Sagittarius Part II: Relationships & Profiles

RELATIONSHIPS

“Don’t Fence Me In”, and “please don’t cling to me” do not have to mean that Sagittarius is the proverbial bachelor/bachelorette of the Zodiac. I have known many that remain in long-term marriages and relationships. The main requirement seems to be companionship, which is a relative term. The Sagittarian who likes sports or outdoor adventures, for example, would probably stay more loyal if their partner enjoyed these pursuits with them, or at least supported and encouraged them in doing what gives them a feeling of exhilaration and freedom. Travel is another area that Sagittarians desire to share with another when they are in love. Remember, this is a restless sign and to be in a relationship with such a person requires a willingness and desire to participate in whatever the journey is. Sometimes it’s an intellectual pursuit. It helps to be on the same wave-length where beliefs are concerned as well. If you aren’t, be prepared for endless debates and even heated arguments.

Sagittarians like to speak their minds and not beat around the bush. If you can handle directness, that is good. They prefer to be up-front rather than vague and cunning. Yes, they have great salesmanship skills, and enjoy being persuasive. They also enjoy the chase, the conquest, and probably some ‘horsing around’. They are often quite playful by nature. We’re talking about fire, after all. They can be flirtatious, which goes with the gamesmanship of chasing and playing around. They generally mean no harm by any of it. It’s fun. They have a vital urge that needs stimulation and perks of excitement to keep life interesting. They don’t abide boredom any more than their Aries kin.

The more Saturnine types (those who have a good dose of Capricorn, or even Scorpio in their make-up) may rather prefer the long discussions, which entail philosophies and ideologies. Game playing may move more towards the intellectual, like a good game of chess or difficult video/computer games. They may prove excellent advisers to their mates and help them with their professional success. There are endless varieties of types with this sign from the jock to the high-brow and everything in between. Sometimes elements of both ends of the spectrum are combined in one fascinating person. It’s pointless to stereo-type them. Would you prefer being in a relationship with a Christina Aquilera, or a Sinead O’connor-type? Both are Sagittarian sun signs. Both sing, perform, and are famous, but from there we’re looking at quite a range of differences in style. Britney Spears and Katie Holmes are both Sagittarians. Perhaps both are out-spoken when alone with their man, but in what way?

Brad Pitt & Angelina Jolie

Woody Allen and Brad Pitt are both Sagittarians. Oh, my! Certainly both have had a way with women in spite of the marked contrast in their physicality. It’s been quite interesting to watch the evolvement of Mr. Pitt’s social awareness and relationships once he became partners with Gemini Angelina Jolie. She is ever the pioneer-communicator, trail-blazer, and her influence in his life has brought him to a greater social consciousness and ever-growing involvement with social activism on both a personal and global level. They are Air and Fire signs together, and for now they seem to burn brightly as a co-mingled team. Speaking of desiring space; Woody Allen, who was married to Mia Farrow for many years, lived on one side of Central Park, while she lived on the other side with her 10+ children, many of whom were adopted with the same fervor and devotion as Angelina and Brad.

It is truly the journey through life that matters to these ever-on-the-move, expansive people. If you like the adventure of living and moving towards distant, sometimes exotic, goals, perhaps you’ll fit beautifully with them, riding side-by-side.

FAMOUS SAGITTARIANS

I have chosen two of the dozens of possibilities to profile in this article. One fits the classic ‘teacher’ profile and his many books continue to educate, even though he is no longer alive. The other is truly a titan in the modern-day world of film and entertainment.

BHAGWAN RAJNEESH (OSHO)

Born December 11, 1930 in Gadawara, India, Rajneesh began to attract many students and devotees in the early ’70s when a wave of Eastern teachers and gurus captivated the mostly white, educated, middle-class seekers in the Western world, especially America. I enjoyed reading the writings of many of these professed ‘enlightened’ ones, but never ended up following one particular teacher, though many of my friends gave up their regular, more pedestrian lives to join the ashrams or communities of these sages. Neptune was in Sagittarius during those years. Much glamour and mystique surrounded those, mostly male, teachers.

Gregory C. Bogart, PhD has written an excellent book entitled Astrology and Spiritual Awakening. In this book he profiles many of these highly esteemed Eastern gurus, including Rajneesh. In this article I will stick more with my own personal experience of the man and his teachings. I found his books quite enigmatic and thought-provoking. Like one of his predecessors, Krishnamurti, who settled in Ojai, California, but tended to discourage devotees, Rajneesh questioned every assumption of what consensus reality was all about. He advocated radical thinking and a departure from Western logic. He was brilliant and prolific in his output of book after book, many of which were based on his daily darshans, or discourses with his devotees. He was a great teacher, a philosopher, and lecturer on how to achieve higher planes of consciousness that one presumed only he was privy to. He reportedly spent most of his time in meditation, and had reached that exalted state of ‘enlightenment’ that so many in the ’70s were seeking.

My favorite yoga teacher joined Da Free John’s commune. My psychic teachers joined Rajneesh, and became Wadud and Waduda. Thereafter they wore only orange clothing, and an extremely large strand of dark beads with a central picture of Rajneesh positioned over their upper solar plexus region. I had been taught that orange corresponds with the second chakra, the seat of one’s emotional body. Presumably this color further bonded the devotee to their master.

Rajneesh seemed to appeal to the ‘Berkeley type’, a person already way up in their head and somewhat disconnected from their emotional body. Waduda, however, was part American Indian and decidedly in her body. She perhaps yearned to participate more fully in community, which was finally offered in Rajneesh’s ashram/community in Northern Oregon called Rajneeshpurnam in 1981. I had studied with Wadud and Waduda, formerly known by another name, for over five years, and my husband and I had become their friends as well. We had both had babies within a couple of months of each other. We felt a strong bond with them, however once they left for Oregon, we never heard from them again. Later, I heard through the grape-vine that their marriage had split apart while at the ashram. I felt very sad when I heard this, for they had been very much in love and tightly woven as a couple when we knew them.

One wonders if Rajneesh had stayed within the frame-work of someone like Krishnamurti, and kept his distance from his students, whether his great teachings might have remained untarnished. His Osho books were moving more and more towards Zen thought before he died a premature death surrounded by mystery in early 1990. But as head of his Rejneeshpurnam in the ’80s, he took on more and more the coloring of Zeus in his great displays of wealth and grandeur. It was said at one time that he owned over 90 Rolls Royces. He loved jewelry and expensive Rolex watches. He seemed to enjoy his lavish display of vast wealth. Was he expressing a tongue-in-cheek form of humor at the Western world’s love of materialism, or was he entrapped in his own self-aggrandizement?

Unlike a pure Sagittarian type, he had a good dose of iconoclastic Uranus in his birth chart. He like to shock and provoke and shake things up. He also declared himself the expert, the guru of enlightened sexuality. His followers allowed themselves to be put through endless rounds of crazy-making on their path to nirvana. I well remember attending a women’s group, that I was invited to join, where a large, rather outspoken woman, wearing the familiar Rajneesh orange, and giant beads pretty much dominated the group for over two hours with her out-pouring of tales of tribulation at the ashram. She had been beaten severely several times in ‘group therapy’ sessions where everyone was encouraged to act out their feelings freely and without restraint. (What primal aspects in Rajneesh might have been projected here, one wonders?) Our group was being asked to give her a healing. I felt concerned seeing her still wearing the prescribed orange garb and very prominent beads around her neck. It felt like a futile exercise with an abused member who would undoubtedly return for more.

The shadow side of Sagittarius seemed to have seized the human side of Rajneesh in the end. Gurus often dictate how, when, and with whom you may or may not have sexual relationships with but, like Zeus, remain themselves above their own laws. I’m not privy to what, exactly, Rajneesh required of his devotees while in his ashram. He certainly had strong opinions and dictates concerning sexuality in his books. One can see from his birth chart that he was a highly sexual man with Mars, Venus, and the Moon all conjoining each other in an earthy sign. His nemesis was the major woman in his life, his confidant and ‘Lieutenant’ named Anand Sheela. Like many Sagittarian types, he wasn’t particularly interested in the administrative end of things or even overly concerned with how the practical aspects of governing such a large community of thousands was handled. He left that to Sheela. His community began to threaten the ultra-conservative nearby township in rural Oregon, and he was seemingly oblivous to certain devious and sinister plots to rig the town’s election process in favor of his community, as well as the poisoning of patrons of a local restaurant, and other nefarious acts. Was Sheela behind all of this? In the end, she certainly did embezzle much of his fortune, amassed from the generous donations of his followers. She left the country and then openly denounced him. Since he was ultimately the responsible party, the IRS and the FBI bore down on him for all sorts of infractions. He was imprisoned for a time, and it is rumored that he was injected with some very dangerous drugs during his incarceration before finally being expelled entirely from USA soil. Was Chiron trying to teach him something that Zeus obviously couldn’t comprehend? Tis a sad tale indeed. He died of a heart attack in India shortly thereafter, attempting to rebuild his community there. It gives me pause to again wonder, to what degree Rajneesh truly introspected during all those countless years in meditation? Or was he just all too human, like the rest of us, after all?

Let us now move on to another extraordinary Sagittarian who continues to expand his quest amongst us.

STEVEN SPIELBERG

Steven Spielberg was born December 18, 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His mother was a concert pianist and his father a computer engineer. The Sagittarian part of his nature, as shown by his birth chart, is held in-check through the Sun and Mercury’s placement in his house of work. This is a very non-egotistical Sun-sign signature, and shows that Spielberg’s ultimate goal has always been to master his craft. Both Chiron and Jupiter embrace his Moon in Scorpio, from either side, in his house of performance and creativity. His ability to synthesize these two Sagittarian archetypes through a continuous and prodigious out-put of movies since the tender age of 13 years, and to have also created block-buster hits that grossed millions and millions, is quite astounding for one mere mortal soul. He is probably a household name, known globally as the orginator of Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Color Purple, Empire of the Sun, Hook, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence, and Saving Private Ryan.

His Zeus-like achievements of fame and fortune are legendary. At 62 years he is still going strong with a continuous stream of projects in the works, including another potential block-buster, The Adventures of Tintin. He is said to be worth over $3 billion, and considered one of the great achievers of the 20th Century, as well as the most influential filmmaker in the motion picture industry. The lower side of Jupiter, which is excess, extravagance, and debauchery, he seems to have by-passed opting for the more integrative and introspective qualities of Chiron, which are the efforts to heal and bridge differences and polarities. Some of his later, more serious films show his effort to view history as a way of gaining greater clarity and meaningful understanding into the human dilemma of war, slavery, and injustice.

There is a risk-taker in his nature, as well, mirrored by the strong Singleton (all by itself) Uranus coming from his house of the collective unconscious. His openness to ‘cosmic inspiration’, and his willingness to explore other realms through sci-fi and fantasy are in counter-point to what might be a more conservative Jupiter. Walt Disney, another great promethean titan of the entertainment world, bore the Uranian imprint as well. Disney was born with the Sun in Sagittarius conjoining Uranus.

Like nearly all ‘Chirotic’ souls, Spielberg felt himself to be ‘alien’ as a child. He was certainly self-taught beginning to create movies in his early teens. His very first full-length movie, ‘Firelight’ created when he was only sixteen, bore the archetypal imprint of his Sagittarian quest to explore and go beyond the ordinary. Many have commented on his child-like, even naive, sense of wonder and faith portrayed in so many of his movies. His fiery, youthful quality blends and complements some of his later more serious and deeper films, which portray the darker side of human nature, yet still seek an optimistic resolution.

There is quite a blending in Spielberg’s nature between his Cancer rising, and thus Lunar-ruled, watery, emotional side, which is quite child-like and sensitive, and his fiery directive to be the Sagittarian Sun/Mercury adventurer, who problem solves on-the-run, and achieves self-mastery while over-coming life’s many treacherous obstacles. Indiana Jones, one of his most famous protagonist heroes, certainly fleshes out these qualities on the big screen.

Spielberg, unlike Rajneesh, has never formally identified with the archetypal ‘teacher’. He is, rather, a master story-teller weaving his spell on his listener/viewers through the magical medium of film. Like Scheherazade, he keeps us breathless and wanting more. We are dazzled, entertained, transported into other realms, plunged into pathos, kept on the edge of our seats, and sometimes even enlightened by these multitude of tales pouring forth from his most bountiful, Zeus-like cornucopia. Bravo Sagittarius!

Sagittarius Part I is here.