CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The Alchemy of Relationship
"The meeting of two people is like the meeting of two chemical
substances. If anything happens, both are changed."
- C. G. Jung
When we mix together the ingredients for a cake, we begin by
measuring the appropriate quantities of distinct and separate
ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, sugar, milk. But somehow, when
these are blended together in a particular order and baked at a
particular temperature, we create an altogether different entity. The
chemical composition of the ingredients has irrevocably changed; the
cake smells, looks and tastes different from any single ingredient
which we put into it at the outset; and through some magic which
the chemist might explain but the cook usually does not
comprehend, a transformation process has occurred which is nothing
short of miraculous. Some ingredients, skillfully combined, make a
delicious treat. Others produce a reasonable but unexciting dessert.
Still others, even if they sounded wonderful in the book, create one of
those kitchen failures which teach us to try another recipe next time.
And perhaps even more mysteriously, different people like some
kinds of cakes and find others indigestible; and no one really knows
why.
Human relationships are considerably more enigmatic than cookery,
for the psychologist, unlike the chemist who observes changes in the
molecular structure of eggs and flour, will never be able to totally
reduce our interaction with others to a rational formula. There is a
profound mystery at the heart of every relationship which always
eludes our best efforts to explain why we are with this person and not
that one. Yet the essential principle is the same. Take two human
ingredients, distinct and separate, and put them together in the
mixing bowl of a close relationship. Stir vigorously and apply heat -
the heat of sexual desire, emotional need, conflict, intellectual
exchange, the challenges of time and mundane circumstances,
idealisation and inspiration - and through some extraordinary
alchemy a new entity is created with its own life-force, its own
intelligence and vision, and its own identity independent of and
different from the two people who generated it.
Even more mysterious is the effect which this new entity has on the
character and development of the individuals involved. At best, each
person may grow and blossom through the transformative effect of
the relationship. At worst, both may suffer. Or the relationship may
be healthy for one partner but turns out, however delicious, to
disagree badly with the other. Some people bring out the worst in us,
and some bring out the best. And this is not necessarily related to
how we are treated by our partners. We may feel profound
compassion for failings in one individual which invoke only
contempt or anger when we perceive the same failings in someone
else. We may find ourselves able to explore and express talents and
abilities in one relationship which seem mysteriously blocked or
thwarted in another - despite any active encouragement or
obstruction on the part of our companion. Sometimes even deep
love between partners cannot prevent the gradual erosion of
confidence and enthusiasm in one or both people. Sometimes a
couple who have always been ill-suited and unhappy with each other
remain inexplicably locked in relationships for a lifetime, yet at other
times a couple who in fact have much in common as well as a deep
attachment to each other are forced apart in spite of their sincere
and prolonged efforts to preserve the bond. Many failed
relationships are due to the unintentionally destructive actions of
both partners, and could be helped or even radically transformed
through insight and joint effort. Many others are inexplicably
unworkable despite such insight and effort. Every relationship
contains many ingredients, some conscious and some unconscious;
and however deeply we analyse ourselves and our partners, we must
sometimes accept some deeper or higher intelligence at work in our
relationship patterns. Yet whatever the nature and outcome of a
relationship, if - as Jung puts it - anything "happens", both people are
irrevocably changed.
CHAPTER II
WHAT BRINGS YOU TOGETHER
Our attraction to another person is rarely as simple as we believe
it to be at the time we experience that initial fascination. We may
admire someone's handsome face or soulful eyes or lovely body
or graceful way of moving. Or we may be drawn to their sense of
humour, their intelligence or their personal power and self-
confidence. But what we first register about another person is
only the tip of a very deep and complex iceberg. You and
Angelina Jolie are two distinct individuals - two entirely different
"substances" - each of whom brings to the alchemy of your
relationship a defined personality with its own unique gifts,
attributes and conflicts. But what is the specialness of the
attraction? What has brought you together? George Bernard
Shaw, cynical about relationships at the end of his life, once
defined the state of being in love as the fallacy of believing that
one person was actually different from another. Most of us,
unless we have been deeply and perhaps pathologically
embittered by experience, would not agree with him; people are
ultimately irreplaceable because they are unique, and you and
Angelina Jolie create a unique chemistry between you. There
may be areas where, in terms of your basic characters, you have
an instinctive harmony and understanding with each other. That
is usually why we believe we are attracted to another person:
They seem to embody what we most admire and need. Yet in
your relationship, as in every other, there will inevitably be
friction and opposition as well as attraction, and you and your
partner must accept a certain amount of compromise and
adjustment in order to function together as a couple. And on a
deeper level, there may be areas where you touch off highly
combustible unconscious issues within each other, stirring up
emotions and reactions which surprise you both. "But I didn't
know that about her," you may say later. Or perhaps you really
did know, but the glow of the initial intoxication obscured your
own instinctive knowledge.
A First Look
We shall look first at what has drawn you together. You may
recognise in the initial overview an attraction of temperaments which
you have met before in other relationships. This is because all of us
instinctively seek in another what we feel we are missing within
ourselves, and if one relationship fails to provide it then we will
continue to seek that sustenance from the next. But your bond with
your partner is unique, for you and Angelina Jolie are the highly
individual human substances whose mysterious chemical interaction
may ultimately change you both.
An Inner Conflict of Realism and Vision
Because you have considerable inner tension between your
security needs and the more romantic and idealistic side of your
nature, you are likely to bring a certain amount of conflict into
your relationship with Angelina Jolie simply because you are torn
between reality and your dream of love. The earthier aspects of
your personality crave stability and continuity, but if you try to
circumscribe the relationship with too many routines and
structures, you tend to start feeling restless and trapped, as
though something has gone "missing" from the original romantic
excitement. Equally, if there is too much unpredictability, you
begin to feel insecure and threatened. Probably you confuse
yourself as much as you confuse your partner with these
apparently contradictory and mutually exclusive needs, and you
may need to be careful not to try to solve the problem by
repressing one side of yourself in favour of the other.
The truth is that you need both from your partner, and the two of
you need to work together to find a lifestyle which allows enough
reliability but which also allows a spirit of adventure and
excitement to occasionally upset the routine. If you reject the
more staid side of your nature because you are afraid of being
trapped in mundane life, you may force Angelina Jolie to carry
the weight of the practical side of the relationship, which would
end up depressing her and cutting you off from any feeling of real
security within yourself. But if you try to suppress your natural
romanticism in favour of security, you may stifle your partner and
force her to act out the unpredictable elements in your own
personality. If you can learn to live with your own contradictions,
allowing a place for both in the relationship, you and your partner
will be able to enjoy the entire spectrum.
2. Heart and Body
The most obvious way in which you and Angelina Jolie affect
each other is through the activation of each other's emotions and
desires. Although such a mutual stirring of feelings and passions
may not always be comfortable or harmonious, nevertheless even
through conflict this activation of heart and body gives life, energy
and excitement to the attraction between you.
Irrepressible Desires
Put very simply, your looks turn your partner on, and you are
likely to experience a very strong sexual attraction for each other.
Probably she is the sexual initiator in the relationship, directly or
indirectly; and the intensity of her attraction, combined with her
romantic idealism, are a source of life and energy to you. She
vitalises you, and her admiration brings out your natural
generosity and warmth. The uncomplicated and direct nature of
this aspect of your attraction, and the possibilities it offers for
sexual harmony and compatibility, are a positive counteraction to
any conflicts which might arise in the relationship; for this strong
physical attraction between you is likely to be a lasting one.
A Sense of Safety
Your partner is likely to experience feelings of deep fondness and
warmth toward you, particularly toward the vibrant and
enthusiastic way in which you express yourself to the outer world.
The person you are striving to become strikes a deep resonance
in Angelina Jolie, and makes her want to offer emotional support
and containment. This attraction can bring you extremely close at
times, even to the point where you could become one of those
couples who comfortably mirror each other's dress and
mannerisms; and the sense of safety and security your partner
provides you is also likely to create a deeply affectionate quality
both in bed and out. Her loyalty and willingness to champion her
loved ones makes you feel more effective as an individual, and
more attractive and desirable as well. The mutual sense of
affection and warmth the two of you generate is one of the
happiest notes in your attraction to each other.
3. Mind and Spirit
You and Angelina Jolie have a dynamic effect on each other not
only because emotions and passions are stirred, but also because
the mind and spirit in both of you are stimulated and expanded as
well. Although such intellectual, spiritual and creative stimulation
of each other may at times seriously challenge existing attitudes
and beliefs, thus causing you to quarrel or disagree, nevertheless
the ultimate effect you have on each other is one of increased
understanding and vision, and the development of talents and
skills in each of you which may have been ignored or undervalued
in the past.
An Ongoing Birthday Party
The dramatic and energetic qualities of your personality have a
way of making your partner genuinely like you. You inspire great
tolerance and generosity in her, and she is likely to want to offer
her best to you. There are elements of real respect and
admiration in her feeling about you, and even without any
romantic attraction, she would probably instinctively feel the basis
for a friendship. You also seem to trigger her feelings of hope
and faith in the future and in her own potentials, and her need for
creative expression is likely to be expanded and given form
through your company. The two of you also have the ability to
laugh together, for you bring out your partner's sense of humour
and are in turn a receptive audience for it. Whatever emotional
conflicts might arise between you, the creative energy and
enthusiasm which you generate in each other can help you both
cope with your problems from a more positive and constructive
viewpoint.
Where There's Life There's Hope
Your partner's innate originality and sparkle arouse generous and
downright noble feelings in you. Without trying, she makes you
want to offer your best to the relationship, and she also stirs your
sense of optimism about the future, expanding your horizons and
giving you greater faith in yourself and your potentials. It is as
though she stirs the spirit in you as well as the heart, and the
quality of friendship and mutual consideration inherent in the
attraction between you makes you both better people. In turn
you bring a quality of vision and meaning into your partner's life,
for your adventurous spirit and creative mind give her a sense
that life is bigger, broader and much more interesting in your
company. The two of you bring out some very refined and
idealistic feelings in each other, as well as a deep spiritual sense
that life is essentially good and will take care of itself; and even if
this makes you both a little too stylised, grand and extravagant at
times, it also ensures that the sense of fun, adventure and hope
will rarely be absent between you.
Flying a Hot Air Balloon
There is great vitality and inspiration in the energy exchange
between you and Angelina Jolie, for you spark each other off not
only sexually but also in terms of your sense of expansiveness and
future possibilities. It is as though, when you are together, you
suddenly begin thinking of all the things you could do together,
and all the places you could go, and life opens up in a much
bigger and more exciting way. Your need to grow and stretch
your horizons is triggered by your partner's natural enthusiasm
and courage, and you are likely to loyally back her efforts and
goals because you can intuitively understand what she wants from
life. She also brings out your generosity and warmth, and
whatever goals she pursues, she has a loyal and well-meaning
supporter who believes in her. Your partner in turn is energised
by your adventurous spirit and imagination, and there is
something about you which makes her want to work hard for the
relationship as well as for her own goals. The two of you can very
rapidly generate some quite grand dreams about what you will do
with your future together, and may sometimes overestimate
where you can get and how fast you can get there; for you also
activate each other's expansiveness and wilfulness. But the
optimism and confidence you bring out of each other create a
resilience in both of you which can help you to bounce back from
disappointments and find the energy and hope to try again.
Riding the Roller Coaster
Part of the attraction between the two of you involves the electric
quality of instability and mental awakening which your partner
brings into your life. Although this may at times be quite
disturbing to you both, it is nevertheless a powerful component in
what draws you together. There is something about her essential
nature, with its high ideals and strong desire for perfection, which
excites and fascinates you, for Angelina Jolie opens up facets of
life and of your personality of which you have probably previously
had little experience. She in turn is drawn to a quality of
originality and spirit of which you might not have been fully
aware, but which attracts her like a flower does a bee. But you
may not always welcome the stirring of this more unconventional
side of your nature, and the feeling of moving into an unknown
world of ideas and experiences may bring up powerful feelings of
anxiety in you. This anxiety is a natural human reaction to
change, for it is likely that your partner, willingly or unwillingly,
will eventually be the catalyst for major changes in your world-
view and the ways in which you express yourself. You may need
to be aware of your tendency toward abrupt and compulsive
withdrawals because of your anxiety.
The unpredictable element which the two of you experience is
rather like a fluctuating electrical current, and it may lead to
crises and separations; for you are like a pair of magnets,
sometimes attracting and sometimes repelling. But if you and
your partner can recognise that perhaps this element is needed in
both your lives, and that you and Angelina Jolie can help to free
each other from many old attitudes and outworn habits, you will
both be able to manage the challenge you pose each other with
greater confidence and trust in yourselves.
Complement and Combat
You and your partner fascinate but also irritate each other
because of your extreme differentness. There is a dichotomy
between your essential values and outlook which is both
complementary and combative, and her innately reasonable and
civilised nature will often conflict with what she experiences as
your occasional bouts of insensitivity and self-centredness.
However, despite the rather tense feelings which may arise
between you because of this difference of temperament, there is
also quite a lot of strong attraction and admiration, for each of
you expresses something the other needs to learn. You might
both try to cultivate greater tolerance toward each other, enjoying
the other's abilities while remaining loyal to your own values; for
your respective goals and world-view, although right and
necessary for you individually, may not be right for the other, and
efforts at conversion on either side will only spoil the attraction
you feel toward each other.
A Display of Fireworks
The mutual excitement which you and Angelina Jolie arouse in
each other is also full of friction, conflict and competitive feeling,
and you will probably both need to cultivate a taste for a good
fight if you are to make the best of your attraction to each other.
The two of you carry a very high voltage between you, and this is
a great sexual stimulant; but your steady and tenacious approach
to getting what you want somehow grates against your partner's
natural enthusiasm. Through no fault of either of you, you are
likely to find yourselves in combat even if you want the same
things, because you pursue them in opposite ways. What you
really have is a good old-fashioned battle of wills, with each of
you trying to assert your strength in the face of the other's
apparent aggression. You and Angelina Jolie energise each other
very strongly, both sexually and in terms of your goals and
ambitions; but you are also likely to spend a lot of time expending
that energy locking horns. If you can avoid taking it all too
personally, the two of you can learn a lot about tolerance; but
somehow, when you and your partner get around each other, your
capacity to remain calm and reflective tends to fly out of the
window. If you have had a problem with open conflict in the past,
this relationship can help you to appreciate the importance and
positive value of clearing the air from time to time, and can teach
you not to be frightened of healthy anger and competition. But
you will need to learn to deal with powerful emotions in yourself
and in your partner, for if you bottle them up to avoid
confrontation, you may find that you begin to accumulate a deep
well of resentment which, when it finally does erupt, is much
bigger and darker than whatever incident might have triggered it.
4. Conflict and Challenge
In many respects, as the above analysis indicates, the ways in
which you and Angelina Jolie affect each other are lively and
positive. Even when there is friction, it is likely to be stimulating
rather than oppressive. But there are deeper levels at work in
every relationship, and the unconscious exchange between two
people may be quite different from what is experienced on the
conscious level. It is as though one drama is being enacted openly
between you in the sitting room of the house, but an entirely
different and more disturbing one is taking place in the basement
- and periodically some sulphurous fumes may rise up the
staircase to disturb the activity above. The unconscious fears and
defensive reactions which you and your partner activate in each
other may from time to time rise to the surface of your life
together, creating hurtful difficulties which you may initially not
understand. But if you are willing to explore the motives and
feelings at work beneath the threshold of your everyday
awareness, these conflicts can lead to great insight, growth and
compassion in both of you.
Mutual Therapy
Your ability to contact a rich lode of imagination within yourself
activates your partner's admiration, but it also stirs up some very
deep anxieties in her. You seem to embody not only all that she
respects and values, but also all that she feels unable to express
herself; for you are, albeit unwillingly, a catalyst for unconscious
hurts and frustrations which spring from her childhood and which
will very likely arise in quite disturbing ways within this
relationship. If Angelina Jolie is not honest with herself about
the challenge you pose simply by being yourself, and not able to
face her vulnerability and need of you, she is likely to sometimes
display a critical and defensive attitude, and may even cut off her
feelings in an abrupt and hurtful fashion.
Because a deeper level of interchange is invoked through your
attraction to one another, greater consciousness is required of
you both. You are probably quite sensitive to your partner's fear
of the physical world, including her own body and image, and you
are likely to feel strongly protective and loyal toward this hurt and
awkward side of your partner. But elements of inadvertent
bruising are still likely to arise between you. If you wish to avoid
wounding and being wounded in this relationship, both of you
need to be open and honest about yourselves. The healing which
Angelina Jolie seeks from you can truly be achieved, but the key
lies in your being able to feel compassion for her flaws as well as
admiring her strengths; and for her to accept this more realistic
but also more enduring kind of love.
Tongue-Tied
Angelina Jolie is as drawn to you for your qualities of mind as to
your qualities of heart and body. But the communication
between you is a complex issue, because certain deeper and more
unconscious feelings are stirred which can create problems in an
otherwise fertile dialogue. Although your partner has a profound
admiration for your way of thinking and expressing yourself, she
also feels somewhat intimidated or threatened by what she
experiences as your superior mental abilities. Your shrewd and
realistic way of looking at things, which allows you to cut through
nonsense to the truth of the matter, have, through no fault of
yours, triggered old hurts around communication and learning
which spring from your partner's childhood, and which make her
feel inadequate around you even when there may be no cause.
But this activation of deeper issues may not be evident to your
partner on a conscious level; you may instead see her react to you
with criticism, silence, evasion, or a show of patronising
indifference, so that you wind up being the one who feels
intellectually inferior in some way. You may also feel as though
she does not listen to you, or disagrees with you on principle
without reflection. If the two of you do not understand what has
been set in motion between you, you may sometimes find
yourselves in some rather nasty and wounding arguments. But
you have the capacity for great insight into your partner's
dilemma, and the more the two of you are able to discuss these
issues honestly, the more creative the outcome; for Angelina Jolie
can offer you a stabilising and containing quality which can help
you to ground your ideas and put them to practical use.
CHAPTER III
THE ESSENCE OF YOUR RELATIONSHIP
1. Your Relationship as an Independent Entity
In alchemical symbolism, two substances combine to create a
third, new entity. The relationship which you and Angelina Jolie
create together is a living thing, an independent entity in its own
right. It has an essential character or basic nature just as any
living thing does, and therefore its development process follows
the integrity of its own inner law - just as a tomato plant grows
from a seed into itself rather than an apple tree. This essential
character might or might not be what either you or your partner
has in mind as an individual. Probably it is a little of both. And
neither you nor Angelina Jolie may fully perceive the real essence
of your relationship until sufficient time has passed for you to
experience on the emotional as well as the intellectual level what
you have created between you. Also, this mysterious entity has an
outer personality which expresses itself in the world in very
distinct ways which are different from your own personalities; and
it may surprise you when friends or relatives or colleagues
describe how they see you as a couple because you are not aware
of the outer shape of the life-form you and your partner have
created together.
Your relationship is the product of the mysterious chemical
interaction that occurs between the two of you. Yet it is not wholly
under the control of either of you, and it is possible that, while you
can bring greater consciousness to the core issues expressed within
the relationship, you cannot ultimately turn it into exactly what you
want through any act of will. Once the ingredients for a cake are
chosen, mixed and baked, we must accept the nature of the thing we
have made. We can make certain alterations, like putting on a
delicious frosting, and we can try to ensure that we have our cake at
a time when we are hungry and will appreciate its taste. But we
cannot unbake the ingredients and demand that they combine
differently to get a different sort of cake. Once we create a
relationship, we must also accept and work with the thing we have
made; for it is the product of a combination of individuals,
alchemically mixed, cooked and brought to life.
The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of
The keynote of your relationship with Angelina Jolie is
enchantment. This quality of dreamlike beauty and bewitchment
embraces many dimensions of reality, from the erotic to the
spiritual. And some aspects of it can be inspiring and uplifting
while others may be painful, confusing and disappointing. Above
all, enchantment implies a state which is above or beyond
ordinary mundane reality - an alternative world where feelings
are heightened, events are infused with hidden meaning, knights
protect princesses from dragons, and gods and heroes walk the
earth. Here in this magical Paradise Garden, protected from the
intrusion of the banal, the loneliness of human existence can be
mitigated through a "true" union of souls.
Because of your strong reasoning faculties and your need to
understand life and love in terms that can be clearly formulated,
you may at times find your relationship with Angelina Jolie rather
difficult to deal with. The highly idealised vision of love inherent
in the relationship may make you feel extremely uncomfortable
because you are not ordinarily at your best when confronted with
something so elusive and other-worldly; and the element of
almost mystical self-sacrifice which the relationship carries may
also be a problem because you are too realistic to see the point in
sentimentalised suffering. However, reality may exist on many
levels, and states of enchantment may carry as much meaning and
relevance as more solid, safe and definable experiences of love;
and if you allow the relationship to work its alchemy on you, it
can open wide the gates of your imagination and your heart.
The rather exalted emotional atmosphere of the relationship is
likely to stimulate a lot of idealism in both you and your partner,
and both of you may at times experience a sense that some
"higher" destiny was at work in bringing you together. There may
also be a strange sense of recognition between you, fostered by
the sense of fusion which the relationship generates, which may
lead you to believe that this is a bond which has endured through
many lifetimes. Whether or not these feelings are "true" in any
objective sense (and no horoscope can answer that question),
they are certainly true on the psychological level as a reflection of
the relationship's emotional tone. This bond might well give you
and your partner a feeling of being lifted out of the usual limits
and difficulties of the world of money, security, domestic routines,
and social status. When you are together, these things may not
seem to matter any more.
Others will also appreciate the creative spark and intensity
between you, because together you tend, consciously or not, to
project an image of style, grace and harmony which to some
people may seem the embodiment of the "ideal couple".
Whatever you might really be feeling, there is a romantic
ambience about the surface style of this relationship which will
make the two of you dress and interact with others with qualities
of harmony and good taste. This is in many ways a true reflection
of the more romantic and idealistic elements within the
relationship. The two of you are also unlikely to air your feelings
in public, regardless of how combustible things might be between
you at times; and this enhances the elegant and courteous
persona which this relationship carries.
But this state of fusion which lies at the core of your relationship
may in part be illusory, because it requires the blurring or
disregarding of your individual boundaries. Because the
emotional energy of this bond has a way of eroding your sense of
separate reality, it may also lead both of you into an unwitting
abdication of personal authority and responsibility within the
relationship. There may be a deep sadness inherent in the spell
which the relationship casts over you both, for there is always
some sacrifice involved in enchantment - whether this means
giving up certain material rewards in order to be together, or
giving up the hope of a permanent relationship. The heightened
perceptions which the relationship is likely to stir in you and your
partner are impossible to preserve intact in a world bound by
time and human limits. Some compromise of the dream must
ultimately be made, and some acceptance of each other's flawed
humanity. Thus the enchantment of your bond opens up the
gates of a magical world, stirring the spirit and the creative
imagination in both of you, but at the same time containing
within itself the inevitable seeds of disillusionment. This
relationship is liable to activate a very deep and perhaps
previously unconscious need in both of you to transcend the
loneliness of mortal life and restore a lost state of union which is
really reminiscent of the pre-birth state. This longing exists in all
human beings, and in some way it is a very powerful drive,
stimulating the desire to find meaning beyond the ordinary events
of life. Perhaps you and Angelina Jolie were not really aware of
this before you met. But something about this relationship
activates it powerfully in each of you.
If you perceive yourselves as soulmates, bound together through
many lifetimes or connected by some inner purpose, you may
experience times of deep joy and peace with each other. But
equally, you may find it extremely difficult to shift gears and deal
with everyday limits and disappointments. There is a kind of
addictive quality to your bond, which may make you avoid or
reject the natural process of getting to know one another as
ordinary individuals, and confronting each other about your
differences and conflicts. The enchantment of the relationship
may cause you to stifle emotions such as anger or assertiveness,
or may lead one or both of you to sacrifice your own valid path in
life in order to remain in this soothing bath - even after the water
has grown cold. And this movement toward the submergence of
individual will and desire may be so extreme that, in a subtle way,
you and your partner actually avoid any real commitment - either
through some voluntary sacrifice or through an external situation
which may be unconsciously architected by one or both of you,
and which seems to prevent you building a stable life together.
Caution, Turn On Fog Lamps
The greatest danger which you and your partner face in the midst
of all this beauty and enchantment is the tendency to indulge in
self-deception or deception of each other, because the ambience
of the relationship makes you try too hard to preserve the magic
you have experienced together. Self-deception in this instance
means that you may both easily repress or ignore your own very
legitimate emotional needs, ideals, beliefs and goals, pretending
that each of you wants only what the other wants. If you lie to
yourselves in this way, you may stifle fundamental and healthy
aspects of your own natures, and these repressed drives will one
day rise to the surface and create great confusion and difficulty.
Individuality and fusion are indeed mutually exclusive; but it is
possible to have a balance between them. You may also deceive
yourselves by ignoring qualities in each other's characters which
seem to threaten the feeling of two hearts beating as one. But if
you remain willfully blind to the truth of another's character, you
do not allow the other person to become real. This may generate
deep resentment and anger between you, because you are really
asking each other to be some perfect image rather than an actual
person. One or both of you could resort to deception in order not
to be a disappointment. This can mean deception in small,
unconscious, cumulative ways; or it may lead to such big
deceptions as secret relationships with others. One way or
another, you and your partner, if you do not keep your feet on the
ground while your heads are in the clouds, may build a
relationship rooted in illusion.
A Subtle Dialogue
There is another element inherent in your relationship - a
powerful mental and communicative energy - which can provide a
creative and exciting balance to the enchantment you experience
on the emotional level. This energy could bring greater clarity to
both of you, and may be a great help in dispelling the romantic
fog into which you and your partner are likely to sometimes
stumble. Because the lively mental energy of the relationship
stimulates both of you to think more clearly and articulate your
ideas and feelings to each other more honestly, you and Angelina
Jolie may find that you can develop some genuine creative fields
of endeavour together. You might, for example, become involved
as a couple in writing or teaching projects, or in media work of
some kind. The relationship's emphasis on communication and
mental development can also help to offset the evasion and
blurring of boundaries which arise from the more romantic
feelings at work between you. The urge toward fusion which
permeates this bond can easily make both of you afraid to express
yourselves if it shatters the spell; but because you are also likely
to need to communicate, you can find greater honesty and
directness with each other.
You may find that making a conscious effort to develop spheres
of shared interest, particularly around intellectual and cultural
pursuits, helps to bring a breath of fresh air into the sometimes
rather foggy atmosphere engendered by the relationship. The
more you and your partner can develop your minds, and the more
you are able to exchange ideas with others through friendships
and social and humanitarian groups, the more objective your
perspective on life will be. The deep sense of union which this
relationship carries could be expressed very fruitfully in interests
and individual contributions which connect you to a larger
humanity.
There may always be a certain amount of conflict within this
relationship, arising from the gap between your fantasy of
oneness and your need to articulate your separate realities to
each other. Words and ideas may seem to threaten emotional
union, and there is a strong impetus in this bond to avoid too
much clarity. Yet these very different but equally valid energies
within the relationship are by no means mutually exclusive. You
and Angelina Jolie need to let words be imaginative vehicles for
your feelings, following the path of the poet, the novelist and the
dramatist, rather than assuming that too much analysing or
intellectualising will spoil the magic of your partnership. Your
relationship with Angelina Jolie contains a remarkable blend of
imaginative fantasy and a powerful drive to express the inner
world to the outer in some creative form.
2. Your Relationship and Yourself
The following sections describe the effect of this relationship on
yourself. While the previous sections of text always spoke to both
of you, you and your partner, the focus here will be on your side.
A Stirring of the Heart and the Passions
Your relationship with Angelina Jolie is likely to activate
particular aspects of your personality very strongly, and this
includes first of all a stirring of your emotional and instinctual
nature. The ways in which your passions, your needs and feelings,
your sexual responses and your inner sense of self-worth and
lovability are aroused - sometimes happily, sometimes through
conflict - all contribute most powerfully to the transformative
effect the relationship has on you.
Muscle Power
The image this relationship carries in the eyes of others, and its
general style and energy, could be tremendously exciting to you,
and you may find yourself greatly aroused by it - sexually and
creatively. The partnership also constellates in you a strong
desire to work for and put energy into the development of the
bond, and it may well have been your initiative which brought it
into being in the first place. You may sometimes feel as though it
is your passion and enthusiasm which keep it alive, but it brings
you to life as well - and you are likely to become better at making
decisions and taking charge of your own life as a result.
Whatever conflicts might arise between you and your partner, the
entity which the two of you create in the world has a positive and
energising effect on you, making you more aware of your own
potency and generating within you the courage to meet whatever
challenges life brings.
Home Comforts
The loving and physically affectionate qualities of this
relationship have a powerfully positive effect on your feelings,
offering you a sense of security, contentment and personal
happiness. You are likely to feel "at home" in this partnership,
despite whatever conflicts you and Angelina Jolie might
experience; and your sense of self-worth and belief in your own
lovability are likely to be greatly enhanced by the genuine warmth
and validation you experience through the relationship. Your
need to be loved and to belong is strongly activated, and it is
likely that you will have both in this partnership; and the deep
contentment which you will probably feel is one of the most
positive offerings of the bond.
Feeling loved
The particular romantic qualities of your partnership with
Angelina Jolie reflect in an especially harmonious way your own
ideals of love and romance. Because there is a kind of "match"
between certain aspects of the relationship and your own very
personal needs, you are likely to feel more loved, wanted, desired
and personally fulfilled than you have in the past; and your sense
of being an attractive, worthwhile and lovable person is likely to
be strengthened considerably. Even if deeper conflicts disturb
the emotional flow between the two of you at times, the
relationship's capacity to activate your own ability to give and
receive love can help to give you the confidence, tact and
sensitivity to cope with whatever difficulties might arise.
Waking Up the Mind and Spirit
Your relationship also exercises a powerful effect on your mental
outlook, your spiritual beliefs, and your general attitude toward
life, subtly challenging and changing your thinking and your
capacity to express yourself. Although some of this stirring of
your mind and spirit may occur through a collision of disparate
viewpoints, nevertheless this partnership can open many doors
for you, broadening your mental horizons and freeing you from
old and outworn attitudes and viewpoints.
Strawberry Fields
Your thinking is likely to be expanded and stimulated by the
imaginative and expansive qualities of this relationship, and you
will probably find that you are able to maintain a broader
perspective on life and to express your ideas and feelings more
fluently. In short, this partnership is good for your mind and your
powers of communication. The sense of meaning, excitement and
future potentials inherent in the relationship stimulates your own
creative imagination. You may feel that your partnership with
Angelina Jolie opens your horizons physically as well as mentally,
drawing you into an exploration of many new ideas and places.
There may also be some very practical benefits to all this mental
inspiration as well; for you are likely to feel supported by the
relationship in developing your skills and talents. If you are
involved in communication in any professional way (such as
writing or teaching), this relationship can provide enormous
benefits to you, for somehow it has a way of stimulating in you
some very exciting ideas for future creative expression.
Learning to Laugh
This relationship could prove very inspiring to you, mentally and
spiritually, because of the quality of communication inherent in it.
Your imagination and sense of future potentials are likely to be
activated by the mental rapport you experience with your partner,
and your horizons - both mental and physical - are likely to
broaden. Your sense of humour is also constellated, and even if
deeper emotional difficulties arise between you and Angelina
Jolie, somehow this relationship encourages you to see the
funnier side of even the darkest dilemmas. Even if you have
inclined toward a more prosaic and earthbound view of life in the
past, this relationship has the power to stir within you a powerful
optimism about the future and an increased faith in your own
unlived potentials and possibilities.
Deeper Levels are Activated Within You
However, your relationship with Angelina Jolie also has a
powerful effect on the deeper and more unconscious levels of
your psyche, constellating profound and often permanent changes
in your attitudes, your outlook on life, and your understanding of
yourself. Because of the more complex effect this relationship
has on you, it may not always invoke pleasant responses; for no
deep change can occur without conflict, and you may not always
like what you discover about yourself. But if you are willing to
accept the importance of this partnership, and its potential to
heal old wounds and make you more whole, you may be able to
tap hitherto unknown resources within yourself and find the most
creative ways of dealing with the process of transformation which
the relationship will very likely set in motion - with or without
your consent.
Inner Renewal
The power of this relationship, and its impact on your deeper
emotions, may sometimes alarm you, for it may provoke deep
and permanent changes within you. You may sometimes feel as
though you have been "taken over" by the energy of the
relationship, as though some fate were at work in your life; and
you may become rather obsessed with its importance to you. You
may also have to encounter some quite primitive and destructive
feelings within yourself, for if you start to feel controlled you are
liable to react by trying to gain control over the relationship and
your partner as well; and you could experience considerable rage
if things do not go your way. You could also use manipulative
emotional methods to reestablish a sense of power within the
relationship. And you may even react by trying to extricate
yourself from it because the relationship is likely to bring
profound alterations to your life, external and internal. But if you
do find yourself experiencing these difficult reactions, you still
have a choice in the matter, and could refrain from engaging in
the sort of power-battles which would eventually alienate you
from your partner; and you will find that you gain much greater
insight into your own depths. This self-knowledge could
transform your goals and attitudes toward life.
3. Your Relationship and Your Partner
The following sections of text describe the effect of this
relationship on Angelina Jolie.
Your Partner's Heart is Also Stirred
Your relationship also has a powerful effect on particular aspects
of your partner's passions, feelings and emotional needs; and this
means that she, like you, is liable to experience a definite
enriching and deepening of her heart and instinctual nature -
even if this sometimes occurs through conflict and upset.
Coming Home
The expansive and innately generous qualities of this relationship
are, to put it simply, likely to make Angelina Jolie feel good. She
will probably feel contained and protected, and supported
emotionally in ways which she may not have experienced before.
Whatever conflicts might arise on other levels (and there are
bound to be some), nevertheless it is as though she has "come
home" in some way. And she is likely to respond with an
instinctive warmth and enthusiasm which can help her to face
most of life's obstacles with optimism and a sense of humour.
Even if she is in the midst of full-scale battles with you, she is still
likely to retain her faith in the relationship because the
relationship helps her to have more faith in herself. And her
capacity to express her feelings is likely to be deepened and
stretched by the relationship, so that, even if your partner has
been a more emotionally withdrawn person in the past, she will
be able to be more spontaneous and open with others, and more
able to take risks with confidence in her own future.
Love Hurts
The romantic and erotic dimensions of this relationship may well
bring your partner into confrontation with all that has been hurt
within her since early childhood. In this way the relationship has
the potential of helping her to heal many old wounds through the
love and affection generated between you. Angelina Jolie may
sometimes feel awkward and threatened by the quality of
affection and love which she experiences in the relationship, for
she is probably accustomed to defending herself against too much
closeness in certain ways. Sometimes it is more painful to feel
loved than to feel unloved, for this makes us face our own
unlovingness, as well as hurts from the past. But this relationship
has a way of gently dissolving those defences, and touching very
deep levels of your partner's heart through the nature of the
warmth and companionship made possible by the bond. If she
can avoid defensive maneuvres because it leaves her feeling too
vulnerable, she will discover a great deal about herself, as well as
developing greater compassion for her own humanness.
Say What You Mean and Mean What You Say
The mental and communicative dimensions of this relationship
could stir very powerful emotions in Angelina Jolie. She may be
surprised and not at all pleased at the depth and intensity of her
feelings, particularly if she has seen herself as a rational and
controlled sort of personality. More importantly, she may begin
to gain insights into herself and life which begin to change her
outlook and attitudes at very deep levels. But she could also find
herself prone to deep suspicion, jealousy, possessiveness and
manipulative behaviour - feelings which have perhaps not been
part of her emotional pattern in the past, and which some elusive
element in her verbal exchange with you activates. This
relationship challenges your partner to understand herself and
her emotional nature in greater depth, and also calls upon her to
learn to communicate her feelings in more honest and direct
ways. This challenge could initially make her profoundly uneasy,
as though she is never sure whether what is being said between
the two of you is really what is meant. If she can meet the
challenge, however, she will find that the mental rapport between
the two of you can achieve great depth and insight, changing and
deepening her own perceptions of life, love and human
behaviour.
An Activation of Your Partner's Creative Potentials
Your partner can also benefit from the relationship on a creative
level, for it is likely to activate her imagination and creative
abilities as well as her capacity to express herself in the world.
Your Partner Too Can Be a Stand-Up Comic
The expansiveness and dynamic energy inherent in this
relationship trigger your partner's need to expand her individual
horizons, and she will probably gradually become more and more
aware of a sense of unlived potentials in her life. Hence the
relationship's effect on her will in part be to invoke considerable
restlessness, and a stirring of her imagination and belief in her
own future possibilities. It is important that Angelina Jolie takes
these stirrings seriously, for one of the most creative
contributions the partnership can offer her is an opening up of
her creative potentials and an awakening of her spiritual life.
However, she must act on these intuitions if she wants her vision
of the future to become a reality. There is also a quality of
humour and tolerance within this relationship which activates
your partner's own sense of humour and ability to laugh at life;
and she may find that she feels more generous and more
genuinely tolerant than she has been with others in the past.
Chariots of Fire
Your partner's sense of potency and effectiveness in the world is
likely to be activated strongly by the inherent expansiveness and
energy of this relationship. Even if she has not been a very goal-
orientated person in the past, this partnership has a way of
making her more aware of what she wants, as well as making her
want it more passionately. There is a sense of future potentials
within the relationship which stimulates Angelina Jolie to pursue
all her own unlived potential with greater courage and self-
confidence than she might have felt before. She may also
discover a side of her personality with which she might not have
been too well-acquainted: a powerful will which does not
compromise readily, and a temper to match when that will is
thwarted. Your partner is likely to become an altogether
stronger, more honest and more direct person through the effect
the relationship has on her; and she may also feel that this bond
brings her luck in some way, because of her increased sense of
self-esteem and her enhanced feeling of being in charge of her
own life.
Your Partner's Mind and Spirit Come Alive
The relationship also affects your partner's mental outlook and
world-view, just as it does your own; and because of the way in
which the partnership activates particular aspects of her mind and
spirit, she could experience a definite broadening of her mental
horizons and vision.
How to Be a Rent-an-Argument Service
Your partner will probably be highly energised by the mental
dimension of the relationship, although this energising may have
the effect of making her behave like a "rent-an-argument" service
at the same time that it stimulates her ideas and expressive
capacities. Somehow the dialogue which is fostered between the
two of you activates her awareness of her own individual will and
viewpoint, and in this way it has a very positive capacity to help
her define her own identity as well as formulating her goals and
objectives in life more clearly. But of course the more conscious
Angelina Jolie becomes of her individual right to think her own
thoughts and pursue her own goals, the more likely she is to
collide with you at times; hence the propensity for arguments
which may arise, largely initiated by her. However, this does not
have to be a bad thing; for if she can learn to turn argument into
discussion and debate rather than blind verbal bashing, she will
discover greater ability to go for what she wants in life, and to
express herself more honestly to others.
CHAPTER IV
DEEPER ISSUES ACTIVATED INSIDE
1. Basic Relationship Patterns within You
The transformative potential of your relationship with Angelina
Jolie may be greater than you realise. Every important human
bond activates many levels of the personality, and some of these
levels are unconscious and unrecognised. All of us bring our own
inner issues and preconceptions into a relationship with another
person. A relationship involves not only the chemistry between
the two personalities, but also our unconscious images of what it
is to be a man or woman. These inner images are partly shaped
by our experiences of the first man and woman we meet in life -
father and mother. But perhaps more importantly, they also
reflect profound hidden truths about our own essential
characters. The less aware we are of these deeper aspects of
ourselves, the more likely we are to enact and project them
blindly - and sometimes destructively - in our relationships. The
inner images of man and woman which we all carry are really
pictures of our own needs, expectations and potentials. They
may be coloured or even distorted by childhood experiences, but
fundamentally they belong to us as individuals. They have both
positive and negative features, and we have the freedom to
express both. Because people are by nature complex and
multifaceted, we have more than one of these inner pictures of
masculine and feminine within us. And each deep relationship
we encounter in life could activate a quite different aspect of our
inner world, presenting us with very different challenges and
bringing very different responses out of us.
The relationship which you and Angelina Jolie have created,
because it is an independent living thing, will have an effect on the
inner world of both you and your partner, triggering unconscious
images of masculine and feminine in ways which you may not
always be aware of. It is as though the two of you are living with a
third person who exercises a subtle but powerful influence on how
you feel and behave when you are together. This is the real
alchemical work of the relationship, for both of you will be changed
by the energies which have arisen between you. Some of its effects
might feel very positive, and others might be extremely disturbing.
Most human interaction involves a mixture of both. It is likely that
sooner or later this relationship will stir up old childhood patterns
and feelings, because the inner images of masculine and feminine
which you and Angelina Jolie bring into the relationship are
coloured by the past. This gives you both a chance to discover
untapped potentials in yourselves, as well as facing and healing hurts
and wounds from early life. You and your partner could respond to
the activation of your inner world in a creative and productive way,
using what you learn about yourselves to make important changes in
your attitudes and manner of self-expression. Or you could blame
everyone and everything in sight for your discomfort, and make a
general mess out of things if you so choose. You and your partner
may not be able to unbake the cake you have made. But you have a
great deal of choice in terms of how you deal with what this
relationship activates within you.
The Eternal Youth Within
Whatever you may consciously define as "masculine", there is an
image within you of man as eternal youth and free spirit, the
special and favoured child of the gods. Your relationship with
Angelina Jolie brings this image alive in a very powerful way. In
mythology, it is best portrayed by the trickster-god Hermes, who
presided over the traveller and the wanderer, and served as the
messenger between heaven and earth. Although this volatile and
youthful image may not accord with more "macho" or
conventionally patriarchal images of masculinity, it is an ancient
and archetypal portrayal of one of the faces of manhood; and it is
part of the fabric of your inner world - whether you are aware of
it or not. The most creative face of this inner figure is his spirit of
adventure, his clever, inspired and endlessly fertile mind, and his
ability to find life perennially interesting and full of possibilities
regardless of age or circumstances.
There is also great elusiveness and mischief in your youthful
inner image of manhood, and you probably carry a strong sense,
albeit unconscious, that you ought to be exempt from the moral
limits and material burdens of more ordinary folk. Because you
feel you are special, you may resent not only the obligations and
restrictions which any committed relationship incurs, but even
basic human rites of passage, such as ageing, or taking
responsibility for the consequences of your choices in life. Even
if you are unaware of such feelings, you have a tendency to keep
trying to escape from the dreariness of ordinary life through
various means - the grand drama of secret love-affairs, the
excitement of travel, the glamour of fame, the challenge of
dangerous sports, or simply a fantasy-world of your own creation
in which the present (including your relationship) is really
provisional and "real life" always lies somewhere in the future.
The deeper issue underlying such escapist tendencies is in fact a
profound resentment at having to be mortal, for the mythic
Eternal Youth is the child of the gods. In fact you are special -
although this does not mean better than other people - because
you possess a rich and fertile imagination, a generous heart and
an irrepressible spirit of fun and adventure. But a contributing
factor to your inability to find the best expression for this inner
image may also be that in childhood you saw your father trapped
and resentful at his own life passing by.
The archetypal image of Hermes, eternal youth and lord of
travellers and wanderers, lies deep in the fabric of your inner life,
and strongly colours the kind of man you are - both in your
relationship with Angelina Jolie and in your dealings with the
outer world. This is an enormously creative spirit, which can
infuse your life with vision, enthusiasm and unquenchable hope -
despite the fact that you may not be altogether suited to the more
restrictive aspects of traditional family life. Although you need a
certain amount of responsibility and structure to give this inner
spirit shape and grounding, you also need to listen to him when
he demands air to breathe. For if you can provide channels - in
your relationship, your work and your leisure activities - which
give him plenty of scope to dream and fly, you will find that he
does not topple the stable structures you have built. If you deny
him, he will either bring the edifice down through your own
unconscious actions, or make his frustration known through
depression and psychosomatic symptoms. If you do not balance
him with a little worldly realism and discipline, he will keep you
living a provisional life with no substance and no real
productivity, forever chasing the "one day" which never comes.
But if you can contain him without crushing him, you can have it
all.
2. Basic Relationship Patterns within Your Partner
Angelina Jolie also has within her images and patterns of
response which are activated by the relationship. Thus your
partner is also receptive to the transformative potential of the
bond; and even if this sometimes involves conflict and
uncomfortable self-confrontation, she could experience deep and
positive changes as a result.
The Double-Edged Gift of Self-Sacrifice
However your partner may consciously define what it means to be
a woman, there is an image within her of woman as
compassionate redeemer, and sometimes as victim. This image is
strongly activated in her through her relationship with you. It is
best portrayed by the Christian figure of Mary, the Mater
Dolorosa who weeps for the sins and suffering of humankind.
But the image of woman as redeemer and victim is really much
older than the Christian one. Its roots lie in the ancient oceanic
mother-goddesses such as the Babylonian Tiamat, who create the
universe and are then dismembered by the hero-gods. These
goddesses are terrifying as well as life-engendering, for they also
swallow up their creations and start all over again. The most
positive attribute of this inner figure is a deep sensitivity to
human suffering, and a compassionate response to others' needs.
These gifts of the heart form part of your partner's essential
character. Even if she is not really conscious of this dimension of
her femininity, nevertheless others are probably aware of it
because they are the beneficiaries. The dark side of this image,
however, is reflected by the devouring propensities of the mother-
goddesses of ancient myth. The close emotional identification
which Angelina Jolie feels toward other people also means that
she may have difficulty in establishing her own boundaries and
containing her own emotional needs. It is possible that she saw
an example of the more difficult face of this archetypal image
enacted by her mother during her childhood, and has recoiled
against this aspect of her own character as a result. But if she is
able to separate her early and perhaps negative experiences from
the true meaning and potential of this inner figure, the great
depth, insight and compassion inherent in her personality can be
expressed without the victimisation and martyrdom that so often
accompany these gifts.
The conflict between openness to others and firm personal
boundaries is a difficult one, and Angelina Jolie will need at some
point in her life to confront this issue honestly if she is to live her
inner image of woman in a creative and personally fulfilling way.
Probably her mother had few boundaries and great emotional
needs, and this parent's dependency on others may have put her
into situations where she suffered without having the power to
take charge of her own life. Your partner might also have
experienced her mother's suffering as somewhat manipulative,
and may also have perceived her sacrifices as bearing very high
price tags in terms of what was required in return. There might
indeed have been a good deal of unconscious manipulation in this
parent's behaviour and situation. Your partner seems to carry a
certain amount of guilt and a deep sense of obligation toward her
mother which she unconsciously expresses in her relationship
with you as well as with others who need her. However
independent she may appear on the surface, it is often difficult
for her to say "No" to others' demands because she fears the
separateness and isolation this might bring her. But if she
placates you or martyrs herself because of a fear of loneliness, she
will also accumulate a large reservoir of resentment and
bitterness which will in turn make her unconsciously manipulative
in the same way her mother might have been. Your partner's
compassionate response and empathy with others' pain are very
real and beautiful attributes of her character. But they may be
mixed up with guilt about what she felt she owed to a suffering
parent in childhood. If she believes she is only lovable and
worthwhile when she is needed and useful, she could also
inadvertently try to live for and through you, thus compensating
for her own lack of a firm, coherent identity.
Your partner may have sensed a deeply wounded quality in her
mother. Because of her innate sensitivity, as a child she probably
unconsciously assumed the role of redeemer or healer - even if
she was unaware of accepting such a responsibility, and even if on
the conscious level she found her mother's behaviour difficult and
hurtful. Angelina Jolie is deeply compassionate toward the
wounds in others and probably feels most fulfilled and happy
when she is offering help and support. This may be an important
and positive aspect of the way in which she relates to you, as well
as a potential path for her working life. But she may also identify
too closely with this role, and may secretly experience herself as
someone irreparably wounded and intrinsically unlovable unless
she can earn others' love by giving them the help they need.
There may be some tangled issues around wounding and healing
from your partner's childhood which need to be explored with
insight and compassion. Her natural attraction to the role of the
healer is also accompanied on the dark side by a sense of herself
as the wounded one. If she is to avoid bringing these patterns
into your relationship and martyring herself through her belief
that she must earn love through self-sacrifice, she may need to
work consciously toward experiencing herself as worthwhile and
lovable in her own right.
Emotional security and a feeling of belonging are deeply
important to your partner - perhaps more than she allows others
or even herself to recognise. The sensitive response she has to
others' needs reflects her need of them as well. It is likely that
she experienced a darker version of this kind of emotional need
through her early relationship with her mother. This parent
might have tried to live through Angelina Jolie, and your partner
may have experienced a deep albeit unconscious identification
with her mother's unhappiness and unlived life. Issues of
dependency are therefore likely to arise in her relationship with
you, because she is at the same time both deeply dependent and
frightened of dependency - her own as well as yours. Her strong
need to belong may conflict with other, more independent
qualities in her character, and she may have had a hard time
freeing herself from her bonds to her mother because of her
emotional loyalty to this parent. There is a deeply maternal
element in your partner's nature which finds it difficult not to be
needed all the time. Thus she may find it hard to let go of you
and give you the necessary independent breathing space. If
Angelina Jolie saw too much of this kind of dependency in her
mother, she may recoil from it in herself. But then it will express
itself in covert rather than straightforward ways. It may be
important for your partner to explore issues around her true
emotional requirements and nature, so that she can separate her
perfectly healthy and legitimate need to belong from the darker
forms of dependency and emotional blackmail which she may
have experienced early in her life.
There are qualities of emotional intensity and depth which also
belong to your partner's inner image of woman. On the positive
side this gives her an almost uncanny insight into the hidden
aspects of others' feelings and characters. She possesses great
strength of feeling and also the ability to penetrate into and
accept even the darkest dimensions of human nature. But she
may also have experienced a more difficult side of this emotional
depth and intensity in her childhood, for it is likely that her
mother also possessed considerable passion and emotional power
- even if she concealed it beneath a controlled exterior - and
found it difficult to allow others much emotional freedom
because of the intensity of her attachment. Your partner may
have encountered a good deal of possessiveness in childhood,
expressed through atmosphere rather than through actual words
or demands, and she may therefore not really recognise the
dynamic. But she is quite capable of generating some pretty
powerful atmospheres herself if she feels hurt by your neglect,
whether she is conscious of it or not. She may have dissociated
from this side of her nature because she has instinctively recoiled
from the example set in her childhood. But the compassion and
sensitivity inherent in her inner image of woman are
accompanied by a passion and intensity which make it impossible
for her to take emotional bonds lightly. Issues of jealousy and
possessiveness are therefore likely to arise between you and your
partner, whether she expresses these feelings herself or draws
them out of you through her own unconscious provocation.
A Reluctant Martyrdom
Despite your partner's great compassion and willingness to put
others first, there is also a willful and uncompromising quality in
her nature which resents such self-sacrifice. This more forceful
quality may cause her to accumulate quite a large backlog of
resentment and suppressed anger if her will is thwarted or she
must compromise her desires. In fact there seems to be quite a
conflict in Angelina Jolie between asserting her own will and
accommodating your needs. She may need to explore the
possibility that her anger - and any annoying physical symptoms
such as headaches or digestive troubles, which so often express
covert anger - are the result of too much placating and a loss of
her personal boundaries in the relationship. It is likely that her
mother suffered from a similar conflict, and she may have sensed
great rage in this parent beneath an apparently self-sacrificing
surface. Or perhaps the mother's anger erupted at inappropriate
times and in disturbing ways because she secretly felt trapped by
her neediness and fought violently against it. Whatever the outer
pattern, it is probable that your partner is faced with the same
challenge her mother was. Angelina Jolie needs to find her own
individual way of balancing her natural empathy and need of
people with her strongly independent and self-willed nature. If
she feels passive and victimised in the relationship, it may be
because she does not assert herself in an open way when she
needs to. And if she plays the role of the martyr, her anger will
inevitably rise to the surface in some unconscious, unpleasant and
even unmanageable form.
At the core of your partner's inner life the image of woman as
compassionate healer stands as the foundation of her emotional
world within this relationship. She can live this figure at the same
time that she develops other aspects of her personality, for these
qualities are not mutually exclusive with a full and independent
creative life. But it is likely that Angelina Jolie will need to
explore her more negative unconscious assumptions about this
archetypal facet of the feminine. It seems that some element of
sacrifice or suffering which she perceived in her mother's life has
driven her into believing that she cannot have a close and
emotionally fulfilling relationship with you while at the same time
maintaining healthy boundaries and her own psychological and
material self-sufficiency. The dark side of your partner's inner
image of woman is the passive victim and martyr, where sacrifice
may also be a kind of manipulative tool to generate guilt and a
sense of obligation in others. It is likely that she saw quite a lot of
this darker side acted out in childhood. If this was so, she needs
to try not to let it drive her away from her own emotional needs.
For in her efforts not to be a victim she may inadvertently
dissociate from the voice of her own heart and wind up victimised
anyway - not by you, but by her own internal conflict. The mythic
figures who personify this subtle but powerful face of the
feminine are hardly victims. They are usually omnipotent
goddesses who create the manifest universe. When Angelina
Jolie has discovered the great strength that lies in her
vulnerability and need of others, she will have found the key to
the most creative expression of this inner image which is really
herself.
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
It has been suggested by various psychological investigators as
well as dramatists, poets and novelists over the ages, that without
relationship we would never become conscious of ourselves. It
takes another person to reflect back to us, as in a mirror, who we
really are, whether this is on the most superficial level of public
image or the most profound level of essential identity. Plato once
wrote that we see in the face of the beloved a glimpse of the god
who presides over our own soul; and it might also be added that
we see a glimpse of our personal devils there as well. No
astrological chart, whether interpreted through the skills of an
individual astrologer or the more limited capacities of a
computer, can tell us whether we should or should not be involved
with a particular person; nor can it tell us whether the
relationship is "good" or "bad", or whether it will endure.
Ultimately, human choice, human creativity and human
compulsion always upset the most careful of psychological and
astrological predictions. But insight into why we are drawn to
another person, what we create with that person, and how we are
changed by it can give us tools for greater choice and creativity,
and fewer compulsions. If a relationship has depth and the power
to transform, it will inevitably, at some point, cause us pain -
especially the pain of leaving an old and outworn self behind. If
we are able to recognise that the only time we truly get to enjoy
two hearts beating as one is in the womb, then we can approach
our relationships with realism as well as idealism. The medieval
alchemists knew that the gold they sought was human gold, not
metal; and if we can rediscover some of that vision, then we are
better equipped to perform the great and mysterious alchemical
work of loving another individual.
APPENDIX
The Perspective of the Relationship Horoscope
In developing the Relationship Horoscope, Liz Greene began
with her professional experience of clients wishing to gain
astrological insight into their personal relationships. These
clients most often have been in a relationship for a period of
time, perhaps one or two years if not more, and the romantic and
blissful beginnings have moved into a deeper and more realistic
interchange. The darker aspects of both personalities have by
this time been revealed, and problems and conflicts have come to
the surface - usually resulting in a desire to understand more
about the dynamics at work.
Both partners may not express the same interest in an astrological analysis
of their relationship. One may even be quite skeptical of astrology. But
very clearly, one partner is interested - and in this case it is you. You
might come alone for an astrological consultation to discuss your
relationship with Angelina Jolie. The Relationship Horoscope is written
with this scenario in mind: It addresses you as the one who has requested
the analysis, and it refers to Angelina Jolie as a third party, as "your
partner". Thus the Relationship Horoscope does not speak to both
partners, but to only one. The contents, however, refer to both partners in
a symmetrical fashion.
If you want to share your Relationship Horoscope with Angelina Jolie, you
might suggest that she bears this in mind while reading, rethinking the text
accordingly. However, if this seems inappropriate for you and your
partner, you are free to order a second copy with the text reversed so that
it addresses Angelina Jolie, referring to you in turn as "your partner".
To order a reverse Relationship Horoscope with the text addressed to
Angelina Jolie, please write an e-mail to order@astro.com and note the
order code TPRE as well as the complete number of your present
Relationship Horoscope. You will find this number at the bottom of the
title window and at the bottom left of each page.
This second report is available at a dramatically reduced price (this may
depend on the country from which you order).
Astrological Technique
To create the Relationship Horoscope, three astrological charts are
examined - the natal chart of both partners and the composite chart
calculated according to the midpoint method. For the compilation of the
interpretation text, the following main astrological factors are taken into
account: cross-aspects between the two natal charts, dominant themes in
the composite chart, aspects between the composite chart and the two
natal charts, and certain themes in the two natal charts which are triggered
by either the partner's chart or the composite chart.
Further Reading
The Relationship Horoscope touches upon many elements in both natal
charts, but particularly focusses on those relevant to relationship patterns
and themes. Having read the present horoscope, you or your partner may
be interested in a broader analysis of your own personality beyond the
relationship perspective. In this case we would like to recommend the
PSYCHOLOGICAL HOROSCOPE
by Liz Greene (also available from us).
Recommended astrological reading referring to relationship themes:
"Astrology for Lovers" by Liz Greene: An amusing but profound view of
the zodiacal signs regarding their characteristic behaviour in relationships.
"Relating" by Liz Greene: An insightful approach to relationships which
synthesises astrology and depth psychology.
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