enantiodromia

Sometimes, people will express traits that are the very opposite of the traits that their natal charts would indicate. The best example of this I can think of is that some of the filthiest people I have ever known had strong Virgo placements. Now by filthy, I don’t mean messy or sloppy or merely dirty. I mean, they were filthy. Which is exactly the opposite of the nit picky, hyper organized, OCD clean personality stereotype we often ascribe to the sign.

I’ll never forget one couple, both Virgo suns. They would throw boozy, smoky parties which was nice, but they didn’t seem to understand the concept of cleaning up afterward. There was always crap all over the carpeted floor. They seemed to lack some kind of basic clutter/waste management infrastructure. Instead of a garbage receptacle, they just formed a garbage pile against the fridge that grew incrementally every time I visited. Instead of shelves, they just piled various items like books and clothes against the wall and then against each other. Although they had few possessions, their place always seemed crammed to the gills. And they truly loved living in this den of squalor. There was a kind of underlying anti-authoritarian, breaking all rules kind of defiance to it all, at least on the part of the man.

Jung wrote about this concept called enantiodromia wherein a psychic system, when pushed to one extreme pole, will begin to express its opposite polarity.

 

The Virgo Posts

If you just want to read about Virgo, skip this intro.

This was one of the O.div’s more popular posts, and it received a fair number of comments. I never however, got around to posting “Part Two” before the blog died. It was going to be a longer post (as if this one wasn’t long enough!) about N. American Trickster cycles, which I completely did not understand when I first read them.

I now view the Trickster cycles as psychological documents of the process of becoming human. They are not simply “symbolic” but also magical, in that I believe they are recounting human psychological/existential development made manifest in reality which is to say, they are far more complex than just symbols of Jungian dynamics or what have you. (After living with people who thought “magically” and who also had their own Trickster cycle, I have come to believe that the fabric and material of reality are not nearly as constant and simple as I was educated to think…)

If you would like to read about the Trickster cycle, I highly recommend Paul Radin’s book, The Trickster: A Study in American Indian Mythology. I also think these cycles are very well worth reading in conjunction with existential psychologists or existential philosophers who had a great deal of psychological insight. In this regard, I would recommend Rollo May, Viktor Frankl, and Martin Heidegger.

Anyways, the whole point of Part Two was to expound on this notion of becoming human and to relate this process to the idea that Mercury is both in its dignity and exaltation in Virgo. The title I had cooking sounded something like “Virgo Part Two: From Trickster to Magus.” Oh, and my room these days is usually neat as a pin… (You’ll understand that last sentence after reading the post.)

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Original Title: Virgo Part One: From Subservient Secretary to Ritual Priestess
Original Post Date: March 18, 2006 @ 3:22pm

I’ve been meaning to write a post about Virgo for awhile. But before I proceed, I must add the disclaimer that this post is simply a collection of my thoughts and my own analysis of the sign and is not based upon any traditional astrological teachings.

Susan Seddon-Boulet

Oh maligned Virgo, you’re possibly the most boring sign of the zodiac. By now we all know the old sun sign drill: she’s overly critical, prudish, frigid, anal-retentive, borderline OCD. At best, the sign is characterized by a highly efficient, analytical worker drone with superior attention to detail. At worst, she’s a rigid, aseptic, unfeeling perfectionist more suited to life in the Borg collective than with humanity.