Ceres Conjunct Pluto in Capricorn and Tightening Corporate Control of the Food Supply

Yesterday was the Scorpio Full Moon, and Ceres (Goddess of plants, grains and the fertility of the Earth) went retrograde less than a degree from Pluto in Capricorn (merger and rise of the corporate oligarchy).

In Calgary, we woke up to a gray, moody, chilly day that quickly turned into an all-day spring snowstorm. Today is more of the same.

I couldn't help thinking the weather was a fitting reflection of Ceres' mood, coming so close to Pluto in Cap and into full awareness of the horrors being committed with that energy.

As Pluto hell agendas are steamrolled forward, Earth Mama Ceres has the power to stop all living things from growing on this Earth. She withdraws in protest if things go too far, and things are most certainly being pushed to the brink on that front.

I was listening to Robert Phoenix's blog radio show last night, and he was talking about Bill S 510 (the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2010), set to be introduced in the U.S. Senate this week.

Here we have the merger of government and corporate interests - legislating the corporate take-over of the U.S. food supply. By-the-book Pluto in Capricorn conjunct Ceres, disposited by Saturn in Virgo.

This Bill, if passed, would basically allow organic, independently grown and sold food to be made illegal in the United States. Farmer's markets could be made illegal. Natural supplements would also be heavily regulated and controlled to the point where possessing unregulated supplements would be considered a crime.

This Bill would lock the United States' food supply into compliance with the World Trade Organization and other shady and highly corrupt bodies of the unelected "global government," which attempt to supercede local, elected levels of government and decisions made by them...not to mention human rights.

If this Bill is passed, food would fall under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security, and anyone who grows food outside the top-down global government's homogenous and highly industrialized regulations would be a criminal threatening national security. Really, you couldn't make this stuff up.

From an article on the Food Freedom blog:

"It allows the United Nations (UN), World Health Organization (WHO), UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and the WTO to take control of every food on earth and remove access to natural food supplements...

"It would remove the right to clean, store and thus own seed in the US, putting control of seeds in the hands of Monsanto and other multinationals, threatening US security...

"It would allow the government to mandate antibiotics, hormones, slaughterhouse waste, pesticides and GMOs."

The Bill appears to have been designed by a Monsanto exec. Pretty transparent. Monsanto, of course, is the company that brings us genetically modified seeds designed to be resistant to the herbicide it manufactures - Roundup - and is one of the mega-transnationals salivating at the chance to control the seed supply.

And all this is being done "for your own good."

Bill S 510 and the related PR campaign promote the understanding that people do not have the right to choose their own food supply because what they choose, if it's outside the heavily regulated options, might be unsafe, contaminated, a health risk.

It's much better, we're told, to hand off all those decisions to Big Daddy Pluto in Capricorn organizations.

The food we eat has to come from approved seed strains (genetically modified, owned and developed by one of the mega-transnationals) and be dosed with pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics and radiation, or it just won't be healthy for human consumption!

How back assward is that?

Slavery is freedom.
War is peace.
Poison is health.

Goodness. They really think people are going to swallow this? Literally and figuratively...

Monsanto, Bayer and the like are actually chemical companies that have decided to get into the business of food production. Monsanto has brought us such fabulous improvements on the human condition as saccharine (pulled from the market) and DDT (also pulled from the market). Y'all remember what DDT did to the food chain, right?

The corpo-governmental control of the food supply is tightening in Canada at the same time - the globally integrated agendas of Pluto in Capricorn, advancing in step.

In British Columbia, a Chilliwack raw milk co-op was ordered by the provincial Supreme Court to stop distributing milk to its members.

The sale of raw milk has already been outlawed in Canada, but members of the Home on the Range raw milk co-op bought shares in a herd of dairy cattle and paid a farmer, Alice Jongerden, to care for and milk the cattle. The co-op members own the cattle and drink milk from their own livestock.

But in March of this year, Jongerden was told by the B.C. Supreme Court to shut down the operation, as she was "willingly causing a health hazard" through her activities.

Again with the health hazard, despite the fact that people were drinking raw milk from livestock they owned, the same way people have done for thousands of years before pasteurization allowed for a much longer shelf life and the corporate distribution of milk.

Apparently, a similar legal battle took place in Wisconsin in March at a state legislature hearing. "About 450 raw milk advocates pushed for amending the law to allow consumers to decide for themselves if they could drink unpasteurized milk or not. The hearing was to help lawmakers decide on the fate of Assembly Bill 628 and Senate Bill 434, which sought to legalize sale of raw milk, butter, buttermilk and cream sales from farms directly to consumers."

On the (b)right side, as I mentioned in a previous post, two United States farmers have won $2 million in compensation from Bayer CropScience due to contamination of their rice crops with genetically modified LibertyLink rice, which is not accepted for import by countries in the European Union.

"The verdict of the federal court in St. Louis is seen as a test run for up to 3,000 cases of rice farmers having suffered damages in the US states of Missouri, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas and Mississippi."

This is a turning of the legal tables for these GMO-pushing corporations, as Monsanto is prone to suing the farmers when their crops become contaminated - for having possession of their seeds without license. Again, you couldn't make this stuff up.

Monsanto sued then-68-year-old Saskatchewan canola farmer, Percy Schmeiser, in 1998 after his canola crop was contaminated with their genetically modified Roundup Ready canola.

Farmers who use Monsanto seeds must sign a user agreement, which states that they will not re-use seed from year-to-year. They also submit to Monsanto inspecting their crops to enforce this. Monsanto inspected Schmeiser's crops without permission, despite him never having bought their seed or entered into their user agreement, and found their patented DNA.

These Monsanto-designed regulations being enforced through the courts do a few things: it makes illegal the traditional farming practise of saving seeds from year-to-year - which Schmeiser did with his own seed varieties that he had been developing for over 40 years. Making seed-saving illegal has also gone on in Iraq and is a major part of Bill S 510.

It makes farmers dependent on Monsanto and similar corporations for their seeds every year and imposes the monitoring of their crops.

And it sets the precedent that a corporation can own the patent rights to seeds, can own DNA, can own life itself.

The rampant cross-pollination and spread of these seeds by wind and other means threatens biodiversity in a big way. It also makes it very difficult for organic and non-GMO farmers, as their crops are easily cross-contaminated.

The Canadian organic honey scene has taken a big hit from these Monsanto GMOs, as their honeybees pollinate GMO plants and then carry genetically modified material back to the hives. These farmers have also lost European markets due to this contamination.

Monsanto won its 1998 patent infringement case against Schmeiser, but after appealing to the Supreme Court, it was ruled that Schmeiser did not have to pay Monsanto damages since he did not profit from their Roundup Ready canola.

In another (b)right spot, in March of 2008, Schmeiser settled out of court with Monsanto for clean-up costs related to the contamination of his canola crop.

"Also part of the agreement was that there was no gag-order on the settlement and that Monsanto could be sued again if further contamination occurred. Schmeiser believes this precedent setting agreement ensures that farmers will be entitled to reimbursement when their fields become contaminated with unwanted Roundup Ready canola or any other unwanted GMO plants."

You always have to go back to a little something called natural law on this planet. Right, Ceres?

No matter how arrogant humans get, this always rules in the end. And I thank Mr. Schmeiser for spending his golden years battling Monsanto. His effort on this front has been really important.

Ceres and Pluto and this Fall's Venus Retrograde in Scorpio

The Moon is now just past full in Scorpio and acts as an emotional indicator of what shape we're in heading into next October/November's Venus retrograde in Scorpio.

This Full Moon as precursor brings to light any issues related to our pasts that need addressing: relationship dynamics, etheric attachments that need to be discontinued, crystallized emotional reactions, triggers and habits, and stultifying conditioning that need to be dealt with.

At this Full Moon, these things are ripe for release, and we shed what we can now. Anything we deal with at this point lightens the load on the upcoming Venus retrograde (October 8 - November 18, 2010) and puts us in much better position to use those energies consciously and proactively, instead of receiving the unpleasant Scorpionic burns that force us into conscious action.

A really interesting thing about this Scorpio Full Moon chart, and the subject of this post, is the just-about-exact conjunction of Ceres and Pluto, two bodies that really mean business - especially in the sign of business, Capricorn! Oh, I'm so funny.

Ceres has been making the steely-eyed run up to this guy for a while and is currently at 4 degrees Capricorn, less than one degree from Pluto Rx at 5 degrees. Now, less than a single degree from full contact, she turns retrograde - just hours after the Full Moon in Scorpio. Mmm-hmm.

It's not time. Not just yet, Ceres says. We've got a whole lot of working things out to do before we can actually meet face-to-face and not tear this little planet to shreds in the process.

Mythologically, these two have a long and brutal history between them. Serious Scorp stuff. Going to the mat, hitting where it hurts most, dragging you to hell and back, destroying every single thing you love, rageful, wrathful stuff.

Ceres is pissed. The feminine force (represented by the asteroids) is pissed. And Pluto, well that dude was born pissed. There is brutal hurt here. And the only sign that could possibly contain this complexity of history and emotion and transmute that sort of anger and anguish into something beneficial for all involved is Scorpio.

And guess what? The final show-down, when Ceres and Pluto do finally meet face-to-face in conjunction, happens during the Venus retrograde in Scorpio this fall. You have to love astrology. You just have to.


I'm not a big mythology buff by any stretch. I just work with the very basics in order to understand the astrological energies, so here are the basics of the Ceres-Pluto history so as to understand the dynamics at play:

Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, kidnapped Ceres' (also known as Demeter) daughter Persephone and hauled her off to his dark and twisted underworld to be his Queen.

Ceres is the quintessential Earth Mother, Goddess of plants, especially grains/cereals, the seasons, the harvest and the fertility of the Earth, in general.

When Ceres realized her daughter had been abducted and dragged off to the underworld, she became so depressed, so full of rage and anguish, that she made the cold and the dark descend on the planet, and nothing would grow. Literally, she had the power to destroy life on Earth, and this Mama in anguish for her kidnapped child did just that.

There are a few different versions about how this stalemate between Pluto and Ceres was finally brought to a head and solved.

In one, things got so dire on the planet with the cold and dark and nothing growing that Zeus, King of the Gods, forced Pluto to return Persephone, sending Hermes to retrieve her. Unfortunately, Persephone had eaten some pomegranate seeds while chilling in the underground, and eating any food while you were down there meant you were forced to stay, at least for a portion of the year. Based on the number of seeds she ate, Persephone had to return to the underworld for four months of every year - corresponding with the winter season.

In another version, Hecate, Goddess of magic, witchcraft, childbirth, lunar lore, ghosts, crossroads, gates and walls - a dark feminine figure herself and one brave and wise enough to deal with the underworld - rescued Persephone and brought her back to the land of the living.

And in still another (a version I've personally favoured), Persephone got herself out of there after coming to fully understand the power dynamics going on and realizing if she took action and wiggled and exerted herself in the right ways (properly used her masculine force), she could break her own chains to the underworld and get free. Possibly wishful thinking from a Ceres-Pluto square person with a Scorpio stellium, but I like it.

Regardless of how Persephone was returned, there is definitely some unfinished business between Pluto and Ceres. Ahem. Don't we know it?

This is the subtext of our relations and of the events going on between now and the end of the year. There is a lot of dark emotion being stirred, very ancient. A lot of old wounds being triggered and old distrust. All the aspects of human emotional and relational existence that most people prefer to deny exist, especially relating to the feminine and its historical abuses.

It's interesting that Ceres, when it was discovered in 1801, was classified as the 8th planet. After about 50 years, it was reclassified as an asteroid.

And in 2006, both Pluto and Ceres were reclassified as dwarf planets.

So the playing field has been levelled by this dual reclassification, and now the masculine (Pluto) and the feminine (Ceres) can finally get down to brass tacks. Under these conditons and with a lot of strategic effort, they can come up with a balanced, working partnership with which they can both be satisfied. Or die trying. heh

Really, we're at the brink of destruction on this planet with a hog-tied feminine and a masculine running amok. We're hanging on by a thread, and so we're reminded: the entry points for integration of the feminine are at those points where change can no longer be resisted. That's most points, these days, but successful integration still requires great skill.

Venus in Scorpio relates to, among other things, unequal power dynamics in relationship, domination/subjugation, emotional poisoning, abuse and the hell that unequal relationships put people through.

But it also relates to the deepest, closest, most soul-satisfying and fulfilling of relationships. A true mutually beneficial merger of energy and resources and the creation of a force that can do exponentially more together than it could apart.

There is the potential with this fall's Venus in Scorpio retrograde to clear the way for relationship mergers of that beneficial, soul-deep variety, but only if we clear the distorting detritus and histories that would keep us from that first.

The Ceres-Pluto conjunction this October happens in tight conjunction to the North Node in Capricorn, as well, so the path we're carving out post-Pluto-ingressing-Capricorn-destruction-and-collapse is infused with the energy of this conjunction of feminine and masculine. Committing to concretely addressing the imbalances within all structural set-ups as we go forward. The North Node conjuncts Ceres first, followed by Pluto. The feminine comes out in front...

I love that the asteroids are playing such a strong role in the skies these days. They probably always were, but they're making themselves known with greater force. To me, this represents the feminine stepping up, coming to the decision-making table, making herself heard. She's not screaming or wailing (though she sure feels like it at times, and who could blame her?). She's composed, strong, speaking her wisdom firmly and in measured tones, in such practical, common sensical ways that no one can dispute it. This increases the odds greatly of real influence and integration.

The asteroid Goddesses are also sick and tired of Venus getting all the play - especially when Venus is prone to jealousy, vengefulness, vanity and female back-stabbing and game-playing, all while getting credit for nothing but love and beauty and fanciful delights.

So Ceres (on behalf of the other feminine asteroids) and Venus have a little unfinished business of their own to deal with this fall, but I'm sure with a little effort, they can come away with their own mutually beneficial agreement.

Pallas, transitting Scorpio until early October 2010, also has some things to say on the "bullshitty feminine/masculine dynamics" front. Pallas is the asteroid related to female warrior and truth-teller energy, and in Scorpio, it's not afraid to strike right at the root of the matter.

Meeting Pallas in strip-the-facade-and-get-real Scorpio would more than likely be too much for lovely Venus to bear on top of all that Ceres-Pluto tension, and luckily, Pallas enters Sagittarius before Venus' retrograde in Scorpio. The sign of Scorpio will be ringing with Pallas' blazing trail of truth, though, so there will certainly be no denying the things that need work during Venus' retrograde.

As has been said a million times before, women/the feminine is far more multi-dimensional and diverse than just the loving and pleasing mate (Venus), the mothering nurturer (Moon), or the vindictive, vixen/seductress version of the dark feminine.

The strengthening of position of the feminine asteroids, to me, indicates the unfolding of the true feminine force, in all its glory and all its ugliness - or at least, the potential for that. It's all in how we apply it, of course. Do we have the courage to be honest here and really unfold with integrity and authenticity or do we stay safe (and stuck) in the old, one-dimensional societal feminine constructs, playing the same games and roles and falling into the same traps? Echoes of the 1960s again.

Ceres is the largest asteroid by far, and her power is a suitable match for Pluto. Equal power dynamics is what we're after, and this grand Earth Mama leads the way for the rest of the feminine forces.

She's got back-up, though, as she takes a retrograde breather until August 8 and then goes direct, heading to that October 19 meeting with dear, old Pluto. The feminine forces are with her on this one every step of the way.

At the same time, the feminine is working at a bit of a disadvantage because so much of its previous work and influence have been unrecognized and therefore, unassisted, left to wither on the vine or use huge energy reserves fighting for bare survival.

Again, just as with Black Moon Lilith energy, with due care and attention, we can help the feminine do what needs to be done in our own lives, and doing that is the gift we have to offer these Goddesses. They'll gladly accept.

The Echoes

I wrote in a previous post about how a recent mine collapse in West Virgina, USA, and the related deaths reverberate through time, connecting to all those that have come before. I mentioned, specifically, Chinese mine collapses, as this country seems to have a horrific track record as far as worker safety. News story after news story telling of the multiple deaths of men forced to risk their lives doing dirty, dangerous work for a meagre paycheque, while filling the bank accounts of business bureaucrats safe in office buildings - a common refrain in many industries around the world.

So imagine my Piscean synchronistic surprise and dismay when I read about a mine collapse in Yukon Territory on Sunday, April 25, that killed one man and injured a second. This was the second fatality at this particular mine: Yukon Zinc's Wolverine mine.

"Yukon" Zinc is a misnomer, I came to discover. This mine is owned by two Chinese companies: Jinduicheng Molybdenum Group Co. Ltd. and Northwest Nonferrous International Investment Company Ltd.

And here we have the real promise of "globalization" headed by the current corpo-governmental world regimes: a race to the absolute bottom as far as environmental, human rights and worker safety standards - not to mention wages. Now, countries with hideous records on this front are free to spread their inhumane, dangerous and ridiculous practises around the globe, all while fronting as national industries.

This mine, set up according to Chinese mining standards, was a crumbling, unstable tragedy waiting to happen - and now they've had two. How many more?

From the article:

"However, the rock mined at Wolverine is far from stable. Yukon Zinc has had to coat tunnels with mesh-strengthened concrete and fire five-metre-long spikes into the ceiling to stabilize its shafts. During a tour last May, a geologist pulled a hunk of rock from the wall. 'This is a bad sign,' she said, adding, 'And that’s some of our better rock.'"

This is nothing new, of course, but it's difficult to sit back and watch case after case of this exact "globalization" phenomenon coming to play. I've lived in the beautiful Yukon on two separate occasions and keep up with the news there, and the corruption going on up there is extreme.

All hail the global marketplace.

Please, Lord have mercy on the working man because the corporate suits benefitting from his work sure as hell won't.

Let's Be Thankful for Mercury Retrograde in Taurus Right Now

The opposition between Saturn and Uranus is exact today, marking the fourth and final opposition in the signs Virgo and Pisces. Although Saturn and Uranus remain within range of opposition, this basically marks a conclusion point to the series of oppositions in these signs that we've been experiencing since November, 2008. So everyone give yourself a pat on the back. We made it. Just barely in some cases (me).

There's one more opposition between the body of radical change, future-oriented insight and revolution (Uranus) and the body of concrete structural set-ups, maturation and practical challenge (Saturn) on July 26, when Uranus will be at 0 degrees Aries and Saturn will be at 0 degrees Libra.

But that opposition will have a much different feel from what we've been experiencing in Virgo-Pisces. The tension of that opposition should give us a strong initiating impetus into a new cycle, out of the anxiety, depression, worry, uncertainty, constant adjusting and treading water feelings.

Sure, we may just enter a new kind of uncertainty with the cardinal opposition, but for many of us (me, again) it will be a relief to leave the overwhelming energies of the past two years somewhat behind us...

The reason we can be happy that Mercury is retrograde in Taurus is that we have a lot of Mercurial energy going on - Saturn is in late Virgo and Venus is in early Gemini, both ruled by Mercury. This means Mercury's sign and motion play a big role in how we experience this opposition.

The experience of an opposition is often akin to feeling pulled apart at the seams by two opposing forces as we struggle to find the right energetic mix and interplay on the continuum, so a rapidly moving Mercury trying to do its thing would really push us overboard right now.

Mercury retrograde in Taurus has slowed all things Mercurial to a grounded snail's pace, and, while potentially frustrating, this helps things progress in a much more realistic, comfortable and secure way overall. We're able to really cement our progress here, as long as we work with the much slower and more organically-unfolding Merc Rx in Taurus rhythms.

The Mercury Rx in Taurus energy is also helpful as we head to the Full Moon in Scorpio April 28, on the heels of this Saturn-Uranus opposition.

A Scorpio Full Moon has the tendency to bring us to emotional extremes, but Mercury Rx is coming together in conjunction with the Sun in Taurus, and they oppose the Moon in Scorpio together at this Full Moon. Very cool. This allows us to keep a level head as any remaining emotional nastiness from the past is drawn to the surface for us to deal with.

Scorpio Full Moons relate to (among other things) emotional endings, disconnecting from people, situations or dynamics that have become draining or damaging and transmuting leftover emotional detritus, leaving us free to connect emotionally with what is most vital and nourishing to us now, rather than carrying old energy and dynamics forward that no longer sustain.

My feeling is that this Full Moon will give us an indicator of what shape we're in heading into next October/November's Venus retrograde in Scorpio, so watch what comes up emotionally now and do what you have to do with it. Be firm. Whatever is cleared or settled or dealt with now alleviates the pressure on that Venus retrograde, which is going to have the potential to be a clean-sweep disconnect from damaging relationship patterns, past, present and future. Getting to that real "soul mate" vibe, rather than working in futility with relationships that will never get there.

An interesting thing that came up in a reading a while back is that it might not be us needing to let go - it could be someone from our past who needs to let go of us and disconnect the etheric tendrils they still have attached to us. If we had a role in connecting, it's possible - only possible, not definite - that we have a role in disconnecting, and if this is the case, we can work with that process and help the person, where we can, to let go.

At the Scorpio Full Moon we can focus emotionally on releasing all those who came before with an understanding that they may have gotten hurt in relationship with us. We can get a feel for whether there is something we need to do or say to validate those feelings and whether there are apologies or airings necessary. Only when we bring the buried and roiling Scorpy harsh feelings to the surface, validate them and release them can we stop being oppressed by them.

We do a lot of messed up things to each other before we're consciously aware of underlying relationship dynamics, and here we can take responsibility for both ends of the spectrum. Releasing and being released...with more to come at the Venus in Scorpio retrograde this fall.

The Sabian Symbol for the Scorpio Full Moon is: A Dentist is Hard at Work. So you see how intently we have to root out what is old and decaying emotionally.

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.

As we do this, we have to be aware of and respect the Taurean boundaries - our own and other people's - making absolutely no exceptions.

Another interesting development is that Venus in early Gemini is heading to a conjunction with Juno (asteroid of covenant relationships) - exact May 1. This adds more soul mate vibe to the relationship proceedings, especially within our local, day-to-day societies and the related interactions.

All those unspoken connections in small towns/communities and keeping them straight so you don't get drawn in and burned. I know this well.

We're building our vital connections now with day-to-day contact and seemingly light chit-chat. Maintaining this contact is very important. Due to the harsh aspects of these times in which we're living, vital connections can wither on the vine very quickly if not tended to. Whatever connections you want to see succeed in your life, wherever you are being nourished, connect to them all little-by-little and keep them flourishing (Mercury in Taurus).

On the other hand, no matter how light and airy the interactions seem, our timing, tone and what we are specifically communicating to each other is very important. It has to hit the mark. This is the seriousness of these soul mate interactions. We're not playing here.

The Sabian Symbol for the degree where Venus and Juno meet in Gemini is: A Medieval Archer Stands With the Ease of One Wholly Sure of Himself, Bow in Hand, His Quiver Filled With Arrows.

So we know the importance of these times. We're trained and prepared. We know our skills, and we know how to use them. There are a lot of small arrows we need to let fly to get the Geminian connections moving and flowing and interacting with each other.

And as part of that Scorpionic clearing of past ties, we have to use our words and the timed application of our words precisely. Restraint. Words can heal, but they can also do huge, long-term damage - even in the smallest and quickest of interactions. Of this, we have to be aware, but as long as we take due care and attention, the arrows will not miss their marks.

Mercury is retrograde in Taurus until May 11, when it turns direct. It leaves its retrograde shadow May 28, just as Uranus enters Aries, and enters Gemini (a sign of its rulership) June 9, just after Jupiter and Uranus conjunct at 0 Aries.

Black Moon Lilith-Chiron in Pisces and the Wounds/Wounding Dynamics the Collective Refuses to Face

This thing of beauty is brought to you by the effort of many. It's been through many, many hands. Balinese artisans shaped the silver beads by hand, and Chinese miners dug the turquoise. The turquoise was then shaped and drilled by more people and strung on cord. And then the raw materials passed through an assembly-line production stretching around the globe. I sincerely hope that all involved have fared no worse than I have in life, but you never know. 

I fretted over this when I started making bead jewellery at the store. The effort it took and the processes involved to bring those stone and silver beads to me was astounding. Why so much effort for such a seemingly frivolous activity as jewellery-making? The answer I came to, at least in that window of time, was that it must be energetically valuable in some way - outside of a way for me to sustain myself and the store where I worked. 

The beauty and power of these earth gems must be healing things. And even the act of putting them in order, into pleasing combinations and patterns, must have been somehow beneficial. Otherwise, why would there be such widespread cross-cultural beading traditions? It must be a force doing good things, somehow, as long as every hand that helped it come into being is honoured. 

But this honouring is the big, gaping hole, unfortunately, these days. The crucial links and connections all too often kept invisible. 

There are themes here. Piscean themes. Dark, denigrated, denied energy being held by this psychic catch-all sign. Pisces is the end of the road, astrologically - the 12th and final sign of the zodiac - and it's been a watery grave for many a dirty secret we now need to bring to conscious awareness in order to successfully complete the Age of Pisces. 

To make a successful transition to an Aquarian era, we have to first look at some things that have been held in the collective unconscious for a very long time, playing out in weird and traumatizing ways, and deal with them once and for all. The situation on this planet can't tolerate just carrying this stuff forward, as has been done. 

So it's a serious situation. 

Can we do it? It's hard to say. 

The people willing to even work with this stuff are vastly outnumbered. But in order to give it our very best shot, we have to look at it and attempt to work it back into the whole. Everything matters here. It always has, and not living with this as a guiding principle has created the grand-scale damage we now have to work on. Free will. Don't make me laugh. There's one job to do and one only at this stage of the proceedings. 

There are some big, often painful, themes here. One of which is the understanding that suffering and pain are collectively held as part of the human condition. Understanding and acknowledging this makes the burden bearable, spread among many shoulders over space and time. A bearable burden is important as things intensify and we spin up an overwhelming amount of collective pain held in the subconscious, triggered by the traumatizing events we're seeing play out and living through daily in rapid, concurrent fashion. 

How can human beings take this much? 

Only by sharing it with those who feel and have felt the same things. 

A mine collapse in West Virginia on April 6 killed 29 men. The echoes. Chinese mine collapse kills 18, 21, 42, 12, 3. Mining tragedies around the world. Impossible class situations. People forced into dangerous, soul-eroding work. Bodies recovered. The grief of mothers and wives. Never be the same. Emotionally irreconcilable. Children without fathers. Ghosts for mothers. Dirty fucking wage slavery. Historical slavery. Karoshi. Death by overwork. Soul death by overwork. Quick or prolonged. Industrial accidents. Rig accidents. Farming accidents. Another soldier killed. Drunk driving accidents. Anaesthetising. Rolled his truck. Cherished loved one, many loved ones, gone. Risking your life for a paycheque. Business bureaucrats safe in their offices, depositing blood, sweat, tears and lives into their already fat bank accounts. The dollar value of a human life. The upper-mid class cluck, clucking and tsk, tsking about how terrible it all is while their inflated lifestyles are supported on breaking backs. 

And we could go on. And on. 

The echoes, echoes, echoes. 

There's a new balance necessary here. Those living in denial of underlying painful realities will need to take responsibility by becoming aware of this collective burden and of their role in furthering it - not a popular sentiment these days, especially among the blissed-out set. 

This has been orchestrated, willfully created, this suffering and hell. Let's not do the dead and suffering the disservice of forgetting that. 

And this brings up another thing I keep hearing echoed lately: the idea that good and evil are just a myth. Personally, I've always pegged this as another of the New Age misuses of the "oneness" concept. The idea that good and evil are subjective and that what we experience as 'evil' is just a reflection of evil in ourselves. 

Playing on the guilty collective conscience. 

Sigh. 

Do we all have the capacity for evil under the right circumstances? Sure. But do we all choose to align with evil actions and intent and make them our driving force? Nope. 

To paraphrase, the greatest trick evil ever played was convincing people it didn't exist. We can thank the New Age movement in large part for furthering that one. 

We now have legions of people willing to give individuals and organizations committing evil acts a free pass because "we've all been evil in one lifetime or another." Horseshit. This is one of the main reasons I can't stand the concepts of 'past lives' and 'karma' and how they are chronically misused to justify a bunch of partial-truth garbage. 

Let's be clear here: there are people in this world committing horrendous acts of evil, causing pain and suffering of unimaginable scale. Their actions, decisions and coercive influence are causing damage, injury and death. Most often, this is being done knowingly and purposefully. This, to me, is evil, and I'm not sure how anyone can give it a free pass, no matter how New Age foggy things get. 

There seems to be a real feeling that these issues are redundant and behind us now. 

"BOR-RING!" 

Actually, this couldn't be further from the truth. We need to deal with this, especially the sensitive, touchy points, more so now than ever if we're really going to do this on this planet. 

So am I a bit of a broken record? Sure. But as this stuff just keeps echoing and cycling and swirling, unconscious and unresolved, there's really no question about whether my words are still necessary, is there? 

Saturn's at tail-end Virgo for just three months, offsetting Pisces energy within tail-end Piscean era. The psychic catch-all is overloaded and ripe for abuses. The oceans are at their contamination breaking points. And the importance of responsibly applying Virgo energy cannot be overstated. We don't get another chance this strong to get on top of this stuff.

Black Moon Lilith and What's Going on Behind the Scenes

Photo: Willow

I've been thinking about Black Moon Lilith lately and its effect on this blog. I notice the effect of Black Moon Lilith on my posts, holding things in the shadows so as to protect them, enveloping information within larger posts so that only those with the eyes to see can find it. Only those willing to work for it a bit.

I have to zip around in the oddest of ways to maintain the integrity of this blog at the level where I need it to be, deleting here, transferring words there. Connecting and disconnecting, and then, once the integrity has been proven - sometimes more than once - re-establishing the connection. And all this is done almost invisibly...unless, of course, you're strongly attuned to this energy and understand the way it works.

This relates to how I understand the difference between the mean and true calculations of Black Moon Lilith - the lunar apogee or point at which the Moon is furthest from the Earth in its orbit.

The true Black Moon Lilith point zips around like crazy, back and forth, making mad dashes through large swathes of zodiac degrees. Erratic and unpredictable are two words used to describe its movement. Herculean and whip-smart intuitive, I'll add.

The mean calculation of BML averages out all this erratic movement and comes up with a more steady course through the zodiac.

So I see the mean calculation as relating to the solid, longer-term goals of this deep feminine energy with the true calculation reflecting everything it has to do, all the bases it has to cover and marks it has to hit, to reach those goals, often related to fairness, integration, acceptance and influence within the whole.

Multi-tasking while juggling fire, a Mama duck paddling like mad beneath the surface while maintaining a calmer, steadier demeanour on the surface.

Black Moon Lilith represents the energy of the ostracized feminine force, cast aside when it wouldn't bow down, when it refused to be silenced and continued speaking the dark truths that the society around it would not face or accept.

A lot of people who read this blog have strong Black Moon Lilith placements in their natal charts, and you all know what I'm talking about here. If these themes sound familiar, you probably have a strong BML placement.

You have to do what you have to do, often without worrying about how you are going to explain actions that may seem unfathomable to other people. It really is a matter of survival.

Because of the wounding and horrific treatment of this energy/those who embody it in the past, there can be some extremes in the behaviour. Black Moon Lilith can lash out or rush off into the shadows in a very reactionary way, fuelled by seemingly minor and unrelated events triggering these pains of the past. The reactions really can be overblown. But it's better to be safe than sorry with Black Moon Lilith situations these days. This energy is at the breaking point, as so much is, and simply can't take more wounding through denigration or marginalization.

The problem, I think, comes when you get stuck out there, alone on the windy, barren prairies of your psyche. This can happen for a few reasons: because it's too painful or risky or you're too afraid, angry or ashamed to take steps back in, because you're being punished by those who want to keep you out there, or because you refuse to take responsibility for the destructiveness of the energy you're putting out there, and the collective rejects it for its own protection.

Some expressions of this energy really do need to be refined, and we need to be aware when we start getting too close to those edges...

So it's a delicate dance, working with this Black Moon Lilith. These are tricky times we're living in, and the truth and energy of BML must be applied in the most skillful and artful of ways.

The potential for wounding is there, but staying in the shadows can do just as much damage. So we have to work together on this one, little by little. The entry points for integration of the feminine are at those points where change can no longer be resisted.

This denied feminine energy, the knowledge it holds inside, is so powerful and potent that sometimes just the energetic impression of it gets the job done. Often, that's the best way to get the job done, actually. The full, constant presence of this energy is overpowering, too much for the collective (and us) to deal with, and will come back on us in unpleasant ways if we over-saturate. This is why the rapid movement and the disappearing acts are necessary. (So don't be surprised if this post should disappear for a little while, either!)

Aside from this blog, I've been thinking about the role of this dark feminine force, in general. (And just to clarify, not dark as in evil but dark as in, having to survive and exist in the shadows, in the spaces between the mainstream structures. Black Moon Lilith is scrappy like that.)

I'm especially looking at the influence and role of BML in the potent eclipse chart this summer and in what is being initiated long-term at this point.

The understanding these days is that we need unity. We need to come together in a critical mass if humanity is to break its chains and prosper, rather than falling into the dehumanizing, demoralizing Pluto in Capricorn vortex of complete corporate compliance and related distasteful pursuits.

I'm hearing a lot of dismay about our perceived inability to reach this critical mass. (Echoes from the 60s maybe.)

But I think we have to look deeper than the wounded, interfered with aspects of the Piscean energy so that we don't miss the very real opportunities, however small, for bringing things together more cohesively.

The critical mass is already here. It just needs time to to gel, which we're working on now.

As far as the chart for the Capricorn eclipse conjunct Pluto on June 26 within the cardinal t-square/energetic cross:

We will have Chiron at zero Pisces conjunct true Black Moon Lilith at 3 degrees.

This tells us that the Piscean coming together is going to be painfully intercepted and interfered with at points, with many old wounds to work through before we can even really give a damn.

But aren't we used to working around this already? I should say so.

Black Moon Lilith relates to the primal, emotionally instinctual energetic work of the dark feminine that is always going on in the shadows, under the radar, with only a flicker here and there visible within the mainstream. It's obscured, but it's there, working away. Let's not forget that.

The mean calculation for BML at the eclipse is at 29 Aquarius, which is the degree of the Aquarian Age start as a whole. So, again, you can see what has to happen with the wounded collective feminine/spiritual Piscean energy (true BML) before we get to the longer term goal: successful integration of Piscean lessons/energy and entry into the Aquarian era (mean BML).

There are points we need to anchor here and sore spots we need to be aware of while doing so. Working with this integration process, in whatever form that might take, will be a better use of time and energy than lamenting perceived past failures.

The wise feminine knows that, doesn't she? Just keep paddling because really, what else can you do?

Chiron Dips Into Pisces: Yoo Hoo! Not So Fast There, Buckaroos

Ah, yes. Here we are. (And we've been here before, haven't we?)

The Atlantean throwbacks are poised to destroy the world again.

And those with the Piscean understanding of how things work energetically as a whole can see and feel it happening and still haven't figured out quite what to do about it.

This is the Aquarian/Piscean divide we're looking across. At times it seems we're so very close to securing the necessary connection. It's right there, and it seems there's hope that we'll be able to impart the necessary spiritual/soul-level concern and balance before it's too late.

But then in a matter of seconds, we're light years apart again, left exhausted and shaking our heads at the hideous arrogance and the astounding lack of foresight or wisdom behind these shiny, new technologies and hybrids and patented ideas.

It makes me laugh (we're dealing in black humour here, folks) that much of the scientific establishment believes it is so very far advanced, so far beyond the common person's ability to understand, with its carefully crafted jargon and purposefully obscured intelligence. It's as if they feel they are speaking to children, feeding us carefully-chosen, easily-palatable crumbs related to what they're up to behind the scenes...when we already know damned well the whole pie has been corrupted.

See, we know these things because we feel them. Our souls tell us what we need to be aware of, even when we don't have the exact scientific terms for it. And this is how we know just how far off they really are at this point in human history.

We know that the world scientific establishment is working on "proving" things that have been understood through spiritual knowledge and wisdom for millenia. Things that really are so very simple that, yes, children are born knowing them.

But they've got only small pieces of the whole that they're playing with. Combine this segmented understanding of things with excessively masculine arrogance developing blisteringly dangerous technologies, and you've got a highly risky situation on this Planet Earth.

Powerfully simple spiritual truths are passed over for the trendy and the sexy pseudo-cutting edge. BOR-RING! say the teenagerly Uranian charge addicts, spiking their veins with nano-technology and robots controlled by thoughts, colonization of the moon and trans-humanist garbage.

It's the Pisceans who have the understanding of the whole, and this is why we keep going, keep trying, despite exhaustion, resistance, betrayal and physical and psychic danger. The stakes are high, and we know it.

There are certainly some within the scientific establishment who still have a working connection to their souls. These people drive a certain level of tokenism for the spiritual/energetically-interconnected/humanist side of things. They're hipper and more in-the-know on this front than their strictly Aquarian counterparts, and we can be grateful for this. But still, it's tokenism, not the driving motivation. It doesn't penetrate to the top.

Money and power and those who hold them are still in the driver's seat here. Top-down hierarchical agendas still rule the application of these grand technologies and the scientific minds behind them. Thousands of Manhattan Projects going on all over this globe...and much worse. An army of tortured monkeys scream out their warnings from nightmare labs around the world. A billion canaries gasp their last gasps in a billion toxic coal mines.

As we know, all this never bodes well for humanity as a whole.

And this placement, Chiron in Pisces for the next eight/nine years, during the first official years of the Aquarian paradigm, indicates the challenges ahead.

To me, it speaks of the same-old, same-old dynamics of the arrogant and masculine-heavy rushing in where angels fear to tread. Patenting life itself, getting it under the establishment's thumb. Misusing energy and nature in the most horrific of ways with no care at all about long-term repercussions.

Those who hold real Piscean understanding are doing what they can to bring the 12th energy of the zodiac to the decision-making table. They see the massive, gaping holes in understanding (and in ethics) of the Atlantean throwbacks toying with the power to dismantle humanity and all living things.

But let's be honest. The Pisces energy and those who embody it have taken quite a shit-kicking up to now. We're tired. We're a little punch-drunk. We're psychically and physically taxed. We feel powerless and helpless at times, as if we're destined to see a history we hoped we would never experience again repeating.

And our numbers are not as strong as they could be with so many still caught up in useless spirtual hierarchy, materialism and ego, feeding their precious energy and talents into the same top-down control mechanisms. Squandering it in one diversionary, escapist past-time after another.

So these are some of the conditions as Chiron begins its transit of Pisces.

The flip side of the wounding is the healing - related, in this sign, to finally anchoring the spiritual understanding and knowledge we've been carrying forward for so long. Activating the 12th energy of the zodiac, the energy that brings everything back together from wounding segmentation. And seeing this energy properly applied as a motivating force guiding the decisions being made on this planet...little by little.

Chiron is entering Pisces at an opportune time, a crucially necessary time. It dips into the first degree of the sign Monday, April 19 until July 20, at which point it retrogrades back into Aquarius.

This adds just a touch of the Piscean understanding and impetus to the proceedings - maybe palatable enough for even the most arrogant of scientific minds to accept? Let's hope so.

We have to be gentle here, but firm. There is no un-knowing what we know. There is no going back to a more fragmented understanding of humanity and life on Earth. So we hold our positions.

And we're aided in this pursuit as the Sun joins Venus and Mercury Rx in the earthiest of earth signs, Taurus, also on April 19, just as Chiron ingresses Pisces.

In the areas where we had begun to fear we were losing our grip, losing our footing and our connection to this Earth, we're reinforced. Our feet are planted. We fully inhabit our bodies here and draw on their inherent wisdom. Our feet grow roots that tunnel deep into the soil, connecting us to the lifeforce that has sustained our entire physical ancestral lineage.

Safely, stably, in a grounded, earth-connected manner - this is how we proceed. This is the fixed foundation we need as we bring forth Piscean wisdom, insight and understanding in practical application. With the deepest respect and reverence for this planet, the ancient wisdom of its natural timing and cycles and the living things upon it. Like this, putting one foot in front of the other, we're sustained.

It's not so easy, though, to find the trust and the courage to fully ground into and inhabit these bodies. Taurus is about what feels sensually good, and much of what is going on on this planet doesn't, especially for sensitives. For many of us, being on this planet, aware of what we're aware of, has not often ever felt truly good.

Our bodies tell us that knowing what we know has brought down a world of pain and injustice on those who have preceded us in carrying this knowledge forward. So we're wary and kept from trusting this physical existence completely.

But the truth of the matter is, the chips are down. It's now or never. We need to let go of the escape hatch door, to fully come to Earth and into these bodies, in order to anchor this wisdom we have, to nourish it, apply it, and give it a fighting chance.

It's not simply the awareness of past abuses that is stopping this from happening. People still attempting to make a go of it within mainstream systems are forced to live at such an unnaturally accelerated pace that it's impossible to truly care for their bodies. They don't have the time to connect to their deepest body wisdom, and they certainly aren't allowed to use it if they do manage to.

People are made to feel guilty about living on 'Taurus time' or needing time in fresh air, out of the office buildings. So they come out of their canned air cubicles only for a smoke break or a quick coffee, the drugs they use to insulate their senses enough to continue, and then plunge back in.

The 'Too Much Information' Chiron in Gemini generation has been manipulated in this way to an unbelievable extreme. This was a gateway generation, the first one to grow up constantly connected and driven by that Uranian charge addiction - cable, satellite, radio, internet, cell phones, text messages, iPods, Blackberries. Constant bombardment. Constant stimulation.

There are so many people living at this bizarre, manufactured Uranian pace, and there is going to be a massive purging and purification required, especially as the Pluto in Scorpios reach the point of electromagnetic toxicity saturation - when they realize what has been fed into their collective. The balancing polarity point for Pluto in Scorpio is Taurus.

Chiron will be in Pisces, conjunct Black Moon Lilith, during the initial cardinal t-square/energetic cardinal grand cross this summer along with that potent Capricorn eclipse conjunct Pluto. The spiritual whole coming together is key in what is initiated here, though this coming together will be obscured (Chiron/BML).

The feminine, spiritual understanding that has been forced into the fringes and the shadows and kept there for so long peeks its head in here, just long enough that it cannot be denied by anyone with even a hint of ancient wisdom in their bodies.

And the power of it, having taken a back seat to the masculine for so long, starts to let itself be known. The damage done will be hard to ignore from here on in.

At the same time, the dark side of Pisces - the delusions, the blind spots, the rosey puffs of Neptunian glamour that lead around by the nose - will be easily manipulated within the collective. Watch the Neptunian smokescreens and identify when the collective subconscious is being pumped full of diversionary energy - both fearful and hopeful. This is some of the trickiest energy to get on top of on this planet, and it is often used against us. We have to work together in earnest to maintain clarity of vision because with Chiron on one end of Pisces and Uranus on the other, the conditions are ripe for traumatizing uses of this energy.

Saturn in late Virgo provides its mastery to assist us with this clarity and precision so we don't miss pertinent details. Deciphering manipulated/manipulative Pisces energy from the holistically healthy and sustaining is never easy, but no one said we were living in easy times.

We have to be much smarter now with this Pisces energy, channelling it into only the most precise and necessary practical application (Virgo). Accepting and working with only the holistically healthy, grounded, sustaining version - rejecting all else. No dumbassery allowed. No leaks. Rock solid boundaries. This is what we've been getting on top of throughout the Saturn in Virgo - Uranus in Pisces opposition cycle. Refining the energy of the 60s and getting real with it. Chiron will be at the potent zero degree of Pisces for the final Saturn-Uranus opposition in these signs April 26. Again, the damage related to unsuccessfully working with this polarity will be hard to ignore.

We really do hold the trump cards here. Despite all attempts, there's no destroying what we know or what we're connected to. We just have to hang in there until we get our chance to play them. Holding steady as grounded Taurus infuses the entire Chiron in Pisces transit...

Storms make trees take deeper roots, and the deeper the roots, the stronger the tree.

We certainly have to be strong little trees these days, don't we?

But we can do this. We were born to do this. We just have to pace ourselves because it's a marathon, not a sprint - more so now than ever.

Chiron retrogrades back into Aquarius July 20 until February 8, 2011, when it re-enters Pisces for good for the following eight years - until February 2019.

Harper to World: We'll Take Your Nukes...and Give Them to the Only Country Ever to Attack with a Nuke

Speaking of those nefarious Saturn in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn allegiances... 

As Pluto heads more deeply into its retrograde period in early Capricorn, the "global governance" pushers (*cough* new world order *cough*) are meeting in Washington, D.C. in what is being called a Nuclear Security Summit. 

Obama is playing the nuclear annihilation fear card here in hopes that all the world's nations will gladly hand over their nukes and enriched uranium to Big Daddy U.S.A., who surely has only the most altruistic of motives for taking on the world's nuclear stockpile. 

And Canadians have yet another reason to be bursting with pride over our federal government, as our Prime Minister, Obama lapdog and NWO shill Stephen Harper, plays negotiating middle man. 

"Harper is expected to promote a Canadian initiative Tuesday to help other countries secure their nuclear material. On Monday, Canada said it would return its stockpile of enriched uranium to the United States, while Ukraine announced it will give up its stockpile of weapons-grade uranium by 2012 — and most of it this year. Later Tuesday, Harper is expected to promote the global partnership on nuclear materials and call for its renewal. The G8 signed on to the program at its 2002 summit in Kananaskis, Alta. Since then, the group has spent more than $600 million helping other countries decommission and secure their nuclear material." 

Let's recall that Obama dropped the information about Iranian nuclear facilities into the world media at the last G20 Summit in Pittsburgh in September 2009, setting a confrontational atmosphere. Here, he ramps things up a little, taking the next strategic step of "asking nicely" for all the world's nuclear weapons. 

Hmm...I wonder how the countries who don't want to be "globally governed" by this group of stooges are going to respond? 

This is in preparation for the next G20 Summit, going on at the very same time as the next G8 Summit, in Ontario, Canada during that uber potent Capricorn eclipse exactly conjunct Pluto Rx/Cardinal T-Square on June 26. 

We can expect the next installment of this "disarming everyone but the United States" drama to unfold there. 

Wow, I can't wait! Don't know about you guys. Sigh.

A New New Age Messiah?

The Hate Man, previously known as Mark Hawthorne, of Berkeley California's Telegraph Avenue is keepin' it real. He's hating, but he's doing it in a loving way.

I saw this guy on Dlisted.com this morning (in fact, he's Hot Slut of the Day, now putting him in the running for Hot Slut of the Month and Year), and he's pretty much the embodiment of my stance on the chronic positivity-pushing of the day.

When people of a certain mindset insist on experiencing and looking at only the "positive," it leaves an unbalanced, heaping helping of the "negative" for those who can't deny those aspects of reality.

Since nature works to balance negative and positive charges to neutralize the excesses of both, someone ends up with the difficult work of having to balance the "positive" excesses being created - and it generally falls to those dealing in collective work, such as the homeless philosophers of the world. Especially those homeless philosophers living right on the edge of the New Age bubble worlds - Berkley, Cali-forn-i-a.

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Q: You require people to say "I hate you" before you begin a conversation. Do you really hate everyone?

A: I do. But it's a new way of hating. It's about being straight with people. The dictionary defines hate as hostility, but that's heavy. My idea is to be straight about negative feelings that we all have, which is what hate is, and then you can have a real conversation. Don't be threatening or angry or snotty - just straight.

Q: So do you not believe in love?

A: Love? There's nothing wrong with that. I'm into positives, but we should be straight about the negatives to clear them first. My philosophy is to feel the positives more than say them. Act them out.

Hey, thanks, Hate Man! You're doing the world a great service, and most people don't even realize it. I hate that. heh

Aries New Moon: A New Two-Year Creative Cycle Gets a Strong - Yet Gradual - Push Forward

 

We're heading to a New Moon at 24 degrees Aries (6:29 a.m. on Wednesday, April 14), and this is the official Grand Opening kick-off for both spring in the Northern Hemisphere and for the new two-year Mars cycle we've just entered.

Mars is the planet that rules the sign Aries, so we say that Mars, currently just up to full speed direct in Leo, is the dispositor of this New Moon, adding a crucial layer of influence to whatever is initiated here.

Mars in Leo is squaring Mercury in Taurus, slowing to go retrograde April 17, so the creative cycle getting off the ground at this New Moon is being tempered by the influence of slow-and-steady Mercury in Taurus. Our steps have to be sure and solid and real as we head forward from here, and we're really digging in in the typically Taurean way.

There is also a necessity to let things unfold in natural timing to secure a solid foundation for our creative output. A little slower than both Mercury and Mars would like, but this is a good thing. In the physical realm, things take their sweet time to grow, and that makes them even better - as is the case with the unfoldment of this Mars cycle.

Mars retrograded in Leo from December 20, 2009 to March 10, 2010 and is just now back up to full speed direct. Mars retrogrades once every two years, marking a new cycle related to all things Martian - especially the setting of new personal goals, the realization of desires and the use of our will and action to achieve those goals and desires.

In Leo, the goals we've set are related to what we desire to initiate and create purely from the love in our hearts - both in our personal lives and in our communities - over the next two years and beyond. The things that will bring heartfelt joy and delight to us and to those around us, sustaining us and our communities through the rough patches ahead.

Love in action (Mars in Leo) is the driving creative force here. Love as the most raw, vital force in our lives, propelling our actions and fuelling our motivations.

This placement also has a bit of an edge to it as we have to fight (Mars) for love to prevail as the force motivating action and direction over the next two years - a crucial tipping point period in many ways.

This Aries New Moon brings themes related to the struggle for survival of the self and our personal identities, exactly as they are. Going forward, we will have to draw battle lines at times for independence, autonomy and the right to self-direction as the Aquarian paradigm begins, ensuring the exact right creative direction for us as individuals. We will have to put some effort (Mars) into it, loving ourselves and each other through even the tough stuff, and we will have to fight for those we love, at times. The fierce, fierce power of Leonine love. Cross it at your own risk.

Mars in Leo also provides a means to increasing the strength and vitality of this love in our lives by keeping it moving and flowing. Mars loves action/motion.

In Leo, the flavour of our Martian goals relates to the application of personal artistry, self-expression and personality, fun, glamour, romance and playfulness. As an offshoot of the romance, children could be involved - either goals to make new ones or goals related to the kids already here.

Here are a couple background posts on the Mars retrograde period in Leo:

Mars Retrograde in Leo: Reclaiming Our Primal Creative Force in the Face of Shifting Structures and Changing Paradigms

Full Moon in Leo and a Sun-Mars Opposition Mark the Official End of the Previous Two-Year Mars Cycle

During the Mars retrograde, we reclaimed our primal creative force and brought it back to our hearts, strong and pure. We slowed our creative processes and our creative output as we were redirected, slightly or completely, and were moved forward again in stronger, more heartfelt directions as Mars went direct.

Our hearts have to be in it now 100%, or really, why bother?

Post-retrograde, we now take charge of the autonomous use of our creative force to achieve goals related to living a life we love to live and seeing the people we love doing the same.

The Full Moon in Leo at the end of January marked the official close of the previous two-year Mars cycle, which had a Cancerian theme.

Now this Aries New Moon, disposited by Mars in Leo, creates an initiating push into this new creative cycle. We officially begin here after the overlapping period of the Mars retrograde and station.

There is a lot of fire energy involved here - passion, joy, creativity, inspiration. Zing! So focus on the new directions and initiatives beginning here that will stoke these qualities in you. We're leaving the past two years behind and moving on.

We're currently in the Dark of the Moon in Pisces, getting still and doing the preparatory wrap-up related to final-sign-of-the-zodiac Pisces themes. I'm excruciatingly happy to let the last bits of Pisces drip to a conclusion here because, for me, that was one wack-ass Pisces season we just went through.

The closer we get to the finale of the Piscean Era, the more overwhelming and draining the Pisces work can be - and we're very, very close to the end here.

Uranus and Neptune (in mutual reception) semi-sextile each other exactly at 28 degrees Pisces/Aquarius on Tuesday, April 13, as the Moon heads to newness in Aries, and you can see the work we've completed here related to the overlap between Piscean and Aquarian eras. We've hit a mark, heading into this fresh, new Aries New Moon, and that is truly something to celebrate.

The Moon enters Aries at 7:31 a.m. tomorrow morning (MDT).

A Love Letter to Astrology

Dear Astrology;

In my darkest hours, at my most desolate, I can always turn to you for solace.

At my most needy and clingy, when fear has overtaken me and I would repulse most of humankind, you will not turn me away. You take me into your comforting presence and offer me your wisdom. You try to help, and never have I gone away without some sort of foothold, something to look forward to. Sometimes it's just the tiniest detail - the moon changing signs, a retrograde planet not quite hitting a painful spot again, a progressed planet changing signs. Or sometimes it's just a planet moving a single degree. This is the inching forward you have assisted me in doing. Understanding and appreciating the smallest of changes and progress. And I'm grateful.

Yes, I have had to hunt at times to find any sort of pinprick of light, but I always find it.

You've been a steady presence in a life and a world that is sometimes shattering and frightening and confusing.

I'm not sure if I'd still be here if I hadn't found you. Certainly, my life would be much different, more chaotic and overwhelming, and I would feel much less capable within it.

I'm not ashamed to say, at times, you've been my only friend.

You've connected me to the loving presence of those who have gone before me. They speak to me through you, advise me and tell me everything is going to be OK. To keep going.

I see by your cycles that others have lived through tough spots, much tougher than this in many ways, and I no longer feel alone in my troubles.

You've kept me sane and connected to the natural world, even through symbols alone, while sequestered in a downtown city apartment in a life that doesn't quite feel like my own.

You help me see the candle burning in the window of every wise woman who came before me. I can see their kettles boiling and smell the ashes in their hearths. I can see them drawing up charts by hand, ephemerises open. I build on their work now, on the strength of all those who continued through the ages despite danger, ostracism and marginalization. The power of that legacy leaves me in awe.

And it pains me, dear friend, to see how your character and purpose have been besmirched by those who fear your empowering beauty. I see people embarrassed to admit they know you. I see you mocked and trivialized. I see things misattributed to you that are corrupt, and I see you being misused by those ridiculous people who have turned away from their souls.

But don't worry, friend. That will never be me. The astrology that rings through my soul is safe. It will not be corrupted because it's in me. It's in my blood and my bones and my heart and my soul. The words and energy of it will live on even after I'm gone in the hearts and minds of those it has also touched.

I'm honoured to speak your language, to share your wisdom. Thank-you from the bottom of my heart for the gifts you have entrusted me with.


All my love,
Willow

Saturn is Back in Virgo for One Last Polish

Saturn Rx re-entered Virgo yesterday afternoon MDT, and for the next four months (until July 21) we have our maturity and development tested around all those Virgoan subjects we've been working on for the past two-and-a-half years. Holistic health, habits, diet, work, service, what we support with our personal energy, doing things right, personal discernment, critical analysis, communication, boundaries - especially mental...

Yes, there are a lot of details to take into consideration with Virgo, and Virgo understands the importance of every last one of them. Even the smallest of matters left neglected and unintegrated can create big problems over the long-term.

This is why Saturn in Virgo has been so stringent, such a taskmaster, throughout this transit, especially as it opposed Uranus in Pisces - a placement very apt to getting caught up in the excitement and bluster of big, grand concepts and energies, losing focus on practical, daily realities and necessities.

If we did our Saturn work, though, that didn't happen. Saturn wouldn't let it. Quite the opposite, actually - as Saturn makes its final pass through late Virgo, we now have all the skills we need to puncture overinflated pseudo-spiritual ideology and ground or reject any dubious Neptunian/Uranian energetic outgrowths related to certain versions of "the future."

Saturn in Virgo helped us keep out feet on the ground when the energies (and people using those energies) were trying to lift us up, up and away. What goes up must come down, after all, so why not just cut out that whole extraneous process, Saturn in Virgo asks? Saturn in Virgo would much rather just work uninterrupted with the realities of our earthly existences. Isn't that quite enough to try to master?

This transit taught us the crucial importance of discerning what is personally valuable and what isn't and gave us the skills to cleanly reject whatever wasn't our bag.

Clean. That's a Virgo concept. Communicating cleanly. Crisp, clear actions and energetic dynamics. No mess, no fuss.

Saturn in Virgo opposite Uranus in Pisces reinforced just how sacred our practical service is on this planet. It showed us in no uncertain terms that our personal energy is precious and limited and that overdoing it and giving too much can have unintended and undesirable consequences. We decided what we will personally support and then learned to support it with only the energy necessary.

Virgo is the final sign related to the development of the self (Aries through Virgo) before we turn our attention and our energy outward to relationships, career, community, etc. (Libra through Pisces). In Virgo, we're working to master ourselves and our processes - to figure out exactly what makes us tick and improve in whatever ways we need to to ensure long-term functionality and health.

As part of that, we learned a deeper respect for our bodies and their functions. We learned to work closely with our bodies, assisting them in maintaining healthful function, as opposed to mucking ourselves up and making it even harder on our systems to stay clean and fully functional.

Saturn is now involved in the early stages of the upcoming cardinal t-squares and has just a little more prep to go over in Virgo before we get fully engaged in the grand-scale initiations of that configuration.

Saturn is moving retrograde now to the fourth of five oppositions to Uranus, exact April 26. It has been involved in this opposition cycle since November 4, 2008, and it will conclude with the final Saturn - Uranus opposition on the potent zero degrees of cardinal Aries and Libra July 26, 2010.

I can't believe it's been less than two years since these oppositions started. The effects on time (Saturn) have been bizarre, to say the least. We've been dealt many Uranian shocks and shattering insights over this time period that have often made even the smallest daily tasks a big challenge (Saturn in Virgo). These oppositional energies have been quite difficult to manage at times, even daunting, depressing and overwhelming. So if you notice some of those heavy feelings returning, never fear. It's temporary, and hopefully we're better prepared at this point to bear the weight of this energy during the last dip back in.

In effect, Saturn and Uranus are in opposition now and will be for the entire spring and summer.

The next exact opposition at the end of this month (April 26) is the final opposition in the mutable signs Virgo and Pisces. So here, we take all we've learned, all the work we've done and the skills we've honed over the past two-and-a-half years and take on more streamlined roles, more precise work, more effective function. Our energetic systems have been purified and the extraneous removed, and we know just how careful we have to be to keep ourselves there.

At this opposition, we're taking on a mature service, necessary for the changing times in which we're living, that uses all our most valuable skills - and it possibly looks very different from what we thought it was going to look like.

After a lot of confusion, we have a clearer understanding of what is being asked of us, what is required of us, going forward from here. With this final opposition in Virgo-Pisces, we square our shoulders and humbly accept the spiritually-rooted, practical roles we are to play within the context of these times.

Every bit matters; this Virgo knows. And we go forward from here with this as a guiding principle. The practical, daily application of our spiritual understanding and insight matter - probably most of all. And the application of OUR OWN spiritual understanding. The natural spirituality and connection that flow through us, uninterrupted, loving us and guiding us from cradle to grave.

I hope we've got a handle on these Saturn in Virgo themes because we're not going to have a huge amount of time to adjust to our new responsibilities and roles.

Uranus enters Aries May 27, Saturn heads direct at 27 Virgo May 30, re-entering Libra July 21, and we experience the fifth and final Saturn-Uranus opposition July 26. This is a big push forward into new territory. Ready or not, here it comes.

Saturn in Libra will square Pluto in Capricorn at 2 degrees of the signs August 20, and then Saturn starts to get out ahead of these aspects.

April 7 - Saturn Rx re-enters Virgo
April 26 - Saturn Rx in Virgo opposite Uranus in Pisces (28 degrees)
May 27 - Uranus enters Aries
May 30 - Saturn direct in Virgo (27 degrees)
July 21 - Saturn re-enters Libra
July 26 - Saturn in Libra opposite Uranus in Aries (0 degrees)
August 20 - Saturn in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn (2 degrees)

Navigating the Astrological Matrix with Robert Phoenix

I've been invited to talk astrology with Robert Phoenix tomorrow (Wednesday) on his Free Association Radio (FAR) show. Check it out live between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Pacific/noon to 2 p.m. Mountain. If you miss it live, it'll be posted on his radio site after that.

Willow on Robert Phoenix's Free Association Radio: Wednesday's Navigating the Astrological Matrix show.

Pluto Station. Blargh.

Pluto is digging in its heels, just about to turn retrograde at 5 Capricorn on the evening (MDT) of April 6. This planet grinding to a halt is unleashing a sort of energetic carryover from its very intense direct period (September 11, 2009 - April 6, 2010). This carryover energy is washing over us and triggering some cases of the mortal fears and the transformational yucks, especially related to things we've been dealing with over the past six months. Heavy, oily, dense. We can part the curtain and peek outside this heaviness for a breath of fresh air only in fits and starts, so accept the weight of this time period, keep on truckin' and be kind to yourselves.

Despite being past the Spring Equinox in the northern hemisphere, we're still technically in the dark half of the year, and sometimes the trickiest period is the home stretch when we're tired (so very tired) and starting to question whether we even have it in us anymore. In Celtic lore, the dark goddess Cailleach (relates to Kali) rules the land until April 30 when we get to the light half of the year and Brigid takes over. Sweet, sweet Brigid. By then, Pluto will be picking up speed retrograde.

So we have to keep putting one foot in front of the other here under the sometimes flattening weight of stationing Pluto in Capricorn. Step-by-arduous-step, Pluto in Cappie says. Burning through dense, constricting detritus and facing down gut-churning fears as we go. Again, we're dealing with collective progress here (Capricorn), and it's impossible to be fully aware of the ancient roots and dynamics we're dealing with - how deeply and intricately they go. We're doing the best we can.

The Moon enters Capricorn at 7:07 p.m. this evening and immediately squares Saturn Rx, which is on that potent zero degree of Libra just about to re-enter Virgo April 7 for a three-month stay (until July 22).

The Moon will conjunct stationing and uber potent Pluto in Cap early tomorrow morning, so it could be another unnerving night filled with deep, dark dreams. Hang in there.

(And I see I started writing this at 1:08 p.m. Very fitting for a post on the collective work and responsibility of Pluto in Capricorn since the Tibetans believe there are 108 sins. Not to mention it being Easter Sunday, the day Jesus Christ rose from the dead after being crucified. See what I mean?)