`Obey your parents.' --What says he?
Woman, what have I to do with thee?
No Earthly Parents I confess:
I am doing my Father's Business.' --William Blake, The Everlasting Gospel

(Note: While the following story is true, in order to protect the privacy of clients, it has had names, birth data and locations replaced or removed.  I have inserted a hyper link whenever referring to the chart. Use your "back" button to resume reading.  You might also find the reading simplified by printing the charts.)

It was almost New Year's Eve 1994 when I was contacted by a San Francisco woman despairing her missing son.  I will call her Charlotte.  She was distraught and needed reassurance of the safety of the run-away boy.  The age of her son: 21.  Seeing my reaction, she quickly distinguished him as different from all other boys.

"He's schizophrenic," Charlotte explained.  "I am a professional therapist, and in a position to know these things."  The tale of Eros and Psyche was fresh in my mind, and I wondered whether Charlotte's Venus-ruled ascendant provided a key to the manipulative role of Mother Venus in this ancient tale: all of Venus' clues were present in the story of Charlotte, so this role might provide a story line from which to proceed. 

On Mount Olympus, Venus' relationship with Neptune is described as having a soothing effect on her upsets.  It was in his domain that she could have "a day at the spa", to truly escape her Olympian woes, and be attended by his servants while bathing in the great Sea in which she could submerge herself indefinitely, to be coddled with aroma therapy treatments (annointments).  She could thereby recover her "virginity", her powerfully attractive vigor and sweet demeanor.  Venus was offended that Psyche's millions of suitors had abandoned her temples to favor this girl, a mere mortal.  The offense caused Venus great upset.  So, she sent her Son (Lover) Eros, (also known as "Amor") to avenge the hubris.  Because she could also magnetize power over her child, Venus effectively prevented him from mature relationship with any other, and he could thus remain both infantile and in her power. 

Importantly in the tale, Psyche's name is translated from the Greek as both "butterfly" and "soul".  This fluttering delicate quality perfectly describes the role of consciousness.  This young woman is the picture of Soul who must battle the figures of the unconscious, the gods, in order to achieve love and autonomy.

Without investigating the chart of her son, I saw the crisis in several configurations, formed in her chart previous to the occasion.  The current transit of Neptune to her Sun illustrated perfectly the "missing" or submerged theme of Neptune.  The square (indicating tension) was in the domicile, (the 4th house) to the rising Sun (identity) and Neptune (inner ideals).  In the fall months previous, Saturn (crystallization) had finalized a year-long opposition (opponent, competition tension) to the energetic Mars/Pluto (brute force) conjunction in royal Leo.

This Mars/Pluto aspect would not only be useful in her career as a therapist, but would make such a career choice necessary, as Alice Miller states in her book, The Drama of the Gifted Child.  It also represented a secret of fear and suppression, locked in her childhood memories.  The drive to understand the deep secrets of psychological truth would propel her toward the inevitable, a role as psycho pomp, or in a more modern reference the "psychotherapist."  The "calling" of such a role is motivated by the secrets of her own psyche, conveniently projected onto clients, if only to protect her from her own. 

Charlotte's soft-voiced demeanor would provide no clue to the potency of this 11th house conjunction in Leo.  These surges of force, as described by the two gods, one of War and the other of the Underworld, inspired the images of fear: violence by oppression.  Consciously, such a configuration gives rise to a forceful, energetic role-play, producing a come-hither toward Pluto's Underworld.  With this strongly placed aspect, wherever she threw her attention, she would get results.  Whether by silence, by pure concentration or by any other force of her technique, she could achieve effect, leading her client (or anyone else) forcefully toward the Underworld, the storybook domain of the unconscious.  How this was first activated in childhood could prove to be the key factor in unraveling her son's schizophrenia, the "family curse."

"Meanwhile, as Psyche wandered in search of Amor from people to people, he lay in his mother's chamber groaning for the pain of the wound that the lamp had dealt him.  Then that white bird, the sea mew that swims over the surface of the waves oared by its wings, hastily plunged into the deep bosom of Ocean.  There he found Venus, as she was bathing and swimming, and taking his stand by her told her that her son had been burned, that he was full of anguish at the wound's great pain and lay in peril of his life.  Further he told her that the whole household of Venus had been brought into evil repute, and suffered all manner of railing, "because," said the bird, "both thou and he have retired from the world, he to revel with a harlot in the mountains, and thou goddess, to swim the sea.  And so there has been no pleasure, no joy, no merriment anywhere, but all things lie in rude unkempt neglect; wedlock and true friendship and parents' love for their children have vanished from the earth; there is one vast disorder, one hateful loathing and foul disregard of all bonds of love."¹

For nearly a year, the entire time of Saturn's opposition to the Mars/Pluto conjunction, violent confrontations manifested between mother and son.  The power of the fear of the unconscious (also symbolized by Mars and Pluto) would stand as a barrier (Saturn) to understanding.  Noisy confrontation dominated the household until Saturn's departure from aspect to the "oppression by violence" aspect in Leo.  The door slammed one day and it was over.  Saturn's departure from the opposition to Mars/Pluto then ushered Neptune's (submerged or absent) current reign, square her Sun (the ancients called the sun, "Beloved") from the 4th (home).  Deadly silence would now follow. 

I wondered not only about Charlotte's role as a mother, but also about her maternal parent, and was concerned for the Mars (sexual) energy diverted toward her son during the year of violence.  This mortal mother needed to identify their Olympian, unconscious relationship.  The prevention of a child's confrontation with life might remove him from maturing experience if his mother did not recognize the fact of unconscious incest.

When I asked whether her marital intimacy had been satisfying to her since the violence began in the home, she replied, "No."  Moreover, she suspected her husband might be having an affair.  The young woman in question was a friend of her son's, also 21. 

"She was rolling around on the living room floor, right in front of us!"  This effrontery had offended her.

"Would you roll around in front of your husband that way?" 

"Good god, no!" came the spiteful answer.  I did not ask why.  It was Psyche who had indeed been introduced, and Venus' temple--i.e. her marriage--was empty of flowers, sacrifices and worshipers.  Charlotte must come down to earth from lofty Olympus.

In my home I was used to stretching on the floor, and had been attempting to soothe an aching hip by alternating my position between the floor and my chair.  Lying down, I asked her to place her hand for just a moment under my waist to give a slight support while I performed a leg lift.  I explained my hamstrings were longing for a different stretch.  She obliged me willingly.  I laid on the floor with her cooperating in the exercise.  From our position there together we achieved a different rapport.  It was a natural way for two women to relate, one helpful the other in need of healing--it was her favorite way to relate.  We smiled and returned to our chairs. 

"That was easy, wasn't it?"  I said.  "You don't have to do much of anything special, just be willing to ask for help or experience or a need for your husband's touch--he may be more interested in you than you suspect."  I had hoped to separate the mortal from the goddess by this exercise.  Her marital obligations had to become her focus, in spite of any heart ache produced by her son's temporary absence.

Charlotte's Moon in protective She-Bear² Cancer is conjoined non-conformist Uranus in the 9th, in a wide square to the Sun/Neptune and Ascendant.  This lunar conjunction to Uranus might clue a distancing and freedom-oriented style of mothering.  Uranus transfers that cuddly Bear-style energy of the moon to the collective, and might have been a disappointment to her son.  In one moment he was her object of worship, then in another, the same maternal attentions were doled on to others.  "If I am so special, then why does she treat other, less related people with the maternity owed to me?" could have been his unarticulated disappointment.  Neptune's magical ability, a changing "now-you-see-it, and now-you-don't" nuance in her personal attitude, may not have provided enough of a genuine feeling reaction as a grounding equal to her son's needs for Truth, the very truth she herself sought and which was projected powerfully on him. 

There were similar indications to support this in the boy's chart.  To him, Charlotte's loving would be sporadic, (Uranus) and "fake" (Neptune).  A more genuine centeredness might have provided feeling reactions he could more easily depend on as a gauge for his emotional development.  But the role of Charlotte's mother was to have determined this pattern many years before.

Charlotte's  9th house square to Neptune at the ascendant points sometimes to Neptunian-style denial, a wish for perfection in the ideal of the "Good Mother" she fervently hoped to be for her son.  As beautiful pilot of the Soul (Libra as refined, soft-voiced, Venusian anima figure) she would suppress the tension of any conflict with the instinctual (She-Bear Moon) connection to motherhood.  She attempted to satisfy both collective and personal urges without assimilating the deeper--hidden since childhood--conflict of Charlotte's mother, until life's frustrations and greater maturity forced her to see this inner drama.  Until that time, she attempted (with a Libra mask) to carry the agenda of Mars/Pluto transformative magic and unconscious trickery. 

The "teachings" 9th house placement of the Moon/Uranus conjunction hinted at the notions of mothering as instructed by her own mother.  Square aspects to planets contained in this generally philosophical house sometimes produce a preachy tendency.  Intense 9th house aspects sometimes also pose as acquisition of knowledge to justify a certain high-handedness.  With Charlotte, it produced a "know-it-all" shadow-type: a curiosity fueled by, but not really questioned or understood as, the motivation to uncover her own secret.  She would practice psychotherapy and penetrate the depths of the unconscious with others, but not until the symbol was drawn from the chart (a map of the personal unconscious) did she finally match the two sides of this mysterious coin.

Charlotte's mother had indeed conveyed dubious "teachings".  Her mother's style included a falsely superior confidence in the high ground of magic and terror, a fear-based training symbolized by Charlotte's Mars/Pluto conjunction.  It was this inner configuration which promoted her son to unknowingly apply the same unconscious affects against Charlotte; it was indeed, a "family curse."

An important clue lay in the placement of the chart's ruler, Venus, in the sign of the Archer.  The values of Love had implications of the long-distance, far-seeing Sagittarian. 

Charlotte's style of Love absorbed the loving teachings of all the great masters, the spiritual compassion achieved in the maturity of the Buddha, Jesus Christ and others.  Thus, both the Moon and Venus, along with (ideals) Neptune conjoining her Sun on the ascendant, pointed in unison to the high notions of perfection identifiable in the chart.  She had conveniently "forgotten" these spiritual masters had abandoned marriage and family to follow their revered paths.

Charlotte related to me how she had lived in Hawaii during her pregnancy.  She had devoted her time to preparation for the 1971 birth by practicing yoga and the meditation techniques of a popular Maharishi.  She certainly had ideals in mind when she named her son after a great mythical figure of the Hindu tradition, a sacrificed god equivalent to that of the Egyptian Osiris.  A common English (mortal) family name followed this (Olympian) exotic identity: the exceptional and the routine were combined in his fate: it would be his later, adulthood decision, as to whether to live in the fantasy or in the reality of life.

The transits to her chart at the time of her son's birth (thus forming her son's chart) promoted the ideal with an even greater magnitude: lofty Jupiter and the Great Wash (purification and sacrifice) Neptune conjoined her Venus in Sagittarius.  The birth experience had manifested a powerful archetypal connection to her ideal visions.  Similar to many birthing women through the centuries, Charlotte also experienced the one fantasy that could justify the struggle of pain in birth (whether she experienced pain or not): the loving being had to be so special, so worthy to warrant the effort.  Certainly, as she described it, a radiating light and pure warmth wafted her body, while a spiral of energy manifested between herself and the newly separated being, now in her arms. Indeed a Messiah had been born, just as she had hoped.  She must now ready herself for the realization that women have this childbirth experience daily:  it was an archetypal visit to Neptune's Spa. 

The flowing tears and intensity of the biological, the driving need for the magic of the transformational experience (Mars/Pluto) and her youthful hopes spawned during the hippie generation's great idealistic experimentation with Eastern Religion all conspired to formulate an unconscious role for the child.  He would be the greatest preacher of them all: he would lead the world into compassionate love, the power of which she had longed to project all her life.  The Girdle of Venus had the power to attract men to this Love, and generated especially powerful seductions immediately after her "bath".  Thus, redirection of sexual energy was imperative.

An ecological fact of the psyche has a compensatory rule: what goes up must come down, and her ideals would be no exception.  The upward thrust projected upon her son would have to be compensated later--his only recourse would be to take the opposite direction, indeed toward wandering homeless, (like the great Buddha or Christ) any closure of protection from his mother's ideals in any style of behavior that could most intimidate and challenge.  Schizophrenia fit the bill as indeed it distanced her from his innermost development, his boyhood trust, and connection to her ideals.

The young man's chart also has a Venus theme: the planet of loveliness rising in sacrificing Pisces.  She squares Jupiter in the 9th, at home both by house and sign, and conjoins the ruler of underwater Pisces, Neptune.  Ideals would have to develop from his own experiences of Love, and they could not be ordinary and earthy connections--he would perhaps have to carve out his destiny by living by his namesake, that of the sacrificed god.  To complicate the picture of peace described by the ascendant, that façade of pure sweetness (Venus on his ascendant) was contrasted by an entirely opposite and heroic need for rebellion: Sun in Aries opposed Uranus, and was t-squared by Mars in Capricorn.  Anything could ignite the young son's anger, a tearful Charlotte explained.  Most specifically, Charlotte's Moon opposed her son's Mars: it was her style of mothering that most set him off.  This was the part of the sacred stories conveniently forgotten by Charlotte: the masters of compassion each left their families, abandoned or condemned mothers and wives in favor of the greater truth ahead.  We were to learn much later about his "vision quest": hitchhiking alone to Los Angeles, over 400 miles from his Northern California home.  He began the self-imposed Mars-style³ isolation of his hero's journey to earn the (mortal) self-respect for which he longed.  "Leave me alone, Mom," would have to have been his most fervent wish.

Her projected Love connected by psychological umbilical cord to his superior motive.  In this atmosphere of unconsciousness, her Venus conjunction to his Midheaven (on his mystical Neptune / Jupiter) she could contrive a career for him: as a Messiah.  Her unspeakable hubris was contained at his birth, and even later when she entered into the psychotherapeutic career it would have been impossible to confess as much even in analysis, so this ideal remained secret, couched in the suffering endured by his "affliction".  The secret of messianic birth remained safe until the conflict of Neptune prompted her to question all--to finally sacrifice even the denial.

The Return of the Prodigal Son

"Truly your behavior is most honorable and worthy of your birth and your own good name, first to trample your mother's, or rather your Queen's, bidding underfoot, to refuse to torment my enemy with base desires, and then actually to take her to your own wanton embraces, mere boy as you are, so that I must endure my enemy as my daughter-in-law!  Oh! You seducer, you worthless boy, you matricidal wretch!  You think no doubt, that you alone can have offspring and that I am too old to bear a child.  I would have you know that I will bear a far better son than you have been."⁴

Charlotte listened to the "shadow" in her control of her son's psychological situation in a role-play of the mythic wrath of Venus, as spoken in the tale.  Venus would protect her son Amor (or Eros) from life if she could.  Charlotte was trapped in a guilty grip, both of his dependency on her--he was after all, a schizophrenic and could not be trusted to make his life work without her constant guidance and protection--and on an important link to her mother, still unknown. 

We met several times in the next year, with the goal of incorporating the transit of Venus and of Mars into her life pattern.  Her planetary calendar worked out the ingestion menu for such "shadow eating".  On the days indicated by Venus she would make the proper sacrifices to Venus' rule by buying flowers, taking a bubble bath (sea foam), flirt with her husband, or in some way evoke the archetype of the Love Goddess.  On the days indicated by Mars, she would study her situation (strategy), make notes and observe the energy of the people who surrounded her that day.  After two months of silence I finally contacted Charlotte for our six-week follow-up.  It was the same day as the "resurrection of Osiris", i.e. the return of her son. 

By now she was sincere about being a different mother.  In his absence she had made the attempt to more fully recognized her hopes for his glorified future.  Her assignment from the astrologer was to guide her conscious energy, her psychological focus (Mars/Pluto) more often into the expression of marital intimacy and sexuality.  The energy exclusively devoted to her son now was redirected to work the transference (Mars) with her husband in an appropriate (mortal) manner.  She would effectively "stay out" of the young boy's life by ignoring her son's absence via constant vigil over her own attention (Mars) and love-nature (Venus).  By constantly focusing, she could redirect her attention away from a relationship which must necessarily reject it--the She-Bear may abandon her cub, finally.

This was a trial, and she managed as best she could and with all the assurances that a symbols expert could ethically promise.  In the astrological tool kit was a progressed Jupiter squaring her natal Venus--a lower square to "the domicile", which can also symbolize a "you can never go home again" experience of renewal.  I took this to indicate his eventual return--but to a much different home. 

It was mid-March when the transit calendar showed Mars would square her Venus.  She thought about the flowers, the ritual of casting the flirtatious eye toward her partner, but was interrupted by the phone.  A desk sergeant in a neighboring county (who had no doubt been contacted on numerous occasions) called to report the sighting of her son in his jurisdiction.  She was overwhelmed with joy that the boy was alive!  With her husband she traveled the approximate 35 mile route to make a sacrifice to Venus, as prescribed.  She delivered flowers to the (Mars) official.  On their return they took a less traveled route and there serendipity found the young man hitchhiking toward home.

The "Magic" Of The Mother is Diffused

Alice Miller, in her book, The Drama of the Gifted Child, describes the potent atmosphere of an upbringing based upon the insecurities surrounding a parental need for unconscious reflection by a child.  Such children grow up intellectually very quickly, but the genuine feeling of selfhood is thwarted in the early years, stalling authenticity in an "as if" life.  The feeling that one is living someone else's life, that all is a falsehood is typical among the talented adults of her psychotherapeutic practice.  She lists (p. 8) the three emotional clues shared by these adults:

a. The mother who at the core was emotionally insecure, and who depended for her narcissistic equilibrium on the child behaving or acting, in a particular way.  This mother was able to hide her insecurity from everyone else behind a hard, authoritarian and even totalitarian façade.

b. This child had as amazing ability to perceive and respond intuitively, that is unconsciously, to this need of the mother or of both parents, for him to take on the role that had unconsciously been assigned to him.

c. This role secured "love" for the child--that is, his parents narcissistic cathexis.  He could sense that he was needed and this, he felt, guaranteed him a measure of existential security.⁵

To this, Miller concludes, "This ability is then extended and perfected.  Later, these children not only become mothers (confidantes, comforters, advisers, supporters) of their own mothers, but also take over the responsibility for their siblings and eventually develop a special sensitivity to unconscious signals manifesting the needs of others.  No wonder that they often choose the psychoanalytic profession later on."  The work remaining would necessarily have to address her own parents and their unconscious pattern which she carried from childhood.  This was accomplished (again by the observation of Mars) in a crisis which developed in her practice.

After her son's return in March, Mars soon moved to oppose Saturn in Virgo.  By May, transit Saturn would also oppose this natal Saturn position from the fifth house.  These aspects to the natal Saturn coincided with a tense time of professional review for her Marriage, Family and Child Counseling license.

A client exhibiting enormous anxiety fits provoked other therapists in the clinic where Charlotte had her practice.  Sessions with clients were intruded upon: an urgent decision had to be made to confine her.  But Charlotte was torn, determined she could convince her client to calm herself.  The situation worsened and finally Charlotte resorted to an emergency call to her immediate supervisor who took the situation in hand by legally transferring the out-of-control woman to her professional care and calling an ambulance.  The nightmare over, another two months were required to ingest the issues surrounding her near defeat in practice.

The challenge was to understand the father archetype of Saturn as it connected to her personal father experience.  Saturn was square to her Venus, so I did not expect a great relationship to have developed between them.  Nevertheless, Saturn was not as problematic as the Moon, i.e. her mother.  Charlotte was the oldest daughter and her parents had conferred upon her great responsibilities, some ranging beyond the normal realms of the teen-age girl.  She recalled a pattern of incidents that described their "typical" power struggle.  The ideal of perfect love that developed in her life was formed out of this less than ideal picture existing between her parents.

I wondered how the situation with her hysterical client might have been handled by her father if he had been in her place. 

"Oh, that's easy, he would have called the ambulance immediately.  That's how he was, he was into walls and hospitals and clinics."  The themes of confinement seemed to have hit something important. 

"Well, yes.  My mother had power over him and his authority over us was thwarted.  She would have outrageous fits and temper tantrums and I was the only one who could intervene and fix it.  She told me I had a special, healing touch." 

"So, the episode with the client must have reminded you of your mother?"  The look in Charlotte's eye was one of intense wonder.  She hadn't made that connection yet. 

"Was it your father's belief that your mother should be hospitalized?"  She responded in a mute positive.  "So, how did you fix it?" 

"Well, I was able to talk to her and calm her.  I would sing to her or caress her face.  My father was terrified of her.  Only I had the power to snap her out of it."

"Do you think your mother may have manipulated your father in this way?"  I wondered whether these fits were provoked partially by design.  It might be the key to unlocking her son's schizophrenia.  She disclosed the eventual, painful hospitalization of her mother.

Charlotte thought for a long while.  I interrupted the silence after a moment and asked, "Did you think you still had that same power to sooth your client out of her anxiety fit?"  An emotion of realization overtook Charlotte and she understood.

"I don't have the touch I thought I had, do I?  Caring and nurturing have their limits," she concluded.  Neptune's magic bullet had finally been deflated. 

When I heard from her some months later she was still anxious about her son, but could report he now spoke to her with a greater sweetness than she had heard for quite some time. 

Also, the State of California granted her license to practice as a M.F.C.C.
______________________________

¹ Amor and Psyche, The Golden Ass of Apuleius, A.E. Butler, translator.

2According to Wendy Ashley, Mythic Astrologer, the proximity of Ursa Major to the constellation of the Crab-ruled sign of Cancer more aptly maintains the sign's reputation for the Mother archetype than the traditional Crab.  Bear lore has long held the mother and cub motif which directly corresponds to the maternal connotation of Cancer by natural observation. 

³From the work-in-progress, by Wendy Ashley, pertaining to the Mars archetype and the rituals of the warrior to endure loneliness, travel alone, sleep under stars or bridges, and achieve a warrior's sense of selfhood.

⁴ Amor and Psyche, The Golden Ass of Apuleius

5 The Drama of the Gifted Child, Alice Miller, 1981, Basic Books, Inc.