Monday, November 29, 2010

A Pressurized Mercury Retrograde Station Conjunct Pluto-North Node in Capricorn

Mercury enters Capricorn tomorrow evening (6:10 p.m. CT), and we're heading into one beast of a Mercury retrograde just in time for winter solstice and the holidays.

After the ingress, Mercury will conjunct both the North Node (2 degrees) and Pluto (4 degrees) in Capricorn before stationing retrograde at 5 degrees on Friday December 10 (6:05 a.m.). Oooh, boy.

For those unaware of the current lock-step manoeuvres of the Global Governors and their corporate partners, holiday air travellers in the United States are in for a real treat (a dried-up, store-bought fruitcake sort of treat) with the choice of either a privacy-invading, rights-stomping, irradiating full body scan or a privacy-invading, rights-stomping, verging on sexual assault full body pat-down at airports across the country.

Stevie Harper and his government, always in complete compliance with the Obamanation, have also spent 11 million taxpayer dollars on 44 of these hideous things in order to outfit all major airports in Canada - Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Halifax. This goes along with the 317 scanners installed at 65 airports across the United States.

Just as Toronto police quietly slid LRADs into mainstream policing tactics via the G20 Summit this past cardinal t-square-infused summer, Canadian airports are now sliding these rights-violating American "security" protocols in, and the sovereignty of our country continues to be eroded under the North American Union-loving types people erroneously call our leaders.

In Canada, though, only passengers bound for the United States have to go through the scanners or have a pat down and only if they have been chosen for a secondary security screening.

Nonetheless, airports are places where a bunch of multi-dimensional hi jinx goes down, where energetic vigilance is always necessary, and this makes things quite dicey, especially for those with highly sensitive systems. Let's just say there is more to these scans than meets the eye and more going on than is apparent on the physical level.

After Mercury stations retrograde December 10, it moves back to conjunct Pluto yet again, and we experience a triple conjunction of Mercury, Mars and Pluto at 4 degrees Capricorn on December 13, two degrees from the North Node. The top-down, integrated police state manoeuvres (Pluto in Capricorn) involving state intrusion on people's bodies (Mars) while travelling (Mercury) is an unfortunately textbook mix for these astro energies. If people are unable to apply a little of that Plutonic X-ray vision and awareness for themselves here as they are unceremoniously stripped of yet more personal privacy and liberty, the slide down the slippery slope continues.

It's quite interesting to follow the Plutonic roots and see who is financially benefiting from these scanners.

Michael Chertoff, former secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and co-author of the United States Patriot Act, was the vociferous member of government calling in mainstream media for these scanners at airports across the land. It turns out Chertoff's security consulting agency, The Chertoff Group, counts Rapiscan - the company that manufactures the scanners with quite a fitting name - among its clients.

This is along the lines of former Monsanto executive Michael Taylor being appointed to a high level position with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The cross-overs between business and government have gotten the point where they are, in actuality, completely Plutonically fuzed.

So don't expect the Mercurial function to be zipping along for the next couple months. We entered the retrograde shadow November 22 at 19 degrees Sagittarius, and things have already started going haywire. Expect glitches, weighty delays, time lags, very tight and pressurized communication. A lot of patience is going to be required.

We're being kept on point here in no uncertain terms and challenged to be direct, honest and on-topic.

Just as Mercury enters Capricorn, it sextiles Venus (December 1) which has just re-entered Scorpio. No one is in the mood for any crap, and those skimming by as bullshit artists can be easily unmasked under these aspects.

Venus is heading through Scorpio until January 7, and we're moving forward in relationship stripped clean of detrimental old emotional attractions and etheric connections, puncturing wounding illusions and dissipating the Neptunian way of falling for potential over reality. If any of this tail-end Piscean era stuff is clinging to your pant leg and trying to hook you back in with Venus direct, just stay with it, stay focused and keep calmly removing it and re-directing as Venus traverses Scorpio. The Venus square to Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius and trine to Jupiter-Uranus in Pisces on the January 4 Capricorn New Moon/partial lunar eclipse is the big status report that will show us just how far we've come, so long as we've done the work (Saturn in Libra).

As always with Mercury retro, there is a rewiring going on that needs its sweet time to be completed. Conjunct Pluto, it is happening in light of ever-growing collective awareness of the core Pluto in Capricorn realities unfolding on our planet and of our own personal paths through it.

There is a stripping down of mental function, communication and transit to bare necessity. The ongoing requirement for the purging and purifying of our mental environments and communication habits gets serious here. We're heading right into the heart of the Pluto in Capricorn corpo-governmental beast, and we need our mental environments to be as clear of nefarious influences as possible as we go.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Anaretic Degree Full Moons and the Movement of the Fixed Stars

Anaretic Degree Full Moons

October 22, 2010 - 29 Aries
November 21, 2010 - 29 Taurus
December 21, 2010 - 29 Gemini (total lunar eclipse)
January 19, 2011 - 29 Cancer
February 18, 2011 - 29 Leo

Thirteenth Degree New Moons

November 5, 2010 - 13 Scorpio
December 5, 2010 - 13 Sagittarius
January 4, 2011 - 13 Capricorn (partial solar eclipse)
February 4, 2011 - 13 Aquarius
March 4, 2011 - 13 Pisces
April 3, 2011 - 13 Aries

We've just experienced the second of our anaretic Full Moons at 29 Taurus.

As I've written previously, this series of anaretic Full Moons, in combination with the series of "Thirteenth Witch" New Moons, marks a six-month period of massive culmination points coupled with potent new triggered openings ahead of Uranus' ingress back into Aries in March of 2011.

That ingress marks the beginning of the official "whole new ballgame" on this planet, especially in light of the devastation being wrought by all those kooky End Times lovers. Where do we go from here? For those invested in staying on Planet Earth and improving conditions, that's becoming a tricky question to answer.

The new 13th degree openings are made possible by some long-hidden and long-suppressed realities suddenly being made visible. Energetic violations and abuses that have simmered beneath the surface are being busted wide open and aired, finally, in the collective - starting to gain traction now because they are simply too flagrant to turn a blind eye to at this point. Too many dots have been connected. People are starting to understand that it's all inter-related and it's not going anywhere, that none of it has ever been swept under the rug, not really.

And a cheer goes up from Plutonics across the land. Could it be that the masses are now getting a wee understanding?

The addition of the 13th witch - either literal or energetic symbolic - sets things into motion, triggering necessary alchemical tipping points as we pass through each New Moon doorway on our way back to the initial Uranus in Aries birth point of a brand new energetic paradigm on this Earth.

Here's our running start. There's no going back. Things are speeding up here at a point when we feel we can hardly tolerate much more. Processing massive energy changes and facilitating unfathomable shifts through our bodies, minds, energetic beings, relationships and placements in physical locations. For me, it's nowhere near as knock-me-on-my-ass overwhelming as it has been over the previous seven years of Uranus in Pisces-Neptune in Aquarius, but for others who have not been doing this kind of energetic work, it could be a rude awakening.

We're hurtling along as Venus gets back up to full speed direct in the Via Combusta. Drop, purge or burn away whatever you can now. Moving this fast and covering this much ground, we have to be as streamlined as possible. There are big propulsions going on here, and we need all the velocity we can muster. Being slowed down by our baggage - or worse, running headlong into someone else's - is something we can't risk. Don't take the bait. Duck and weave. Hitting a suitcase full of redundant Piscean Age bullshit at these speeds would not be pretty...

This is a pivotal time period in which it is being determined where we will be going, where we will be placed within the newly developing Aquarian fray, where our soul skills and abilities will carve out a new path compatible with what we're here on this planet to do during these times.

And we don't just sail through these New Moon portals easy peasy. Oh no. We have to work it, and it sure doesn't feel great. The North Node is conjunct Pluto, and in fact, our path through this mess feels like hell a lot of the time.

From a previous post:

"We have to work for new ground here, proving ourselves inside and out and displaying that we really have learned enough to move on from the Piscean era karmic loops...

Potent new energy will be streaming onto the planet and into our lives during these 13th degree New Moons with the potential to shake us out of some really embedded collective and personal yuck...but also with a requirement to bring things to a full conclusion with the anaretic Full Moons. If we don't do it right, if we don't get all of it, we don't enter any truly new territory. There's a rhythm here with these Moons where we can intuit how far we need to take things - and not a step farther."

As most know, a Full Moon is experienced when the Sun is exactly opposite the Moon, so each of these anaretic degree Full Moons happens with the Sun on the anaretic degree of the opposite sign. The anaretic degree is the last degree of a sign and is significant in that it is a degree in which we are challenged to master and apply what we've learned during previous degrees of the sign - or suffer the consequences. It's a make-or-break degree, complex and multi-layered, where to shirk our responsibilities means not moving forward, at the very least.

On the anaretic degrees, we're distilling the energetic lessons of the entire signs.

At these anaretic Full Moons, the Sun opposite the Moon creates a point of highest pulling tension, a harmonic tightening along the polarity that tunes up the full spectrum of energies and spins off whatever is not necessary moving forward, leaving us with a new mix to play with.

An interesting aspect of this time period is that just after we finish this series of New and Full Moons and Uranus re-enters Aries, the fixed star Scheat follows Uranus' path from 29 Pisces to 0 Aries. Scheat is a nasty character, associated with all those very unfortunate Piscean things like imprisonment, drowning, murder, suicide, shipwrecks, and sorrow. So at the very least, this should be one albatross lifted from beleaguered tail-end Pisces. What it will mean to have Uranus conjunct Scheat in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn...well, let's just focus on what we're doing now, shall we?

Interestingly, along with Scheat, many of the other fixed stars have fairly recently precessed from the 29th degree to the 0 degree. Lots of shifting going on.

Alrisha entered zero Taurus from Aries, Pleaides precessed to zero Gemini; Menkalinan precessed to zero Cancer, Aludra precessed to zero Leo, Regulus precessed to zero Virgo, Toliman shifted to zero Sagittarius, Sinistra shifted to zero Capricorn and Terebellum to zero Aquarius.

So whereas these anaretic Full Moons would have been happening exactly conjunct these fixed stars, we've got a little pressure taken off! Party.

Alrisha added a fortunate flavour to our October Aries Full Moon, especially along the lines of unity within groups.

Pleaides, the Seven Sisters, adds a downer vibe to the our recent Taurus Full Moon along the lines of accidents, blindness (hmm - maybe not just literal) and violence. This Full Moon also happened within a couple degrees of what many consider the nastiest, most evil and violent fixed star of the bunch, Algol. This star is associated with violence, beheading, hanging, choking, asphyxiation, electrocution, murder, mob violence. Good times. I think we could say with fair certainty that the stampede on the last night of a Cambodian water festival that killed 345 people and injured 320 more was a Taurus Full Moon conjunct Algol event.

Menkalinan continues the downward slide at our Gemini Full Moon with risk of ruin, disgrace, violent death - especially through pleasure-seeking (so no seeking of pleasure, you crazy kids!) - and a danger of earthquakes if associated with solar eclipse. Luckily, we are dealing with a lunar eclipse on this one. Earthquakes are not something we want to experience this December, especially after the horror of the Haiti earthquake last year, with millions still homeless and now a horrifying cholera outbreak, brought in more than likely by UN workers.

Aludra raises our spirits with the Cancer Full Moon. This star has a fortunate vibe involving good-hearted charitableness and faithfulness but with a hint of dangerous passions, a dash of danger from or fear of darkness and a slight liability to dog bites.

Our Leo Full Moon in February just ahead of the Uranus ingress keeps the good times rolling and should bolster our spirits, conjoined with what is considered by some to be the most benefic star in the universe, Regulus. This star is considered the most royal: Raphael, the healing archangel and watcher of the North. Nobility, ambition, alertness, great power, status and leadership are associated with a little bit of sudden downfall, accidents and violence just to keep things interesting.

Thanks to astrologer Rob Tillet for his fixed star information.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Venus Stationing Direct Trine Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius

Venus has almost finished its 41-day retrograde through Scorpio and the late degrees of Libra and is currently stationing direct at 27 degrees Libra. The Venus retrograde themes are potent as we grind out the final days of this retrograde. If issues around love, money, relationship, values and self-worth are frustrating or painful (especially along the what could have been/what we wish had been and what really is and was front), hang in there. We're coming around the bend. No rash movements. We've come too far and done too well to blow it now...

Venus is back at the opening doorway of the retrograde shadow, where it was September 4. This is where we started the review of all things Venusian in our lives, probably most intently with love relationships. Venus will go direct Thursday, November 18 at 3:18 p.m. CT and will leave retrograde territory altogether at 13 Scorpio on December 19.

Jupiter is stationing direct simultaneously (at 23 degrees Pisces, conjunct a stationing Uranus) and will start moving forward through the zodiac the same day Venus does at 10:54 a.m. CT.

Jupiter and Venus moving forward on the same day frees up some beneficial energies. Retrogrades have a way of making things feel very constricting, and that starts to shift now. These direct stations are yet another layer of pulling up old anchors as we move toward a grand-scale shift in early 2011.

From a previous post:

"As we hurtle through this portal and start to gain momentum, the other planets are going direct like dominoes. We're pulling up old anchors one-by-one as Neptune, Chiron, Venus, Jupiter and Uranus all station direct by December 5. December 5 to January 25, 2011 is a time when all planets, excluding Mercury, are direct and many wheels start to turn ahead of Uranus re-entering Aries March 11 and a huge push forward into new territory at Spring Equinox.

We need a running start into that time in order to launch ourselves beyond the entrapping tail-end Piscean Age tendrils and the nasty uses of Pluto in Capricorn energy - to truly cross the great stream - and that running start begins now with the initial steps."

Just as it was when it entered the retrograde shadow, Venus is in tight trine to Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius, which have both recently gone direct themselves in exact conjunction. You can read more about these themes here:

Venus Trines Neptune-Chiron and Enters the Retrograde Shadow at 27 Libra

This Venus retrograde has gone down in an area of the zodiac called the Via Combusta or the Burning Path - very alchemically charged. Venus will come out of this zone at Winter Solstice. You can read more about this here:

Venus, Eros and Mars in the Via Combusta and Karmic Love Cleansing Through the Alchemical Fires

Another important piece of this Venus retro, which kicks off a new 18-month Venus cycle, is the strategic positioning of the feminine asteroids around the time of the retrograde station:

Ladies of the Zodiac...It's Showtime.

Pluto and the North Node will be conjunct at 3 degrees Capricorn during Venus' direct station, and the empowerment of the feminine, bringing it to the decision-making table as a full partner, becomes an even stronger necessity in the Plutonic restructuring process currently underway.

Our real status report checkpoint as far as how we've done with the themes and issues this Venus retrograde has brought to our attention doesn't come until early January.

Venus will square Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius and trine Jupiter-Uranus in Pisces from Scorpio at that point, marking the final personal planet to do so. These aspects happen on a potent little day also - January 4, the day of the 13th degree Capricorn New Moon. A new level of responsibility (especially emotional and energetic responsibility) in relationship unfolds from there.

Venus gets back up to full speed by the end of November, and we should be making progress with relationship issues of all kinds - as long as we can apply what we've been made aware of during the retro phase.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Ceres and Pluto in the Headlines: You Only Want Me For My Potash

Corporate consolidation (Pluto) in the agricultural sector (Ceres) continues at warp speed, and the race is on as the North Node in Capricorn exactly conjuncts Pluto, something that happens only every 17 years or longer. This Pluto-North Node conjunction in early Capricorn is creating a potent channel with the potential for major strategic progress toward long-term goals - both personally and collectively/globally.

As always, there are different ways to work with the prevailing astrological conditions, depending who you are and what you're doing with your time on this planet. With Pluto involved, the energies go to extremes.

Some of the Plutonic progress made here will be for the broadest, 'seven generations' type of good as far as unearthing core truths and realities, increasing awareness and empowerment, and working to extricate and liberate us from hell scenarios being purposefully triggered and unleashed on our planet. Using newly sharpened cataytic awareness of underlying energetic realities and newly unearthed Plutonic understanding and connections to shed the influence of pyramid-scheme hierarchical misery and suffering, driving ourselves forward in the spaces between those constructions.

With Pluto being the ruler of Hades, though, this channel will also be used in an attempt to further the goals of evil and cruelty on this planet. Here's where the Global Governors and their millions of minions come into play, jockeying for position to be current-day rulers of Hades, it seems.

This conjunction was exact November 9 after both Pluto and the North Node conjuncted Ceres, the Goddess asteroid related to grains, cereals and the fertility of the Earth. Purposefully-created worldwide food shortages, inflation on the price of food fuelling diabolical derivatives schemes, profiting from the starvation of the people, corporate GMO power grabs, criminalizing independently grown foods and natural supplements, raids on independent farmers - these are the Ceres-Pluto headlines, all aspects of the corporate move on food that has been slowly building.

Now is a quickening. Control the food; control the people.

But the corporate free-for-all climate seems to be taking a turn along the North Node path...

The Canadian government blocked the initial attempt at a hostile takeover of Saskatchewan's PotashCorp - the world's largest producer of potash - by Australian company BHP Billiton. Billiton was given until December 3 to come back with a sweeter deal but withdrew its bid instead. BHP Billiton controls potash interests, the rarest component in fertilizer, around the world and has a finger in many pies as the world's largest diversified resources group.

The idea of my home province, agrarian Saskatchewan, losing control of its potash industry turns my stomach. This turn of events doesn't mean the industry is now safe - the Canadian government seems to be open to more lucrative foreign offers - but this block is still good news for the people of Saskatchewan and for Canada. It's also a somewhat surprising move coming from Stephen Harper's Conservative government - especially as Harper returns from the latest G20 meeting of Global Governors in Seoul, Korea, this weekend.

This decision comes as Canadian fertilizer maker Agrium is bidding $1.1 billion to take over the Australian Wheat Board and has the Australian government crying foul along free trade lines.

The chair of the Australian Parliament's foreign affairs committee, Michael Danby, said in Canadian media, "I think you can’t selectively be a member of the World Trade Organization....Either you believe in free trade or you don’t."

Danby also said this type of protectionism shows a tightening of international markets that replicates the conditions of the Great Depression.

Let's recall that we are heading into a series of squares between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn - in effect now, but becoming exact seven times between June 2012 and March 2015. The last time Uranus squared Pluto, Uranus was also in Aries, but Pluto was in Cancer. Those squares were exact between April 1932 and January 1934 - right in the thick of the Great Depression. The stock market crash happened in 1929, three years before the first exact square, and the current (ongoing) economic collapse was triggered as Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008.

One of the reasons given for the block of the takeover was trends showing that potash prices are going to rise - making BHP Billiton's bid of $40 billion too low. Who would have thought sleepy little Saskatchewan would find itself with some of the hottest stocks on the market?

Potash is one of three key components in fertilizer (along with nitrogen and phosphate) and is the rarest component by far, with only 13 significant producers around the world. There's that Lucky 13 again.

Consolidated corporate control of fertilizer goes in lock-step with control of the seed supply, as the Big Six (DuPont, BASF, Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow) rush to patent their "climate-ready" seeds, designed to grow in poor conditions, with less fertilizer. Hmm...

As manufactured weather crises create the conditions for grand-scale food shortages (as they have this past cardinal t-square summer), the corporate GMO-shleppers are going to be right there with their climate-ready seeds. Rising input costs is one of the major factors driving independent farmers out of business, and as the price of fertilizer rises (with supplies being consolidated in the hands of very few world players), there will be yet more pressure to use these GMO seeds.

But here we've got a big, uncharacteristic block from Stevie H, and it's not all friendly good times in the Global Governor/CEO clubhouse.

The feeding frenzy of hostile takeovers, mergers and strategic manoevres finds corporations swallowing each other (and government-owned resources) whole, and there is increasing viciousness in the ranks. Friend turns to foe in the blink of an eye under these types of transits, which will only be fuelled by the wildcard energy of Uranus in Aries beginning this March.

We're dealing with Capricorn here, and in general, these are slow and gradual movements, building over time. Big strategic moves are being made under this aspect and this web bot-alerted tipping point time - mostly in setting up new relationships (Saturn in Libra) as Obama and his cast of characters troll Asia under a deadly and symbolically erupting Mount Merapi.

The exact meaning of these strategic manoevres and relationships is Plutonically obscured. There is a delicate balance that the Global Governors need to manage and maintain - and they're keenly aware of this fact. They can't move too fast or get too power-hungry or they will trigger a revolt that reaches into the lives of even the most blissfully unaware Hockey/Soccer Moms and Doting, Dutiful Dads.

The North Node moves into Sagittarius March 3, and the conjunction to Pluto is strong into Spring Equinox 2011.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Pluto Conjunct the North Node with Ceres in the Mix and Food as Ammo

The North Node and Pluto are conjunct at 3 degrees Capricorn. 

It's Remembrance Day in Canada - the day we remember the war dead in ceremonies and with a moment of silence at 11:00 a.m. The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, observed to recall the end of World War I on this date in 1918. The words, "Never again," pass through many lips on this day. 

 But in actual fact, the war is still going on, still smouldering. Though most don't see it, the war never really ended. And this marks a fitting day to become more fully aware of just how the war has changed, is changing, right before our eyes so that we can we can peacefully disengage. 

With Pluto and the North Node together in early Capricorn, our necessary soul's path forward leads us right into the thick of it, into previously obscured battlefields. Ceres, the asteroid related to grains, cereals and the fertility of the Earth, is strongly involved here, having conjuncted both Pluto and the North Node over the past month and still within five degrees of their conjunction. 

We can see quite clearly, with Ceres and Pluto so intertwined, how the chemical warfare that has been brought down so horrendously on human beings in the past - in these wars we are remembering this November 11th - has Plutonically morphed, gone into the soil and embedded in the nourishing Ceres domain. 

Corporations once involved (and still involved) in acts against life on this planet are now clamouring to control our food supply. 

A group of six chemical corporations (DuPont, BASF, Monsanto, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow) and their biotech partners (Mendel Biotechnology and Evogene) are working to create a stranglehold on the world's seed supply with their genetically modified versions, implanted with foreign genetic material of many varieties. 

The most recent strategic move on this front has found these corporations stockpiling patents on "climate-ready" crops - genetically designed and marketed by them just for these "End Times," y'all! 

As nature and the weather are purposefully manipulated to create natural food shortages through floods, heat waves, hail storms, droughts and pest outbreaks (fuelling derivatives schemes), these companies are going to swoop in and save the world with their magical GMO seeds that will grow in even the crappiest of conditions! No rain? No fertilizer? Soil is the shits? No problem! Under this dystopic plan, the natural fertility of the Earth is destroyed (Ceres-Pluto), and only complete reliance on these corporate GMOs will save us from starvation. 

These chemical corporations that would like us to be dependent on them for our food supply are war criminals (corporations are people, right?), guilty of committing heinous crimes against humanity - crimes that now continue with the manipulation and corruption of our DNA through pollution of food, medicine and environment. 

Monsanto produced chlorine and mustard gases used in the trenches in World War I and is the company that brought us Agent Orange, a defoliant used to strip trees of their leaves during the Vietnam War. Agent Orange is highly toxic, carcinogenic and killed or debilitated hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese people and Vietnam veterans, as well as causing widespread genetic damage and birth defects. The depleted uranium of the 1960s and 70s. Also among Monsanto's list of improvements to the human condition are saccharin, DDT, PCBs, bovine growth hormones and Aspartame. 

Those who read this blog regularly will recall that Bayer is the maker of the fluoroquinolone antibiotic Cipro, designed to ward off anthrax, prescribed to me for a mild urinary tract infection last December. This drug poisoned my entire system and caused debilitating side effects from which I am still recovering. Cipro has been repurposed as a cure-all post-anthrax scare and is prescribed widely by doctors in North America for minor infections. 

The side effects are kept from the public and from most doctors, who are not aware or do not believe these types of side effects are possible. 

Bayer was part of the Nazi chemical and pharmaceuticals conglomerate IG Farben, along with BASF - another German chemical company trying everything to get into our refrigerators and pantries. IG Farben was the only company in the Third Reich that actually ran its own concentration camp. It bought and used human guinea pigs to test its drugs and manufactured the deadly pesticide Zyklon B, which was used in the gas chambers. 

DuPont is a corporation now in the chemicals and plastics game but started off manufacturing gunpowder, becoming the largest supplier to the U.S. military by the mid-19th century. DuPont was also a producer of plutonium and played a major role in the Manhattan Project and the creation of the atomic bomb. DuPont has been the key company behind the development of modern body armour, including the development of Kevlar which led to the bullet-proof vest, now prevalent in police and military units around the world. 

American chemical company Dow produced napalm and Agent Orange for the U.S. government during the Vietnam War. After public protests of napalm, all other companies making it stopped production, leaving good old Dow reaping the profits as the sole provider. Dow also managed a nuclear weapons production facility from 1951 to 1975 near Denver, Colorado called Rocky Flats Plant that was involved in multiple radioactive leaks and contamination fires. Thousands, probably tens of thousands, of plant workers have died or are sick from cancers caused by radiation exposure and most have had their compensation claims denied. Dow was ordered in 2008 to pay $925 million in damages to 12,000 homeowners who live downwind of the plant for plutonium contamination, but in September 2010, an appeals court threw out the award. Dow and the other company involved were indemnified by the U.S. government in the case, meaning taxpayers would have paid any judgment along with the companies' legal fees. 

Swiss-based Syngenta is the only company that calls itself an agribusiness company, focusing on the production of Frankenfoods entirely. 

Do these sound like the people who ought to be responsible for feeding the world? 

As Pluto and the North Node come together, post-conjunctions to Ceres, food truly is ammunition. None of the atrocities committed by these companies have been resolved in any way at this tail-end Piscean era. They have gained strength and power through war, poison and human suffering, and now they'd like to control the world seed supply. Fancy that. 

These moral giants, partnering with Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, are also donating royalty-free seeds to poor African farmers (corruption of the root). Take it from Indian farmers, Africa. Just say no. 

There aren't many companies that can say they are directly responsible for hundreds of thousands of farmer suicides - but Monsanto can! Over 200,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1997 and the introduction of patented GMO seeds. You see, those seeds that they're handing out free today cannot be saved from year to year - a common farming practice. These seeds have been engineered as "terminator seeds," which do not germinate for use in the next year. Even if the seeds did germinate, a farmer saving seeds like Monsanto's RoundUp Ready variety would quite easily be slapped with a patent infringement lawsuit. Even if you haven't saved the seeds, Monsanto will often willy nilly slap you with a lawsuit. Just ask hundreds of North American farmers who face ruination due to this corporation as it attempts to corner the market. Poor farmers who think they are getting a hell of a deal from Monsanto soon find that they are forced to buy these seeds from year-to-year. If they do not have the money to keep buying, they are out of business - not to mention the damage to the soil and waterways growing these GMOs does. 

To curb its critics, Monsanto has taken to hiring Blackwater mercenaries to spy on anti-GMO activists. You'll remember Blackwater as the group hired by the U.S. government that regularly opened fire on and murdered Iraqui civilians during the war there. From "Monsanto paid Blackwater (Xe) to spy on anti-GMO activists — The Nation":

"A spokesperson for Monsanto, reached by Scahill, first denied the relationship with Blackwater, but then admitted that Monsanto had paid Total Intelligence for intelligence reoprts

“… about the activities of groups or individuals that could pose a risk to company personnel or operations around the world which were developed by monitoring local media reports and other publicly available information. The subject matter ranged from information regarding terrorist incidents in Asia or kidnappings in Central America to scanning the content of activist blogs and websites.”"

The merger of police state/military industrial complex with corporate GMO food. Pluto-North Node-Ceres in Capricorn. 

Actively supporting the alternative to this chemical-ridden horror show has never been more important. There are many good sources of organic and non-GMO food available. Farmer's markets are populated by local farmers committed to producing good food. Yes, there are still good people out there. 

Who would have thought buying real food from a farmer's market or organic grocery would become a revolutionary act? But in this Pluto in Capricorn toxic corporate age, that's exactly what it is. 

Buying natural supplements is also one of those revolutionary acts as federal legislation attempts to crack down, forcing reliance on Big Pharma. Bill C-36 in the Canadian legislature is designed to impose drug-style restrictions on natural products, in effect, outlawing their sale and reducing their availability. 

The Canadian distributor NOW FOODS (a company whose products I use) was recently told by the federal Natural Health Products Directorate that 53 of their natural products had to be removed from shelves. 

Chipping away... 

Despite this top-down clamp-down, the alternatives are still out there - we just have to dig a little (Pluto) to get to them. Pluto shows us the ugly stuff so we have the necessary knowledge and will to drive to the alternative, to something better. 

Ceres is asking us to take a closer look at what truly nourishes us, including standing up for what's right. 

On October 19, just as Ceres and Pluto formed their conjunction, it was announced that, for the first time, Bayer CropScience had settled with three Texas rice farmers suing over the contamination of their rice crops by Bayer's genetically modified LibertyLink variety. 

The contamination by Bayer's GMO rice has caused more than 7,000 long-grain rice farmers in five U.S. states - Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas - to lose European markets, bringing export restrictions, bans on two kinds of high-yield seeds and a plunge in prices. The losses are in the billions of dollars, though, of course, you can't really put a price on this type of contamination. The farmers affected in the five U.S. states are currently suing Bayer over the contamination of their crops. Bayer has lost six previous trials brought by the farmers to the tune of $54 million. These initial trials were considered bellwether trials to test the waters for the remaining cases. Bayer is now challenging those decisions with appeals and post-trial motions. The Texas farmers were asking for relatively little compensation - $430,000 plus punitive damages. They settled for $290,000. A veritable bargain for Monsanto. 

So there are cracks forming around the edges - not least of which is the Big Six fighting and undermining each other as the greed and thirst for complete domination force them to attack each other. 

As I wrote earlier, the Pluto-North Node conjunction, last experienced in late Scorpio in February 1994, infuses our soul-driven path forward with the Plutonic impetus for excavation, increased awareness and transformation out of the deadened husks of previous modes of operation, both personally and collectively. 

With Pluto involved, there is an elimination necessary of one path over another. A reinvestment of energy and resources into the vital track driving us forward. This is true on many different fronts, but here, with Ceres involved, we can use the energy and impetus of this conjunction to eliminate corporate food from our lives to the best of our abilities, drawing from more fertile soil. We can use our buying power and the decisions about where we place our currency to support the vital alternatives wherever we can. 

The choices we make about the food we eat, the water we drink, the supplements we take, the products we purchase and how we live our lives are potent. They act like water running through those cracks, making them bigger. 

This is how we fight back without aggression - we fight for our health, our strength and our well-being. There is wiggle room here, though it's tight, and if we have the choice of something better, it's our revolutionary act - our duty, really! - to make that choice. 

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Pluto-North Node-Moon Conjunction at 3 Capricorn, Soul Instructions and Crossing the Great Stream

Pluto, the North Node and the Moon come together today at 3 degrees Capricorn with Ceres closely involved at 9 degrees. The Moon conjuncts Pluto and the North Node almost simultaneously at 2:14 p.m. (CT). 

This conjunction is fascinating to me. Pluto-North Node conjunctions happen on average every 17 years, with quite wide variation possible. With Pluto involved, they can be seen as generational markers related to the broad, collective themes being Plutonically lived and worked on at that time - and that will continue to be lived and worked on by the babies being born during that Pluto generation. 

These are the Pluto-North Node conjunctions experienced on this planet over the past 100 years: 

November 9, 2010 at 3 degrees Capricorn 

February 22, 1994 at 28 degrees Scorpio 

Hallowe'en of 1977 at 15 degrees Libra 

December 31, 1960 at 8 degree Virgo 

November 28, 1943 at 8 degrees Leo 

August 25, 1926 at 15 degrees Cancer 

February 11, 1909 at 23 degrees Gemini 

Due to the timing, we skipped this conjunction during Pluto in Sagittarius. 

The next conjunction of the North Node and Pluto occurs November 15, 2027 at 4 degrees Aquarius. The one following that, the conjunction in Pisces, will not occur until July 4, 2062 at 25 degrees. 

As this conjunction infuses our soul-driven path forward with the Plutonic impetus for excavation, increased awareness and transformation out of the deadened husks of previous modes of operation, both personally and collectively, there is an elimination necessary of one path over another. Crossing the great stream. 

Along with the elimination of certain modes of being, there is a necessary reinvestment of energy and resources into the vital track driving us forward. There are some tough decisions to be made, but this is Capricorn we're talking about. It's pretty much the sign of tough decisions. 

This is a point from which we can consciously work to eliminate the Five Year Corpo-Governmental Plan from our lives and from our planet, redirecting our resources, realigning our decisions, and committing our personal buying power to building a vital track out of the corruption. Here, we can commit to a path out of the poisonous corpo-governmental stranglehold that has brought life on this planet to the brink and into more soul-sustaining, nourishing terrain. 

The Moon and Ceres being so strongly involved is highly significant as we rework the Cancer-Capricorn polarity and shift male-female and masculine-feminine power dynamics. There is a back-to-basics feel here, a simplicity, with the ability to choose what is nourishing emotionally, to body and soul, over what is profitable and possibly a rush in the short-term but ultimately destructive, damaging, traumatic. 

An interesting aspect with the Moon (mothering) involved so strongly is that, as we all get our Pluto in Capricorn-infused soul instructions, so do the babies born over the past two years who have natal Pluto in Capricorn. Hey, this is Capricorn. Of course, they're starting young! They're here to shift things along the Cancer-Capricorn polarity, including motherhood/parenthood and the family unit, so might as well start from the ground up. 

The Pluto in Capricorn babes on the planet currently are the vanguard - just as the early Pluto in Leo and Pluto in Virgos were who experienced the Pluto-North Node conjunction in their babyhood. The Plutonic generational intention is also being anchored here for the Pluto in Capricorn souls yet to come over the next 14 or so years. If you're planning a baby in the next 14 years, this is a point in time to connect with as far as understanding the broader soul intentions of those about to come to the planet. 

Pluto gets to a sign in the zodiac when to not bring the hidden issues to awareness, to not apply the Plutonic strip-down and gut-level transformation of the expression of that sign, would mean soul death, if not physical death, for humanity. High stakes we work with on this planet. In Capricorn - you guessed it - it has to do with the emerging collective awareness of the dirty dealings, corruption and increasing stranglehold of the consolidated corpo-governmental military industrial complex and related set-ups. 

Aligning properly with the broader Plutonic process in our own lives is kind of a big deal, and with this conjunction, we get a ripe window of time to do just that, following new soul instructions intuitively and practically out of the deadened, crystallized structures and forms that no longer sustain life. If the personal aligns with the transpersonal collective transformational momentum in just the right alchemical mix at this point, guided by the soul knowledge of each individual, there is huge progress possible out of the Pluto in Capricorn rubble. 

At the same time, heading right into the heart of the beast so as to understand what we're really dealing with takes a great deal of courage and commitment to delve deeper and go further - hell, to even keep going at all, at times. Those who do not have the best interests of humanity at heart will also be using this portal to advance strategic goals. 

Let's recall that we are heading to a series of seven exact squares of Uranus in Aries to Pluto in Capricorn (June 2012 - March 2015). The last time Uranus in Aries was in a series of squares with Pluto (five) was 1932 to 1934 when Pluto was in Cancer - the Great Depression, the rise of the Third Reich and the lead up to World War II. This is not to say history will repeat (though they're trying), but unfinished business from the Pluto in Cancer generation is definitely being kicked up with Pluto transiting the opposite sign and squaring Uranus. 

Suffice it to say we are having to master our deepest fears on multiple fronts. We're at a reckoning point as far as where we find ourselves on this planet - on the precipice and at a vantage point that is both spiritually soaring, wondrous, electrifying and inspiring as well as emotionally, psychologically and physically devastating, horrifying. These are the Plutonic extremes. 

In order to reach the wondrous spiritual heights, we must have the roots, we must be adept with the spiritual depths in the most difficult aspects of human experience on this planet. 

As we hurtle through this portal and start to gain momentum, the other planets are going direct like dominoes. We're pulling up old anchors one-by-one as Neptune, Chiron, Venus, Jupiter and Uranus all station direct by December 5. 

December 5 to January 25, 2011 is a time when all planets, excluding Mercury, are direct and many wheels start to turn ahead of Uranus re-entering Aries March 11 and a huge push forward into new territory at Spring Equinox. 

We need a running start into that time in order to launch ourselves beyond the entrapping tail-end Piscean Age tendrils and the nasty uses of Pluto in Capricorn energy - to truly cross the great stream - and that running start begins now with the initial steps. The South Node is in Cancer. Things are not as they were. It's all a bit foreign and hard on us emotionally. All we can do is align ourselves with what is coming into existence, carving out our path step-by-step, responsibly, and with laser-like soul-guided precision to get there.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

The Divergence

The personal planets in Scorpio are hitting the square to Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius and the trine to Jupiter-Uranus in Pisces in wave after wave.

Mars, following asteroid Pallas Athene, kicked off the aspect parade October 20, with Mercury now moving through the same aspects beginning today and completing November 6. The Moon is strongly involved here, too, and will make the same aspects to Jupiter, Neptune, Chiron and Uranus as it conjuncts Venus and then the Sun and Mercury in Scorpio under the influence of this weekend's New Moon.

The Pisces-to-Aquarius flavour is very strong in the astro proceedings...

The sequence goes: Scorpio planet trines Jupiter in Pisces, squares Neptune in Aquarius, squares Chiron in Aquarius and trines Uranus in Pisces. You see how intermeshed this time frame is and how potent this pivot point is.

The Sun in Scorpio will hit this mark November 15-18, bringing us up to speed in our full, conscious moment as far as the sometimes nebulous realities of the Pisces-to-Aquarius transition. Watch closely what the Scorpio Sun shines its light on during this time frame. The final personal planet to run this gauntlet will be Venus in early January, just before it enters Sagittarius January 7.

The personal planets in Scorpio, a sign that does what it knows it has to do whether it really wants to or not, are doing their thing to break this party up, triggering some separation and distance. A divergence point is being carved out on the most nitty-gritty of levels, in the hidden areas of which only Scorpio is aware. We have to know exactly what (and whom) we're dealing with in order to know what direction (Aries) to take right out of the Aquarius gate. Every individual's movement and choices count. Don't be fooled into giving your influence away.

This divergence point is carved out as Chiron, Neptune, Jupiter and Uranus prepare to go direct, releasing us from backtrack mode. By December 5, the whole gang - Uranus in Pisces and Neptune in Aquarius in mutual reception along with the bodies conjunct them - will be moving direct, with Jupiter and Uranus on their way back to the Aries birth point we had a taste of this past summer during the cardinal T-squares.

On the most basic level, we're being asked to examine the motivations of our own souls (Scorpio). Divining to the core, to our source, to the reason we are here at this time. We're being asked to draw in, to keep our deepest spiritual values close, and to determine what is so important to us that there is nothing in this Earthly experience that could make us give it up.

These configurations also have to do with the human soul and spirit in relation to our biology and our connection to Earth and to the life force here. This connection is being used against us in the most heinous ways by those who believe they have harnessed the life force, life itself, and have become the source of it altogether. Our biology is being poisoned and our DNA manipulated by these fools.

And we're asked to determine what it means to us to be human - at a time when our survival as biological human beings is coming into question under the current conditions and possible future trajectories.

Did I think I would ever be living in a time when people would be being coerced to turn themselves into robots, synthetic forms? Or that we would unwillingly be part of experiments along these lines? Um...no. But here we are.

Nowhere is the intermixing of Piscean and Aquarian themes more apparent than in the Gulf of Mexico - unfortunately, taking expression in some of the most abominable forms possible.

Michael Edward, a gentleman in Florida who is getting the word out about what is really going on in the Gulf of Mexico, has dug up some information about a partnership between BP and a company called Synthetic Genomics. This company's goal is the commercialization of synthetic genes, DNA sequences and organisms. BP invested in this company and made a long-term research and development deal with them in June of 2007. One of the biggest areas of interest for this company is microbial cells in oil.

Remember those bacteria that eat that oil we've heard so much about?

It's possible that along with the deadly Corexit, synthetic organisms have also been unleashed in the Gulf of Mexico. A massive Pisces-to-Aquarius science experiment with human beings, animal and plant life - nature itself - as pawns. As the Corexit breaks the oil down into bite-sized chunks...

The shocking emergence of Aquarian technologies that change everything. A technological attack on the basic building blocks of life itself, DNA, genetic lineage. Uranus in Pisces to Aries.

The transitions are fast now, but it's nothing in comparison to the speed with which the realizations of where we are will strike when Uranus re-enters Aries, no longer buffered and obscured by the Piscean veil.

Black Moon Lilith is also hanging out along this Pisces-Aries cusp now and for the next while, letting us in on some of the dirty little secrets we need to know going into this next year related to the corruption of the feminine force.

We're having to strip the dead energy of the Piscean Age overlay layer-by-layer in preparation for Uranus in Aries tipping the scales further into Aquarius at the upcoming Spring Equinox. This doesn't mean Pisces energy itself is dead - though, I think many in "power" would like this to be the case. It's because true Piscean wisdom and understanding are going to be so crucially important as we shift into a stronger Aquarian overlay that we have to Scorpionically carve away and drop what is no longer effective or relevant to the times. Pisces energy is being born anew in an ongoing process - as all the signs/energies of the zodiac are - as we head to the Aquarian infusion marker of Uranus in Aries (beginning March 11).

I wouldn't get too caught up in Aquarian fervour, though.

Let's recall that Neptune in Pisces, transiting its own sign, will be a potent force for the next 15 years. It dips into Pisces for a quick, catalyzing blast of Uranus in Aries energy April 4 - August 5, 2011 before entering Pisces for good February 3, 2012. Here's the very beginning of Pisces for the Aquarian era. Pisces for the post-post-modern era? Neptune will be at home in its own sign of Pisces, but its home sign will also feel somewhat foreign as our spirituality and vital connection to spiritual guidance and intelligence shifts for the sake of direct relevance and effectiveness in these times on our planet.

Pisces on the other side of its hijacking by End Times, Armageddon, Revelation, Ascension.

Chiron (wounded healer asteroid) will also be in Pisces for the next seven years, marking a period where great healing but also great wounding devastation is possible, especially along Piscean lines. Holding Piscean wisdom and understanding will not be easy during these times as we watch things unfolding that go against everything we know in our hearts and souls to be right.

Things really start to shift at this New Moon with Neptune and Chiron going direct in tandem.

Venus and Jupiter both go direct November 18, adding to the forward-ho momentum.

Then December 5, Uranus in Pisces goes direct on the same day as our second 13th degree New Moon in Sagittarius.

At that point, every planet in the zodiac is moving direct heading into the New Year (other than a Mercury retrograde December 9 - 29).

Venus entering Sagittarius January 7 and Jupiter re-entering Aries January 22 stokes the flame.

Only Saturn in Libra will turn retrograde (January 25) before Uranus re-enters Aries for good March 11, just in time for a super potent Spring Equinox when the Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and Uranus will all be in the sign of the ram - ready for a strong burst forward.

So let the layers be lifted off you this weekend at this New Moon, release the burdens that are ready to go. Stake a new claim, and get ready for some big changes up ahead.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Thirteenth Degree Scorpio New Moon and Mercury Squares Off With Some Potent Stationing Neptune-Chiron Illusions

The Scorpio Sun and Moon come together at 13 degrees late on Friday, November 5 (11:52 p.m. CT), marking the first in the series of six New Moons at 13 degrees of the signs.

Venus will be about two-thirds done its retrograde in Scorpio, which ends November 18 on the same day Jupiter turns direct in Pisces, and this New Moon happens on the exact degree where Venus turned retrograde. We're working to emerge from some claustrophobic old attractions and layers, past-related attachments and etheric grasping, and emotional reactions and patterns in relationship, especially ways in which all that has to do with our self-worth. We're digging into some deep issues here on multiple fronts and purging a lot from our systems, traversing some very bumpy (yet all-too-familiar) terrain, and boy, it's exhausting.

But as the Sun and Moon fuze in Scorpio in a stellium with Venus, Vesta and Mercury, we have a golden opportunity to hold to what's true, letting old stuff burn away and drop to the ground, breaking its hold over us and moving intuitively onto new emotional ground.

This has to do with family patterns and the relationship constructs and dynamics patterned through our familial lines, as well as unfinished love/relationship business along spiritual lineages as part of the ongoing Pisces-to-Aquarius collective purging and reformulating. Multi-layered with a lot trying to grasp and attach and suck us back in. It will take a strong conscious awareness of interpersonal dynamics and emotional realities to make it fully through this New Moon portal. We've been working on this a long time, and here it can be shed.

At the same time, we're all about fried from so much Scorpio and Pluto emphasis over the past month (Pluto, Ceres and the North Node are still conjunct in early Capricorn), so we have to be very gentle with ourselves and with others. It won't take much to push to emotional catatonic overload now, so we need to close out this lunar cycle and begin the new one slowly, with our emotional readiness and the readiness of those around us as guides. A little goes a long way here.

This New Moon occurs as Chiron and Neptune are both stopped in the zodiac, stationing direct at the same time in a tight late-Aquarius conjunction (Chiron November 5, Neptune November 7). Stations are times when the energy of the planet/body is considered especially potent and resonant, permeating the astro atmospheric conditions.

Communication and intelligence planet Mercury in late Scorpio plays a strong role in this New Moon chart, locked into an exact square with stationing Neptune and Chiron in Aquarius. Mercury is also trine Jupiter and Uranus, still retrograde, in late Pisces.

This makes the Mercury-Neptune/Chiron square a huge highlight and energetic theme of this New Moon chart and the next lunar cycle. We're about to get the initial layers of this show on the road with Neptune, Chiron, Venus and Jupiter stationing direct this month and Uranus following suit December 5 on the day of our next thirteenth degree New Moon in Sagittarius. Holding the unwavering Scorpionic eye on the proceedings is just what we need to get started in the right direction now.

As I've written about previously, the personal planets and a couple asteroids have already transited (Pallas Athene and Mars) or are currently transiting (Venus, the Sun, Moon, Vesta and Mercury) Scorpio, triggering in wave after wave this square to Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius and trine to Jupiter Rx and Uranus Rx in Pisces.

The Scorpionic penetration of wounding Neptunian illusions and delusions about the future absolutely has to occur if we are to get to any real state of equality and freedom on this planet anytime in the near future.

Future-oriented utopian ideals and 2012 'consciousness ascension' fervour have been pumped so full of Neptunian ether at this point that they're bursting at the seams, having little to do with solving the actual problems and remedying the actual injustices on this planet from the ground up. Feet have been lifted so far off the ground and people have been pulled so far out of their grounded, intuitive understanding and earthy logic, that we've been left with a dangerously maleable group, tossed this way and that depending which way the information fads and the media, both mainstream and "alternative," blow them.

Tell me again why the over-glorification of the "upper chakras"? All too purposeful, I think...

Multiple overlays attempt to buy our attention, our allegiance, our truth, our minds, our words. Much of the "alternative" has been swallowed up, infiltrated, now little more than a subsidiary arm, never getting to the root.

The consuming, obsessional quality of information and of information-seeking in this over-saturated multi-media age comes to the forefront under this aspect. The looping, addictive patterns from one information source to another. Internet, television, radio, internet, television, radio. Never a moment free from the blaring frequencies that act so detrimentally on our personal frequencies. More and more information with less and less meaning, creating a group of people who don't know what to believe until they are told what to believe, attempting to fill up on conflicting informational bits and pieces and coming away hungry, unsatisfied, enervated, ever-further from the wisdom of their own souls. Seeking something of substance, something that hits the mark and gives some real perspective on the matters at hand.

There is a strong impetus here to purify our information channels, eliminating those that do not deliver the goods. The cleansing and protection of our mental and psychic environments.

Here, the Scorpionic crap-cutting and ability to see in the dark become crucial, with our own penetrating personal insights (Mercury in Scorpio), merged with others' of just the right tenor, key in extricating us and our real vision for the Aquarian future from those who seek to hijack them.

Mercury in Scorpio has a direct line from our ears and our eyes right to our guts. Body intuition connected to our receptive minds. Mercury in Scorpio can listen to the energy of words, determine the underlying agenda and extricate itself from the manipulated scene before the speech's opening paragraph is even complete. It can follow reaction - both personal and collective - to oratory, to official lines and official announcements, and understand the true motive of what is being floated in the public. It can watch the movement and sway of the crowd and determine when it is being herded by Uranian/Neptunian dangling carrots. This is where our minds are now, what we can tap into as we butt up against the Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius futuristic siren songs attempting to suck us into more of the same.

But first, the Scorpio energy has to be honed in the individual to the point where it is trustworthy above all else. We have to be able to trust that when we extricate ourselves from the din of dis/information and from the movements and shifts of the group mind, we'll be left with what's real and true, even if that means standing alone.

And all this while the collective conscious and unconscious is being purposefully saturated with every fearful End Time possibility. Scorpio and fear go hand-in-hand. Facing our fears, accepting and disarming them and neutralizing the power they have over us as best we can are all part of the liberation and spiritual elevation of the sign.

Nowhere is this more apparent, with Venus retrograde, than in our relationships. All the old fears - of being alone, desolate, unvaluable, unworthy, unlovable, rejected, of being deprived and starved of love, money, resources - are coming to the surface, testing their power over us. There's a fear telling us we can't let go of our connection to the subpar in relationship and elsewhere in case that's all there is for us.

The old illusory traps are also out in full force. We just think we've gotten past one, and another pops up like a black hole on the ground in a Looney Tunes cartoon.

This deep into the Piscean era, Neptune has certainly got our number as far as long-held hopes and dreams in and for relationships. We've taken the bait countless times in the past and swallowed nasty-ass dealbreaker realities hook, line and sinker, leaving us in huge messes that we had to dig ourselves out of.

And here, the Mercury-Neptune/Chiron square is prevalent, too, preceding the square to Neptune and Chiron by post-retrograde Venus itself next January.

New lovers speak the same phrases the old ones did, whispering just what Neptune thinks we'd like to hear. But this time, the words are surprisingly hollow, easily punctured.

Soul mate asteroid Juno is at 13 degrees Virgo at the time of this New Moon, exactly sextile the Sun-Moon conjunction. Add some no-nonsense Virgoan wheat-from-chaff standards and grounded analysis into the mix, and we're in good shape, very good shape. Promises that seemed so plausible before in our Neptunian loved-up states now seem laughable. Did we really fall for this previously? Have so many before us really fallen for this?

The clarifying messages should be coming in loud and clear. And here's the hot tip with Juno in Virgo sextile Sun-Moon in Scorpio and Mercury squaring Neptune-Chiron. The truth is really very simple, very basic. Reality is grounded and healing, not something from which to get intoxicated. Love is, too. So if that's what people are looking for - yet another temporary fix, yet another informational or verbal or sexual spike to the vein to calm their fevered and frenzied states - they'll miss it. The voice is quiet, responsible, firm...and effective. There are no bells and whistles. No phony Neptunian blasts elevating beyond the situation on this planet or the circumstances of human life...only to crash to the ground later.

Saturn in Libra has shown us the value of what's solid, real and responsible over the dream and the rosey potential. Show us the money and walk your talk or move along down the road. Wishful thinking has never been so unsexy. The old hopes and dreams seem somehow stale and outdated now, naive, and so much less valuable than love that is available and right in front of us.

This time, when the sweet nothings hit our ears and our stomachs lurch a little, we can follow our guts rather than smoothing things over and talking ourselves out of what we are really feeling, what we really know.

The final snips to what is illusory and inevitably disappointing and heartbreaking in relationship and elsewhere are just about ready. All those who have come before, who have pined and wept over their sweet and wonderful dreams unceremoniously crushed, are about ready now, too.

Mercury enters Sagittarius November 8 (whew!), joining Mars and Pallas and leaving Venus, the Sun and Vesta transiting our old pal Scorpio. (Except that Venus dips back into Libra November 7 for the last stretch of it's retrograde, re-entering Scorpio direct November 29.)

Venus goes direct November 18, the same day Jupiter goes direct in late Pisces. This is also a reliever, and we can start looking forward to Venus entering Sagittarius January 7 and Jupiter re-entering Aries January 22. That's a fiery blast forward that should be very welcome.