Perfect Match : Discovering Your Soulmate - The World Astrology Book of Love and Relationships

by MILLER, ANISTATIA R.BROWN, JARED M.

• ISBN13: 9780805211290
• ISBN10: 0805211292
• Format: Trade Paper
• Copyright: 2002-01-15
• Publisher: Schocken

Summary

What kind of lover are you? Who's your ideal mate? What are your chances of finding true love? When's your ideal wedding date? How can you improve your existing relationship? Perfect Match: Discovering Your Soulmateplaces the wisdom of Chinese, Hindu, Judaic, Celtic, and Western matchmakers at your fingertips. There's no math or chart construction required to access the wealth of astrology's insight into love and relationships. Perfect Match is filled with easy-to-use tables and worksheets to simplify your search for your soulmate or the most auspicious wedding date. You'll also find classic and real-life love stories, intriguing ancient and modern wedding customs from around the world, and advice about making your relationship work for both of you.

Author Biography

Anistatia R. Miller is a Certified Astrological Professional with the International Society for Astrological Research and a Research Member of the American Federation of Astrologers. She and her husband, Jared M. Brown, write the "Fusion Astrology" column for<i> Hamptons</i> magazine They have collaborated on many books, most recently <i>The Complete Astrological Handbook for the Twenty-first Century,</i> and they maintain a Website devoted to the study of astrology: www.world-astrology.com. They live in New York City.

Table of Contents

Figures and Tables	p. xi
Preface and Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Introduction	p. xvii
The Sun and the Moon: It's Been a Lifetime Since We Last Met	p. 3
Using Chinese Astrology to Find Your Perfect Match: The Exchange of Eight Characters	p. 11
Destiny's Pillars: Are Your Ruling Planets Harmonious?	p. 14
Reading the Ruling Xing	p. 15
Ruling Xing	p. 16
A Match Made in Heaven: Your Ming Shu Compatibility	p. 27
Ming Shu	p. 28
As the Moon Rises: What Your Lunar Month Sign Can Tell You	p. 53
Lunar Month	p. 56
Choosing the Most Auspicious Day	p. 67
Wedding Date	p. 68
Putting It All Together: A Traditional Chinese Wedding	p. 85
Using Hindu Astrology to Find Love and Marriage: The Sutras of Love	p. 91
Will You Ever Marry?: The Seventh House's Zodiac Sign	p. 95
Seventh House's Hindu Zodiac Sign	p. 97
Where's the Romance?: Venus's Sidereal Placement in Your Chart	p. 103
Venus's Bhavacakra Placement	p. 104
Venus's Bhavacakra House Location	p. 123
Carnal Knowledge: Mars's Sidereal Placement in Your Chart	p. 127
Mars's Bhavacakra Placement	p. 128
Mars's Bhavacakra House Location	p. 140
The Marriage Killer: Ketu's Sidereal Placement in Your Chart	p. 145
Ketu's Bhavacakra House Location	p. 146
The Matchmaker: The Moon's Sidereal Placement in Your Chart	p. 151
Birth Naksatra	p. 152
Timing Is Everything: Dasa Periods	p. 161
Walking the Steps: From Betrothal to Marriage	p. 163
Choosing the Perfect Day	p. 163
Wedding Date	p. 164
A Traditional Hindu Wedding	p. 172
Golden Sweets: The Misri Ceremony	p. 172
Mehndi, Sangeet, and Sagri	p. 173
The Final Pujas	p. 174
The Vivaha	p. 175
Using Judaic Astrology to Find Love and Marriage: The Song of Songs	p. 179
Matchmaker, Matchmaker	p. 181
Are You Marriage Material?: Your Chart's Seventh House	p. 182
Seventh House Tropical Zodiac Sign	p. 183
Will You Feel the Earth Move?: Venus's Tropical Placement in Your Chart	p. 189
Venus's Tropical Zodiac Sign and House Location	p. 190
Are You Lucky in Love?: Jupiter's Tropical Placement in Your Chart	p. 209
Tropical Placement for Jupiter	p. 211
When Like Minds Fall in Love: Synastry	p. 217
Tropical Placements for the Sun, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon	p. 220
Seizing the Right Day: Carpe Diem Optimum	p. 270
Sealing the Deal	p. 271
The Big Day: A Traditional Jewish Wedding	p. 272
Using Western Astrology to Find Love and Marriage: Have You Found Your Soulmate?	p. 277
Under a Celtic Moon: What the Moon Can Tell You About Your Love Life	p. 280
Celtic Lunar Month	p. 281
Moon Placements	p. 290
The Moon's House Location	p. 294
What Kinds of Difficulties Lie Ahead? Saturn's Tropical Placement in Your Chart	p. 298
Tropical Placement for Saturn	p. 299
Saturn's Tropical House Location	p. 307
Discovering Your True Essence: The Sun's Tropical Placement in Your Chart	p. 311
Sun Periods	p. 312
'Tis the Season to Wed	p. 320
Joining Hands and Tying the Knot	p. 324
Putting It All Together: The Love Lives of Michael J. Fox and Johnny Depp	p. 327
The Unstoppable Performer: Michael J. Fox	p. 328
The Chinese View	p. 329
The Hindu View	p. 330
The Judaic View	p. 332
The Western View	p. 334
Astrosynthesis: Combining the Interpretations	p. 336
I Did It My Way: Johnny Depp	p. 337
The Chinese View	p. 338
The Hindu View	p. 339
The Judaic View	p. 341
The Western View	p. 343
Astrosynthesis: Combining the Interpretations	p. 344
Entwined As One: Where to Find the Answers to Your Romance and Marriage Questions	p. 347
Celebrity Birth Data	p. 353
Select Bibliography	p. 376
Index	p. 378
Table of Contents provided by Syndetics. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

The Sun and the Moon
IT'S BEEN A LIFETIME SINCE WE LAST MET

The sound of a kiss is not so loud as that of a cannon, but its echo lasts a great deal longer.

–Oliver Wendell Holmes


You don't find love just because you're looking for it, even if you desperately need it. Love comes into your life only when you're ready to accept it, and this requires a certain amount of self-awareness. Even then, sometimes it takes more than a gut feeling to convince yourself that it's actually happening. Love is a confusing business, so it's always a good idea to look for guidance before the sparks begin to fly. People around the world have been consulting professional astrologers for this very reason for millennia. Name any country and you'll be able to find an astrological practice that's used to determine one's romantic and marital prospects and assess a couple's compatibility. What can happen when two people with extremely compatible astrological profiles meet by chance at a time in both their lives when they're ready for love and well suited to love each other? Here's how it went for us.

Anistatia: It was the seventeenth of December, 1992. I was throw- ing a Christmas party with another astrologer at my apartment that night. We'd invited loads of people for drinks and a buffet dinner. The trouble was, I couldn't find my caterer anywhere! He hadn't returned my calls for two days. I was completely panicked by noon.

At the time I was editing a book about a New York architect and I was at his Greenwich Village office that day, so I asked my client's chief architect (who's also a good friend) if he had any suggestions as to what I could do. He told me his cousin Jared was a starving hotel school student who cooked professionally. I took Jared's phone number and kept my fingers crossed.

Jared: It was about 2:30 p.m. when Anistatia called me at the midtown club where I made a weekly appearance as guest chef.

Anistatia: I explained that I just needed someone to help me put everything together and serve the food, starting around five-thirty. I'd already spent three days preparing a Southern-style groaning board of Hoppin' John, corn bread, collard greens, and a baked ham.

Jared: I remember the conversation went something like this: How many people? Fifty-five. What day? Today! I could hear the panic in her voice and told her not to worry. I'd just finished for the day, so I went straight out the door and hopped into a cab. I got about three blocks before I realized I was still wearing my white chef's coat (which wasn't exactly white after a long hot shift in the kitchen). I'd forgotten to change clothes. Anistatia had asked me to wear black, so I had the driver stop at a clothing store. I bought black pants, a black turtleneck, and changed in the cab on the way to her building.

I'd broken my left wrist a few days earlier. When Anistatia opened the door, she didn't even say hello. She just stared at the cast covering my arm from elbow to fingertips.

Anistatia: I said, "You can't even open a bottle of wine, much less carve a ham with that cast on, can you?"

Jared: I told her I'd just cooked lunch for eighty-five people.

Anistatia: When I heard that, I grabbed him by his good arm and dragged him in.

Jared: A bunch of people arrived early. Before long the apartment was full of guests and the party was in full swing. Though I spent most of the evening behind the buffet, I tried to keep an eye on Anistatia, in case she needed anything.

Anistatia: He was scoping me all night.

Jared: I won't deny it. I noticed she was very attractive. Finally, about 1 a.m. we were down to one straggler. I don't know what possessed me, but I threw an arm around his shoulder and said, "Time to go, so we can get this place cleaned up."

After we did the dishes, we sat down in the living room. Anistatia had been barefoot for most of the evening. I figured her feet had to be killing her so I picked one of them up and began rubbing it while we talked. She seemed to enjoy it. After a few minutes I set her foot down and picked up the other. Our conversation ran on as if we'd been together forever. We talked about the guests, which dishes had been most popular, whether the party had been a success, things like that. It was the sort of conversation we've had after every party we've thrown since then.

Anistatia: I kissed him on the neck. It was such a light kiss. I didn't think he'd even notice. But he did. Then I gave him a shoulder rub. He looked tense after being on his feet all day. That seemed to relax him.

Jared: We talked endlessly, about commitment, previous relationships, monogamy, personal expectations, life goals, marriage. It's funny, we talked more about those things in the first few days than we did in all of the next nine years. I guess once we got them out of the way there was no reason to dwell on them any longer.

Anistatia: I hate relationship conversations. They waste too much time that could be spent on actually having a relationship.

Jared: I knew she was the one for me, not because I was physically attracted to her but because I knew that even without any physical attraction I'd want her as my best friend for life. Within two days we were discussing marriage.

Anistatia: We also talked about astrology. After he mentioned his birth date, I told him Linda Goodman's Love Signs said we weren't supposed to get along very well or for very long. According to the book, a Gemini woman and a Virgo man have little in common when it comes to love and commitment. (I'd gone out with three other Virgos in my life, and all three relationships had petered out fairly quickly.)

Jared: "So that's it?" I asked.

Anistatia: I laughed and went upstairs to the computer. I cast Jared's birth chart and pulled up my own. Then I constructed a synastry (the relationship between individual planets found in both charts) of our charts for the day we met. We had seven planetary conjunctions! That meant we had seven points in which a planet in his chart was positioned in the same zodiac sign as a planet in my chart.

The Sun conjuncted the Moon. Many astrologers consider this the most consistent match in the charts of people with successful relationships. It's potentially the most romantic combination and indicates a very strong sexual attraction. The Sun conjuncted Saturn, which has the potential to create a foundation of stability. It's a great aspect for a long-term relationship. The Sun also conjuncted Mars. This indicates that conflicts are inclined to be ego related and filled with fireworks. This usually means some compromises have to be made on both sides.

The Moon conjuncted Jupiter, which instills more than enough trust for any relationship. The Moon also conjuncted Mercury, suggesting communication could be fine if we both resisted the urge to add too many details, which tend to trigger outbursts in the other person.

Venus conjuncted Venus, suggesting an emotionally hot romance, with as much fascination as infatuation. Venus also conjuncted Mars, indicating a lot of potential sexual magnetism.

Jared was also at a point when the planet Saturn was on the verge of returning to the position it held when he was born. It happens to everyone just around their twenty-ninth and fifty-eighth birthdays. Its influence makes you consider and reconsider the direction of your life.

I looked up our Chinese birth charts as well. The one key phrase that stuck in my mind was that the "relationship would lead to positive change." In Hindu astrology, I was at the end of my Venus dasa (time period), which is the optimal marriage time in that culture.

Just to be on the safe side, we went to my astrologer friend's apartment the next night. I brought the charts with us so she could have a quick look. She agreed that we had a lot going for us if we were considering a commitment.

Jared: Still, we both wanted another opinion. The trouble was, Anistatia's best friend was also her soon-to-be ex-husband, and mine was the woman I'd been living with for nearly three years. We got together with each of them separately. After Anistatia's husband met me, he told her that he thought we were absolutely perfect for each other. When my girlfriend met Anistatia, she said the same thing. We've actually remained close to both of them.

Anistatia: A week later I was on the phone with my mother in Chicago, telling her I was getting married and asking if she could line up a minister on short notice. "Is it anyone I know?" she asked. I told her it was someone I'd just met. She was a little surprised, but added, "I'm sure you know what you're doing."

I'd planned to stop off in Chicago on the way back from an upcoming business trip to San Francisco anyway, and I thought it would be nice to get married there so that my ninety-year-old grandfather could attend.

Jared: So we were married five weeks later in below-zero, postblizzard weather at Chicago's Water Tower. I have no idea why church bells all over the neighborhood suddenly rang out as we stepped back out onto the street, but they did.

Anistatia: I'm still trying to figure out why all the stores on Michigan Avenue had wedding gowns and wedding-related stuff in the windows in the middle of winter.

Jared: That was the end of it. But it wasn't the beginning of our story. Over the next few months we found out how many times in the past we'd nearly met.

When I first moved to New York (seven years before we met), I lived on the Lower East Side for six months. At that time Anistatia was living in a brownstone a block away. We both ate in the same neighborhood restaurants: Katz's deli, Ratners, Yonah Shimmel's Knishes Bakery, Veselka. We even bought borsch and matzoh crackers at Streit's matzoh factory, which was the midpoint between our apartments.

We also discovered that we were in Frankfurt, Germany, at the same time in 1986. She was there for the Frankfurt Book Fair. It was my first time in Europe. I'd flown to Zurich, took the train to Paris, then to Frankfurt, and I was wandering aimlessly through the city when I stumbled on a little street fair, the Rhinegau wine festival. Anistatia actually snuck out of the book fair to visit this same festival, which was only one block long. But we didn't meet.

I did see her once, though I didn't know who she was. It was in 1990, about two years before we met. Riders in the Sky, a Texas cowboy band, was playing at the Bottom Line nightclub in Greenwich Village. My sister Laurie and I were both big fans. Laurie knew the lead singer, so after the show we went backstage. Anistatia knew the bass player. That's where I saw her. She was across the room with her back to me, her long black hair cascading down in loose waves over a green Armani suit. I saw her for only a second, and only from behind, but the image was indelibly etched in my memory.

It turns out we'd also been near each other at two benefit concerts without knowing it. At one Anistatia was sitting in the tenth row near the left aisle. I was in the same row, on the other side of the aisle, but we never saw each other. At the other, we both spoke to my cousin Daniel, who was only at the concert for a few minutes. Anistatia had gotten to know him when her editorial work brought her to the architectural firm where he worked.

A month after we finally met, Anistatia was showing me an album of photos she'd taken in various locations around Manhattan. One picture showed the rowing pond in Central Park. It was shot from quite a distance, but when I looked closely, I realized she'd taken a picture of me rowing, three years before our fateful encounter. She didn't believe it was me until I pulled out the awful red, gray, and blue Hawaiian shirt I'd been wearing that day. She said she'd taken the photo because I was the only one who seemed to know how to row a boat. But she made me get rid of the Hawaiian shirt anyway.

Are all well-matched couples destined to meet? We'd like to think so. If not for fate there'd be a lot of people going through life unaware that the perfect person for them lives just down the street or on the other side of town. This might be an unnerving thought, but as you'll learn in the following chapters, you can increase your chances of meeting your true soulmate by using astrology to get to know yourself better. When you understand your strengths and weaknesses, when you're aware of what sort of person and what sort of relationship would be best for you, you'll be more likely to recognize Mr. or Ms. Right when you cross paths. As you'll also find in the coming pages some cultures leave as little of this as possible to chance.

---

Excerpted from Perfect Match: Discovering Your Soulmate - The World Astrology Book of Love and Relationships by Anistatia R. Miller, Jared M. Brown
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.