Persistence of Selfhood

In her alien-invasion-plus-vampire novel THE MADNESS SEASON, C. S. Friedman creates a species called the Marra, incorporeal beings who wear material bodies "like clothes." Upon assuming a new body, a Marra constructs an identity to shape its lifetime in that persona. Being true to the present identity is vital to a Marra. For instance, the female-gendered Marra with whom the novel's protagonist becomes intimate currently lives as a healer. Yet through all the shifts of bodies and identities, each individual Marra remains the same person with continuity of memories. How can a self persist with no permanent physical form to anchor it, however? The Marra must be the SF equivalent of disembodied souls. Maybe the soul or self of a Marra is an energy network?

Of course, many religions believe in disembodied souls. The concept of reincarnation depends on the existence of a nonmaterial soul that moves from body to body through death and rebirth. As I understand it, the general belief holds that in a new life the soul doesn't remember past lives, so in what sense is it the same person? In folklore, fantasy, and horror, many tropes exist that conceive of the spirit as detachable, so to speak. Ghosts can linger on after the death of the body. In stories as different as FREAKY FRIDAY and Lovecraft's "The Thing on the Doorstep," people can trade minds between bodies by magic.

On the physical level, cells in our bodies are constantly wearing out and being replaced. Different tissues get replaced at different rates. So if we don't have the same body we had at birth, are we the same person or a different person sharing some memories with the earlier one? Accepting the second answer would have scary implications, because it could mean that someone suffering from severe dementia-related memory loss is no longer the same person despite bearing the same name. On the other hand, it's believed that neurons in the brain never get replaced, so does their existence provide continuity of selfhood?

In time-travel stories that allow two or more versions of the same person to exist in one moment of time, which is the "real" person? Both/all of them? If "selfhood" is defined by self-awareness, the status of existing in two bodies at once, each with its own separate awareness, generates a tangle of philosophical problems. Maybe selfhood follows the traveler's consciousness as it moves through his or her personal timeline; when you meet your earlier or later self, that's not a "real" self because your awareness isn't currently resident in that body. (So what does that make the earlier or later version? Some kind of zombie?) Dr. McCoy speculates in an early STAR TREK novel that the transporter doesn't literally project a person across space. Instead, the transporter destroys the individual at the origination point and creates a duplicate at the destination. Therefore, everybody who travels by transporter "dies" on the first trip, and every subsequent trip kills a version of that person and constructs a new version. Along the same lines, if you have your consciousness uploaded to a computer, and your body dies soon afterward, is the computer consciousness really yourself or only a simulation?

Some psychologists maintain that no such phenomenon as the unified self, the ego, exists. What we think of as the mind is a collection of different processes. Consciousness, according to these scientists, is an illusion the brain has created for its own convenience. The trouble with this hypothesis, in my view, is that the construction of an illusion of selfhood implies an agent to do the constructing. Therefore, we come back to a unified, controlling self.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Depiction Part 27 - Depicting Love by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Depiction

Part 27

Depicting Love

Previous parts of the Depiction series are indexed here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/04/index-to-depiction-series-by-jacqueline.html

You'd think in a writing blog about Alien Romance that Depicting Love would be the first topic in the series on how to "depict" the intangibles that make a novel truly memorable.

Love is both the most obvious, simple, easy intangible for a Romance writer to depict, and the most difficult, slippery, nebulous topic to find a concrete "show don't tell" symbol to convey.

We've discussed depicting Love many times from different directions.

Here is "What Does She See In Him?" and "What Does He See In Her" -- a primary question every reader wants a concrete answer to right up front in Chapter One.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/08/what-does-she-see-in-him.html

And how to make what one person sees in another into a "symbol" -- something that could be photographed when they make the movie of your novel.  It has to be something that can "arc" or change for those characters because of the events of the novel, and turn up again and again (as a theme does).

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/01/theme-symbolism-integration-part-4-how.html

And most especially - why we cry at weddings.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-2-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/08/theme-symbolism-integration-part-3-why.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/03/communicating-in-symbols.html

We've also discussed Love At First Sight as part of the Happily Ever After ending.

Many good Romance novels start with a Divorced Character, or a widowed Character -- someone who had a good relationship that went sour.  Sometimes the story focuses around an Affair -- that ends well or badly, destroying other people's happiness.

One thing that has split good marriages apart is Politics.  The initial Romance following Love At First Sight often masks the deepest beliefs that form a person's self-image.

People in the USA choose to be Republican or Democrat (or Independent, or Libertarian, or nothing-much) because they encounter "messaging" from a number of Candidates expressing the party's platform.  At that time, a person will identify people who seem to be saying believable things, and "join" that party.  People look for a party that represents what they already believe, or at least some most cherished belief.

Over decades, the USA Parties redefine themselves with the turning of the generations, and espouse different (often contradictory) causes and stances.  The final bundle of positions on issues the Party settles on at the Convention is a mishmash of philosophically contradictory stances.

This happens because the Party platform is "negotiated" by committee.

In fiction, thematic unity is essential.  Fiction is art - a selective representation of reality, not reality itself.

The real reality your Characters live in has no perceptible thematic unity -- which is why people seek that unity in recreational reading.

Readers often pick up Romance novels to get away from the chaotic contradictions of a very confusing world.  The reader is looking for a trip through a world that makes sense.  Readers often look to get away from it all, to get relief from confusion.

Your job as a writer is to depict a world that is not confusing, but is enough like reality to be convincing.

If a novel is too simplified, too much lacking in confusion (Red Herrings), it seems childish and unconvincing.

We discussed a galactic war adventure novel series, with excellent tender-romance here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/03/reviews-31-dave-bara-lightship.html

The main character, a Prince serving in the Military, loves a couple of different women for exactly the reason any Romance reader woman would want to be loved in real life -- little to do with appearance and everything to do with admirable accomplishments to be proud of.  He loves women of Strong Character because of their strength of character.

Nevertheless, the story comes off as too childish simply because the Characters are rewarded vastly for little real effort, and seem to understand way too much of their world with far too little work.

When Characters accomplish too much with too little real effort/angst readers just don't believe the story or the plot.

That's one reason "Love At First Sight" is often viewed with skepticism by readers who have never known anyone it happened to.

But when Love At First Sight happens (and I know it does, so I have adjusted my view of reality to include it), the Lovers are usually too smitten with each other to ask the kinds of questions a Matchmaker would -- or the sort of questions you might find on a good Dating Site.

The impact of "This Person" is so overwhelming that the inquiring mind just does not ask.

The couple might evaluate each other on Values and Principles, but fail to ask why those Values and Principles were adopted, where they came from, and whether they are all consistent with each other.

In fact, most Romance readers aren't looking for a novel that depicts Characters who have stringent philosophical consistency.  Most humans don't revere logical consistency and in fact are convinced emotions have no logical basis.

So the beginning Romance writer, or a writer like Dave Bara and his Lightship Series, may be convinced that Love is not Logical, emotions in general are not connected to or originating in the cognitive functions part of the brain.

Love Is Not Logical is a Theme.

It is a statement about the reality of the human condition, a summation of many assumptions and a conclusion that implies how life is to be lived.

The Theme of my Star Trek fanzine series, Kraith, is Love Is Logical.
http://www.simegen.com/fandom/startrek/kraith/

There is a view of human history that is held dear by those who are convinced Emotions Are Not Logical, a view that is based on the assumption that Emotion Is Logical.  That view of human history shows how one civilization rises, collapses, and gives rise to another civilization, one culture spawning another.

Cultures through history are like our children, made up of the same genes but rearranged and even mutated into something else.

Beliefs are like our genes -- containing much that has gone before, one or two traits that are new, and the whole rearranged to seem new, but it's really old.

We love Regency Romance and Historical Romance set in Castles, arranged political marriages, as Dave Bara uses in his Lightship Series, Rulerships, Kings, Dukes -- we love reading about those times.  But today's novels of the Aristocratic Times whitewash some of the ugliest parts of that reality.

Politics is one of those Cultural Philosophies that propagates as our genetic children do -- like us, identical to us, but vastly different.

In January 2017, Rowena Cherry wrote in this blog:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/01/does-every-cloud-have-silver-lining.html
---------quote----------
I gained a new perspective on why so many folks in society have so little respect for copyrights and the right of musicians, authors, photographers, movie-making participants and others to be paid for their time, talents and effort from the free Hillsdale College lecture covering the difference between Originalists and Progressives when it comes to the rights of an individual.

According to Professor Ronald J. Pestritto, the Progressive ideology is heavily influenced by European--especially German-- thinking, and holds that the needs of the Community is always superior to the needs (and rights) of the individual, and far from certain rights such as the right to Life, to Liberty, and to the Pursuit of happiness being bestowed on mankind as a birthright by the Creator, all rights that an individual has are permitted by the government depending on convenience and expediency.  (And can be revoked.)

How expedient and convenient do you suppose it is to uphold individual copyrights?

---------end quote-------------

The Progressive Movement article on Wikipedia is illuminating:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Era

The thesis is that the Progessive Movement began in 1890 and ended in the 1920's.

There is a Liberal or Progressive movement, actually several different ones within each political party, today -- and using different labels and symbols, targeting the same social ills that were identified in 1890.

There are several basic ideas about "what" a human being is, where and how humans originate, and under what social contract terms humans can live together -- and those sets of ideas do neatly separate into two camps, two mutually exclusive ideologies.

Note the element Rowena Cherry focused on relevant to Intellectual Property Rights -- or actually, just property rights in general -- does a human own what they make, or not?

Notice how very basic that THEME concept is!

THEME: humans own the product of their own labor

THEME: humanity owns the product of any human's labor

Every two year old coming into the ability to use language learns NO first, maybe MaMa and PaPa, but definitely NO.  And then comes major lessons in MINE.  Toddlers learn to POSSESS their possessions, and the very concept of possession.  They have not, to the adult's way of thinking, earned it, but they own it.

So the concept MINE comes before the concept EARN.

Parents love their children -- and through that love, teach the concept "no" and "mine" and "you can't have that because it is mine."

"You can't take that because it is mine" is an expression of LOVE.  It is a way of depicting love.

MINE is an extremely abstract concept.  Just try explaining it to an Alien whose species does not have that concept.

We discussed explaining humans to aliens, and how it can help writers do solid worldbuilding here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2017/03/depiction-part-26-depicting-humanity-by.html

One rock that marriages founder upon is POSSESSIONS -- as well as TERRITORY.

If a Couple is split on the issue of regard for another person's possessions and personal space, or territory or privacy, the marital combat will be feral.

The arguments - regardless of what the ostensible subject is (toothpaste tube, toilet seat, cleaning the trash out of the car, overdrawing the checking account, inviting guests without asking the cook) will take on basic animal characteristics.  The combatants are fighting for their LIVES - for their very existence.

The concept MINE lives in us at that pre-verbal level where the 2 year old can only scream red-faced and clutch the toy they just stole off the store shelf.

The adult will defend what is MINE with that same ferocity -- even if what is being defended is only a symbol of the toy their parent would not buy for them (long before they knew about the connection between earning, buying, and mine.

Sometimes LOVE is best symbolized by not-buying that toy.  And sometimes a good marriage is based on not-taking the spouse's possessions.

Children absorb the very definition of what marriage is by the way parents handle and regard the spouse's possessions.

One magnificent depiction of LOVE in symbolism is the way the loved-one's possessions are regarded and handled, not because of what that object is, but because of what it means to the loved one.  Sometimes the most penetrating drama comes with the way a Character handles a possession of a deceased loved-one.

The connection between a person and their possessions (yes, somewhat like the gypsy scam artists claim, or you see in many Fantasy or Paranormal Romances) is a mystical force in this world.

We experience MINE as a mystical force, perhaps because it is one of those pre-verbal learning experiences.  Even dogs know what is theirs and what is not.  Children get it very, very young.

The next lesson in growing up that humans learn is how to make something MINE -- how to acquire what holds meaning.  Seeing the toy on the store shelf, screaming "Mommy, buy me that!" or just "I want!!!"  Then comes Mommy's lesson in how to love -- "Be good and I'll get it for you next month."

You want to own something, you must comply with the wishes of others.  Love is unconditional -- possessing is conditional.

If that's how you are brought up, that is how you will conduct your marriage -- whether you know you are doing it, or not.

That is how deep into the subconscious, into the brain-synapses developed in childhood, that the concept MINE goes.

With age, you learn you have to do chores to get money to buy things -- then get a summer job to earn money, then work your way through college -- and so on.

Along through those years, you may change your mind about possessions, come to see the massive contribution to your prosperity made by your community, society, family privelege, etc, and understand a portion of what you earn belongs to everyone (taxes, insurance).

You may change your behavior so drastically that during a hot Romance, you display only community awareness, not the 2 year old's selfish MINE.  But within months of marriage, that 2-year-old's MINE will assert itself, sometimes to your dismay.

Other 2-year-olds may have learned MINE in a different way, with support and respect for the exclusive possessions of an individual being sacrosanct.

If an adult with a commune mentality of "everything belongs to everyone in the family" marries a "what's mine is mine; what's yours is yours" person, there will be primal-scream-level-combat where neither party knows what they are really fighting for or over.

At some point, that mixed marriage may well crack -- and you, the writer, will have a Character ready for a second time around Romance.

By that point in maturity, the Character will be grappling with the vague and confusing question, "What is Love?"  How do you know if you're in love after being so bitterly disappointed by that Selfish Bastard you gave your heart to?

Or, on the other hand, that mixed marriage may gel and solidify into a happily ever after for real.

How can that happen?  If the very concept of MINE is not shared, how can two people meld into One?

It has happened.  I have seen it happen in real life.  Compromise is not the answer.  Winning a negotiation is not the answer.  Asserting your rights is not the answer.  Separate bedrooms is not the answer (though sometimes it helps.)

Even Love may not be the answer.  MINE may be something that Love can not conquer, at least not by itself.

One human's love for another human may not be up to the job of welding two such disparate views of what a human is into a single marriage.  This is the kind of welding job you write about in an Alien Romance, where a human has to apprehend the true alien quality of this strange Soul Mate.  If the weld is sturdy enough and flexible enough, you do end up with a Happily Ever After between Soul Mates.

Making that HEA ending seem plausible to your modern day readers is tricky.

We've discussed the HEA ending perpetually, and here we go again.  It is based on the validity of the concept, Soul Mates.

If your readers accept the concept of Soul Mates, they may not be ready to accept the concept of Souls per se.  That could take some convincing, a series of long novels.

The concept Souls comes with the question of what they are and how they came to exist -- and what the rules are about mating souls.

You can depict the Love of Soul Mates who nevertheless have primal-screaming-fights about MINE, and whose marriage may founder on that concept, and or its political manifestation (today: Democrats vs Republicans), Fiscal Responsibility, Health Care, Obamacare, Trumpcare, -- who must pay for the healthcare of the poor?  Who is responsible for making people poor to begin with, and for keeping people poor (and why would anyone do that?)

So Soul Mates may end up in Divorce Court.

Or maybe not.

There is a fundamental force in the Universe, a variable related to Love, which some call Delight.

If both Soul Mates become aware of the spiritual forces moving in the world, of the finger of God stirring their lives, (sometimes pregnancy brings this awareness, if only momentarily), and experience a peaceful moment together, they may transcend awareness of MINE.  It won't resolve the issues they fight over, but it will put the Values involved into another perspective.

Remember, we've discussed the two-valued either/or zero-sum-game model of the universe in many contexts -- that model is the foundation of most Conflict, and conflict is the essence of story.

If it is mine, it is therefore not-yours -- is zero-sum-game model.  There is only so much wealth to go around, a pie to slice, and it is not fair if some people get more of the pie.  That is the zero-sum-game model.

Then there is the infinite, expanding model of the universe wherein any human makes something and thus adds to the sum total of human wealth while at the same time keeping what has been made, dubbing it MINE.

The infinite, ever expanding model of reality has no pie to be sliced.  Whatever you make, you keep and divvy up as you choose.

Humans have the capacity to choose to do justice, to give away a portion of what they create.  That behavior is rare in the average 2 year old just encountering the concept MINE -- but it turns up often in the 3 or 4 year old who sees parents giving, and experiences love when recieving.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/05/theme-element-giving-and-receiving.html

After having been the recipient of giving, a child learns the even greater delight of being the giver.  You can't experience that ineffable delight of giving unless what you are giving is MINE.  You must create/earn and acquire something of your very own, which you have no obligation to give away, and then give it to another (for whatever reason).

The delight of giving is a spiritual experience - an experience that happens, like Love At First Sight, at the soul level.  It lights up the brain circuits, true, but that is a pale reflection of the vast ignition of the Soul.

Possessing that which you have created and/or earned is a pre-requisite to experiencing that ineffable delight of the soul.

Sharing the experience of soul-level-delight can weld a couple into a single whole, a whole that readers can view as deserving of a Happily Ever After life.

So sharing a moment of Soul Delight can work as the climax of a Romance plot, and the Story climax is the realization by both that the moment of supreme intensity was indeed shared.  This Selfish Bastard you want to ditch actually has a heart.  That's a game-changer discovery.

The fabric of the universe is woven from shades of Delight, according to one ancient source.  Here it is in poetic form:

-----quote--------
A bird builds its nest, a tree spreads its boughs, a cloud floats across the sky—and we see there beauty, ingenuity, wisdom and might.

But behind it all is delight. The delight the Creator takes in each thing.

Each thing begins with delight; delight condenses to become wisdom; wisdom condenses to become ingenuity, consciousness, love, might and beauty, and all the other fabric of the universe.

“Nothing is higher than delight,” says the Book of Formation. It is the quintessence of all that exists.          http://www.chabad.org/lx4rt0

-----end quote-----

Think about that.  Delight and thus its derivative Love is more primal than MINE, is woven into the soul way above the point in cognitive development when the toddler learns "No" and "Mine!"

You can't get Delight by taking, only by giving what is Mine.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

Vampire Disjunction

I've kept up with the TV series THE VAMPIRE DIARIES despite the heroine's disappearance from the show. (The character was magically consigned to suspended animation.) At present Damon, one of the co-starring vampire brothers, has "switched off his humanity," not for the first time. Under compulsion from this season's villain, an ancient, powerful Siren, he's had to perform terrible acts. To escape the guilt and pain, he "flipped" his "humanity switch" so that he feels no emotions and therefore can't suffer. Apparently all vampires have this capability, since others in the series have done the same thing. With their humanity voluntarily turned off—apparently requiring only a simple act of will—they have intellect, sensation, and appetite but no feelings, positive or negative. They simply don't care. While suppressing one's humanity is easy, reawakening it requires an agonizing intervention by some other person, especially since no vampire who has undergone this change wants it reversed.

The dichotomy between vampires with and without souls on BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER functions similarly. According to that show's mythos, the creation of a vampire displaces the victim's soul, leaving the body possessed by a demon. As Buffy tells a character in an early episode, "That's not your friend, it's the thing that killed him." This "demon-animated corpse" thesis becomes problematic with the introduction of Spike, whose personality and behavior seem to have definite continuity with his human life, and he's certainly capable of loving in his own way. Nevertheless, it's established that "normal" vampires don't have souls. Angel appears to be unique in that respect until Spike also becomes re-souled late in the series. As far as we can tell, "soul" seems equivalent to "conscience." Unlike in THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, where suppression of humanity turns off emotions, soulless vampires in the BUFFY universe have a wide range of emotions, often violently passionate even if usually negative.

Both of these plot devices remind me of the junct-disjunct contrast in the Sime-Gen series. A vampire deprived of soul or humanity (which seem to entail much the same thing, allowing for differences between the series' vampire mythos) is analogous to a junct Sime. In these vampire universes, regaining a soul or embracing one's remaining traces of humanity resembles disjunction. Remaining or becoming junct represents the easy way, while disjuncting is usually terribly difficult and painful, just as accepting the return of soul or humanity can subject a vampire to great suffering. One big difference is that junct Simes are still human, and many of them want to disjunct. No vampire who has turned off his or her humanity wants it switched on, and BUFFY vampires hardly ever wish for souls. (Angel finds his a source of torment, since its return awakens his conscience and therefore makes him suffer guilt for the evil he has done.) Spike, the notable exception, seeks the restoration of his soul out of devotion to Buffy. In MAHOGANY TRINROSE, it's discovered that a drug made from the trinrose can ease the disjunction process, so that one of the characters fears Simes might begin to think going junct is no big deal, because "I can always disjunct again." Similarly, Damon on THE VAMPIRE DIARIES has had his humanity switched on and off a couple of times, and Angel regained his soul, lost it, and got it back again. In both cases, we have to wonder how much guilt the re-souled or humanity-embracing vampire should legitimately bear for acts he performed when devoid of soul or humanity. At those times, was he "not himself"?

Neither of these programs explicitly defines what humanity or a soul actually is. In the BUFFY universe, a soul is referred to as almost a thing, a concrete entity that can be removed and replaced like a physical object. When a vampire lacks a soul, has that part of him or her been sent to the "Heaven" where Buffy thought she was between her death and her restoration to life? Does the vampire's disembodied soul have any trace of consciousness, wherever it is? We're never told. In THE VAMPIRE DIARIES, "humanity" seems to be more a state of being than an entity. The "flipping a switch" imagery likens it to an electric current. While it would be more satisfying if these series defined their terms with some precision, at least they do foreground existential and ontological questions in interesting ways.

Margaret L. Carter

Carter's Crypt

Astrology Just For Writers, Part 12 - Virgo, 6th House and Soul Mates by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Astrology Just For Writers
Part 12
Virgo, 6th House and Soul Mates
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg

Often the best reason to go to a religious service is the jokes told by the Priest, Reverend or Rabbi.

These are usually very old jokes, and I do ever so much relish old jokes as plot-material for stories, just as cliche and misnomer supply reams of raw material for story tellers.  There's a reason old jokes survive generation to generation and get laughs from those who are too young to have heard them before -- and that reason is worth deep study if you plan a career in fiction writing.  It is most easily revealed by a study of Astrology -- not to "foretell" the future, but to understand Character Arc.  So this series of posts is Astrology Just For Writers.

The index to previous posts on Astrology is here:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2010/03/pausing-for-you-to-catch-up-with-me_30.html

The Alien Romance subject we need to look at here, and will later examine in the series of posts on, perhaps, Theme-Character Integration, is, "What exactly IS a human?"  Until we can answer that, we can't "create" the Alien who can fall in love with our Human Character.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2014/07/index-to-theme-character-integration.html
What Is A Human Being? is a huge topic, much bigger than me, for sure.

But what brought it into focus for me is a joke, which is not surprising because the entire purpose of Comedy is to reveal that which is too big to see.  If you want to understand Comedy, study the Mary Tyler Moore show.
http://www.amazon.com/Mary-Tyler-Moore-Show-Complete/dp/B00005JLIC

The particular joke that caught my attention, that I just can't get out of my head, was told by a Rabbi at Yom Kippur Services -- how incongruous!  But it worked to open an entire issue Romance Writers must pay attention to, especially when trying to depict an Alien-Human Soul-Mate pair, a very complex Relationship.  If it is a Romance, the Relationship must drive the Plot, and that means the writer must know much more about the structure of Human Nature than the reader is likely to know, as well as how and why Characters "arc" -- and how to depict a Character Arc.  The core of Depicting (show don't tell) is Theme.

Here is a post laying out the basics of Theme and story structure:
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/08/how-to-use-theme-in-writing-romance.html

Here is my earliest post on Soul Mates.
http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2012/03/soul-mate-characters-heroic-villainous.html

We've been discussing Soul and Soul-Mate in the context of Romance Craft and how the Romance genre is a natural fit into the Science Fiction Genre for a long time.  We've even touched on Comedy, but not on how to use it to reveal an esoteric thematic point in show-don't-tell.  That's what this joke does -- expresses a huge abstract notion of the nature of humanity in show-don't-tell.

Here's the essence of the joke, which I can't repeat exactly because I'm not good at comedy:

God was challenged by a Mortal who didn't believe in Him.  The Mortal says he can make humans, too, just as God does.

So God accepts the challenge and they repair to an open field to compete.  God reaches down and picks up a handful of dirt, and Creates it into a Human.  The Mortal then reaches down and picks up a handful of dirt and begins to create a human, but God says, "Wait!  You can't use THAT dirt -- I Created that dirt."

If the Mortal uses material that God created, then the Mortal isn't Creating a Human "just as God does."  He's using the material God Created.  His work is derivative, not original, therefore the entity he creates isn't "Human" in the sense that the Humans God Creates are Human.

This joke begs the question, "What is a human being?"

To define "Human" we generally reference Genesis, where God Creates Adam -- or more precisely Adam Kadmon (the first Man).

Adam Kadmon is not a "man" at all, but a genderless, or composit, template with both male and female nascent within.

Then God separates the female, leaving a "man" who is no longer the First Human.

The premise of my Sime~Gen Series is that the Sime~Gen Mutation is of the same order of basic Creation as that separation into male and female, so you have male and female Simes and male and female Gens -- whereupon family relationships become extremely complex, and Romance takes on a whole new meaning.  Playing with Worldbuilding at that original level of Creation makes a writer research and ponder the very essential nature of humanity, so I've spent decades burrowing into Tarot and Astrology, as well as Kabbalah, and every other religion.

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This post on the Astrology of the 6th House is to mull over an observation about the meaning of the 6th House as it pertains to the phenomenon of Soul Mate.  The plot-driver of the Sime~Gen Series is all about Karma and Soul Mates.

By the time you read this, the audible.com audiobook edition of the Sime~Gen novel, Mahogany Trinrose, one of the more esoteric-based novels revealing a lot of the hidden ESP functions pivotal to the series, on amazon.

Mahogany Trinrose Kindle and Trade Paperback

http://www.amazon.com/Mahogany-Trinrose-Sime~Gen-Book-Four/dp/1434412083

As always when studying the "Houses" of Astrology, focus on the "Natural" Houses -- with Aries as the 1st House and Pisces as the 12th.

In this case we are studying the Soul Mate properties of the 6th House.

Because the Astrological zodiac is depicted as circular, divided into 12 "Houses" -- and 12 "Signs" -- which exactly coincide in the Natural position (with 0 degress Aries Rising -- or "on the Eastern Horizon" --) therefore the 6th House is opposite the 12th.

This is an obvious fact, one that is just so blatantly "in your face" that you don't see it.

But the astrological wheel graphically represents something that is equally obvious in the most ordinary glyph used to represent the Kabbalistic Tree Of Life.

 

That "something" is "opposites."  The very nature of opposites, the fundamental concept of "opposition" is so pervasive in our lives that we don't notice it even when we're talking about it.

Both the astrological chart and the Tree of Life smack us between the eyes so hard with this obvious fact that we just don't notice it.  It's too big.  The fact is too stunning to comprehend.

That fact is: opposites exist.

Matter exists.  So does "anti-matter."  The entire universe is constructed symmetrically -- so why wouldn't you think a Human  Being is not symmetric?  We are symmetric on the outside, sort of -- most people a just a bit asymmetric, which lends them "character."  If we are symmetric on the outside, why wouldn't we be symmetric on the inside, composed of Opposites?

It is so simple, so obvious, we just don't incorporate it into our thinking when we plot a Romance Novel.  We think male-female, and that's the only pair of opposites.  But look at the astrological chart, and look at the Tree of Life -- more than one pair of opposites make up the total pattern.

"Opposites Attract" -- yeah, we all know that and use it when creating a "pair" who will fall madly in love at first sight.

What is it about opposites -- and what has that to do with human nature as depicted in the Rabbi's joke?

The punch-line of that joke, which I can't replicate, is where God says "You can't use my dirt and say you are Creating as I Create."  You have to Create your own dirt, then make a Human.  Maybe you can Create humans -- but can you Create dirt?  Clay?  A specific type of dirt that can be molded into a human?

We, (most Human cultures) assume that the Spiritual is OPPOSITE the Material.

We assume Soul is different from, perhaps incompatible with, Body.

We assume Soul and Body are TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.

We assume that Soul-Mate and Lust-for-Monkey-Sex are two different things.

We assume that one or the other must DOMINATE.

The proposition to mull over, in order to understand what the 6th House, Virgo, (the accountant, Ruled by Mercury) is that the target state is BALANCE.

Here is a thumbnail sketch of the "meaning" of the Houses given to beginners in Astrology -- misleading in many ways, but a starting point.  It "depicts" the Relationship of Opposites.

Ponder the concept of a dynamic equilibrium, a balance of balances where everything swings, and moves, dances, but stays in a dynamic tension with Pure Energy (what I've termed in previous posts here as Godshine) flowing from one state to the other and back again.  A circuit in perfect BALANCE.

All the assumptions about dividing the world into two-things and then fighting until one or the other dominates, are rooted in our modern culture's origin in the Hellenistic, or Ancient Greek culture that produced Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, et. al.

Fighting to Dominate is what the entire pantheon of Greek gods did, and the impetus to fight and to bully Humans, to rape Humans to create Heroes, came from the explicitly described dysfunctional (insane) family relationships among the gods.  It's all there in the mythology.

As a result of what we've inherited from the Helenistic Cultures, we live in a zero-sum-game culture, modeled and transmitted by Football, and other sports where you keep score to determine a winner, convincing all children that this is Reality.

This non-verbal absorption of a conviction makes any other concept of Reality "unthinkable" -- just literally unthinkable.  Our language contains no words for what the horoscope wheel and the Tree of Life depict, so we can't think these thoughts.

The science fiction romance writer must think such thoughts -- then find words to convey the illusion of understanding the alien.

So let's look deeper into the unthinkable alien.

To determine a winner, there must be a loser.

Winner and Loser are considered "opposites."  But are they?

Winner and Loser come in PAIRS - pairs of opposites - incompatible opposites where one must dominate the other. If one wins the trophy, the other can't have that trophy -- the trophy doesn't suddenly become two-trophies.  What kind of a "marriage" is that?  Where's the Romance in "I get and you don't."  Is winner/loser the correct paradigm to describe the reality of Romance?

Is the immersion of our culture in "Sports" the reason many readers won't touch Romance because the underlying concept of the Happily Ever After ending seems "unrealistic?"

In a true Happily Ever After ending, you can not have one of the couple dominating the other -- because the misery of the one dominated will eventually lead to rebellion.  The Sport paradigm disallows any kind of resolution where one does not dominate the other.

Is Reality Created in incompatible pairs of opposites?  Or is there another Relationship that explains how Reality really works?  This is the subject of The Not So Minor Arcana.  Here we're looking at that subject via Astrology.

Giving every kid a 'certificate' for showing up is not the same as preventing them from internalizing the dominance-based model of the universe, as it differs from the balance-based model of the universe depicted in the Zodiac and the Tree of Life.

The Zodiac was familiar to the Helenistic culture, but the Tree of Life was not common to Aristotelian thinking.

We artificially divide humans into Soul and Body to force the concept "Human" into that Aristotelian either/or model of reality.

The misconception is that Reality is "either/or" based (all computers today are either/or based).

The Bible, however, is entirely rooted in a totally different (opposite, and not incompatible) model of reality.

The Bible starts with that Creation story which culminates in the Creation of Male and Female -- in the Divine image.

Perhaps the concept "Human" as depicted in the Bible actually explains to us what we will encounter when we get out into Space and find Intelligent Life on other planets -- or perhaps we may find already space-faring civilizations.

So lets think about the concept Human in terms of the 6th House.

The salient clue is that the 6th House is the opposite of the 12th House.

6th House is labeled, in this diagram, Service and Health -- but it represents your job, what you do to make money, and the manner in which you do it.  6th House is Virgo ruled by Mercury.

The 12th House is commonly labeled "self-undoing" -- the syndrome where you are your own worst enemy, hoist on your own petard, "busted."  But that's only one possible manifestation.  The 12th House is Pisces, ruled by Neptune.

Neptune ordinarily manifests as "dissolution" or "confusion" -- but one common manifestation is Romance.  12th House, Pisces, Neptune, all together define Romance, and the Soul Mate experience.
The 12th House represents the summation of Life, the synthesis of all the other variables in the Natal Chart, everything so deeply merged and mingled that Neptune has the reputation of being 'confusing' or 'dissolving reality' -- Neptune transits are called 'disorienting.'

Pisces/Neptune/12th House synthesizes everything into one thing, dissolving the borders between different things, for example Husband and Wife becoming One.  Marriage is the perfect symbol of 12th House.  Truly, to be "married" means you must "undo" yourself to incorporate the Other within your notion of Self.

Why is Neptune 'disorienting?'

Because, given our Hellenistic heritage, we 'orient' ourselves in Material Reality by separating off the Spiritual and isolating it as if it were something "other" than Material.

The joke the Rabbi told SHOWS without TELLING that Spiritual and Material are not, in fact, two DIFFERENT things.

Spiritual and Material appear to be incompatible opposites -- just like the nitty-gritty, separate detail orientation of Virgo/Mercury is conceptualized in our culture as "opposite" Pisces/Neptune and its Inclusive Big Picture, everything smearing into one idealistic cloud, portrait of Reality.  Neptune obscures details while Mercury separates them and gives them sparkling-hard-edges.

As you read on here below, always keep in mind that Neptune, the Ruler of the 12th House, is the single most definitive significator of Romance in general, and the Soul Mate (and Happily Ever After ending) in particular.  NEPTUNE is the ruling planet of this blog.  It's all about Romance stories.

Astrologically, Virgo, ruled by Mercury, is the 6th House which represents both what you do to earn a living (your job as distinct from your Career) and your Health.

The connection between satisfaction and success at 'Work' (your job, what you get paid money for) and your Physical Body Health is famous in Astrological interpretations of the 6th House.

Beginners in Astrology puzzle and anguish over finding an interpretation for a 6th House transit.

Seasoned professional astrologers will nail one or the other manifestion, in body or health, with fair accuracy, mostly by ignoring the problem of what the connection is between Bodily Health and Job Performance.  Modern science has pretty much "explained" that to the satisfaction of most people.

This Rabbi's joke tells us explicitly that this designation of 6th House as "Body Health" OR "Job Issues" is nonsense.

This Rabbi's joke tells us exactly how these two apparently unconnected things -- Body and Job -- are actually the self-same-identical thing.

But that connection is apparent only through the Tree of Life view of Reality -- the Biblical Description of the nature of reality as a balance, or dynamic equilibrium.

How the Tree of Life view, the graphic representation of the Biblical view of Creation, tells us the relationship between Body and Job becomes apparent only if you understand that the 12th House (Romance) is the connection between Body and Job.

Get that connection into your head, and your Romance plots will never get stale or repetitive, or derivative.

The connection between Romance, Body and Job is the answer to the question, "What is a Human Being?"  

The assumption you make about the Nature of the Human Being generates all the Themes you use in worldbuilding.

Here is the index to the advanced craft posts on integration of theme, plot, character and worldbuilding.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2015/12/index-to-theme-plot-character.html
You can use the Helenistic definition of Human, the Roman Definition, or the Japanese, Chinese, Hindu, Native American, or many other definitions to generate dynamite Romance plots.  You can adapt any of them to produce a Happily Ever After scenario if you study and internalize the mythologies of these civilizations.  But there will always be readers who just won't accept that the HEA is possible in real life.

If you do study all these civilizations, and then study the Biblical view of the universe, you will find bits and pieces, a fragment here a shard over there -- traces of the Biblical view in each of these civilizations' mythologies.

The Talmud has it that God offered the Torah to all of the Nations of Earth before he got to Abraham. Each of the Nations asked some questions (typical of their cultures) before answering whether they would accept the Torah, so God just kept on searching.  When he offered the deal to Abraham (then Abram), he just accepted the deal without question, packed up and went to follow God's ways, and then asked what those ways were.

This story explains why you find bits and pieces of Torah everywhere -- everyone got something for considering the offer.  It also illustrates the difference between the culture that accepted Torah, the Biblical View of Reality, and those that regarded that view with suspicion.  The descendants of Abraham are an oddity among humans.

But the Torah also states, boldly and loudly, that eventually all the Nations will "bow down" to God, understand that Biblical View of Reality and rejoice in that understanding.  Nobody loses.  Everybody wins.  Reality is not structured as "either/or" or "I win means you lose."  In the Biblical view of reality, "I win means everyone wins."

That is what is so odd, yet not incompatible, between the general culture's view of reality and the Biblical view of Reality.  When you get a more global grasp of the Biblical View from the perspective of Torah, Tanach, Talmud, Mishnah and Gemmara, you will find that it differs markedly, stubbornly, and emphatically from all the other mythologies.  It is "alien" to every other culture on this Earth, yet is reflected in those cultures, and even the basis of those cultures.

One core issue that distinguishes the Biblical View, yet appears in so many other cultures, is the matter of Body and Soul.

Some cultures say the Body must dominate: "If it feels good, it is good."

Some cultures say the Soul must dominate: "Pleasure is Evil."

Our culture currently is resoundingly rejecting Pleasure Is Evil as a theme -- and going with Pleasure Is The Ultimate Good.  In Romance novels, the first order of business is monkey-sex, then comes Relationship.  Sexual attraction (Body) is considered "irresistible."  Body needs, physical desire, must always dominate any value the Mind (Soul) holds dear.  There's no point resisting the Body because it Dominates the Soul.  That's a thematic premise pervading the Romance field today.

That is, Pleasure (especially sexual pleasure) is the prime indicator by which we distinguish a Soul Mate from the background population.  You have to try out a guy in bed before you marry him, or you'll make a big mistake.  And the guy must be "handsome" -- or the gal "beautiful."  The Body counts more than the Soul.

In other words, the modern USA  culture is working this problem of "What is a human being?" by using the assumption that EITHER the Body OR the Soul must dominate.

Dominance is the only possible way to resolve a conflict, and opposites are always in conflict.  That is a Theme.  You see it working out in International Affairs -- as well as the current Presidential Election cycle.

In other words, in our modern cultural assumptions, Balance is not an Option, unless it is a static balance and tilted to one side or the other.

There is no way to synthesize opposites into a unified whole.

Why do Romance writers and especially science fiction romance writers who deal in the Paranormal (Neptune rules the Paranormal) Romance field need a model of "Human" at all?  Why not just go with your readership's prevailing idea of what a Human is?

Well, if you just accept the prevailing assumption about the nature of Humanity, you will create a lot of read-and-toss, Airplane Read, Beach Read novels, all identical.

What distinguishes one novel from another is theme, and what distinguishes one theme from another is the distinctiveness of that theme.

In Alien Romance, if your Alien character is Human-with-pasted-on-quirks, you won't create a book or series that will be remembered and passed on to children and grandchildren as a "must-read."

The must-read classics are all novels with themes that challenge the unconscious assumptions about Reality, on such a deep subconscious level that the reader is not aware of having their notions challenged.

It's what screenwriting books like SAVE THE CAT! call "off the nose" writing.  You don't call a spade, a spade.  You don't name it on the nose.  You don't hit the nail on the head.  You come at the assumption at an oblique angle and strike a spark that lights tinder in the Soul of the reader.

To do that, you as a writer, need a number of significantly different notions of "what" a human being is.

Your human protagonist has to be able to recognize something "human" in your alien protagonist (preferably that no other human is seeing).

Your alien protagonist has to be able to see something alien in your human protagonist (preferably that no other alien is seeing.)

To pull that off, you have to understand how your target reader understands what a human being is, and you have to have a complete grasp of what other views of humanity can be understood by your reader if you can show them without telling.

As noted above, all cultures have some bit or piece of the Kabbalistic view of the human being. Astrology spans all cultural barriers and depicts mathematically and graphically what we all sense about ourselves, and how we "read" others.

Any reader looking for a Soul Mate novel with an HEA ending will be able to stipulate the existence of the Soul.

Most, however, will not be consciously aware that the resolution of the Body/Soul conflict in our culture is depicted as show-don't-tell in the work/health connection, the 6th House.

I'll give you one example of how this theory can explain the work/health connection, and from that you should be able to create new variations that could form a template for a comprehensible yet alien Alien protagonis.

Here is one way to understand the 6th House, Body/Work connection.

Here are two previous posts discussing the Soul-Time Hypothesis relevant to this quesiton about the meaning of the 6th House.

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2009/01/cycles-and-seasons-margaret-carter.html

http://aliendjinnromances.blogspot.com/2016/01/theme-symbolism-integration-part-4-how.html

Here's the theory of what a human is that can generate infinite numbers of sexy alien protagonists.

Think back to that joke at the top of this post.

The nature of anything lies in its initial moments.  That's why Astrological Natal Charts of both human births and the "birth" of an Event -- the moment something happens -- hold usable meaning.

The starting point of a novel determines it's ending point, just as the start determines its middle.  Get those 3 points wrong, and the novel not only won't sell to a big publishing house, but it will be panned by comments on Amazon if you self-publish it.

The starting point determines the middle and end.

Or the middle determines the start and end.

Or the end determines the start and middle.

Unlike Euclidean (another Helenistic Greek) Geometry where it takes 3 points to determine a line, or a triangle, "life" only needs one point.

Or at least, that's the Kabbalistic (Tarot) theory.

In other words, in the Biblical View Of The Universe, there is no such thing as "random" -- but it's not "deterministic" either.  Determinism is one of the precepts of all the Ancient Greek plays that were updated by the Romans and copied by Shakespeare.

We live inside a pattern, but we have Free Will.

So any given starting point for a Life contains the potential for all sorts of middle and end points.

Free Will choice determines which of all the possible middle and end points will gain potential energy.  Which of those high-potential-energy points will be actualized is negotiated with God (who is not a Bully like the Greek gods; he doesn't dictate, He negotiates personally, individually.)

That's where the immense variety of human endeavor comes from.  We all contain Infinity because we were Created by the Infinite -- we are (like the Tardis) bigger inside than outside.

Here is a theory of what a child is that can be crafted into a Theme.

A child is born with specifically delineated Potential.  The child has a Soul from conception, but that Soul is enormously complex and thus doesn't all "fit" inside the baby.  The Soul has to "descend" as it prompts the baby's growth.

We say (also a thematic point) that when the Soul leaves the Body, the human dies.

But that idea is based on the either/or structure of reality.  Perhaps the Soul isn't either-present-or-absent.  Perhaps it is a gradual, step-wise, ever increasing habitation of the Body?

Kabbalah delineates Levels to the Soul - just like Atoms were first thought (by the Helenistic Greeks) to be the smallest indivisible particle of matter, but later were discovered to be composed of electrons and a nucleus, and all of those particles are composed of other sub-atomic particles, each with its own Character.

Likewise, the Biblical View of the Universe, gives us a vision of the human Soul as being composed of Levels, all very intricate and complex.

A baby has a Soul connected, but not fully descended.  At various ages, on the birthday (by the Hebrew calendar) the Soul descends a little more.

This explains how and why children at different ages have increasing capacity for self-control, self-discipline, comprehension of the abstract, etc.  The stages of human development show us what to teach at different ages.

Children learn by doing.  Thus, at each age, additional activities are added to the daily regimen, and additional responsibilities are added until at age 12 or 13 the child is fully responsible for the consequences of her/his actions.

Real learning is always non-verbal.  The deeds carve and shape our view of the universe.

With deeds, we learn the words that correspond to those deeds. Charity.  Justice.  Compassion.

None of those words means anything without the previous practice of the deed: "Don't hit your little sister!"  "Johnny, you must share that toy even though it is yours."

So as a child becomes an Adult (sexual maturity is a big part of that), the Soul descends and gains a firmer grip on the Body.

Throughout the rest of the life, there are milestone birthdays (70 and 80, 90 and 100, being major significators) that delineate a firmer and then weakening grip of the Soul on the Body.

For most of the productive (working at a 6th House job) life, the Soul fits into the Body like a hand fits into a glove.

The Soul wears the Body, and like the hand wearing a glove, stretches and shapes the Body into a replica (an opposite, like a plaster cast you pour molten metal into to make a 3-D object) of the Soul.

We now know that you can have many genes that are not "turned on" or "expressed" -- and that the experiences of Life can switch genes on or off.  You are not your genes.  You are not pre-destined (a Helenistic concept incompatible with the Biblical View of the Universe) by your genes.

You are what your Soul can make of you.  That can be infinite possibilities in infinite combinations.

Or maybe you are what "you" make of your Soul.

In the Helenistic view of the universe, the question would be, "Well, WHICH is it -- the Soul that makes the Body or the Body that makes the Soul?"

In the Biblical view of the universe, that question is utter nonsense.

See how you can use various views of the universe in various human cultures to depict truly Alien aliens who can be Soul Mates to a human?

An Alien who has never heard of the either/or zero-sum-game view of the universe would be sorely puzzled by the very question "which is it?"  The question itself is nonsense.

In the Biblical view of the universe, Body and Soul are really the same thing (Neptune synthesizes).

Remember the Rabbi-joke?  "You can't use that dirt.  You have to Create your human from scratch as I did."

That's MY dirt.  I created that dirt.

What dirt is that?  It's the "dirt" or "clay" from which our bodies are "molded."

Just as that clay was Created specifically to be the body of a particular individual human, so too was the Soul that will wear that Body Created.  They are a pair, synthesized, made one, Neptune style.

We know, today, that our Body is a few pounds of carbon, minerals, etc. (dirt) and a whole lot of Water.

We don't know yet what our Soul is, or is made of, other than it is the breath God blew into Adam's nostrils.

In a previous post, I pointed out the Soul-Time-Hypothesis that I think explains a lot about why "science" can't peg the Soul and prove it exists.

Theory: the Soul enters manifestation through the dimension of Time.

The Soul has no material dimensions -- no height, width, breadth, mass, weight, not even "energy" as in electrons or magnetic fields.  That's why modern science can't even find it, nevermind measure it -- all our instruments are made of matter.

The Soul doesn't inhabit the Body or Possess the Body.

The Soul is not the Body, but it is not an "either/or" relationship.

The Body and the Soul are both created by God, designed for each other, just like in the joke.  "That's My dirt!  Make your own."

Now, back to the 6th House.

Theory: suppose the Soul is given a free will choice before conception.

Astrology assigns the meaning of the MC, the 10th House Cusp, to the Purpose of this Life.  Natural 10th House is Capricorn, the Manager, and is ruled by Saturn.  While that 10th House cusp can be in any sign, depending on where and when you are born (when your Life begins), it adds attributes of Capricorn and Saturn to your personal 10th House cusp.

Science shows how hormones trigger birth, and the trigger starts in the fetus.  The fetus's Nature determines the moment of birth.

So suppose the Soul chooses the Parents and the moment of Birth to make the "purpose" of this life.

The Soul takes on a Life to realize the potential encoded into the 10th House cusp.

That sign/ruler combination chosen by the Soul is inflected by Capricorn and Saturn (Management and Discipline).

Saturn is often regarded as "purpose" or "ambition."

You are born with an ambition to realize your potential for completing a certain job, a purpose in life, a career.  By Noel Tyl's theory, the Moon position by sign, ruler and House represents your driving need, and Saturn organizes the world around you to fulfill that need.

But to do that, you need to make money, have a job, 6th House.

Another interpretation of the Natural 6th House, Virgo, is "service."

Virgos make great secretaries, accountants, detail oriented people.  Unless they have a Big Picture attribute highlighted elsewhere in their Natal Chart, they tend toward project-oriented professions. They make great health-care professionals, treating each patient as a project.

But there's nothing shallow about Virgo.  They aren't subservient by nature.

The 6th House is put to the service of the 10th -- the ambition, the Purpose Of This Life is served by whatever you do for a living, as a job.  Your career is the purpose of your life, your job is a means to walk the paths of that career.

It is often said the key to real happiness (as in Happily Ever After) is to Serve.

THEORY:  If your 6th House (job) is serving the Purpose of Your Life, your Body (6th house) will be healthy.

In other words, your Soul took God's job-offer to be You and do Whatever Job He Had That Needed Doing.  As long as you are doing the job you were hired by God to do, you will be healthy enough to do it.

You might not be "healthy" by general human standards.  You might be what is termed crippled or disabled.  You might be melting down with autoimune disease.  You might be missing limbs. You might have impaired senses.  If you are doing the job you were hired to do, then you will be healthy enough to do it.

Sometimes the job is to  be sick, dependent, impaired.

Sometimes the job is to be hale, healthy, strong, and the person upon whom the lame and weak depend.  Sometimes the job is to support the weak.  Sometimes the job is to be weak so that the Strong can do their job.

It's all 6th House.  Service equals Health.

The 12th House, the opposite to the 6th, is about the transcendent Soul, the summation of the Life, what it all means.  Neptune is idealism, a transcendent vision through the Soul's eyes, not the eyes of the Body.

There are a lot of insights into the meaning of the 12th House, Pisces ruled by Neptune (which rules Romance, as I keep reminding you).

The 12th is "reflected" into the 6th House.

Here's a story that illustrates (show don't tell) how this 6/12 axis of the Natal Chart works.

We can regard God as the artist who is Creating one-of-a-kind original artwork, each one a human being (or maybe an Alien Soul Mate for a human being).

All of the crafts our artisans practice express a way that the Divine Creates us.

One of those crafts is the silversmith.

If you research on YouTube you might find a video showing how to smelt silver where the silversmith gives tells the student how to determine when all the dross, or impurities, have been burned out of the silver -- leaving only pure silver.  How do you know when to stop smelting?

The clue the silversmith looks for is the reflection of his/her own face in the melted puddle of silver.

When purified, silver becomes a mirror, reflecting the smith's visage back at him/her.

The metaphore for why God smelts us in the fires of Life, gives us all this hardship, obstacles, difficulties, sorrows and grief, is that he's purifying us as silver is purified.  And he'll know we're finished, we're pure, when he sees Himself in us.

The Biblical description of God has long lists of attributes shown to us over the ages - for example, there are 13 Attributes of Mercy (and that's just one thing, Mercy).  Other Attributes likewise have parts.

When you reflect those attributes, He'll stop heating you in His fire.

Any Romance writer trying to create an Alien Love Interest, a non-human Soul Mate for a human, can use one or a few of these attributes to establish the essential humanity of the non-human regardless of the non-human's biology, form or figure.

Here are the 13 Attributes according to My Jewish Learning.
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-13-attributes-of-mercy/2/

---------quote-------
– The Lord! (Adonai)–God is merciful before a person sins! Even though aware that future evil lies dormant within him.

– The Lord! (Adonai)–God is merciful after the sinner has gone astray.

– God (El)–a name that denotes power as ruler over nature and humankind, indicating that God’s mercy sometimes surpasses even the degree indicated by this name.

– Compassionate (rahum)–God is filled with loving sympathy for human frailty does not put people into situations of extreme temptation, and eases the punishment of the guilty.

– Gracious (v’hanun)–God shows mercy even to those who do not deserve it consoling the afflicted and raising up the oppressed.

– Slow to anger (ereh apayim)–God gives the sinner ample time to reflect, improve, and repent.

– Abundant in Kindness (v’rav hesed)–God is kind toward those who lack personal merits, providing more gifts and blessings than they deserve; if one’s personal behavior is evenly balanced between virtue and sin, God tips the scales of justice toward the good.

– Truth (v’emet)–God never reneges on His word to reward those who serve Him.

– Preserver of kindness for thousands of generations (notzeir hesed la-alafim)–God remembers the deeds of the righteous for thebenefit of their less virtuous generations of offspring (thus we constantly invoke the merit of the Patriarchs).

– Forgiver of iniquity (nosei avon)–God forgives intentional sin resulting from an evil disposition, as long as the sinner repents.

– Forgiver of willful sin (pesha)–God allows even those who commit a sin with the malicious intent of rebelling against and angering Him the opportunity to repent.
---------------End Quote-----------

It doesn't matter what religion you espouse, or even if you're an Atheist or Agnostic, you recognize these behaviors as desireable and a signature of the Lovability of a person (human or not).  So most of your target audience will respond to a show-don't-tell illustration that your Alien character just naturally (without thought or consideration, without hesitation) exhibits one or another of these attributes.

And the reverse is true -- the Alien protagonist will recognize the Alien-Within your human protagonist when one or a combination of these traits comes to the fore in the plot.

Notice the phrase above: "as long as the sinner repents."

You may be surprised how fast the "repents" scene, the confession scene, the tell-the-truth scene, establishes rapport between the Character and your Target Reader, even if the Character is Alien.

The Target Reader is selected by what is repented, to whom, and why (maybe also when in the narrative arc confession and repentance take place).  Different readers will applaud a Character's choices of when to fess up to what, and why fessing up is necessary (or not necessary).

Think about the TV Series I Love Lucy -- every episode with a very funny confession scene.

The Values (2nd House) of your Confessing Character are shown-not-told by that choice of when and to what to confess.

In the 3rd book in the Romantic Times Award winning Dushau Trilogy, I hinted at an Alien's contemplation of condemnation by his father and grandfather when he finally would get home and confess.

His trepidation at confronting his family showed a similarity to human values -- even though he is so definitely not human that his wrong-doing does not seem wrong to a human.

http://www.amazon.com/Outreach-Dushau-Trilogy-Book-3-ebook/dp/B002S525DK

Those 13 Attributes of Mercy embody the essence of what it is to be Human, a  Soul wearing a Body that fits like a glove, a work-glove designed for a specific task which the Soul is dead-set on completing come Hell or High Water (10th House Purpose In Life) using that Body (6th House) to do the Job (6th House).

When fully integrated (purified) into that task, the Soul shines through the custom-Created Body and attracts the Soul Mate.  It is the Soul that is "mated" -- not the Body.  So you can easily depict a Human/Alien Romance.

Romance (Neptune/ 12th House) blossoms, Love At First Sight happens, and Health-Job-Service and everything Virgo manifests as the Virtue of Virgo rather than the Vice.

Every astrological sign can manifest as its best virtue or its worst vice, and it could be that whether virtue or vice is apparent depends on how much of the Soul has infused the Body.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com