Working Out the Drifting Partnership

5.5.03


Readers, my friends Joe and Ned need a little help resolving an unspoken tension between them. It grew, as these things do, out of their increasingly divergent ways of seeing the world.

As any two friends with opposing viewpoints are likely to be, both Joe and Ned can only see their side—though we, with the proper perspective, can see that neither one is really right or wrong. But try telling that to them. These two are both pretty passive-aggressive, fixed-in-their-ways type of guys. And after having let their situation build up over time, they need to work out some sort of balance in order to remain friends and collaborators. Perhaps, together, we can come to understand how Joe and Ned should do this.

Joe is definitely the boisterous of the two, with an uncanny knack for drawing good fortune to him, often without even trying. What a great quality, and why shouldn't he be proud and uncompromising when things seem to work out so well for him (even if, frankly, it makes him kind of stubborn). Joe's a big personality and, consequently, likes to lead his life with great fanfare—big cars, big parties, big trips, big expenses. He's one of those guys who gets everyone around him all enthusiastic and jazzed up about this or that fancy. A super guy all-around, even as he sometimes seeks ways to avoid the difficult responsibilities (because, after all, it's more fun to have fun!), using that Joe charm and confidence to woo himself out of the hot seat.

You might imagine how a guy like Ned—quieter, harder to read, artistic, sensitive and sweet, though a tad self-effacing—reacts to someone like Joe. Ned is drawn to Joe (as people generally are), Joe's charisma, Joe's ability to attach himself to other people or situations and amplify them, turning them from geek to chic, from ho-hum to yum-yum. Ned is always full of ideas and inspiration himself, but Joe's influence really feeds his inner idealist. Maybe, just maybe, the world could become as beautiful and compassionate and interconnected a place as Ned wishes—with Joe's help in converting these wishes into actions, in taking his dream "to the next level" (as they say on American Idol).

And Joe's no dummy. He knows a good thing when he sees one, and he knows Ned is a creative genius (if not a bit too flighty and temperamental for his own good). Joe can bring his prestige and self-possession to Ned's vision, helping his friend make the world a better place—and getting himself a bit of the adventure and the credit in the process.

So Joe and Ned decided to join strategic forces to open an art gallery and produce a series of groundbreaking exhibitions together. Ned brought the kernels of creativity and meaning to the project. He's the one who sees the big picture of human experience, intuits its subtle intricacies, and deeply yearns to add his unique contributions to it. Joe took Ned's sprouting art and ran with it, made it bigger, gathered supporters, garnered excitement, promoted the joint venture with enthusiasm and joy.

Together, their synergy worked. The momentum built gradually.

At a certain point in their development, though, they ran into a bit of a stumbling block—Ned's vision turned so pie-in-the-sky and head-in-the-clouds, it threatened to become unworkable. The ideas were so big from the get-go, Joe had to bring them back to earth and refocus their efforts into more practical matters, since they hoped to be successful. After all, Joe invested a lot of his energy and reputation in the venture (well, some anyway—and he was so encouraging of Ned), and he wanted a payoff. Ned, meanwhile, couldn't abandon his humanitarian streak, his belief that they really could change the world.

And then it really started to take off. Their project became so wildly successful, it seemed to take on a life of its own, carrying both Joe and Ned past where their initial instincts and intentions had began. Success—or what we shallowly recognize as such—is often a double-edged sword.

You won't be surprised to hear that Joe's sense of self-importance started to overwhelm his responsibility to the collaborative project. As the recognition started to swell, Joe fell victim to that common pitfall of fame and fortune: He started to believe his own press. Ned, meanwhile, tried his best to continue producing work of emotional import to him, but he quickly got wrapped up in Joe's world. For a while, Ned subsumed himself in trying to be who Joe wanted him to be and, out of touch with his own core, lost creative focus. The work suffered.

Joe began to get quietly annoyed, as the prestige he'd worked hard to develop was being threatened by Ned's inability to deliver. And Ned started to realize his own confusion, discovering how far they had drifted from the original humanitarian artistic purposes, and grew frustrated with Joe's ego-driven blindness. Their baby had turned into a monster, albeit successful, grown out of their control.

I've used the changing relationship between Joe and Ned as a fresh way to illustrate the dynamics of the current opposition between Jupiter and Neptune, an aspect in effect from Sep 02-Jun 03 that I've brought up here before. This Jupiter-Neptune cycle, following the model of astrological cycles as exemplified by the monthly lunation cycle, began with their conjunction—back in early 1997, in the late degrees of Capricorn—a joining of forces, like Joe and Ned's, highly idealistic and enthusiastic in nature.

As the Jupiter-Neptune cycle waxed, the results of their combined efforts began to develop and come to light, just as Joe and Ned's venture took off. Now, at the Jupiter-Neptune opposition (or the "full moon" of the cycle), we see the culminating situation of this combination of Neptune's romantic and magical imagination and Jupiter's expansive power.

In our lives, we both reap the rewards of having placed faith in higher ideals and we suffer the realization that these rewards have led us somewhere unexpected, maybe indeed away from the meaningful purpose which fed our initial efforts. Joe and Ned are both characters in our head, and we need to work out the tension between (1) our ego's desire to retain praise and affirmation by barely tinkering with the current formula and (2) the obscure sense underneath that carries us back to purpose and generosity, perhaps in sacrifice of some personal comfort for the larger good.

Notice that Joe and Ned's differences do not manifest in screaming matches between each other, but rather are subtle and non-demanding, like the opposition between Jupiter and Neptune, two unassuming (but still highly influential) planets. Their divergence comes to a head now thanks to some added astrological oomph, which is why I'm drawing your attention to their story.

First, Mars in Aquarius is coming along into conjunction with Neptune, and in opposition to Jupiter—which is like one of Ned's ardent, strong-willed artist buddies showing up and getting him all razzed up against Joe and his pig-headed ego concerns. This Martian influence gets Ned's (Neptune's) idealistic tendencies all riled, makes him want to write manifestos and make speeches about the importance of art and love and other such values, in rebellion against (and potential embarrassment to) Joe's bloated pride.

Second, this month's two eclipses highlight the Jupiter-Neptune opposition, due to a sharp t-square to Mercury in Taurus on both occasions. Think of it as if a very businesslike, third-party consultant has been hired to help Joe and Ned work it out. This consultant will buy neither Joe's inflated confidence nor Ned's naïve romanticism as adequate justifications for their behavior. Both Joe and Ned will have to spell out their logic, step by step, to the consultant—and, with Mercury still retrograde for another couple weeks, they shouldn't expect to understand each other, nor for the consultant to understand either of them, right away.

It remains to be seen whether Joe and Ned will be able to come to a new sense of compromise or if they will simply accept that their differences cannot be bridged and politely part ways. Of course, since Joe and Ned coexist within each of us, it is better for our psychic health if we can find a way to bring them together.

For the next few weeks, a major astrological theme in our lives is to find this common ground—to realize that our destinies need tweaking to ensure we can live according to our ideals and, at the same time, feed our self-esteem and need for free expression. We have changed a great deal since Jupiter and Neptune met in 1997. Fate carried us from there to here. Now, with the month's eclipses forefronting Mercury, we have to incorporate these twists of destiny into the logic with which we make sense of our decisions, so that we can continue to act consciously, not out of easy ego stroking nor unrealistic romantic fancy.