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If you have a problem

I have a lot of challenges in life and few opportunities. In astrology, the sextile represents opportunity and I think my chart has only one sextile, from my Ascendant to a conjunction of two planets -- Mercury and Jupiter -- in my second house in Gemini. 

That conjunction represents my decision to write and it is aspected by Uranus in Virgo in the sixth house of work and health. Uranus rules the internet. 

I write online and that's my work and a source of earned income. I don't make much but it's a legitimate earned income and this has been true for years and under circumstances where having a legitimate earned income at all was highly unlikely because I was extremely ill and also homeless for some years.

Uranus is square that conjunction and inconjuct my ascendant. Many years ago, I read some things that led me to believe the Jupiter and Uranus aspects to my ascendant suggested that at some point I would suddenly have money in a "won the lottery" style of overnight influx. 

I'm still waiting. Perhaps I should occasionally buy an actual lottery ticket, but I can't afford to do so and the second house is earned income, not "won the lottery."

I like astrology for its ability to puzzle out alternate answers. Perhaps I should try harder to find an alternate interpretation of Mercury conjunct Jupiter in the second house of earned income, something other than writing as this is still not paying my bills.

But it's still wildly successful compared to what I should have, all things considered. 

Could I have concluded that writing was the answer for me without astrology? Sure, and in fact I've done plenty of things over the years to explore questions of how best to make a career for myself, such as doing the exercises in the book "What color is your parachute?"

It's a great book and I highly recommend it, but nothing else has given me the kind of clarity and confidence in my conclusion I feel from fitting things to the patterns in my natal chart.

I have tried to pursue other things and continue to try to pursue other things. 

I had a corporate job for a few years. I was deeper in debt when I left it than when I began.

I have wanted for years to start a clothing line and still hope to someday do so. But I don't currently know how to get there from here and writing online is something accessible right here, right now.

I am interested in the food industry and similarly don't know how to make that leap, though I have notes for both. 

Etc.

The one thing I definitely can do is write. And writing, like many things in the world today, is a space with a lot of "starving artists" and a few big winners, so my lack of adequate funds is hardly unusual for this space.

If you have a thorny problem in your life, astrology is something I like because it has a menu to choose from. You can examine the aspects in the chart that describe the problem space and look for a way out.

One way out is to look for alternate expressions of the same energy. 

Mars is anger. It's also energy for action. Taking action to solve a problem is the best antidote I know for one's anger.

Pluto can describe a great many negative things. It also describes rebirth. If Pluto is involved, no matter how bad it is, you can choose to rise from the ashes.

Another way out is to look for other things in the chart that interact with the aspect or pattern in question.

Uranus in my chart is involved with Pluto and Venus and the involvement describes the sexual violence to which I was subjected.

And then Uranus aspects Mercury as well, which describes talking, writing and thinking, all three of which have helped me sort my baggage.

I hate the ways in which astrology gets misused, including my own bad habits of hoping to "win the lottery without ever buying a ticket." I wrestle with whether or not I should handle certain things differently, such as half-baked plans to start a business -- SOMEDAY -- plans which all too often seem to hinge on first having a windfall of money to have capital with which to start.

But I love it for its ability to help me take the same patterns within me or within my life and find another answer, something which I don't feel anything else offers me. 


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