Last Day of the Light Half and Last Day for the Reading Sale

Today marks Samhain, Hallowe'en, All Hallow's Eve as we cross into the dark half of the year. (Do we ever really leave during this Pluto in Capricorn/fin de Piscean Age?)

The dark Goddess Cailleach, Plutonic/Scorpionic Wise One of death, destruction, purification and regeneration, takes the reins from Brigid, Goddess of the lighter half of the year, just in time for a November 5 13th degree Scorpio New Moon.

Never fear. As per usual, Brigid will reclaim the reins next spring as we are birthed, for good, into Jupiter and Uranus in Aries.

But this winter is going to be a deep, dark one with Jupiter and Uranus in late Pisces, stirring up the dregs of the tail-end Piscean era.

Today is the last day of the October Reading Sale, so please book a reading if you are hoping to get in on the special rates. That door closes tonight at midnight! ;-)

Pluto Conjunct the North Node in Capricorn and Heading Right Into the Heart of the Beast

Ceres, Pluto and the North Node are conjunct in early Capricorn, with Ceres just out in front. Pluto and the North Node come together exactly November 9, and our soul's path forward, the path leading us where we need to go collectively and personally, is driving us right through the heart of the corruption, terror and misery being purposefully inflicted on humankind. We have to see it if we are to change it, every last grasping tentacle.

There is a macabre puppet show going on at this tail-end astrological Piscean era and a sickening global ritual sacrifice of the most symbolic Piscean variety, with those at the top of a corpo-governmental oligarch stealing and manipulating energy, especially spiritual energy. There is attempt after attempt to break what is true and honourable as an offering to all that is sick, corrupted, demented. A grandscale attempt at the bending and turning away of the pure and true from its actual meaning and purpose, harnessing it to create abomination of surreal proportion. With human beings, animal and plant life and the balance of nature simply collateral damage on the way to these end goals.

The Presidents and CEOs are just the middle managers, of course, taking orders from much further up the pyramid scheme chain of command.

As are the New Age leaders - both open and covert - at all levels of that hierarchical ladder, locking their hapless followers in, though most don't recognize the game.

And we have absolutely bleak world headlines showcasing their handiwork.

We're in an era of HAARP-induced weather wars and frequency-induced energy wars, where dirty deeds and horrifying attacks can be committed under the radar, with an angry Mother Nature as convenient patsy.

These are absolutely heinous abuses of energy and of natural law. Atlantis Lite run amok...yet again. Turning our most basic and vital connections to the energies of the Earth against us.

A cholera outbreak has killed 300 Haitians, among the 1.3 million still displaced and desperate for assistance after the January 12 earthquake that toppled houses, businesses and infrastructure. Health officials are worried the cholera may settle in, along with tuberculosis and malaria. And the outpouring of international aid lines official pockets.

The Haitians are people who sought freedom from their enslaving French and British oppressors, no matter how deep the financial debt it would require to pay off the slavemasters and no matter how devastating the trade bans enforced against them. That set of priorities, that energetic precedent, is dangerous to those powers trying to drive the entry into Aquarius their way - away from freedom. As is the depth of soul and spiritual connection that would spur and sustain such a move out of the shackles of slavery.

Seven million remain homeless in Pakistan after the catastrophic floods in July that damaged almost two million homes and destroyed crops on a massive scale in that nation's breadbasket. Here's another deep, spiritual tradition, the strength of which you can see in the calm and peaceful faces of Pakistanis who find themselves in terrifyingly uncertain circumstances.

And in Indonesia, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake was followed by a tsunami and then a volcanic eruption at Mount Merapi in Java Tuesday. All three disasters hit within 24 hours, killing at least 300 with 400 more missing and tens of thousands displaced. This follows the December 2004 tsunami off Sumatra that killed 226,000 people.

Indonesia is another country that holds old, spiritual knowledge, wisdom and traditions - the type that certain forces would not want being carried over from Pisces to Aquarius.

It's being reported that likely among the dead is the elderly spiritual guardian of Mount Merapi, Mbah Maridjan, believed by many Javanese to possess magical powers. Maridjan was the volcano's "widely-loved custodian," regarded as a protector who used a combination of Islamic and animist rituals to keep Merapi under control.

And in Canada's North, yet another fairly pristine and untouched area where traditional people hold an energy close to the Earth, British Petroleum and Imperial Oil (parent company to ExxonMobil, by the way) are attempting to woo the northerners into opening the Beaufort Sea to offshore oil exploration and drilling.

Yes, as the horrifying disaster continues in the Gulf of Mexico, all under media blackout, these companies held a public meeting Monday night in Inuvik, Northwest Territories to pitch their case.

Two companies that should have been liquidated to compensate people in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico are still, in this Pluto in Capricorn Age, open for business and intent on spreading their devastation even further. Not happy leaving even one vein unspiked...

There are still so few, relatively, who can or will connect the dots. So few who are willing to go all the way, to see right to the root, to truly peel away the false idols and shimmering Neptunian mirages.

But that Scorpio stellium is still working away. Mars on the anaretic degree, about to enter Sagittarius early tomorrow morning. The Sun, Mercury, Venus retrograde and Vesta. And the North Node conjunct Pluto and Ceres. The truth is getting harder to deny...

The Personal Planets in Scorpio Work Their Magic on the Era-Shifting Mutual Reception and Fighting for the Right to See Through Our Own Eyes

What dead fish? I don't see any dead fish. 

So they think the Age of the Fishies is over already, eh? All cleaned up. Nothing left to see. 

There was a massive fish kill September 10, 2010 in the Bayou Chaland area of Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana as well as two additional fish kills over a span of eight days in nearby areas that were also heavily oiled during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. 

The only thing that smells worse than that many dead fish is BP and the U.S. government's official story... 

A statement issued by the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) released the day after the Bayou Chaland fish kill stated the fish died from low oxygen levels unrelated to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. According to P.J. Hahn, the Director of the Coastal Zone Management Department, the LDWF came to this conclusion without taking any water or fish samples of the area. 

Hahn collected his own samples of water and fish, and early independent testing found that (surprise, surprise) the fish had oil in their gills and liver. 

Here's the climate as Mars in Scorpio finishes squaring off with Neptune-Chiron retrograde in Aquarius and trining Jupiter-Uranus retrograde in Pisces - and as Pluto, Ceres and the North Node form a potent conjunction in early Capricorn pushing awareness of the corporate corruption of our environment and food supply to the surface. 

A robotic, manipulated, insane official explanation that defies all basic, human logic - and the requirement to shrug that off and dig for the real story ourselves. 

Getting beneath the permeating official line created by such crafty manipulators of the collective ethers takes all our skill, determination and courage. 

Tearing multi-layered masks off the soft-lit illusions that persistently work to keep people enmeshed in insane constructs not their own is a step-by-step process requiring us to go slowly and carefully, countering every official line with raw, gut-level Scorpionic authenticity - and research. 

Digging deeper, holding stronger and truer, scraping back the glossy veneer and the sounds-too-good-to-be-true every time the prescribed Neptunian easy out breezes in and attempts to sway our opinions. 

As the public is lulled back into that wounding Neptunian false sense of comfort and complacency, believing, incorrectly, that it's all over now and we just need to "move forward" (where have we heard that one before?), the Sun, Mercury, Venus retrograde and the asteroid Vesta also move through the murky Scorpionic bayous, fixed on digging us out. These bodies in Scorpio will also square Neptune-Chiron Rx in Aquarius and trine Jupiter-Uranus Rx in Pisces, putting in check the siren song pull into skimming over, cutting corners, emotional detachment, letting the 'officials' deal with it, and blind faith in the future (or in future generations) to save us. 

Scorpio wants us right here. Right in the thick of it. No squirming out of reach. No looking the other way. Dig down under all that fake sand that has been trucked in to the beaches of Florida, and you'll find all kinds of toxic muck. 

Two research vessels have found vast amounts of oil in samples dug up from the seafloor around the Macondo well site. 

Kevin Yeager, a University of Southern Mississippi assistant professor of marine sciences and chief scientist on the research trip, said in an article in USA Today that the oil found in samples ranged from light degraded oil to thick raw crude. 

"Clearly, there appears to be vast volumes of oil present on the seafloor," Yeager said. "We saw considerable evidence of it." 

This, of course, blows claims made by the U.S. government that the oil had largely dispersed and disappeared right out of the toxic water - if we really required 'scientific evidence' to know that that was a false statement. BP and the U.S. government also claim that Corexit has not been used in the Gulf since mid-July. Local residents, however, report it being sprayed into early October. 

An October 10 video from Denise Rednour of Long Beach, Mississippi shows dead jellyfish and tarballs as well as the now all-too-familiar froth of Corexit mixed with oil washing up on the shore and creating vicious vapours. This makes the official claim about the discontinued use of Corexit hard to believe. 

A similar October 18 video shows large fish washing up dead along the shore of a public beach at Grand Isle, Louisiana, with some sort of official workers dutifully burying the evidence. This video shows the same frothy pools of Corexit washing up along with the fish. 

A follow-up video a few days later shows tar balls washing ashore along with dead snails and jellyfish - but the large fish have been removed from sight. 

According to Tulane University post-doctoral researcher and marine biologist Erin Grey, eighty percent of blue crab larvae samples collected by her organization from an area of the Gulf stretching from Louisiana to Florida showed evidence of oily orange droplets that tested positive for hydrocarbons. 

Harriet Perry, a biologist with the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory, has also reported that many of the crab larvae collected by her university have had the distinctive orange oil droplets inside. Perry says that in 42 years of studying crabs, she has never seen anything like it and that 40 percent of the area the crabs are known to inhabit has been affected by oil from the spill. 

And yet the U.S. government still insists Gulf seafood is safe to eat, reopening a 3,000 square mile area of the Gulf to fishing and shrimping south of the Mississippi Delta in early October after "sniff testing" - again, no tissue sampling - just three samples of shrimp from a 1,000 square mile area. No testing for heavy metals, no testing for dispersant. 

The local fisherman are being forced to sign a waiver stating that if they sell tainted seafood and someone gets sick from eating it, they will be held legally responsible. 

In Louisiana, Byron Encalade, the President of the Louisiana Oysterman Association, says the oysters have not spawned, leaving the status of the industry a complete unknown for years to come. 

In Tallahassee, Florida, a woman found oil in oysters she purchased at a seafood store. After several recent deaths from Vibrio vulnificus, a flesh-eating bacteria (also played up as the bacteria that eats oil) often found in oyster beds, researchers are studying how the oil disaster could possibly be increasing the abundance and virulence of these bacteria. 

Florida's Department of Health is warning people to avoid eating raw oysters and exposing open wounds to seawater and estuarine water. 

People are sick, physically and mentally. Millions will potentially be affected. There is no long-term understanding of what this much Corexit mixed with this much oil will do to the ecosystem or to the people living within range of it. Currently, people are debilitated by respiratory problems, headaches, nausea, rashes, exhaustion, tremors, flu-like symptoms, internal bleeding, depression and other mental illnesses. There are reports of diminished lung capacities, dissolving esophaguses, unexplained deaths. The Corexit is burning holes through people's skin. Doctors in the area are diagnosing scabies. None of it is related to the oil disaster, they say. And none of this passes the Scorpio stellium sniff test. 

We're in the territory of the zodiac where our actions are soul-informed, where we're moving by feel through the pitch dark, lovingly whispered to (with the Scorpio planets trining Jupiter-Uranus in Pisces) by all those who have experienced this before. At the root, this struggle has always been the same. 

Rooting out and exposing that which works to manipulate, injure, abuse and destroy us on this planet has always been this hard - harder. 

The web of damage and destruction cuts a broad swath, desperately deep. Impossible to keep on top of the full flood of information, of the extent of the corruption and dirty dealings through time and space. As Agent Orange and napalm morph into depleted uranium and GMOs and chemtrails. As Chevron's Rainforest Chernobyl in Equador's Amazon rainforest morphs into British Petroleum's horror show in the Gulf of Mexico. As guns and batons morph into sonic weaponry. As chemical warfare morphs into cyber and electromagnetic and weather wars. 

But we dig down deep because we know we're here now for a reason. We dig into our precious soul reserves and emanate from there, holding that energy, so valuable, and guarding it carefully, jealously. We've got just enough to get us through, despite the grieving and loss that saps us, if we use these reserves wisely. Mature Scorpio conserves its energy and uses it in the most potent and effective ways. So we step gingerly and cautiously and shrewdly as we tend to our shocked beings, dealing with the evaporation of big chunks of previous lives and selves, missing dearly what we've had to leave behind to get here. And those who have left. 

As the official line bullshit flies fast and furious, coaxing and loving us up and into its waiting arms, we have to trust our own eyes, our own insight, our own body knowledge and gut checks and sneaking suspicions above all else - and act on them. Finding that internal root truth in all situations, going beyond what those people on the flashing picture box tell us. Seeing through the carefully crafted images zipping by with the slick and pretty official words telling us what it all means. 

Easier said than done, though. 

We're in a time when the feminine knowledge, the internal, the intuitive, what we just KNOW is generally ridiculed, downplayed, scoffed at by those invested in the reinforcement of the mainstream constructs. We have to be willing to trust it even though it may make us the ridiculed, downplayed, scoffed at. To hone it until there are no skipped steps, no leaps in logic, no sabotaging blinders - only pure guidance, potent and implicitly trustworthy in every moment. 

I was recently told by a mainstream science and government-touting dude regarding water fluoridation that "the plural of anecdote is not evidence." Basically, he was saying that individual experience does not make scientific "evidence." And I think of what's going on in the Gulf right now and how dangerous that sentiment really is. How dangerous that sentiment always is, actually. What a sad, sad statement when the real experiences of human beings are passed over as unimportant or untrustworthy for the opinions of government and scientific and spiritual employees of the hierarchies who are often just observing those experiences and coming up with bought-and-paid-for spin. 

Can I prove the correlation between a nearby oil flare, radio tower and industrial farming chemicals and a cluster of cancer cases and autoimmune disorders around my family farm? More than likely not. But I know the correlation exists. 

Can I prove that it's unhealthy to live within 100 kilometres of one of three nuclear-armed-to-the-teeth United States Intercontinental Ballistic Missile armed forces sites? 

Can mothers having babies born with deformities and birth defects from Agent Orange exposure THEIR parents experienced 'prove' that correlation? 

Can we prove an environmental correlation between the toxic chemical cocktail in our air, water, soil, food, water and the cancer epidemic? Or with the rise in things like fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, Alzheimer's, depression, ADHD? 

Can Native people with rare cancers in northern Alberta prove that it's exposure to the toxic oilsands causing it? 

Can we prove that it's the Corexit burning holes in people's skin in the Gulf of Mexico? 

Will people be able to prove that their health problems ten or twenty years from now are related to the Gulf disaster? 

Can people in Alaska, post-Exxon Valdez disaster? 

Am I able to prove to pharmaceuticals-brainwashed doctors or to the mainstream-science-worshipping public that my health problems are a result of a highly dangerous fluoroquinolone antibiotic that should not be prescribed for minor infections? Even with thousands, probably tens of thousands, of other people reporting the same adverse effects? 

To the stringent (ahem) scientific standards of the day, probably not. But it's getting more and more insane not to see the connections. Isn't it, Scorpio? And again, I'm reminded of the purposeful training of people to look to the "official authority figure" - whether it be government, science or the next New Age "voice of our times." It's all the same machine, keeping people controlled and in line, believing what they are told to believe. Keeping them within the false veneers of pyramid-scheme hierarchies and away from the authentic potency points we need to hit in order to truly shift this shitshow. 

Florida Oil Spill Law

Anaretic Aries Full Moon Heading to a New Moon in Scorpio on Lucky 13

You don't get much more spicy astrological numerology than this. The next six months of New and Full Moons are absolutely ripe. Working closely with the lunar movements, the feminine is getting this shit FINISHED. Stick a fork in it. It. is. done. 

The Moon is on its way to fullness October 22 at 29 degrees Aries (8:37 p.m. CDT). This is the anaretic degree where all the lessons and requirements of the entire sign are boiled down and purified into a potent final exam testing ground. This is where we prove (or disprove) our mastery with the sign's energy and themes and see how well we've done integrating and practising the lessons of the previous 29 degrees. 

In Aries, this Full Moon relates to proving ourselves emotionally strong enough, courageous enough and ready for the fresh ground for which we've been striving at this tail-end Piscean era. Proving that we have the courage to be ourselves, to be true to ourselves and to stand in who we are in any situation, with any individual or within any group. Finding the courage to follow our instincts into new territory instead of getting hooked back into familiar same old, same old. 

This anaretic Aries Full Moon starts a series involving four additional anaretic degree Full Moons (in Taurus, Gemini, Cancer and Leo) over the next months. These are massive emotional culminations pushing to a head, requiring great skill to successfully navigate. The master lessons, indeed. We have to work for new ground here, proving ourselves inside and out and displaying that we really have learned enough to move on from the Piscean era karmic loops. 

October 22 is the book-end 29th degree Full Moon to the zero degree Aries Full Moon we experienced September 23, and we've got a clean-sweep culmination in the first sign of the zodiac - the sign of brand spanking new fresh starts and directions. 

As we're currently in Venus retrograde (October 8 - November 18), these two book-end Aries Full Moons provide a culmination point for all the Venus in Aries retrograde themes we've been working on since the last Venus retrograde in March/April of 2009. Here, we see how far we've come and whether we've really entered any new territory at all. 

We honed our skills related to identity and valuing our raw, individual identities within the group as a primal guiding force during that retrograde and subsequent Venus cycle. Being true to ourselves and fighting for that right when necessary, speaking up, taking action, taking the lead, following our instincts, exerting our identities in a balanced way and working the right mix of togetherness and potent individuality. If we don't know who we are and what we stand for at this point, if we're not able to comfortably stand as who we are, this Full Moon could get emotionally rocky, triggering some necessary personal work and actions to take. 

We built our Aries muscles during the past Venus cycle, and we're definitely going to need them to power through the last bit of Jupiter-Uranus retrograde in late Pisces and Neptune-Chiron retrograde in late Aquarius. Uranus and Neptune, of course, are in a late-degrees mutual reception (transiting each other's signs), indicating we're nearing the end of the most intensely overlaid transitional period of the Pisces-to-Aquarius astrological era shift. 

But see all this retrograding? We're not there yet. We've got one last winter of our discontent ahead of us before Jupiter and Uranus re-plant the flag in Aries. And the grasping, clinging Neptunian siren songs combined with Venus retrograde in Scorpio luring us back into sticky, tricky old habits, patterns and emotional weaknesses is going to require all our awareness. 

The November 5 New Moon in Scorpio happens at 13 degrees of the sign, the exact location to the degree of the Venus in Scorpio retrograde station earlier this month. A new expression of Scorpio in relationship is ripe for the unfolding - especially related to the hidden power dynamics and energy exchanges between men and women and the masculine and feminine. Sexual exchanges. Emotional and energy healing. Giving energy where and when it's needed most. Soul resources versus physical resources. Self-esteem and self-worth in relationship and out. Making sure that our best energy given is reciprocated in kind - or leaving the situations once and for all. 

The November 5 Scorpio New Moon kicks off a series of six New Moons all at 13 degrees of the signs from November to April of 2011 (in Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces and Aries). Lucky 13, baby. 

You'll notice the series ends with a New Moon in Aries next April when the Sun, Moon, Mercury retrograde, Jupiter and Uranus will all be in Aries. Here's our grand-scale fresh start and movement fully into the new territory initiated by the Cardinal T-squares this past summer. 

But as I said, with Jupiter and Uranus back in tail-end Pisces and a whole lot of retrograding going on in the skies, we're not there yet, and these potent lunar cycles show us what we need to do before we get there. At the tail end of Pisces, what we have to do is quite involved. 

The number 13 has a complex history and is considered a powerful and often karmically-encrusted number. There are 13 Full Moons in a year, so that's one facet of it. But we're heading into Hallowe'en with Venus retrograde in Scorpio, and the angle that comes up for me for the number 13 is the coven-busting correlation. 

From what I understand, covens could usually be sustained and kept cloaked and protected from the torch-wielding townsfolk up until the 12th member. But once the 13th member was added, there was a shift. The energy was unable to be contained at that point. Things dug a little too deep and triggered a little too much and became unmanageable. The bad blood would start to run, jealousy would rise, there would be political in-fighting and jockeying for power and position, dirty allegiances and back-stabbing. Basically, the coven members would start to get into some serious brass tacks - all the dormant poison would rise to the surface. It was as if a tipping point were reached with the 13th witch, and something would happen to bust up the coven, generally bringing it under fire from the mainstream society. Often, it was an angry member who had been screwed over and felt slighted who would rat the coven out. Energetic violations and abuses that had long simmered beneath the surface were busted wide open and aired, brought to task, by the addition of the thirteenth witch. 

Whether you believe that to be true, you can get a feel for the next six months, triggered by this Scorpio New Moon on the degree of Venus' retrograde station - the 13th degree of what most consider the only sign of the zodiac that can see in the dark. 

Potent new energy will be streaming onto the planet and into our lives during these 13th degree New Moons with the potential to shake us out of some really embedded collective and personal yuck...but also with a requirement to bring things to a full conclusion with the anaretic Full Moons. If we don't do it right, if we don't get all of it, we don't enter any truly new territory. 

There's a rhythm here with these Moons where we can intuit how far we need to take things - and not a step farther. Plenty of "Thirteenth Witch" situations are at their trigger points, especially with Ceres, Pluto and the North Node conjunct in early Capricorn. 

We're dealing with restructuring power, especially between masculine and feminine, with a Saturn-serious requirement to be responsible or suffer the consequences. 

Ceres has closed the gap and conjoins Pluto today on 3 degrees Capricorn - right in the thick of the Venus in Scorpio retrograde. 

The North Node and Pluto are conjoined November 11. Remembrance Day in Canada - the day we remember the war dead. Fitting, I'd say, with the Pluto-North Node-Ceres conjunction. 

The women of the world risk their lives and sanity bringing life onto this planet only to have it swallowed up by the male-dominated imperialist corpo-war machine. 

Going forward (which is the only option) means heading right into the heart of the beast. 

Plenty of corrupt, feminine-wisdom-starved structural outgrowths that are on the verge of toppling and intolerably oppressive and unjust power dynamics waiting to be broken up. But it's also much more subtle than that. The poison has worked it's way in, embedded in some very slick ways. It takes all our Scorpionic X-ray vision, listening with every fibre, to dig it out, to find the toxic pattern and disconnect. We're busting through some ancient bondage here - centuries or millennia-old grudges and bad feelings and the oppressive power dynamics that have kept us painfully pinned under it all, reliving it. We're working to break through the oppression and subtle tyranny that grows in almost all organized groups, if you really want to be honest about it - even groups of two. 

Some very subtle points of justice will have their days in etheric court, triggered by these 13th degree New Moons. Old, dusty, almost-given-up-on cases will be heard and decided, and shackles released. 

The tendency, of course, is for the mainstream to circle the wagons, keeping the thirteenth witch individuals far from the perimeters. Black Moon Lilith territory. But the things the thirteenth witches bring to the table, the necessary knowledge, understanding and perspective that have been severed from the whole, never go away. Without those final pieces, the whole will never be whole, what needs to be restored on this planet will never be restored. Things will always be off...way off. 

Doing the deep, dark psychic surgeon work, hitting the soul-marks that release house of cards after house of cards is dangerous work - both physically and energetically. Holding understanding of the denied, unintegrated parts of human existence, the misuses of power on this planet, and bringing them to awareness time after time - striving for honesty, authenticity, integration and justice on our planet and, equally importantly, in our interpersonal relations - is not an easy task. It brings the individuals who do it under fire from those who like their houses of cards just fine, thank-you very much. 

But we're not in a time when we can let these things pass. There is no more time or energy to sustain that which stifles and snuffs out the human soul. 

Did I mention we've got a massive collective karmic clean-up going on at this tail-end astrological Piscean era? If you're not digging in at this point and working to clear everything popping up in your life that you possibly can - especially in relationship - you're not doing enough. 

There is unfinished business here - deep, neglected emotional realities, old, habitual patterns that need to be moved through, and etheric connections that need to be put to rest. Scorpio is a sign of completions, death seeming to be the most final of completions, but in reality, that's only if you do it right. ;-) 

The intuitive voice asking for our attention and diligence is sometimes so faint these days. But it will direct us if we quiet the noise and really listen. There's our task as we move through the last quarter of 2010 and these very important lunar cycles.

Mars in Scorpio Square Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius and Demolishing Some Faulty Bridges

Mmm. The water looks inviting, doesn't it? Just remember. No diving in. That glacial iciness will tear the life out of you.

Photo: Willow

As Mars in Scorpio squares Neptune-Chiron in Aquarius (exact October 22 during our 29th degree Aries Full Moon), it's time for another round of Deconstructing the New Age Meme Complex! *crowd cheers*

I really am tired of this game, folks, but once you've proven yourself an able contestant, they ask you back again and again...

So onto our show.

Neptune and Chiron in Aquarius are currently on the degree of the famed 'triple Aquarius conjunction' involving Neptune, Aquarius and Jupiter in the spring of 2009. There was an attempt to implant and anchor plenty of bullshit during that time as far as the direction into Aquarius, and now with Venus retrograde in Scorpio and a contingent of other planets and bodies in the sign creating ongoing squares over the next three months, we have a chance to dig it up, layer-by-layer.

The New Age beast is certainly morphing and replicating at record speed these days, desperate to make the leap - to cross the bridge, if you will - to sustain itself into Aquarius. It's a frenzied scrabble to the finish line, and as always, the hidden, embedded nature of it is being brought to the surface via Scorpio.

As I've said before, it's funny how those declaring themselves 'enlightened' and 'awakened' are the same people unconsciously promoting and reinforcing this form of spiritual fascism - all while vehemently denying doing so.

I've written about the 'edgy' brand of New Ager previously - developed as a predictable reaction to the love and light bliss bunny type. 

 

And today, in honour of Saturn in Libra disposited by Venus retrograde in Scorpio, I'd like to talk about the 'bridge' New Ager, a variation on the theme claiming to be bridging 'light' and 'dark.'

Both edgy and bridge variations are similar in tone. Both declare to be too cool and aware of the 'dark' side of things for New Age status - yet both promote and reinforce the New Age paradigm through energy, ideology, and words. Listen closely. You'll hear the same jargon, the same idioms, and you'll see them funnel energy into the same New Age energetic pyramid schemes.

Both eschew the traditional New Age guru (old news!) yet subtly promote hierarchy of consciousness and those supposedly at the top of that hiearchy (they pretty much all want to be). 

 

Both reject mainstream New Age standards like The Secret as hokey or low brow yet reinforce the "creating your own reality," "manifesting abundance," "raising your vibration," and "enlightenment/ascension/awakening" memes, among others.

Despite protestations, both varieties are firmly entrenched in the New Age meme complex. Controlled opposition at its finest.

And while differentiating themselves and voicing their surface critiques of the New Age paradigm, they remain firmly within its folds, furthering its objectives and using the collected stolen energy to buoy and sustain themselves beyond the "common herd." They know what signs their paycheques - energetically and/or financially - and they're careful not to cross any lines. Membership has its cosy, buffering privileges, and they never even come close to the root truth with their critiques.

But you see how tricky things are getting here, how embedded and subtle things are getting. You see how strong that Scorpionic X-Ray vision has to be. 

 

The gut feelings are not as strong when the poison has been diluted so carefully and the presentation is so slick and glossy direct-marketed.

In order to make the leap into Aquarius, the New Age paradigm needs fresh blood. And appealing to those labelled with a 'darker' awareness of human reality on this planet seems just the ticket, just the bridge, to do so.

One false aspect of this appeal to the supposed darker side of things, among many, is the fundamental manipulation and misrepresentation of their concepts of light and dark. The very concepts of light and dark they use exist under the New Age umbrella, so both edgy and bridge New Agers are working with the corrupted language, concepts, and energy of that paradigm.

A major issue is the demonization of 'the dark.' (Did I mention most of the New Age is made up of socially privileged white people?) 

 

In the New Age paradigm, dark is generally synonymous with bad or evil and light is synonymous with good. Yes, they're now cosying up to the concept of 'dark,' but underlying the ideology, this is still so. The ultimate goal is to 'transcend the dark' and to move things back into the 'light' - their New Age version of light.

The same construct is applied to negative and positive - negative is bad/evil/unenlightened and positive is good/"high vibrating"/enlightened.

In nature, of course, this is not the case. Dark and light co-exist, just as negative and positive charges co-exist. They're yin and yang. The Sun rises every day and the world is light; it goes down every night and the world becomes moonlit dark.

Within much of the New Age understanding of energy dynamics and what is going on on the planet, there is a polarized battle going on between light and dark in which the goal is for the 'lightworkers' or the enlightened ones to raise the consciousness of the common herd to the point where 'the light' is victorious over 'the dark.' The dark (again, made synonymous with evil) is something to be overcome, consumed, stamped out by the light and those supposedly carrying more of it.

This paradigm keeps spiritual egos well fed about how much more enlightened and aware and privy to the inside scoop the followers are since they know "both sides" of the story. How it's their SERVICE and their DUTY to raise the consciousness of the masses to match that of their own on both false light and false dark ends of the spectrum.

(Speaking on behalf of the 'common herd': No, thanks.)

This dark/light polarization and the supposed battle between the two is a paradigm set up by and for the New Age. It's a manipulation of energy for its own ends - the siphoning and stealing of individual's spiritual energy, authentic experience, and power.

Words are powerful. Words have energy. Words catalyze events and changes. Those behind the New Age and behind all other hierarchical control mechanisms know this.

New Age was originally set up with a language of its own - certain key words and phrases that could be spoken, like a secret handshake, so that members could identify each other on the down low. So make no mistake: to this day, the New Age language and terminology are very important in the recognition of others of this paradigm, in the spread of these memes, and in the drawing of fresh blood into this pseudo-spiritual pyramid scheme. The New Age language and voice has an energy all its own, and once you can identify it, there's no mistaking it, despite the ever-more-subtle applications.

The implanting of certain idioms, catch phrases, and concepts has always been a major part of the spread of New Age. This is an implanting of manipulated energy. They call it "raising consciousness." I call it energy-stealing lobotomizing.

The diluting of the power of language is a major part of the control mechanism.

Specific words voicing specific aspects of our authentic experience as human beings on this planet are needed to create the changes we need to see. The watered down, cliched NewAgeSpeak is very effective in keeping people from the real potency points, especially related to the more difficult aspects of human experience. This, in turn, allows the power of the so-called 'darker' energies to be used by the few against the many with little censure.

So while working within this same New Age paradigm and speaking its language, the bridges these individuals are trying to forge are really not entering any new territory at all. It's energy being moved around for the same ends, being fed into the same end goals. More tail-chasing. 

 

These self-declared bridge creators are trying to build bridges in thin air that have no right even existing, using common ground that is not there and applying their paradigm in a blanket way over people who do not care to be brought into their fold, who do not care to be "bridged." And who would not agree with what they intend to have coming across those bridges.

As the personal planets pass through alchemical Scorpio, we have the ability to accept and integrate the forces of light and dark, yin and yang, negative and positive within ourselves and within our relations with others. We can understand the power and purpose of both light and dark, working in partnership just as they do in nature, and harness the power of this for use in our own ways - to bring about the changes we need to experience on this planet.

New Age control of 'the dark' keeps people from a real understanding and integration of those energies - both in the individual and in the larger societies. Segmenting and co-opting the 'darker' energies and making them New Age-trendy keeps people unable to identify and work with these energies in an effective way in themselves and in their lives. 

 

Because so many who have been enveloped into New Age have spent most of their time denying, fearing, or manipulating the dark, the skills are not there to go as deeply as we need to go en masse. The New Age paradigm just does not allow for it.

And so we get the skimming by and glossing over that are so prevalent. With Mars, Eros, Venus Rx and Vesta following Pallas Athene's tracks in Scorpio along with the strategic feminine positioning of the asteroids, skimming by and glossing over just don't cut it. Those times have long passed.

A self-serving blanket apology with no responsibility taken for the behaviours and disregard that made the apology necessary in the first place. A Psych 101 textbook analysis while glossing over the real underlying issues. A motivation not to make amends and do right but to free oneself from any responsibility, to absolve oneself without any personal change required. A public manipulation. Serial misuse and ill treatment of the feminine, of a woman, of women. A misuse of another's energy to strengthen oneself and achieve certain personal goals with nothing of value returned.

The Divine Feminine is not buying it, and neither am I.

That's one bridge I'm not interested in crossing.

- "Kali is free from the illusory covering, for she is beyond all maya or 'false consciousness.'" -

Ladies of the Zodiac...Bump!

Well, we're Libra New Moon-ing today with Venus just about stopped at 13 degrees Scorpio, preparing to turn retrograde in the wee hours tomorrow (2:08 a.m. CDT).

To say relationships are highlighted at the moment would be an understatement. To say there is a lot more going on beneath the surface than it would initially appear would also be.

As Venus stations, I'd like to bump this post up:

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

It's a post talking about the asteroid ingresses and feminine strategic positioning going on around this Venus retrograde station, including the Ceres-Pluto conjunction in early Capricorn with the North Node closely involved. This conjunction provides major thematic flavour for this Venus retrograde, and gives us some context as far as the merge-or-split vibe between masculine and feminine. Have I mentioned these are some serious energies we're working with?

It seems that every time I do a post on the asteroids or on the feminine influence, it gets buried a little. Interesting. So I'm unearthing this one again in case anyone would like this context.

Another post that gives broader context for the Venus retro is this one:

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

I'll be away from the computer October 8-11, so there will be no readings at that time. I'll be back on the 12th as the Venus retro is getting fully underway...

New Moon in Libra As We Complete the First Leg of Saturn in Libra

Our Libra New Moon on Thursday, October 7 at 14 degrees (1:44 p.m. CDT) happens loosely conjunct Saturn in Libra as Venus, almost stopped in the zodiac, stations retrograde in Scorpio. Things are getting serious. There's a pervasive feeling that if we don't get on top of this relationship stuff now, we miss a major opportunity, one that might not come around again.

Mercury in Libra is coming up on a conjunction to Saturn at the time of the New Moon (exact at 6:35 a.m. CDT October 8), and our communication skills are highlighted as the key to further progress in the ongoing restructuring and rebalancing of partnerships of all kinds.

This is the energy work we're doing for the planet now through our interpersonal relations - and this is why there is such a serious tone to all this Libra rebalancing of yin and yang. The energetic imbalance on Planet Earth between men and women and between the masculine and feminine (internally and externally) is reaching the point of no return. The influence of Saturn in Libra challenges us to dig in here and commit to finishing the job with even the thorniest and most trigger-happy of issues, if for no other reason than we have to. The continuation of humanity on this planet hinges on it. No joke.

Saturn most definitely has its work cut out for it in this sign.

In a society of easy come, easy go, quick-fix divorces and leaving partners in all sorts of bunged up emotional heaps, emotional responsibility in relationship is something many people aren't even aware is required, let alone practise in their own lives and relationships. We become oh-so-aware of the lasting emotional/psychological damage and trauma (and the effects of it collectively/globally) caused by this irresponsibility as stationing Venus, Eros and Mars transit Scorpio and we start to untangle, repair and heal. We mess each other up and get messed up in a lot of ways before we're conscious of what we're doing in relationship. With Venus, Eros, Mars and soon Vesta in Scorpio, we have the opportunity to become aware on very subtle levels so that we can completely rework and repattern our relational dynamics and energetic exchanges. There's really no excuse for going forward unconscious from this point on.

The Moon in Libra conjuncts both Mercury and Saturn Thursday morning prior to the New Moon as it completes its Dark of the Moon phase. This indicates unfinished emotional business that needs to be spoken about before we can unfold into the new relating and relationships indicated by this New Moon. Within the Dark of the Moon phase in Libra, we're challenged to balance the inner stillness required to close this cycle with the required communication and relating with others that will be stirred and impelled.

Mercury conjunct Saturn in Libra with dispositing Venus in Scorpio indicates that the conversations could be more difficult than lovely Libra would like. But the overlay of Venus in Scorpio will not waver from its path of uncovering core relationship realities, especially underlying and previously unspoken energetic ones. Finding the words to do our situations justice, to speak the authentic truth from our positions, especially if coming from a subtly disempowered or subjugated one, is a tight process. Then, on top of finding the right words, we're challenged to keep them palatable enough for others to receive and swallow. There is a masterful responsibility required now in our choice and use of words as well as in our unspoken communication.

At the same time, we're required to go right to the core of the matter with Vesta, Venus, Mars and Eros in Scorpio while not irresponsibly spilling our emotional processes all over other people. Knowing what to share and what to keep to ourselves for internal processing - and at the same time, not allowing triggered people to dump their stuff all over us. There will be a lot of that going on in people who have not-so-responsibly kept up with the Scorpionic processes thus far.

At the New Moon, we have a window of time, a newly emerging portal, to enter a more mutually respectful, responsible and honest way of relating. It's a delicate beginning, as New Moons generally are, and it will take some effort (Saturn) to get it cemented into our relationship foundations. But with the influence of Saturn, the opportunity to build a more just way of relating and exchanging energy into our relationship foundations is certainly there, with Mercury holding the hammer and the nails.

An exciting aspect of this New Moon is that we have just about completed the first leg (or 10 degree decan) of Saturn in Libra. The territory we covered this past summer with Saturn in cardinal t-square position has been cemented into place, and there's no going back. Saturn has initiated big long-term progress since re-entering Libra July 21, and we've been veritably zooming through the first decan of Libra - as much as Saturn can zoom, that is.

Saturn completes this first decan and enters the degrees of its retrograde shadow October 22 at 10 degrees Libra, and at that point, we're in territory we'll be going back over so as to restructure and solidify. Saturn retrogrades January 26 to June 12 from 17 to 10 degrees Libra.

Now comes the more plodding and sometimes arduous movement of Saturn - more of the energy we're traditionally used to with this planet - without the potent initiatory impetus of the cardinal t-squares.

The Sabian Symbol for the Libra New Moon is Circular Paths. This is apropos considering our deep Venus-Mars-Eros in Scorpio work at this tail-end Piscean era. We're being drawn back into the etheric imprints of relationships past (where did this all begin, anyway?), often through the people in our lives. Dating some ghosts.

I think this New Moon gives us the opportunity to take a new path, out of the circular maze that brings us right back to where we started. But only if we accept and successfully complete the challenges related to the new path - staying conscious every step of the way, humbly receiving guidance from our higher power/intelligence, and then doing what we know is right, even when it's the more difficult emotional path, even when we're being compelled to take the familiar karmic loop.

Mars-Eros-Venus Conjunct in Scorpio Form a Bonded Channel - Potent But Emotionally Deadly

Today, Mars at regular direct speed finally catches up to slowing-to-station Venus at 12 degrees Scorpio. Both those bodies are in tight conjunction to Eros, asteroid of erotic love and beauty, and we're getting into the good stuff.

Things have taken a turn for the deepest depths as these three wrap themselves around our hearts and squeeze out our truest and most profound soul's desires for love, intimacy, sex and togetherness. Our emotions run to extremes with this conjunction - from the devastating and detrimental to the sublime and mystical in a matter of minutes - and the feelings of deprivation if we are not with a love so true can cut exquisitely sharply. Self-esteem can take a hit with these energies, so be loving and gentle with yourself and others despite the edge.

The Venus-Mars conjunction is exact at 4:58 p.m. Central Daylight Time, and at that point, Mars and Eros move out ahead of Venus in the zodiac and start to create some much-needed breathing room as they continue direct while Venus turns retrograde. There's such thing as too much togetherness, too much keeping it real, and these three are at the brink of experiencing it in this conjunction in Scorpio.

Things are not going to let up from this sometimes nearly intolerably intense zone entirely as Venus stations retrograde October 8 just a day after our Libra New Moon (1:44 p.m. CDT October 7), increasing the power of its influence in the sky. At the point of the station, we've got Mars, Eros, Venus and Vesta in Scorpio with Ceres and the North Node coming together with Pluto. Prepare for bumpy navigation through psychic and emotional storms up ahead as we wrest ourselves free of unhealthy attractions, old, karmic ties and outdated attachments in love. Scorp territory.

Saturn's in Libra, and we're challenged to sternly keep ourselves from tipping back into old behaviour patterns in love, driven by desires that have already proven time and time again to be not in our best interests. Examining our desires and holding ourselves back from acting on the ill-advised ones can be just what we need now to slough them off like a dirty shirt.

If you do fall back into Scorpionic siren song territory, never fear. No beating yourself up. Just get back on the right side of things as soon as humanly possible. A Venus retrograde in Scorpio is just begging us to get drawn back into old crap we had the strength to pass over before, but don't let yourself get drawn too far. You can dip a toe in the murky waters, but no diving in, no matter how lovely and sexy and appealing they seem.

Everything we've been experiencing related to love, money, relationship, sex, emotion and shared resources of all types since the beginning of September shall be gone over again as we comb through the imprints of loves past, disengaging from dynamics that keep us repeating more of the same and powering through to healthier, happier and more soul-satisfying ground.

Venus retrograde cycles through the same sign every eight years, so anything love-related from around October/November, 2002 will be especially ripe for discharging here.

There's a lot of heart heaviness to clear before we can come together fully in the types of unions we would really like to experience. It's a bummer, for sure, but we're close - closer than we've been in a good long time.