A Plutonic Sea Goat Stellium Carries Us Into 2013

Photo: Willow

 

As we move through winter solstice and the northern hemisphere officially tips back toward the Sun, the heavily-charged year of 2012 comes to a close with a conjunction between the Sun and Lord of the Underworld Pluto in Capricorn, exact December 30. The End Times hangover starts to dig in here.

Huh. We're still here. And we still have the same problems to deal with on this planet. Imagine that.

As Ascension Fever starts to lift and the pumped-up End Times mania peters out, the stark situation we're faced with on this planet is lit up as 2012 closes, brought right into our current, conscious moment by the Sun-Pluto conjunction. There can be no denying it. We're staring straight into the heart of the beast. And the complexity of the root system sustaining its life is absolutely staggering.

At the same time, we're also quite aware at this time that we're not alone with it. We're possibly more aware of this than ever before. Soul mate asteroid Juno is in Capricorn, taking part in a sea goat stellium with Mercury, the Sun, and Pluto. We know now that there are people who see what we see, who understand what we understand. There are people facing down this beast all over the globe - the others who have not stopped, who have not let up.

We may seem to be physically alone in our travails. We may not see a single living soul around who seems to understand. But we do form a framework and a root system of our very own, one that is ultimately unbreakable, unshakable. We're working toward the same goals, however we go about it.

Turning the vicious plans of the global financiers ass over teakettle. Slipping out of multiple layers of control mechanism driving us into (continued) hell on Earth. Breaking free, one down and dirty Plutonic realization at a time. Freeing energy and re-directing resources toward the improvement of conditions on this planet while moving out of the structures built and reinforced by dinosaurs.

Our Juno soul mates can also be of the highly frictional variety right now, getting under our skin, showing us the extent of the obstacles in our way. These people and situations are the thorns in our sides, showing us the type of commitment and the degree of hard work it's going to take to make progress and to achieve goals under these conditions.

There are Juno in Capricorn soul mates out there now who are vying for our spot, ready to knock our feet out from under us, ready to capitalize on our hard work. These soul mates give us the competitive edge now, showing us where we need to fortify, where we need a more honed strategy, where we could use more solid footing, where we need to put in a bit more work.

If there's one piece of advice to glean from our lady Juno in the sign of concrete, hard-won achievement disposited by Saturn in Scorpio, it's this: don't let people climb the mountain you've built. Make them build their own.

We can sidestep most of the crap during Capricorn season if we successfully combine Plutonic awareness of competitors with strategy.

With old school Capricorn, it isn't simply about getting to the top of the heap. It's about staying there once you've arrived. There's often a lot of fear with that sign related to maintaining position, maintaining dominance, maintaining control.

At this point, though, keeping all that fear up is more trouble than its worth.

Goats kept by farmers often have structures put in their pens. Goats like structures and obstacles to climb. If you watch them interacting, one goat will climb to the highest vantage point it can. For a moment, it's the King of the World. Then another goat comes along, a rival, and topples that goat from its lofty perch. Then another comes along and does the same thing. Then the original goat is back in the game, reclaiming its spot. And so on.

The themes here, missing from a lot of the Capricorn of the day, are playfulness, fluidity, a natural organization and re-organization of power and responsibility - even while working earnestly to thwart competitors.

It's really not that big a deal, Cap. You can be the goat at the top of the heap one day and the one at the bottom of the heap the next. It doesn't really matter. You're still the same goat. And maybe you'll realize you don't care about climbing those stinking heaps anymore, anyway.

See, with Pluto transiting Capricorn, the societal definitions of success are slowly morphing. The agreed-upon pinnacles of public prowess are shifting. The things considered prestigious now and in the future are not necessarily the same as they once were.

At a certain point, we barely recognize the old indicators. They become parody. (Weren't they always, when you get right down to it?)

So what, sitting on top of a heap of dirty money is no longer considered the height of success?

Playing every dirty trick in the book as you rise to the top is no longer considered best business practise?

A cookie cutter McMansion is no longer the prime housing situation?

Plastic, fake-tanned Real Housewife isn't the most strived-for look?

Driving your gas-guzzling Escalade to the corner store no longer wins admiration?

Well, it might. But only from people who have their heads wayyyy up their own asses.

As we hurtle headlong into weird and wild Aquarius, the hierarchies are leveling - if we facilitate this. Transformer dwarf planet Pluto in Capricorn is changing the rules of the game. It's changing the Capricorn game altogether.

There's really no need to topple anyone from any mountain if we all have our own to climb. If we're in competition, ultimately, with ourselves. Beating our own best scores and improving on our own best results. The old school Capricorn attachments to "success" and "prestige" and public image and turning the competition into pulp become tiring detritus, easily sloughed off, easily seen through with the Plutonic X-ray vision.

All you have to do is change the rules of the game, and suddenly the hierarchies that seemed set in stone, the dangling carrots that seemed so coveted, the people who seemed so enviable by so many - no longer are.


The Sun conjuncts Pluto December 30.
Mercury conjuncts Juno January 4.
Mercury conjuncts Pluto January 6.
Juno conjuncts Pluto January 14.
Venus conjuncts Pluto January 17.
Venus conjuncts Juno January 17.

Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays From Willow's Web Astrology!

The Sun entered tropical Capricorn at 5:12 a.m. Central Standard Time this morning, marking winter solstice in the northern hemisphere. We now officially tip back toward the Sun and daylight hours start to increase. Always a nice day to observe.

I'm taking a break from doing readings next week for the holidays. 

 

All the best to you and yours for the holidays and for 2013 from the winter wonderland that is Saskatchewan! And yes, these pictures were taken during broad daylight.

 The faeries are hibernating

Hoar frost on the cottonwoods

 

  Winter landscape painting

 

 

Winter farmscape

Photos: Willow

 

 

 

Avoiding the Mindfuckery Hangover of the Mercury Square to Neptune and Chiron

Photos: Willow

The Mercury in Sagittarius square to Neptune in Pisces was the dominant aspect during the most recent Mercury retrograde (November 6 to 26). This aspect was exact at the Blood Moon Full Moon in Taurus on October 29, at the Alpha Snake New Moon eclipse in Scorpio on November 13, and again on December 11, just before the Sagittarius New Moon and the events in Newtown, Connecticut.

 

This is Mercury (the mind, communication, information, media) in hard aspect to Neptune (deception, illusion, permeation, confusion, fog), and we are seeing a hyped-up manufacturing of reality through mass media channels.

I don't care what the foo foo astrologers are telling you. Neptune can be one of the nastiest influences in astrology. Conjunct wounded healer Chiron, its influence is even more potentially devastating. Mercury can be a little bastard itself, and the combination of Mercury in Sagittarius in hard aspect to Neptune and Chiron in Pisces has been screwing with our heads for a good while now. The long retrograde in Scorpio helped us to disentangle some of the dynamics, but it also held the strong possibility that we would become straight-up obsessed and consumed by them.

From a previous post:

"The wacky, dominance-hungry occultists will be drawing all sorts of nasty energy onto the planet through this [Scorpio] New Moon, all hot and bothered over the serpent imagery. The myths talk about a period of snake-worship secretly brought to Earth. Under worship of the God of the snakes, this period brings evil, crime, unhappiness, bad weather, and death. Stirring up hell for the people.

Detrimental trajectories will be set by some coming out of this New Moon, and with a Mercury-Neptune square strongly colouring the proceedings, there is a tendency to be unknowingly drawn in.

Mercury in Sagittarius will be exactly square Neptune in Pisces on the day of the Taurus Full Moon (October 29), and it will retrograde into this exact square again on the day of the Scorpio New Moon (November 13). This one is working us over a bit...

The Mercury-Neptune squares have "glamourous, media-driven mindfuck" written all over them. But it's more than that. It's psychic media. It's messages sent through those channels. Manipulation of mass psychic energy and impressions. The power of suggestion, particularly from those considered glamourous, star-like, special, heroic, truth-telling - but also in our day-to-day interactions. Communication that attempts to slip things by us. Chatty deception.

Watch the stories and narratives being furthered at this time. The mass media drones on in new frequency, as does the pseudo-alternative media. Diversionary "exo-political" stories supposedly telling us what's really going on on this planet open into new chapters. New Age gurus shape shift into something more hip to the now. Snake oil alchemically transforms into something delicious, tantalizing, and **NEW**.

That's what people are always searching for, isn't it? Something **NEW**?

**NEW** and improved versions of fascist spiritualism, including in the political realms, will be "trending," to use the vernacular. "Swallow this very old product with the exciting new flavouring down whole."

Neptune is stationing to go direct November 11 at zero Pisces, permeating the atmosphere with its wool-over-eyes themes and ensuring the Kool-Aid is especially potent. People can be very impressionable over the next few weeks, very easily led and misled. Ideas can be planted en masse. Things can be slipped by. Consensus reality is particularly malleable and can be manufactured and shaped to benefit certain factions."

The events of Newtown, Connecticut, like those of Aurora, Colorado, are being projected through mass media into the minds of the people, permeating the collective psyche with images, impressions, emotions, trauma. And fog. Lots of fog.

We've had those socked-in grey-white skies that have become so familiar, along with fairly dense fog since the Sagittarius New Moon. Fog is not often experienced here. Definitely not for almost a week, and definitely not in December. It's something I intuitively pinpoint as a man-made effect related to frequency.

It's like a smoke machine. Like the smoke machine that is filling the collective psyche right now.

At the tail-end astrological Piscean era, we're tired. Our empathy, our sympathy, our emotional and psychic faculties are pretty much tapped at this point. They've been beaten up and over-stimulated by all the horror that has gone on and continues to go on, piped into our living rooms and into our minds via mass media channels. On top of all the 2012/End of the World stuff that has been implanted over the past few years, we're at the saturation point. We're at December 21.

And the people who direct the media channels know this.

The constant bombardment by dead children, shocked and grieving parents, and traumatized Newtown citizens is a media display designed to permeate our minds so we can't think about anything else. It's designed to overload, to burn out the last of our empathy and sympathy on this one over-saturated, sensationalized event. It's designed to create emotional catatonia and burnout - a very malleable state.

I'm not downplaying the horror or the tragedy of Newtown. But the truth is, some similar horror goes on, and is intentionally brought down, in some area of the world on a weekly basis.

The events going on now are tied in to the Alpha Snake New Moon conjunct unfortunate fixed star Unukalhai (Alpha Serpentis). That New Moon triggered Adam Lanza's highly-stressed natal Pluto in Scorpio, and it ushered in another wave of ruthless violence and murder.

Events like those in Newtown and Aurora might be going on in seemingly random places in seemingly random ways, but they really aren't. These events are tied to the same root as violence  being brought down all around the world. It's tied to the same interests, to the same people, to the same money.

There's an inevitability related to what's going on, and if you see the events of Newtown and Aurora in context, side-by-side with other violent events going on around the world, you see that they are not really random at all but rather, par for the course.

Thirty Palestinian children were killed by Israeli bombs in one week in November coming out of the Alpha Snake Scorpio New Moon.

Twenty U.S. children have just been killed in a school shooting following the Sagittarius New Moon.

The children from Newtown are memorialized on mass media channels by weeping parents. We see the children's pictures, their sweet faces. We know their names and their favourite things to do. But the Palestinian children, and the children like them, remain the nameless, faceless. These are tragedies of equal measure in my mind, but not in the minds of most these days. And they're connected.

There is a strong "as long as me and mine are OK, everything's fine" ethic in the Cancer Sun nation of the United States of America. A grand case of "look the other way-itis." It really doesn't work that way. You can't perpetuate horrific violence and horror in certain areas of the world but claim other areas off limits. This is a Pisces lesson it would behoove the masses to grasp at the tail-end astrological Piscean era: If one area's in the shit, we're all in the shit, and it's only a matter of time before certain events start erupting that are tied in to the dynamics.

Events like Aurora and Newtown.

As the Neptunian Newtown fog machine keeps chugging along, leading every news program, the masses are diverted, perhaps, from a few other events going on on the planet. The LIBOR banking scandal. The mobilization of the United States for more war. The New Great Depression, still isolated to a relatively small test group. All this is connected.

You're being played. We're being played.

And the only way to see through the fog is to use our own eyes, our own minds, our own intuition. Sharing information and collecting the pieces of the puzzle together.

Don't feel guilty about shutting their media display off (though bits and pieces of the puzzle can be gleaned from it). It's a mockery. We're being mocked, and the innocent dead are being mocked.

We can do better on our own.

Adam Lanza: Another Pluto in Scorpio Overloaded

NOTE: There is now good evidence that the Sandy Hook shootings did not happen. You can take the article that follows as a commentary on the very real pressures on the Pluto in Scorpio generation. It's possible Adam Lanza died one day before Sandy Hook.

On December 14, coming out of the Sagittarius New Moon, a 20-year-old male named Adam Lanza reportedly entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut and shot and killed 27 people, including 20 children, and then himself.

Lanza's mother was a teacher at the elementary school and had also been found dead in her home.

Adam Lanza's birth date has been listed as April 22, 1992. According to news reports, he was an honour student, and a family member has told media he had been diagnosed with a form of autism. One of his old classmates told the press, "You could tell he was a genius." Lanza's parents divorced in 2009 when he was 17.

When an event like this happens, people always say, "I don't understand how someone could do something like this."

I can.

I don't like it. I don't justify or condone it. I know it's wrong. But I understand how a person could be pushed to the point where they hate society so much that they could do this. And I think the mainstream has to start looking at this if we're going to change things.

There are obviously a lot of factors involved in shootings like these. The underlying culture of neverending war and violence in the United States, so implanted in the psyches of citizens from birth on, is part of it.

For me, it also comes back to the way "outsiders" are treated by the mainstream society. An outsider who has autism (some form of "neurological diversity") along with an above-average intelligence level, for example.

I know how cruel people and society can be toward people who don't fit in, and I know what that can do to a person. If you don't feel that you belong or that you can ever enjoy the benefits of "normal" society the way other people can, it's easy to dissociate from it, to hate it, and to even want it destroyed.

Especially when you're in your teens and twenties. And especially when you have a highly-stressed natal Pluto in Scorpio.

The Myth of the Apolitical Astrologer

From a previous post:

"There are belief systems, allegiances, motivations, and traditions underlying anyone's practise of astrology, and Saturn in Scorpio is a time to be very clear on that."

It's important to realize at this time that the personal is political. It doesn't matter if you don't vote, if you can't tell left-wing from right, or if you prefer Big Bang Theory reruns to the nightly news. The decisions people make on a daily basis about what to do, what to say, and how to live their lives are political.

Astrologers are no different.

There's no such thing as purely objective astrology, just as there's no such thing as purely objective journalism. There are always forces shaping the information and perspectives that are put forth, as well as determining which information and perpectives are not put forth.

An astrologer who chooses not to touch the controversial sociopolitical issues of the times is making a personal political choice just as an astrologer who chooses to write and speak about them is.

Though I'm sure most professional astrologers, like me, are careful not to infuse paid readings with heavy personal politics, how an astrologer interprets certain placements or transits is most certainly political. There is a basic foundation for astrology, but beyond those basics, it's open to interpretation.

There's a lot of hiding and glossing over of personal politics and true personal perspective going on in the astrology of the day.

Part of this comes about due to the strong New Age beliefs running through much of it. The idea often promoted by the New Age is that "politics is unenlightened."

"Poverty, war, social justice issues - those are all 3D, man. That's density. We're 5D! We're so beyond all that, it's not even a part of our reality."

Yeah. Right.

Any astrologer who wants to keep up their New Age herd will be careful to tiptoe around sociopolitical issues that could be considered "negative," "dark," or "a bummer" by the brethren.

Even among non-New Age astrologers, though, there is a lot of whitewashing of personal politics and perspective. A lot of astrologers choose not to say how they really feel about things so as not to alienate their followers, supporters, or paid customers.

Others take a middle-of-the-road stance so carefully crafted to be benign that it basically says nothing. This is especially the case with astrologers who attempt to sustain "The Astro Empire" - mass popularity among the relatively few people interested in astrology.

The fact of the matter is, personal politics influences astrology, as does the whitewashing of personal politics, and this is true for even the most cookbook of astrologers. This has been somewhat hidden, but with Saturn transiting Scorpio, things hidden beneath the surface will be drawn out into our concrete, in-your-face realities.

Underlying personal politics, beliefs, allegiances, motivations, and alliances strongly influence the astrology of the day, but as long as that influence remains hidden, we're working with a very skewed astrological landscape.

Beautiful Resurrections

Venus transiting Scorpio has resurrected (Scorpio) my jewellery-making mojo (Venus) after a substantial hiatus, which has been surprising and very nice. You can see some of the new pieces along with the old at Weeping Willow Designs.

 

I also discovered that my silver company - which announced its closure due to the high price of silver last year - has been resurrected and is back in business after a move to California. This is a very nice expression of Saturn in Scorpio: the resurrection of businesses once thought dead. The turbulence and changes we're going through certainly have the possibility of kicking up surprising reversals of fortune.

So after thinking the jewellery factory that is me had been officially retired, there is the possibility of a continuance. I won't be getting back to Art of My Heart-style factory output, but a little retirement gig here and there would be nice.

Mercury is currently moving direct through the final degrees of its retrograde shadow in Scorpio, just past a conjunction to the North Node. The jewellery is handmade (Mercury), and I'm using other people's resources (beads) to do it (Scorpio). I've also been using beads that were given to me as gifts, which is always special.

Uranus is stationing direct. We're heading into the Dark of the Moon in Scorpio ahead of Thursday's potent, post-eclipse season Sagittarius New Moon. Jupiter is conjunct Black Moon Lilith in Gemini. And we have those Yods making things a little edgy and a lot weird.

Finding a productive outlet for the jingly jangly energy is important. Keep your hands busy whenever you can, and stay out of Mercury in Scorpio worst-case-scenario thinking. Touch things. Nice things. Like pretty rocks or crystals or other things that can take a charge.

The tensions break a little coming out of the Sagittarius New Moon December 13.

Yods, Oddness, and Awkward Social Angles Create Breakthroughs in Understanding Through April 2013

The astrological configuration dominating the skies for the first third of 2013 is the Yod. Two very prominent Yod configurations are forming now and will be in effect into late April 2013.

These configurations are very strong at both the December 2012 solstice and the March 2013 equinox, with exact aspects forming at those times and transiting personal planets further activating the configurations.

Yods are configurations made up of three bodies forming two difficult quincunx aspects (150 degrees) and one supportive sextile (60 degrees). The aspect lines form a skinny triangle.

The first Yod forming now, Yod A, involves Saturn in Scorpio sextile Pluto in Capricorn as the base of the triangle with both bodies quincunx Jupiter in Gemini, which is the apex of the triangle.

Yod A, December 22, 2012 - click to enlarge



The second Yod, Yod B, involves Uranus in Aries sextile Jupiter in Gemini as the base of the triangle with both bodies quincunx Saturn in Scorpio, which is the apex of the triangle. Yod B is somewhat loose currently but tightens around March equinox.

Yod B, December 22, 2012 - click to enlarge



Complicated doesn't begin to describe the subtext these days.

The apex of a Yod - where it is pointing - is often referred to as the "finger of God." The body at the apex is generally considered the key to the successful navigation of the configuration.

In this case, though, we have one finger of God pointing to Jupiter in Gemini and one finger of God pointing to Saturn in Scorpio.

One finger points to expansion, broadening of horizons, interaction, movement, inspiration, enthusiasm, and activity. The other points to restriction, withdrawal, sober second thought, grounding, conservatism, and seriousness.

Jupiter wants to make a big splash with a boisterous expenditure of energy while Saturn wants to stay firmly on the downlow, conserving every last iota. Each placement horrifies the other, to a certain extent.

We're working with two different layers of energy dynamics here.

In Yod A, the base of the Yod - the sextile between Saturn and Pluto - could create a real Debbie Downer effect. Though this is a supportive aspect, things can become too concentrated here, too serious, too severe, too dark. Things could get downright miserly. We could become too much of a closed circuit, finding ourselves in a state of deep, dark, 'cabin fever' stale. If we're too strongly confined by this Saturn-Pluto vortex, the relieving point becomes Jupiter in Gemini: Get some fresh air flowing. Get out there in the world. Talk to people. Enjoy yourself. Move around in your neighbourhood. Search for some new stimulation, some new ideas, some new conversations. Talk about mundane daily affairs. Keep things light. Find out what people are talking about. Discover a new interest.

On the other hand, in Yod B, the base of the Yod - the sextile between Uranus in Aries and Jupiter in Gemini - could create way too much stimulation. This one can put our brains on overdrive. New ideas could be bouncing around and popping in our heads like popcorn kernels heated by a lightning strike. Over-the-top excitement about the future and an overwhelming drive to move forward could be coursing through our systems, making wheels spin. If we're being charged up with too much Jupiter-Uranus energy, the relieving point then becomes Saturn in Scorpio: Slow down. Wait. Get your feet back on the ground. Get serious about everything that has to be resolved before you go bounding forward. Understand that your big ideas are going to take time to develop and that a lot of them will burn out before they even get off the ground. Adopt more of a "show me the money" stance before you go off half-cocked.

Yods aren't comfortable configurations, as they involve two quincunxes, which are probably the most awkward aspect in astrology.