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Raven Kaldera

Polyamorous FTM Intersexual Transgender Writer, Poet & Mythologist, Author of Hermaphrodeities & MythAstrology
"Most people, both in and out of the transgender community - including my parents and friends - look incredulous when I tell them that the only place I ever use gender, really, is during sex, and that the rest of the time it's rather immaterial to me. This is an attitude that is utterly foreign to the average person who's grown up steeped in their assured gender role. Getting in touch with your male or female side, sure, that's a good thing. But, I'm told, don't take an abstract idea too far.

It's not abstract, I tell them. It's real. I've gotten up every morning for the past 18 years and looked in the mirror and seen an abstraction made flesh, a mythical beast. It is very, very real for me. Here I am, folks, a unicorn, a dragon, a chimera. Here I am, fellow beasties. Are there enough of us, yet, to spill over the pages of the fairy tale books and hold hostage the rules of this world?"
-- Raven ("Mythical Beast," 1997)

"...when Pluto went over my south node I got divorced ... Pluto's always been a big deal for me. It went exact on the Sun and my daughter was born. It went over my Mercury and I had a mental breakdown, went over my South node a little further over and I got divorced and went to live in a little cabin in the middle of the woods, and then it went over my Neptune and I had a shamanic rebirth ... And then, just to cap it off, it went over my Sun and I got a sex change. I'm waiting for what's next..... " -- Raven (2000).


Astrology chart, profile, books, links
Leo Ascendant, Sagittarius Sun, Gemini Moon, Jupiter Rising
Raven's astro-chart

ASTRO-DATA: 28 November 1966, 20:50 (8:50 PM) EST (5hW), Silver Spring, MD, USA. RR: A (Sy Scholfield [copyright] quotes data from Raven (via the RainbowStars mailing List).
FEATURES: PERSONALIZED PLANETS: Leo JUPITER (on Ascendant, sextile Sun); Scorpio MERCURY & NEPTUNE (conjunct South Node); Sagittarius VENUS (conjunct Sun, opposite Moon). PATTERNS: TRIPLE CONJUNCTION (Pluto/Uranus/Mars in Virgo); T-SQUARE (Virgo conjunction opposite Chiron/Saturn, all square Moon); T-SQUARE (Venus opposite Moon, both square Pluto), YOD (Pluto/Uranus sextile Mercury/Neptune, all quincunx MC); BOOMERANG/POINTER (MC sextile Moon both quincunx conjunction of South Node/Mercury/Neptune which opposes North Node). MUTUAL RECEPTION: JUPITER in LEO (trine) SUN in SAGITTARIUS; PLUTO in VIRGO (sextile) MERCURY in SCORPIO (using traditional rulers). SHAPE: BUCKET (Chiron/Saturn handle). CHINESE SIGN: FIRE HORSE. NUMEROLOGY "88" LIFEPATH.

Raven describes himself as a "FTM [female-to-male] intersexual - born both [genders/sexes], raised female, switched over - married to an MTF [male-to-female] transsexual." He and his partner, Bella, have been together since the early 1990s in an open relationship with "good rules and boundaries." They are known as a "reverse couple" rather than "straight" (!!) and both identify as "polyamorous." Raven adds "We kinda have to be [bisexual], to be with each other." (Uranus, ruler of the Seventh House of partners, opposed by a conjunction of disciplinarian planets Chiron/Saturn in open-living & open-loving Pisces, with dispositor polyamorous Neptune aspecting all and ruling the Eighth House of sex/uality).

Raven and Bella live on Cauldron Farm, an organic pagan-owned farm and homestead in rural Massachusetts, where they keep goats, sheep, chickens, and rabbits; experiment with alternative energy; host retreats; and grow organic herbs (for sale!). Note that Raven has Pluto, the ruler of his Fourth House of domesticity, in the down-to-earth Second House in Earthy Virgo.

With his fair beard & fiery mane, Raven presents a typical Leo-Rising body type. As he's said: "I'm a big blond bear, [with] lots of blond hair to my waist... which is a nice side-effect of Leo Rising." Leo on the Ascendant (ruled by the Sun in a Fire Sign) indicates a masculine presence, while his Earth stellium in the earthy Second House has manifested in work on the land: "Yeah, OK, I made a lousy femme. I'm a farmer, which I guess is a pretty butch job, and I live in T-shirts and flannel shirts and big boots."

Raven was raised in a physically-abusive and mentally-abusive household (Saturn in Pisces trine & disposited by Neptune in Scorpio in Fourth House of home life). Sex was "Not Talked About" (Saturn trine Scorpio Mercury) and there was no incest, but he was however "born into an old line of psychics" and psychical matters "were certainly talked about and discussed" (Mercury/Neptune in Scorpio conjunction in the 4th House of one's background).

I remember my mom making her children all sit down together and "send" messages to my dad mentally, or making us "guess" what was on the page of the magazine she was looking at, etc. So I think the Scorpio had [something] to do with that....that and it was an extremely intense household with a lot of dirty secrets.
He ran away from home at 17 (Pluto -- ruler of 4th House -- progressed to 7° Libra and in sextile to natal Sun in freedom-loving Sagittarius) and "transitioned" as transiting Pluto crossed his Sun the first time. Raven has partly explained his transitional status as an "intersexual FTM" thus:
I have an intersex condition called congenital adrenal hyperplasia; I was raised female, and I transitioned over to a male social role and somatic physiology because it suits me better and my body loves testosterone and hates estrogen. I look and pass as a normal guy, at least with my pants on....what's between the legs is a little of both.
Raven has an interest in Medical astrology (medical Mars conjunct astrological Uranus), but notes that "it's hard sometimes to get past the centuries of Aristotelian garbage tied up in it and make actual correlations to what we now know about the human body and its functions" (somatic Chiron & limitational Saturn in functional Pisces opposite Uranus/Mars). Raven has thus reflected on the astrology of his physical and hormonal intersexuality:
In looking at my chart from a medical standpoint, first there's Mars (adrenals) conjunct Uranus (unconventional action) and Pluto (intensely) in Virgo (health). My adrenals put out a lot of testosterone, because my misprogrammed hypothalamus tells them they have to (what rules the hypothalamus? I don't know offhand) but they rob my immune system to do it, so I have to supplement with high doses of external testosterone to satisfy them and make them stop. Needle in my arm every two weeks for the rest of my life. Yick.

Also, Saturn is in the 8th, house of death and the internal reproductive organs. Mine were more or less malfunctioning throughout my early life; during my Saturn return they began to hemorrhage until I almost died, and I had them removed. A sacrifice to Saturn. And Chiron is up there (wounding) with Saturn also in the 8th.

In 1997, Raven's poem, "Just A Little Thing" and his essay about his intersexuality, "Mythical Beast," were published at the Real Intersexed People website. At this time, his natal Gemini Moon was opposed by its SA progressed dispositor, Mercury. His natal Moon (mother) and progressed Mercury (writing) then T-Squared his natal Pluto (horror) and in "Just A Little Thing" he wrote of his mother and himself that "we became each others' nightmare" after Raven had experienced "13 years of feminine boot camp".

Chiron is known as the "Wounded Healer" and one of the ways Raven has sought spiritual healing is through writing a book on figures in mythology associated with gender and/or sexual variance. Based on years of thorough research (Virgo stellium with Chiron in 8th), Raven's book discusses such figures including

Obatala [who] is the creator deity of the Afro-caribbean Yoruba faiths, and s/he is shown as able to change back and forth from male to female, ...thus bypassing the question of whether creation was borne by a male or female deity," and Coyote [who] was a shapeshifting trickster, usually male, but often he took his penis off and transformed into a woman for the day.

The 12th House is associated with mythology, and the ruler of Raven's 12th is his Moon in Gemini. Gemini is a sign associated with transgenderism and androgyny. The Gemini Moon, in turn, is squared by a conjunction of Chiron (symbolic figures) and Saturn (hard work) in Pisces (the sign associated with mythology) in the 8th House (of in-depth research), thus doubling Raven's interest in the subject of trany mythological figures. Moreover, the conjunction forms the handle of his bucket pattern. Neptune, the planet associated with mythology, disposits the Chiron/Saturn bucket handle and is conjunct Mercury (a planet indicating transgenderism) thus further increasing Raven's interest in mythological transsexual and transgender figures. And to complete this arrangement, his Mercury quincunxes and disposits his Gemini Moon, ruler of his 12th House of Mythologia.

Jupiter/Sagittarius rules pantheons, and Raven's Jupiter is prominently placed on his Ascendant in Leo, in mutual reception and trine with his Sagittarian Sun. Importantly, his Sun is placed on the cusp between the 4th and 5th houses, which respectively represent feminine and masculine spaces. With Sun on this inter-gender cusp -- disposited and trined by Jupiter on Ascendant -- we can see his exploration of the worlds of trans-gender and inter-sexual pantheons.

Jupiter is also the sign of publishing, and Raven's wonderful book on transgender mythological figures, Hermaphrodeities: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook was published by ExLibris in 2002 (as progressed Mars -- the ruler of his Ninth House of publishing -- crossed the base of his chart). Order your copy now!

Raven can be emailed @ cauldronfarm@hotmail.com.


References

Kaldera, Raven. Hermaphrodeities: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook USA: Ex Libris, 2002.

---. "Just A Little Thing." Real Intersexed People. c. 1997 < http://www.sonic.net/~cisae/just_a.html > now defunct.

---. "Mythical Beast." Real Intersexed People. 1997 < http://www.sonic.net/~cisae/raven.html > now defunct.

---. "Pallas the GenderBender." 1997 <http://www.cauldronfarm.com/asphodel/articles/pallas_the_genderbender.html>. c. 2000 < http://www.themestream.com/gspd_browse/browse/view_article.gsp?c_id=363834 >.


click on Raven's photo to visit Cauldron Farm

Order Raven's amazing books from Amazon...


HERMAPHRODEITIES: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook


MYTHASTROLOGY: Exploring Planets and Pantheons


Best Transgender Erotica


LIES AND SCARS: B&D That Takes You Over the Edge


DARKNESS BOUND: Beyond Bondage and Discipline


The Urban Primitive: Paganism in the Concrete Jungle


Handfasting and Wedding Ritual: Inviting Hera's Blessing



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Sy Scholfield