The Greater Malefic

Like any sensible Saturn-type person, I am naturally wary of the fifth house; after all, it is a house of detriment for Saturn using the old rulerships. Plus, any house that is the “joy” of anything strikes me as worthy of suspicion. I prefer to avoid it, and my natal chart has, more or less, complied. My fifth and eleventh houses are tiny (fifth house goes from 3 56′ Aries to 29 23′ Aries), and my eleventh house has Saturn conjunct the cusp, Moon and Pluto, thus drawing a considerable amount of focus. I have a loaded seventh house (Sun, Venus and Mercury) and because of this strength in the seventh and eleventh houses, I’ve consider the fifth “unnecessary” since I have a vocabulary for examining relationships that I am perfectly happy with (and it is one of delicious seriousness, obligation and suffering) AND I hate small children just a little bit more than I hate frivolity.

Alas, Pars Fortunae sits there at 6 35′ Aries, comfortably in the fifth house, mocking me…oh yes, mocking me. This regrettable placement forced me to reckon with the fifth house, as fortune is to be ignored at one’s own peril. I then realized that my fifth house was not quite the desolation I thought (hoped?) it was. Though Aries is not friendly to Venus, the Sun, ruler of the fifth house, is in exaltation in Aries and certainly provides energy and impulse, which “suits” all things fifth. Saturn, overseer of all things in my chart, is opposite the fifth house cusp and the Pars Fortunae (which, if I use my standard nine degree conjunction/opposition orb, is also opposed by Jupiter (6 deg.) and the Moon (7 deg.)). And what of Venus? Ah, she fidgets in Gemini, sextile to the fifth house cusp by degree and minute!

Long have I fretted over these things. No explanation or interpretation seemed to speak to me, until I thought about these things through the lens of the seventh house. I desire, at some point in my life, a marriage. I do not desire children. There is one small problem. Despite what one might assume, given my interest in astrology, I am a Roman Catholic. The Roman Catholic sacrament of marriage requires (among other things) that both partners be open to the possibility of children. I am not particularly interested in feigning interest in totlings just to get through Pre-Cana.

After thinking and thinking and thinking about it, I came to some conclusions. I now feel that one of the ways that I will know I have met the proper person for me to marry is that I will be able to imagine myself parenting with that person. I will care so much for that person, be sympatico with that person, and respect that person so much that I will be willing to–if God and fortune will it–raise a child with that person. I realize that an element of it is out of my control and that I can’t plan for everything or plot everything in a neat line when it comes to my personal life. I can see how learning to accept that fact that I will have to give up control or cede part myself in a really meaningful and terrifying way to achieve something that I want (a proper marriage) will be a large step in my personal development.

That seems very much in keeping with the idea of fortune.