Taking into consideration that Karma is difficult to define, we are approaching the topic that initiates the question of karma and that is “karmic relationship”. Whether we consider karma as past lives or debts or credits of the ancestors, that we affirm as an opinion exclusively in relation to the question of faith, we regard this complex issue from the astrological point of view as the way to work on oneself like a necessary need so as to pass through the experience of karmic relationship with the best efficiency, regardless of the status of the very relationship in the end.
The way to perfection. The author has decided to use this title since the capacity for perfection lies within ourselves, sometimes as the ideal, ambition or aspiration but most certainly as a chance to achieve the balance in our lives, reach the inner piece through learning, maturing, sometimes even renunciation but unavoidably through work on oneself and auto-realization. The ultimate aim is the fulfillment of the karmic duty, one’s own purpose and affirmation of the centre of gravity, point of support and guiding light in life but as well the establishment of personality through formed character. Character is acquired and in psychological terms it is the base of a human destiny. Therefore, the fulfillment of one’s own meaningful existence is the aim. You can guess that the affirmative representative of the entire process, but also the shaped up character, is Saturn itself, the point that we start from but also the one that is going to provide the final signature and verification of one’s own existence. And the light of reason is emerging. It is a long-lasting process over which one doesn’t have a full control, very often unconscious, except in those cases when one is working on oneself, getting to know oneself, recognizing and categorizing one’s own personality. Self-awareness leads to awareness of the very process although the causality can hardly be perceived, and if they can, it is at best the individual act.
Saturn in the first place describes karmic duty, the area in the natal chart where one is basically concentrated, where one’s stronghold is and where one finds one’s own purpose and sense. The sign where Saturn is based in natal chart represents people we have a special karmic reference about i.e. who are of exquisite importance for our inner growth and development. Therefore, if we take a peak into a natal chart, we will notice that people of that sign where Saturn is, are being very important to us for some reason. Sometimes we are particularly fond of them so that we have a special emotion for them, and yet sometimes we feel odd hostility. That is because the very karmic reference makes them particularly influential in our lives. Those are the people we are in karmic relations with and they are of crucial importance for us. Very often this process is being conveyed unnoticeably but most often we feel that they have enormous influence on the development of ourselves and very often those are long-lasting connections since karmic process is durable and far-reaching. Those are not “smooth” relations, they are often full of obstacles, efforts and even suffering since everything is being focused on restructuring of personality with the aim of “karma purification” or, to put it like this, becoming a better person. What does this practically mean? It is understood that there is an interaction between the Sun sign and Saturn. Namely, if you are for example Scorpion and another person has Saturn in Scorpion in the natal chart, there is an interaction between Sun and Saturn. If it is love, everything is happening under the veil of emotions and some deep-rooted connection with the partner for which we only know that we need him. Those are the people that we learn from. Very often we don’t have the feeling that we are getting what we want but what we need for some reason for our inner growth. The one whose Saturn is, is the great teacher, critic, loudspeaker of reality referred to the one whose Sun is, and who is supposed to mature in the area and affirm everything what “Saturn” is moralizing about. The aim is maturing and personal improvement, correction of one’s own flaws, fears, prejudices, weaknesses in order to become a better person, morally upright and purposeful, and eventually fulfilled and satisfied. Saturn partner is strict, cruel, critical to the Sun partner who finds it hard to bear, but the sooner they both realize what they need to do and fulfill those life demands, the sooner they will accomplish the purpose and release from the pressure. Here it is necessary to emphasize that the tendencies of Saturn are not just always obvious and it is something to think about. Sometimes, the aim is accomplished, the relationship is over and both sides continue their lives happy with partners they have the next level of connection with, since the need of one for another stops. In an ideal situation, both sides will understand their needs and necessities and tendencies and accomplish the harmony thus improving their relationship. Those can be unbreakable and ideal marriages. However, people don’t change so easily so the practice is showing something else. Such relationships may become very chaotic and a real torture. Here I have to warn the Sun partner since it very often happens that Saturn partner hurts the Sun partner or exhausts him, criticize him or deprives him of something. And vice-versa the Sun partner implies to the same process and can really enlighten the Saturn partner, show him the way and help him affirm his purpose in life. If that’s the case, partners are getting close to fulfillment of their relationship from the perspective of purpose and sense. On the occasion I asked my Saturn partner without thinking about planetary positions and karma: “What’s the meaning of your life?” and thus verbalized the process that was essentially going on at the time, one way or the other.
Besides Saturn, karmic relationships can be signified by the 12th and 4th house. Namely, people of the sign that is on the cusp of 12th house are the ones we enter (or not) the karma relationships, while those of 4th house cusp sign are the ones notified as “the secondary karma”, i.e. familiar karma, in relation to the official psychological category of “familiar unconscious”, introduced by the Swiss psychiatrist Leopold Szondi.
The 12th house is the most typical and the strongest form of karma. “The 12th house encounter” is entirely specific and more-less universal. Here I consider encounters of people who are connected by the sign on the cusp of 12th house. For example, your Ascendant is Pisces and your cusp of the 12th house is Aquarius, so you when you meet Aquarius that you enter relationship with, you are having “the 12th house encounter”. At first, we have a mild impression that we have already met somewhere and then we feel that we know each other for a long time like forever. We recognize each other as incredibly close and spontaneously we open to one another without thinking and without stopping, since we feel we can trust that someone and it’s just flowing out of us. So we are making a connection on a deepest level, under the sexual, on a level of unconscious so that we become a part of one another. It takes time to do that but, in short, that’s what is happening as a typical karma process. In time, we start to look alike and we recognize our own characteristics in the partner. The unconscious of two are melting together. There starts the process of “karmic burnout”, and those are great love affairs.
The “karmic burnout” is basically of the utmost importance here as the process inside of both parts. Essentially, it is the process of “purification of karma”, namely purification of the “basement” so to speak and that we could define as the Id of the personality, in the official psychological terms. Those are the deepest layers of the personality, it is the unconscious which contains all the inherited experience of ancestors, as well as the individual experience in the form of energy of emotions, fears, complexes, phobias, suffering etc. that have been accumulating within in the “basement”. Love reacts like a water pump to all those contents but what is of the utmost importance is what happens on a conscious level since the whole process needs to be circled in order to accomplish the purpose of the karma relationship. And there is always a purpose. Then we have to ask ourselves why we have met in the first place. Generally, in karma, people are closer than usually, sometimes those are the people that know us best. Most certainly, the potential of karma relationships lies in the possible achievement of our own improvement through such a complex and close relationship. Due to those open doors of the unconscious, it’s time to work on ourselves so that we attach importance to all the messages coming from a karma partner. That’s what life has to say to us anyway. Most often, those are the messages that we need to accept in order to build up a relationship and then to reexamine ourselves The point is that those are not simple relationships, they are very difficult and complicated and they very often end up in divorce and separation, mostly because people are not ready to work on themselves and correct their own flaws that lead to conflict in the first place. That’s why we are fighting so much. Namely, where there is such a great closeness, there are great conflicts and it is not easy to bear the shadow of loving one, very often our own.
Actually, it is necessary to figure out why we have met and what is so important in our relationship. We meet to help each other for some matter so that we can freely move on when the purpose is being accomplished. Then we meet to teach one another a lesson on something, etc. The point is that union can be harmonious only when the process of adjustment has been done and there are relationships when that process is lasting all their lives, or the most of it. Considering the fact that most people don’t think about it and don’t undertake steps to treat their own personality where they should, the majority of karma relationships ends up in brake-ups after the agony both parts experience in realizing that they just can’t be together and yet they can’t be apart. The solution certainly exists but it requires effort and the will.
12th house as the house of secret enemies justifies that, since two parts in karma relationship being secret enemies in inflicting weaknesses in another, thus forcing him to deal with oneself or to fight back…seems clear why those relationships are so complicated. It takes at least two and a half years to figure out in practice if that can work or not. Before elapsing that time it is not advisable to realize marriage or more serious union since carried away by the force of emotions people are not capable of separating and yet they haven’t achieved the harmony.
However, there are positive i.e. successful karma relationships when there is Jupiter in 12th house in the horoscope of one part in the conjunction with the Sun on the other part. Then, the Jupiter partner is a karma reward for the Sun partner. That’s only one example of many, when the karma partner brings prosperity, happiness, fulfillment to the Sun partner and is generally benevolent, thus bringing karma settlement for some good deeds of the ancestors, for example, although we can’t determine that as a fact. Actually, the karma phenomenon is completely incomprehensible and mysterious so that we can only recognize some mechanisms, in order to be able to see what we can do about it. Generally, karma issue is largely a matter of belief and as we know, a matter of some religions, but what practically results from it is that the work on oneself is necessary. The karma issue demands the inner quest and that is of the utmost importance in order to do everything that’s possible so as to improve one’s own personality. It can be regarded in relation to the earlier experiences in a personal history, but what’s important here is that one should know when to end a karma relationship if life implies to that, since it often happens that the process gets even more complicated and new karma debts are being created that way.
It may seem that those kinds of relationships happen to those individuals with full 12th house from logical reasons. Namely, those kinds of relationships can be even necessary for them in order to improve their lives and themselves in the first place. In some cases, it is often more functional to avoid karma relationship where Saturn is afflicted, if it’s possible of course. Generally, karmic relationships are not so recommendable unless you want to work on yourselves and improve your inner state of being through introspection as well as the state of relationship through tolerance and communication. On the other hand, very often they can be unavoidable or it may seem that it isn’t accidental if they have already happened.
4th house relations are somewhat similar but not just the same. 4th house is a house of secondary karma i.e. familiar karma and it is somewhat lighter but there certainly is the karma reference. Partners whose Sun is in the 4th house of our horoscope are basically “father figures” or “mother figures” and as such, these individuals are very important in our lives. Psychologically, those are people that are very much like a mother or a father and can be very close to the image of animus or anima. They provoke the deepest emotions in us, we feel like we are at home with them and we are capable of getting really close with them. Very often we will see marriages “of the 4th house”. Essentially, these individuals activate the key points in relationship with a parent that they may be prevailing in the relationship with a partner. Sometimes it can function according to the principle of overcompensation, in a way that we compensate what we lack from a relationship with a parent, and sometimes it is just a model. What most certainly happens is the activation of the deepest emotions and the relationship itself tends to be very deep. Very often it happens that we recognize the image of our animus (masculine side of a woman) and anima (feminine side of a man) and we may get the feeling that it is the ideal relationship in the matter, although it depends on a contact between Sun and Moon in both horoscopes as well as other positions. But those partners are considered to be like animus and anima projections.
In accordance to the title, it is important to mention that karmic relationships definitely open the door in a way that they allow one to get more intimate with oneself as well as the partner and provide the insight into the essence of our inner-self. They are recommendable only for those who are ready to cope with themselves and work on the inner improvement. The potential lies in them. It is important to feel when the karmic relationship ends so that we accomplish the purpose of the very encounter and thus the karmic relationship itself, no matter if it is punishment or a reward, giving or taking. All roads lead to Rome so as the life lessons that we get lead to the same cause: becoming a better person, liberated and more perfect. However, if we consider karma that way we get more chance to have more relaxed, happier and more satisfying lives.