Ghostwritten by Chiron

Jules et Jim (1962). Ghosts
from long ago summers.

This is a true story, but it's a little off the wall, so bear with me.

I had a kind of waking dream the night before last in which the ghost of an old, old boyfriend came and spoke to me. Now in real life I have not seen this guy in many years, but I have no reason to suppose he is dead. Further, I had no particular reason for him to be on my mind and in truth it was all so long ago that I rarely think of him these days. When I do though, it is with great affection.

So his "ghost" visited me and we had a kind of conversation. Now I've never seen a ghost, but I do sometimes have these conversations which may be with a dead person – not too often and usually with one or other grandmother. I've never really worried about whether these were real ghosts or just my mind playing tricks. In general, the message is the same: you're doing OK.

G: Nice kids.

Me: Thanks. What are you doing here?



G: Just saying hello and here to tell you you're doing all right.

Me: Oh.

G: You need to get on with it though.

Me: With what?

G: That thing you're supposed to be doing.

Me: What thing?

G: You know the thing…the Virgin Mary thing. You know your mission thing, the thing you have to do thing.

Me: Oh that thing. What thing?

Laura Dern and Nicholas Cage in Wild at Heart (1990).
We were on our own yellow brick road back then too.

And so it went on. I still don't know what the thing was exactly, but our conversation was very much about the here and now, not about the past. Pretty soon it dawned on me that it was strange that this friend (I'll keep on calling him G.) was visiting me at all. So much so that I couldn't sleep. I knew this was important.

So I googled and at first found nothing, then buried deep in the the webthing I found his site with some short stories on it. He'd not been a writer when I knew him. And there was a story about a road trip we took back in the 1980s.

And there was the ghost of my  past self: walking, talking, acting on the page. His memories of that time were the so much the same as mine that I felt spooked. Is that usual? Don't we normally find that our memories differ remarkably? He'd awakened the dead, my own dead past. It was the strangest feeling, like seeing an old cine-film of myself as a teenager.

So I looked at the astrology and found something curious. My progressed Sun was at 28° Pisces in the year G. wrote about. It conjuncted my natal Mercury, and right now (2011) that spot is being reactivated by Jupiter and Uranus. And progressed Mercury (because of retrograde motion) has just returned to this natal position.

But surely memory belongs to the Moon?

It does, but telling stories belongs to Mercury.

My progressed Moon right now is in Aquarius conjuncting Neptune-Chiron. All these planets are semi-sextile 28° Pisces. At the time of the road trip, my progressed Moon was conjuncting my natal Chiron.

Who are the ghosts? I'm wondering about Chiron, who canters between the inner and outer planets, in the same way that ghosts journey between the material world and Big Mind (or whatever you want to call it). Chiron-Neptune are actually on my descendant, the angle of partnership, along with the progressed Moon right now.

Who rules dreams and night time visitations? Pisces, Neptune and the 12th house. Pisces and Neptune are both active for me right now.

In Indian astrology, Rahu, the North Node rules dreams. By transit I see nothing much, except perhaps that Rahu is close to Pluto, lord of the dead, who must rule ghosts. But natally, Rahu is at 28° Taurus for me, so exactly sextiled and squared by these transits.

How did I feel reading that story? OK. It's nice to have confirmation that that was the way we were. I wasn't an easy person back then, but his story reminded me that I had a lot to deal with, and I got away.

What I'm trying to say, G, is, thanks for the visit and I liked your story. You write good.