>I have noticed that 12th house planets have such an amazing way of seeming "unavailable" for one. <
When I wrote the original post, I KNEW that it would stir things up from the bottom of the vat. What you said here is great, and I have some feeling about this one too. What I wonder is, do you mean unavailable to the person who's chart it is...or in synastry, unavailable to a significant other? From my experience I would think you mean that the planet(s) in the 12th House are buried in a person and maybe unavailble to others who want to know that specific side of him or her. I think this may be an illusion, but it is a real illusion. (Example: An electron spins so fast around an atom that scientists can't really pinpoint where it will be at a given "moment".) I think people with 12th House planets are like this. You can't pinpoint where exactly they are...because they have broken some barrier (like the speed of light) that causes them to cross into some other realm. So this really stirs some questions about the nature the 12th House itself. I think it may represent the NON-PHYSICAL. It is that realm where astrology because there are no stars and planets there...just spirit, soul, and energy. It's also wierd how physicists have proven the existence of about 11 dimensions and there are 12 houses in astrology, only one of which is a true enigma and leaves us with more questions than any other. So maybe this is the dimension which is not provable by science and the only science which can reveal it is really ANTI-science....which expalins why it seems that things there are unavailable as you said!!!!
I have some insight into this through my own Neptune in the 12th House which is also conjunct the Ascendant. I definately feel that manifesting things from my psyche, and absorbing things from my environment is a duplex function of Neptune in my 12th...especially because it's also conjunct the Ascendant which is a connection between my psyche and the physical world.
The 12th House is one of the most confusing of all houses. There are times when I think that the 12th house should really be the 1st house. I mean, it kind of goes against reason to say that the "hidden" nature of a person should be represented ABOVE the horizon and not below it. Could it be that to know a person with planets in the 12th House you have to stop searching for them? Maybe DROP all desire to know them? It0 is in the 12th House where we let go and abosorb and BECOME absorbed. (Sigh) I could write about this forever...

>I also noted that oppositions take a lot of time to balance but it can be done with really awesome results for the growth of the individuals<
I have found that loose oppositions are better than exact ones, because you get the idea of the opposition but not the intensity. Shine a flashlight directly in a mirror and you get it right in the eyes. Turn just a hair one way or another and the majority of the glare is gone. Case and point. And what is an opposition but a reflection. In all the relationships where I had a strong opposition, the frustration eventually surpassed the attraction. The same goes for signs in compatible elements but who are not perfectly aspected. They harmonize but they aren't in each other's faces in any way. I think that's especially important with oppositions because an opposition can create conflict and head-butting too. Ifyou have a head on collision with another car, it makes a BIG difference if there is a slight angle to the collision, because then the cars glance off each other. In competetive relationships this is EXACTLY what people do when they are fighting but don't really want to hurt each other. They make sure there is room to fall clear of each other if they want to! Get it? ;-)

>And midpoints....they explain so much of what happens between people<
Don't they, though? It's really unbelievable what you find sometimes when you list synastric midpoints, when aspects just weren't explaining a thing. and some relationships seem to have more aspects while some have "decisively" more midpoints than aspects. Sun/Moon Midpoints seem to be incredibly important. I was stumped as to WHY my girlfriend and are so "joined at the hip", as I couldn't find any of the traditional romantic apetcs usually found in the charts of lovers (i.e. Moon trine Venus or conjunctVenus...or Mars trine Venus or sextile Venus, etc.) It turned out my GF and I both have each other's Sun/Moon midpoints in each other's 7th Houses...so our unique sun/moon personalities have double partnership value. I think maybe when you have something like this, even if you have conflicting energies it can really become fun and stimulating more than destructive to play with those conflicting energies together. What my GF and I also have is alot of our planets conjunct one-another's midpoints. This creates much more complex patterns than simply having trines between planets. I guess that would be a "high-resolution" relationship! I think of aspects being more like a basic skeletal structure in a relationship, and it takes alot of other stuff to embelish this and put some flesh on the bones. I've seen too many well-aspected relationships fail miserably after the initial attraction ran it's course.

Pi: >I guess I am not looking for any one thing in particular in my synastry charts with others...not so much seeking out "my perfect match". More making observations.>
One thing I've noticed is that even chart structures and elements play a huge role in long-term relationships that grow and simply work. Usually partners will have balance each other out where they both lack elements, or have too much...and YES, you CAN have too much of one elements. I think that is one of the largest reasons for dissastisfaction and depression in people. I also noticed that people with certain chart-sructures gravitate to people with certain other chart structures. I have a classic Locomotive pattern in my chart, and most of thepeople who become very close and importna to me on a long-term basis have stelliums in either water or earth, but who have one or two air or fire trines with me.

I think one of the most important misconceptions about synastry is that we are always meant to be comfortable. People SHOULD have friction between them and this is not caused by Trines or Sextiles. The desire and enjoyment of facing perpetual challenge is as good as it gets in reltionships. Anything else will either burn out or fade away.

It's interesting how many people have placed special attention on synastry on this post!

At the moment, I am coming across a lot of interesting new ideas, things do not seem to be as static as they once were.

Actually, I picked up a book by Linda Goodman at about 17-18 and picked oput my moon sign - it was quite a deep sense of recognition, though disurbing too. But I found that most astrologers and literature I came across were very Sun-sign orientated.

In fact, I have found that most other people are relatively unaware of their moon signs too. I read charts every weekend at psychic fairs at one time, but as everyone was different and had different ways of understanding themsleves, then it was more of a question of explaining the chart ot them in different ways and in any case, often people came not to have their character read, but because they had a specific quesion or problem, or quite simply, were hoping not for Greater Understanding of their Souls, but for the thing that astrology had once been most famous for - Predictions.

>my "aha!" moment came when I discovered that some charts (people) can be read almost solely on the personalized planets and lights, while some charts (people) can be read almost solely through the action of their outer planets and less personal aspects & configurations.<
Thats' amazing, Laura! That's the kind of stuff I wanted to talk about. I have noticed similar things. There just seems to be more than one way to wire a system...and that is really how I look at a horoscope: Kind of like a circuit which directs a person's energy into a defaulyt pattern if they don't conciuosly choose to alter the pattern. And of course, that is possible through the use of Free Will. There seem to be times when there is NO conventional reason for one person to do something like, as you said tune in to outer planets...adn another person tunes into inner planets. I mean, maybe an Aquarius trying to keep his mind broad would pay more attention to his outer planets than a deeply personal Cancer who might tune into his personal planets more. Who knows...

There seems to be a alot of such things in astorlogy when you really take individuals into consideration and not just the rules.

I think yours is an AWESOME example of what I'm talkiing about, at least for starters on the topic.

Someone else mentioned synastry.
I had a big "aha" moment when my girlfriend told me that her childhood sweetheart, me, her landlord, her boss and a good female friend were ALL born within 2 days of each other (near Feb 6). So obviously something is going on here, right? The only aspect my Sun makes to any of her planets is a square to her Venus! That's not supposed to be good...but the plain fact is that after 3 years we are going pretty strong and recently decided to co-habitate. When we DO fight, our conflicts remind me more of an impatient Aries and a fussy Virgo. I finally discovered that her Vertex is conjunct the Sun Signs of me and all those other people who have very important relationsips with her. So that's a big "aha" thing, alright. It led to me to realize there is a HELL of lot more to relationships than Venus trines. I found that Midpoints often seem to have very comparable weight to aspects in any synastry comparison. But sometimes NOT! The question is, WHEN does one astrological principle become more prominent or important than another? It's almost like a difference between a vehicle that runs on gasoline vs. a car which runs on propane. Both ways work, but WHAT determines which one takes precedence? Is the person somehow more senstive to midpoints than aspects by subconcious subjective choice, or did something about the environment at birth (either terrestrial or cosmic) cause an entire life to be more in tune with midpoints than aspects.

Astrologers who write books rarely write about this heady stuff...and I'd say that's because they just haven't got the scrumples to approach it. It's much easier to stick to microcosms and write all about them than to sort out much larger patterns and anomales and try to make some sense of it without bringing quasi-religious preachings into it in the process.