Love Love Love - Part 1

This article is for those learning about astrology and for those looking for astrological insights in determining who and when they should seek love. It is also a benchmark for how much there is too look at when dealing with the complex issue of love and how valuable a  professional is in finding ideal time periods for finding love and the signs to look for when a potential partner shows up.

Love and money are probably the most common reasons a person looks for an astrologer, reader, or practical magician, and when looking for love (rather than simply easy sex) the topic of "soul mates" often comes up. People yearn for a lasting, permanent ideal love, one that is 'written in the stars'.

Soul mates

For most people, there is not an exact vision of what exactly a "soul mate" is but there is generally a  common idea of  what it promises: unending, frictionless love that maintains it's erotic charge and deep mutual attraction to one another at exclusion of all others. It is a "true" love that was "meant to be".  "meant" being rooted in the word "meaning" and meaning is the essential spirit that gives relationships their importance. Meaning & purpose are essential in life and love.

It seems pedantic to point this out yet it is sometimes forgotten by us in our cultural age of materiality. Meaning, not dry facts or technical details, or status can keep us together. Sure it will bring people together but it won't neccisarily keep them.

Online you can find a number of lists of what makes a soul mate and while the accounts vary,   generally the  story of soul mates usually involves a fated or serendipitous meeting, a sense of sharing  a past life and a commitment (or circumstance) that brings them together into the future and on through the next lifetime.

Soulmate couples are thought to often look alike and share a similar quality that are often strongly apparent to outsiders. Going by the new-age books and websites, there is often a lot of pastells and animated gifs and ribbons involved. I'm not sure but if I had to guess helium baloons and greeting cards are also part of the package.

We Are All Soul Mates

From a broader perspective we are all soul mates. All connections are fated and full of meaning regardless of how much we enjoy the interaction and all of them contribute to our development and forward evolution. The cosmologies of nearly all cultures suggest that all beings are rooted in one source and to this source we shall return.

But even within this parameter of compassionate "love of all people", known to the Greeks as Agape, there is the experience of a personal, soulful and sexual connection that seems to stand out above others. It is to these relationships that this series is dedicated. Hokey claptrap aside there really does seem to be someone for everyone.

Before we get to the details, let's look at the 4-fold nature of love as seen through the lense of Greek culture and astrology. This idea was put forth by astrologer Richard Idemon in Through the looking Glass: A search for self in the mirror of realtionships

Love Types

At an etymological level, romance doesn't mean what we think it means. "romance' is rooted in the word "roman" as in: ancient Rome and the ideals and philosophy that emerged in ancient Greco-egyptian world and it's neighbors.  The Greeks, from whom our western culture (in large part) descends, had  much different understanding of Love and sexuality that was more tolerant, expressive and true to our natures than the sexless,  love denying Judeo-christian empires that would soon follow.

So, let's look a bit deeper into the Greek ideas of love through the simple 4-fold division of the Fixed signs, each corresponding to the peak of a season. To the Greeks there were Four primary kinds of love each corresponding to one of the Fixed signs of the Zodiac. These loves are known as Epithemia, Philia, Eros and Agape and each has a corresponding Zodiac sign that typifies each.

TAURUS: Epithemia (spring / physical love)
Like all early signs, Taurus has a kind of  youthfulness and directness to it.  It's attention is directed towards physicality and materiality. Epithemia then is the impersonal and amoral love of sensuality and the animal body. This love is the basic animal need for touching, feeling, smelling and seeing. It's not merely the sexual act but can also be love of objects in the sense of a favorite bed or fur coat and certainly this includes sex objects such as a vibrator. The love is in the touch, the feel and the way our senses are stimulated. In romantic relationships this love is in the physical touching-feeling and sensing of each other. It can be a friends-with-benefits kind of thing or it can be in dating just for the sex, if there aren't other connections being made.

LEO: Phila (Summer / affection/friendship) 
Philia is affection that comes from the heart which has always been associated with the Sun and Leo is the height of summer. Philia is a mutual love we have for friends and family members with whome we experience joy. It's playful and warm though asexual. While we can experience both sexual love (Epithemia & Eros) with Philia, it isn't sexual in itself. As said, it is thought to be explicitly mutual. That means no inanimate objects, however pets count if they return the feelings of love. This love can be found in more relationships than friends. parents to children, teacher to student, between competetors, leader to followers -anywhere where there is mutual affection. In romantic relationships this is the kind of love where the couple expresses their affections openly. Joy, laughter and playfullness is seen in these relationships.

SCORPIO : Eros (Fall / transformative love)
We think of Eros as sexual love but as we have seen this is Epithemia. Erotic love may come through the sexual act but it's not neccisarily the act in in itself, It is in the mind and in the emotions of a person. Eros (roman Cupid) was symbolized as a plucky child of Venus/Aphrodite who shot 'poisoned' arrows into the hearts of mortals and immortals alike. His glyph was a heart with an arrow through it, a rather violent image when you think about it. Erotic love is painful. It involves the merging and separating of two people. It is love that transforms and that transformation typically involves both pain and pleasure, this is serious scorpio business right here. Eros is the magnetic, inescapable pull of love that casts a spell upon us and causes us to lose control of ourselves. In this loss of control we are changed, if only temporarily. In a relationship this love is intense, private, complicated and deep.

AQUARIUS: Agape (Winter / unconditional love)

Free love, cosmic love, pure love. These are some terms agape is reconsidered in our culture. It is the love of all people on  a universal level. It's also the love for people to be who they are independent of you or anything they can do for you. It's aloof and somewhat impersonal at times but it's also free of the complications brought about by Eros or the brute animalistic simplicity of epithemia. This is the love for people whom you have never met or that sense of unity and love in which we fight injustice and tyranny for the sake of others halfway around the planet. It can be expressed sexually in group sex or polyamory but it's love exists in airy, ethereal realms of ideal. In a realtionship Agape is the spirit in which each partner allows the other to be free to do, say or think what they like. It's an open relationship at most and in smaller doses it is allowance, tolerance and acceptance.









 As you can see, the answer to "who is the right person for me?" is more complex than people first guess and is getting more so as we continue. What kind of love do you want? And in what kind of combination? Typically we want it all but some are more focused on one over another. It also depends on the timing. There are times where we may just need to be friends (agape) and other times when we are looking for an 'entaglement' (eros).

For the purpose of the following essays we will be talking about significant relationships or "soul mates" which attempt bear out the themes of all of these loves equally.

Coming Next...

In the continuing articles on this subject we will look at indicators for love in the natal chart and how important romantic relationships are to a person, where they might show up and with whom. Some people are allergic to commitment, some people want it but don't want kids. Other people have a hard time letting people get close and some are more infatuated with work or other life areas. We all need relationships but not everyone wants the same things in the same way at the same time.

Next we will look at the "when" in relationships as timing is key with everything. You could find and fall in love with your "soul-mate" but if they have just recently married and were expecting a second child with their partner, it's unlikely you two will get together. Timing is crucial in love and not everyone is on the same page or ready for the same kind of commitment as you.

Following timing is synastry which is inter-chart dynamics and the chemistry between two people. There are a great many different aspects that can come between charts especially if you include progressions and extra points such as the vertex and Mid-points. There are however few major indicators that suggest a life-long and life-changing unions. We will also look at composite charts and what kind of unions typically produce marriage and partnership.