There’s a reason “Cupid” rhymes with “stupid”.
Love and lust are in the air. Has Cupid made you stupid? Naturally as Valentine’s Day creeps up on us on the heels of dreamy Pisces, our thoughts naturally turn to love. What is love? Why are we so perplexed by it?
So often, I get asked “I am a ________, so would a Taurus be good for me?” And the answer is “I don’t know.” We’re so accustomed to just looking at sun signs in pop astrology. A chart is complex. It has angles and conflicts–and that’s just one person’s chart. When you look at two people’s charts, it gets vastly more complicated–the same way people themselves are complicated. The relationship becomes an entity in and of itself.
There’s a lot of great astrology experts out there who really nail it with synastry in detail-the pesky angles and such. Volumes have been written on this. Two of the best books out there about the down and dirty of love and sex are Sextrology and Cosmic Coupling, both by Starsky & Cox. If you’re really wanting to know about that special Taurus and their kinks (or lack thereof), those are the tomes for you. My discussion here is based on heterosexual relationships, but Starksky & Cox really illuminate LGBTQ astrology couplings in awesome ways and I recommend their books whatever your sexual preference is.
Here are some of my observations about synastry.
Venus–Yes, Venus is the planet of love. You’ll want to really pay attention to Venusian aspects in the charts, but Venus is also a planet of glamour. People often forget that glamour has it’s origins in magick, particularly deceit. Venus had her “bag of tricks” and Venus can deceive you to get what she wants and make you enjoy it. Venus is often how a woman deceives and/or how man is vulnerable to romantic deception in a heterosexual relationship. Venus is not faithful. She does not inspire or look for fealty. Venus is not a wifely archetype. True love may not be signaled by Venus aspects alone.
Mars–Mars is passion. What would you fight for and what would you die for? Mars also makes war and if you’re not sure someone is “The One”, this is the place to gauge what they’ll be like in a break-up or a divorce. Mars is how we fight and what we weaponize. The tension between Mars and Venus is often what most of our love and lust games are, the push/pull of attraction.
If you really want to see Mars in action at the most basic, primal level, watch the NatGeo channel and watch two stags gore each other during mating season competing for a mate. That’s Mars. Crimes of passion come from Mars while Venus looks on reveling in what her glamour has caused.
The Moon and Saturn also lights the way here. Of course, the moon is important in synastry. The moon is our deep yin, our emotional well that waxes and wanes. The moon is also attractive, like Venus, but it’s rhythmic, like the tides. The moon in a chart is also talking about our mothers. Who are we because of how we were mothered?
Saturn is an outer planet and mostly we talk about Saturn and career, obstacles, time and the infamous Saturn return. Saturn also rules our fathers and fatherhood. Any tensions or dissonance between parenting styles, any commitment baggage you have because of your parents’ relationship will reveal itself when the Moon and Saturn have tense aspects. So many people get hitched right around the first Saturn return near age 27 or divorced that Saturn needs to be paid attention to in synastry. Saturn is also the lord of karma and so many relationships are veritable Russian nesting dolls of karmic baggage. Both the moon and Saturn are keepers of time and when a relationship “clicks” or you feel in “the same place” it very well may be that moons and Saturns are manifesting positive aspects.
To that end, if you’re meditating every damn day, cleansing those chakras regularly and still unlucky in love, it might be time to take a nice honest look at your lunar nodes. This is not a medical procedure! The North Node of the moon or the dragon’s head, is your true North–the direction you are supposed to go, what you need to learn. The South Node, the dragon’s tail, is the skills and coping mechanisms from prior lives that you need to rely less on. Some relationships are deeply karmic–for better or worse. You’re either on the path together or pulling each other off the path. Sometimes you’re exchanging gifts and teaching each other, in healthy enough relationships where the nodes are in opposition between the lovers. Feel like you’re chasing your tail with bae? The answer might be here in the Dragon’s tail.
If you thought that was heavy, let’s talk about Lilith. Hellenic Zeus (Jupiter in the chart) and Judaic Adam have something in common–a wife they got in a power struggle with before they “settled” with their principal wives, Hera and Eve, respectively. For Zeus, this starter wife was Metis, mother of Athena and for Adam, this was Lilith. Metis was the mother of the son who was prophecied to overthrow Zeus. Metis helped Zeus overthrow Cronus (Saturn) with her potion-making skills and then Zeus swallowed her whole. Before Eve, there’s a tale that Adam’s first wife, Lilith, was also formed from clay. She refused to have sex in missionary position and submit to him and she rebelled and fornicated with demons. Fun! There’s a lot of back and forth about Lilith–whether to use the asteroid or do what’s called a Black Moon Lilith calculation. I look at both.
For a man, Lilith is a threat to his autonomy and his status. She is the one who got away most likely because he pushed her away. She is the one he wasn’t quite mature enough to handle. She’s also the type of woman he’d have an affair with but not commit to. She’s powerful. She’s forbidden and she’s totally necessary to his story, even if she’s not what he “settles” for.
In a woman’s chart, Lilith impels a woman to buck male authority when it doesn’t suit her. Lilith starts her demon fornication binge when she feels used, treated like dirt, subjugated instead of cherished, when she feels like a stepping stone and when she’s hemmed in to the detriment of her own freedom and personal development. For this reason, I’d argue that Jupiter and Lilith need to be looked at together too. If a man’s Jupiter makes a tense aspect to a woman’s Lilith, it will probably start hot and end up heartbreaking. Lilith is a woman’s capacity for vengeance when provoked.
The planets dance in and out of “houses”. House placements are determined by your rising sign, the time of your birth, and the rising sign for me is the first impression or mask that you wear for the world. The first place most astrologers look for marriage compatibility at is the 7th house, the house of Marriage and Partnership. If you have many planets in a particular house, that house will probably need a lot of attention. I have five planets in my natal 7th and it gets COMPLICATED.
For me, all houses may have info I need.The natal 4th house, how we make a home together is important. I would also suggest a nice, long look in the natal 12th house, which elucidates illusions, fantasies, delusions and captivity. Too often, we project our fantasies and fears on our partners.
My last pro-tip is this: How much of your natal sun and/or natal moon is reflected in your partner’s chart? How much light are your bringing to their life and they to yours? The sun lights and powers everything and the moon illuminates us through the darkest of times. Conjunctions to the natal sun and moon bode well in synastry. Look for the light.
I am usually very cocksure about my astrological opinions. However, in the game or dance or drama of love, astrology is NOT destiny. A perfect chart, with beautiful trines and conjunctions, does not guarantee an epic love story. So often, we look for the good in a chart and a person and just ignore what doesn’t suit us or make excuses for it. That’s when we have the heavy-hitting outer planets, Saturn, Neptune, Pluto and Uranus–limits, illusions, transformation and disruption, respectively, to shake our relationships up during their planetary transits. The chart itself doesn’t speak to the spiritual or emotional maturity of the people either. All the beautiful conjunctions and trines in the chart won’t make you a mature, self-aware, self-actualizing adult. That’s on you.
My wish for you this Valentine’s Day is that you find the sync in synastry. If you want me to pull your chart, contact me here.
Kristin West 