Divorce 20:  Can an exciting & profitable extra-marital 'affaire du coeur' be transformed into a stable second marriage? The conventional wisdom says "no". Jyotisha says, considering Rahu, "maybe". Both parties in the extra-marital affair have enjoyed decades-long stable but unsatisfying first marriages. The parties met in their teen years, but never enjoyed mutual romance until their 40's. Both parties are gainfully employed, well-educated, responsible parents & community members, and both are in therapy for anxiety issues.  They live on the east (male) and west (female) coasts of Canada, which creates a travel challenge; however for several years they have maintained daily telephone contact. Each considers the daily voice call "essential" and describes the other an "irreplaceable" support in their emotional life. However, long-standing commitments, including financial estates & children, would seem to preclude transforming the this affair into a marriage. Despite feelings of passion and deep emotional connection in the affair, both parties remain sexually active with their legal spouses. The morally conservative visitor may wish to stop reading at this line. Readers  interested in my moral-neutrality viewpoint, pls. see "Counseling Clients Involved in Illegal or Immoral Activities. From the female's perspective, the affair began under influence of Rahu (of course!). Rahu/Guru period: radix Guru = L-7 and Moon's lord navamsha Guru = L2/L-11. Occupying swakshetra in navamsha, Guru therefore gives material results of relationship behavior through radix Guru's character uccha/swakshetra Guru is auspiciously placed in both radix and navamsha angle between mahadasha pati Rahu is auspicious 5/9 to the bhukti-pat Guru these are all fairly auspicious indicators for the affaire du coeur to bring blessings into the female's life.  Gochara Rahu-Ketu: crossing Mesha-Thula, contact navamsha Shukra Rahu/Shani period gochara Rahu-Ketu crossing the D-9 lagna Of course under the rule of Rahu, taboos will be broken. Due to Rahu's awful proximity to Shani, there will be much agony regarding the conflict between comfort of social stability vs. excitement of passionate risk. At onset of Rahu/Shani, both partners experienced misgivings and returned to their conventional marital habits, while still maintaining daily phone contact. Physical trysts nearly stopped. Both partners suffer the Rahu-Shani conjunction in Vrischikha. In the female nativity, this very difficult combination occupies Radix domain-3 for mental health, producing depression and self-doubt. The native is frequently passed over for promotions due to business team members feeling uncomfortable working with her.  In matters of l'affaire du coeur, the effect of Rahu/Shani "traction" has been to churn up two violently conflicting sets of behaviors and objectives.  Rahu wants to "have it all" - passion, freedom, indulgence of every desire -- esp. Vrischikha, sexual desires Shani wants impulse control, stability, predictability, realism, and sexual restraint. Lord of Vrischikha = the powerful uccha Kuja, who becomes very strong in His undesirable role as the malefic lord of L-3/L-8  gochara Rahu will enter Makara which can be expected to very much trigger the L-3/L-8 effects, within a few months after the day of this reading Clearly the native is in a state of deep psychological, emotional, and behavioral distress. It seems almost impossible to choose a path when one is assaulted by two sets of such violently contradictory internal signals! Thus my response below to the querent's questions is intended to be first of all compassionate, and secondly if possible instructive. Sometimes these awful internal struggles which create a "Dark Night of the Soul" bear excellent spiritual results. I wish to emphasize as a matter of practice that I am not encouraging the native to choose any particular course of action. I merely point out the spiritual potential embedded in this difficult moment of psychological self-torture Rahu/Shani, with gochara Rahu-Ketu crossing the navamsha lagna).   Q: My therapist is encouraging me to define what I really want out of this affair. The conflict between what I have (a stable daily routine; an interesting business; a good if cranky husband; a love of my homeland and customs of my people) and what I want (the fairy-tale dream of life with prince charming; a conscious, emotionally articulated relationship; and a richer, smarter, more sophisticated companion) has grown wildly out of control. I'm feeling depressed, looking for more wine in the evenings, angry at myself for wasting so much psychic energy thinking about "him" and the fairy-tale life - when what I have here in the West is so measurably good & stable.  My poor husband knows nothing about my unhappiness... I try to be cheerful at home, stay busy with my own work and the children's choir programs at church, focus on caring for my elderly parents, etc. I really am trying to show appreciation for the good values in my current marriage. But * is aging, and irritable; like most men in our social realm he cares little for ideas... he is a practical man and that is why we have the nice property, the investments, the animals that we do.... By contrast * is a man of ideas & ambition, who lives larger, and speaks introspectively in these quiet morning moments we share. * phones me from his car en route to his office, almost every day. To take his call I must rise very early indeed!  This need to rise early has opened a whole new lifestyle to me. *'s call comes either in the black of night or in early dawn, depending on the season. I go out to the barn where the phone signal is stronger. Like a religious ritual, the call begins my day with soul recognition and emotional approval - a feeling of exquisite grace.  In the solitary hours that follow, as I rest in the warmth of *'s loving words, I am alone with my thoughts. I feel that my husband hardly knows me - nor cares to. When in 25 years has my husband ever asked me, how do I feel? He cannot bear to discuss feelings of any kind. We can be sexual but we cannot sustain any talk of hurt feelings, nothing vulnerable or sweet.  This shortfall in our marriage creates in me a feeling of emotional starvation, to which *  brings the amazing nourishment of loving conversation, detailed talk of feelings, and - when we are together - we talk in this loving way as we touch. Add to that wonder, the glamour of *'s urbane lifestyle with its fine clothing, travel, & wealth.  It's quite the fairy-tale!  What is your view from the Jyotisha perspective? Some days I feel a driving need for urgent emotional change in my life. I want to press * to get a divorce (which he is quite frightened of doing) so that we can marry and live in fairy-land. Other days I feel like controlling myself, working harder to "bloom where planted", and see this childish fairy-tale dream for what it is: an ephemeral gift, outside of time, not meant to substitute for the perfectly good marriage I already have. BTW my writing practice is flourishing and I have published another story.  Thanks for your insights! A. Rahu/Shani/Rahu period gochara Rahu-Ketu crossing Kumbha-Simha = navamsha lagna The graha (heavy ones) in the sky continue to infuse your life with conflicting desires. Hang in there until end of Oct. 2008, when the pressure of Rahu/Shani period will lift considerably. (Rahu-Ketu will also move out of your navamsha lagna in early May 2008, which will also release some of the pressure for urgent upheaval in all of your core relationships.) Life is quite demanding these days: nose-to-the-grindstone, dominated by the sibling, & much pressure to produce in a routinized environments. BTW you *do* produce, since those hard-working planets are well-coordinated! Good sense & effective time management all around. The core emotional issue is depressed thought, negative expectation, low permission due to childhood preparation for scarcity & sudden upheavals.  You may have had a model stable childhood, but there were essential messages in your parents' behavior. These constraining, limiting beliefs say that there is simply not enough time, money, or skill to go around. This scarcity/deprivation message is deeply embedded in your thought system. The jail-guard keeps you safe. How safe do you want to be? The survival training, most of it subconscious, sets up a low-expectation, resistance-to-improvement mentality that contradicts all of your extraordinary education, business sense, reflective ethical & aesthetic values, critical intelligence, etc.  There is an underlying terrible fear of breaking out of the repressive cycle of numbing routine, scarcity thinking, and enslavement to the needs of the sibling. The reptile brain thinks that this oppressive structure needs to stay in place because it is "realistic", "necessary", "inevitable", and "safe":  predictable/familiar/safe. "Safe" is the survival voice Saturn. If Saturn was doing his job unmolested, your down-to-earth sober servitude would make you a model worker, permanently depressed, constantly reining in your future-projection expectations to be "realistic" and finding community with others of the same view. Unfortunately for duty-bound Saturn, He is very much disturbed in His task of keeping you in line with the downtrodden masses.  First of all his planetary lord Mars is exalted which gives you a keen, capable, & ambitious interest in business.  Secondly the "churner" Rahu, who breaks taboos and challenges boundaries, sits cheek-by-jowl with the old prison guard Saturn, threatening (and achieving) jail-break at importune moments. Taboo-breaking, "unrealistic" challenge to entitlement So, the life-path issue of whether the fairy-tale is "realistic" is sure to arise now, in the period of Rahu/Saturn/Rahu, Jan-June 2008.  From the Jyotisha perspective, one force (Rahu) wants to break the chains of self-limitation, crash taboos, and have it all. Rahu provokes an upsurge of intense desire from the subconscious. The desire is to possess a person, an object, an experience, a power... almost always socially prohibited, and very exciting!  The other force (Saturn) wants to stay safe and predictable through conformity to the lowest common denominator standard, and quite willingly accepts the cost of deep psycho-mental oppression in order to accomplish this profound survival requirement. For most people, Saturn wins. For you, it is likely that Rahu will win! But only after a great struggle. Entitlement = permission to do/be/have In the internal narrative, the fairy-tale will be denounced as disruptive, unrealistic, immature, selfish, etc. But underneath Saturn's fear-driven propaganda, there is a real psychic issue of entitlement. At the moment, I would venture to guess that access to the fairy-tale is only allowed in fantasy form, and it has to be kept at a safe distance. IMO if one is interested in the subconsciously held, deeply embedded, assumption of restriction, prohibition, and safe limits, this is a perfectly fine place to hold the fairy-tale for viewing. At a safe distance. But, now, at this safe distance, do indeed examine the dream!  One may wish to consider the distance between where one is now, in terms of luxury, wealth, social standing, intellectual companionship, political engagement, emotional validation, etc - vs. where one would like to be. Turn off the blasting Saturn propaganda machine for a moment. Factor out the particular vendor of this package (Mr. *) and just see it as *yours*. Your life? Regardless of partner, could that be your life?  Entitlement = belief IMO from a Jyotisha perspective there is (as the Yi Jing says) "a big fruit waiting to be eaten" - but if the native believes s/he is not entitled to the fruit, this gift will just sit there and rot on the vine. If there was some past life or childhood trauma that told the little child, you will be *hurt* if you ask for too much, if you threaten the stable if low standards of your people -- then, this belief becomes self-defining.  Luckily it's fairly easy to become the master of this Safety Thought -- not its slave. Try measuring the distance between where one is (after age 50 esp) and where one would like to be. Just have a look. It might begin to emerge that one is holding oneself back from the fairy tale through fear. Other "realistic" fears might be related to the intended second spouse, who in addition to being the purveyor of the material & intellectual fairy-tale is also an alcoholic who might bring major personal baggage into his second marriage. Now that's something to be scared of! What I'm suggesting per the planets is to separate the medium and the message, I.e., separate fears regarding the personality of the 2nd spouse (considerable) from fears of realizing a life of social accomplishment, emotionally sophisticated companionship, pleasure of educated company, and material luxury. Here's the reason that this fairy-tale exercise is worthy of consideration: Jyotisha-wise, the first husband (uccha Guru-drishti-uccha Kuja) is a more-than-decent person, gainful & respectable, altho prone to mood swings from deep internal churning. (I think there is some variety of childhood sexual abuse lingering in there but this may never emerge into consciousness; perhaps better to let sleeping dogs lie.)  There is no forecast of catastrophic problems in the first marriage. Quite the contrary, things are comfortable materially and the husband's mood-swings while stressful are not relationship-destroying. The broad benefits, of security & friendship in a stable community, make it perfectly acceptable to march onward as usual, without demanding much change. However, there is an opening which offers second option. Indeed, there is nothing seriously wrong with the first option! But it is curious to notice that  between July 2014 and May 2015,  you enter what could be a spectacular marriage period that manifests romantic, luxury, love fantasy into reality through marriage. Right before that is a potential divorce period for you: june-2011 to june-2012. I am not predicting divorce per se, but the sequence does unroll that way. So from the Jyotisha point of view - which is itself a thought-exercise - the fairy tale is absolutely achievable. Beware: the narrative voice of Saturn  Shani will argue vigorously that there will be a [terrible] Price to Pay for manifesting the fairy tale, and of course Saturn is right.  There is ALWAYS a price to pay for any major relationship change. The price is loss of predictable routine and social stability.  But should the voice of fear-driven conformity be allowed to direct all future projections? Limit all entitlements?  IMO it's worth considering: who sets the definition of what's "realistic"?  How do the limit-setters maintain their control in one's life?  Tip: they do it by projecting their own fears into one's life.  What is social morality? One has been habituated since childhood to serving this gracious function: as garbage can for other people's fear of change. That is how families, villages and nations cohere (mainly): around a core fear, around the 'ethic' of what our group does and doesn't do. ... it's an ancient survival instinct that we should all bond in agreement to strict limitations & taboos.  The root word of 'morality' ="more" in Latin (prob. orig. Etruscan) = "the behavior of people in settlements". The Greek word "ethos" basis of English 'ethics' means the same thing: customs, or settled behaviors. Group protection through behavioral conformity is indeed an essential component of human life.  But is it the *most* essential component? Your note suggests the feeling of divine grace that you receive in the warmth of post-conversation, that feeling of emotional recognition and spiritual approval that you have allowed to flow into you through a man who lives 3000 miles away, might be equally essential. What might happen in an imaginative exercise if, without needing to block the  physically unsafe real event of contradicting the limits set by one's family & local society, one could roam the realm of psychic possibility and see what the fairy-tale life with * really looks like? With oneself at the center of it? Oneself, the orchestral conductor, intentionally creating the fulfillment of desires? What would that look like, feel like, smell like?  If you can imagine it, you can probably have it. However I do mean imagine it in very complete and vivid detail! Samsara and fulfilling Desires Well yes I am being a trouble-maker here but that's what tantrik thinkers do - we stir the pot a bit.  Tantrik thinkers generally subscribe to the idea that the exhausting cycle of samsara, the wheel of reincarnation, is caused by the nature of desires. In this ideology, the soul is never free from the obligation to reincarnate until it has burned off the huge backlog of desires which sits in the subconscious. This apparently bottomless well of desires is just waiting to gush through the pump, whenever Rahu gives it permission to explode into consciousness.  One minute you're a nice normal law-abiding person and the next minute, BAM! Onset of Rahu period with gochara Rahu amplifying the effect! Arise! Intense desire, deep passion  for a taboo object, and urgency for sudden upheaval forcing massive change. IMO there's not much sense in suppressing Rahu.  Managing, yes -- suppressing, no. I know it's a big battle due to proximity of Shani, who is scared of any kind of change, especially change to very solid socially stable relationships. Nevertheless I would like to encourage you to pursue the Thought Exercise in detail, using your excellent literary imagination.  Find out whether you actually have permission to enjoy the fairy tale life? Can you really see yourself living it? If not, the problem is not the distance between you & your lover.  Set High Permission values in your Aura and Protect against Invasive Fears of Others Rahu is extremely Shamanistic. During Rahu's mahadasha - currently inflated by an antaradasha of Rahu in this Rahu/Shani/Rahu period -- you are channeling a lot of foreign energy, i.e. Other People's thoughts/dreams/hopes/fears. I'd guess the problem is not your lover's choice to stay in his marriage. It's your own Shani-enforced low permission levels, which are further reduced by the fearful, conservative people in your environment.  Outside pressure will lift considerably by the end of Shani bhukti, early Nov 2008. In the meantime you can indeed work skillfully and  intelligently on your own privately held beliefs and expectations. Learn to operate these with ownership and control. Raising your psychic level of Permission will open Entitlement to having your dreams. Remember, the future isn't something that just "happens". The future is a direct & specific result of our present-time expectations & beliefs. Luckily, should we choose to accept the power, we have complete control over our thoughts. You'd be surprised how much validation  you can manifest if you give yourself full permission to go forward, and remove the negative energy of other people who are fearfully holding you back.  That's all it takes to live a fairy-tale - if it turns out that's what you really want! All the best, Barbara
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