Showing posts with label scorpionic spidey sense. Show all posts
Showing posts with label scorpionic spidey sense. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Aquarian Consciousness: Politicians Are Not Our Leaders

Neither are bankers, corporate heads or members of royalty...

The closer we get to the consciousness of an Aquarian paradigm, the clearer becomes the false leadership within false hierarchies that has been sustained.

These are not our leaders.

As Pluto gets ever-closer to Capricorn, the dirty dealings of those in power are coming right out into the open. As I said in the November Astro Perspective, Capricorn rules the 10th house of the chart and the Midheaven - the most visible, publicly accessed place in the birth chart. So Pluto in Capricorn is going to be right in our faces holding up the lack of integrity in our hierarchies, especially in business and government.

Like the bailout of the banking industry currently going on in the U.S. This is almost unimaginable, but there it is, plain as day. $700 billion of U.S. taxpayer dollars going to bail out the corrupt banking industry. Just a Band-Aid solution that did nothing to deal with the root causes of the problem. And it "didn't work." So now they need another $700 billion.

As a friend put it, it worked just as they wanted it to work. Funnelling money from the bottom to the top. Goodbye middle class. And all the while, it does absolutely nothing to solve the very real problems of the working people. Those who put their trust in the system are still losing homes and jobs. The government did nothing concrete with the money because the government has interests other than the common people at the forefront. There is no plan other than to keep the game limping along for a little while so those at the top can get situated.

Let's just look at one tiny aspect of this bail out.

Citigroup. Millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars bailing out a bank whose largest shareholder is a Saudi millionaire (billionaire?) prince, Alwaleed bin Talal.

Funnelling the taxes of the working people (you know...the ones who still pay taxes) to the financial elite in a plan that will actually do nothing to improve their situations.

Not to go all Kanye on your asses, but these people don't care about the working classes. They never did. The working classes are puppets on strings, to be manipulated at will.

The Federal Reserve bank, the bank that regulates the money system in the U.S., is actually a private entity. So private bankers are ruling the economy in the United States - not the government, acting for the people. There is a complete merger of government and corporate/finance. We can see through the decisions of who to bail out and who to let slide the strategic nature of it all. The ties that bind. It's all a big game to them...while the working classes struggle and people suffer...

Pluto in Capricorn is breaking it down for us. Could take a while. Sixteen or so years.

And again, all I can say is I'm grateful for the Scorpio energy over this past two months, attempting to keep it real.

Especially now with all the people riding the glazed-over Obama bubble...

He's got a lot of Scorpio in his inner circle right now (American/Israeli dual citizen Emmanuel and Clinton). Too bad it's the dirty kind.

All people who want to continue the imperialist wars, who want to continue militarily backing Israel, who don't see anything wrong with what Bush Jr. and Sr. have done during their days in office, who think funnelling taxpayers' money to that very nice guy they met at that Bohemian Grove soiree is all part of the plan.

It's all very status quo. Baby Bush is even overseeing the "bailouts." Another Clinton involved...whose financial integrity hasn't exactly been established. (Whitewater? Vince Foster?)

Who are these people considered the so-called "elites?" They are not my definition of the word.

It's all getting just a little too surreal, a little too brazen.

But really, nothing surprising. Unfortunately.

Monday, November 17, 2008

The Slow March Out of Scorpio has Begun...

And thank goodness for that...

Processing of the Scorpionic kind is always quite heavy, sometimes brutal, so it should be a welcome bit of news that Mars left Scorpio for Sagittarius yesterday in the early morning. The Sun will follow suit this Friday (Nov. 21), and Mercury will do the same Sunday (Nov. 23). Pluto (co-ruler of Scorpio) will exit the final degree of Sagittarius for Capricorn November 26.

The processing and regeneration that happens when Scorpio/the 8th house is emphasized (when Pluto is stirring up some action) is deep and emotional and can create experiences of rage, grief, oppression, feeling stuck and trapped, and suicidal depression. Facilitating the process can be exhausting (like giving birth to a real live human), so it's with relief that we accept movement into the buoyancy and optimism of fiery Sagittarius.

But first, this tail-end Scorp stuff.

Pluto triggers in Scorpio the things we need to shed in order to stay vital and continue the unfolding process we undertake by living our lives on Planet Earth.

These things to shed can be triggered/brought to our awareness in a number of different ways, but to successfully complete the process, it involves going to the deep, dark, ancient core of ourselves.

As we bring forward the energetic dynamics, the aspects of self or relationship to lay on the funeral pyre, we go through a process of digging so we get all of it. The dynamics/aspects of self or relationship exist in our individual lives but have collective roots.

So as we dig and scrape and disengage, we get triggered again and again so that we understand the real depth and complexity of that which we're dealing with. We get sucker punched in any area where we need to increase awareness and improve, where we need to fight to get out from under the weight of that which is attempting to suffocate and drain us. We see how cleverly the roots of the poisonous dynamics have worked their way into the system. We see how they attach to every last bit of unresolved fear and weakness and hurt and feed on it.

But we also get right pissed! How dare these things try to suffocate and drain and kill me? How dare they try to keep me down and feed off my energy?

This is the Mars part of the Scorpio equation. Where the collective garbage stirred up by Pluto becomes personal. Where we apply our personal motivation and energy to power through. This is where we learn to love our anger, to honour our rage, and to do what it instructs us to do (only the healthy, productive things, of course!). This is where we use our our never-say-die iron will to battle our way through the hellish aspects of our lives and selves. The only way past it is through it, so we'd best get going.

There is a big aspect of letting go with Scorpio/Pluto, for sure. "Letting go" is a big mantra of the New Age establishment these days. Yes, it is necessary to let go of everything we can. To just disengage. To not allow ourselves to be drawn into the figure eight dynamics with the other person/situation trying to get our goats.

But there are also times when one needs to face down his or her opponent and show it who's boss. To get rid of it once and for all. To "let go" in these instances is actually counter-productive. It just allows the dynamic to circle back and bite you in the ass from another angle. So in these instances, we wield the sword and shield, and we cut our way out of the entrapping garbage. We clear our path. We don't wait for it to clear on its own. We listen to our gut-level intuition (Pluto) and take action (Mars). We use our flickers of anger and rage as a guide. They're telling us we need to do something, and do something we must.

It's not all about surrendering. This is a Piscean concept, and (broken record time) we're heading out of the astrological Piscean era. There is some redundance here that will simply not be successful. With Scorpio energy, we really must DO (Mars) something about our circumstances.

The other aspect of this Scorpionic/Plutonic process is the body processing. Pluto digs up old emotion from our ancient cores. Rage and hurt and grief from all the betrayals, injustices, oppressions, inequalities, wounds and dark, dark, darkness that have been under the surface and left unresolved for all this time, through all our ancestral lines. We then process it through our physical bodies (Mars) to resolve it. The collective stuff is dealt with through each individual processing it.

This body processing is a little like going through menopause (not that I've gone through it, but from what I hear). Aches and pains, muscle stiffness, bone-weary exhaustion, hot and cold flashes, weird electrical sensations, feeling dirty and greasy even after bathing, nausea, sleep disruption, etc.

We purge a whole lot of energetic garbage through our systems, and it can be rough. We're also physically adjusting to changes in our structures, which can be painful.

So we're coming to the end of our yearly Scorpio season, but we're not out of the woods yet. The final degrees are sometimes a big old bitch because we're tired, but we can't let up. We have to maintain awareness of any more garbage dynamics that we need to be cut loose right up until the last minute of the last degree of Scorpio. These Scorpionic things are sneaky. They kick your ass to make you stronger and better and smarter and a more masterful psychic surgeon. They teach you to trust your own intuition and take razor-sharp precise action using its guidance. But they're still a bitch-a-roonie-doonie. So keep staring them down.

Friday, November 7, 2008

My Scorpionic Spidey Sense Doesn't Register Much Change...

So Saturn and Uranus have completed their first opposition. Obama's been elected Pressie of the U.S. of A. The White Cats are presiding over Mouseland (Tommy Douglas reference). 
 
And now as Mercury digs in in Scorpio, information starts coming out about who was really elected - outside of the election campaign best face forward and the vote-getting blah blah blah. 
 
I have to say, watching Obama's acceptance speech, I felt...well...not much. I knew the parts of the speech that were designed to tug at my heart strings and fill my eyes with hopeful tears. But it just didn't happen. I just couldn't quite buy what he was selling. Call me cynical. I think I just keep my eye on the prize. And I know that this man, despite what he says, is not the change I need to see. He doesn't even begin to touch the change I need to see.
 
I knew from the election campaign that Obama was planning to continue the U.S.' imperialist wars. He reassured American Jews that Israel would continue enjoying its "protection" - ie. use of military might to enforce it's self-declared borders against Palestinians. 
 
He spoke out about the "threat" that Iran poses to U.S. security and safety. 
 
He refused to commit to withdrawing troops from Iraq or Afghanistan. 
 
Basically, I felt it was going to be more of the same: full-scale "War on Terror." With the terrorists being anyone who disagrees with the way the U.S. does things, anyone who disagrees with the New World Order agenda. 
 
Obama has appointed Israeli citizen Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff, previously a senior advisor to Bill Clinton. 
 
From an article by Jerry White: 
 
"During his run for Congress in 2002, Emmanuel broke ranks with the Democratic congressional delegation from Illinois and supported the authorization of the war against Iraq, explicitly backing President Bush. Rising to the fourth-highest position in the House Democratic leadership, Emmanuel played a key role in the passage of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. 
 
Emmanuel has close ties to Israel and is a leading member of the right-wing Democratic Leadership Council, which includes figures such as the Clintons and Senator Joseph Lieberman. He is expected to play a key role in the selection of cabinet appointees, including the Treasury and defense secretaries. These posts are expected to be announced quickly, in order to reassure the markets and the foreign policy and military establishment."
 
Again...I don't see much change here. 
 
The election banked on racial tensions, playing the race card to get people believing. But our problems go far beyond race... 
 
Information is also coming to the surface about tension between McCain's people and Palin's people during the election campaign. 
 
Apparently, Palin wasn't sure which countries are in NAFTA ("North American Free Trade Agreement" - What countries are in North America, Sarah?) 
 
She also wasn't sure that Africa was a continent. 
 
Are you smarter than a fifth grader, Mrs. Palin? 
 
The thing I found odd was that her evangelical religious beliefs never made any headlines. Obama's religious background sure did, but the fact that Palin aligns herself with an Armageddonist church in Alaska that believes we are heading into "end times" and that Alaska will become a "refuge state" for people fleeing the Armageddon? Not a whiff of it in the mainstream media. 
 
Anyway, none of this surprises me. 
 
As I said in the November Astro Perspective, the revolution isn't going to be led by anyone but you and me. It comes from us, and we have to stay true to the course, going only where we know in our guts is the right place to go. And above all...being true to ourselves. 
 
The revolution will not be televised! :)

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Willow's November 2008 Astro Perspective

There are a lot of shifts going on this month. Here is the highlights reel:

- Neptune and Uranus (in mutual reception) going direct
- Saturn in Virgo opposition to Uranus in Pisces (the first of four oppositions in those signs)
- Pluto entering Capricorn for a 16-year stay

We’ve inched our way toward the changes we wish to see or have been dragged kicking and screaming and now we’re at the pinnacle of the big hill in the roller coaster ride. There were a couple dips and weaves in September to get our stomachs dropping out and our mouths running dry in preparation, but this month seems to be the whoooosh toward real movement. Saturn in Virgo has us climbing the big hill bit by arduous bit, waiting on it, waiting on it, step-by-step, grinding closer to the big paradigm changes. We have to want it; more than that, we have to earn it, going over every last detail…and now, this month, our momentum takes us up over the hump and we let go into the unknown. All the while, it’s still Scorpio season in a big way, baby, as the collective becomes ever-more aware of, to paraphrase Hunter S. Thompson, the brutish realities of this foul year of Our Lord 2008 (almost 2009) on Planet Earth.

That is, if I’m reading this crap right.

;-) Just kidding.

The Sun and Mars remain in Scorpio for the first part of November (Mars until November 16 and the Sun until November 21), on the tail of the New Moon in Scorpio, October 28. We’ve reached a new level of “cutting the crap” in our lives.

Mercury will join the Sun and Mars in Scorpio on November 4, just in time for the U.S. people to speak in their election. Taking on the do-or-die intensity of Scorpio with what they say with their votes is quite fitting, isn’t it?

We cleared the Mercury retrograde shadow on October 30, so we’ve just nicely gotten into new intellectual/communication territory as November begins. Also fitting that Mercury leaves Libra just as the U.S. election is completing. The gloves are off! No more Libra surface-level, playing-to-your-crowd social wizardry. Now we see who was really elected.

And we deal with the inevitable nastiness that rises to the surface after one of the most hardcore, teeth-bared, divisive political races in history.

Because of the power and current foreign policy of the U.S., this is an election that affects the entire planet.

The Sun in Scorpio is keeping our conscious moment attuned to the things that have to come out in the wash, or else. Getting down and dirty with the nitty gritty. Mercury keeps us speaking our gut-level truth, and Mars ensures our actions reflect that truth - our soul’s truth.

The fixed and unrelenting gaze of Scorpio is important now for stability as we experience a very big astro event - the Saturn in Virgo opposition to Uranus in Pisces on November 4. Also on the day of the U.S. election, of course. (The White House really MUST have an astrologer or two on staff. The Internet rumours are right.)

I wrote about this opposition last month, but basically this is an opposing clash of the material structures as they exist (the “way things are”) - Saturn - and our vision for the future as an impetus to revolutionary change - Uranus.

Preparatory work for Pluto in Capricorn, as we’re infused with the spiritual vision to guide and sustain us during the next 16 years of structural transformation.

Saturn and Uranus will oppose each other in Virgo (earth) and Pisces (water) four times - November 4, 2008, February 5, 2009, September 15, 2009 and April 26, 2010. We’ll be working on this stuff for a while, but the first major dose of spiritual - structural re-alignment happens with the initial opposition on November 4.

Flashes of insight showing the way forward and once seen, nothing is ever the same as it was. Nothing CAN be the same as it was.

With Uranus and Pisces involved, expect things to get a little weird, a little surreal, a little bizarre. Unexpected and shocking spiritual revelation-type stuff. Rebellious energy straining in opposition to dense, material confines.

The material structures are getting a shake-up due to the fact that we are speeding along toward the Aquarian paradigm. How things have been set up in the past no longer serves our imperatives, and they need to change. Simple as that.

Both Virgo and Pisces are mutable signs, meaning changing and adapting to conditions. These oppositions will toss unexpected events and insights our way designed to shock us out of our current structures. Confusion and chaos could threaten to overwhelm, which is why the fixed Scorp energy is so necessary.

Scorpio keeps a cool, clear gaze on what’s really going on, on the surface and below, and to both extremes. It sees the highest spiritual highs (eagle) and the lowest physical lows (scorpion).

This keeps us honest. Scorpio holds us in a place where we are unable to deny those “brutish realities of this foul year of Our Lord” as we experience future flashes and pick up speed. Can’t get drunk on change here, people, believing we’ve left the cares of the past behind us. When all that Aquarian air starts going to our heads (after the poor little Piscean fishies thought they were suffocating, flopping around on the floor), there will be an overwhelming temptation to buy into the oxygen overdose jubilation, believing “we’re already there.” Well, we aren’t. There is much to be done to actually get us there, and we have to keep a close eye on where we are, on the damage that has been done that now asks to be repaired, and on the practical adjustments that need to be made. We’ll get there, but we have to integrate and successfully deal with all parts of the human experience (the true test of tail-end Pisces), even the ugly parts. We have to deal with the details, unpleasant as they may seem.

(And for anyone who insists that yes, we are already in utopia, again, take a look at what the U.S. army has been up to lately with depleted uranium munitions in Iraq and Afghanistan: http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/DU-Baby2003.htm. Careful! It’s not nice. But this is what we’re doing these days. Let’s take an honest look at it.

And for those who claim the photos are fake or that this is propaganda, please watch this documentary on the subject and decide for yourselves: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5146778547681767408)

Thank goodness for the Scorpio energy this month, keepin’ it real and puncturing the utopian fog (not to mention the political bullshittery).

We can’t get too caught up in the rosy vision (a distinct possibility with Pisces involved) and believe it is effortless. With Saturn involved, that is not the case. We each have to take individual responsibility for bringing the changes into our daily lives and it’s going to take adjustments, practice, diligence, self-mastery. That’s not to say there won’t be levity. Some things will come about seemingly effortlessly (due to previous preparation) and there will be a great deal of energy available for the right things. But we have to stay grounded, channelling our vision into the minute details of our material structures - into our work, our interactions with others, into every aspect of ourselves.

Uranus uses our spines like lightning rods, and it can also knock us on our asses if we’re not careful. Think about a lightning bolt of insight and vision, full of information and energy designed to take you far into the future, coming through the top of your head, travelling through your body and communicating with all parts of it until it reaches the point where your feet touch the earth, grounding the charge so we don’t short out the system. This is how we bring the vision and insight into the material day-to-day and live them. And vice versa - we communicate the realities of our material, day-to-day existences on the planet to the realm of spirit, focussing on the details and communicating about what is necessary here.

This revolution is a practical one, bringing it in from the fringes into the mainstream. It will be so common sense that no one could argue - except those profiting from the old system. But even some of them are getting it together. T. Boone Pickens, a Texas oil tycoon and the most capitalistic of the capitalists, is now promoting wind energy. Even people who created and were made financially wealthy from the old structures want to be part of the solution. (Mostly because they can now make money and get press with new technology and green power, but hey, whatever gets us there, I guess.)

These are our challenges and this is how we build a world in which we all want to live.

We have to learn from the 1960s (the last time Saturn - Uranus oppositions occurred - in the opposite signs: Uranus in Virgo and Saturn in Pisces) and embed this revolutionary spirit and vision, the possibilities of what can be, in our daily lives. We can’t let our hopes and fantasies get so huge, so beyond the day-to-day mainstream reality, that the crash back down to earth and accompanying disillusionment completely destroys the momentum for change.

So yeah, folks. This means even though right-wing, Bush-loving Stephen Harper won again in Canada, and even if McCain - Palin win in the U.S, we are still responsible for taking up the challenge in our own lives, for bringing about the changes we wish to see in our own day-to-day lives, in our own mindsets, in our own ways of living. And if Obama becomes president and turns out to be yet another upper-upper-middle class establishment-type with *ahem* certain blood ties or can’t bring about the changes he promised due to structural opposition, well, we’re still not off the hook.

The revolution isn’t going to be led by anyone but us. You and me, comrades. The Aquarian era means holding no superiour. Being your own leader, guide, boss. Living by your own code and joining forces with a tribe of people who are working for the same things.

As the hierarchies continue to rot on the vine, as their stench becomes so overpowering that no one can turn a blind eye, we won’t be surprised. When people are shocked at the dirty dealings coming out into the open over the next 16 years of Pluto in Capricorn, we’ll be forewarned and better prepared.

Don’t participate in things that are not acceptable to you. Don’t put your personal energy into things that lack integrity to you. Make your service to the planet a sacred thing and answer to a higher power than the business/money hierarchy. Answer to yourself.

Saturn in Virgo combined with Pluto in Capricorn shows us that it’s the small changes that will create the necessary structural adjustments. It’s each individual worker choosing “right action” in their day-to-day lives and service that will bring unjust hierarchies toppling down, and business will have to do better from that point on.

Jupiter in Capricorn trines Saturn in Virgo November 21 (with Saturn still in opposition to Uranus in Pisces and Jupiter sextiling it). We see how the further expansion in business (Jupiter in Capricorn) is shaped by the holistic health of the structures as a whole. The whole system has to get better. Power and rewards have to be more equitably distributed.

Really, the only way capitalism can work sustainably is if everyone receives their fair cut of the pie (while working within natural laws - yes, the environment does matter). Right now, the energy is moving from the ground floor to the top where it becomes concentrated. Top-heavy and consistently eroding those who make up the foundation (workers). So eventually, a stiff (Aquarian) breeze will bring the whole thing toppling down. Well, let me tell you, Pluto is more than a stiff breeze, so all hierarchical structures that are operating out of integrity had best take heed.

As my Dad put it: They’re feeding all the oxygen to the big fish and leaving the little ones to go belly up.

The big fish don’t seem to understand how reliant they are on the little fish or that they only got to be big fish because of the little fish.

Still such flippance about working people in Canada and the U.S. Such sickening classism, accepted to the point where most people don’t even know they’re continuing it.

Both Neptune in Aquarius and Uranus in Pisces turn direct this month (Neptune on November 1, Uranus on November 27) - another indicator that we’re moving forward on all fronts now, so we have to have things in order.

Neptune and Uranus are in mutual reception and will not be completely out of this configuration until March 2011. Mutual reception means that each is in the sign the other rules. (Neptune rules Pisces; Uranus rules Aquarius.) This mutual reception is the big indicator of the Pisces to Aquarius transition - ending of astrological Piscean era, beginning of Aquarian. These two bodies have been working together on the hand-off, with the completion of one era and the beginning of another overlapping. They are making sure that the lessons of Pisces are well learned, well-understood and well-integrated before heading into Aquarius, but also that the tail-end Piscean energies don’t hold onto tenure too long and sabotage the virility of the Aquarian push to the future.

A smooth transition is trickier than it looks, and the retrogrades of these bodies were ensuring nothing would trip this paradigm shift up. Now they go direct and we get this show on the road.

Pluto heads into Capricorn November 26 for its 16-year stay in the sign of business, prestige, public image, money and achievement. Pluto exists in whatever sign/area of life is most in need of purging and transformation. It’s an area that, without this transformation, will lead to the death of the species. (No joke.) So here we see how “to the brink” we’ve pushed it with things like consumer capitalism, corporate control, the rule of money over all else, business/finance and governments becoming one and the same, working for the “market” and for other financial bigwigs instead of for the people, achievement at all cost, excess masculine ravaging feminine.

I seriously hate myself every time I buy a coffee in a disposable cup. And then I start thinking about all the cups used at that Starbucks or Second Cup or indy coffee place or wherever I am, and then I think about all the cups used in the entire city or in New York City or in the entire world in one single day. And then I think, this goes on EVERY day. And I start to see just how far gone we really are.

I think during Pluto in Capricorn we’ll start to see how sick our mainstream societal concept of success is. And the misery people, animals, and the environment have to take on to allow for certain individuals to portray that image of success. Many people at the top of the current capitalist hierarchical echelon have gotten there on the backs of others and to the detriment of the environment. Maybe we’ll start to see the abuse, control and oppression of other people and resources that went into those rich, shining superstars on the society pages of the local paper.

Western society has a tendency to look only at the “winners.” To hold them up as pinnacles of human achievement (Capricorn) to be admired and emulated. I’m sure you’ve heard the saying that the history books were written by the winners? Well, thankfully Scorpio (where we have a concentration this month) knows the truth of the “losers” and holds it equally important (if not more so out of sheer neglect).

Scorpio bears witness as part of its spiritual course. It sees the ways that abuse, oppression, domination, coercion, however subtle, are used to the benefit of some and the detriment of others. It looks at the ugly parts of history, life, self…the parts that are usually denied, glossed over, swept under the rug, and demands that they be brought out into the open, into the air.

It looks to the roots that are sustaining the glossy surface-level situation, and when those roots are connecting to a past of abuse, torment, oppression, injustice, lack of integrity, coercion, what’s going on on the surface is not actually something to be held as a pinnacle of human achievement to be admired and emulated. To Scorpio, the applause and congratulation, in those cases, should be turning stomachs.

Scorpio holds awareness until such a time that the collective is willing to look at and integrate these dark and twisted parts of the situation on Planet Earth. Until we look at the ugly motivations that have driven and continue to drive human beings. Scorpio’s been waiting for a whole long time now. It’s been holding consciousness for the collective for almost too long, battling to stave off poisoning itself and sometimes failing. The longer the collective refuses to take on its responsibility for this awareness, the closer those who bear Scorpionic consciousness of the situation come to destruction. The closer they come to a level of hatred toward those who refuse to see and know. And the closer they come to extremism, fundamentalism, and violence in an attempt to force people to see. (Suicide bombers being a prime example of this, I think.)

As I said, with everything going on this month related to “the future,” the Scorpio energy will make it impossible to skip over the aspects of reality we wish weren’t there.

And as Pluto re-enters Capricorn, (remember, it was already in the sign between the end of January and end of June 2008), we are already in a different situation as far as “the economy,” business, government, money, etc. goes. We’ve had the first unearthing where we started at the roots of the structures in our material world and began to make them visible. Capricorn rules the 10th house of the birth chart and the most visible, public point, the Midheaven. So we see how all this will continue to be confronted in a visible, public way throughout the transit as part of the massive transformation. We’ll look to the roots sustaining the structures to see where they’re coming from, what they’re made out of. Anything that lacks integrity will crumble and be transformed into something better and stronger. Anything being propped up with Band-Aid solutions involving dishonesty, coercion, fear, oppression, suppression, abuse will have its fatal flaws come out into the open in a very public way. (As stated, we’re seeing this with the U.S. banking industry and various corporations lately.)

And there’s really so much fear and coercion around the business/work world these days, isn’t there? I often think, if people weren’t so freaking scared all the time, things would be so much better. None of this garbage would even be going on. If people weren’t willing to allow the suppression of their creative drives, their personal morals, their emotions, their humanity, in general, because of fear of losing their jobs, losing their livelihoods, losing their status, losing their image…the world would be a much different place.

Well, Pluto should be forcing us to confront those fears and hopefully this will purge them in a big way within the work structures.

The entire mainstream view of “success,” what makes for a “successful” person or a “successful” business, will be deconstructed, and we’ll be forced to ask the question: Is this really something to be admired and emulated?

Our hierarchies. “The way things are.” The way we set our world up so that only those who can function in the typical workplace and the typical work structure are considered “successful.” The push for homogeneity…making personal diversity into something embarrassing or pathological. Our businesses, our governments, our work/home set-ups, all institutions (prison system, court system, police, health system, education system, money system, etc.) Our concept of time. Watching the clock at work. Having to “look busy” when you’re not. Ideas of external authority looking over our shoulders.

And, because Cancer is the polarity point of Capricorn, it will have to do with honouring emotion, the feminine and inner guidance in our structures. This brings a transformation of the family unit and the way things are set up there.

All these things will have their structural problems brought into the open for core-level change/transformation. All structures that will no longer sustain humanity in its evolution will have to be gutted and transformed into something more suitable.

There is no more “way things are.” Thank God. Because the way things were was driving humanity on this planet to destruction.

We need a new set up. We need a new form of leadership - a natural hierarchy in which true leaders with real personal integrity, expertise and a vision for all rise to positions of power. Not just people who know how to work the old structures to their benefit - with money and connections (family or otherwise) too often determining who our “leader” is.

How can we respect the leadership when we know that we have a superiour vision and understanding than those claiming to be our leaders?

My Dad said to me recently, when I was talking about proportional representation rather than the majority rule system we have in Canada, “Do you ever notice it’s the losers who want to change the rules?”

To me, this pretty much says it all about the way things have been set up. Winners and losers. So if your perspective isn’t in the majority, you’re a loser and you don’t count. Fatally flawed system, that is. Undemocratic, actually.

And it really just never made sense to me, considering I think the majority of people aren’t really deep thinkers and aren’t all that informed about things going on outside their personal lives. But by this logic, I’m a loser because I don’t think like the mainstream. If I don’t fit into a structure created by and for these mainstream people/thinkers, then I’m a loser. It’s not that the structure was made too simplistic, too homogenous or too lowest common denominator. It’s that I’m a loser. That’s that.

Hmm…all righty then. Thanks, Dad!

The Aquarian paradigm is about going beyond winners and losers, beyond hierarchy, to an egalitarian system where win-win is the only way to go. I win because you win. I benefit because you benefit. It’s a system that has moved past the idea that I win only if I can make you lose.

Within the Aquarian paradigm, personal diversity is a bonus, not something that makes you a loser. When we’re all using our individual personal genius, things are at their best for the collective. All perspectives are taking into consideration…not just those that the “majority” of people have.

Makes sense to me. So let’s getter done!

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Venus in Scorpio, I Love Your Hardcore Ass! And Yet, You Make Me Want To Die...

Disclaimer: This is a personal post, so if you're not down with that, please don't read further...)

So I'm one of those lucky, lucky people with a Scorpio stellium. (A stellium is three or more planets in one sign.) There are a lot of us out there, and we all pretty much feel each other's pain because we're the people who can never deny the dark and twisted elements of human experience. We see through the glossy, personality veneer right to the soul, right to the denied parts that people try to cover up and pretend don't exist. We see through the song-and-dance right to the hidden motivations of each individual we come into contact with. We know what they want from us and see the ways they're not being straight about getting it.

Basically, we can tell who's full of shit right from the get go.

(People without a stellium in Scorp can also live these phenomena - any of the personal planets in Scorp would do it, a strongly placed/aspected Pluto or bodies in the 8th house, etc.)

Unlike other people, we can't pretend we don't know about this stuff. We can't pretend that we don't know you're trying to manipulate us. We can't pretend we don't see you doing the wrong thing and getting rewarded for it, gaining power from it. We can't turn a blind eye when we see you sucking other people dry and using their energy for personal gain.

If we try to look the other way, it makes us weak and sick and attracts all kinds of hell-type karmic experiences until we finally give in and live what we know to be true. Basically, we get bitten in the ass and energetically exhausted so many times from being dragged into hideous situations that we have to look this shit right in the eye and live with it as a prime motivator for our own actions.

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

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

At this time of the year, as we slide from "keeping it all socially nicey nice" Libra to "I'd rather die than live like this" Scorpio, some ugly shit is bound to be spun off and into conscious awareness.

Venus and Mars are currently in Scorpio. The Sun will be there in a couple of weeks, and the currently retrograde Mercury in Libra is ruled by Venus in Scorpio.

So wherever Scorpio is in your chart, this is the area being rooted around in by Scorpio planets right now.

But for me, it's Venus and Mars in Scorpio all year round! Lucky me.

Whatever house a stellium is in is the area of life where the themes of the sign(s) involved will be prevalent. For me, the Scorpio stellium is in the 4th house. A placement that makes family, home, roots, inner, emotional world and early life areas where this dark, twisted, hellish bullshit comes to the forefront. Stuff that is being brought to conscious awareness and regenerated for the collective, not just for me, personally, I might add.

So true to form, I learned some extremely hurtful information a few days ago about what one side of my family truly thinks about me. It's always a betrayal to find out that people have been talking shit about you, especially when it's your own family and especially when what's being said is false - just mudslinging designed to denigrate my character. But it's always best to know exactly what people's underlying concept of you is - especially when it's mostly a fabrication. Says more about them than it does about you, actually.

Mercury is retrograde, so the information I got was slightly off, but it led to the root of the issue, which was this side of the family constantly treating me like a second class citizen, talking behind my back and running me down, making derogatory comments with insidious tones in my presence. And inviting me to their family gatherings just so they'd have more fodder.

Their view of me is connected to my Chiron in Taurus placement.

Let's just say there are themes, among others, of not having myself or my contributions valued or appreciated by the mainstream business world, and consequently, often not being paid well for the work I do. It is an aspect that leads to being invisible or treated badly in the public world, to not achieving what the mainstream thinks you should achieve, to not being considered a valuable member of the mainstream hierarchy because you just don't fit in. It's about your own personal values not being the same as most other people's or the same as those of the traditional hierarchical structures. Never having the safe, secure career path because you are working within the structures for change and justice, not to maintain the status quo. Not having the material rewards or recognition that others have because you can't use money or public prestige as your prime motivators. Doing spiritual/emotional/energetic work that is not recognized or valued by the current structures or often by other people. It's being compelled to do the work you do, reward or not, because you know it has to be done and because there aren't too damn many other people who would take it on and then be shit on for it. Because, as I said in the October update, most people don't like being around Scorpio energy at work and eventually try to get rid of it - even though it's necessary, now more than ever.

Anyway, I've always had to deal with these issues. As many people experience, my family thought they knew better than I how I should live my life. They always treated my work as if it were a triviality, pushing me into getting a corporate office job or marrying rich (using the Scorpio part of the polarity).

What they could never accept was that a corporate office job would be death to me - literally. (As would marrying strictly for money.) I have a very specific life path. I'm not here just to go along with the crap I see going on and collect my paycheque. I'm here to do the work that I consider important to change things, and it doesn't matter a good Goddamn if anyone else thinks it's important. I know it is.

As I said before, with a Scorpio stellium, I see things other people don't. And I'm compelled to act in ways that other people are not.

I know what I've done during my time on the planet. I know what I've done spiritually/energetically. I know the changes I've initiated, from the time I was 13 years old in small-town Saskatchewan until now. And I know that my work has been absolutely priceless - whether other people know it is not really my concern.

Although it does hurt (Chiron) not to be recognized or paid well for what I do, that doesn't make the work less valuable, and it doesn't make me less valuable as a person. It doesn't mean I'm wasting my education or my life.

If my family (or anyone else) doesn't know that, that's their problem. Short-sighted people, these...

So thank-you, Scorpio. I've been working on this stuff for years (since birth? longer?), and you finally gave me the proof I need and the strength I need to sever unhealthy dynamics in my life related to these family members. The thorn finally came out, and we got it all out. I'll no longer be connecting to a source of enervating poison out of an outdated understanding of what family is. I don't have to accept this treatment from anyone.

And thank-you because now I don't have to sit through their Goddamn bullshit Thanksgiving meal dodging their toxic barbs!!! Woo-hoo!!

Now that's something to be thankful for.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Willow's October 2008 Astro Perspective

Man, I'm a rockstar. Here's the monthly update...on time! And after a hellish five days of packing, moving, cleaning, unpacking, painting, more cleaning and still the astrology is flowing like water. heh heh

This month, we will be striving with all our ability to find our equilibrium, attempting to find a neutral point between the wild events of September and those yet to come in November. This is always the case with Libra energy (where the Sun will be for most of the month and the currently retrograding Mercury will be until November 4), but Libra's refined airiness and awareness of beauty are needed more than ever at this point to give us a moment to breathe, to give us something lovely to inspire us through some bumpy channels.

Libra is the sign where we attempt to achieve balance, equilibrium, and peace - sweet, sweet, peace - if only for a moment. As fleeting as they seem to be, peace is Libra’s goal, its directive. It is the sign of partnership and relationship, where we are constantly existing in relation to and acting accordingly.

As I said in the September Astro Perspective, Libra energy has its work cut out for it at the moment. We’ve got a lot to balance, a lot piled on the scales and only more to come, it seems. The scales are working hard, correcting where necessary, swinging wildly up and down at times. We just think we’ve gotten it together, a moment to relax (which Libra, ruled by Venus, loves to do most of all), when something else gets added to the pile and we’re forced to take yet another angle into consideration, to rebalance.

Libra is driven for justice, and it just wouldn’t do to leave something or someone out who should be taken into the fold. That wouldn’t be fair. True harmony, true peace (and the peace of mind that comes with it) can only come when we have left nothing out, when every piece gets its say and its consideration. Bringing many disparate elements together into one beautiful, harmonious tone.

But of course, this is not as easy as it looks. Getting a ragtag group of human beings who all sing in different languages, who all have different levels of experience, all singing in harmony, seeing the beauty in each other and enjoying being together. Libra is one harried choir director at times.

Which brings us to the other parts of Libra and Venus, the parts that are sometimes glossed over and that is the strife and battle and discord that exist on our way to finding that harmony.

This month, the Sun in Libra and retrograding Mercury in Libra are ruled by Venus in Scorpio, making it a very strong influence. Venus isn’t ever-so happy in Scorpio, but nonetheless, she will do her job here. She would rather keep things lovely, smiley and beautiful, but in Scorpio, we're faced with both sides of the coin. We understand that our relations with other people contain ugly things as well as beautiful, and that we have to see the dark parts of our relations with others in order to bring them to light.

Scorpio knows that superficial, surface-level peace will never last. Whatever we leave hidden and neglected will eventually come out in nasty, indirect ways to undermine the peace and harmony in our relationships. It drives us to the root, to the very centre, to see what’s REALLY going on underneath it all, so that we can break underlying dynamics that are holding us in a places where we don’t want to be. Also so we can intuitively recognize and merge with those who will strengthen our ability to reach our soul’s directives - both personal and collective - without dragging a bunch of detritus along with us that will smother the alchemical flame guiding us through.

Scorpio shows us the dark parts to bring about awareness of them, so that we can choose wisely when it comes to merging our precious energies with another. So that we don’t walk blindly into situations and relationships designed to give us karmic bites in the ass.

As the balance shifts from Libra energy to Scorpio throughout the month, things take on a depth and an intensity. A “do or die” quality. We are driven to tunnel, tunnel, tunnel right to the core of what is going on in our relations with others and root out what we know in our guts is rotten. Scorpio, ruled by Pluto and Mars, is about bottom-line reality. Whatever can’t morph into something better and stronger, more adapted to what is going on right now, will die, plain and simple. This means in our relationships, our lives, our selves. Any part of the cocoon that threatens to catch and contain our butterfly wings has to go, with little to no sentimentality. Why attach ourselves to something that will hold us back, smother us, kill us? This is what Scorpio energy teaches. To cut ourselves out of that which will eventually collapse us, to trust our intuition to nip it in the bud and to move directly to a new force field that will hold us in a mutually beneficial orbit as we continue to unfold.

Scorpio understands intuitively what needs to be done and sets a goal, directed by the soul - often a complicated, multi-layered, emotionally and/or energetically dangerous goal. And it does not give up until that goal is reached or until it is “told” that to continue would bring it closer to destruction than abandoning the goal.

Scorpio energy can see things no one else can. It sees what no one else will. Will. That’s the word. Scorpio is the place where the will of nature/of the universe and personal will join forces, merging into one direction. To ignore the directives of the soul is to die, either literally or figuratively. To refuse to root out what is rotten is to choose to infect everything. Nothing can be right until this is right. That’s what Scorpio knows. It knows it would rather die than leave things as they are. It knows it is already dead if things are left as they are.

So much talk about death. But this is a Scorpionic subject. To die a million deaths before the physical death. To say goodbye to multitudes of versions of self, relationship, life. To shed a million cocoons, all that is done, to get to the fresh, raw strength of the emerging soul-driven path. And to have the otherworldly Plutonic drive to continue, against all odds, to face deeper and deeper, at times darker and darker, realities. Intricate and intimate. Complex. To burn through an amount of energetic detritus that would be unimaginable to someone without the guidance of that alchemical flame, ridding us of the garbage that threatens to clog up the works and screw us over.

It is to this end that Scorpio energy does its work, so that it can lay the very purest of matter on Libra’s scales. So that the shifts in balance that are made are only the necessary ones. The upsets of the scales are as minimal as possible. Nothing laden in the energetic tar of the past.

This is why Plutonic people sometimes creep other people out. They are driven by something unseen, something not understood by people looking from the outside. Plutonic people must follow the directives of the soul, from the gut, bringing things to light that most people would avoid looking at. Severing unhealthy dynamics as they go, freeing the energy up for new growth, and going deeper than most people care to go. It can be seen as an obsession by other people. But when one understands that it is a case of: do it or perish. there is nothing else to be done.

What Scorpio energy does can also be seen as not very nice (which is why Libra takes issue with it at times). It often doesn’t feel too great to have a Scorpionic surgeon dicing energetic dynamics up around you or within you. But it's necessary. Scorpio energy triggers in us an awareness of what needs to come out and what needs to be purged completely. It triggers an alchemical process where we have to look into the depths of ourselves and our lives to see what is not in integrity and to see old energetic patterns that we fall into and continue unaware. Places where we’ve been fooling ourselves, where we haven’t gone deep enough, where we haven't truly looked reality in the face. In Scorpionic interactions (which will be coming up with Venus in Scorpio), the relationship dynamics make each person aware of certain dynamics that are past their usefulness.

We can be repulsed by what we see during this process, blaming the person who did the triggering. (This is a dynamic that goes on all the time - as Scorpionic/Plutonic people know all too well.) Not so comfortable.

Too much Plutonic energy is poison. Best to take only as much as you need, nothing more.

This is a hard lesson that most Plutonic people have to learn - that some people find being around them a medicine taken best in small, maybe even tiny, maybe even microscopic, doses - or not at all. But once one understands that it's the process being triggered that people find distasteful, it’s possible not to take it personally - sort of.

Scorpio and Pluto go beyond the personal ego. The process trumps social niceties. But it still smarts at times.

Note: “Plutonic” people are what I would call anyone who has these similar drives for getting to the core of the matter, bringing hidden or neglected parts of reality to awareness - planets/placements in Scorpio, aspects to natal Pluto, bodies in the 8th house, and such.

As I said, our Mercury in Libra retrograde this month is ruled by Venus in Scorpio until Venus enters Sagittarius on October 18th.

The Sun in Libra is also ruled by Venus in Scorpio until it enters Scorpio itself on October 22.

Mars enters Scorpio October 3 and is there into November. (Note a pile-up of consequences for any passive-aggressive tendencies/Libra avoidance techniques as Mars passes through the last degrees of Libra before entering Scorpio. October 1 - 3)

So these Libra - Scorpio themes are prevalent.

What we’re leading up to this month is a big month in November. We’re getting our bearings, doing the prep work, so that we can navigate these energies.

There are two big things going on in November (which I will, of course, write about in November’s Astro Perspective):

First, Saturn in Virgo opposes Uranus in Pisces for the first time since the 60s. Saturn rules our concrete material structures (how things are set up) and Uranus rules revolution. Hmm…sounds about right. The current structures of our material world are about to get a shake up.

Saturn will be opposing Uranus’ freewheeling, future-oriented, slightly erratic, nothing-to-hold-onto-but-the-vision-of-where-we're-going, revolutionary, maverick spirit. And Uranus will be opposing Saturn’s traditional, tried-and-true, conservative, for-our-own-good limitations, restrictions and concrete structures.

Material structural readjustment related to a new understanding and vision of things to come. But also making sure that our revolutionary vision is grounded, that it has legs. That it is practically applied and will really take root within the material and build there - not just stay on the fringes as fluffy, pie-in-the-sky ideas from a bunch of drug-addled burn-outs. (No offense to drug-addled burn-outs, but this is a time when we really have to stay in reality” to bring it to the people - especially those people in suits and SUVs.)

A leap of faith into the future, but one concrete and common sense enough to appeal to more conservative minds.

The last time Saturn and Uranus opposed each other was in the 1960s, so you can see where this is heading. Think of the upheaval of those times that brought strides for humanity - civil rights, women’s rights, anti-war, etc.

But at the same time, the wave of revolutionary spirit didn’t go far enough. The mainstream Baby Boomers got caught up in material trappings and the ego glorification of being the person with the biggest and best.

So now is a chance to continue what began then, to go farther, hopefully to go as far as we need to go. To make the revolution structural, to come in from the fringes and really affect the mainstream flow.

The second big event in November is Pluto moving through the final degree of Sagittarius and heading into Capricorn November 27. Here is the transformation of allllllll our material structures and our understanding of success, prestige and importance on a public level. This is why it is crucial that we take this step-by-step, to really give it lasting impact.

Anyway, that’s next month. But as nothing exists in a vacuum, we have to see October as leading up to that. This is why the Scorpio energy is insisting that everything be put on the table. We have to be real now. It’s imperative to our survival as human beings on Planet Earth. We have to see through the shellaced smiles of those attempting to lead us somewhere our gut tells us we don’t want to go - not only in politics but in our personal lives. The personal is political.

We have to look for motivation - a big thing for Scorpio. What is the root motivation? If it’s something you can get behind, good stuff. If you get a little sick feeling in your stomach, no matter how slight, listen to it and take action, even if it seems like drastic action - action that no one but a Plutonic person would understand. The Mars influence on Scorpio means we often don’t know why we don’t like something or someone. We just don’t. We can sense we don’t agree with the root motivation or that we are being somehow manipulated. We just might not know the particulars in the moment because they’re somehow hidden to us. Here, we have to act on instinct, taking action based on intuition and gut-feeling…and figure out the logistics later, at a safe distance from whatever dynamic/situation/person we didn’t want to participate with.

From October 9 to October 14, Venus in Scorpio is squaring the North Node, Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius. This is a bottom-line, reality checking-type of aspect…again, related to not getting too far ahead of ourselves on this future vision thing. Especially with Neptune here, there is a tendency to get a little starry-eyed and lose sight of where we actually are. To get caught up in the rhetoric (Pluto in the last degrees of Sagittarius) of what’s possible and to act as if we’re already there. Scorpio keeps us right in the thick of what is going on right now. It doesn’t allow us to move forward until things are dealt with, until all the crap is brought out into the open for resolution. Until the subjugation-domination dynamics are truly destroyed and we’re truly equals. We’ve still got a lot of work to do here. The vision may be there, but are we really willing to do what it takes to get there? Are we willing to go to the mat on this one? To fight for that vision with everything we have? To leave no one behind? These are the kinds of questions brought up with these squares.

Mars in Scorpio will repeat the squares to the North Node, Chiron and Neptune in Aquarius during the last week of October. Here, we’re challenged to put our personal energy behind it. To make it personal, a personal goal, to deal with everything Scorpio brings up, especially the ouchy, ugly parts. To look at the inequality, the injustice that still exists, the fallacies we’re being told, the manipulation of the people - and to really deal with it.

Mercury Retrograde is also working away, bringing up all the things we might have missed since September 4. A whole lot happened last month, so this is a good thing. Any decisions made or actions taken will come up for a review. We’ll get information that we didn’t have at the time. and, again, with Venus in Scorpio ruling, it could be stuff that was hidden at the time.

All giving us a chance to orient ourselves with as much information and understanding as possible.

Mercury goes direct October 15 and leaves its shadow (heads into new territory) October 30.

Just in time for my favourite time of year: Hallowe’en! Mwah-ha-ha-ha-haaa! (also known as Samhain or pagan New Year) A time when the barrier between life and death is oh-so-thin.

So nothing really “new” until then, but lots of necessary information coming up and interactions playing out, especially those interactions that have a sort of fated, soul-mate quality to them. Déjà vu.

Our Full Moon this month is in Aries on October 14. (On the same day as the federal election here in Canada.) The new directions we’ve taken related to our new sense of personal identity are bearing fruit now. The Sabian Symbol for the degree of Aries where this Full Moon takes place is: The Gate Opens to the Garden of all Fulfilled Desires. Let’s hope that’s not just hype. ;-) My Scorpionic “show me the money” side is acting up on this one, but let’s give the universe the benefit of the doubt on this one, shall we? Heh heh

The New Moon in Scorpio on October 28 starts a new cycle of growth - a shedding of past dynamics, as was talked about earlier. The New Moon kicks off a month that will probably feel very unstable as the past structures and dynamics of our lives turn to rubble. As I said before, November is going to be a heck of a month, and this New Moon is an indicator. It really does feel as if we’re going through a gateway, and we have to be 100% real, stripped down, doing only what feels right to us to make it through. It’s a tight squeeze! Getting caught up in what others want us to do, getting caught up in THEIR stuff, allowing any kind of abuse of your energy (no matter how subtle) - all this is detrimental now in a big way.

I have this image lately of always having to stay a step ahead of what is crumbling under our feet, to keep moving on, moving on as a matter of survival. If we aren’t staying true to our own path here, we’re asking for trouble. If we’re clinging to old structures, relationships, ego constructs, personality traits, we just might go down with the ship.

So as always, to thine own self be true. It’s more important now than ever as the waters get a little choppy.