9. Analise a possível habilidade do yod.   Tanto o astrólogo quanto o cliente terão de fazer as pazes com o pensamento de que, com um yod, você não está em posição de articular a capacidade latente e adormecida do yod em questão . Ele pode abranger assim muito, e por isso de forma diferente de como ele primeiro mostrou -se, que ele é simplesmente o mais seguro coisa não para queimar seus dedos sobre o assunto. Muitas vezes a segunda metade                                      of the life  of someone with a yod is totally different than the first. This is usually not the result of a conscious choice, but mostly of a combination of circumstances in which all kinds of unforeseen  events and situations contribute to a chain reaction, as it were, and cause the second half of life to bring forth a totally different life situation. It is very possible that along with this you re-  ally find or have found your rhythm. Many people with a yod who have actively wrestled with the aforementioned problems and have found their way through, will even point out that they  have found a haven that is difficult to describe in the middle of what is otherwise a turbulent life. They will also point out that they have figured out that because of the searching and inse-  curity during the first half of life—which included doing the most diverse things, holding very different jobs, starting various programs of study (without completing them all), and the  like—they have ended up during the second half in a situation where, to their surprise, they need, can use, and can integrate the experiences they accumulated through all those falteringly  undertaken activities. As if there were an invisible thread running through all their fishtailing back and forth that unconsciously pointed out the way for them. However, to get to this  point, the person with the yod has to watch out not to end up in the negative side of the yod, the side of self-pity and inactivity—because then things will start getting really difficult.  A yod can make a person incredibly creative, precisely because of that urge to be searching all the time. This is why people with a yod can be very refreshing and ahead of their time in  many respects. They will always notice that those around them can't muster much understanding for this though—during the first half of their lives, at any rate. The second half of life is  different in this respect, as well. I have met a variety of people with yods who, during the course of their lives, changed their circle of friends radically, ended relations with a number of  family members, and finally had a whole new group of people around them among whom they felt very much at home. In this case, you will see that those with a yod can finally arrive at a  situation in which they are understood and in which their qualities are recognized, but which they will themselves have cooperated actively to create. A yod gets nothing for nothing, and  so it forces you to shape your life.  If we look at the horoscopes of well-known people with yods, we will see that the themes that made them famous always had to do with the themes of their yod (or unaspected planet).  Jung is a good example of this: Jupiter, Pluto, and Mars in a yod, where Jupiter represents the doctor (and religion) and Pluto psychology. Mars can indicate unbridled effort and energy.  The enormous conceit that goes along with a yod-Jupiter combined with Pluto and Mars got him into trouble: he simply couldn't adapt himself to the teachings of another, in this case  

Freud, and therefore he abandoned his prospects of a safe job and a position of honor and prestige.  Pluto is Ruler 10 and Mars Co-Ruler 2 in the yod; here we see in a yod the theme of social profiling (10th house) and that of the need for concrete security (2nd house) also involved in  the situation of the stalemate. On the one hand, the connection between the two rulers indicates that he is seeking security (2) and career possibilities (10). On the other hand these two  houses, if only because of the fact that they are involved in a yod, brought him once or more times in his life into a stalemate, so that he had to choose between “evils” as it were. In his  situation it was Jupiter as Ruler 11, the house of friendship, which completed the stalemate: he was a friend of Freud's (11) and had good prospects because he was Freud's designated fol-  lower (10), which would offer him security (2). However, he couldn't commit to a compromise between his own insights and those of Freud (Jupiter) in the area of psychology (Pluto) and  was thus faced with an impossible choice. He could go his own way and break off the friendship, with all the insecurity this would entail, or keep going along the same road as Freud and  retain security, but continue to feel nothing but resistance inside. Neither option was a pleasant one for Jung, but he was driven from inside to choose his own way.  The crisis followed, but after that he was able to follow his own path and become an innovator and a pioneer in the area of depth psychology. And, as is customary with a yod, he pre-  sented themes that caused him to be far ahead of his time, and so not well understood by the “mainstream.” He proposed synchronicity, openly showed his interest in astrology and the I  Ching, presented an impressive analysis of The Book of Job that kicked the shins of quite a few clerics, without doing this intentionally, as it happened. He took alchemy seriously, which  until then had been considered by scientists as the first step toward the science of chemistry, and then began to study the subject, eventually breaking the code.¹ Jung's talent revealed it-  self precisely because he was preoccupied with these sidetracks, because he looked at and approached things differently. If you had tried to describe Jung's ability during his day, you prob-  ably wouldn't have thought of the combination of alchemy, I Ching, astrology, and old Chinese thought, because there was hardly anything known about these themes.  It may be the case now, too, that there are people with yods who are preoccupied with a vision, a view, an insight, or a theme you simply can't come up with, precisely because they will  lie beyond our circle of thought. Years ago I spoke with a man with a yod horoscope. He had found his own way and founded a unique school in the Netherlands—a school to train  clowns.  So it is very tricky to try to name the abilities and talents of a yod, since you, yourself, can't arrive at the ideas inherent in the direction that these people will take. It is therefore best to  simply describe the hallmarks of the yod planets, as we encounter them generally in the books, and to say that the abilities and talents lie on the level of one or possibly more of these plan-  ets, and very likely on the level of a unique combination of all the planets, so that the houses they rule are also involved. Considering the very diverse development of these talents, I have  become very careful with regard to attempting to describe them concretely. A yod—as 1 mentioned before—is just like that piece of soap that keeps slipping away. By describing the planets  and the rulers of the houses though, you can create a picture of the energies that will have something to do with the abilities and talents.   10. Show how the houses are connected by their rulers.   We saw in the example using C. G. Jung what part planets play as rulers. (For an extensive explanation of house rulers, see my book The House Connection: How to Read the Houses in an  Astrological Chart.) If the ruler or co-ruler (the ruler of an intercepted sign) is located in a yod, the distinguishing features of the yod will extend to the matters of this house.  A house is generally considered “a set of circumstances,” with which I am only partially in agreement. For, a planet in a house says that with that specific energy (planet) you have the  need to manifest yourself in that particular domain (house). To a certain extent houses do, in fact, have to do with patterns of inner needs, even though these might be different from those  of the planets. A house represents an area that draws our attention, or one we want to engage in if we have planets in that house, or if the ruler of the house forms the necessary aspects.  A house that is involved in a yod by means of its ruler indicates the area where at least once you will have the feeling of standing with your back to the wall, having to make impossible  choices, or being confronted by an in-some-respect-ungraspable, or at-first-glance-unsolvable problem, like Jung with the co-ruler of his 2nd house in a yod (and the ruler of his 2nd house  in a duet). He had to make a choice in which his financial position was literally on the line and figuratively, the idea of firm ground was under his feet. After all, going one's own way in  the developing field of psychology, away from the mainstream of that moment, is an uncertain prospect for one's wallet. On top of this, it elicits questions like, “Where do I stand,  

anyway?” and, “How much inner security and motivation do I have, anyhow?”  In the meantime I have plenty of examples of people with Ruler 2 in a yod who at a particular moment in their lives had to make a drastic choice that entailed considerable conse-  quences for their income. A woman, for instance, with Ruler 2 in a yod that also involved Pluto, could no longer find a niche in the company where she was working, particularly because  of the tough, macho atmosphere. She landed in a crisis and decided to quit and wait to see if she could earn an income with other projects. Because she was quitting, she would not receive  unemployment compensation. She knew that beforehand, but she couldn't, from inside, wait any more for possible resignation proceedings or for particular arrangements, and she could  also not tolerate the idea of otherwise taking sick leave for a while. She felt an unavoidable and forceful need to leave the company—and this precisely at the moment when there was a  considerable promotion in store for her.  So there she was—at the point of getting a much better position with an extremely comfortable salary and a confirmation of her qualities—a situation of which many were jealous, the  more so as this was happening at the beginning of the 1980s when there was very high unemployment—and on the other hand that enormous inner restlessness and the feeling of not  being able to work any longer in that corporate culture. Her friends advised her just to take a vacation and by all means accept the promotion. She'd be crazy to let that go for such an inde-  scribable feeling. When she raised the matter at the company, management even offered her a vacation to relax for a little while. She was no doubt tired from all that hard work. After the  vacation she could start in her new function.  What do you do in a case like this? There are all kinds of “good reasons” to keep moving up in that company and only one vague reason not to do so, that “feeling” that just kept insist-  ing. This woman all of a sudden, in a burst of strength, decided to leave the company immediately and submitted her notice, leaving behind her a bewildered human resources director  and similarly shocked management. There she was, without an income, only some savings, and the big question, “What now?” She knew it felt good though, and stood by her decision.  Since then, she has built up her own company with very different norms and standards and a way of working that do fit with her. She now looks back with great satisfaction on the step  she took back then. At that time, it was a step into the dark, but it turned out to be a new beginning. In another domain she did pay for that step: friends and acquaintances and even a  couple of family members abandoned her. She was no longer interesting socially. I have seen these kinds of emotional events before with Pluto in a yod.  This course of events regarding the 2nd house shows a couple of things that are so typical of a house involved in a yod: first of all the stalemate, the “impossible” choice, the inner rest-  lessness, and a situation in which the whole world is telling you that you're making the wrong choice, but then it turns out that that “wrong choice” finally gives your life the kind of turn  where your talents and abilities can develop. It may happen that you have to choose several times with regard to a particular house before you arrive at such development. How many  times, however, cannot be predicted.  With Ruler 11 in a yod, I have seen the following often take place: a stalemate concerning the theme of friendship, possibly of one's own making, but often as a result of a complex situ-  ation in which the psyches of both parties were so interwoven that you could hardly speak of fault; and often a total renewal of one's circle of friends, after one or more intervening events.  It also often happens that within your circle of friends there is someone who, on the one hand, means a lot to you, but on the other is a very problematic figure from whom you have to tol-  erate a lot or who elicits a lot of inner uneasiness in you. With such a person you can go through a crisis, or undergo something together, so that the friendship grows deeper or else leads  to problems. However, in a crisis, precisely when you feel abandoned by everything and everybody, someone will cross your path with whom you can build a very sincere friendship. Or  else it turns out that there has been somebody nearby for a very long time whom you now start to see with different eyes and from whom you receive a lot of help and friendship, and to  whom you can also return this in kind. Oftentimes this person will also be a “loner,” or someone who in society opted for his or her own colors and way. Thus Ruler 11 in a yod can go to-  gether both with a crisis situation regarding friendship, as well as offer a very exceptional friendship that arises at a strange moment or through a remarkable combination of circum-  stances.  Houses that are involved in a yod by their ruler are thus often the domains where troublesome and unusual developments present themselves, but in which there also lies exceptional  potential. The horoscopes used as examples in later chapters will be extensively devoted to this.