Pallas Athene Square Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius Ahead of the Venus Retro

Feminine warrior spirit asteroid Pallas Athene is coming to the end of her long ten-month journey through the wild and woolly realms of Scorpio and squares Neptune and Chiron, conjunct in retrograde motion at 26 Aquarius, to cap it off.

Pallas squares Neptune-Chiron today and for the rest of September, entering Sagittarius October 7 just before Venus goes retrograde.

Pallas Athene, please take a bow. My hat goes off to you in this sign. You had a tough row to hoe but miraculously did what you had to do and came through it.

The Moon in Taurus opposes Pallas in Scorpio later today and also squares Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius forming a fast-moving fixed T-square. We get a quick reality check here, and grounded Autumnal reality does its magical thing, keeping us attuned to real possibilities rather than the often energetically disastrous style-over-substance false Neptunian kind.

Working with our intricate emotional states, carrying things through and honouring every part even when it's not easy, can help us to finally put wounding Neptunian illusions/delusions to bed as we work with the potency of tail-end Pisces. Those tail-end smoke and mirrors effects that tempt us to fall for the old ploys, going through the wrong door to the wrong people and making us into that sillier, more naive, self-sabotaging version of ourselves. Let's not go back there, shall we? Looking these tendencies in ourselves square-on (and most of us have them), together, and following them firmly out the door (latch locked behind) is the way to discharge them for good. We'll have plenty of practice here as Mars, Eros, the Moon, the Sun, Vesta, Mercury and Venus follow into the very same square Pallas in Scorpio leads us through right now.

This especially has to do with our concepts of the future (Aquarius), as collective hopes and dreams here have been inflated and pumped full of Neptunian ether by last spring's triple conjunction of Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron at this very degree of Aquarius.

There's a fine line between being reality-based and stomping on our dreams to the point that the future does not seem worth living. With Jupiter and Uranus both retrograding through late Pisces, the bottom drops out frequently and the icy fingers of despair can creep up and take hold whenever we go too far into the tail-end Piscean void.

The Sun and Saturn in Libra challenge us to fend off the despairs by connecting with other people and with the things that bring us pleasure. The people and pursuits that make this life worth living, despite all the fuzzy lollipop ends it has to dish out.

But then there is such thing as going too far into that territory, too. Ah, Libra. You're not as sweet and simple as people would like to think.

At the same time, being honest about the realities on this planet - especially, with Scorpio strongly in the mix, emotional/psychological/psychic realities - is absolutely essential. Anyone insisting that all is hunky dory at this point in human history either has zero understanding of anything outside their own privileged existence or is driven by fearful denial, willing to do anything to stay separate from the more difficult aspects of living and loving in these times.

Mercury has just cleared its retrograde shadow in Virgo, which should kick off some progress and untangle some delays. The combination of Pluto and Mercury stationing direct at the same time on September 12/13 was not a good time in my world. The Plutonic fetal-position terrors combined with Virgoan worry and mental stress are not much of a good time for anyone.

But today, my internet connection has finally been restored. I'm getting a new key to the building that actually works (soon-ish, anyway). And my speaking software arrived by courier today - even though our intercom to let people into the building is not working. At this point, I take what I can get as far as progress goes.

This means that once I figure it out (and provided it works with my free word processing program), I will be able to do e-mail readings while saving my wrists.

My astro article is coming out in the October 1 Phoenix File, also. If interested, you can check it out or subscribe via the link on the right sidebar.

Full Moon at Zero Aries in Cardinal T-Square Formation and The Difficulty of Being Ourselves in Tense Financial Times

So my first week-and-a-half in this new city has been an almost constant case of clusterfuck-itis. Very coloured by the fact that Pluto and Mercury were stationing direct on the day I came into town. I moved in on a notoriously ill-advised day astrologically, but sometimes you can't avoid it. It's as if the universe needs you to throw yourself to the wolves to work with the heavy vibes and crossed wires and infuriating delays and glitches. Like it's your duty or something. 

My internet situation is half-solved. The account has been transferred into my name. But I have to wait until Monday until it is physically changed over and I can reset the wireless password so that I can actually use my computer - rather than the cyber cafe one I'm using at the moment. 

My front door key is not working properly, despite having it recut. So I'm waiting for my new landlady to cut me one from the master, and hopefully that will work. Not being able to get into your new home easily is not a welcoming feeling. 

My roommate is also trying to complete some things with her ex which is making for an odd energy. 

It's like multiple layers of loggerheads we're trying to inch our way out of, and the astrology reflects it. 

All in all, I'm feeling very unhinged and unsettled and, true to the South Node in Cancer, have to fight the urge to pine for the farm, for my old, comforting dreams and for my old life in my old city. The one that doesn't exist anymore. I know there's no going back, but it's hard to inform your ragged emotions of that after yet another Plutonic shattering of familiar ways. I know a lot of us are in similar situations. 

The Aries Full Moon really just highlights the very uncomfortable emotional territory we're in right now. The Moon was full early this morning at zero Aries, opposing the Sun just after it ingressed Libra late last night, marking Fall Equinox. The Full Moon opposition happens in tight square to Pluto in Capricorn, forming - you guessed it - a potent cardinal T-square on the early cardinal degrees. Crisp new directions. 

Throughout the day today, the Moon moves from an opposition to the Sun, to a square to Pluto to an opposition to Saturn. Not the smoothest of emotional sailing. I don't see the tension kicked off by the cardinal T-squares this summer letting up grandscale until late November after Venus and Jupiter station direct and the Sun enters Sagittarius, so get your wiggle room and take your breathers wheresoever you can. 

The Sun in Libra moves to a square to Pluto in Capricorn Saturday. This weekend is dynamic but testy, and we're challenged to shed rough ego edges about the way we would like things to be versus the way they are actually going. There's not much arguing with Pluto in Capricorn these days - maybe not until Ceres enters Capricorn next month. 

The Sun continues to a conjunction with Saturn September 30, and that conjunction takes place in exact square to the North Node in Capricorn. More emphasis on making our way up the rocky mountain face with every false step seeming devastatingly detrimental. There is fear here. Our path forward involves partnering successfully with other people, but the conditions for doing so are difficult, to say the least. 

At the same time, we have Jupiter and Uranus in tight conjunction in late Pisces and Neptune and Chiron in tight conjunction in late Aquarius. Semi-sextile in that Pisces-to-Aquarius-eras formation. 

For all the cardinal energy we've got going on, the path forward is certainly not clear. Decisions are cranked out here heavily and testily amidst confusion and sometimes-paralyzing personal and collective anxiety. The power of being ourselves is what's coming up for me here - as well as the element of emotional survival related to that. Finding a place where we can take our place alongside others without stifling in us the very things that make life worth living. 

I've been exploring the city a bit and found a building devoted to the arts near where my roommate works. There was an interesting woman having a smoke out front. She was dressed in black and had long, white hair pulled into a ponytail and a slightly aggravated artist's look on her face. She looked as if she knew the score. I decided to come back another day and traipsed through the building with my resume hoping for a chance encounter with a like-minded soul that would lead to a small job. I didn't find the encounter I was hoping for, but I did find a magazine office that publishes a local mag. 

Most of the other offices were closed because it was lunch hour, but there was a woman eating her lunch in this office, and I left my resume with her - oddly, even though she told me there were no jobs at this particular office. 

She e-mailed me later asking if she could give me a tip about my resume. I knew right away she wanted to advise me to drop the astrology. I was right. She told me that if I wanted a job in publishing, I would have to tailor my resume to the publishing field. Fair enough. I would agree. The main problem was that I went into that building not specifically knowing I would be applying with a publisher. I was just looking for that connection with a like-minded creative soul. The woman told me that she does reiki and takes whole foods cooking classes and such but that she would never list them on her resume. She also recommended that I advertise in the "local new agey type of newspaper." (Funny. I'll forgive her for that one. But you see how astrology is automatically and unfortunately associated with New Age in most people's minds?) 

She said if she were looking for a person with admin skills, she wouldn't bother to read past 'astrologer' on the resume. She meant well, and her criticisms were valid. But it struck me that they were from a paradigm I don't care to belong to anymore. 

But the screws are tightening, aren't they? The commitment to being ourselves and taking our own paths while still working within (or around) the mainstream structures is difficult. As people are starved of money and opportunities, the bleakness of subverting yourself and re-entering a rigid, colourless, corporate world becomes more of a possibility. 

Working the spaces between is the only way we can honour the demands of both - making a financial living while still honouring our creative flames and flow. But damn, it's tricky. 

I know we can work this alchemical process of Venus-Eros-Mars in Scorpio sextile Pluto-Ceres-North Node in Capricorn and meld things into a new form - one that lights up the vitality in everyone so that it becomes the driving force within the Plutonically morphing structures. But it sure can be disheartening at times if you catch a glimpse of the hugeness of the job. I guess that's the thing about Capricorn. You just eke out one step at a time when it seems safe to do so. That's how we get the sea back into the sea-goat.

Getting My Bearings with Some New Coordinates

Well, I'm now watching chemtrails being sprayed over a new city!

You can't escape them really. I was on a farm in super rural Saskatchewan about ten days ago having a campfire in the front yard when I heard an engine. I looked up and saw a big, fat chemtrail floating overhead. Thirty seconds later, I looked up again and saw a second one forming a giant X right over the yard. X marks the spot?

Weird times we're living in.

Anyway, some Virgoan housekeeping: contrary to what I originally thought, I'm still at the same e-mail address (willowsweb@shaw.ca) and will be for the foreseeable future.

I'm also on Central Daylight Time now, instead of Mountain, so the times for aspects and ingresses in future posts will be in that time zone.

I've had a difficult transition so far, but I have a big, juicy post in the works. I've been working on a borrowed laptop or at an cyber cafe due to internet problems at my apartment. I'm not sure why I chose to move into the city with both Pluto and Mercury stationing direct, but I got caught in the aftermath of my roommate's ex moving out and the subsequent transfer of telephone and internet has not gone smoothly.

I'm hoping to have this solved by early next week when I will again be available for readings.

The Sun is moving through late Virgo opposite Jupiter Rx and Uranus Rx in Pisces making those last Virgoan details and the remaining Saturn in Virgo hangover very tedious and stressful to deal with. There are certain things (many things) that are simply out of our control, and with Jupiter-Uranus in Pisces opposite a Virgo Sun, this is very apparent. The universe has a mind of its own, which does not work so well with the sensitive nervous temperament of Virgo energy.

We're only a couple days from the Sun entering Libra and Fall Equinox, though, which will be a welcome shift.

The following day, September 23, we have a Full Moon at zero degrees Aries - the first of two book-end Aries Full Moons on the zero degree and the anaretic (29th) degree next month. This emotionally culminates the initial Aries seed time this summer with the cardinal t-square and Jupiter and Uranus in early Aries. It also culminates the previous Venus retrograde cycle in Aries ahead of the upcoming one in Scorpio.

The Sun will conjunct Saturn at the end of this month, and I think that will be a nice, solidifying aspect after a stressful cardinal t-square dominated summer.

Drawing From the Venus in Scorpio Vault

When the sign of Scorpio is prominent something is changing from one state to another. As Venus transits and retrogrades in Scorpio over the next four months (September 8 - January 7, 2011), Eros, Mars, the Moon, the Sun and Mercury will also pass through, keeping the Scorpionic state-changing process in the astro headlines. 

Under the astrological lens, we all have Scorpio in our charts, just as we have all 12 signs/energies/functions represented. If you have a strong Scorpio/Pluto contingent represented by planets, points, transits or aspects in your natal chart, the transformational changes in state will be ongoing and a much stronger, deeper theme in life - relating to a longer-term process of pressurizing and purging, tending and melding to continually wrest something truer and more to our soul's liking for growth and divine alignment from the elements with which we have to work on this planet. 

Wherever Scorpio lies in your chart is the area that will be undertaking this alchemical transformation over the next four months. With Venus, Eros and Mars involved, it is coming about through alchemical changes in relationship and relationship dynamics. The way we relate is ready to change. This especially involves underlying male/female and masculine/feminine energetic exchanges and dynamics, as well as money, value, self-worth, beauty and needs - especially emotional and sexual needs. 

Certain figure eight energy dynamics we've been ingrained into in the past must now be re-routed. Certain crystallized emotional pathways and roles we've been conditioned to take - or have allowed ourselves to be placed in again and again for the convenience of others - must be shed through conscious effort and use of will. Certain attractions and relational tracks we've taken again and again that prove not to meet our deepest needs must finally be moved beyond. The societal concept of relationship in general, especially love partnership, is undertaking a massive maturation process with Saturn's transit of Libra. 

As a culture, North America has a very juvenile idea of what love and partnership mean along with an often energetically irresponsible use of sexual energy, reinforced through media. As Saturn digs in in Libra, Neptunian-illusory versions of love relationship, beauty, money, sex and what our needs really are within relationship are dissipating quickly. As a culture, we're being forced to grow up quickly around these concepts. But after the initial sting, reality within relationship will become much more attractive and much more deeply sexy than facade versions we've been accepting and reinforcing. This is how we get to the true relational power we can wield together for grandscale collective change. 

These themes are hinted at now as brave warrior woman Pallas Athene, out way in front of the pack in Scorpio for the past nine months, prepares to square Neptune-Chiron in late Aquarius at the end of this month. 

Pallas is wielding her etheric sword in Scorpio and will puncture wounding illusory bubbles, many of which were pumped up and reinforced during the Aquarius triple conjunction of Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron May-July 2009. Neptune and Chiron have retrograded back to that degree. Now, as Pallas disconnects us from ties to the manipulative Neptunian illusions/delusions that can so easily be our downfall, we can dissolve them and come back to Earth - which is the truly healing path in the long run. Clearing them away is a process, however. Isn't it always? Pallas leads the way, but the themes grow in intensity October through December, coming to a head at various times during the Venus retrograde as the Moon, Mars, Eros, the Sun and Mercury also square Neptune-Chiron in late Aquarius. Especially feisty is a time period around October 22 when we power through the illusions with sheer strength of committed will as Mars-Eros square Neptune-Chiron. 

There is great healing potential through relationship with this Venus retrograde, but only if we're masterful with the energy, refusing to cheapen, dilute or downplay our experience as human beings at this time on this planet. Refusing to fall for the old tricks, the old detrimental attractions and the old plays on our hopes and dreams and the way we wish things were. 

To fortify ourselves for the journey ahead, I thought I would draw on some information previously posted since Mercury is retrograde in Virgo (going back over previous work). I sometimes find it fortifying to go back over pertinent information ahead of a big transit. 

In addition to a couple recent posts on the Venus retrograde ("Venus Trines Neptune-Chiron and Enters the Retrograde Shadow at 27 Libra" from September 2 and "Venus, Eros and Mars in the Via Combusta and Karmic Love Cleansing Through the Alchemical Fires" from August 25), here are some older excerpts: 

 A post from the second last time Venus transited Scorpio (September 23-October 18, 2008): "Venus in Scorpio, I Love Your Hardcore Ass! And Yet, You Make Me Want To Die...," October 7, 2008. 

"...we're the people who can never deny the dark and twisted elements of human experience. We see through the glossy, personality veneer right to the soul, right to the denied parts that people try to cover up and pretend don't exist. We see through the song-and-dance right to the hidden motivations of each individual we come into contact with. We know what they want from us and see the ways they're not being straight about getting it... Unlike other people, we can't pretend we don't know about this stuff. We can't pretend that we don't know you're trying to manipulate us. We can't pretend we don't see you doing the wrong thing and getting rewarded for it, gaining power from it. We can't turn a blind eye when we see you sucking other people dry and using their energy for personal gain... 

This is also why most Plutonic/Scorpionic-types can't stand the current "everything has to be happy, happy and positive" propaganda in the pseudo-spiritual circles. Scorpio knows negative and positive, light and dark, co-exist. They are yin and yang. To deny the dark and negative is to deny the realities of life. And it's this denial that actually gives the dark free rein to come out in ugly, twisted, unconscious ways - ways that can then be even further denied. 

When the masses insist that the dark doesn't exist, or that it doesn't exist IN THEM, it leaves a disproportionate amount of dark and ugly for the people who can't refuse its existence. In other words, it's just not fair, not balanced, when people refuse to accept and integrate the reality of light and dark co-existing. When people refuse to take responsibility for conscious awareness of the darker aspects of life and self, they leave a very skewed reality for those who know otherwise and can't bury their heads in the sand." 

And a post from the last time Venus transited Scorpio (November 7-30, 2009) "It's Been a Long Time Coming...And It STILL Ain't Here!" November 15, 2009. The Moon was conjunct Venus at the time of this post, just as it will be September 11. 

"The Moon in its dark phase came together with Venus this morning. A conjunction of the feminine planets, merging forces in the deep, dark sign of ancient soul knowledge, Scorpio. Feminine strength and its raw, powerful beauty - wounds, scars and all - holding its position as Saturn in Libra and Pluto in Capricorn square off in the first of three closing squares. Holding its position as the Old School Masculine believes it's divvying up the world and serving it on a silver platter to its cohorts at the top of their man-made pyramid-scheme hierarchies. Dividing it into dollars and cents, euros and yuans, rupees and dinars. 

All the raw, soul-deep Scorpio is squaring the triple conjunction in Aquarius and trining Uranus Rx in Pisces. Eyes on the future, eyes on the future is the constant refrain. But what about now? And what led up to now? It's been a hurtful trip to this Earth for many of us. A long succession of hurtful trips through the lineages. And we're supposed to believe a change is coming. That it's almost here. After lifetimes of dirt in our eyes and salt in our wounds, after being ground down and ground down until we barely had the strength to go on. After having the faith diminished to the tiniest pinprick of candlelight. After having what's right and good punished and abused and mocked for so long. 

Scorpio is intuition. The soul knowledge we kept inside and carried with us through generations like the most valuable of family heirlooms. Like the best china or lace or silver or pearls. Because it is the most valuable family heirloom. 

And we agreed. No, we'll never forget. We'll never give up. We'll continue despite derision and opposition and every dirty trick in the book. We'll use that derision and opposition and all those dirty tricks to get better and wiser and stronger and more effective. Until the change is here. Until we can see it with our own eyes and hear it with our own ears and taste it with our own tongues. And everyone who kept that promise, who kept his or her soul close, who protected the connection and the knowledge above all else and fought for that right in others, knows the struggle. 

We know it's the only battle worth fighting here on this beautiful little planet. 

Here's Beth Hart, an Aquarius Sun, singing about the real change - not the co-opted Obama-fied version: Beth Hart's A Change is Gonna Come 

It's an old song written by Sam Cooke that has been covered many times, but her version really captures the feeling of this Scorpio square to Aquarius and trine to Pisces to me. She's singing about all the times our hearts have been broken because the change didn't come. The sweet, child-like hope we had for it that was crushed so many times. And the times we went out on a limb for what was right and good and were left hanging because what was supposed to be there to support us wasn't. And she's singing about the never-say-die resolve. The sheer strength of will of what is right and good. The power of soul truth. And the love that is so strong it keeps us getting back on our feet to try again...and again. We can be thankful for the particular brand of Venus in Scorpio love here because with it, the heart has been broken and betrayed so many times that it won't be fooled again. Venus here is not an easy sell. Glossy words and social charms will never impress. Only the real change will suffice." 

From "Let's Be Thankful for Mercury Retrograde in Taurus Right Now," April 26, 2010. This also talks about the dynamics of a Scorpio Moon, which we will be experiencing as precursor to the Venus in Scorpio retrograde this Saturday, September 11. 

"The Moon wants to hold on, but Scorpio knows that to do so is death - at least soul death. So we have to be gentle but skillfully ruthless with any ways we've been conditioned to dish out or accept subtle mistreatment, severing ties to energetic dynamics that will never truly nourish us. There are themes of emotional deprivation/starvation here - and of fighting our way out of that and into truly nourishing territory. Psychic surgeon Scorpio, cutting away whatever snuffs us out emotionally so that the truly vital connections can strengthen and grow. It's a precise application now, more often working with people and relationships rather than simply cutting ourselves off from them altogether."

New Moon in Virgo and Clearing a Path

The Moon was new in Virgo early this morning, and we have a fresh chance to emerge from the Saturn in Virgo depressive hangover we've been dealing with as the Sun and Mercury retrograde transit the sign. Saturn may now be in early Libra, but the arduousness and trauma of the past two-and-a-half years of Saturn in Virgo opposing Uranus in Pisces are far from being a memory...

This New Moon is a final emotional paring away, and we're reminded of Saturn in Virgo's admonitions about keeping things clean and clear in our lives - physically, emotionally, etherically.

This means releasing excessive habitual reactions like worrying, stressing and criticising and holding that Virgoan tongue a bit more often. But it also means releasing the situations and people who make you into THAT person - the one who has to nag and take care of the details and point out where others are falling short and wreaking havoc. Masterful Virgo, when functioning correctly, works to do things right. This is often taken advantage of by the less masterful who don't have such exacting standards.

At this New Moon, with Saturn, Mars and Venus in Libra, we can release the people and situations who habitually use and abuse the Virgoan drive to service, simply sidestepping them. Here, we can streamline and precisely define just what it is we are responsible for along these lines post-Saturn in Virgo.

No going back into old habits or patterns under this Moon, though the pull to old territory and old emotional quagmires is definitely there.

We have a South Node in Cancer, keeping us craving old haunts, old faces, the enveloping comfort of times past. Cancer South Node sees things with a dangerous level of nostalgia, so we have to be careful not to be sucked into a selective memory retro view of 'the way things were.' In reality, there were no good old days. Hank Williams was twanging on the jukebox while black men were being dragged behind cars full of drunken good old boys. And obedient wives cried silently into their cake batter waiting for them to get home.

In other words, keep on trucking.

Venus enters Scorpio today, too, a sign often caked with old layers and sticky attractions that are no longer in our best interests. Ahead of Venus' retrograde (October 8 - November 18), there are plenty of half-grown-over mine shafts we could fall down again here in our interpersonal relations if we're not vigilant.

We know where the trip wires are. We just have to stay conscious and actively avoid them.

The Moon enters Scorpio early morning September 11, conjuncting Venus, and we have an initial emotional status report related to the territory we're going to be going through and then back over during Venus' retrograde.

Add to this astro climate Jupiter re-entering Pisces late tonight (hanging out there for the rest of 2010), a sign with many a haunting siren song tugging at our wistful and self-sabotaging rosey-hopeful parts, and cutting a path through the chaos with this Virgo New Moon truly puts our post-Saturn-in-Virgo skills to the test.

Pluto and Mercury are stationing direct trine in earth signs at the moment - Mercury goes direct in Virgo September 12, and Pluto goes direct in Capricorn September 13. Things are tight, and we're being held physically in place as the gears shift. Every word and every action is weighted this week, and only what's necessary is allowed.

Pluto is kicking up a big case of the fears at times, rumbling through our emotional and energetic bodies from the epicentres. Mercury in Virgo keeps us worrying about it all, so release the mental stress in controlled bursts rather than letting it build up and boil over - and help others do the same, if you can.

Peacemaking Versus Peacekeeping: Venus Trines Neptune-Chiron and Enters the Retrograde Shadow at 27 Libra

This might be a controversial assertion, but I don't think the sign of Libra alone is all that skilled in the creation of peace. Libra is the peacekeeper, maybe. But peacemaker? Peace creator? No.

Libra can often maintain, through it's slick social skills and airy diplomacy, a form of peace that has already been established, but getting to a state of real peace often involves getting into it, and Libra is a sign that, especially when squared by Cancer or Capricorn, prefers to avoid that unpleasantness.

This avoidance is problematic because getting to a real state of peace often involves complex and longstanding disputes, injustices, imbalances, hurts, and oppressions that have been hidden, covered over, smoothed over, let slide, reinforced - made worse, in fact, by Libra's glossing over of realities and nervous insistence on everything staying nicey nice.

Slapping a Band-aid on it and forcing a phony handshake over drinks without addressing underlying issues is not the recipe for true, longstanding justice or the peace that stems from that. Keeping everything Libra light and pleasant isn't really the goal when you get right down to it - getting to the root of the discord and injustice is, as well as to a mutual understanding of what caused and continues to cause this so it can be addressed and the chains broken.

The drawing up and divining sign of Scorpio, then, becomes instrumental in the process of peace creation. The road to peace might be initiated in cardinal air Libra, but it's fixed water Scorpio that digs in and takes the process beneath the surface, where it needs to go to be crystallized.

It's the catalytic power of expressing the raw human experiences of millenia of oppression on this planet, especially the emotional realities, that starts the process toward real peace, equality and harmony. If we can't get to and express the core realities, we don't get to any real healing, peace or understanding.

With Scorpio, there is right and wrong, good and evil, just and unjust - and these cut-and-dry distinctions can make Libra, which at times searches for common ground that does not exist, very uncomfortable. This is part of the reason why Venus, Libra's ruling planet, is considered to be in its detriment in Scorpio.

Well, folks, this is where we're headed as Venus crosses the threshold of its retrograde shadow September 5, entering Scorpio September 8 and not leaving until January 7, 2011. This is part of the massive challenge we're facing as Venus, Mars and Eros, and by October the Sun and Mercury, follow Pallas Athene through Scorpio post-cardinal t-square initiations. The deep cardinal initiations now require an even deeper recalibration process. We tunnel to the core of the situations, get to those ever-elusive brass tacks and break up past-related stagnance, spurring new pathways, new relational dynamics and the alchemical fusing of new partnerships as we enter 2011.

Scorpio is a sign that is, or rather, can become, fully aware of core realities and hidden dynamics, especially of the domination/subjugation variety. Skilled Scorpionic types (whether that be a strong Scorpio contingent, a strong Pluto, a strong 8th house or a combination) can feel a subtle energetic disruption most other people wouldn't have the radar to pick up, and they can follow that disruption right to the often stinking-to-high-heaven root cause, sussing out how things are going to go from there with sheer intuition.

They can understand the root causes of behaviour that other people would write off as bizarre or extreme - especially when that behaviour is an expression of collectively-reinforced repressive/oppressive dynamics. Scorpio understands that at a certain level of collective denial, the pressure on individuals cannot be contained any longer, and it erupts.

So people working in the Scorpionic realms are aware of underlying dynamics that other people are not - or refuse to be. They know the subtext, and this leaves them experiencing and transmuting way more than their equal share. In societies in full-blown denial of the fact that most of their wealth, comfort, power and prosperity (their privilege, period) come from the reinforced suffering of other living things, this means they often have to do their special brand of energy work without proper outlets or assistance in dealing with it - despite the collective origins.

Scorpio knows that things left unaddressed and festering too long, with a false and cloying Libra nicey nice facade thrown over top like cheap perfume, will eventually lead to the powder keg blowing in much more damaging ways. Unlike other signs that can slough them off or explain them away, the energetic disturbances and warning signs stick with Scorpio like thorns until it works them bit-by-bit to the surface to do their catalytic thing, and then out of the system. From experience, Scorpio knows that if there is discord or an 'off' feeling, there is generally a reason for it that needs to be addressed. So it attempts to address...even when those around it are doing everything in their power to stuff it back down and look the other way.

As the personal planets pass through this sign during the last quarter of 2010, the Scorpio area of people's charts is going to be lit up, stirred up, churned up, and everyone will be an honourary Scorpionic. Everyone will be an energy detective, a psychic sleuth, an alchemical surgeon, plumbing the watery depths of our interpersonal relationships. Yes, we're all going to get a big old dose of Scorpio now and for the next four months - even the professional deniers. Things are going to be coming to the surface. Mm hm. Boy, are they. Especially by the time the Sun shines its light in Scorpio and conjoins Venus October 28.

Scorpio is a sign that, at a certain point, simply cannot put up with any more bullshit - even when the people around it are happy to keep shovelling away. At a certain point, there is no more absorption of other people's garbage or denial or unconsciousness possible. At a certain point, Scorpio has been left holding one too many bags and has had one too many loads of crap dumped in its lap.

We're at that point now.

The magical purging and transmutation skills can only handle so much overload by those who are shirking their own responsibilities, and lines in the sand will be drawn here. We work on drawing those lines until the Sun-Venus conjunction October 28, and then we turn our attention to implementing them.

Scorpio reads the signs. It knows that small events and behaviours and comments and vibes are the tip of the iceberg with roots to much larger issues.

As Venus, Eros and Mars move through late Libra and into Scorpio (Venus September 8, Mars September 14, Eros September 15), the signs point to a massive uncovering, examination, purging and recalibrating in relational dynamics. There is some seriously rotten stuff being passed around by some seriously unconscious people...or maybe they're fully conscious of what they're doing, after all.

Retrogrades involve course corrections. Venus retrogrades involves course corrections in relationships, having needs met and money.

Read the signs in your own life, especially in relationships, and be proactive in following them to the roots and making changes as the retrograde progresses.

Whatever isn't right is keeping you from what is. Be brave. Prune your relations how they need to be pruned. Speak up. Don't look the other way and increase the already massive pressure on our relations at this point in human history. Release some of the pressure by earnestly digging in to the thorny issues that will be thrown up by this potent little transit of Scorpio and Venus retrograde.

Draw water and draw water and draw water again until it runs clear. Get closer and closer to your core truth, your core reality, and speak it, no matter what anyone else has to say about it. (If it evokes a "You're so negative/bitter/dark" reaction from a New Ager, you're in good standing.) Interact from that place so you will find yourself, at the end of this Venus retrograde, interacting with people who are closer to compatibility with your authentic soul self.

If you feel comradery, support those around you who are attempting to work some of those nasty thorns the collective refuses to acknowledge to the surface - especially when it deals with the dark feminine perspective. Help clear the path a little if you can for those who are struggling to bring some long-neglected aspects of the collective to the surface, pushing through immense constriction and opposition. Don't just put another boot in their face like most will.

Run the Via Combusta gauntlet by reading the signs in the human relations around you and avoiding the detritus that is not your's to deal with. There are plenty of energetic traps we can step around and emotional meltdowns we can avoid during this time if we masterfully heed our Scorpionic intuition.

Nowhere will these dynamics be more apparent in the relations and energy dynamics between men and women/the masculine and feminine.

Imbalanced and oppressive energy dynamics and power structures have been reinforced here for so long that most people do not even recognize them anymore. Feminism is an antiquated concept, right? No need for that any longer. We're EQUAL now.

So very conditioned the people are to accept the unacceptable and then smile about it...

Within the context of the tail-end Piscean era, we have the task of airing grievances that haven't been properly aired in centuries or millenia possibly, grievances that have all the subtlety and difficulty in expression you would expect from such complex, compressed and covered-over energy. Getting to the nitty gritty perspectives of the parties or groups involved and working outward from there toward peace is a time-and-energy-consuming, emotionally difficult, back-and-forth, hard-won process. Again, one that Libra is often not all that keen on taking on.

Saturn transiting Libra, though, is going to force the maturation of that sign's expression through challenges of this nature.

The Venus in Libra trines to Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius September 4/5, carried into the Venus retrograde and repeated not-quite-exactly as Venus stations direct November 18, will start to show anyone who has the courage to look how based in wounding illusion, coercion and domination many of the current versions of "peace" really are. Scratch the surface, and you will see a much different story.

With vigilance and the skillful use of the Scorpio energy, the catalyzing power of the truth about these facades can really gain traction.

On the other side of the coin, though, people will be using the trine energy to reinforce more of the same, creating the illusion of common ground where it does not exist. Watch for this personally and on the global stage, and don't allow yourselves to be drawn in. Any false bridges begun now will be dissolved (or blown up?) in early January when Venus, coming out the the Scorpio retrograde, squares Neptune-Chiron - but be very careful what you let pass until then.

With Neptune-Chiron involved, these dynamics will be highly apparent in the New Age paradigm. Where all is love and light until someone speaks a truth that doesn't fit into the carefully-manufactured and artificially-sustained world of pseudo-harmony.

Here we find the labelling and explaining away of anyone who has a difficult perspective or voice - one the generally socially privileged, white people populating the New Age cannot accept lest it burst their collective bubbles - as bitter, negative, self-hating or whatever makes them feel better and able to divide off, ostacize and alienate that which disturbs them.

It will become crystal clear to those with the eyes to see how New Age labelling, agenda-pushing, and pseudo-spiritual elitism has led to people getting farther and farther from their real voices - and from the honest expression of their experiences that will really start to get things done on this planet.

Keeping people speaking bland, ineffectual New Age 101 ideology on heavy-rotation, huffing dirty Neptunian false light energy until they're light-headed, and desperately looking for some sort of easy out is purposeful, of course. As is bullying people into abandoning their true experiences, their true voices, and the work of bringing the words of their experiences to the collective...

For a group of people who profess to shine so much light, they sure like to skip over the darkest corners, don't they?

I had an experience recently with one of the edgy brand of New Agers. This individual mis-represented himself to me as someone who shared my perspective so he could use me to publicly voice his own dissatisfactions with certain elements of the New Age establishment while keeping himself safely within its confines, never risking his status with the NA in crowd.

This experience showed me yet again how desperate the New Age establishment is to sustain itself into Aquarius, as the Piscean Age paradigm dries up. How devious its methods are in leeching new sources of energy from outside the New Age herd. It also reminded me how potent the New Age embedding really is - to the point that people can't (or won't) recognize it in themselves, though it boggles my mind how that could be.

The discord, the injustice, the swallowed oppressions are just thrown into the dumpster to be added to the trash heap. Fill one landfill of emotional/energetic garbage and just move on to another one.

But again, we're at tail-end Pisces, and the landfills are full to overflowing. There's no more room to throw away and worry about another day. Another day is here. Actually, it was here last week.

The work as Venus, Eros and Mars enter Scorpio is in the subtle, energetic realms. In the unspoken and the unseen...but felt. In the everyday relational oppressions and power imbalances. In the anger we rightfully experience and too often swallow. In the oppressions people stay silent about or gain benefit from...and thereby reinforce. In the falsity people accept and allow and reinforce to stay socially acceptable and likeable. The areas upon which people refuse to shine a light...

I can feel it coming. Can you?



September 4/5 - Venus in Libra trine Chiron-Neptune in Aquarius (26/27 degrees)
September 5 - Venus enters retrograde shadow (27 Libra)
September 8 - Venus enters Scorpio
September 14 - Mars enters Scorpio
September 15 - Eros enters Scorpio
October 8 - Venus stations retrograde (13 Scorpio)
October 19 - Ceres conjunct Pluto (2 Capricorn)
October 28 - Sun conjunct Venus (5 Scorpio) - discharge point
November 7 - Venus re-enters Libra
November 18 - Venus stations direct (27 Libra)
November 29 - Venus re-enters Scorpio
December 19 - Venus leaves retrograde shadow (13 Scorpio)
January 7, 2011 - Venus enters Sagittarius

Pluto Stationing Direct

Pluto is stationing direct at 2 degrees Capricorn for the next two weeks, so if you've noticed things getting a little dark and feisty, you'll know why.

Pluto goes direct September 13, the day after Mercury goes direct at 5 degrees Virgo, so both Mercury and Pluto will be almost stopped in the sky together around that time. The intensity builds, and there's not much wiggle room in these two signs. Yowtch.

The vibes don't really lighten grandscale any time soon, either. You'll recall that we're heading to a Ceres-Pluto conjunction October 19, enveloped within the Venus retrograde in Scorpio. This is an epic showdown of masculine and feminine, and neither is in the mood for any horseshit. There should be power struggles a-plenty as they make a long-term effort to get to a workable arrangement.

Venus-Mars-Eros in Scorpio beginning early next month ensure that we're all about keeping it real. Some deeply potent and alchemical situations are being spun up into conscious awareness for us to deal with.

This is going to be one witchy-ass Hallowe'en. And it's going to last about four months.

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

And it burns, burns, burns...

Venus, Eros and Mars are currently travelling conjunct through an area of the zodiac called the Via Combusta, also known as the burning path or fiery way.

The combination of Venus, Eros and Mars travelling in tight conjunction through this area of the zodiac makes for a potent force starting a final strip-down in areas pertaining to love, sex, attraction, beauty, money and partnership - all the spicy stuff - as we end the astrological Piscean era.

There is an intense charge building here that will not be fully discharged until Venus enters Sagittarius January 7, 2011 designed to purge us of our baggage, our unhealthy attachments, and our sabotaging patterns and reactions in relationship so that we can truly move on, be propelled, even, into a new era.

The Via Combusta is the degrees of the zodiac from 15 Libra to 15 Scorpio, except for 23 through 24 degrees Libra, which are considered safe degrees due to the fixed stars Spica and Arcturus residing there. This area generally relates to running the gauntlet in certain areas of life - pushing through seemingly insurmountable odds, heavy collective karma, booby traps and weapons wielded, often in relationship dynamics (Libra and Scorpio territory). There is a fire with the Via Combusta (and within people with natal planets in the Via Combusta) that, when brought strongly into the cosmic mix, keeps us burning a path through life as you would imagine a shooting star burning an accelerated path through the night's sky. There's a feeling that you have to keep going, no matter what - that the only way past it is through it, and this is how we hit our marks.

Our evolutionary marks here relate, in part, to the release of mass collective love karma from the astrological Piscean era - processing and purging for the whole through our personal lives so as to bust through no-longer-vital collective dynamics and programming reinforced for millenia.

This Venus retrograde in Scorpio is the last Venus retrograde of the astrological Piscean era. How's that for a tall order? Layer upon layer of etheric unfinished business through time and space, coalescing with us at this time on this planet.

This is the vibe as we leave the cardinal t-square-dominated summer and enter the final quarter of 2010. We've parted the curtain and stepped inside. When we exit in the New Year, our relationships and we within those relationships will be forever changed. After an earnest and honest effort here, we can truly say: no more.

The Venus retrograde in Scorpio (October 8 - November 18) takes place within the Via Combusta, and Venus enters the degrees of its retrograde shadow September 5 at 27 degrees Libra. This marks our first real taste of Venus retro themes.

As Venus goes retrograde in Scorpio, our hearts go back - to love-related soul work we need to complete and connections we need to either make or let go of. We can trigger the release of younger versions of ourselves, other time-and-space versions of ourselves, from the aftermath of not-quite-right love dynamics we previously constructed, releasing others from the same. We can retrieve soul-bits of ourselves left behind with loves past and reintegrate after the bitter, hard-earned lessons we learned. Fusing the old wounds once and for all, healing them with a sweet and tender kiss. Blazing a trail out of tricky, sticky, entrapping karmic relationship dynamics for ourselves and for anyone who desires to do the same...

Venus enters Scorpio September 8 and stations retrograde October 8 at 13 Scorpio. Interesting numbers, aren't they? Eight and 13 showing up generally mean...this ain't play time. And I must say, it really isn't. Highly karmic energy dynamics and scenarios, especially in relationship, with root causes going far beyond these individual lifetimes. Grandscale collective karmic love clean-up, aisle Planet Earth!

Bring the mop bucket, Al. This is a messy one.

Purification through the alchemical fires is putting it mildly. Deep initiations through relationship, love, sex are possible.

The sexual element is strongly involved here, and sexual expression gets the same purifying treatment in an attempt to bring it back to a fully loving, respectful and energetically-responsible merger and exchange.

A process of deepening emotional authenticity and layer-peeling, resulting in a new honesty around sex, money, and relationship dynamics.

The intimacy of sharing the raw truth about our experience of being human on Planet Earth in relation to another and receiving the same.

Squirmy territory, but exciting.

At this point of tail-end Pisces, it's not just two individuals in relationship. We've got imprints involved of lovers through the ages in every possible circumstance and every possible combination - with separations, cruel twists of fate, ill timings, and disappointments all adding up to a collective haunting by heartbreak, longing, and a faded soul-memory of a love we are not even sure ever existed on this planet.

Scorpio is a sign that does not like sharing its bed or its partner, including with the ghosts of loves past. Venus in Scorpio, in particular, needs to be the only one. She's loyal, devoted, passionate, sexy, committed, but she requires the same in return. And all this tail-end Piscean era layering is energetically disturbing and irritating as hell for Venus-Eros-Mars in Scorpio. It can't continue. We can't do what we need to do within relationship under these clouded, noisy circumstances, so with this retro process, we kick the ghosts out of bed, out of our partnerships, and get back to one-on-one.

Liberation of the soul. That's the real goal of the sign of Scorpio.

Burning away crystallized layers that keep us stultified, constricted, unsatisfied in old, ingrained patterns, dynamics, habits, reactions. With old wounds perpetually reopened by a revolving cast of characters.

With the Venus in Scorpio retrograde, the first of the Saturn transit of Libra, we're liberating our love, our hearts, each other, ourselves by restructuring and transforming the ways in which we relate, how we show our love, how we receive love. Digging through the sticky tar wrapped around our hearts - regret, anger, resentment, disappointment, pain, sadness. Dropping them in a heap of ash. To get to that person and that feeling and that love that holds you, all of you, the way you need to be held.

In Scorpio, it's never easy, though. Scorpio asks us: how badly do you want it, this liberation? Show me. Yeah? You think you want it badly enough? Enough to be dragged through the muck and the betrayals and the pits of hell to get to it? Yes? All right then.

Do you want it enough to let go of every single non-essential thing, person, place, self? To be stripped to the absolute bone? To the point that it will terrify you at times because you do not recognize the person you see in the mirror?

Do you want it enough to admit you may not even get it in your lifetime on this planet? To break your own heart by accepting that the entire process might exist for a goal and an end that is beyond this physical life? An energy more than a someone. Will you keep going even then? For your liberation?

Because to go all the way, that is what's asked.

And you just know we're going all the way this time.

Let's be honest. There's some sadism with this sign Scorpio. It'll fool you and trip you and then once you're down on the ground, it'll grind your face into the dirt to reinforce the point. It'll laugh in your face that you thought it was going to be that easy, that you were going to get away with carrying that much illusion and baggage and non-essential desire and want and human will through the checkpoints. That you would be allowed through while that out of line with what is demanded of you by transformational collective progress, by God's will, the universe's will, the will of life itself.

But the vision. The beauty. The highest spiritual highs. The memory of that which truly feels right. The quiet of the eagle soaring over beautiful, idyllic settings. The peace. The other side of the coin. The soul memory of how it once was and how it maybe can be again. The liberation. That's what keeps you moving through it. Even when all you want to do is stop and rest or give up and spontaneously combust. When you would do almost anything to get out of it. When you're a trapped animal about to gnaw its own leg off to get out. When the desire to not experience what you are experiencing is the strongest thing - except for that. Except for the desire to get it just right - the merger and alignment of personal will with what is willed for you. And to experience the results of that, especially with another.

Venus and Eros trine Neptune and Chiron as they enter the retrograde shadow, and the wounding of our shattered hopes and dreams, the innocence that opened us to scalding hurt, is a big part of the retrograde process. If we have the inner resources and the courage to really look, we can peel illusion from reality here and release an older Piscean version of love, especially spiritual love, which then liberates us.

But it's sticky, tricky, highly karmic territory demanding our full commitment.

Venus, Eros and soon Mars in Scorpio are here as our friends: the ones who will tell you the truth about your new amour when you are too love-blinded to see the major faults or red flags.

You might hate it with a passion that this friend is telling you these things, but in the end, it saves a world of hurt - not to mention time.

Saturn's in Libra, and we don't have time to waste within the maturing and restructuring process relationships are going through. A sober eye is a beautiful thing now, and with the planets in Scorpio along with the Sun and Mercury retrograde in practically analytical, no-nonsense Virgo, we've got just that - as long as we are willing to listen.

Uranus Rx Re-Enters Pisces Just in Time For More Neptunian Slumber

The Great Awakener (Uranus) certainly has its work cut out for it. I'm not sure even Jupiter Rx re-entering the mix September 8 can make the issues big enough to create any real, lasting lucidity at this tail-end Piscean era.

So many dark secrets twisted up in watery graves that most seem willing to allow, to keep buried, rather than bringing them to the surface and letting them do their catalytic work...

It's been five days since Matt Simmons was found dead in his Maine home (8/8/10), and the cleansing of the mainstream media of nasty details about the Gulf has been swift, simultaneous and very nearly complete.

On Friday, August 6, the United States Food and Drug Administration declared Gulf seafood safe to eat.

Then the reports started coming about Obama serving Gulf seafood at his birthday party to show people just how safe it really is. The date of the big birthday bash? August 8.

These announcements despite conclusive tainting of blue crab larvae with oil and despite the fact that tests done by Tulane University researchers have not even been completed to determine whether the larvae have also been tainted with Corexit.

But the tests don't really matter.

The trajectory was set. The orders came down.

Show's over, folks! Crisis averted. The well's capped. Tens of millions but more likely hundreds of millions of gallons of oil have miraculously disappeared. Two million gallons of Corexit are but a memory. Everyone can go home! It was all just a bad dream.

"There is no information at this time to indicate that they (dispersants) pose a public health threat from exposure through the consumption of seafood," says the FDA.

Simmons' death was overshadowed in mainstream media outlets by the death of former U.S. senator Ted Stevens in an Alaska airplane crash August 9. Like Simmons, Stevens had a connection to the Gulf catastrophe. Stevens was involved in a probe related to whistleblower information that BP was fully aware of cheating on blowout preventer tests conducted at oil wells they owned.

"Mike Mason, who worked on oil rigs in Alaska for 18 years, says that he observed cheating on blowout preventer tests at least 100 times, including on many wells owned by BP...

Mason was interviewed by the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission in 2005 during a probe into allegations that Nabors Drilling, a subcontractor to BP, falsified such tests, among other claims that BP failed to report blowouts at the massive Prudhoe Bay oil field. The probe was spurred by oil industry critic Charles Hamel, who forwarded his allegation to then-Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska."

Also interesting is the fact that Hamel had previously been spyed on by a Wackenhut security firm after his investigations into a BP-owned Alaska pipeline forced BP to spend $1 billion on safety-related improvements. Wackenhut was hired by the pipeline company that operated the pipeline for BP. Hamel won a lawsuit against the company as well as a full-page newspaper ad apology. Of that, Hamel said:

"These oil interests are very powerful - they will stop at nothing to stop you."

But roll on over now, darlings. Go back to sleep. Stuff your heads back in celebrity gossip and sports scores and shopping and Blackberries and your friend score on Facebook. That quiz on what chakra you are or which Muppet you're most like isn't exactly going to do itself. Pour your energy into ascension and love and light and New Earth and looking the other way. Nestle in and take a big old hit of ether for Mama. Just forget all about this whole mess. It's nothing you have to worry your pretty little heads over.

The relief within the collective that they've been let off the hook by mass media and government agencies and Mr. Obama, that they no longer have to concern themselves with the Gulf horror, is palpable.

You see how potent the media-driven Neptunian fog is at this tail-end Piscean era, how quickly people will latch back onto the teat as if nothing had ever happened to jolt them out of their haze. This much Neptunian delusion is most certainly toxic to the system(s). But it feels oh so good, oh so easy, after a long and drawn out confrontation with planetary reality.

A quick glance at the New Orleans daily paper online, the Times Picayune, and you would barely know the Gulf catastrophe even existed, let alone that it continues to this day. (To recap: they haven't capped the main gusher - just the one the public had its eyes trained on.)

"New Orleans Saints defense was less than stellar." "Man shot dead at apartment complex." "MTV Real World New Orleans episode review."

An advertisement for a Save the Gulf T-shirt is the only mention of the Gulf at all.

And now Obama is planning a trip to New Orleans August 29 for the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. This Uranian-Neptunian character, designed and moulded just to divert and diffuse during these cross-over times, continues the spin. He'll put forth a big Leonine show of the King visiting his people, not forgetting them after their time of (purposefully-inflicted) tragedy. And with his carefully-crafted words, he will drop the veil on the Gulf.

And most will be more than willing to grab and pull and help it drop.

Lest we forget?

Lest we remember.

Uranus Rx re-enters Pisces tonight. It will re-enter Aries moving direct March 11, 2011.

8.8

Matt Simmons, the man who has been speaking out in the mainstream media about the true extent of BP's catastrophe in the Gulf, was found dead in his home on 8/8/10. It is being reported as an accidental drowning due to heart attack.

Simmons had spoken in the media since May about multiple oil leaks in the Gulf of Mexico, including the real gusher which is reported to be about 10 kilometres away from the much smaller leak on which BP and the media have been training the eyes of the public.

Simmons was highly recognized in the industry and owned a company (Simmons & Co.) that provided financial services to oil and gas firms, facilitating billions of dollars in mergers. He was well-connected to say the least - an energy advisor to George W. Bush and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Simmons spoke out about the BP cover-up, calling it "the biggest environmental cover-up ever," as well as the attempted shifting of blame to Transocean. Simmons placed responsibility squarely on BP and said that the real cost of cleaning up the Gulf would cost well over a trillion dollars, bankrupting the company.

"Unfortunately, we now have killed the Gulf of Mexico."

Revelation 8:8 - The second angel blew his trumpet, and something like a great mountain, burning with fire, was thrown into the sea, and a third of the sea became blood.

Ceres Direct in Sagittarius on Its Way to Pluto in Capricorn and Benefitting Financially From the Starvation of the People

Asteroid Goddess of agriculture and grains Ceres has just completed a retrograde period and turned direct in Sagittarius. From this point, she hitches up her skirt and starts on a steely-eyed mission to conjunct (and confront) Pluto Rx in early Capricorn October 19, during this fall's Venus in Scorpio retrograde.

The dirty Pluto in Capricorn dealings being pushed up into collective awareness related to Ceres' territory of grains, cereals and food production are enough to make her hair stand on end, let me tell you. And we've only just begun.

Ceres came within one degree of a conjunction to Pluto in Capricorn in April of this year. Getting that much of a whiff of what Pluto was uncovering in that sign was all the nefariousness she could stomach at the time, going retrograde for three months and re-entering Sagittarius to get some distance. Now at 20 degrees, Ceres turns direct and gathers all the Sagittarian faith and courage about her she can for the unpleasant trek and meeting with Pluto this October.

One of the things coming to light under this transit is how food has become part of the derivatives scheme, creating a massive speculation bubble based on wild gambling on agricultural commodities prices. In 2008, this speculation drove food prices up (wheat by 80 percent, maize by 90 percent, rice by 320 percent) driving 200 million more people into starvation.

Finance schmucks are gambling on the price of food rising which fuels rabid speculation. And as their money games and various manipulations cause food prices to rise unnaturally, people around the world starve, suffer horribly, watch their children and loved ones withering and dying - all to keep the scam going and the bucks rolling after the mortgage scheme crashed and burned.

This is the world we're living in.

A lot of things have been blamed for the rising cost of food - fuel costs, supply problems, overpopulation, cash crops, diverting food crops to create ethanol. These all contribute.

But a major factor, probably the major factor, not often mentioned is the derivatives scheme on food and resulting price jumps. It was really this that spiked prices to the point that 200 million more people could not afford to fill their stomachs. This was the basis for the 2008 food riots in 30 countries. Haiti, Mexico, Egypt, Bangladesh, Mozambique...

When Haitians were eating biscuits made from clay and lard to stop their gnawing hunger, they had these speculators, their clients and the people who allowed (and continue to allow) the deregulation of the financial system to thank.

The helplessness of being starved for the financial gain of other people. The cruelty of it. The injustice. It makes me go weak. I have a hard time wrapping my head around this level of corruption. I can never quite get myself to that level of deviousness, and I'm sure I'm not doing this subject justice. I was never a fan of economic theory.

From an article by Johann Hari "How Goldman Sachs gambled on starving the world's poor - and won":

"Here's how it happened. In 2006, financial speculators like Goldman's pulled out of the collapsing US real estate market, and they were looking for somewhere else to make their stash of cash swell. They started to buy massive amounts of derivatives based on food: they reckoned that food prices would stay steady or rise while the rest of the economy tanked. Suddenly, the world's frightened investors stampeded onto this ground and decided to buy, buy, buy.

So while the supply and demand of food stayed pretty much the same, the supply and demand for contracts based on food massively rose - which meant the all-rolled-into-one price for food on people's plates massively rose. The starvation began.

The food price was now being set by speculation, rather than by real food. The hedge fund manager Michael Masters estimated that even on the regulated exchanges in the US - which take up a small part of the business - 64 percent of all wheat contracts were held by speculators with no interest whatever in real wheat. They owned it solely to inflate the price and sell it on."

The idea originally behind the futures market for crops was a hedging of investment for farmers and others directly involved in agricultural production. A farmer could agree to sell his crop in a future month at a certain price, thus locking in a price. If the farmer had a great year and the price was very high, he might lose some money. But if he had a poor year, the contract ensured that he would still earn a certain price, hedging his investment.

Because of an absolutely criminal level of deregulation, people who have no stake in agriculture at all - Wall Street suits who have never gotten a speck of dirt under their manicured fingers - can now buy these contracts, then upselling them to someone else who then upsells them to someone else, etc.

Once the mortgage scam collapsed, the ticks had to go looking for a new dog. They found one with our food supply. These speculators bet on the price of food rising, and the higher the price of staple goods like wheat, rice, corn, soybeans the bigger the profits for the speculators and their clients.

Floods, droughts and hailed-out crops create further shortages in supply, and although there seems to be only the slightest connection between the real, physical supply of food and the pricing schemes (apparently, only about two percent of commodities futures now end with a real exchange of goods), this also causes prices to rise.

If you are a person who believes weather is being manipulated, it is not much of a stretch to see a connection between so-called natural disasters and the manipulation of food supply and pricing, ensuring the speculation pays off - at least for now.

Pakistan's breadbasket has now been flooded. Sixteen hundred people are confirmed dead, and 650,000 homes have been destroyed. Four million people now face homelessness.

On a smaller scale, Saskatchewan and Alberta (Canada's breadbasket) have been flooded and hailed this summer causing massive crop failures.

By artificially inflating food prices through speculation and manipulations of supply, the price for the crop no longer has any relation to what it is worth in a real-world marketplace - or to what people can pay. There is no consideration of the fact that these are staples that people need to live.

And it sounds as if the food derivatives game has been pushed to its limits at this point.

Paul B. Farrell at MarketWatch is warning that this bubble is going to burst in the very near future:

"Commodity ETFs are rapidly becoming a malicious virus breeding chaos in the global markets pricing all commodities: food, farm lands, metals, oil, natural gas, livestock, water and other natural resources are the assets under commodity derivatives and their ETFs, pricing that's now controlled more by Wall Street speculators than the weather, adding wild swings in volatility and trillions in global derivative risks."

As is generally the case these days, there is a "get your's while the getting's good" ethic. This is a parasitic system that has been designed to collapse after the speculators have made their money and drained their host. The fact that they are playing with people's lives never enters the equation.

We're seeing the same speculation bubbles being overinflated to their ultimate conclusions that we saw sustained for so long during Pluto in Sagittarius.

This speculation in food (Ceres) will more than likely build during Ceres' transit of the last ten degrees of Sagittarius, but once it re-enters Capricorn and conjuncts Pluto in October, things will be stripped to the bare reality on this front.

I'm thinking about the Ethiopian woman in the Johann Hari article who said her children stopped growing and she felt that someone had poured battery acid in her stomach as she starved.

"We can't go through that another time. Please - do anything you can to make sure they never, never do that to us again."

You Know What Term I'm a Little Sick Of? Cardinal T-Square.

Baseball-sized hail wreaked havoc in southeastern Saskatchewan this past Saturday, July 31. Since just before the Full Moon Capricorn eclipse on June 26, Saskatchewan has experienced the wildest weather in memory, being pounded by storm after storm of hail, mass quantities of rain causing flooding, and tornadoes. One hundred fourteen communities have declared themselves disaster areas this summer due to flooding, and there has been massive crop failure due to both a cold, wet spring and now flooding. I'm not a person who believes most weather patterns are natural at this point (an earthquake AND a tornado just before the G8/G20 Summits?), but this is quite symbolic of the astro energies we're dealing with currently.

We're getting hammered. Tempered on all fronts by the weight and pressure of the cardinal t-square configuration.

Action planet Mars in Libra completes its grind through this uber tight t-square late tonight with an opposition to Jupiter in Aries and a square to Pluto in Capricorn. Heavy is understatement.

Mars is still within range of its conjunction to Saturn, and our actions carry an extreme amount of weight. We're in a time frame when the decisions we make and actions we take (or don't make and take) have such broad, long-term effect that if we were fully aware of the possibilities, we would probably freeze and curl into a little ball. All four seasons are changing in our lives simultaneously.

Luckily, we're humans, and we're never 100% aware of the stakes. Also luckily, the amount of pressure involved here makes it nearly impossible NOT to take some sort of action. To curl up into a little ball would probably mean being crushed under the weight of it all. At this point, it's difficult if we do and difficult if we don't, but the cardinal impetus squeezing the crap out of us says we have to go. Things have crumbled all around us, and taking the next step and then the next, even when we're dragging ourselves through it, is the only way to forge our way out of the wreckage.

"Tipping the scales moments" is putting it mildly. These are the types of energies where the fate of humanity on this planet lies in our skill (or lack thereof) in dealing responsibly. The weight of a billion interactions that have preceded us hangs in the air, and this is where things are decided.

Feeling pressured is understandable. The responsibility is pressing. The stakes are high. The complexity is incomprehensible. But again, we can't think about that. We just have to carefully determine what is right, what our souls tell us is right, and do it.

It's going to be tight. There's only so much we can do at this point with insanity being unleashed all around us. There is only the thinnest of threads to follow through it. But we're doing it. We knew we could, and we're doing it. We had the best chance of getting it right. The right mix of finely-honed skills, fire, determination and experience for these times. So we were called in, elected as the ones best able to take a shot. To take the shot for all those who came before, who wait in the etheric wings with bated breath. As we crawl on bleeding elbows through barbed wire and thistles to get to the release point.

As of midnight tonight, some of the pressure breaks as Mars slowly starts to pull out of the t-square formation. It will be fully out of orb by the time of the third and final square of Saturn in Libra and Pluto in Capricorn August 21.

Don't be too relieved just yet, though. Venus enters Libra Friday, August 6 (9:47 p.m. Mountain) in tight conjunction with Eros, and those two run the cardinal t-square gauntlet, too, August 7-9. This won't be a relaxing weekend, so the Monday to Friday-ers hoping to escape the pressure with a weekend trip out of town will be out of luck.

Just to add to the fun, as of 3:50 p.m. Friday, the Moon will be in Cancer, becoming the fourth cardinal leg. For just over six hours, we have a full, exact Cardinal Grand Cross in our sky. (Pulling out of range by the early morning of Saturday, August 7.)

Venus and Eros finish their last aspects and start to pull out of the t-square late August 9, the same day of the Leo New Moon. This is the release point of the previous Cancer New Moon solar eclipse July 11, so this New Moon is going to be a relief in more ways than one.

As of August 10, we have released the most potent aspects of the recent eclipse season and personal planets Mars and Venus will have made it through the cardinal t-square gauntlet - the only personal planets (other than the Moon) that will take part in this cardinal t-square.

As of August 21, Saturn will have completed it's final square to Pluto in Capricorn from Libra, and we are past the most potent and constricting point of the cardinal t-square.

With Saturn involved, taking this stuff in chunks of time can really be helpful. Saturn transits often feel as if they will go on forever. So even though things may feel insane right now, a major layer lightens after the August 9 Leo New Moon. And by September, things really start to ease.

Sure, we'll be into the retrograde shadow degrees of a massively potent Venus retrograde in Scorpio by then, but honestly, at this point even a Venus retro in Scorpio will feel like something we're better able to handle.