Explain my religious angst

I haven't thought about astrology in years, but I have gone through such a period of upheaval and confusion about who I am and where I come from that I recently looked up my exact birth time and tried to read my own chart.

One thing that doesn't make sense to me is my struggle with religion, lifelong and current. It seems like I should have more going on in the ninth house, the way it's always gone with me.

God and religion have been a source of angst since childhood. I experienced the dissatisfaction of those who care deeply. In adolescence it was total chaos, just embarrassing. As an adult, despite not being born Jewish, I am convinced that I am supposed to be. You are not going to be able to talk me out of this. Nothing else seems acceptable. For a long time I thought this was a bizarre fancy arising from too many books and not enough parties, but then I learned about gilgul, or the mystical doctrine of the transmigration of Jewish souls, and its relationship with conversion. The gist is that one doesn't need to be Jewish to be valued by God, but a certain number of souls floating around are fundamentally Jewish, and if they get separated from the herd by some sort of trauma and born into gentile families they need a way to get home. On a more earthly level, Jewish people get me and I fit better in the culture than in my original culture, which fails to see the potential in argumentative, stubborn, sarcastic people (sorry, but sometimes stereotypes contain a grain of truth).

I have been part of my local Jewish community for almost four years now. These are Conservative Jews, who for those not in the know are an American denomination that uses traditional liturgy but is not strict about legal matters. They have accepted me and will formally convert me if I ask them. They are my friends and I love them. However, I have been cheating on them with an Orthodox outreach organization and corresponding extensively with Orthodox Jews. The Orthodox exert a philosophical pull on me. They would help me convert too, but there would be more sacrifices, and it would change my life in extensive, irreversible ways. Even with all the research I've done into how to avoid breakaway cults and bad marriages and such, risks abound. My parents, hitherto tolerant, would hate it - they are progressive types and find my deep social conservatism scandalous as it is. I would probably have to move to a place with a larger Orthodox community. I would be more conspicuous and vulnerable to antisemitism and adverse political developments. My pleasantly predictable and structured life would also be a restrictive one.

It is important to understand that excessive or constant asceticism and self-punishment are assur, or against this religion. But so is laxity in holy matters. So I must understand my motivations better in order to make decisions. I have other methods of self-investigation, sacred and secular, but Horoscopes are not strictly forbidden.



I have included transits, in case they are relevant. No real theological debates, please. Keep it personal.

Marking this for later

conspiracy theorist said:

Marking this for later

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take as much time as you need

Consider the following -



You mention the your lack of 9th house action as a conundrum juxtaposed to your experiences of religious angst. Assuming that your 0 Virgo rising is truly your actual rising sign (which is tenuous even if your birth certificate has the time on the chart as the time of your birth due to the minuscule difference that would result in you having a Leo rising) your ascendant ruler Mercury is attached to the 9th house ruler in your chart, Mars. Its important to note that the combination of a Mercury/Mars conjunction, it's rulership of the 9th house, and it's connection to the ascendant through the ruling planet is a very powerful aspectual pattern which describes this issue in your life. Mercury-Mars aspects speaks to disputation, mental power struggles, conflicts regarding thoughts and ideas, sarcasm, harsh speech, argumentativeness and stridence in viewpoints and the desire to go to war for what one thinks and articulates (an implication made by yourself that your personality fits this criteria). You have a naturally critical and analytic mind (which is re-emphasized by the fact of your Virgo rising) and this energy pattern is geared toward the 1st house (your "way" of living so to speak) and the 9th house (Philosophy, Religion and God) so that this critical and analytical approach to anything that comes within your mental purview is also applied to the way you interface with the big questions of God, Religion and the deeper truths that underpin the world around you.



Note that there are some other points within your chart as it stands that goes about explaining your religious angst issues but something that I notice is that if your chart actually has 29 Leo as the rising sign, then the 11th house cusp would fall in Gemini, making the philosophical angst you feel also connected to community issues and belonging to a group with your mentioning of gilgul and your assurance of being a Jewish soul (the 9th and 11th - a foreign religious group. The 4th also, as legacy and ancient bloodlines). Also, if you actually are a Leo rising, then your Moon is in the whole sign 9th house - and the fact that it's Martially influenced on top of things could also go about explaining your problems. With regard to Mars, it traditionally is the planet that governs severing of ties, rebellion and defecting from a group or a project - Uranus is the modern planet that takes over those significations. Again, you can apply this information to your experience.



That's not it for this Mars/Mercury conjunction, as it is square an Aries Moon. The conflict that these two facets of your chart could result in is a conflict between how you think vs. how you feel, anger and aggressive tendencies, temper issues, a conflict between head and heart, a dissatisfaction with the way you were reared, very tenuous coping mechanisms, anger toward the mother figure (or an angry mother), a rejection of all that she represents as an act of rebellion, among other things. As the chart stands, your Moon is the ruler of the 11th (tying into the Mercury/Mars conjunction) which might go about explaining why this religious angst is something that goes deeper than a mere philosophical disagreement, so much so that you are convinced that your very soul is fundamentally different from the cast that you born into.



The receptions of this aspectual pattern (Mercury/Mars square Moon) as well as the strength of Mars in this chart (exalted, in sect, oriental, advancing) has much to add to the nature of your situation, but I'll leave that behind as you probably get the message by now.


Another thing that goes about explaining your issue is your Jupiter. Your Jupiter is doing two things that gears it toward "contrariness". For one, it's in its detriment as it is located in Virgo, and it's also Retrograde (Rx). Jupiter as a planet has government over philosophy, spirituality, and higher education/learning so that such a troublesome Jupiter might describe someone who has a lot of *angst* surrounding religious issues and the big questions (which doesn't mean that they are weaken which many people might assume a planet in detriment signifies) and importantly, this Jupiter is located in your 1st house - which speaks to personality, and the over-arching way that someone engages with the world. A troublesome 1st house Jupiter might give the angst and the subsequent need to resolve this angst through philosophical and religious enquiry. The energy of Virgo is very much concerned with details and analysis, where the natural urge of Jupiter is toward synthesis and consolidation. A Virgo Jupiter approach might be one where intense analysis is applied to the religious doctrines one comes across, and the strongly logical nature of Virgo/Mercurial energy might result in someone who places congruence to a logical framework (not necessarily a logical framework universally held) as the highest criteria for the efficacy of the doctrine under enquiry. Obviously, there are strengths and weaknesses to this approach. Another aspect that I see within your chart that might indicate that this has roots in a rebellion against your mother is the fact that this Jupiter is square the MC ruler - and the ruler of the MC is Venus in Sagittarius (interesting symbology for a religiously/philosophically minded mother)


Another thing about the way you approached this conundrum in your life is the fact that there is a lot of the Choleric and Melancholic tempers in your chart (a traditional astrology principle that utilizes the four fairly well known temperaments Choleric, Sanguine, Melancholy, and Phlegmatic). I'm going to take your chart at face value and say that you are predominantly a Melancholic, and I think the way in which you've described your process might be more in line with that temperament. There was a thread on another astrology forum many moons ago that gave a list of persons who predominated in Melancholy and many of them were very one-track minded and obsessive and as a result became very huge successes in the fields that they decided to focus their inordinate amount of patience, attention, care and deep, ponderous mental characteristics toward. A phrase you used sums it up, they "cared deeply". Check this out for information http://www.skyscript.co.uk/melancholy.html



More modernly, Your Sun is conjunct Uranus,Neptune and the north node. Generationally, the Uranus/Neptune generation is touted as the set of persons who would bring a lot of spiritual/non-material revolutions down to earth where they can be worked on pragmatically. The advent of the internet which greatly dissolved the boundaries of information and cultural exchange is also attributed to this energy signature. More specifically to you, with this conjunction's occurrence with your Sun, seen as the point of identity and self-expression, and the dragon's head, which is seen as the point where one's soul growth/path of optimal development lies, it could be said that this religious quest that this angst stems from is the part you play in the universal drama that this energetic pattern has unleashed on the world. So if my interpretation has any truth to it, you're right where you supposed to be - your life being a symbol of the revolutions taking place in how religion and spirituality is interfaced with by modern people.

Regarding Mother -



- MC on Algol
- Venus in Sagittarius in the 4th juxtaposed with your religious angst
- Moon in 8th
- Moon in Aries
- Moon square Mars
- Pluto which modernly speaks to issues surrounding power and control is conjunct the cusp of early childhood, the IC.
- Possibly Moon in 9th if born any earlier



Does she play an integral role in your religious angst? You don't need to elaborate if you don't want to.

conspiracy theorist said:

Regarding Mother -



- MC on Algol
- Venus in Sagittarius in the 4th juxtaposed with your religious angst
- Moon in 8th
- Moon in Aries
- Moon square Mars
- Pluto which modernly speaks to issues surrounding power and control is conjunct the cusp of early childhood, the IC.
- Possibly Moon in 9th if born any earlier



Does she play an integral role in your religious angst? You don't need to elaborate if you don't want to.

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The document I found identified my birth time as 7:52 PM, and my original understanding was that I had Leo rising. If you buy into physical astrology, I look like caucasians with Leo rising are supposed to look: a big-headed, bushy blonde with a loud voice and a masculine aura that attracts lesbians by mistake. I have the mysterious ability to command a room, which doesn't make a lot of sense with the rest of my social skills. However, I am neurotically sensitive to my environment like a Virgo rising. It's ambiguous in someone who has a lot of earth and fire placements anyway.

I have mostly positive memories of a safe and happy early childhood, but in these memories I am almost always alone. I didn't have brothers or sisters, and I stopped developing normally when I was around two. My responses to other people weren't right; at first it was simple things, like knowing my name but not responding to it, but as I got older it became a more complex set of problems that continue to haunt me. I have the trauma history of someone with serious developmental delays who was ostracized and isolated, had to go to special schools, was routinely manipulated and misled by others, was hospitalized, lacked normal coming-of-age experiences, and so on, but with my IQ no one would believe it now.

As a result of my past problems and my parents' divorce, my mother and I are probably too close. She is a wonderful person who has worn out her health with generosity and compassion for others. If my chart reads as someone who has conflict with mom, it's probably because she can be a "guilt mom" at times. The ethics and methods of acquiring a separate identity from mom have been quandaries. She gives me some mixed messages. One day it's "I want to see you fly away someday little bird," the next it's "what would I do without you?"

She raised me with a strong sense of universal morality. We volunteered at food banks, helped the elderly, you name it. Organized religion was touch-and-go. She was shooting for middle class conventionality, but she had both a near-fundamentalist upbringing and radical hippiedom in her background. She kept changing her mind about things: this church didn't have the right politics, and this one didn't have the right aesthetics, and the next one didn't have enough parking spaces. I always felt alienated from the communities where we landed. I don't know how much of this was moving around too much vs. my eccentric presentation vs. having a Jewish soul or what.

Mom's chart. Don't have a birth time, but she once told me she was Gemini rising: