I list the types of readings I do, but it's not mandatory that you choose one particular type in order to have an astrology reading done.
If you don't know the particular reading that suits you and your queries best, just describe your circumstances and give some indication of the type of perspective you're looking for. Using this information, I can determine how to orient the reading.
I'm not a predictive astrologer, and that is by conscious choice. Contrary to what many might desire, I don't want anyone predicting the events of my life ahead of time, and, therefore, that isn't my form of astrology to practise.
I value the helpfulness and effectiveness of astrology as a soulful navigational tool, one that provides context by describing conditions, circumstances, dynamics, themes, and timing in an immediate and detailed way with depth and catalytic power.
Through astrology, we can verbalize and "make real" certain feelings, experiences, dynamics, and energies that would otherwise remain vague, potentially throwing us off track.
If it speaks to you, the clarity astrology provides is invaluable.
This is a basic description of the individual readings I offer:
Natal: A natal reading works with your astrological birth chart, a very soulful document, indeed. This is the chart of planets, bodies, and points in the zodiac at the moment you were born, when you became a person on the planet separate from your mother. My understanding of the astrological birth chart is that it is both a micro and a macro document, indicating how the personal life is connected to broader collective forces and what the broader impetus is for that individual. This type of reading describes your astrological placements and indicated themes. It includes strengths and talents as well as potential pitfall areas. This type of reading is useful for self-understanding and awareness of life's astrological themes.
Transit: A transit reading is a reading of the current placements and movement of the bodies and points in the zodiac and what they indicate in relation to your natal chart.
If a person is looking for assistance and perspective with current circumstances and themes, the reading looks at the recent past, describes the present, and talks about themes that carry into the future. This type of reading is effective for getting to immediate details that can help a person make more informed and clear-headed decisions, taking corrective action where necessary and capitalizing on benefits coming through various transits. It is good for perspective (What's going on in my life?), context (What's some of the meaning of it?), and timing (How long is this going to last? What's up ahead?). It provides an analysis of the astrological indicators as far as successful ways to deal with themes and events.
Secondary Progressed: With this reading, your natal chart is advanced one day in the ephemeris for every one year of your life. This provides another astrological lens to look through that provides valuable insight into themes and any upcoming "chapter shifts" in life. I generally read the current transits as they are interacting with the Secondary Progressed chart. This reading gives a sense of how things have advanced in you and in your life since birth. It advances the themes of the birth chart (which remain foundational/root themes).
Relationship Synastry: This is a reading for any two individuals in relationship and describes the relational dynamics. This type of reading is most commonly done for romantic pairings but can also be done for business colleagues, family members, friends - anyone in any type of relationship. The natal charts of both individuals are placed in a bi-wheel - a double-layered wheel - and the aspects and interplay between the two are described in order to give an analysis of the relationship and its dynamics. I sometimes look at the Relationship Composite chart in a synastry reading, as well, which is considered the chart for the relationship itself.
The Four Major Asteroids and Black Moon Lilith: This reading focuses on Ceres (now considered a dwarf planet), Vesta, Juno, and Pallas Athene, as well as Black Moon Lilith (the point of lunar apogee) in your chart. These bodies/points are sometimes considered secondary, but they can be quite prominent and influential, especially when they are being aspected by transit. This reading fleshes out some of the feminine influence in the chart. I can add other asteroids by request.
The internet has made it easier for people to really suss out astrologers before choosing to have a reading done, and I'm all for this. It's important to have an astrology reading done by someone you trust, whose perspective you value. If you enjoy what the astrologer has to say in general, you will probably enjoy your reading.
No one wants to waste time and money on a reading that does not hit the mark, and almost no astrologer wants to waste his or her time and energy doing one. Doing research and using your intuition helps to ensure that the right readings are being done with the right people involved.
If it's your first time having a reading done by a certain astrologer, it's a bit of a crap shoot. There's not much that can be done about that; it's the nature of the astrological beast. I will say, though, if you find an astrologer who gives you the information and perspective you need when you need it, it's well worth the price.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Saturday, February 18, 2012
New Moon in Pisces Conjunct Neptune, Pallas Athene, and Chiron: Carving Out Pisces for the Aquarian Era
February 19 - Sun enters Pisces at 12:18 a.m. Central
February 21 - New Moon at 2 degrees Pisces at 4:35 p.m. conjunct Neptune, Pallas Athene, and Chiron
This is the first Pisces New Moon of the Neptune in Pisces transit, and it falls smack dab between Neptune at zero Pisces and Pallas Athene and Chiron at 3 and 4 degrees Pisces, forming a tight stellium.
Our luminaries the Sun and Moon come together in New Moon conjunction, burning away some of the confusion, listlessness, and pain related to what's come before, dropping it like a cloak before drawing aside a new curtain and illuminating a new Pisces entrance way.
At the points where the burden of awareness has been too great, where we could not take another step under its paralyzing weight, we're released.
But we have to want it, and we have to be willing to go for it.
To survive emotionally and psychically now, knowing all we know, feeling all we feel, seeing all we see, we have to get out from under the most suffocating weight of it. The outpouring flow of the compassionate heart must be gently stemmed, moving into a place where to love and feel does not mean the sacrifice of personal health and safety.
Here, we step into a smart, new expression of Pisces, fully aware of the context of the times and of our context within them.
New Moons bring an opening into a new expression of the sign in which they fall. In the case of this New Moon at 2 degrees Pisces conjunct Neptune, which is just settling back in to the sign of the fishes, the opening is more vast than we can immediately comprehend. We're opening here into a new expression of Pisces for the astrological Aquarian era, closing the door, gently or with a slam and a deadbolt, on many prior expressions, many prior patterns, many prior karmic loops**.
The transit and retrograde of Mars through Virgo, moving to a mid-April opposition to this New Moon point and Neptune in Pisces, assist us in the process. We're picking through, analyzing, removing from the expression of the sign anything redundant, bloated, draining, past its prime. We apply the stinging Virgoan antiseptic, starting to create function in the sign of Pisces in areas where there has for too long been only dysfunction. We also apply the healing Piscean understanding of the way it all works together, of the ways it's shared, bringing new life to areas that have remained sorely isolated, neglected, outside the fold.
Wounded healer Chiron is here, and so is pain. A more in-depth treatment of this placement can be found here: Chiron, May We Pass? from February 18, 2011.
The intense levels of psychic pain held at this point in human history, collectively left denied and unvoiced, truly have the potential to do us in. The psychic backwash drops over us in waves, often without warning, threatening to drag us under. The homeless, the alcoholics, the addicts, the mentally ill, the depressed, the prostituted, the murdered, the missing are symbols of this unaddressed psychic pain and the resulting dysfunction, symptomatic of deeper roots. They've done all they can, said all they can, and still most don't see the connections.
It seeps into suburbia, into condo buildings, into schools and offices, and still people won't put their fingers on it.
Chiron transits Pisces until 2019. The first half of the Neptune transit through Pisces is coloured strongly by this body out in front in the sign.
"There is no easy answer, just as there was no easy answer for Chiron's wound. No magic pill makes it all better. We're past the point where concessions and tokenism soothe in any form. We don't want to be thrown another bone.
Until the underlying wounding dynamics are truly addressed, rectified, discontinued, no long-term healing is possible. We're just treating symptoms.
And the army of people bleating about victim consciousness and creating your own reality works very effectively, moving us further from the depth of understanding of power dynamics and structures on this planet that would get us to the true healing points. Every flippant use of those concepts is another pound of pressure pinning Sedna down, suffering in betrayal on the ocean floor."
Before forgiveness, we need to understand the underlying dynamics, give them name, give them voice, change them, ensure they don't continue.
Before healing, we need to get to the roots, working for complete systemic change rather than just anesthetizing, masking symptoms and calling it healing.
Before the victimization cycles can end, we need to understand why these damaging cycles have been held in place for so long and why they continue to be reinforced. Who benefits from them and who would prefer things go on just as they have? We don't get rid of "victims" until we alter the systems and dynamics that benefit from victimization, and that requires a shift from blaming people for their circumstances to a focus and analysis of the power dynamics on a socio-political level.
With Pallas Athene so prominent at this Pisces New Moon, there is a battle going on for our psychic space. A ferocious reclamation is necessary here, as we battle to remove the ropey, sinewy arms that invade and drain, diverting the power of the feminine psychic force with idiocy about appearance and weight and celebrities and money and status symbols and manufactured music and sports and how to find a mate in five easy steps.
The women of the world, in particular, have to call a spade a spade now, refusing to play the same, old, look-the-other-way games.
With this New Moon, we open into a new Piscean infusion. We come back to Pisces in certain ways, letting it seep again into our pores, letting it lift our eyes again to the glorious wonder of it all after a stretch of years (during the Uranus in Pisces - Neptune in Aquarius mutual reception) when the focus has been strongly on Aquarius and the shift to astrological Aquarian era.
For the past eight years, the focus has been intensely on the transition. What to leave behind with a soft, sweet kiss, what to battle our way out of tooth and nail, and what to carry ahead with us.
What do we carry forward, and what do we leave behind: this has been a difficult consideration. But Neptune has now slid beyond the last impressions of the mutual reception, entering new territory in Pisces by the end of this month, and we've made our choices. It has become clear - or clearer. We've moved through the grief, the confusion, the catatonia, and we're coming out the other side - because we have to. We're needed. We go on from here.
Neptune is in its own sign now, having left Aquarius February 3, and we open into this clear conduit for Piscean understanding, for the permeation of the wondrous spirit of it all, for the experience of the puzzle piece connections that show us how it fits together.
With this New Moon, we get our new Piscean sea legs. Pisces for the Aquarian era.
We don't forget. We don't deny. We don't sever from us all that has come before and all that is happening now. This would only increase the psychic struggle. We take the wonder and the pain and the difficulty and the beauty with us. But we don't carry it anymore as a hopeless burden, as endless, roiling suffering.
What has gone on, what has been done, is known. We know and feel what humanity, what all living things on this planet, have suffered, have endured. We know what we suffer and endure now. We move forward with it shared among us, no one isolated in its pain and difficulty. It's part of us.
But again now, we move this story forward.
** A karmic loop is a scenario that plays out in a person's life over and over again with only slightly different circumstances, spitting the person out repeatedly in close to the same spot with close to the same results. It's generally something that plays on weak spots or patterns, and after a loop has been spotted, work can be done to change behaviour/patterns/decisions in order to come up with a different outcome and hopefully break the cycle.
Karmic loops can be related to any astrological body or point, but at the end of the astrological Piscean era, there are many Piscean/Neptunian karmic loops to be broken, in particular. One thing that makes these loops tricky is that they often involve collective dynamics and patterns and their results. It's not strictly personal issues we're working through, and the collective issues are very, very potent and confounding at times since we can't root them solely back to ourselves.
February 21 - New Moon at 2 degrees Pisces at 4:35 p.m. conjunct Neptune, Pallas Athene, and Chiron
This is the first Pisces New Moon of the Neptune in Pisces transit, and it falls smack dab between Neptune at zero Pisces and Pallas Athene and Chiron at 3 and 4 degrees Pisces, forming a tight stellium.
Our luminaries the Sun and Moon come together in New Moon conjunction, burning away some of the confusion, listlessness, and pain related to what's come before, dropping it like a cloak before drawing aside a new curtain and illuminating a new Pisces entrance way.
At the points where the burden of awareness has been too great, where we could not take another step under its paralyzing weight, we're released.
But we have to want it, and we have to be willing to go for it.
To survive emotionally and psychically now, knowing all we know, feeling all we feel, seeing all we see, we have to get out from under the most suffocating weight of it. The outpouring flow of the compassionate heart must be gently stemmed, moving into a place where to love and feel does not mean the sacrifice of personal health and safety.
Here, we step into a smart, new expression of Pisces, fully aware of the context of the times and of our context within them.
New Moons bring an opening into a new expression of the sign in which they fall. In the case of this New Moon at 2 degrees Pisces conjunct Neptune, which is just settling back in to the sign of the fishes, the opening is more vast than we can immediately comprehend. We're opening here into a new expression of Pisces for the astrological Aquarian era, closing the door, gently or with a slam and a deadbolt, on many prior expressions, many prior patterns, many prior karmic loops**.
The transit and retrograde of Mars through Virgo, moving to a mid-April opposition to this New Moon point and Neptune in Pisces, assist us in the process. We're picking through, analyzing, removing from the expression of the sign anything redundant, bloated, draining, past its prime. We apply the stinging Virgoan antiseptic, starting to create function in the sign of Pisces in areas where there has for too long been only dysfunction. We also apply the healing Piscean understanding of the way it all works together, of the ways it's shared, bringing new life to areas that have remained sorely isolated, neglected, outside the fold.
Wounded healer Chiron is here, and so is pain. A more in-depth treatment of this placement can be found here: Chiron, May We Pass? from February 18, 2011.
The intense levels of psychic pain held at this point in human history, collectively left denied and unvoiced, truly have the potential to do us in. The psychic backwash drops over us in waves, often without warning, threatening to drag us under. The homeless, the alcoholics, the addicts, the mentally ill, the depressed, the prostituted, the murdered, the missing are symbols of this unaddressed psychic pain and the resulting dysfunction, symptomatic of deeper roots. They've done all they can, said all they can, and still most don't see the connections.
It seeps into suburbia, into condo buildings, into schools and offices, and still people won't put their fingers on it.
Chiron transits Pisces until 2019. The first half of the Neptune transit through Pisces is coloured strongly by this body out in front in the sign.
"There is no easy answer, just as there was no easy answer for Chiron's wound. No magic pill makes it all better. We're past the point where concessions and tokenism soothe in any form. We don't want to be thrown another bone.
Until the underlying wounding dynamics are truly addressed, rectified, discontinued, no long-term healing is possible. We're just treating symptoms.
And the army of people bleating about victim consciousness and creating your own reality works very effectively, moving us further from the depth of understanding of power dynamics and structures on this planet that would get us to the true healing points. Every flippant use of those concepts is another pound of pressure pinning Sedna down, suffering in betrayal on the ocean floor."
Before forgiveness, we need to understand the underlying dynamics, give them name, give them voice, change them, ensure they don't continue.
Before healing, we need to get to the roots, working for complete systemic change rather than just anesthetizing, masking symptoms and calling it healing.
Before the victimization cycles can end, we need to understand why these damaging cycles have been held in place for so long and why they continue to be reinforced. Who benefits from them and who would prefer things go on just as they have? We don't get rid of "victims" until we alter the systems and dynamics that benefit from victimization, and that requires a shift from blaming people for their circumstances to a focus and analysis of the power dynamics on a socio-political level.
With Pallas Athene so prominent at this Pisces New Moon, there is a battle going on for our psychic space. A ferocious reclamation is necessary here, as we battle to remove the ropey, sinewy arms that invade and drain, diverting the power of the feminine psychic force with idiocy about appearance and weight and celebrities and money and status symbols and manufactured music and sports and how to find a mate in five easy steps.
The women of the world, in particular, have to call a spade a spade now, refusing to play the same, old, look-the-other-way games.
With this New Moon, we open into a new Piscean infusion. We come back to Pisces in certain ways, letting it seep again into our pores, letting it lift our eyes again to the glorious wonder of it all after a stretch of years (during the Uranus in Pisces - Neptune in Aquarius mutual reception) when the focus has been strongly on Aquarius and the shift to astrological Aquarian era.
For the past eight years, the focus has been intensely on the transition. What to leave behind with a soft, sweet kiss, what to battle our way out of tooth and nail, and what to carry ahead with us.
What do we carry forward, and what do we leave behind: this has been a difficult consideration. But Neptune has now slid beyond the last impressions of the mutual reception, entering new territory in Pisces by the end of this month, and we've made our choices. It has become clear - or clearer. We've moved through the grief, the confusion, the catatonia, and we're coming out the other side - because we have to. We're needed. We go on from here.
Neptune is in its own sign now, having left Aquarius February 3, and we open into this clear conduit for Piscean understanding, for the permeation of the wondrous spirit of it all, for the experience of the puzzle piece connections that show us how it fits together.
With this New Moon, we get our new Piscean sea legs. Pisces for the Aquarian era.
We don't forget. We don't deny. We don't sever from us all that has come before and all that is happening now. This would only increase the psychic struggle. We take the wonder and the pain and the difficulty and the beauty with us. But we don't carry it anymore as a hopeless burden, as endless, roiling suffering.
What has gone on, what has been done, is known. We know and feel what humanity, what all living things on this planet, have suffered, have endured. We know what we suffer and endure now. We move forward with it shared among us, no one isolated in its pain and difficulty. It's part of us.
But again now, we move this story forward.
** A karmic loop is a scenario that plays out in a person's life over and over again with only slightly different circumstances, spitting the person out repeatedly in close to the same spot with close to the same results. It's generally something that plays on weak spots or patterns, and after a loop has been spotted, work can be done to change behaviour/patterns/decisions in order to come up with a different outcome and hopefully break the cycle.
Karmic loops can be related to any astrological body or point, but at the end of the astrological Piscean era, there are many Piscean/Neptunian karmic loops to be broken, in particular. One thing that makes these loops tricky is that they often involve collective dynamics and patterns and their results. It's not strictly personal issues we're working through, and the collective issues are very, very potent and confounding at times since we can't root them solely back to ourselves.
Sunday, February 12, 2012
February 14: Venus-Ceres in Aries Make a Tense Juno Day Connection To Pluto. Unfinished Business? Baby, You Ain't Kiddin'
The lovely ladies of the zodiac are up front and centre in the chart for this February 14, Juno Day. This is a day for soul mate relationships of all kinds - not just the romantic ones - and an observation of the shit we all go through to complete our relational soul work together.Is there a greeting card out there with this sentiment? If not, there should be.
My parents were married 35 years ago today on February 12, 1977, and with synastry like: Sun square Sun, Mercury square Mercury, Venus square Venus, Juno square Venus, Mars-Saturn conjunct Sun, and Chiron conjunct South Node-Neptune, they're pretty much the poster couple for the underlying meaning of this day. (You'd expect nothing less to spawn such a lass as Willow, right?)
On this fair Juno Day 2012, Ceres - the asteroid related to the harvest and fertility of the earth, symbolized by a sickle - is in tight conjunction with love and relationship planet Venus, in detriment in Aries, and both bodies square Pluto in Capricorn. Feminine bodies Ceres and Venus joining forces in the sign of the warrior, squaring off with masculine body Pluto in the sign of hierarchy: the underlying battle rises to the occasion.
Ceres squares Pluto February 14; Venus squares Pluto February 15.
You'll recall that Ceres and Pluto have a long and brutal history between them involving kidnapping, rape, hell, and the utter destruction of life on the planet. Every time these two meet, especially in tense aspect, you can expect things to get a little frictional along the male-female, masculine-feminine lines. And in Aries and Capricorn, that might just be an understatement.
"Let's get real here, shall we?" Ceres purrs.
"We shall," drops Pluto.
Ceres and Pluto are now on astronomical equal footing, both having been scientifically re-classified as dwarf planets. Despite Ceres being far more down-played in the astrology of the day, they always have been equals. Their power - both for growth and generation/regeneration as well as for death and destruction - are evenly matched.
Ceres and Venus are flanked by Uranus in Aries and the true placement of Black Moon Lilith in Aries in this Juno Day chart, adding unpredictability and charge. The feminine is infused with raw, radical Uranian energy as well as on-the-edge, on-the-verge Black Moon Lilith, and Ceres, now included in modern astrological ephemerides with the other major bodies, leads the way.
The feminine, sensing Uranian freedom from previous forms in the air, exerts itself, forging ahead and stirring deep, structural unfinished business with the squares to Pluto in Capricorn. Some hot button male-female, masculine-feminine issues are being pushed to the surface, to say the least.
At the same time, quick temper and burning anger can trigger us to go too far - a distinct possibility with Black Moon Lilith involved in Aries - and this must be kept tightly in check to head off self-destruction. Anger acts as an instinctual guide and as impetus to action and self-exertion here, but it's the erratic warrior nature - dodging and weaving, ducking and moving, advancing then retreating, appearing then hiding, here and then not here - that keeps us safe within the battle and the rebellion from that which oppresses and snuffs out life. The fears of rejection and forced exile are founded ones when Black Moon Lilith is strong. We must ferociously rise to the occasion when it's required but just as quickly douse our flames.
Black Moon Lilith in Aries does lend her beautiful punk presence to the proceedings with the conjunction to Venus and Ceres on this February 14, but it's a loose conjunction, and she's not all that interested in getting involved. She's played this game before - and been played by it. For the most part, she's happy to do her thing from the outskirts of this one, and in Aries, so are all those fierce and independent who couldn't give a rat's ass about the expectations and manufactured importance of this day.
Still, this day for the sweethearts has been implanted pretty deeply in the collective psyche...
Squares abound in this Juno Day chart, meaning lots and lots of "growth opportunities." Don't we all just love those? Perfect for the day of the soul mate, but not so cool for those who like to keep their relations on the soft-lit, romantical side. There's tension beneath the lovey dovey.
With Neptune, Mercury, Pallas Athene, and Chiron conjunct in early Pisces, people are going to be giving it their all to keep the glossy, glowy Neptunian mirage of the Standard Romantic Love Relationship afloat. Illusions swirl as people fight to maintain Piscean era ideals about love, romance, and togetherness. A lot of these are on life support at this point, but they're still being played out and often quite sincerely.
Still, there is some Piscean magic to be had on this day.
Vesta in late Pisces opposes illusion-puncturing Mars in Virgo and says, "Hey, bud. No getting too nasty here. We don't want anyone falling down a black hole depression spiral from a too-severe love blinder removal."
But with Chiron edging the party, if not careful, people do set themselves up for disappointment.
Our celestial body of the day, soul mate asteroid Juno, squares the early Pisces party from telling-it-like-it-is Sagittarius and gains effect from the Sagittarius North Node. Juno square Neptune, Juno square Pallas Athene, Juno square Mercury, Juno square Chiron: on this Juno Day, the Piscean era love story cliches are straight-out played. The truth about love and relationship, much more attractive to Juno in Sadge, will prevail nicely, naughtily, or both.
The Moon in Scorpio squares the Aquarius Sun at mid-day on the 14th, and this is the friction between friendly detachment and airy, social, live-and-let-live on an outer level and an inner, emotional bottom line of "the same old bullshit ain't gonna fly." Emotions run deep here, and any crossed etheric lines related to lovers past can create major and potentially incendiary insult. With such caked-on collective love karma as this day has, those crossed lines are a major possibility. Be very careful to be fully present with the one in your life right now, body, mind, and psychic space. No replaying old scenes from Juno Days past with current loves.
The Moon leaves Scorpio for Sagittarius by 7 p.m. Central, just in time for things to get underway. The Moon moves to a warm and spicy conjunction to Juno by the wee hours of February 15, but also through those clashing squares to the bodies in Pisces.
The night leaves us with a warm, loved-up buzz, but only if we remain aware of how things are changing, staying ahead of the curve...
With so many frictional aspects involving the feminine bodies, this is not a day to mess with people's emotions. Anyone doing the Valentine's thing had better show up on time, well-dressed, probably with flowers, and it had best go off without a hitch. Mars in Virgo disposits love planet Venus, irritated in Aries, and the details matter. If you're going to do it, put in the effort to get it right.
If the current astro dynamics find you without the funds for entertainment (or the inclination to be an acquiescing consumer), the good thing about Mars in Virgo is that appreciation can be shown by anyone for anyone in inexpensive and practical ways: clean the house to a spotless shine, make a lovely dinner, offer a well-deserved massage, spend the evening in conversation without distraction. The simple things keep desires stoked, as long as we appreciate and acknowledge the offerings.
All in all, February 14 is a day that has seemingly been designed for people to build themselves up only to be let down. Maybe they eat more chocolate that way?
"The snub" is a Juno theme built right into the day, pricked the very first time we didn't get a Valentine from someone we hoped we would in elementary school. There has always been an underlying edge to this day, and it's made crystal clear under these particular astrological aspects.
There's a symbolism related to this day that by default makes a lot of people outside the confines of a relationship feel at least a little lonely and left out. (Or annoyed? Disgusted?) The possibilities for this are greater than usual under these cosmic energies unless people can puncture the illusions right from the get-go, refusing to be sucked into the tail-end Piscean era collective love undertow.
I have to say that with Saturn retrograde on the anaretic (29th) degree of Libra and the restructuring around love and relationship a prevailing theme, busting this particular day loose from its rigid, existing forms would be one mighty fine use of the astro energies.
Happy Juno Day 2012 to all you lovers and fighters out there, whether coupled up or flying solo. And Happy 35th Anniversary, Mum and Dad!
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
The Final Saturn Retrograde in Libra For 30 Years and Your Saturn in Libra Post-It Note from Willow
Saturn retrograde in Libra (29 degrees to 22 degrees) - February 7 to June 25, 2012
Saturn's last retrograde in Libra for 30 years will be testing all weak points in the sign of the scales over the next four+ months, going over territory we first entered in early November, 2011. Expect circumstances from around then, particularly regarding relationship, fairness, balance, and justice, to come up for resolution now, though this retrograde reaches back much further than that.
This is the final going over for the entire Saturn in Libra transit, which began in October 2009 and ends in October 2012, and it reaches back to relationship and relating issues from 1980-1983, 1950-1953, and 1921-1924. If we don't ace our Libra lessons now, we drag relational issues and weaknesses - mostly related to the astrological Piscean era - forward for the next 29 years. Chew on that one for a minute.
This retrograde station brings with it some dread, some fear, some pressure, some challenge, some difficulty, and some "looking back over it all" melancholy (all Saturnine things), especially as far as relating, relationships, and the structuring of our lives to include other people.
Holding our noses and taking our Saturn medicine now puts us in good position for upcoming cardinal Grand Crosses (more on that later in the article), but knowing that doesn't necessarily ease a mad case of the Saturnine dreads. Because of Saturn's almost exact trine to Neptune as it stations, there's some discouragement possible related to the disparity between where we hoped we would be at this point (Neptune) versus where we actually are (Saturn). However, if we accept and work with our limitations and challenges over this 4.5-month retrograde, we find ourselves in much stronger position in late June as Saturn turns direct and we experience the first of the seven exact Uranus in Aries - Pluto in Capricorn squares.
I've written quite a lot on Saturn in Libra and the upcoming retrograde, and I'll post some pertinent excerpts and links here. Hey, it's a retrograde. I'm bringing up old posts and previous efforts (Saturn). This will be new to some, and for those who've read it before, it can serve as a solid reminder. Consider this a Saturn in Libra Post-It note on your mirror from Willow.
From a previous post on the remaining leg of the Saturn in Libra transit November 21, 2011: Venus-Saturn Mutual Reception November 26 - December 20: Ants Get More Play Than Grasshoppers
"There's a solid groundwork that should have been built by now - new relational rules and standards, a heightened command of social responsibility, the ability to maintain equilibrium under pressure, as well as a new maturity in the tone of our relationships, especially between the sexes. At this point, people either have it or they don't...
This far into Saturn's transit of Libra, we start to see the social and professional results of having put this groundwork in. We also see the results of not having put it in, as well as the areas that contain hazardous holes and breaks in structure. This is especially apparent when we relate with those who have shirked the full effort. Under Saturn in Libra, we've determined who makes for a favourable partner and who doesn't, and now these standards must be applied across the board...
We're looking for long-term pay-off in relationship here and nothing less than that is worth the time or energy. Those who prove they cannot be responsible toward us, in relation to us, are not worth the time or energy. Only take on the responsibility toward others that feels absolutely right to take on, and don't give anyone a level of responsibility in relation to you that he or she is not meant (or equipped) to take on...
[I]t's a person with solid integrity, with some financial savvy, with a nose for legitimate advancement, with expertly handled personal responsibilities, and with the ability to dig in and get the job done even if it means deferring personal pleasures who is most attractive under these astro energies. [Saturn in Libra] is seeking partners with strong shoulders who bear their burdens well, partners who act their age (even older than their chronological age). [It's] seeking a partner who understands the full realities of life, including the difficult, sombre, or "unfun" aspects, who understood them early on, and who worked with them pretty much from the get-go rather than sloughing them off...
People who are obviously playing catch-up on this front are not going to hold as much appeal. We're looking for the results of long-term efforts - what a person has built and what progress has been made over the course of the lifetime. Charm is a quality with a decreasing amount of value the closer Saturn gets to Scorpio if it is not also attached to absolute integrity and authenticity. Those are the qualities that make bank under Saturn in Scorpio. People who have skated by on looks, charm, charisma, or social prowess and facade are going to find these qualities don't get them nearly as far as they used to. Playboys (or girls), those who refuse to grow up, the skittish, the cheaters, the fibbers, the non-committal, those who can't manage limitations, restrictions, or adult responsibilities - these people become less and less attractive."
Everyone will be feeling the Saturnine relating/relationship pressure to a certain extent, as we all have Libra somewhere in our natal charts, but this retrograde is particularly potent for those with strong natal placements in Libra. On a generational basis, this relates in particular to the Uranus in Libras (1968 - 1975), the Neptune in Libras (1942 - 1957), and the Pluto in Libras (1971 - 1984).
As mentioned, with sustained effort, the Saturnine squeeze on Libra puts us in good position for the upcoming cardinal Grand Crosses (2013-2014) when the personal planets in Libra will form, in waves, the fourth leg of the configuration. Having a firm, mature, responsible handle on the energy and themes of Libra - especially the slippery bits - will be of great benefit to us then, so grit your teeth and dig in now.
Cardinal Grand Crosses 2013-2014
A Grand Cross is a formation of four bodies within two oppositions (180-degree aspect) or four squares (90-degree aspect). All four bodies within the upcoming Grand Cross configurations are in cardinal signs, indicating the need for grand scale and dynamic new leadership, direction, and initiative within highly pressurized global circumstances. As the square is a tense, difficult, and frictional aspect, this configuration involves feelings of being boxed in from all angles, with the impetus to move in new directions coming from the tension of our circumstances on the planet.
The Grand Cross formed in the summer of 2010 that kicked things off was not a full cardinal Grand Cross because Saturn was in late Virgo, a mutable sign. I referred to it as a cardinal t-square.
The formations of the summer of 2011 were full cardinal Grand Crosses, involving Uranus in Aries, Saturn in Libra, Pluto in Capricorn, and the personal planets (Mercury, the Sun, Venus, and Mars) in Cancer.
The cardinal Grand Crosses that form from August to December, 2013 and in April, 2014 will involve Uranus in Aries, Pluto in Capricorn, Jupiter in Cancer, and the personal planets (Venus, Mercury, the Sun, and Mars) in Libra.
August 23-27, 2013 - Venus in Libra will move into place, forming the fourth leg of the cardinal Grand Cross.
September 14-20, 2013 - Mercury in Libra will pass through this territory, using a nine-degree orb.
October 1-13, 2013 - The Sun in Libra will trigger the cardinal Grand Cross using a ten-degree orb for aspects.
December 23, 2013 – January 1, 2014 - Mars in Libra moves into cardinal Grand Cross formation to close out 2013.
April 21-24, 2014 (exact) – Consider all prior cardinal Grand Crosses a dress rehearsal for this one. Mars Rx in Libra makes an exact cardinal Grand Cross configuration with Jupiter in Cancer, Uranus in Aries, and Pluto Rx in Capricorn all at Lucky 13 degrees of the cardinal signs. This formation strongly colours the Mars retrograde through Libra February 28 to May 19, 2014.
From a previous post:
"Aren’t you glad Saturn in Libra is drilling us on our maturity and responsibility with Libra themes right now? Weak points related to this sign’s energy would (and will) wreak major havoc within these future cardinal Grand Crosses. Going out of balance within the pressurized circumstances of this formation would require an immense amount of effort to put right. Under this type of tension, if one spring goes, they all go. This formation, especially the exact one April 21-24, 2014, will have a hugely polarizing effect socially with a tendency to move to extreme ends of the spectrum in relation to other people or groups.
Mars is in detriment in Libra and indicates a struggle to maintain any semblance of social diplomacy and human decency. It will take great effort (Mars) to maintain peace (Libra), especially in light of the groups gunning for another world war. Thirteen is a potent and highly symbolic number, and we can expect this formation to be used to trigger further symbolic events on the world stage. Learn your Libra lessons well between now and October 2012, and the foundation will be set as far as future success with these cardinal Grand Cross formations."
More articles on this Saturn retrograde in Libra:
January 16, 2012: Let's Just Say The Cosmos Isn't Going to Be Blowing Confetti Out Our Butts This Week
December 27, 2011: Saturn in Libra (Not Quite) Trine Neptune in Aquarius and Saturn Retrograde: Neptunian Relationship Fodder From the Anaretic Degrees
Friday, February 3, 2012
This Mind is Otherwise Occupied.
"The original idealism had been compromised by these homeless people. We lost the narrative."
- Kalle Lasn complaining that the homeless people stepped on the OWS buzz in Vanity Fair article "An Oral History of Occupy Wall Street" by Max Chafkin with additional reporting by Alexandra Beggs, Mark Guiducci, Jaime Lalinde, Elizabeth Nicholas, Rebecca Sacks and Kaitlin Sanders
The seed idea for Occupy Wall Street came from the Vancouver, British Columbia-based anti-consumer, anti-capitalist publication Adbusters, co-founded and edited by a man named Kalle Lasn.
Kalle Lasn is an advertising man, you see. A Pluto in Leo advertising man. He became disenchanted with the consumer capitalist version of advertising and decided to defect, starting a publication that advertised the counter-culture instead.
The glossy, edgy, hipster-cool version of counter-culture his publication advertises makes some good points. It works with certain layers of the situation, but that's just it: it works with layers, not roots, and layers that still put way too much emphasis on money and consumer goods and the existential crisis over whether we should or should not be buying these consumer goods. These are layers that come from the perspective of the materially-privileged classes.
Getting you to buy or getting you to not buy - it's pretty close to the same thing.
And for people without expendable income, it really isn't all that much of a dilemma.
When you get down to it, Adbusters is still a form of advertising-based reality-construction, using the underlying concepts of advertising and its visual panache to promote ideology. It keeps people's minds occupied with advertising and the versions of reality that advertising is promoting, even if those versions are of the stark, edgy, graphically-stimulating, anti-consumer variety.
I fully supported the people speaking out through Occupy Wall Street, but I wasn't able to put my personal energy into the movement, and I wasn't directed to cover it on the site. When I found out the seed idea came from Adbusters, I started to get a clearer understanding of why that might be.
The movement raises some very good, crucially pertinent issues. It got people together to talk about what's really going on in the world, outside the carefully-crafted versions coming from mainstream media. It made people feel that they were doing something about the corruption, and that's important. But it didn't have the depth I needed to see in order to get really excited about it or even all that interested in it. There was an organic element and a grassroots fire that were missing, and I didn't feel it had the roots to address the issues I needed to see being addressed.
It's an interesting movement and one that fully utilizes the organizational power of the internet, but it has to be kept in context. The intense use of media - alternative, mainstream, or both - has a tendency to skew things by hyping up the broader importance of an event.
We've been protesting these issues for decades now. The World Trade Organization protests, including at the Battle in Seattle in 1999. The Free Trade Area of the Americas protests. The IMF. The G-8. The G-20. And on and on. Millions of people have protested worldwide. People know the score.
- Kalle Lasn complaining that the homeless people stepped on the OWS buzz in Vanity Fair article "An Oral History of Occupy Wall Street" by Max Chafkin with additional reporting by Alexandra Beggs, Mark Guiducci, Jaime Lalinde, Elizabeth Nicholas, Rebecca Sacks and Kaitlin Sanders
The seed idea for Occupy Wall Street came from the Vancouver, British Columbia-based anti-consumer, anti-capitalist publication Adbusters, co-founded and edited by a man named Kalle Lasn.
Kalle Lasn is an advertising man, you see. A Pluto in Leo advertising man. He became disenchanted with the consumer capitalist version of advertising and decided to defect, starting a publication that advertised the counter-culture instead.
The glossy, edgy, hipster-cool version of counter-culture his publication advertises makes some good points. It works with certain layers of the situation, but that's just it: it works with layers, not roots, and layers that still put way too much emphasis on money and consumer goods and the existential crisis over whether we should or should not be buying these consumer goods. These are layers that come from the perspective of the materially-privileged classes.
Getting you to buy or getting you to not buy - it's pretty close to the same thing.
And for people without expendable income, it really isn't all that much of a dilemma.
When you get down to it, Adbusters is still a form of advertising-based reality-construction, using the underlying concepts of advertising and its visual panache to promote ideology. It keeps people's minds occupied with advertising and the versions of reality that advertising is promoting, even if those versions are of the stark, edgy, graphically-stimulating, anti-consumer variety.
I fully supported the people speaking out through Occupy Wall Street, but I wasn't able to put my personal energy into the movement, and I wasn't directed to cover it on the site. When I found out the seed idea came from Adbusters, I started to get a clearer understanding of why that might be.
The movement raises some very good, crucially pertinent issues. It got people together to talk about what's really going on in the world, outside the carefully-crafted versions coming from mainstream media. It made people feel that they were doing something about the corruption, and that's important. But it didn't have the depth I needed to see in order to get really excited about it or even all that interested in it. There was an organic element and a grassroots fire that were missing, and I didn't feel it had the roots to address the issues I needed to see being addressed.
It's an interesting movement and one that fully utilizes the organizational power of the internet, but it has to be kept in context. The intense use of media - alternative, mainstream, or both - has a tendency to skew things by hyping up the broader importance of an event.
We've been protesting these issues for decades now. The World Trade Organization protests, including at the Battle in Seattle in 1999. The Free Trade Area of the Americas protests. The IMF. The G-8. The G-20. And on and on. Millions of people have protested worldwide. People know the score.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Saturn Stationing Rx on 29 Libra Trine Neptune and Talking to Ghosts
Using women, treating them badly, treating them as if they don't matter, and then making it all part of your "process." Waxing poetic about all the self-understanding and the peeling of layers and the healing you're doing as a result.
Well, good for you, buddy.
The fact remains that you treat women badly. And it doesn't matter if it stems from Mommy's early rejection, from an ex unceremoniously ditching your ass, or from some sort of genetically-wired inclination to misogyny in the 20th century male. You treat women badly.
Being as "self-actualized" and "enlightened" as you claim, you should understand that this is one of the most selfish and cad-like ways to relate to another person. It's detrimental to any type of real relating and mutuality because you aren't interacting with the person. You're interacting with your own baggage, using that person to "get in touch" with it.
It isn't all about you and your "process." Get it?
You used me and them as a port in the storm, to strengthen yourself as you steamrolled forward, doing the damage you do. You've stolen my time and energy and the time and energy of other women with no intention of reciprocation or restitution. And you left a whole bunch of your shit behind for us to deal with and clean up.
It's like a revolving door, right? That's what you said. One woman exits and there's another one waiting, at the snap of your fingers.
Lucky women.
And again you're talking about forgiveness. Whatever that means in your world. And again, it's all about what WE can do for YOU. How we can let you and males like you off the hook before you've even scratched the surface of your energetic irresponsibility. How we can make it all better for YOU, allowing you to continue your misogynistic merry-go-round. Allowing you to be hero-worshipped for a style-over-substance that never even gets close to the truth or the reality of anything.
New Age men. Fucking Christ, you know?
Luckily, it isn't up to me. It's in Saturn's hands now, and whatever isn't held accountable in Libra surely will be in Scorpio.
Well, good for you, buddy.
The fact remains that you treat women badly. And it doesn't matter if it stems from Mommy's early rejection, from an ex unceremoniously ditching your ass, or from some sort of genetically-wired inclination to misogyny in the 20th century male. You treat women badly.
Being as "self-actualized" and "enlightened" as you claim, you should understand that this is one of the most selfish and cad-like ways to relate to another person. It's detrimental to any type of real relating and mutuality because you aren't interacting with the person. You're interacting with your own baggage, using that person to "get in touch" with it.
It isn't all about you and your "process." Get it?
You used me and them as a port in the storm, to strengthen yourself as you steamrolled forward, doing the damage you do. You've stolen my time and energy and the time and energy of other women with no intention of reciprocation or restitution. And you left a whole bunch of your shit behind for us to deal with and clean up.
It's like a revolving door, right? That's what you said. One woman exits and there's another one waiting, at the snap of your fingers.
Lucky women.
And again you're talking about forgiveness. Whatever that means in your world. And again, it's all about what WE can do for YOU. How we can let you and males like you off the hook before you've even scratched the surface of your energetic irresponsibility. How we can make it all better for YOU, allowing you to continue your misogynistic merry-go-round. Allowing you to be hero-worshipped for a style-over-substance that never even gets close to the truth or the reality of anything.
New Age men. Fucking Christ, you know?
Luckily, it isn't up to me. It's in Saturn's hands now, and whatever isn't held accountable in Libra surely will be in Scorpio.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
The Pluto in Virgos Take Position and Pluto Square Pluto for the Pluto in Libra Generation
New Catalytic Position for the Pluto in Virgos
Throughout 2012, potent transits are placing members of the Pluto in Virgo generation in new catalytic position as the Transition Team out of the structural set-ups currently held in place by Pluto in Leos (born 1937 to 1957), now entering retirement and semi-retirement.
Certain members of the Pluto in Virgo generation are working, literally, to change (Pluto) the system (Virgo). Others are doing their damnedest to support and lock down more of the same male-dominated hierarchy and illegitimacy in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Recall that there is a whole crop of current Global Governors with natal Pluto in Virgo (born 1956 to 1972), with many more clamouring to rise within the ranks, and they all have their prudent and practical plans (always involving many, many sacrificial lambs) out of the chaos we so conveniently find ourselves in.
Members of the Pluto in Virgo generation are responsible, in part, for analyzing and addressing deep, systemic dysfunction. Virgo is a sign with a highly-sensitive responsiveness, and it generally requires the same in return. As we are currently working within Pluto in Capricorn structures almost entirely unresponsive and non-adaptive to input, the difficulties for this generation are clearly apparent.
The Pluto in Virgos who would like to see a free humanity and improved living conditions on this planet will work to create new systems, transforming human work out of current variations of drudgery, slavery, toxicity, and eroding inhumanity and into something meaningful, integrated, and healthful. The true transformative power (Pluto) of the workers (Virgo) comes to the forefront with this generation.
True-to-the-core members of this generation are assigned the task of applying holistic principles to our ways of doing things, especially in work and business. A tall order. They have the immense job of bringing the lofty, often theoretical, and mostly dissipated (or at least latent) ideals of the 1960s into concrete, practical, functioning reality, and if any generation has the specialized skills to do this, it's Pluto in Virgo.
As stated, individuals and groups from this generation will be embedded in new catalytic position within the systems beginning this year - or within systems of their own creation. However, as is always the case with Pluto, only a rare few will go as deep as is truly necessary, penetrating to the core of the dysfunction and dishonesty, rather than wasting time and effort on more superficial, diversionary layers.
The Pluto in Virgos work the Virgo-Pisces polarity, and the efforts of a good many will, unfortunately, be swallowed by a sea of Piscean distraction, illusion, and dead ends as Neptune in Pisces opposes their natal Plutos over the next 14 years.
Many will squander their effectiveness by working to reform around the edges systems and structures that need to be completely gutted and reworked. Others will focus on perfecting their personal lives from privileged positions with little progress made as far as broader, sociological understanding and change. Many will refuse to deepen a real transition out of the current structural set-ups, continuing to wield power and control in similar ways and reinforcing the same pyramid schemes with, again, small reforms around the edges.
Many more will remain caught up in the New Age paradigm - or whatever they decide to call it now - erroneously believing they are working for real change, when, in fact, they are reinforcing and feeding energy into more of the same meaningless and illegitimate hierarchical control.
There's still a lot of guru-itis in this generation - it's just a little more on the down low than the Pluto in Leo version.
A rare few, though, will really get the job done, applying soul-directed, life-supporting efforts with laser-like precision and efficacy and peeling away the detritus keeping things dysfunctional. These are the real movers and shakers of the Pluto in Virgo generation. These Pluto in Virgos are not going to fall back on the quick fix of slash-and-burn sacrificial lambs, preached by their less skillful members. No mass kill-offs are required to put their plans into action.
It's always so nice and clean to just sever the problematic issues/people from the scene altogether, isn't it? Creating your own little "enlightened" bubble realities from positions of social privilege. It reminds me of the sentiment that arose that "Occupy Wall Street was so fun and rosy and ideal until all those yucky, mentally ill homeless people started showing up and mucking it up."
(Reality check, assholes. It's about more than your ideals and your amputated version of "community." Those mentally ill homeless people have the most to be upset about as far as your cause goes. Your scope should have widened to include them, rather than making them pesky irritations that ruined your good time.)
With Neptune in Pisces opposing the natal Pluto in Virgos over the next 14 years, missing the point altogether will be a common theme. A sanitized and superficial version of reality, including only those aspects considered manageable, will be put forth regularly.
It's only the rare few Pluto in Virgos who will refuse that superficiality and really work with what's before them. These people understand the real meaning of Pisces and put it into action. They get that every piece matters, that nothing and no one is expendable, and that a plan that doesn't work with every bit of it is a pretty poor plan, indeed.
For a long while, masses of people have understood that something is fundamentally wrong - many somethings. They just didn't know what to do about it. With the potent "fixer solver" Pluto in Virgos gaining influence, gears start turning and grand-scale practical avenues start opening. Solutions can start to become accessible en masse, rather than to the specialized and privileged few.
Pluto Square Pluto for the Pluto in Libra Generation
With Pluto transiting Capricorn, the Pluto in Libra generation (born 1972 to 1984) is experiencing transiting Pluto in Capricorn square natal Pluto in Libra at various times from 2008 to 2024.
All Pluto generations experience this Pluto square Pluto transit. The Pluto in Virgo generation was the last to experience it as Pluto transited Sagittarius (1995 - 2008). The Pluto in Leos experienced it as Pluto transited Scorpio (1983 - 1995), and the Pluto in Cancers experienced it as Pluto transited Libra (1971 - 1983).
An interesting point about the current crop of people on the planet, written about by astrologer Erin Sullivan, is that the Pluto in Leo through Pluto in Sagittarius generations experience this transiting square at a younger age than both previous generations and generations yet to come.
Our feet are being held to the Plutonic alchemical fire in our late 30s to late 40s, whereas other Pluto generations both past and future experience it in their late 50s to early 90s.
As the Pluto in Virgos move into new position this year, individuals from the Pluto in Libra generation will be coming to the table to catalyze a new social structure, bringing their own special brand of social justice, which, with Pluto in the sign of relationship, is not always a socially pleasant brand.
With the cardinal Grand Crosses (2011-2014) along with the ongoing square series between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn (2012 - 2015) occurring at the time of their Pluto square Pluto transit, members of the Pluto in Libras - responsible, in part, for transformation into right human relations - are propelled into new social leadership capacity. From September 18, 2011: New Social Authority For the Pluto in Libra Generation and Blazing the Plutonic Trail Through Relationship Constructs Past
Certain members of the Pluto in Libra generation will be placed quite immediately within new positions of long-term influence and social authority - both legitimate and illegitimate.
Again, Pluto can be used to move into legitimate forms of power but it can just as easily, probably more easily, be used to reinforce and continue the current violent, coercive, inhumane, and unjust forms. Pluto is both liberator and oppressor.
Many Pluto in Libras, as with those in generations both preceding and following, will take their places within the current illegitimacy, reinforcing a social structure and forms of leadership that maintain the power of the dominant paradigm.
The Charming and Bullshitty Politico/Celebrity Type with gleaming, bleached-and-bonded teeth will be played to a fine art within the Pluto in Libra generation by both men and women. And there will be a new focus: the Charming and Bullshitty Politico/Celebrity Couple. We'll be getting double teamed on the charm and bullshit front. A false egalitarian Aquarian facade mixed with potent Pluto in Libra social literacy will be used to maintain a smoothly-functioning status quo while the real issues remain seething, unaddressed and unresolved, underneath.
Social prowess, attractiveness, popularity, and connections will be primary weapons of control. The ability to create and drive obsessive social trends, tapping into Aquarian era technological and virtual reality desires, will continue as a major source of social engineering power over the masses. The use of beauty to enchant, entrance, manipulate, and dominate will go to extremes. New allegiances and alliances, making for shiny photo ops, will sustain oppressive and regressive regimes of all levels. Flash, flash, flash go the cameras, creating false memories, false history, a very pretty and touching manufactured reality of important moments, indeed.
Those fighting for real relational change and justice have their work cut out for them, as usual.
The Pluto square Pluto aspect forces a deep examination and unearthing of layered power dynamics, particularly generational power dynamics. This includes the power other Pluto generations hold, as the Pluto in Libras determine legitimate power from illegitimate and natural skill and leadership from authoritarian hogwash. A new balance and sharing (Libra) of power (Pluto) emerges with this generation, for good or ill.
Pluto square Pluto is a tense, frictional aspect that will eventually make the cardinal Pluto in Libras stronger leaders, more concentrated in their own power and influence, by forcing confrontations with the current Pluto in Capricorn power dynamics and structures.
Throughout the Pluto in Capricorn transit, the Pluto in Libras will come to a deeper understanding of the source of their own personal power, connected to broader, generational impetus, as well as the sources of their motivations and the motivations of others. Certain people, places, emotions, psychological states, or ideas, particularly relationship-related, that hold a disproportionate amount of power over the Pluto in Libras will be examined. In many cases, the hold over them will be broken, though this can create terror.
As this aspect happens around mid-life, it leads to the realization (for those still unaware) of how short a human life on this planet really is, which can give individuals the courage to take on new areas of authority, power, and leadership in these times of crisis. Death is examined and any fear of it can be confronted through this transit, which can result in an often dramatic reorientation of personal lives, directions, and goals.
Personal Plutonic crises compel various examinations and confrontations.
Until the Pluto in Capricorn children come of age, the Pluto in Libras will be the only cardinal (initiation, new direction) Pluto generation in the works. Many Pluto in Libras will work through a fear of their own authority within new positions of social leadership throughout this transit. Libra is a sign that often prefers to defer to others, but with Pluto in Libra forcing the strong development of the Aries polarity point (transited by Uranus in Aries for the next seven years), sitting back and deferring to others can be catastrophic both personally and collectively.
These transits will force often fence-sitting Libra to choose, once and for all, which direction it is taking as we move fully into a new astrological era. The Pluto in Libras will be brought to a point where to refuse new positions of power in their own lives and societies, within their generation, is death to the soul.
The successful use of the Pluto square Pluto transit means taking on a new and powerful role in a position of vital influence or forever being under the thumb of others who have.
Throughout 2012, potent transits are placing members of the Pluto in Virgo generation in new catalytic position as the Transition Team out of the structural set-ups currently held in place by Pluto in Leos (born 1937 to 1957), now entering retirement and semi-retirement.
Certain members of the Pluto in Virgo generation are working, literally, to change (Pluto) the system (Virgo). Others are doing their damnedest to support and lock down more of the same male-dominated hierarchy and illegitimacy in both subtle and not-so-subtle ways.
Recall that there is a whole crop of current Global Governors with natal Pluto in Virgo (born 1956 to 1972), with many more clamouring to rise within the ranks, and they all have their prudent and practical plans (always involving many, many sacrificial lambs) out of the chaos we so conveniently find ourselves in.
Members of the Pluto in Virgo generation are responsible, in part, for analyzing and addressing deep, systemic dysfunction. Virgo is a sign with a highly-sensitive responsiveness, and it generally requires the same in return. As we are currently working within Pluto in Capricorn structures almost entirely unresponsive and non-adaptive to input, the difficulties for this generation are clearly apparent.
The Pluto in Virgos who would like to see a free humanity and improved living conditions on this planet will work to create new systems, transforming human work out of current variations of drudgery, slavery, toxicity, and eroding inhumanity and into something meaningful, integrated, and healthful. The true transformative power (Pluto) of the workers (Virgo) comes to the forefront with this generation.
True-to-the-core members of this generation are assigned the task of applying holistic principles to our ways of doing things, especially in work and business. A tall order. They have the immense job of bringing the lofty, often theoretical, and mostly dissipated (or at least latent) ideals of the 1960s into concrete, practical, functioning reality, and if any generation has the specialized skills to do this, it's Pluto in Virgo.
As stated, individuals and groups from this generation will be embedded in new catalytic position within the systems beginning this year - or within systems of their own creation. However, as is always the case with Pluto, only a rare few will go as deep as is truly necessary, penetrating to the core of the dysfunction and dishonesty, rather than wasting time and effort on more superficial, diversionary layers.
The Pluto in Virgos work the Virgo-Pisces polarity, and the efforts of a good many will, unfortunately, be swallowed by a sea of Piscean distraction, illusion, and dead ends as Neptune in Pisces opposes their natal Plutos over the next 14 years.
Many will squander their effectiveness by working to reform around the edges systems and structures that need to be completely gutted and reworked. Others will focus on perfecting their personal lives from privileged positions with little progress made as far as broader, sociological understanding and change. Many will refuse to deepen a real transition out of the current structural set-ups, continuing to wield power and control in similar ways and reinforcing the same pyramid schemes with, again, small reforms around the edges.
Many more will remain caught up in the New Age paradigm - or whatever they decide to call it now - erroneously believing they are working for real change, when, in fact, they are reinforcing and feeding energy into more of the same meaningless and illegitimate hierarchical control.
There's still a lot of guru-itis in this generation - it's just a little more on the down low than the Pluto in Leo version.
A rare few, though, will really get the job done, applying soul-directed, life-supporting efforts with laser-like precision and efficacy and peeling away the detritus keeping things dysfunctional. These are the real movers and shakers of the Pluto in Virgo generation. These Pluto in Virgos are not going to fall back on the quick fix of slash-and-burn sacrificial lambs, preached by their less skillful members. No mass kill-offs are required to put their plans into action.
It's always so nice and clean to just sever the problematic issues/people from the scene altogether, isn't it? Creating your own little "enlightened" bubble realities from positions of social privilege. It reminds me of the sentiment that arose that "Occupy Wall Street was so fun and rosy and ideal until all those yucky, mentally ill homeless people started showing up and mucking it up."
(Reality check, assholes. It's about more than your ideals and your amputated version of "community." Those mentally ill homeless people have the most to be upset about as far as your cause goes. Your scope should have widened to include them, rather than making them pesky irritations that ruined your good time.)
With Neptune in Pisces opposing the natal Pluto in Virgos over the next 14 years, missing the point altogether will be a common theme. A sanitized and superficial version of reality, including only those aspects considered manageable, will be put forth regularly.
It's only the rare few Pluto in Virgos who will refuse that superficiality and really work with what's before them. These people understand the real meaning of Pisces and put it into action. They get that every piece matters, that nothing and no one is expendable, and that a plan that doesn't work with every bit of it is a pretty poor plan, indeed.
For a long while, masses of people have understood that something is fundamentally wrong - many somethings. They just didn't know what to do about it. With the potent "fixer solver" Pluto in Virgos gaining influence, gears start turning and grand-scale practical avenues start opening. Solutions can start to become accessible en masse, rather than to the specialized and privileged few.
Pluto Square Pluto for the Pluto in Libra Generation
With Pluto transiting Capricorn, the Pluto in Libra generation (born 1972 to 1984) is experiencing transiting Pluto in Capricorn square natal Pluto in Libra at various times from 2008 to 2024.
All Pluto generations experience this Pluto square Pluto transit. The Pluto in Virgo generation was the last to experience it as Pluto transited Sagittarius (1995 - 2008). The Pluto in Leos experienced it as Pluto transited Scorpio (1983 - 1995), and the Pluto in Cancers experienced it as Pluto transited Libra (1971 - 1983).
An interesting point about the current crop of people on the planet, written about by astrologer Erin Sullivan, is that the Pluto in Leo through Pluto in Sagittarius generations experience this transiting square at a younger age than both previous generations and generations yet to come.
Our feet are being held to the Plutonic alchemical fire in our late 30s to late 40s, whereas other Pluto generations both past and future experience it in their late 50s to early 90s.
As the Pluto in Virgos move into new position this year, individuals from the Pluto in Libra generation will be coming to the table to catalyze a new social structure, bringing their own special brand of social justice, which, with Pluto in the sign of relationship, is not always a socially pleasant brand.
With the cardinal Grand Crosses (2011-2014) along with the ongoing square series between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn (2012 - 2015) occurring at the time of their Pluto square Pluto transit, members of the Pluto in Libras - responsible, in part, for transformation into right human relations - are propelled into new social leadership capacity. From September 18, 2011: New Social Authority For the Pluto in Libra Generation and Blazing the Plutonic Trail Through Relationship Constructs Past
Certain members of the Pluto in Libra generation will be placed quite immediately within new positions of long-term influence and social authority - both legitimate and illegitimate.
Again, Pluto can be used to move into legitimate forms of power but it can just as easily, probably more easily, be used to reinforce and continue the current violent, coercive, inhumane, and unjust forms. Pluto is both liberator and oppressor.
Many Pluto in Libras, as with those in generations both preceding and following, will take their places within the current illegitimacy, reinforcing a social structure and forms of leadership that maintain the power of the dominant paradigm.
The Charming and Bullshitty Politico/Celebrity Type with gleaming, bleached-and-bonded teeth will be played to a fine art within the Pluto in Libra generation by both men and women. And there will be a new focus: the Charming and Bullshitty Politico/Celebrity Couple. We'll be getting double teamed on the charm and bullshit front. A false egalitarian Aquarian facade mixed with potent Pluto in Libra social literacy will be used to maintain a smoothly-functioning status quo while the real issues remain seething, unaddressed and unresolved, underneath.
Social prowess, attractiveness, popularity, and connections will be primary weapons of control. The ability to create and drive obsessive social trends, tapping into Aquarian era technological and virtual reality desires, will continue as a major source of social engineering power over the masses. The use of beauty to enchant, entrance, manipulate, and dominate will go to extremes. New allegiances and alliances, making for shiny photo ops, will sustain oppressive and regressive regimes of all levels. Flash, flash, flash go the cameras, creating false memories, false history, a very pretty and touching manufactured reality of important moments, indeed.
Those fighting for real relational change and justice have their work cut out for them, as usual.
The Pluto square Pluto aspect forces a deep examination and unearthing of layered power dynamics, particularly generational power dynamics. This includes the power other Pluto generations hold, as the Pluto in Libras determine legitimate power from illegitimate and natural skill and leadership from authoritarian hogwash. A new balance and sharing (Libra) of power (Pluto) emerges with this generation, for good or ill.
Pluto square Pluto is a tense, frictional aspect that will eventually make the cardinal Pluto in Libras stronger leaders, more concentrated in their own power and influence, by forcing confrontations with the current Pluto in Capricorn power dynamics and structures.
Throughout the Pluto in Capricorn transit, the Pluto in Libras will come to a deeper understanding of the source of their own personal power, connected to broader, generational impetus, as well as the sources of their motivations and the motivations of others. Certain people, places, emotions, psychological states, or ideas, particularly relationship-related, that hold a disproportionate amount of power over the Pluto in Libras will be examined. In many cases, the hold over them will be broken, though this can create terror.
As this aspect happens around mid-life, it leads to the realization (for those still unaware) of how short a human life on this planet really is, which can give individuals the courage to take on new areas of authority, power, and leadership in these times of crisis. Death is examined and any fear of it can be confronted through this transit, which can result in an often dramatic reorientation of personal lives, directions, and goals.
Personal Plutonic crises compel various examinations and confrontations.
Until the Pluto in Capricorn children come of age, the Pluto in Libras will be the only cardinal (initiation, new direction) Pluto generation in the works. Many Pluto in Libras will work through a fear of their own authority within new positions of social leadership throughout this transit. Libra is a sign that often prefers to defer to others, but with Pluto in Libra forcing the strong development of the Aries polarity point (transited by Uranus in Aries for the next seven years), sitting back and deferring to others can be catastrophic both personally and collectively.
These transits will force often fence-sitting Libra to choose, once and for all, which direction it is taking as we move fully into a new astrological era. The Pluto in Libras will be brought to a point where to refuse new positions of power in their own lives and societies, within their generation, is death to the soul.
The successful use of the Pluto square Pluto transit means taking on a new and powerful role in a position of vital influence or forever being under the thumb of others who have.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Mars Stationing Retrograde in Virgo and Fighting Scams
This Mars retrograde station in Virgo has the Virgo-Pisces polarity charged, and one of the themes along this polarity, especially with Chiron transiting Pisces, is scams.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of nefarious people aggressively pushing their nefarious schemes these days. So many that I feel ill when I think about it. And certain people are considered easy targets: the elderly, the disabled, youth, the inexperienced or naive.
Neptune enters Pisces February 3, and this increases the possibility of "scam hitting blind spot" exponentially, especially if you have some nasty Pisces/Neptune/12th house action in your natal chart.
I do. And I semi-fell for a "Hello, I'm a Microsoft professional, and there's something wrong with your computer" telemarketing scam this morning.
Now, I'm not an idiot. Falling for a scam doesn't make you an idiot. It makes you a person with Piscean/Neptunian/12th house naivete and blind spots. And my Neptunian naivete and blind spots certainly do have the tendency to be preyed upon.
Hindsight is always 20/20 in these cases, but a few things conspired to soften my guard: 1) I had just woken up (still groggy) when the guy called. 2) My computer had been acting weird for the past week, so I did think something was up. 3) I'm not technologically savvy, so when a guy representing himself as a Microsoft-trained professional called saying there were problems with Windows, I found it plausible. (I know, I know. Implausible to the max.) 4) This Mars retrograde station conjunct my North Node is hitting me where it hurts.
Scam artists use every silver-tongued trick of psychological warfare at their disposal, and many of them are quite sophisticated.
Anyone with a known weakness on this front, please be careful. The aspects we're experiencing have a tendency to put us in that energetic place where things can be slipped in and slipped by.
The paralyzing energy of the Saturn in Virgo - Uranus in Pisces opposition cycle we experienced a couple years ago is being stirred up and inflamed with this Mars Rx through Virgo with Chiron and soon Neptune in Pisces. And under that paralyzing energy, we can snap into that place where we are coercively persuaded to do things that are generally out of character for us to do. That Neptunian dimension that makes us into those impossibly naive, trusting, passive versions of ourselves.
Things to avoid to stay out of that energetic place:
- isolation
- sleeping too long
- too much TV/internet/music
- use of alcohol or drugs
- daydreaming
Unfortunately, there are a lot of nefarious people aggressively pushing their nefarious schemes these days. So many that I feel ill when I think about it. And certain people are considered easy targets: the elderly, the disabled, youth, the inexperienced or naive.
Neptune enters Pisces February 3, and this increases the possibility of "scam hitting blind spot" exponentially, especially if you have some nasty Pisces/Neptune/12th house action in your natal chart.
I do. And I semi-fell for a "Hello, I'm a Microsoft professional, and there's something wrong with your computer" telemarketing scam this morning.
Now, I'm not an idiot. Falling for a scam doesn't make you an idiot. It makes you a person with Piscean/Neptunian/12th house naivete and blind spots. And my Neptunian naivete and blind spots certainly do have the tendency to be preyed upon.
Hindsight is always 20/20 in these cases, but a few things conspired to soften my guard: 1) I had just woken up (still groggy) when the guy called. 2) My computer had been acting weird for the past week, so I did think something was up. 3) I'm not technologically savvy, so when a guy representing himself as a Microsoft-trained professional called saying there were problems with Windows, I found it plausible. (I know, I know. Implausible to the max.) 4) This Mars retrograde station conjunct my North Node is hitting me where it hurts.
Scam artists use every silver-tongued trick of psychological warfare at their disposal, and many of them are quite sophisticated.
Anyone with a known weakness on this front, please be careful. The aspects we're experiencing have a tendency to put us in that energetic place where things can be slipped in and slipped by.
The paralyzing energy of the Saturn in Virgo - Uranus in Pisces opposition cycle we experienced a couple years ago is being stirred up and inflamed with this Mars Rx through Virgo with Chiron and soon Neptune in Pisces. And under that paralyzing energy, we can snap into that place where we are coercively persuaded to do things that are generally out of character for us to do. That Neptunian dimension that makes us into those impossibly naive, trusting, passive versions of ourselves.
Things to avoid to stay out of that energetic place:
- isolation
- sleeping too long
- too much TV/internet/music
- use of alcohol or drugs
- daydreaming
Monday, January 23, 2012
Mars Retrograde in Virgo and the Active Re-Organizing Principle Comes Out in Full Force January 23 - April 13, 2012
Mars' forward motion in Virgo grinds to a halt today at 23 degrees of the sign (6:54 p.m. Central) as we unfold into the Aquarius New Moon. The planet of action, will, aggression, and goals will be retrograde until April 13, when it turns direct at 3 degrees Virgo.
With this almost three-month retrograde, an active re-organizing principle comes into full force in our lives, re-directing us and making necessary adjustments down to the very last detail as we start to exist under the astrological Aquarian era classification system. This transit addresses dysfunction, and it indicates a breaking point, an official "had enough" point, for workers (Virgo), particularly healthcare and service workers.
Mars in Virgo is inflaming all the issues and dysfunction that should have been addressed but were not addressed during Saturn's transit of Virgo (2007-2010). This Mars transit is a breaking point and a precise re-direction of the efforts of workers within (or out of) criminally corrupt and unresponsive Pluto in Capricorn structures. This includes workers both un- and under-employed (numbering in the hundreds of millions in North America alone) as well as those fully employed within systems intentionally designed to fail.
There are not many workers unaware of the problems at this point. Those attempting to reinforce and gloss over the dysfunction rather than working to change it are the owners, the CEOs, the upper management. Those are not the people slogging it out, doing the real work.
The real workers know the score, and, coming out of the momentum-building Occupy Movement, they hold a huge amount of collective power at this time in human history.
With this Mars transit, if we're lucky, the workers of the world are infused with the guts, the courage, the grit, and the will to stand up and say enough is enough. With this transit, the workers of the world can be infused with enough bad ass Martian energy and rock-solid organization (with the Virgoan intelligence to use them) that they'll never back down again. They'll refuse to bow to the fears instilled by the hierarchies, refuse to allow themselves to drop, silent and passive, under collective Neptunian amnesia and anesthesia. My hand on my heart, I pray this is the scene.
This Mars transit through Virgo activates the Pluto in Virgo generation in a big way, and the momentum starts to catch for a grand-scale generational power shift.
Very fundamentally, this Mars in Virgo transit relates to how we apply (or refuse to apply) our physical energy and what we serve or support with that application of energy. This takes on particular importance within the context of rampant structural criminality, moral if not legal.
From a previous post during Saturn in Virgo:
"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."
Virgo is most often about skimming off the unnecessary in order to increase function, and this transit will have us applying ourselves only in the most vital of directions. All the Virgoan territory comes under a state of intense analysis, scrutiny, and precise re-direction, particularly in the areas associated with the house in which Virgo resides in your astrological birth chart.
As Mars Rx in Virgo forms an opposition to the Pisces Sun at 13 degrees on March 3, the previous two-year cycle of goals, will, and personal direction under the Mars in Leo overlay officially draws to a close.
New, more practical, effective, and precise goals as well as the uses of will to achieve them start to unfold as Mars goes direct this April.
As long as we accept and apply the re-direction, these new goals and directions are infused with great and grounding staying power from an exact Grand Earth Trine March 12-15 involving Venus-Jupiter in Taurus, Mars Rx in Virgo, and Pluto in Capricorn, all at 9 degrees of the earth signs. This is big, collective gears shifting and wheels turning.
Mars has been transiting Virgo since November 10, 2011 and will not ingress Libra until July 3, 2012, after the Venus Transit and the first exact square between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn June 24. This means we have almost eight months to go over things with a Virgoan fine-toothed comb, precisely re-directing ourselves through this three-month retrograde us as we enter the new and active duty indicated by this transit.
From November 13, 2011: Mars in Virgo Retrograde: Precise Re-direction Within Grand Earth Trines
November 10, 2011 - Mars enters Virgo
November 18, 2011 - Mars enters the retrograde shadow
January 23, 2012 - Mars goes retrograde at 23 degrees Virgo
April 13, 2012 - Mars turns direct at 3 degrees Virgo
June 19, 2012 - Mars leaves the retrograde shadow
July 3, 2012 - Mars enters Libra
The Mars transit and retrograde through Virgo involves an eight-month period of mutable, transitional energy that requires our precise and active participation to direct, re-direct, adjust, and re-adjust our courses. Throughout this time, we'll be directed down only the most pertinent and effective channels in our lives, honing and refining our courses and withdrawing personal energy from anything that is not necessary, valuable, or vital moving forward. This process is happening, specifically, in the house or houses where Virgo falls in your natal chart. That's the area where things need to be tightened.
Virgo is one of the quieter placements for Mars. Mars is active here but only in the ways that count. No excess of motion, exertion, words, mental function, or use of will. Small movements, adjustments, and re-direction have big effect, and temperance rules, as too much effort in one direction results only in energy expended for self-correction.
The energy on the planet will be getting very bizarre and out of control at times over the next years, and things can really go haywire if we allow them to. This is why we need the Virgoan qualities applied through the iron will of Mars to set our courses now, doing battle on the fine points.
If we're oh-so-careful and diligent, smoothing every screwy detail, critiquing every glowing illusion, attending to every nagging issue, we set a tone with this retrograde that can keep us grounded and out of the worst of the hyped baloney and utter bullshit being amped up on this planet.
Clean, crisp, clear.
In Virgo, every detail matters.
Virgo is a sign that needs things to be just right, and with Mars here, we're going to have to take it personally when they aren't. If it hits our ears as incorrect, it's rejected, no matter how many people are saying it, doing it, or believing it. Anyone trying to fill our minds, bodies, societies, or environments with useless crap is viewed as an enemy of our health.
Enemies of our health. There are many.
Under Mars in Virgo, we're consciously fighting to maintain health in a world increasingly toxic to living things. Our systems are quite literally being attacked on multiple fronts. There's an immediacy with this Mars transit. There's no more time to put off the changes necessary to fortify our health. It's on. In order for our systems to continue processing and metabolizing what's going on, they need to be in tip-top condition.
Diet, exercise regimes, habits, routines, work conditions, the quality of our food and water, our mental and emotional environments - a crucial analysis and refinement is on the docket during this transit, fighting to maintain systemic health while preparing us for the next years on the planet. This involves the removal or at least strong limitation of anything that weighs our systems down: excess alcohol, drug use, cigarettes, perfumes, air fresheners, chemical cleaners, electromagnetic pollution, noise pollution, pesticides and additives in food, refined sugar, artificial colours, genetically modified food, fluoride, excessive internet, TV, music, shopping, socializing.
Mars is a hard-ass in Virgo, and with good reason. Even things touted as healthful should be gone over with a fine-toothed comb. With Virgo, less is more. Be careful what you add to your life and to your system. In most cases, Virgo is about what needs to be taken away.
There is a sexual element (Mars) to health (Virgo) here. A more precise application of sexual energy is required. A new understanding of the effects of sexual activity on health and on the surrounding energetic environment as a whole comes about here.
The "too much, too fast, too soon" sexual ethic constantly shoved down our throats is rejected by those who use this transit well, and the application of sexuality is streamlined with a new awareness and focus on the health of the individual, the partner, the relationship, the immediate social groups and society, and the spirit, in general.
There's a re-wiring of attractions and sexual habits here, a clarification, and a removal of toxic sexual connections. Holistic sexual health.
Our work is infused with a necessary level of fight during this transit. We fight to overcome the redundancy, uselessness, and listlessness forced upon so many through mass institutionalized unemployment, underemployment, and lack of meaningful paid employment.
Charting the course for the next two years correctly requires our absolute focus over the next eight months. Mars entering Virgo sets off a grand earth trine with Jupiter Rx in Taurus and Pluto in Capricorn that will be in effect most strongly November 16-23. Mars retrogrades back into this grand earth trine in March when the configuration will be exact.
Jupiter in Taurus, Mars Rx in Virgo, and Pluto in Capricorn will be exactly trine each other at 9 degrees of the earth signs from March 12-15, 2012.
Mars in Virgo will trine Pluto in Capricorn one last time May 15-17, 2012 with Mars moving direct. At that time, Jupiter in Taurus will be out of range.
Needless to say, within these grand earth trines, the application of specific choices and actions - including what we choose not to do or say - has big ripple effects, creating real, concrete, structural changes.
Additional articles on the Mars in Virgo Rx transit:
Mars in Virgo and Going Scent-Free Mars in Virgo Hot or Nots
An explanation of two-year Mars cycles and the Mars in Leo cycle officially drawing to a close: New Moon in Virgo Sets a Preparatory Tone For the Upcoming Mars Retrograde
Monday, January 16, 2012
Let's Just Say The Cosmos Isn't Going to Be Blowing Confetti Out Our Butts This Week
We move this week to a somewhat sobering and quite enervating square between the Sun in Capricorn and Saturn in Libra (January 19). With both planets on the final degrees of those signs, there's no time to mess around.
We consciously and conscientiously advance through the last few steps of Sun in the sea-goat as we're brought to a relative (yet tension-filled) resting point on the anaretic plateau that is Saturn's retrograde station February 7.
Our forward motion on the relationship structuring front is officially slowing - yet highly potent over the next three weeks - with every step eked out from here an effort as we grind out the last bit of progress, firmly planting ourselves in the new and exalted social/relational positions we think, hope, and fear we've earned.
New standards in relationship, new platforms, new boundaries, new frameworks: the last steps forward have to be ground out with certainty now as Saturn prepares to look over its ledgers one last time in the sign of the scales. Its retrograde - February 7 to June 25, 2012 - will inform us of the progress we've made in real terms, the position we've concretely earned, as well as the areas that will require more diligence during Saturn's final pass direct.
The difficulty of planting each step grows over the next three weeks, and the weight drags at us, requiring that we fully prove our mettle, our maturity, and our readiness for new relationship frameworks and a new relationship rulebook. The stern and all-business Sun-Saturn square makes for a very odd atmosphere, indeed, as Saturn in Libra continues its just-a-hair-short-of-exact trine to Neptune in the last gasp of Aquarius.
We meander in and out of this state of conscious responsibility. One moment we're hitched to the Saturnine plow, most assuredly aware of the limitations and tiresome requirements of physical life on this planet, and the next moment life is characterized by a fluid, dream-like surreality, and it seems we might just slip out of it altogether (Neptune).
Saturn will be testing us on all points during its retrograde, carrying Neptunian siren song and nostalgic sentiment with us, tempting us to give up our hard-won new position by compromising ourselves and our relationship principles detrimentally.
The anaretic degrees are vibrating with tension and import. A lot can be gained here with adherence to the principles, and even more can be lost if we break under the strain. Under this anaretic tension, one misstep, and we slide down a chute that squanders at least some of our hard work.
We're taking a trip with the Ghost of Relationships Past during this Saturn retrograde in Libra, to be certain. We'll be looking back and even going back physically in some instances, meeting again with those who have had a place in our lives in the past.
But this is a trip purely to show us how far we've come. There will be no staying, no matter how glorious it feels to be blanketed and comforted by this glowing, dreaming phantom love.
Within the pages of an English novel, Jane Eyre and Edward Rochester find blissful union, at last, long last, as two halves of the same soul meet in holy matrimony. A fictional love to make your heart ache, feverish that you may never find its equivalent.
And in real life, its author Charlotte Bronte marries a clergyman she is merely fond of - no great, melting love of her life - after watching her entire family perish one-by-one, only to die herself while pregnant soon after being wed.
The high romanticism of the Neptunian love story is very dangerous at this tail-end Piscean era, threatening to submerge us, to shroud us in its gauzy myth for 30 years more.
How many of the great historical love stories, so implanted in the collective psyche and so sought after, have been myth? And yet, the crushing emotional weight of Saturnine reality is just as dangerous now. We require our carefully meted out Neptunian dreams in order to withstand our circumstances, and you see just how carefully we have to tread with the current significators in the zodiac.
Love, sweet love, is still the thing. But a love that is real and sustained is worth more than every fictional love story ever written.
The Sun in Capricorn moves through its square to Saturn in Libra and into Aquarius January 20 (10:10 a.m. Central) where it will almost immediately form another square - this time to Jupiter in Taurus - to further pee on our parade. Tense and difficult aspects to both the restrictive and the expansive this week. We get it both coming and going.
Mental exhaustion is still apparent from two months of Mercury in the sign of its detriment, followed by a conjunction to Pluto, which powerfully flooded our circuitry with the deep, the dark, the triggered, the paranoiac.
Communications retain their Plutonic edge into this upcoming weekend. Hidden emotions can easily show themselves in moments of impatience or temper, and that could be catastrophic.
Our social responsibilities are heavy and our relational challenges complicated with Saturn stationing retrograde on the last degree of Libra. Our challenge is to keep things as harmonious as possible while not compromising ourselves or our positions.
Do everything in your power to remain socially pleasant and above reproach this week by neutralizing the Pluto-poisoned mind, tongue, and ear (Mercury).
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
The Planets Align This Friday the 13th: Hang a Horseshoe, Clutch Your Rabbit's Foot, and Load Up on Kitty Treats for Those Neighbourhood Black Cats
First Venus. Venus in Aquarius trine Saturn in Libra - 3:05 a.m. Central Venus conjunct Neptune in Aquarius - 9:17 a.m. Venus enters Pisces - 11:47 p.m.
Love and relationship planet Venus crosses through the 29th degree of Aquarius - the official degree of the astrological era shift - on Friday, and as it does, it trines Saturn in Libra and conjuncts Neptune in Aquarius before ingressing Pisces late that night. This Friday the 13th, a day ripe with folklore, is an official relational tone setter, drawing on themes previously outlined here: Saturn in Libra (Not Quite) Trine Neptune in Aquarius and Saturn Retrograde: Neptunian Relationship Fodder From the Anaretic Degrees and way back here: Venus, Eros and Mars in the Via Combusta and Karmic Love Cleansing Through the Alchemical Fires.
Recall that Saturn (challenges) is currently in Via Combusta Libra (spicy, crackling relationship issues), and we're still working under an overlay from the fall 2010 Venus retrograde through Via Combusta Scorpio and late Libra. That overlay isn't complete until the Venus Transit in Gemini June 5, 2012, and all this colours the relationship proceedings.
On this Friday the 13th, we have another opportunity to calibrate ourselves to the tone of Venus' movement, letting it seep into our bones, and then commit to the new relational track. Venus conjuncts wounded healer Chiron in Pisces January 16, indicating a time period ripe for experiences of the healing, transcendent power of love, as well as, if we aren't careful, the wounding power of human interaction - with both experiences possible in the same interaction. We need to fortify and protect our wounded spots carefully, as this is very old salt in very old wounds. The wounding themes are related, in part, to:
- unconscious/semi-conscious ways in which we interact with people and they interact with us
- setting ourselves up for failure in relationship by overlooking key matters
- social niche and social pigeonholing
- being the scapegoat for the crowd or the one whose feelings and needs are sacrificed or stepped on when a sacrifice has to be made
- social isolation
- weak spots in boundaries: being too permeable when it comes to other people's energy field/influence
- pining, looking back, excessive nostalgia for relationships past, seeing things through the veil of time, not how they actually were
- old Piscean era social archetypes: the party girl, the ditz, the idealist, the wishful thinker, the one who's allergic to reality, the stoner, the addict, the starving artist, the energy vampire, the person with "bad karma," the sick one, the disabled one, the hard luck story, the martyr, the saviour, the chronic fuck up, the person who can't get it together, the one who's unlucky in love, the person ill-equipped for the rigours of life
- keeping ourselves on the losing end of character flaws - in ourselves or in other people
These are cyclical relational patterns, standard dynamics worked into a deep groove over the course of the astrological Piscean era that must be consciously ushered out with the door locked behind them.
Throughout Venus' transit of Pisces (January 13 - February 7), we have the opportunity to set the relational tone to "Pisces for the astrological Aquarian era," but this won't necessarily be easy, especially for those who have been resisting a stronger Aquarian vibe. The Piscean pull into dreamy Never Neverland is strong, becoming stronger as Neptune (illusion, delusion, blind spots) enters its home sign of Pisces February 3, and we have to actively head off its influence at points.
We're being enticed down many relational rabbit holes we've been down fruitlessly before. The application of rational mind that can break us free is like the fight to wake up from one of those dreams that paralyzes you with its intensity. If the will is not there to do so, we plummet down the rabbit hole.
For those who would like to avoid the surreal Alice in Relationship Wonderland this time around, things are a little counter-intuitive. Venus is in exaltation in Pisces, which means there's a strong feeling that it knows what it's doing in this sign. There's nothing quite like the heights of Piscean love, and with these glowy, exalted Venusian vibes, it's going to be difficult to convince people that some changes are required.
There's a lot of criticism from the sign of Pisces (and from those vibing strongly to it) of the more Aquarian take on love, relationship, and partnership: it's cold, unfeeling, hard, heartless, overly intellectual, devoid of emotion, lacking in romance.
Those who refuse to adopt the more detached, responsible, and self-preserving tack in relationships will continue to play out the same old stories, making the same old excuses.
The successful tack in our relations involves using the relevant qualities of both Pisces and Aquarius. Determining which are the relevant qualities and which are the redundant and detrimental is what we work out now and throughout Saturn's retrograde through Libra.
Venus will be on the 29th degree of Pisces - the last degree of the zodiac - at the time of Saturn's retrograde station on the 29th degree of Libra February 7.
Now the Moon and Mars.
Moon conjunct stationing Mars in Virgo - 6:36 p.m.
The Moon is in Virgo this Friday the 13th and conjuncts Mars at 22 Virgo. Mars is slowing for its retrograde station January 24, and its themes permeate the astro atmosphere. The Moon-Mars conjunction occurring as Venus conjuncts Neptune and enters Pisces increases the impetus to sharpen the details, remove the unnecessary, and clear the Piscean/Neptunian fuzz and wishful thinking.
This is a conjunction of a major feminine planet (Moon) with a major masculine one (Mars) and has to do with the perspective of women/the feminine taking the lead in subtle and influential ways as the male-dominated trajectory on the planet is further set to: war, war, and more war (Mars). This is the fight to stop war and the impetus to discontinue support for the trajectory toward war right down to the finest details in our daily lives.
More on the Mars in Virgo transit and retrograde here: Mars in Virgo Retrograde: Precise Re-direction Within Grand Earth Trines
Here: Mars in Virgo Hot or Nots
And here: New Moon in Virgo Sets a Preparatory Tone For the Upcoming Mars Retrograde
Now Mercury.
Mercury conjunct Pluto in Capricorn - 7:03 a.m.
Communication/transportation planet Mercury is in Capricorn until January 27, following more than two months (including a retrograde) in the sign of its detriment, Sagittarius, and we're happy to have some type of solid movement here. Unfortunately, a lot of it is Plutonic movement, as Mercury moves out of its square to Uranus in Aries and into a conjunction to Pluto in Capricorn, exact this Friday the 13th. It doesn't take much to hear (Mercury) the Pluto in Capricorn (corpo-governmental oligarchy) undertone coming through loud and clear these days as we head to the first exact square between Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn this June. The global war profiteers are just itching to get things started, and oil and nuclear take centre stage...
Verbal aggression is ramping up (again) through the media from Western governments toward Iran over its nuclear facilities and enrichment of uranium. As always, the Plutonic insanity is only understood by a minority, as the media-fed mainstream accepts a scenario in which the only country that has ever actually used nuclear bombs in an attack against another country (the U.S. of A.) is instated as armed-to-the-teeth global nuclear watchdog, determining who can and can't have nukes.
U.S. and U.S. Allies: Yes.
U.S.-declared Bad Guys: No.
The hypocrisy is amazing, and still relatively very few will openly admit the Emperor's naked as a jaybird.
The aggression is not limited to the verbal this time, though. The United States (through the United Nations) has brought sanctions against Iran, attempting to force it to discontinue its uranium enrichment program. The sanctions have made it impossible for Iran to continue its international oil exports, leading to the plunge of the Iranian currency to an historic low. Devastation (Pluto) of currency and business infrastructure (Capricorn).
(Incidentally, don't bother trying to use PayPal or to buy books from Amazon in Syria, either. Both these activities have been blocked as part of the broader and more destructive U.S./EU economic sanctions against that country. People with Syrian IP addresses are told they are in a "forbidden country." A further Pluto in Cap crackdown on the flow of money.)
It might be useful for those in Cancer Sun nations United States and Canada to imagine a role reversal here. One can only imagine the outrage that would ensue if the U.S. economy and the flow of oil in and out were disrupted and interfered with to this extent by a foreign country. After all, the United States enriches uranium for weapons and munitions (and uses them), does it not? Iran is the fourth largest oil producer in the world with a large percentage of its exports (500,000 barrels per day of its 2.6 million barrels per day output) going to the European Union. This adds an interesting element to the dick-swinging global dynamics.
Pluto relates to one's underlying interests and the overwhelming impetus of those underlying interests. The European Union is now forced to implement sanctions that are in the best interests of the United States which, in effect, starve its nations of oil. Iran is now threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway at the mouth of the Persian Gulf that carries about 1/6 of the world's oil supply from the Gulf nations.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz would be met with military aggression from the U.S. and its allies, aggression that would, again, have the seal of approval from the media-fed masses.
Transportation routes are Mercurial, and the corpo-governmental steamroller being allowed to progress at all costs is Pluto in Capricorn. This appears to be a primary Uranus square Pluto hot spot.
Like clockwork, it is.
In Canada, two massive oil pipelines are in the works - though strongly opposed by many. One is the Northern Gateway pipeline, which would move oil from Alberta's oil fields to the West Coast, with a port in Kitimaat, British Columbia, to be sold and exported at a whopping price to Asia.
The second massive pipeline, called the Keystone XL, would move oil from the ecological and humanitarian catastrophe that is the Athabasca Tar Sands in northern Alberta all the way down to Texas in the United States. Thousands and thousands of kilometres of pipeline just waiting to spring a leak, ripe for international and domestic sabotage.
With a majority government led by Global Governor extraordinaire Stephen Harper, we won't be seeing any ecological responsibility coming from the Feds on this one, and it's left up to the citizens of both Canada and the United States to form the resistance.
The United States' presidential race is now well underway, consuming massive amounts of time, energy, and analysis on media outlets. This doesn't stop at the U.S. border, however. (What border? There are no borders anymore.)
If you flip on Canada's mainstream news (I wouldn't suggest it unless you are a fan of satire that isn't actually satire), you will see an almost equal fervour and an almost equal obsession with the minutiae of the farce going on to the south. The propaganda readers on CTV Newsnet (Canadian Television is a misnomer if ever there were one) could easily be mistaken for those on CNN these days.
The hidden merger (Pluto) of media (Mercury) and its ownership (Capricorn).
Because, you know, there isn't anything going on in our own country that might warrant any airtime. (See: Northern Gateway and Keystone XL pipelines)
As stated previously, we no longer have even the facade of a sovereign nation in Canada. Pluto in Capricorn has ripped the mask off, and Stephen Harper's Conservatives - good little Global Governors that they are - take their orders and implement them dutifully.
In August, 2011, under a Cardinal Grand Cross that will form again throughout the fall of 2013 and in April 2014, it was announced by the "Harper Government" that the Canadian Armed Forces would be rebranded the Royal Canadian Air Force and Royal Canadian Navy.
From a previous post:
"The Canadian Armed Forces shed the "Royal" stamp in 1968, but in a wave of propagandistic nostalgia, the Global Government-aligned Harper Conservatives have brought the "Royal" back with a vengeance, complete with masses of Canadians all too happy to re-pledge allegiance to the Queen and British monarchy.
Wartime patriotism and pride are being stirred in preparation and hope that the people will gladly repeat the old cycle, hands on hearts." Harper continues to do his mightiest to stir the militaristic patriotism of Canadian citizens as he does his part to create consensus for more global war. He's even adding a commemoration of the War of 1812 to this year's Canada Day celebrations in the country's capital city, Ottawa. "Hey, kids! Forget about ice cream. Look at this cool musket!"
(You may recall that during Canada Day 2011, again under the Cardinal Grand Cross, the citizens of this country had their Stockholm Syndrome worked into a frothy lather as Wills and Kate came for a visit, also reinforcing the dominion over Kanata of Mummy Dearest in jolly old.)
At the same time, the "Harper Government" - who sent out memos telling people not to bother calling them the Government of Canada anymore - have made an absolute mockery of the House of Commons, simply shutting it down on two separate occasions.
The difficulty and lack of transparency Canadian journalists face when attempting to get information from Harper is well documented.
Really, they have just unveiled, Pluto in Capricorn-style, what was always there. The facade has been stripped, and the idea that the people ever really had all that much of a say in it has gone kaput.
So multiple exact aspects go down this potent Friday the 13th, a day rich with symbolism and superstition, making it a day with a potentially far-reaching tone. Stay on the good side of luck, as the astro conditions have a bit of a "fated" quality about them and might not let us away with much.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Mercury (Mercifully) Exits Sagittarius
Mercury leaves Sagittarius for Capricorn just after midnight tonight.
Can I get a Hallelujah?
The communication planet does not operate fluidly from the sign of its detriment, Sagittarius, at the best of times. Add to that a Mercury retrograde, and more than two months in this sign has been more than enough.
Anyone with a communications-related job should be glad to see this one coming to a close. Things have gotten a mite stale. It's not that Mercury is loving life ever-so-much in Capricorn, but at this point it'll take it.
Mercury works on a square to Uranus in Aries all day tomorrow creating some friction and frustration but also the impetus to get things moving. This square is exact at 5:23 p.m. We also experience a Full Moon in Cancer tomorrow night at 18 degrees, so make sure to spend some time with lovely Luna if you get the chance.
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