Star-Struck: Mary Loves John
Mary has been my client from almost Day One. I met her in a women's workshop at the local community college where I was presenting an astrology segment. She had just gone back to school to start the long journey leading to licensing as a psychotherapist, and was juggling the demands of single parenthood, a full-time job, and her academic responsibilities. Additionally, she was deeply committed to her own personal development, and was open to a wide range of ways to facilitate self-understanding and growth, including astrology, which is what brought her to our workshop. And to me as a client.
Over the years, I watched Mary as she went professionally from beautician to psychotherapist, and personally from single parenthood in a modest rental apartment to the purchase of her own townhouse and the celebration of the arrival of her first grandchild. There had been no room or time for romance, and in fact she had no interest in bringing it back into her full and happy life.
But when she came for her annual reading a few years ago, I had to tell her about a huge “love and marriage” theme that was building in her chart.
“Forget it, Alice,” she said. “I've worked so hard to get where I am. My life is just how I hoped it could be, and the last thing I need is another man in it! Maybe you should take another look at that research,” she concluded with a smile.
“Just humor me, Mary.” I replied. “This energy convergence is happening one way or another, and won't gather again in this way for the rest of your life. I'm giving you an assignment, and if you do it and it comes to nothing, well, maybe I'll consider 'hanging up my stars' and looking for another career.”
I asked her to spend some time journaling, describing in great detail the hypothetical Prince Charming that just might change her mind about romance, if her mind could ever be changed at all: what he looked like, his personality, his interests, his work, etc., and to put down as much detail as possible, just so she could recognize him if maybe he showed up somewhere, without any pressure to do anything about it if he did. Reluctantly, she agreed. Knowing her history of working so hard to become all that she could be, I was pretty confident that she would do it.
And boy, did she ever!
“You're not going to believe what I have to tell you, Alice,” she announced as she settled down on the couch in my consulting room a year later. Mary is truly a beautiful, stylish woman, and her lovely face was only lovelier, blushing with excitement.
“I didn't have a clue about where to begin with the assignment, so I decided to describe the supervisor on my first job as a therapist. I really liked the guy and admired so many things about him, and he had been an enormous help to me as I was getting started. I even liked his looks. But he was in a long-term happy marriage and definitely not available, so he was a safe bet. I have to admit that once I got started, I really got into the assignment, coming back to the description again and again, adding more and more detail to the picture. Then, a few months later I ran into him at a professional conference and learned that his wife had died the year before! He called me a week later, and guess what? We're dating! Go figure! I'm starting to think I may have to eat my words!”
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For the record: I am not psychic. I don't get visions or pictures of how life literally will unfold in the future. Not for my clients, and not for me. And I simply don't make definitive experiential predictions like “Yes, you will get that job you've applied for.” Instead, I speak of energetic potentials and challenges, leaving plenty of room for the free will, judgment, and capacity to make choices of the client to determine the literal outcome. Sometimes, though, it all comes together in an unexpected, synchronous, kind of way, and this was certainly one of those times, a reminder that the Universe can and will go to all ends to make something happen so we can play our next card in this game of life.
When I met with Mary, Pluto, the powerful planet of transformation had just entered her Seventh House of Partnership. Although this is often called the “House of Marriage,” in fact this area of the chart represents experiences encountered in the context of committed relationships between people whose energies complement and enrich each other, and who each have an equal voice in that relationship. Thus, it can represent creative collaborations, business partnerships, and even best friend relationships, as well as romantically-based ones. Still, Pluto's entrance into the Seventh House certainly set the stage for action and growth in these areas, and its passage through this part of Mary's chart was going to last for more than a decade. Also, her evolving (i.e. progressed) Sun was in Libra, the Venus-ruled sign associated with the Seventh House. Venus, as we all know, is the planet associated with love and romance and attraction, so this astrological signature certainly skewed the probabilities in favor of a romantic type of partnership, and progressed Venus was making a conjunction (joining up with) Mary's natal Jupiter in the Fifth House. Among the themes associated with this part of the chart is the excitement of falling in love. But these background influences, though powerful indications of potential, did not necessarily denote action on these themes in the current timespan. Two other influences are what “pulled the trigger” on timing, indicating that something experiential could happen. First, Jupiter, the planet of abundance, good fortune, and good times, had entered that Fifth House. and would be spending approximately a year there, expanding romantic possibilities. AND, for the majority of Jupiter's residence in the Fifth House, powerful, passionate, magnetic Pluto would be flowing strong positive energy to Mary's natal Venus. There was not a chance in the astro-world that these…or equivalent…factors would ever converge again for Mary.
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The next year John proposed and Mary accepted. It was either on a bridge in Italy or somewhere in Paris…I don't remember which.
The year after that, they got married. They're living happily ever after. Of course.