Anais Nin, Mega-Piscean?
Anais Nin was a multiple conjunct Pisces (Sun, Jupiter Venus) with Libra Rising and Mars/North Node close to her Libran Ascendent.
So do you think this statement, above, sounds more Piscean or Libran?
Note also how Mars-North Node fights for her destiny, but she did it in a via Libra-esque way, predominantly writing about love, sex & later (Pluto trining Mars-Node) taboo subjects. She had Neptune conjunct her Midheaven – something that can either sink you or make you.
As for her myriad books & diaries, love or loathe?
Sounds exactly like the quadruple pisces ex-wife.
Intolerable for more than about an hour at a time…
indeed. been there, done that…say no more
VS
Pisces. Hands down. This is not so “wafty” a message I would attribute to a Libran, light and airy is their specialty non?
Plus she uses the word “thirsty” and any reference to drink is surely Neptunian…
‘intoxication’ – gotta be Pisces.
‘no more walls’ – definitely Piscean, it’s one of my life goals…
The above is Piscean, but her works and she herself are more Libran or maybe Aquarian. As a lit. major, I’ve never been able to understand her , and considering that I have a Moon in Pisces, that’s saying that there is a certain Piscean aspect about her that is missing.
it’s libran… until you get to that live free or die thing.
i think a libra will find the beautiful in the mundane (for their own survival)– but a pisces will off themselves (figuratively….) if they aren’t handed beauty.
i don’t mean to say the fish are incapable of creating beauty, they just take ugliness more PERSONALLY.
and i love her works, her style and her name.
Andrew, that is such an insightful distinction.
I like & relate to how you described the Libran instinct to “find the beautiful in the mundane for their own survival.” It does feel like a survival tactic – exaltation of the ordinary, because without that, life is mere drudgery.
Maybe it’s connected to the Libran creative drive – a stubbornly optimistic belief that you can always create great beauty, given enough time (& glitter).
p.s. As for the great Nin’s literary output, I really enjoy it in measured doses. Lots of sensory details to luxuriate in.
Printing this out….my sentiments exactly.
To transform is my raison d’être.
Have been given an opportunity to take my Libran Moon
& Chironic Scorpio to a hospital to care for a cancer patient
who’s terminal.
It’s also a catholic hospital & i have always wanted to be a Priest.
Wanted to cure cancer when i read all the medical books in the
doctor’s room that was used after-hours for ballet practise. The book
shelves were the ‘bar’ & the polished floor boards perfect at age 9.
Once i’m IN & others can witness the effects, there will be others, so
once again my mantra ‘create your own work’ (what else can an outlaw do?)
has come thro’. Started the course ‘The Art of Dying’ from Sounds True back
in ’99 but it was too confronting. Imagine what i’ll learn???
Only the marvellous can empower me……….so true.
My busy 8th house is doing it’s job.
Am fulfilling a karmic destiny & over the years have collected the tools needed
to create a ‘Designer Death’ & make it as exciting as birth & def not for the feint-hearted
but i’m old enough now.
Saturn & Jupiter must be happy with me now
Love & Luck to all in the ‘Relationships’ thread. Isn’t Birth Sex & Death where ecstacy occurs?
evelyn underhill would be so proud! what a mystical path!
What i remeber of her is that she & a famous author wrote
erotica for a waelthy man for $1 a page.
Cute.
O of course you understand, shall look up Evelyn Underhill
(great name if she a transformer) as Kubler-Ross’s work doesn’t
turn me on.
She’s a Sagg!
Anais Nin always reminds me of how my piscean friends carry on when they are in the throes of a fresh crush or about to start justifying an affair, texting something really naff to a lover after they have drunk too much at lunch.
Wasn’t she frigid in real life? Sex with her father? Sponging off her husband while she slept around behind his back? She seems like a bit of a drip to me, sorry if that offends anyone. Nothing against pisces or libra
hmmm all of the above sound strangely familiar…
All talk, all front.
I’m with you LS .. I’ve always found her revolting both as a personality and her style of writing. I can’t stand people who use art, mysticism and so forth as an excuse for deplorable behaviour which lacks any principles or concern/empathy for those around them. Narcissistic and selfish to the core. ~shudder~
amen.
I don’t have a problem with deplorable behaviour, only with deplorable behaviour dressed up as spirituality/art/philosophy/whatever.
Yup….I think you just hit on what always bugged me about her. That Piscean thing of presenting an image of art & beauty, but the reality being something else entirely. She had this wussy hubby named Hugo she cheated on with everyone, including Henry Miller. Her stories about her sex life with him did actually make her seem frigid by comparison. And then she goes and sleeps with his wife, June Miller, also??? Not bohemian so much as dysfunctional to the extreme.
I read her diaries for awhile, but never really got too into it. She had a very colorful way of describing what was surely an interesting life, but at the end of the day, she had nothing of substance to impart.
I dont thinks she used art and mysticism to defend herself…i don’t think she cares enough to do so…thats just who she was…im sure if she was standing right here and you said that, she would prob look confused and vague, then mumble something incoherent, leave and forget about the whole incident half and hour later…:)
pisces moon speaking>>>we dont give a darnn; we just pretend to
I dunno, I think she’s really interesting and especially for those times. Think about it: 1930s Paris, with major experimentations happening in the arts and philosophy. World War I increasing the disillusion with industrialization, Germany about to go apeshit and this massive new Freudian movement boldly exploring the unconscious — dreams, sexuality, libertinism — it was a such an intensely exciting time and here’s this mega Piscean right in the thick of it, doing what women dared not. Her stuff is dated now, but she was breaking down massive barriers. And she could think and write.
Interesting perhaps. Any prominent figure analysed within their historical and cultural context has a certain “excusability” based on changing norms, the zeitgeist etc. The fact that she’s female probably irks me more from a certain perspective (since I am female) rather than say … Picasso, who is well documented as a selfish prick of a man, with pretty much no redeeming features as a human being aside from his artwork. Oh but he’s Spanish and therefore fundamentally sexist (excuse) .. an artist so preoccupied with expressing his inner world (another excuse) … a multiple Scorp (yaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn.)
Concepts of kindness and compassion have been around far longer than Freud, the Industrial Revolution or modernist ideas. Mind you Anais was pretty post-modernist in a fairly intense time of “world view” ideology mostly created by middle class men. So I guess I’ll give it to her for subverting that hypocrytical paradigm.
Definitely illustrating both haute and lo pisces.
I’m not about to attempt to stagger about in her footsteps, and I wouldn’t do what she did, nor would I want to be on the receiving end of it, but she’s still interesting for so many reasons.
You make an interesting point prowln, about her being female, but her ‘deplorable’ behaviour was not a lot different to what countless men have been doing for millennia with nary an eyebrow raised. Sure, she was narcissistic and selfish (as such men are), and while it can be harmful, it’s not exactly a crime, and it was a time when people were exploring individual ego in an unprecedented way — a way which was unthinkable prior to depth psychology, as well as alternatives to monogamy. That doesn’t make their discoveries right or excusable, but those explorations were authentic and legitimate. We learn from people like her, who push the boundaries, if only to understand what doesn’t work.
agreed
Total Libra
Oh no I have Neptune conjunct my mc in scorp!!! And I think trine or sextile Pluto. Will it break me?? Certainly confusion re career! Mayb mars in sag in 10th will help?
Hummming i have that too, neptune mc, yes career confusion, many u-turns on the way, but then i could neeeever bear to do the same thing forever, its an opportunity to slope off & do something else for a change, & get a new ‘good idea’ when the last one gets tooo dreary hahaha !! Ceres is there too, & a bunch of goddess asteroids, perhaps they manifest more in my ‘public persona’ than my actual career – dont really feel like i’v got much of either at the mo (student life) – that will change !!!
Mars in sagg will certainly save u – i have it too, in 12th but i’m sure in 10th its a winner !!
Oh yay! Thanks for the reply! And I agree with the liking change- maybe that’s the mars in sag! Freedom and all that..
Seems like an interesting combination of both? The depth of the sentiment she expresses seems uber-Piscean (as in, ‘I’m really FEELING this’) but the shifting from one thing to another seems more Libra-like. That said, her writing is totally Pisces – sensory, emotional overload in the most voluptuous way possible.
As a Fish with Libra Asc, I love her books … awesome for escaping, turning inward, completely overloading your senses and breaking down some walls while you’re at it!
i’m a big fan of hers too. However a bit scary for me and I’m going on a date with a mega Libra boy (sun, moon, and venus) tommorrow so hope he’s not like Anais or I will heave and leave.
Don’t think he will be like that- but make sure you look gorgeous and smell beautiful! All that libra etc!
And as you’re a Leo that goes without saying that you will! Hence the date!
thx humm
The above quote is SO Piscean/Neptunian, with the talk of music, feeling, ecstasy, intoxication, escaping and boundlessness (no more walls).
I found these quotes on her Wiki, which are more Libran/Venusian:
“Love is the axis and breath of my life.”
“Something is always born of excess: great art was born of great terror, great loneliness, great inhibitions, instabilities, and it always balances them.”
Loved her diaries in my teens… then read a warts-n-all bio in my 20s and was a bit queased by the sex with dad, & the sneaking around while hubby paid the bills.
Exactly what I was going to say! I also wonder if I would like her writing as much now….might find it too overwrought and cheesy.
read some of her diaries, agree with Odette above, to be enjoyed in measured doses. She comes across as quite spoiled and narcissistic, it’s enjoyable to have the escapism and glamour, but over the course of a whole diary, you are like: come on darling, don’t you deal with ANY ordinary reality?
Didn’t know about the warts and all stuff, now I might go check out wikipedia.
Interestingly the pisceans I work with are relatively solid tough types (at least on the surface).
I thought I had written it……triple libran with pisces rising
It does sound like something I’d write……but only after too much vintage shiraz while swooning on the chaise longue – wondering why all these mere mortals were clashing with my decor…..
I love Anais. A beautiful writer with a beautiful mind able to transcribe feelings with effortless analysis. Synthesizing the real and the imaginary until the line is no longer perceptible…maybe in a manipulative way, but a beautiful way nonetheless.
She was a perfect counterpart to the men she created and encountered; she reinforced all of the things women hated being and endorsed something powerfully submissive and receptive for the time.
The first sexual experience I had was spurred by her stories. Nicked it from Gemini-Cancer cusp mom’s collection as a youth and immediately felt the connection with the style. She blended sexuality and sensuality, aesthetics and ass…
She has both Piscean and Libran vibe. Has its own charm for sure
VS
never had any desire to read her stuff as every snippet i read sounded pretentious and over-worked. but that quote really hits something for me.
I met Anais Nin in New York City while working for a magazine that she was doing a piece for. It was the mid 70′s and she was was 73 at the time. She was very petite and mousy looking, quiet and unassuming, almost childlike, but with an inner intensity that was still quite apparent. I admired her courage and fearlessness in the face of public opinion, writing about subjects that at the time were quite taboo. I also found her writings incredibly self indulgent…as was her way of life. Her Aries descendant conjunct her south node speaks volumes about her relationships being all about her; her experiences, her feelings, her means of escape from the tedium of anything resembling normal life. She lived in her own dream world, which she managed to bring to life and to be rewarded for.
Oh, virgo rising, how cool to meet her!
Even though, as I said, I found her unadulterated bio a bit creepy, I do respect what she managed to do as a female artist in a pre-feminist era.
WOW!!! I always thought she seemed shy and childlike and then you read her work and she’s not like that at all. I love the dichotomy.
You’ve made me want to check out my own desc now.
Anais and WH Auden and I share the same birthday. And I am also a multiple pisces, BUT with Leo rising. I don’t think I am like her (read everything she wrote and find it a bit outdated but I was fascinated that she could print it all. ) My very conservative English friend studied her at post-grad level and loved her. I’m a bit of a prude compared to her. Certainly wouldn’t play around and am appalled by incest.
She was heavily into Anaysis…..Freudian Analysis…..dreary.
Freudian analysis was the beginnings of depth psychology and a springboard for the discoveries of Jung and a lot of the tools we use to understand ourselves today — the unconscious mind, unconscious drives, dream analysis, archetypes, the connections between symbolism and the unconscious, psychotherapy etc etc
I’ve only read one volume of her diaries but it was pretty amazing. She described a really full-on acid trip and then said that though interesting, she felt like she could go to the very same places without chemical aid. I thought that was pretty cool. I agree with Über, in those times to be a woman fascinated with the workings of her own innermost being was a major transgression. We can thank her for some of the wiggle room we have today.
I see both the Piscean and Libran in this quote and her work. Her love of beauty and being intoxicated by it and life is throughout her diaries and fiction. There is the hi and low of both in her work – and life – too. Like the rest of us she wasn’t perfect. I remember reading one of the diaries when I was about 20 and the exploration of her own sensuality and curiosity is what always stuck with me. She was fearless in a way that to me transcended the fact that she was a woman. It didn’t matter. She was being whoever she was and not making excuses for it.
Mysitc, that’s really spooky: I just put the entire above quotation on my facebook page favorite quotations on Monday, as i discovered it and wanted to have it nearby! & yes of course my first thought was mega-Piscean in terms of writing, intoxication, spiritual quests, lifestyle choices…Librans it seems to me are not so into that merging which the quote finishes with. I find it so strange that it’s been on my mind to acquire her journals & then here you are blogging about her
The “only the marvelous has power over me” bit sounds soo Libra but the rest sounds Pisces. The reality isn’t good enough for me angle irks me. I like the stuff I’ve read of hers but here in this quote she sounds like an ass. Like a egoic ass. I’m kind of impressed actually. Usual it’s the male in the species that has that big of an artistic ego. So score for gender equality but still ick.
her sun is exactly on my mercury. I love all about her. I feel total empathy to her, and whenever I read her things it’s like plunging into a submerged, vast, secret, iridescent, after ordinary life land.
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