just for the person, I guess. I don't know what caused me to do what I did that one time, but the memory has stayed with me and can still be useful when I want to melt some of that hard edge that I get. The gifts my dad gives me are very subtle and spiritual and don't come directly through his personality or the words he communicates with. Nor are they tangibly practical, though not too long ago, having listened to his opinions long enough without dismissing them in favor of my own equally strong opinions, I discovered that I've been automatically dismissing some normal sounding practical advice - some. I guess having confidence in yourself and knowing what you have to say is worthwhile - as well as having a sympathetic audience that is willing to consider what you are saying - are two very important components of an effective interpersonal communication. That, apparently is my father's day message.