In February, we experienced some of the most significant events of the year: on February 14, Saturn made its final ingress into Aries; on February 17, we had the first Solar Eclipse in Aquarius (opening the Leo–Aquarius axis cycle); and on February 20, Saturn and Neptune met for the first time in history at 0 degrees Aries. On March 3, we will have another total Lunar Eclipse in Virgo, popularly called the Blood Moon (due to its reddish hue), the final eclipse on the Virgo–Pisces axis.
The themes of the self–collective axis overlap with those of the spiritual–material axis for another four months, when the nodes will move into Leo–Aquarius for 18 months. The coming months are a kind of final cleansing, urging us to integrate the lessons of the Virgo–Pisces cycle. Before entering the self–collective axis, or as I like to call it, the inner child–collective unconscious axis, our intuition, spirituality, and sense of meaning will be tested, both semantic and existential (Freddie Mercury singing in the background: Does anybody know what we are living fooooor?).
Will we leave everything that is about to unfold to fate? Or will we take responsibility for our own contribution to the events now taking place in the world?
Little Red Riding Hood. These astrological events brought back a childhood memory from when I was five or six years old. My father and Mrs. Petre once found me behind the farm, sharing a chocolate bar with her fierce Doberman. I imagine the little girl who tamed the beast that was feared by the entire area. What I did not know back then was that I am a Manifestor and that I have a closed (and repelling) aura, my energy being less penetrable by others, and that animals (especially dogs) perceive this as authority.
At the end of that kindergarten year, our teacher announced the roles for the play prepared for the celebration, “Little Red Riding Hood.” Although I knew I was not among her favorites (she used to tug my pigtail and constantly tell me to be quiet), I hoped with all my heart that I would be the one chosen for the main role. I was not. One of my classmates was selected instead and was even advised to buy a red dress for the event. To make matters worse, I was not given any role at all (a reconfirmation that I was not in the teacher’s good graces), and the poem I was supposed to recite (though I was the kind of child who could memorize everyone else’s) was very short. I went home sulking and told my mother how badly I had wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood. As usual, she comforted me by kissing my little hands, her “tiny pillows” and giving me something sweet.
The next day, the girl cast as Little Red Riding Hood told the teacher she would not be able to play the part because her parents could not afford a red dress (they were building a house at the time and every penny was going into that). That was all I needed. I saw the opportunity and, without hesitation, I went up to the teacher and told her I wanted to be Little Red Riding Hood. I expected it to be more difficult, but she agreed immediately. And just like that, without even checking at home whether my parents could afford the dress, I fulfilled my wish.
Years later, I think about both of the little girls: the one rightfully chosen for the role, who instead of celebrating her achievement had to understand, like a grown child, that her parents could not support her financially; and me, the little girl who wanted so badly to be Little Red Riding Hood that she saw no obstacle in taking with her own hands what she believed she deserved. Even though no one had nominated her, she knew what she wanted and took clear action toward it. Even though she had not been chosen first, she embraced the synchronicity as a kind of divine reconfirmation that the role had always been hers by right.
The Bitter Taste of Success. Fifteen years later, in another academic context, I found myself in a similar situation. It was my final year and at the graduation ceremony they were awarding the valedictorians. I was working part-time, which had affected my average in the first semester, but after the final exam session, I had surpassed my main competitor, Ionuț, by a few hundredths of a point. Before the ceremony, I heard that Ionuț would receive the title and honors because the calculation considered the last three and a half years, not all four (since the final semester results had not yet been centralized). The injustice felt immense, and the reason for denying me what was rightfully mine seemed so absurd that I did not sleep all night.
I was furious, at the system, at life, at all the years I had studied and worked like a dog. I did not understand what I was meant to learn. Humility? That I did not deserve the title? My anger was so intense that it pushed me to do something I wouldn’t normally have done: I went to the faculty leadership to state my case and address the injustice. I still remember, choked with emotion, insisting until I spoke with two of the most influential women in the faculty. The vice-rector told me that “this is how the calculations have always been done,” that she understood my frustration, but they could not change the ceremony date or cancel the award. I did not relent until we agreed that, for the first time in the faculty’s history, the valedictorians would not be awarded during the ceremony. It felt like an acceptable compromise. I won the battle, but the taste of victory was so bitter. All that, for a kitschy medal now lying somewhere in a drawer, and a diploma supplement stating “1 out of XX graduates,” which no one but me has ever seen.
The truth is, it was never about titles or honors. It was about what I deserve. The bitterness came from wanting to be seen, celebrated, praised for who I am, not constantly negotiating my divine rights. That is where the sweet taste of success turned sour.
For a long time, I had recognized the voluntary behavior through which I fought for my rights, renegotiated what had always been mine, spoke my truth no matter how hard it was. Something in me wanted to fight. Something in me wanted simple things to become complicated. Something did not belong. Something in me believed it did not deserve to rejoice. Something sought to recreate the biochemical exchange in the womb where I felt unwanted and therefore had to earn my right to live. Something attracted the fierce wolf disguised as grandmother, longing to swallow her to have (once again) a womb from which to escape. Something was the fearful mother forbidding me to speak to strangers. Something was the wolf exploiting Little Red Riding Hood’s naivety. Something in me was the hunter who, instead of minding his own business, saves grandmothers and girls by cutting open the wolf’s belly. With the passing years, I have understood one thing: the harder I run from the womb, the closer I move towards it. And the less I listen to my own song, the more my eyes close again.
The Tigers of Wrath and the Horses of Instruction. Last year I read a book whose title drew me in immediately: “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.” The Polish author, trained in psychology and a Nobel Prize laureate in Literature, chose the title inspired by a line from William Blake. The protagonist is an eccentric middle-aged woman, passionate about astrology, who spends her time translating Blake’s works and whose unconventional vigilante actions force you to see good and evil in a new light. The entire plot unfolds in a Polish village near the Czech border, where a series of increasingly mysterious deaths occur.
Janina’s inner dialogue, whom I labeled “crazy” from the first pages, reshaped everything I thought I knew about anger. My favorite quote (also from Blake) shakes you to the core: “The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.”
Though Janina deliberately kills her unscrupulous neighbors who violate her moral code, she somehow remains likable to readers. Her psychotic episodes are triggered by corrupt, hypocritical, empathy-deficient people who despise animals and abuse nature. “Anger always leaves behind an immense void, immediately filled with waves of sadness, and a river without beginning or end begins to flow.” Her anger felt morally justified. Perhaps that is why, despite her crimes, she remains free (and imprisoned in her own mind).
I felt we resembled each other, especially in our sense of justice and anger. As good a person as I believed myself to be, I was equally furious, yet I struggled to see that my anger sprang from my own goodness. Whenever I found myself in ambiguous or uncertain situations where emotion and cognition were misaligned, I unleashed the tigers and killed uncertainty, or what I imagined was happening, with great fury. I confronted the truth, but before reaching it, the tigers devoured me alive. And when I confronted my imagination, I did so abusively.
I confirm, the tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction. Anger, as a raw, instinctual energy, is the truth that tears the veil. The cruel truth has always been easier for me to bear than the limbo of not knowing. More often than not, reality is more bearable than what we live in our imagination. And the truth is, no one is coming to save us. Not the horses of instruction, not the tigers of wrath.
True wisdom comes through self-love. Not through external validation, not through negotiation or justification of one’s existence. And only when you love yourself you can speak of the capacity to love another. This is the true meaning of our existence.
This is the true success whose taste never turns bitter.