It could be argued I have more nerve then sense. Most of what I want to talk about is risky if not completely taboo. I don’t know what to do about this because like, Jessica Rabbit, I am drawn this way.
Most who read here know I’m interested in what is deeply rooted or in the blood. When you’re talking about blood, you’re talking about race – a HOT topic. We’re supposed to pretend there is no variance between the races even though evidence to the contrary is in my face every day.
I’m constantly baffled by other people’s thoughts and deeds. I chalk this up to my childhood (my roots) which was unusual. But now I wonder if it’s just that I’m Italian and the people who baffle me, aren’t. I wonder if my drives and various feelings about things might be rooted in thousands of years of history. If this is real, it is a big thing to know as it would explain so much.
Various cultures have rules but I grew up in the melting pot that America where all the cultures came together. I’m American on one level but on a deeper level, I’m Italian. It could be said, my head is American but my blood is Italian. My instinct is Italian. I’m beginning to understand it is not reasonable for me to expect that people accept the things I accept to part of life (like violence) just because I do.
As an example, if someone rapes someone, it is perfectly okay with me if men band together, go capture the offender, bring him in, try him and kill him. This seems normal to me. My head can argue but deep down, this is acceptable to me and easy to understand.
Is this because I was born in Arizona aka the “old west”?
Or is it because I am Italian in which case the history goes back thousands of years?
Italians are also super ambitious and competitive. We’re empire builders, as my husband would say. We want to do things on a grand scale and just don’t believe in half-assed anything.
Recently I was reading about, Versace and there was not one thing in the story of that family I could not relate to. Last week I watched, Da Vinci and the Code He Lived By (History Channel). Da Vinci, was a born a bastard and he was driven. 60% of capacity is not enough. It’s 100% all the time and I feel exactly the same.
I’ve been criticized for it, called a work-a-holic but this is my nature. It’s my nature, not a disorder.
When Michelangelo came along, a rivalry sprang up between he and Davinci and my thought on that is, of course!
I’m constantly confused as to why people don’t seize opportunities that seem to be laid out in front of them to my eye. Why don’t they capitalize, I wonder? I’m now playing with the theory that the difference between me and them is in the blood.
I’m not suggesting my blood is better than another person’s, only that is is different. I place a very high value on individuality and think it imperative people express themselves as individuals. One person paints, one person writes, one person bakes the bread, one person designs clothing, one person is an accountant, one person fights the wars and so forth. A strong, vibrant society results from this diversity. The idea that some are excused from performance and others subsidize them is repugnant to me. Everyone is here for a reason and self esteem is gained when people pitch in with whatever they have to offer.
To add the astrology, everyone has a Moon in their chart. Everyone has roots. My roots are Italian – Cowboy – American. I can’t escape this. I also can’t expect people to feel as I do, to be deeply driven and so forth. I am catching on.
What is in your blood? Where is your Moon?
Fascinating to read everyone’s backgrounds. I’m a Heinz 57 of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, German, and a wee bit of Cherokee. My family has been in US for centuries and I had family fight on both sides of the Civil War. During the Dust Bowl my grandparents came to CA from Oklahoma. My mother was born along the way in Arizona. Grandparents picked cotton and peaches. True “Grapes of Wrath” people.
I attribute my hard work ethic and conscientiousness to my upbringing. I am also the first person in my family to have a college degree.
Elsa – I also miss Ali and guys who were uber confident.
Moon in Sag in the 11th. Moon is conjunct Mercury and Neptune. Moon is sextile to Pluto and Venus in Libra.
We emigrated from Ireland to Canada when I was 4. My dad was an abusive man – sexually, verbally, mentally, emotionally.
When I was about 14 yrs, he told me one day that every family was like this, this stuff happened in everybody’s family. I believed him until I noticed it wasn’t happening at my friend’s houses.
It wasn’t until later in life that I realized that HE truly believed this – this is how it is/was in Ireland, this is what he came from, this was all he knew. (My mother was raped by her brother AND a priest).
A few years ago I spent a few months with distant relatives in England. I was so horrified with the mass anger in the environment I couldn’t wait to get back home. There was a blow up in the house I was in, the young guy was flipping on his girl – I could hear things crashing and her being thrown around. The mother intervened complaining that he was going to wake the young children!! Not a peep about what he was doing to his woman!
We are truly a product of our environment until we become conscious and change our beliefs.
I’m a mix of Irish, German, and Native American (Shawnee). I’m sure there’s more mutting in there somewhere, too. 😉
But I identify as American. I know there’s things in my family that can be traced to my ancestral roots — like a love of drink and belligerence — but, on the whole, I just feel American. I’m an extremely typical mix for my area, just one particle of homogenization, and that’s shaped me more than anything else, I think.
I have a stellium in my 4th which trines my Aqua moon. *smiles*
Elsa, you are living in the wrong part of the country. The spirit and values that you embrace are alive and well on the east coast :-). Its great for me who also shares those perspectives. Not so great for my 13 year old daughter with ADD who tries and tries and tries to very limited avail, poor kid.
Jeannie, you may be right. I don’t think I am in the right place, that’s for sure but I will most likely be here for the next 5 years. I work with a lot of New Yorkers and am always glad to get someone on phone who clearly wants to get ahead on whatever front. I just don’t get “rasta time” in any way, shape or form. Life is short and so many possibilities.
My blood doesn’t match my moon (Sadge on the 1st/2nd cusp). I got raised to behave and settle, period. I got raised SQUASHED.
“I am constantly confused as to why people don’t seize opportunities that seem to be laid out in front of them to my eye. Why don’t they capitalize, I wonder?”
Because I got raised to do ANYTHING BUT THAT. I have massive guilt voices in my head about doing anything else. I wouldn’t even know where to start doing anything, apparently. I don’t know about “blood,” but when that is your entire world, it’s really just hard to see anything else, it could be Narnia for all it’s realistic to me.
I’m wondering now, which part of Italy exactly. Because actually the history of Italy as a nation is very recent, and the nation itself assimilated a bunch of different populations that encompassed a huge diversity of traditions, customs, ethics. I’m from Sardinia, which is technically Italy but their people have next to nothing in common with a person from the industrial triangle. Industrialization was a part of Northern Italy’s history for a longer time than it was in the South so capitalism in itself isn’t something we would see as characteristically rooted in the peninsula as a whole.
My family is from northern Italy, Bassano De Grappa, specifically.
My Moon in in Taurus, in the 5th House. I have shied away from fame my whole life, because as a child, being noticed or having the spotlight on me meant trouble. Home trouble.
Even two generations later, I still prefer one on one contact. Fb posts to the public are as far as I go.
I have heard Sicily is pretty much a toxic wasteland these days from the Mafia.
Hmm rasta time. With so much Mars energy I feel I should be a lot further along in life, and today am having a bit of a meltdown so reading this thread closely. Is it Neptune slowing everything and fogging, along with misdirecting energy into salary and Saturn security? I get tired of trying the different paths that might lead to a freer income and release from shitty bosses. I get worn down trying to solve this and feel the need to have a rest, or more like my mind does. But then I get up again and have another go. The challenge is finding consistency to do a little every day, daily practice. It’s coming together slowly but it’s slow. Too slow for an Aries, like swimming in mud. Like life has become a massive stack of paperwork I will never sort. I kind of feel like Rapunzel with a looming Saturn Rumpelstiltskin on my shoulder all the time. When you’ve had success then lost it, it can be hard to try climb the mountain again, even if you know there is help aways up the track. It’s about being brave.
Maybe people who are lacking drive are just, frightened of success or can’t imagine it. Goodness knows the southern Irish in particular and Celts in general have their own mañana (and the drink) that gives the time and escape to dream and tell stories. And get lost. I have a lot of that from my fathers Catholic side, but along with a strong work and service ethic, embedded in my Skanda Methodist heritage on my mothers.
The Neptune dreamer can just dissipate and drown all that fire and confidence very easily with self doubt, without helpers. Sometimes it feels as if only one of the ancestor sides is winning. Another day I might feel really different about it!
I feel like I got the pushover gene :/.
My family has a lot of water signs and my mother is like one huge PENTACLE so earth as well. I think its in our blood to be pushed over.
Cancer moon, 12th house.
This is such a sensitive topic for me. Pisces Moon conjunct Chiron, trine Neptune and opposed Uranus/Mercury/Pluto. Pluto by zero degree, exact.
My father literally hated my mother. Beat her to a pulp and left to marry another woman. We were left hanging, my mom addicted to narcotics. I grew up alone mostly. When my mom was sober, she dragged me along to visit her elderly mother, aunt, and my half sister who was either jailed or institutionalized. I would hang out by myself during all these visits, sort of forgotten. Sometimes my mom was institutionalized, and I literally spent time alone without supervision. So, I don’t feel any sort of connection to my family.
My poor son, his father wanted nothing much to do with us so it was just the two of us. We were very close until he was half way thru high school, then he spent more time with his friends. He has Sag Moon in the 11th house, opposed Venus so I can see why. I am happy for him, and have learned to love my independence. I’m weird, my pets are my tribe now.
When I was very young, my older half sister had an Italian boyfriend. He was so nice, and I remember a time or two being invited to his house for a meal. Most of the family only spoke Italian, brand new immigrants to the states. I marveled at his huge, happy family all living under one roof and all seemingly very close. It was wonderful to experience.
I see, Elsa, you mentioned here that you missed Muhammed Ali, and, sadly, today we shall all really miss him. A remarkable man and a hero to so many in so many ways. RIP.
Yeah…I’ve written about him many times over the years. They broke the mold on that guy! 🙂
Pure Italian, my family came over in 1930. New York state. If anyone raped one of our women, they would be dead. I married a redneck. My daughters were making bullets at age 2 and had their own .22 rifles at age five. My sun is in Libra, my ascendant is in Libra, my Venus is in Libra, and my Mercury is in Libra, my moon is in Scorpio. I don’t like anyone. Someone broke into our house when my daughters were two and three and I was alone and my husband was at work. The intruder is dead. I didn’t even hesitate. There was no way that I was going to take the chance that my daughters were going to watch me be raped or worse they were going to be raped. Self defense.
My moon is Gemini 12th house and I am also Italian. I came from a whole family of “driven” people but all they do is fight. Do i think this healthy? In some regards, yes, because everything is out in the open and discussed…but on the other hand there isn’t always a need for ambition, and getting ahead, and the fighting becomes unnecessary. I’m not entirely against “being excused from performance while others subsidize” because, as Rainer Maria Rilke pointed out, “everything is gestation and birthing.” Even in Buddhist literature there is mention of forcing something into being before it is ready. All it does is damage the growth process. So, yes, sloth is bad news when it is long term but a temporary reprieve I believe is completely healthy and I don’t mind “subsidizing” while the going is good and I have lots of energy and resources for when others are struggling. Though it’s a sweeping statement to say everyone has their place and should contribute, many “roles” are already taken (due to lots of people wanting to be in that role) and not everybody gets to do what it is they love (in fact i would say most people don’t get to do what they love) and are spending their lives working in jobs they hate.
My father’s family fight about whether they have Italian blood or not. 😀 It was not to be discussed. Something about a fight on a boat and one of the two men going overboard and lost at sea was the story. My summation is that it depends on whose kid the subject of the argument was carrying. I also looked back at some geneology from the old country and one of the great(s) kinduv dropped off the chart. Like, wait a minute we are all here, were did the record of that go? I may look back at it closer sometime in the future when I am bored with everything else.
‘I am drawn this way’. 😀 Thanks for the laughter today. I can’t say mine out loud. It would not be wise. Probably why I am accused of being vague.
When someone presents a philosophy or ideology or any assumption that relies on a desire for all war, violence, aggression to be ERASED, I recognize that as a major flaw in their argument. It’s not natural, it’s not organic, it’s not reality.
I’m Dutch/Belgian, with Moon in Libra conj. Nep & Mercury in the 1st house. As a child I somehow knew there was Jewish blood in me. Only decades later an uncle confirmed this. Because of the Nazi occupation it had been kept a secret.
I have a 7th house Cancer moon trine Saturn and square Pluto. (Saturn-Pluto) It also squares my Venus and opposes my Ascendant. My moon seems to create drama and jealousy in my family. I feel like an outcast at times and stepped on as a person. My emotions always feel tense or numb. :/
I come from German, Hungarian, Irish, Czech, and Scottish blood. I got in interested in this post because my paternal grandmother died last week.
Welcome, 8thHouseVirgo. I’m sorry for your loss. 🙁
I have shared this with several people since I read it because it made me think. Simple truths presents profoundly, just why I’ve been visiting this blog for over ten years now, contributing sometimes, absorbing always. I know you get a lot of shit but I hope I can communicate that I have found a lot of food for thought and spiritual insight from reading this blog and that you have influenced and touched at least one person. That being said, here is “Shit Italian Moms Say”. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eac91tZsZMw