An Alchemical Social and Professional Mix Percolates As We Head to Equinox

Photos: Willow

As we move into September, the Grand Water Trine summer of 2013 is officially winding down. The good vibes that buoyed us from Jupiter and the personal planets in Cancer, Saturn in Scorpio, and Neptune in Pisces have now mostly dissipated, and we are left with a more challenging series of cardinal Grand Crosses to navigate between August 2013 and April 2014. I hope you soaked up all the water magic you could this summer - we're going to need it!

 

We're now in the thick of Virgo season, harvest time, with the Sun and Mercury travelling through the sometimes persnickety sign of the virgin. Our focus for most of this month is on work, diligent effort, and attention to detail in preparation for the long winter ahead - physical and/or metaphorical.

A Virgo New Moon at 13 degrees, opposite Chiron Rx in Pisces, occurs September 5 (6:36 a.m. CST), and we open into new work, new roles, and a newly streamlined modus operandi. We're honing, purifying, and perfecting our skills as we move through this New Moon doorway, increasing effectiveness and eliminating unproductive efforts.

However, we also have to ask ourselves how we are so-very-effectively directing our personal efforts at this time.

(The Nazis were highly effective, too, after all. Efficacy is not always a good thing - Pluto in Virgos, I'm especially looking at you right now.)

The opposition to wounded healer Chiron in Pisces at the time of the New Moon indicates that we're working to heal the gaping psychic/spiritual wounds carried forward by humanity at this time, or we're working to support systems and ideas that cause further damage, tossing more salt in the collective wounds.

This New Moon is a time to get very clear on which effort you would like to support with your own time, focus, work, and energy. The condition and orientation of our souls at this crisis time on the planet are of utmost importance. We don't have as much time as we may have thought.

As we move through this clean-and-clear Virgo New Moon portal, small adjustments to our courses can create lasting improvements, particularly for physical and psychic health.

If there are changes you know you need to make in lifestyle or mindset, there's no better time than the present to implement them, propelled by this New Moon.

In light of recent information coming from Fukushima, eliminating certain foods in an effort to decrease the possibility of radioactive contamination may be wise.

New Moon in Leo Squaring the Nodes: Opening Into A New, Alchemically-Charged Creative Cycle

Photos: Willow

The New Moon at 14 degrees Leo on August 6 (4:51 p.m. CST) conjuncts asteroid Vesta and squares the Scorpio North Node and Taurus South Node.

This New Moon indicates a dynamic new creative cycle is opening with a mix of participants that starts to gel around fall equinox. The house where 14 degrees Leo falls in your birth chart is the area where this new creative cycle is getting underway.

The influence of "hearth and home" asteroid Vesta, exactly conjunct the New Moon at 14 degrees Leo, indicates that we're invested in our own creative output and in the power of our personalities. We've kept our creative flames stoked through trial and tribulation. We've put time, effort, and energy into expressing the love, style, and passion in our hearts - even when it was hard, even when it was devalued, even when it seemed pointless. An investment has been made in pure human creativity, joy, and play. We've banked on the power of our personal artistry and creativity. Now we start to see what that investment is going to reap.

With a transiting Scorpio North Node, we are challenged to address energy shortfalls now by coming together with others in creative/working partnership. We are seeking true win-win partnerships where we accomplish more together than we could alone.

But with the Sun and Moon coming together in Leo, the sign of the diva, the celebrity, the star, there is friction possible within these partnerships that must be addressed.

Big personalities, big egos, and big creative power are coming together, with a particular gel point this fall under the Saturn-North Node-Venus conjunction at 8 degrees Scorpio.

This requires a careful understanding and distribution of power. It also requires the careful, proactive honing of our personalities and egos. We have to drop a whole lot in order to achieve the things we need to achieve, in order to fit through the slim doorway to Aquarius. Coming out of this Leo New Moon, square the Scorpio North Node, we're determining the essentials of our personalities from the non-essentials, the benefits of a strong ego versus the pitfalls of an oversized one.

We're purging any potentially detrimental ego bloat coming out of this Leo New Moon with an eye toward long-term gains. The more honest we can be with ourselves, the better, though this will not necessarily be easy. We can expect some ego burns and bruising around this New Moon as we are stripped down, charged up, and positioned for the long term.

We may not get the attention we were expecting, but the attention we do get is meaningful.

Saturn in Scorpio

Saturn in Scorpio: October 5, 2012 - September 18, 2015
North Node in Scorpio/South Node in Taurus: August 30, 2012 - February 18, 2014
North Node, Venus, and Saturn conjunct: September 18, 2013

Saturn is the planet of tests and challenges designed to mature us as human beings. It's a planet related to time, aging, obstacles, fear, constriction, restriction, limitation, effort, structure, dread, weight, waiting, and responsibility. Though the associated process can be long and arduous, Saturn is a planet that works to put us in better and stronger position for the long-term. It strengthens us gradually, over the course of time, demanding that we earn our positions from the ground up so that we do not collapse under the weight of our responsibilities.

Scorpio is the zodiac sign related to sex, death, regenerative healing, darkness, secrets, betrayal, nastiness, karmic ass-biting, wisdom that comes from trips through hell, intuition, x-ray vision, soul drive, and metamorphosis. It is associated with suppression, oppression, and obsession. Scorpio is the sign of witchery, alchemy, the occult, the night, the soul, the pitch black, the hidden, the taboo, the complex, the complicated, the impossibly layered and convoluted. It is the sign of dark corners, trap doors, diviners, and soul healers. It involves emotional and psychological difficulties, energy processing, body intuition, intense examinations of power dynamics, and the severing of ties. Scorpio relates to creepy crawlies and things that go bump in the night. It is eagles, snakes, scorpions, and all things that poison, bite, or sting. Scorpio is venomous - you'd better believe it. But it also has the poison that heals those last resort cases, and at this point on Planet Earth, we're all pretty much enmeshed in one of those. Scorpio is also associated with the phoenix, rising from the ashes of destruction and devastation.

When Saturn is in Scorpio, our maturing challenges and responsibilities take on the thematic flavour of that sign.

(And you can now perhaps see that it is impossible to sum up Saturn in Scorpio in one or even a series of astrological articles, though I'll do my best.)

The long, drawn-out divorce. The arduous extrication process after a personal or professional relationship goes awry. Struggling within the confines of one's personal hell. The sick realization that you've let a rat through your front door, into your bank account, into your bed.

These are all themes of the Saturn in Scorpio variety.

As Saturn transits Scorpio, it will be in mutual reception to Pluto in Capricorn - that is, each will be inhabiting the sign ruled by the other, creating an interwoven relationship and energy exchange. During this mutual reception, we are going to see some very ruthless moves, to be certain, but we're also going to see some very ruthless moves fall flat. Dirty tricks will be played in the name of personal advancement, but they will also be exposed and outed. Character assassination and the sly erosion of others' professional reputations will be tactics used, but they will also be tactics that come back to bite their originators in the ass. Hard.

Under Saturn's thumb over the next years, misuses and abuses of power will be put in check. The results of underlying dynamics we've been (even unknowingly) furthering will start to surface. Issues falsely believed long-resolved will be stirred, like hot spots re-igniting after a brush fire. We'll be confronted with our misunderstandings of the way energy really works. We'll come into contact with the consequences of the way we've been living our lives - for good or ill.

Scorpio is considered one of the most "karmic" signs, but this isn't necessarily the much-offered oversimplification that "bad people have bad karma, and good people have good karma."

The truth is, the underlying energetic rules and realities of life on this planet are so complex that it is impossible to know the effects of each and every one of our actions. Add to that the fact that this sign is often working with collective, rather than purely personal, dynamics and "karma," and that complexity is compounded.

The beauty of Saturn is that it will give us a chance - multiple chances - to learn about all this, redirecting and reorienting our motivations, alliances, and allegiances in the process.

The North Node Enters Scorpio with Eros and Juno Conjunct: Attraction, Repulsion, Motivation, and Frenemies

North Node in Scorpio: August 30, 2012 - February 18, 2014

The North Node enters Scorpio August 30 for a 1.5-year stay, and things take a distinct turn for the serious. We shift from a jovial, Jupiter-ruled Sagittarius North Node to a stone cold reality-based one in Scorpio, from an expansive, optimistic guiding force to a condensed, concentrated, and gritty one.

The planets of greatest influence over our path during the next year-and-a-half are Mars and Pluto - both heavy hitters - and the movement, signs, and interactions of these bodies become keys to our successful navigation.

Mars is at home in Scorpio at the time of the nodal axis shift and will be there until October 6, the day after Saturn enters the sign. Mars changes signs about every 1.5 months. Pluto will be in Capricorn for the duration of the transit, forming squares to Uranus in Aries.

The North Node is considered indicative of our successful soul-driven navigational path forward and, in Scorpio, it indicates that the path to be carved out hinges on the proper development and application of the mad Scorpio skills: emotional, psychological, intuitive, metaphysical, and sexual.

From a previous post: "Scorpio is a healing energy. It intuitively knows where the trouble is and gets right to work, divining and digging to trigger multi-layered release points. It isn't just treating symptoms, either. Scorpio knows it's either go deep or go home, and it puts forth immense stores of energy to go to the mat for people, driving right to the root of the problems that keep them locked up, inauthentic, programmed, and less effective than they could otherwise be.

Scorpio digs the poisoned thorns out - and if it's masterful enough, it gets them all."

The South Node - an area of prior accolade and success but current stagnation and detriment - is now in Taurus, moving us away from a preoccupation with all things Taurean: Money. Dollar bills. Currency. Physical value. Accumulation. Impressive physical possessions. Maintaining tradition, security, stability, and comfort at all costs. The physical realm.

To stay encased in a South Node fortress of money, possessions, and toys at this point will bring escalating problems. Money and financial privilege as obsession/primary motivator can take people down now more than ever before.

The beneficial influence of the Taurus South Node, on the other hand, comes from channelling its strengths into the North Node path. Those strengths include: rock-solid boundaries, strong self-worth, money sense, grounding, practicality, an understanding of natural timing, and a strong sense of one's comfort level.

We aren't in a very comfortable place on this planet, and with this nodal axis, very few will be able to deny it. Where Taurus is about accumulation and physical comfort, Scorpio is about what we need to peel away, get rid of. It's about the necessity to face realities and issues that sometimes scare us or make us uncomfortable.

An intensive and relentless Scorpionic examination of power dynamics is the only way we can avoid becoming trapped and enmeshed in those power dynamics.

Saturn Stationing Direct in Libra Says: Time to Get Very Serious About Who You Have in Your Life

Saturn is currently stationing direct at 10 degrees Libra (June 12), and we're back to the degree it was on in late October, 2010 during the Venus retrograde in Scorpio. Situations, especially relationship situations, we were dealing with last fall come back up for resolution now. 

With five months of retrograde perspective under our belts, we are hopefully working with a more mature, grounded, and realistic outlook, including bottom line requirements for the people in our lives. Any relationship situations that were not fully resolved during the last Venus retrograde (and with Via Combusta Libra/Scorpio involved, you just know there are unresolved situations) will be back on our plates now. 

Commitments in personal relationship and business partnership that could not be made during the retrograde period will require decisions one way or the other by this fall, with an especially potent time frame for concrete progress between September 17 and November 3, 2011. 

A no-nonsense state of natural justice and equilibrium will slowly unfold as Saturn, in its exaltation in Libra, turns its energy outward. 

Carrying on the Venus retrograde in Scorpio themes (which remain an overlay), this especially has to do with underlying energetic justice, soul-level integrity, honesty, compatibility in relationship (or lack thereof), sexual dynamics, and power issues and imbalances between men and women and the masculine and feminine. 

 If there are situations where you ended up feeling wronged and/or burned last fall, things can start to be fully resolved and put behind us now. At the same time, we're about to get down to business, working on the relationships that have proven themselves worthwhile in our lives. 

Looking back, there were two situations going on with me last fall. 

One involved an unfortunate entanglement with a dude who went gaga over my New Age critiques, started collaborating with me, and then turned out to be closet New Age himself. Guh. 

After communicating for a couple months, he made plans to come to Canada to meet me that summer (on a personal level) but then unceremoniously yanked the rug out over Facebook - coincidentally, after I let him know I wouldn't be jumping straight into bed with him. 

He then immediately aligned himself with a female New Age "lightworker," publicly saying the same things about her and her work that he had said about me just days prior. 

It's hard to explain that situation to people who don't experience a lot of Pluto/Scorpio, but suffice it to say that his unexpected flooding of the etheric pathway still open between us with New Age energy was highly poisonous and took a great deal of time and energy on my part to put right. As I was still in the heaviest period of Cipro recovery, it wasn't really energy I could afford to expend. 

A fairly brutal energetic extrication process followed - both personal and professional - which spawned a half-assed, glossed-over, blogged apology on his part made more out of fear than anything. He turned me into a fire-breathing She Devil-type when I wouldn't let him weasel out of ending the connection responsibly. (I think he even thought I might have sent an earthquake his way.)