I will be the first to admit that I have my flaws, quirks, and shortcomings.  I’m far from perfect and I know this.  So, when I got into a fight (okay, it was more like World War 3) with my SO (significant other), I was able to admit to all of my flaws… as well as nitpick one thing that he did that I did not like.

Background chart story: I’m a Pisces with a Libra moon and Taurus ascendant.  Those are some pretty relaxed and lazy signs.  I’d even say “go with the flow”, but Taurus gets a little stubborn.  My sun sign is on the cusp of Aquarius/Pisces (one degree Pisces).  I also have Mercury and Venus in Aquarius.  A few houses and signs down, I have three planets located in Scorpio.  I have Mars, Pluto, and Saturn in Scorpio.  I have a Mars and Saturn conjunction with a two degree orb (this is the distance between the planets).  Pluto is about ten degrees away from these planets.  Scorpio is the natural ruler of Mars and Pluto.  Alright, where am I going with this?  That’s a lot of Scorpio influence and intensity.

I have to admit, that Scorpio isn’t my favorite sign.  Especially the negative aspects.  It’s something that I’ve always denied in my chart, because the negatives are pretty ugly!  However, it is also my Scorpio is my descendant.  Descendants are defined as the traits in ourselves that we deny and then project into others.  Descendants fall in the cusp of the 7th house, the house of relationships.  So, whatever your descendant is, that is what you project onto relationships with others.

Back to the planetary stuff, I read somewhere that when there are three or more planets in one sign, it creates a stellium (thank you @astrogrrl!).  Stelliums can be a powerful influence, especially when in the same house or when the planets are in conjunction.  In my case, I have Mars (passion, what drives you) and Saturn (limitations) conjunct in the 7th house (relationships) and Pluto (underworld, transformation, rebirth)  in the 6th house (health, daily routine, work).

The sign Aquarius is known for its stereotype of being detached.  I recognize this as having a short attention span, jumping from topic to topic, arguing for the sake of arguing (even if it’s something I don’t believe in), and falling in and out of love on a whim.

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Okay, back to the original story.  My SO and I got into a fight.  I won’t say any specific details, but he did something that I did not like.  He held back some information in order to “protect me” and I stumbled across this information and boy, did it infuriate me.  I had funny feelings about it before, but I brushed it aside, and decided not to confront the issue as I should have.  So, that is one of my faults, I tend to run away from conflicts (Libra moon!) because I don’t want to know the full story- especially when I think it has a bad result.  I should have said something from the beginning.

Well, I didn’t.  This issue came up somehow in conversation, and the missing parts were accidently dropped.  Woops.  The scorpion in me flared up.  An important thing to note, the stereotypical Scorpio- they do not like lies!  Scorpios do not like hidden information.  Scorpios do not like to pry around for the details.  Being upfront and honest is the sure way to win a Scorpio’s heart.  But, if that swings the other way: withholding information, lying, telling half-truths, it is not pretty.  This is especially true, coming from somebody with Mars in Scorpio.

Mars – the god of War!  Add in the Scorpio flare and bam!  You get a very powerful, highly motivated, passionately driven person.  Sounds cool, right?  Absolutely.  Wait ’til you piss them off.  Let me tell you, we fight to win.  It can be a very painful battle, especially for those on the other end (sorry).

Okay, jumping off track.  While I was in my battle suit,  I found myself absolutely detached emotionally.  As a Pisces gal, I tend to cry very easily. I’m a sap, I weep over movies like The Lion King… and recently, I found myself sobbing over the movie, Cars.  You get the idea.  I put on my suit of Scorpio armor, and instantly became detached.  And cold.  Basically, I became a bitch.  I attacked and attacked because I felt violated.  My heart was crushed, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell that.  I was so cold.  Sarcastic (the mean kind!).  Volatile.  Poker face.  I think I looked unaffected, because my SO said that I didn’t even seem to have any emotion.

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So, was this detachment an influence of Aquarius or Scorpio?  While my Aquarian influence has me fluttering from topic to topic, or person to person, I think that this detachment stems from the intensity of Scorpio.

Do you have a strong Scorpio or strong Aquarius influences in your chart?  What do you think about the detachments in these signs?

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(P.S. In case you were wondering, me and my Leo made up.  I put up the white flag :)

A little late post, but better than not.

Last week, we had a solar eclipse on the 29th degree of Cancer – July 22nd, 2009 at 10:35 EST.  So far so good, right?  Now, I’m stuck at the point where I’ve been trying to figure out how this solar eclipse may potentially affect me.

The solar eclipse had a conjunction with my IC (Imum Coeli), within a degree, in my natal 3rd house in Cancer.  The aspects that I saw with the solar eclipse -

• sextile Pluto in Scorpio in the 6th house
• sextile Moon in Libra in the 6th house
• trine Uranus in Sagittarius in the 8th house
• quincunx Saturn in Capricorn in the 9th house
• quincunx Sun in Pisces in the 11th house

And of course, I have no idea what this means.

Luckily, one of my new Twitter friends, NewLunarium, is writing a great post on how the solar eclipse will affect us.  The post is a work in process, but so far, it has some pretty good information.

Here are some other resources to check out regarding the solar eclipse and you! :)

• Longest Solar Eclipse in 21st Century at 8th House Spark Breaker
• New Moon/Solar Eclipse in Cancer at astrogrrl
• There are a few posts about the solar eclipse at TruLuvHoroscope
• Solar Eclipse of July at Astrotherapy
• The Solar Eclipse at 30 Cancer July 21-22, 2009 – What Are Its Effects? at Aquarius Papers
• Solar Eclipse through the Houses at Lunar Living

Today’s AstroMonday topic is about Unknown Birth Times!

This is a topic that has always interested me since I’ve been dabbling around birth charts.  I don’t have the birth times for my Mother or Father, so a lot of it has been a guessing game for me.

For my Mom, she was born in a foreign country and the area where she was born, didn’t keep birth times on their records.  With my Father, I haven’t attempted to pursue his birth time information because he doesn’t believe in astrology, let alone any other new age/occult type of topics.

My Mom is a Scorpio and my Dad is a Sagittarius.  The next step, was finding my parents’ moon signs.  I was very happy to find this site: Lunarium: Find Your Moon Sign!  I found out that my Mom has a Taurus moon and my Dad has an Aries moon.  I was very excited to find out this information, which makes a lot of sense.

My Mom has a really thrifty side to her and is always talking about the greatest bargains she’s snatched… but I said to myself, “There’s no way that Mom has Taurus in one of her big planets”.  I was wrong.  :)

As for my Dad, it totally justifies all of the fire in his personality!

The next thing that I would like to do is to find my parents’ rising sign.  I think my Mom’s may be an Air sign- she likes to talk a lot- I think it may even be Aquarius.  Then I think my Dad’s may be an Earth sign, maybe even Taurus rising.  He is pretty stubborn (but I think that’s also a Sagittarian trait) and whenever I think of him, I think of this Earthly sign.  I’m just not sure what it is.

After tweeting with some people on Twitter, they say that the best way to find out these things is to make a list of all of the significant things that have happened in their life.  When they moved, when they got their first pair of glasses, when they got married, etc.  It will definitely be a long list – I’m not sure if I could do it though.  I’m still having problems learning the planets!

I would really like to find out these things myself, but I think that this is way over my head.  I’ll leave it to the professionals!

Have any of you had luck trying figuring out unknown birth times?

Last week, I talked about the first house in astrology.  However, it occurred to me that some of you may not know what the houses in astrology mean.  I mean, I’m still learning, so I don’t know what a lot of this house mumbo-jumbo means! So in order to learn, I’ve decided to share what I’ve learned about the houses.  I strongly believe that the best way in learning something is to share and teach others.  I’m jumping off the subject, okay.  So, what are the houses in astrology?  What does all of that stuff mean?

There are 12 houses in an astrological chart.  (There are a few different house systems– equal, Placidus, etc., but that is for a different post.) Each house is represented by one of the 12 signs in the zodiac and represents an aspect of the human personality.  By examining these houses in a birth chart, we can determine how a person is likely to act in certain environments.

In the book, Parkers’ Astrology by Derek and Julia Parker, they describe the house system:

The planets represent motivation.
The signs show how we will direct or use that motivation.
The houses show in which sphere of life that motivation and effect will be manifested.

I find this to be a good description of how the planets, signs, and houses relate to each other.

I read in another description somewhere (unfortunately, I forgot where!) and this also helped me understand the astrological houses.  This person said to think of each house as a room in a bigger house.  The houses represent the environment (or place where lessons are learned), the signs represent the style (how the situations are handled) and the planets represent the person (motivation) that lives  in the room.  Think of it as visiting a room (house) and running into the person (planet) that lives there.  I like to think that each person (planet) adds their own decorating style or flair (sign) to each room (house).  Some of the houses in a chart may be empty (no planets), which means that house isn’t a major factor in a person’s chart.  Or alternatively, this house isn’t something that the person needs to work or focus on.

What do you think?

In the future, I’ll write some detailed posts about:

• First House – House of Self
• Second House – House of Possessions
• Third House – House of Communication
• Fourth House – House of Family and Home
• Fifth House – House of Pleasure
• Sixth House – House of Health
• Seventh House – House of Relationships
• Eighth House – House of Death and Sex
• Ninth House – House of Travel and Philosophy
• Tenth House – House of Social Status
• Eleventh House – House of Friendships
• Twelfth House – House of the Subconscious

Welcome to a new section in Taurus Rising!  This is called AstroMonday.  Every Monday, I will blog about something in astrology.  I have been learning so many things, it’s kind of a waste to not share this knowledge!  Astro Mondays won’t be in any specific order, but I will have a page with a list showing all of the topics under this category.

Today’s topic is the first house and the ascendant.

The first house is the “House of Self”.  This is home to the ascendant.  The ascendant is also commonly referred to as the rising sign.  The ascendant is the sign that was rising over the horizon at bith.  The first house is naturally ruled by the first astrology sign, Aries.  Since Aries is the ruling sign, the first house is naturally ruled by the planet Mars.

The planet that rules the rising sign at birth, is also said to be the chart ruler.  An example of this is my Taurus rising sign.  Taurus is ruled by the planet Venus, therefore Venus is my chart ruler.

The rising sign represents the mask that you wear in public.  In other words, it is what people first see when they meet you.  These are the first impressions. It is how you maintain your looks and your image.  These are your outward personality traits.  The first house is also said to with a person’s early childhood.

The rising sign is one of the most powerful influences on a person’s personality.  Some astrologers say that the rising sign weighs as much as a person’s sun and moon signs.

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If there is anything that I’ve missed or there is something that you’d like to share about the first house and rising signs, please share them in the comments.  :)