In Part 1, we analyzed the Saturnian structure of our chart. In this post, we will dive into the realities and threats of navigating the world of emotions. (New readers: Check the Full Archive).
The Aquarius Moon’s level of detachment shocks people—and often, it shocks us too. In this post, I will attempt to explain the strange workings of the Aquarius moons psyche.
The Inner Witness
Regardless of how warm we Aquarius moons can seem (based on our Sun or Rising sign), or how relatable others may find us to be, there is a coldness – a detachment which is not always obvious and takes many by surprise. At the inner core of the Aquarius moon, beneath every layer of our persona, there stands a scientist – with a clip board – observing everything and everyone.
Our inner witness watches constantly, gathering data points and noting patterns – it check the facts, lists behaviours, observes variables, performs a bunch of calculations and formulates a conclusion – about everything! The thing about this which is difficult for all to fathom and experience, is the fact that this inner witness assumes the position of detached objectivity.
The moon is the part of the psyche which is the most subjective in our experience, but for the Aquarius moon, this subconscious aspect of the psyche opts to be completely unbiased and detached. It orients itself and recognizes itself as detached, objective and even separate from the lived experience. In other words, the subconscious self (moon) which was to identify with itself and its experience (subjective), has detached itself from the experiences of the self (objective observer).
This essentially fractures the self-identity; the self no longer recognizes its own emotional experience. This is the core of the Alien experience on earth.
Look out for my upcoming blog post on The Makings of the Aquarius Moon – Upbringing and Empathy Profile.
This might be a bit to chew or process, but it should hopefully summarize – viscerally – an internal discomfort which you have been grappling with and may have been unable to express.
This structural – and functional – anomaly is what creates a blockage to the visceral experience and processing of emotions that other signs experience. Instead the sensation is barely registered in favour of a mental process:
- “Person X is experiencing Y emotion”,
- “Person X is attempting to trigger Y emotion” – or judgments are made:
- “Person X shows negative patterns of Y”,
- “Person X poses an emotional threat”.
The Cold Storage: Forgetting to Feel
The mental processing of emotional data may also label and trace emotional experiences:
- “I am experiencing X emotion because of Y”,
- “I also felt X emotion during Y and Z event” – and may make decisions accordingly:
- “I will disengage from Person X because of Y risk”,
- “I will quickly leave Place X, because it will stir Y emotion”.
But there is a limitation on the actual experience and release of the presented emotions.
We basically stand as a witness to record, think, decide, and in many cases, archive and forget the emotional data. Those emotions just get pushed to the side until some future resurfacing within the conscious mind – precipitating a crash out or spiral! To be honest, I wasn’t always aware that there was a mechanism of release that was skipped. I did not know there was a process of feeling that I was glazing over. I didn’t know I was holding unprocessed emotions within my body.
Look out for my upcoming blog post: The Aquarius Moon Guide to Emotional Processing and Release.
We Navigate Emotional Environments Differently
Aquarius is the water-bearer, not the swimmer.
The way in which we navigate the world of emotions is what sets all Aquarians apart. This could not be more amplified than in the Moon placement. Our emotional world is also starkly different from our Saturnian Mate, the Capricorn moon. There is a heavy duty emotional barrier which detaches the Aquarius moon from the emotional experience of others, and ourselves. This barrier helps us to move through emotional environments without loss of function, seemingly without effect.
Aquarius emotional detachment is often just a delay in emotional registration, where the environment’s data points are logically noted but the actual emotion doesn’t present itself specifically or immediately. For example, if someone does something hurtful, their intention may be recognized. The event is noted but there is some delay to the emotional response or the mental recognition of the emotional response. That is to say, you ever felt nothing at the time, or you didn’t recognize what you felt.
Sometimes the emotional delay may be so long that the mind has enough time to mentally label and archive the event, bypassing mental churning. In my personal experience this causes a certain type of memory-loss or what seems like amnesia. Eventually this ‘cold storage’ gets reawakened, with sudden recall. Now many uncomfortable emotions are experienced in the body. Now I will need some time to be mentally sorted through to re-stabilize.
Aquarius is the water-bearer, not the swimmer.
– The Auracle
At other times the emotional detachment is simply a resistant/defensive observation of other people’s emotional discharges. The emotional data is noticed, but the interaction with it is very low priority. Essentially you already see through the veil or the bullshit. Lame and unnecessary.
Fixed, detached emotions is kinda weird.
Why Therapy Often Fails Us
Some of us Aquarius moons who have a heightened awareness of our own emotional issues may seek someone to talk to to help process excess or extreme feelings. In these discussions we articulate our conscious emotional archive: list of traumatic incidents, report of past feelings and historical woundings. The problem is that as intellectual – air – moon signs, we’re highly capable of mapping out and articulating our emotions, even during an active emotional storm.
Most people emote expressively and often reactively, explosively or irrationally. Our clear expression of emotional records of events and feelings causes the typical individual to completely misinterpret the emotional output/reading of our energy.
A raging storm within, an imminent crash out, a bubbling volcano, severe depression or even the potential for harmful behaviours is not witnessed even by some professional therapists.
The rational articulation in response to the “How did that make you feel?” type of question (so cringe), probably leaves the professional confused to be honest. They see a calm, descriptive, fact-based monologue, not our internal crash-out situation. “Wow! You are actually spot on, way ahead of many clients”, “You are so incredibly self-aware”… Next thing you know you are the one giving the therapist advice. And let’s not overlook the darker arc – the verdict “You have a superiority complex”. Sigh.
We Seek Systems, Not Sympathy
This has been my experience in seeking therapy from professionals anyway. Many were simply not equipped to assist me with emotional processing. Perhaps a more “vulnerable” display would have assisted the process, but loss of self control is simply not an experience which should be mandatory for a therapeutic service – in my opinion. They help emotive people become aware of their emotions through articulation. However they are often unable to recognize the Aquarius moon’s needs and deliver to us the systems we could use to emote and release. It was years after I gave up on traditional therapy that I intuitively embarked on that journey to heal myself.
Look out for my upcoming blog post on The Pluto-Moon Pressure Cooker: Pluto in Aquarius and the Emotional Death & Rebirth – 2024-2044
Logic: The Undesirable Labour of Love
Our perspective of the world is from a position of objective logic, like the Aquarius sun – but unlike the Aquarius sun, this is not a conscious directive of the will or ego. This is an instinctive and intuitive position. As such, even the Aquarius sun may find us strange (and even cold). While they consciously choose to logic, we intuitively live it.
People love to slap the label ‘cold’ and ‘robotic’ on us. This is due to a lack of understanding of the nature of our internal and subconscious process and perspective. For example, when they come to us with a problem, we respond with the best possible solution, but allegedly – from an emotional point of view – a solution is the obvious wrong answer.
Yes. Setting your brain to work to compute a way out of their emotional maze (the same thing we do for ourselves) is the wrong answer. So our effort is dismissed as an “emotional dismissal”. Oh, the irony!
The Enmeshment Trap: Dealing with Emotional Violation
Aquarians bear the water, we are not lifeguards.
Highly emotional individuals demand that you swim in their drowning pool to prove you care. To them, throwing a life vest is cold and choosing to stay on the shore is unfeeling. Hell, if you even try to approach on a raft, they instinctively try to drag you into the depths with them. Their only way of emotional connection is via the back and forth exchange of emotional discharge. Your detachment offends them. It denies them the emotional expulsion they crave. When they hit your glass wall – when you remain neutral and objective – they panic or become aggravated.
Many require you to sit and hold their emotional discharge to prove connection. When they are repelled by our glass wall – when we remain neutral-objective – they become distraught or even aggravated. In extreme cases, they repeatedly violate your emotional boundaries trying to force entry through your emotional barrier. They believe if they shatter the glass of detachment, it will force you to “feel them”. Many do not understand the extreme psychological instability this causes, but I find that people with unbalanced, turbulent emotions and a lack of self control, do not care either way.
Addressing the “Dismissive-Avoidant” Label
The psychology community also betrays us in this respect, as many psychological frameworks neglect our emotional process, fail to address our emotional needs while simultaneously pathologizing our natural emotional process, as dismissive-avoidant behavior. This essentially gives license to everybody and their mama to utilize this term as a weapon of guilty-trippy emotional ensnarement. In the defense of your own psychological stability, you will also find yourself asking: “Am I broken?”, “Am I crazy?”, “Am I the Asshole?”.
In a toxic relationship you could honestly find yourself scapegoated and gaslit constantly, where others cast themselves as the perpetual victim in every interaction. Or they claim that our detachment gives them the OK to act poorly, to violate our emotional boundaries. Obviously we feel nothing.
Look out for my upcoming blog post: How to Love and Understand an Aquarius Moon
Whilst I give grace to the general population, being that I am the outlier here, their all-or-nothing approach to intimacy, which is supported and promoted in the general population – is extremely entitled and leaves no bridge for us to cross. Their ultimatum is that our boundaries be chopped down and set ablaze to keep them warm – and if you don’t burn, obviously you are the problem here.
Understanding our psyche is only half the battle. How do you stop the emotional drowning in relationships? [Continue to Part 3: The Relationship Survival Guide which will be linked here] for my 4 Rules of Engagement every Aquarius moon should know while navigating emotional relationships.