Abandonment and Self-Love

Blue Sapphire – Aluminum Oxide, one of the harder substances known – and an excellent companion when traveling through the Dark Lands.

* * * * *

Asteroid Sappho is just a little gal; you could fit three of her between Paris and the Chunnel, with room to spare.  But she can work a number on your Emotions, especially when she’s Standing Still on a Power Node, as she did yesterday.

Asteroid Sappho was Stationary Retrograde yesterday at 18 degrees of Aquarius (“A man’s secret motives are being publicly unmasked”), very Square to Saturn, Trine to Mars, and Semisextile to Chiron.  The Midpoints of the Fixed Signs are the Power Points of the Zodiac, sometimes referred to as the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.”

Any planets near 18 degrees of the Fixed Signs in your natality?

It takes a while to go from “I’d rather die than go through this again!” to “Omigod, this is an Ego Death!” but what a resurrection!  When we regress into our prior hyperbummers, we become that age, and from that place we have no access to anything we’ve learned since then.  So making that Leap to Omigod this is an Ego Death is actually a bit of a Miracle.  It would be a good PIAVA to make – Goddess, may I please learn to recognize an Ego Death quickly?

Once that Leap is made, we need to grab it before we slide back into those horrid images of the mess we’ll make of that freeway abutment – though if those images are worse than our Emotions, we’re actually golden.  We need to find an easy way to Take Responsibility For (ie, Be Able to Respond to) those horrendous Emotions that make us want to leave the Planet.  A powerful way to do that is to name that mash-up of Anger, Grief, Fear, Nausea, Loss of Worth, and rampant fantasies of Horrible Consequences.  Call it

My Abandonment

It’s not that “They did this to me again,” it’s “I’ve been feeling My Abandonment again.”  We all have Abandonment, fear of becoming isolated and Community-less.  It was a real punishment, Banishment, in olden days, as it was for Oblio.  Many families use the threat of Banishment as a way to control their children, which leaves us with adults who fear Abandonment.  Back when we were too young to make our way in the World, Abandonment was quite Real.  As competent adults it’s not, but when we regress to that age again, it’s a total Emotional Reality.

The other side of the Abandonment Coin is Suffocation.  Abandonment says “Don’t leave me!” – Suffocation says “Back off!”  Lots of us had overbearing parents or significant others, who didn’t let us have the freedom we needed to experiment with the World.  Most of us have some of each, and a few of us have a lot of each, which is a real curse, because Other People get those mixed messages, “Don’t leave me” and “Back off,” and end up leaving us or torturing us.  “Hit me,” said the sadist; “No,” said the masochist.

Once it becomes My Abandonment, it’s no longer I Am Abandoned.  There’s a World of difference.  I Am Abandoned is a living Hell.  My Abandonment is just a Pattern I’m working with.  We can even trace its history and see how much better (and quicker!) we are at dealing with it than we were a decade ago.  The heavy negative Emotions will still arise, but they aren’t as overwhelming.  We might even remember to Tap Them Out.  If we have the presence of mind to use any of the techniques we mentioned in the Chiron in Pisces post, they’ll be a boon.

It’s very important to remember to give Our Abandonment absolute First Priority when it overwhelms us and limits our ability to concentrate on anything but it.  It literally shatters the Ego, and when we try to put a shattered Ego to work on anything except Recovery, we just make things worse.  Even Recovery is hard, and may require a helper.  We need to move into one of those techniques – Total Attention, Tapping, PIAVA of some form, Ritual Dumping – and get our Identity back into the Egg before we try to do anything else.  Deadlines, schmedlines.  Like Grief, Ego Death has its own timeline, and while we can accelerate it with Attention, we can’t control the timing, we can only control the priorities.

The whole Sappho Shadow Period spans April 30 through November 3, 2014, and 6-18 Aquarius.  Aquarius symbolizes Community.  After we think we want one (Aquarius), we start looking for folks who share our pet peeves (Pisces).  Then comes the hard work, as we realize that it’s not that easy to Create Trust.  We have to strike out into the Unknown (Aries), consolidate what we learn (Taurus), recognize how wrong we are and let it all go (Gemini), see if Empathy and Compassion can get us anywhere (Cancer), and then find out we can’t Love anyone else, nor be Loved by anyone else, till we learn to Love ourSelf (Leo).  That all happens (after we seek companions in misery) in 6-18 Aquarius, which covers the Aries through Leo Duads.

Sappho herself is about Loving the Feminine, “not to sacrifice our strength for our softness, or our softness for our strength,” as Angeles Arrien puts it. 

The main features of her discovery chart…

• Mutable Lunar T-Square on Juno Opposite Vesta-Conjunct-Uranus – Consciousness that the True Self is Sacred, as verified by a lack of self-sabotage
• Juno-Vesta/Uranus Opposition Bridged (Trine-Sextile) by Venus – Recognizing as Sacred the Beauty of the True Self
• Juno-Vesta/Uranus Opposition Bridged (Quincunx-Semisextile) by Nodes – The relationship between Self-Love and Karmic Progress is a Mystery
• North-Node Yod with base of Venus Sextile Vesta-Uranus – To Focus on Karmic Progress is to Love the Self
• The above are all at 19-23 degrees
• Sappho herself is at 5 Sagittarius (“An old Owl sits alone on the branch of a large Tree: Clear perception of Unconscious factors“) Opposite Mercury, with the Opposition Bridged (Trine-Sextile) by Ceres-Conjunct-Neptune – To Understand Sappho, make Spirit – or Surrendering to Confusion – a permanent part of Consciousness
• Saturn Yod from Pallas-Conjunct-Mars and Sun-Conjunct-Pluto at 10-13 degrees, with Saturn Septile Sappho – Stay focused on clean Boundaries, and avoid swimming against the current, in order to benefit from Sappho’s Power

Haumea

Mauna Loa

Just a quick sketch about Haumea, since she’s Stationary and turning Direct on July 4…

As Pele’s Mother and the Hawaiian Goddess of Childbirth, we should have known Haumea would be a whiz at Manifestation.  The astrology of her discovery chart verifies it.

Grand Cross with an Out-of-Bounds Moon Conjunct Saturn, Opposite Chiron and Square to the Nodes.  Uranus Bridges the Nodes.  Interestingly, Ceres is Conjunct the South Node, and Rising!

Haumea wears her dysfunction on her shirtsleeve.  She moves forward at a Miraculous pace by never forgetting the Karmic Patterns that are her raw materials, celebrating Truth, and Focusing so very acutely on what it is she intends to Create.

Mars and Vesta join Moon-Saturn in a Grand Trine.  Grand Cross and Grand Trine in the same chart – extreme capability.  Grand Cross and Grand Trine sharing a corner – no wasted effort.  Moon-Saturn in that shared corner – whoa, Creation par excellence.  Moon Out of Bounds – limitless Manifestation.  Think Mauna Kea.  Base-to-peak, Mauna Kea is three times as high as Mt. Everest.

While the Out-of-Bounds Moon-Saturn trumps by being at the top of the chart, Grand Cross nadir Chiron is sharply highlighted as well, by being the upside-down top of a Kite with the Grand Trine.  Creating Miracles.

And in her own discovery chart, Haumea herself Conjoins amplifier Jupiter and Trines Juno-Neptune.

Impossible to overstate the Manifestation potential here, words don’t cut it.  Lack of possibility is no hindrance.  Her Consciousness is boundless, so she Creates few “unintended consequences.”

Being Stationary in the US Solar Return, we need to pray that the US doesn’t overmanifest its greatest export, weapons.  Let it overmanifest Peace for once.

The Stellium Initiations

Clear Quartz, cut into a ball of many facets.

Looking at the Stellium reductively, we examine the nature of each of the Energies birthed into it.  Seen statically, a Stellium is a cluster of planets.  Viewed dynamically, a Stellium is a mass birth of Cycles.  The Energy of a Cycle is strong at it’s birth, though we can expect considerable Resistance as those who benefit from the status quo seek to Deny the Changes.  So a Stellium is a cauldron of Creation.

The July 5 Ceres-Vesta Initiation occurs at 22 Libra, “A child giving Birds a drink at a fountain.”  The 15-year Vesta-Ceres Cycle is about the Sustainability of our Belief systems – that is, do they grow corn.  Being the longest Cycle in the Stellium, it plays the senior role.  We have Innocence, Spirit, Emotion, and Compassion, perhaps Empathy, in the image.  Innocence serving up Emotion to Spirit – interesting permutation.  So

For the next fifteen years the most Sustainable view of the Sacred is that we are to surrender our Emotions to Spirit rather than try to analyze them.

On July 12 Ceres Initiates Mars at 25 Libra – “The sight of an autumn leaf brings to a pilgrim the sudden revelation of the Mystery of life and death.”  The 3-year Mars-Ceres Cycle governs whether we use our Physical Energy in Sustainable ways.  We have endings giving a seeker a relief from Grief.

North Node Initiates Vesta in the same degree on July 13.  Another 3-year Cycle.  North Node-Vesta would have us revise our Belief systems every three years, so Belief serves Mission as it evolves.  For this next three years then

By acknowledging Mystery we avoid wasting our Energy on trying to make sense of Emotions.  By honoring Emotions in and of themselves, without trying to trap them in Cause-and-Effect cages, we liberate our Instincts and are thus able to process information and respond to it orders of magnitude more quickly.  We also save our intellect for more productive endeavors.

Also on July 13, the North Node Initiates Mars in 24 Libra, “A Butterfly with a third wing on its left side.”  Mars-North Node is pursuit of our Mission.  The left side emphasizes the Feminine, and Magic.  It’s a 2-year Cycle.  The Butterfly implies impermanence and frequent transformation.

The next day, the North Node Initiates Ceres in this degree.  The 3-year Ceres-North Node Cycle involves our persistence in honoring our Deepest Desires, and also suggests paring away from our lives what doesn’t serve our Mission.

We don’t need to understand our Mission in order to PIAVA that we pursue it vigorously.  That will give us an advantage and allow us to respond quickly to its evolution, increasing our progress.  It will also make it easier to stick with it, and create less wasted Life.

Back to 25 Libra – the Leaf, the Pilgrim, and the Mystery – for the Vesta-Mars Initiation on July 15.  Vesta being the fastest of the big four asteroids, its speed is closer to that of Mars, so the Mars-Vesta Cycle runs four years, making it the second-most senior Energy in the Stellium.  Mars-Vesta is about Walking our Talk, putting supporting our Beliefs with Work.

Allowing our Beliefs to govern our Actions will regenerate our Energy.

* * * * *

Then we have to correct our initial reductivism, and reassemble these notions into a coherent Whole…

Our Mission is conveyed to our Ego through our Deepest Desires.  When you actually pursue your Deepest Desires, have you noticed how elusive they are?  They’re a Siren, beckoning and disappearing into the mist, again and again.  Of course, most of us just repress them as unavailable or forbidden.  So the first step toward moving into our Mission is to stop repressing our Deepest Desires.

The Stellium advises us to use a feminine approach when pursuing them.  We do that by eschewing analysis of our Emotions and trusting them as Instincts.  We honor the Mystery by using PIAVA rather than Plan-Execute, again, to avoid wasting intellectual Energy on trying to masculinize the process.  One of the first “rules” of Jungian thought is “Don’t seduce your Animus/Anima.”  What that means is that you want your Inner Male/Female to be an integral part of your Egoic Self, not an Other from which you (your unmerged Ego) seek gratification. 

A good way to do that is, rather than pursuing our Deepest Desires directly, we PIAVA to feel the way we will feel when our Deepest Desires are fulfilled.  That way we bypass the Siren and go straight to the Essence of our Mission.  

July and Portal 7.5-7.21

July’s a busy month, especially the first and third weeks.  We also get some Grace in the second, fourth, and fifth weeks.

The Big Event arrives on the 19th.  That’ll be building up for the prior week or more, and lingering into the beginning of the fourth week.

By now I hope you understand that the Big Challenge of this Northern Summer and Southern Winter lies in a vigorous realignment of the Creed We Try To Live By.  We keep discovering that it’s not really Sustainable, and that it doesn’t really serve our Mission – two very large holes we need to patch in our Creed, where those trucks drove through.  These are big questions worth repeating…

• My basic Beliefs about myself and my Life have turned out to be inadequate for guiding my Life.  I’m floundering.  I don’t know what to do.  Where can I find more Sustainable Beliefs?
• Uhhh, there was something I was going to do with this Lifetime.  Why can’t I remember it?  Whatever it is, I’m sure not doing it!  If I was I’d feel better about Life, and I’d know what to do next.  Where can I find my Life Purpose?

Time to do some PIAVAing I guess.

That Mars-Vesta-Ceres-North Node Stellium is still hanging around.  We’ve already introduced it as Portal 7.5-7.15.  In that post we gave the timetable, but I don’t believe we’ve discussed the multiple Initiations at length.  We’ll do that; remind me if I get busy with other things.

We spoke earlier of Portal 7.5-7.15, wherein we discover a lot more about that Holey Creed of ours. 

We need to extend that to Portal 7.5-7.21. 

It gets really hairy towards the end of that Portal, and our only hope for getting through it Ego-Alive, is to set our Victim Detectors and Blame Detectors on high sensitivity, take complete Responsibility, and keep taking Responsibility.  This is your Life, no one else is Living it for you, no one else really cares much about it except you (they’ve all got their hands full with their own dramas), no one else can be Blamed for any part of it, and it’s up to you to Change any part of it that you don’t like.

Time to do some PIAVAing I guess.

Here’s the scoop, in astrologuese; the English will follow…

• July starts with a Vesta-Ceres Mjolnir from Neptune and Venus-Juno.
• The July 12 Full Moon Squares the Nodes and the Stellium.
• July 13-18 there’s a Neptune Mjolnir from the Sun and the Stellium.
• Eris is Stationary.  As I write this it’s only 3 arcminutes from it’s July 19 Retrograde Station.  To be ultraconservative, let’s say it’s Stationary for the week prior to the 19th.
• Saturn is Stationary.  Today Saturn is half a degree from it’s July 20 Direct Station.  To be ultraconservative, let’s say it’s Stationary for the week prior to the 20th.
• Uranus is Stationary.  Uranus as we speak is a fourth of a degree from it’s July 21 Retrograde Station.  To be ultraconservative, let’s say it’s Stationary for the week prior to the 21st.

A Stellium is just a group of several planets all hanging out together, in this case Mars, Vesta, Ceres, and the North Node.

It’s going to be intense.  Offhand I can’t recall when three of the Bigs were Stationary at the same time.  Eris screeches to a slow-motion halt only half a degree from the South Node, meaning it will cross next year.

Get as much as you can of your Karmic work done this year.  Anything unfinished will be in our face next year, so the more we can get out of the way this year while it’s “easier,” the better next year will be.

I’m calling the peak Energy of Portal 7.5-7.21 for mid-day July 18, when the Moon crosses Stationary Eris and the South Node.

The Moon often serves as the activator of an astroevent.

* * * * *

So lets review in calendar form, adding details as we go…

• June 26-July 1: Spotlight on our Creed, with Epiphanies if we’re lucky

Vesta-Ceres Mjolnir from Neptune and Venus-Juno

• July 1: Projects start to move again

Mercury Stationary Direct

• July 2-5: Laser Focus on our dysfunctional Patterns

Haumea Stationary Direct July 5; will write more soon

• July 6-11: Boundaries which have been difficult may fall into place

Sun-Saturn-Chiron Grand Trine with Pallas Opposite Chiron, making a Kite focused on Pallas

• July 11: Laser Focus on clearing impediments to our Yintegrity

Saturn Yod from Uranus and Juno; five points of a Grand Sextile, Saturn, Moon, Chiron, Sun, Pallas – the Vacancy is about “A new continent rising up out of the Ocean“

• July 12: Big hit on that Creed business

Full Moon Square Nodes and Stellium

• July 13-18: Seek Divine intervention with your struggles here

As the Sun Squares the Nodes-Stellium, a Neptune Mjolnir with the Stellium and the Sun; the Juno-Chiron Square makes a Tricolor with Saturn

• July 13-19: You can’t deny it anymore; you have to own it

The Eris Stationary Retrograde just shy of the South Node and Opposite the Stellium; the Lilith-Saturn Square makes a Tricolor with Chiron

• July 14-21: Laser Focus on our Yintegrity

Saturn Stationary Direct July 20 at point of a Yod with Uranus and Juno; Uranus Stationary Retrograde in the foot of same Yod; the two aforementioned Tricolors persist in a Square Fez

• July 23-26: Miracles of Understanding are afoot if we’ve done our Work

Mercury-Saturn-Chiron Grand Trine

• July 30-August 3: Miracles of Forgiveness are available if we’ve done our Work

Venus-Saturn-Chiron Grand Trine

Busy, Busy, Busy!

The biggest action is at 24-27 of the Cardinal Signs, especially Aries-Libra.  This represents the beginning of version 4.0 of any big project you’ve been working on for a while now.  The Aries-Libra Coin is Initiations.  So these July processes will be dancing with any natal planets you have around 24-27 of Aries, Libra, Cancer, or Capricorn.

Chiron in Pisces

A reader with planets in Pisces commented about how heavy their Heart was in Grief for the Planet, after reading about how the US Department of Agriculture is driving small Raisin farmers out of business by confiscating half of their crop without compensation in the name of “price supports.”  Not that Raisins are world-shatteringly depressing; what’s grievous is the way Corporatism has replaced Democracy in the USofA – Raisins are just another nail in the coffin.  We agreed that my response might be useful to others…

* * * * *

“I had a hard time with last Thursday’s Chiron Station too, and it’s already past my Pisces planets – it hasn’t crossed yours yet, and you have a lot  more Pisces planets than I do – fun!  It goes Direct again in late November, so it’ll be more intense next year – now’s the time to get started on it!  Chiron is Squaring your Vesta in Sagittarius – so when you see how marred the Planet is relative to your native understanding of how it can be (Vesta) – and how it is most other places, Hollywood notwithstanding – it’s especially painful.

“Unfortunately, with all that Pisces, this is what you ‘came here to do.’  But the ennui isn’t bottom line, it’s the Challenge that’s bottom-line, and in fact Chiron moving through Pisces gives us all the opportunity to convert our Despair into Miracles.  Try a few of these tricks to see if any of them make any difference…

* * * * *

“1. Take at least an hour where you won’t be disturbed, and locate the Grief in your body.  Doesn’t have to be all in one place, just pick the place where it’s heaviest.  Put all of your Attention into that place, and hold it there.  Keep bringing it back lovingly and gently when it strays, which of course it will.  If you can’t get “in” because of a spongy wrapping around the Grief, just keep pushing gently on the outside until you make it through to the center of the Grief.

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“Do this as many times as it takes – you may be working on the same or a different place each time.  A great time to do it would be when you would otherwise be falling asleep.  Once you get to the center and hold your Attention there for a while, it’ll move.  Follow it, until you lose interest.  Once it moves, you’ve actually succeeded in Embracing the Dragon, and its offspring will be a lot easier to Embrace (with your neutral Attention).

* * * * *

“2. Tapping.  This is Big, so you’ll probably need to Tap a lot, and you’ll probably feel like it’s not making much difference, but you will actually be chipping away at it.  ‘I got ‘im!  I’m wearing ‘im down!’ as Bob put it in Monsters vs. Aliens (would be a good movie to watch).  You can Tap whenever you have a minute or two to spare, and imagine Tapping while you’re doing other things that don’t require a lot of Attention.  Energy follows Attention, so pretending to Tap works almost as well as physically Tapping.

* * * * *

“For locating the Grief in your body and Attending fully to it, you want to be in a quiet place where you have at least an hour free with no distractions and nothing to do except sit or lie quietly.  This is your Life Work as a Pisces, so no need to rue the commitment.  Tapping and Attending will complement one another.

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“Either one of those may take a couple of weeks to break through, but it should get easier over the next several days as Chiron moves away from Stationary and into Retrograde.  I’d guess that most of what you’re experiencing now is echoes from the intensity of last week.  Just because it’s getting easier doesn’t mean you should pretend that the issue is resolved; it’ll be back stronger than ever, so whatever you can do now will make it easier in the future.

* * * * *

“3. ‘Attaching’ to the Sadness is your Karmic Pattern (that’s what Pisces does for a Living – initially).  It draws you in and you’re compelled to feel it.  You actually have the Choice not to dwell on it.  You don’t want to do that through Denial; you want to move through it to the other side, so you’re still aware of it, but it no longer demands your full Attention.  From that place on the other side of it, you have a lot more Power.  Because of the placement of Pisces in your chart, this Grief process for you is all about Power.

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“You can PIAVA to move through it ‘lovingly, gently, rapidly, and completely,’ and if you still feel like you might miss something, you can add ‘while retaining any of the benefits I would have gotten by doing this another way’ – 

” ‘Great Spirit, may I please be released from the grip of Grief, lovingly, gently, rapidly and completely, and retain any of the benefits I would have gotten by doing this any other way.‘

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“If you still get Yes-Buts, add their antidote (no negatives) into your PIAVA. 

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If you can think of a better non-negative way to rephrase ‘be released,’ great.  ‘Released’ is a dangerous word, because you don’t want to Renew the Lease – you wouldn’t want to ‘be Re-Leased by Grief,’ for instance.  ‘Be released from’ might work, but play with it.  You need to make it yours.  Maybe ‘may I please Let Go of Grief’ – the active voice may be better than the passive. 

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Don’t forget to Change the Subject – hard to do when we’re ‘Attached,’ but again, just lovingly and gently say to the Grief, as many times as it takes,

” ‘Oh, Hi again Sweetie – I’m taking a break now, but we can connect again on the other side, okay?’

* * * * *

“4. Your Vesta is in Sadge, and Sadge’s unique expertise lies in Letting Go.  So before you try anything else, just pick a place in the Yarden where you can just Let the Grief Go back into the Earth, where it will be Compost.  If you fear it will fester, imagine dumping it onto a golf course, where it can tangle with the -cides.  Hell, they might neutralize one another.  If it works to Let Go, you’re done for now.  If it doesn’t work to Let Go, then try one of the heavier processes.

* * * * *

“5. Write out an Affirmation like ‘Grief flies away and Miracles are Afoot’ over and over again, letting it morph each time.  Write until your hand flows perfectly smoothly, with no trace of jerking or hesitating, then take a break.  Do this several times a day.

* * * * *

“This really is your Life Work as a Hyperpisces, so making these meditations a very high priority would be a boon. 

“Keep me posted, okay?”

* * * * *

As Chiron works its way through Pisces and invites us to either drown in our Despair or Change the Water, it’s being followed by Neptune.  That’ll be a much bigger Challenge, as our little Human Egos aren’t just threatened with Ego Death, but completely immersed in an Ocean so vast there will be no “landmarks.”  We won’t even know up from down.  Chiron leads the way for a very good reason!

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“The Way Out Is Through” is the Pluto-in-Scorpio anthem (or anybody-in-Scorpio anthem).  It was the anthem of the Recovery Movement in the 1980s, when Pluto was in Scorpio.  Pluto in Sagittarius is about “Just Let Go.”  Your Vesta may not be in Sadge, but the Just-Let-Go app is there in our playbook regardless; we only need to summon it forth.  That took us through 2008.  Pluto is now in Capricorn, where the theme is “Just Fix It.” 

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To do that we need all of the Power we can muster.  Your own natal Pisces may not be about Power, but again, the app is there in our playbook, we only need to summon it forth.  We don’t have Power when we’re in Despair or Grief or any other difficult and consuming Emotion.  We don’t have Power when we’re in Denial either, so heavy Emotions are not something we can do using “Will Power” or Power-Over.  Only by Embracing our heavy Emotions till they become our old friends, till we’re on the same side, do we gain Power. 

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Someone we know put it well when they said, “Yeah though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Ego Death, I shall fear no Evil.”  Because all of those instruments of torture are well known to us, we’ve Sat with them, Tapped with them, PIAVAed with them, and practiced Letting them Go to see if they would return as friends.  Till there is nothing left to Fear.  If you haven’t read Ursula Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore in a while, this would be a great time to do it.  Denial will be difficult in July. 

Nuking the Net

This is hilarious, and actually relevant…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpbOEoRrHyU

Current Events – Portal 6.24-6.27

A “Mineral” is a coherent Crystal composed of specific Elements and Ions (not molecules – Crystals are made up of repeating Ionic structures, while molecules are discrete units).  A “Stone” is a combination of Minerals.  When Minerals frequently pair up in certain ways, the Stone gets a name.  Unakite is a Stone, comprised of green Epidote (a simple Calcium-Aluminum-Iron Silicate Hydroxide) and pink Feldspar (a complex Potassium-Sodium-Aluminum Silicate).  Unakite symbolizes Partnership, as it’s one of the few stones that combines the two Fifth-Chakra (Heart) colors, green and pink.  We’re working in this Portal with Partnership between our Ego and our Soul.

* * * * *

Plus a week or so on either side.  This shouldn’t be a big deal.  If we’ve been dragging our feet on our Yintegrity work, and on noticing and shifting our dysfunctional Patterns, though, it could  get ugly.

Mars Opposes Uranus at 1am PDT June 25.  Just Mars (which operates more on the mundane level so we only consider it when it’s dancing with The Bigs), just an Opposition (which usually only creates problems for those still stuck in Either/Or), and it’s just the Confidence-Builder phase (third pass of three), so not a biggie.

But how was April for you?  If you didn’t take Responsibility for any hassles then, you have the opportunity now to make up for it.

Life is like assembling a piece of Ikea furniture.  If we get sloppy on step 17, step 26 will be a killer.  Each one of these astroevents is a step in assembling a Lifetime, but a Lifetime is a zillion times more multidimensional than an Ikea armoire.  Ignore one step, and the others just get more and more complicated and confusing.  The April step (and the December step before that) was about

How vigorously we were willing to defend our True Self. 

How did we do?  Did we pass the test?  We find out in this Portal. 

• If we did a decent job in April, we’ll get another opportunity to practice, and this time we’ll ace it.  We’ll know exactly what to do when Mom says that again or the boss does that again.  And we’ll never fret about this sort of threat to our Identity again. 

That’s why we call this the Confidence-Builder stage.

• If we took the easy way out in December and April and Gave Away our Power again, well, we’ll still get another opportunity to practice defending our True Self, it just won’t be so easy.  We’ll still be trying to be “nice” and wavering about being honest.  Or we could just blow up, as the internal pressure to finally Claim our Power, and the programmed need to avoid rocking the boat, meet in a 120-kph internal head-on.

Remember, Power is never given, that’s an oxymoron.  Power is always taken. 

The adjectival form of Power is Politics.  If our only way to play Politics is to play nice, we’ll get stabbed in the back more often than not.  To play Win-Win, we have to constantly assess whether our Mirror (ie, the Other person or party) is playing Win-Win too.  Because if we’re playing Win-Win and they’re playing Win-Lose, we Lose hands down.

A synonym for Power is Ego.  Ego’s job is to keep us alive and well.  It’s a noble calling.  In some cases Losing at Politics is an Ego Death.  Ego Death is good if you’re Conscious that you’re molting, but very painful if you aren’t – and usually painful even if you are Conscious.  So I’m not against Ego Death by any means, just recommending less painful alternatives.  Someone has to defend your True Self, and if it ain’t you, it ain’t nobody – everyone else is in the same pickle.  How you Respond to Ego Death is critical to the shape of the new Ego you’ll be creating out of the ashes of the old one.

This is another case where, if we’ve repressed an important facet of our Self, or if we’ve been programmed to be someone that we really aren’t, then when we move to Recover our repressed Skill or True Self, we have to start over at the age where we left off.  That’s intimidating, because we don’t want to act six years old at work, or turn three years old when we need to ask for Respect.  But it has to be done, or future archeologists will puzzle over our deformed fossil.  Practicing in non-critical situations is beneficial – act out a scenario with a friend instead of your boss or your partner. 

And Jupiter T-Squares the Nodes at 3am PDT June 27.  This is a one-shot event, but it’ll trigger the same April issues because our last big Jupiter mash-up was the very close  April Uranus-Pluto-Jupiter-Mars Grand Cross, and because claiming our True Self is nothing if not an adventure in Letting Go of our Karma and realigning our Identity and our Mission.

No matter how well we did in April, we can expect whatever remains of our dysfunctional Patterns to be up in our face during this Portal, as well as pressure to move toward our Deepest Desires.  When something important doesn’t work and it’s deja vu all over again, by all means Pay Attention enough to tentatively Identify the Pattern so you can PIAVA what you Want instead.  But forget the Analysis. 

Analysis does not work on a Square.  Analysis is reductive, and a Square must be addressed holistically.

Whenever you catch your mind crawling over the problem, thank it for trying to help and put it to work on a game of Sudoku.  Besides being unpleasant, trying to think your way out of a Karmic dilemma will just make it worse.

What would you have Wanted out of the situation?

PIAVA that directly, then make sure you Change the Subject.  Mark your calendar so you can revisit the problem in a couple of days, and examine what happened between your PIAVA and this later review.

If you want to speed this process up, use Theta Healing.

That website is always way too busy.  Just buy the book, Theta Healing: Introducing an Extraordinary Energy Healing Modality by Vianna Stibal.  I’m going to butcher the process here, so don’t blame Vianna!

I’ll give you a really bastardized short form of the process here, but this is an unpainted child’s tricycle compared to the chauffered red Rolls Royce in Vianna’s book. 

• Wait till you haven’t had any alcohol in a half-day or so, you’re well-rested, and feeling pretty alert
  
• Drink a glass of Water
• Ground yourself (imagine a cable running from the base of your spine to the center of the Earth)
• Close your eyes
• Roll your eyes upward and keep them there
• Then say to yourself, “Great Spirit [or God/Goddess or whomever works for you], Creator of All That Is, I Command XXX.”
  • Where “XXX” is what you Want
  • Add “lovingly and gently” if you’re trepidatious
  • Add “rapidly and completely” if it’s Life-and-Ego-Death important
• “It is done, it is done, it is done.  Thank you.”
• Pause a moment while the dust settles
• Then say, “Show me.”
  • What you’ll be shown is how well it worked, or what else might need to be Commanded to get it done

If this super-simplified version works at all for you, then by all means get Vianna’s book or CDs and explore the method further.  It if doesn’t work for you, like I say, don’t blame Vianna – you need the book even more.  This is a very powerful incantation.  This is why Command, along with of course Wonder – as in Curiosity – have been added as silent members of PIAVA.

The difference between our Karma and the Habits that hide our True Self is the same as the difference between a blue car and a car that’s blue.  Same with the difference between finding our Mission in the Lifetime, Following Our Joy, Recovering our True Self, and Living in Yintegrity.  It’s all one Work.  Sometimes our Karma is attached with glue, sometimes nails, sometimes screws, sometimes welded.  So when one tool doesn’t work, we try another.

Remember that here after the End of Time, Karma is dead.  The Illusion of Karma is alive and well, because Karma is after all nothing but Inertia, and we’ve been dancing with this Inertia for a long time. 

Karma is often translated as The Law of Cause and Effect.  But we know Cause and Effect requires Linear Time, because by that Law Cause must come first.  And we also know Linear Time is an Illusion, since All There Is Is Now.  Even Einstein couldn’t find any reason why Time couldn’t run backward.  Causean Defect is so deep in our (Western) heritage that it’s very difficult to even conceive of a Universe operating by different rules.

Jung postulated what he called the Principle of Association as an alternative to Cause and Effect.  He was contemplating a situation where a man was killed in an accident while the man was at work, and at the moment he was killed, a large swarm of Crows landed on the roof of his house (he didn’t work at home).  We have to stand on our heads to make that anecdote fit into Cause and Effect.

But what it’s easy to imagine from that story, is that there is a larger process going on than our Awareness typically encompasses.  A Mystery.  Like the sudden sharp downpour, Lightning, and loud clap of Thunder during my mother’s funeral.  Cause and Effect (which is an entirely Intellectual process, happening in the mind of the observer, not in Reality) is used as a manipulation to keep us out of Mystery, to keep us away from Spirit.  Put Cause and Effect together with Retribution, and you have a powerful way to keep peasants “in their place” and separate Egos from Souls.

To break free of Karmic Inertia we only need one thing – to remember that it’s a Paper Tiger.  Once you turn around and face your Sisiutl, you’ll see how the Monster destroys itself.  But we’re so used to expecting horror that we’re loathe to turn around.

Once we Recover the Abandoned Herstorical Child (from this Lifetime or another) that has become our Sisiutl, then we start our journey to teach age-appropriate Skills to this Child.  That can be daunting.  But once we remember that Life is on our side, we’ll remember that this Learning process goes remarkably quickly.  From the threshold it seems huge.  But it’s only the first step that’s intimidating, the rest is Grace, as we Integrate into Bliss.

A footnote: The Saturn-Chiron Trine is parallel to the Mars-Uranus Opposition.  It’s not a rectangle, it’s a trapezoid or trapezium.  Otherwise, it’s similar to the Box Configurations we’ve been discussing.  Except the “X” it creates aren’t Oppositions, but Quincunxes.  As Box Configurations are driven by the Oppositions, this sort of trapezium would be driven by the Quincunxes – Mars-Chiron and Saturn-Uranus…

We’d be ahead to encourage our Curiosity about how Action relates to Miracles (which might have something to do with the process appearing to be hard but ending up to be really easy), and encourage our Curiosity about what sorts of Magic might happen if we really did Follow Our Joy.

Makemake III

Phantom Quartz would be an excellent companion when Makemake is lit up.  Here Chlorite (green clay) has been deposited on the Crystal face as it was growing, and later enveloped by the Quartz as it resumed its growth.  Chlorite Quartz and Phantom Quartz are both great Healers that speak to us about the layers of unexpressed and condemned Self that are occulted inside of us.  These layers would otherwise speak to us through self-sabotage, having no other practical way to circumvent our Denial of their existence.   

* * * * *

Here’s a proposed glyph for Makemake, though it would be hard to draw as a small symbol, even if you reduced the circles to points…

But I love the symbol, since that’s just how Makemake looks in the Rapanui petroglyphs

* * * * *

Makemake I Illustrated

Here’s first core of the Makemake discovery chart, the Fez and Grand Trine that we’ve already dissected…

With a cap like that, Oblio could have escaped banishment.  Maybe we’ll call a configuration like this an “Oblio.”  If you don’t know Oblio’s story, it’s a delightful classic Harry Nilsson made-for-TV animation called The Point.  Netflix and Amazon both carry it, and I’m sure one of your favorite video streaming outfits does too.

* * * * *

Makemake III (or Ia)

The second core of the Makemake discovery chart involves many of the same players – in fact, if we weren’t in the process of discussing the Fez, we probably would have chosen this complex for the key process…

The two Squares in the Fez are each one side of a T-Square, which connects both T-Squares to the Grand Trine, which makes for a very fortuitous chart, as the T-Squares provide motivation to spur “the Native” (ie, Makemake) into using the Grand Trine constructively. 

Here’s the dance…

The T-Squares are the dark red triangles.

A couple of things pop out.  First, the Grand Trine is actually a Kite, with Makemake hisself at the Focus.  Makemake has a very good agent!

A fourth planet midway along one side of a Grand Trine creates a Kite – as in all of the blue lines in the picture above.  The name should be obvious.  The fourth planet becomes the Focus of the whole Kite.

With such a fortuitous placement…

We have to consider Makemake a great benefic.  Of course to benefit from its Grace we’ll need to Master that Moon-Pluto Stallion. 

* * * * *

The Moon-Pluto T-Square

As we spoke of in the Makemake II post.  So now we don’t just have an Out-of-Bounds Moon sitting on a Stationary Pluto, but it’s also the focus of a T-Square!  Which forces us to conclude that…

Makemake is “here” to help us learn how to Manifest. 

Lord knows we need that, as our reductive Plan-Execute masculine process of making things is beyond bankrupt.  And it appears that Makemake had a similar role on Rapanui.

The base of the Moon-Pluto T-Square is the Juno-Makemake Opposition, the spine of the Kite.  Which tells us that…

The Manifestation processes that Makemake will be teaching us are all about the Edge of our Consciousness.

The Juno-Makemake Opposition, as the spine of the Kite, has two Trine-Sextile Bridges, one with Ceres (Sustainability) and one with Lilith-Saturn (which, as the focus of the second T-Square, we’ll talk about shortly)…

So Makemake will be teaching us how to Manifest Sustainably – another thing we much need!

And two Quincunx Bridges (the green lines), to the Nodes, with Eris Conjunct the North Node…

We need to approach the Edges of our Consciousness and Identity as a Mystery, with Curiosity.  Of course, this is a T-Square, so it won’t all be wine and roses – unless we remember and appreciate the curriculum.

* * * * *

The Lilith-Saturn T-Square

The second T-Square is focused on Lilith-Saturn…

The other major lesson, though much less intense than our Manifestation homework, is Andogyny.  Combining the Yindependence of Lilith with the Discipline of Saturn.  While it’s clear from this Conjunction that The Most Important Thing will be our Yindependence, it’s also clear that Lilith’s wild Yintegrity will be tempered by the fatherly influence of Saturn.

If we’re going to aver this, we should check the status of Venus and Mars.  A Lilith-Saturn form of Androgyny is much more sophisticated and “adult” than the sort of Venus-Mars Androgyny that we’re used to considering.  Venus is in a Waxing Sextile to Mars.  The Cycle that they recently started is about “A woman, fecundated by her own Spirit, is ‘great with child’: A total reliance upon the dictates of the God-within” – 17 degrees of Scorpio.  Intense.

So we’ll be learning to fertilize our own eggs.

The base of this T-Square is the Nodal Opposition, with of course Eris on the North Node.  Which tells us…

That we learn these skills by Letting Go of our dysfunctional Karmic Patterns, and in particular that we take Responsibility for them.  As in Able to Respond, not as in Blame.  It’s not about Retribution, it’s about Inertia.  The key here will be recognizing when we’re playing the part of the Victim in our drama, and rewriting the script.

We don’t have a Trine-Sextile Bridge across the Nodal Axis, but Lilith-Saturn is a corner of the Grand Trine and shoulder of the Kite.

So we get a whole lot of help making our Androgynous Consciousness Sustainable.

That is, dancing with Juno and Ceres.  We do have a Quincunx Bridge across this Opposition, and it’s the same double QBridge that we have for the Moon-Pluto T-Square; the base of each T-Square is the Quincunx Bridge for the other.

We need to approach our Karma and our Mission as Mysteries, with Curiosity.  We will no longer be able to deny our Deepest Desires.  Of course, this is a T-Square, so it won’t all be wine and roses – unless we remember and appreciate the curriculum.

When we Recover an element of our Soul that we repressed earlier, it comes to us at the age when we repressed it.  So our Deepest Desires (which are often forbidden to us to make them more provocative) are often 2 years old, or 14.  Some may even have been repressed when we still lived in caves and scored our dinner by throwing rocks.  So yes, absolutely, there will be chaos at first, as we all go around saying “Goo” or “Ugh.”  But remember too that once we lovingly and gently accept those regressed parts of ourself, they’ll age very quickly, making the chaos short-lived.

* * * * *

The Quincunx Box

A Mystic Rectangle is formed by two parallel Trines separated by Septiles.  When two Squares are parallel you get a Grand Cross.  Two parallel Quintiles would be separated by Trideciles.  Two parallel Trioctiles would be linked by Octiles.  And two parallel Quincunxes have Semisextiles between their ends.  In all cases, the angles add to 360 degrees, filling the circle, and the figure created is symmetrical. 

These comprise the Box family of Configurations.  All of them are Energized by the Oppositions that connect the corners.  All are important, as they add to 360 degrees, completing the Circle.

So the green rectangle in the picture above could stand on its own as a legitimate, important Configuration.  We could call it “Makemake Ib.”  Here the themes are

• Karma and Mission (the Nodes),
• Fourth-Step Inventory (Eris on the North Node),
• the Growing Edge of Consciousness (Juno),
• Manifestation (Makemake),
• Forward Progress (the Nodal “Coin”),
• Overcoming Resistance (as in blocks in Consciousness interrupting the Manifestation process – the Juno-Makemake Coin),
• Curiosity (the Quincunxes), particularly about
  • Consciousness of our Karma (Juno-South Node) and about how
  • Lying to ourself doesn’t work (Makemake-North Node/Eris)
• Pattern-Breaking (the Twelfth-Harmonic Semisextiles), especially
  • Bringing our Deepest Desires into Full Consciousness (Juno-North Node/Eris)
  • Manifesting Bummers (as a heuristic showing us what happens when we don’t bring our Karma into Consciousness – South Node-Makemake)

There’s a microcosm of the whole chart, right there.  It lacks the emphasis of that extraordinarily strong Moon-Pluto, and doesn’t introduce directly the Androgyny of the Lilith-Saturn combination, but it summarizes the core issue, which we could consider to be…

Makemake is about taking Responsibility for our own Creations.  As Seth said, our self-sabotaging Patterns are writ large in our Personal History.  All we have to do is read the book.  

Chiron Station

I hope yesterday’s Chiron Station has been easier on you than it has on me.  Time for some exploration…

No big heavy entanglements with other planets while it’s in its Shadow Period.

The Shadow Period is the span of the Zodiac, and span of time, for a complete Retrograde cycle.  When seen from here, the planet seems to stop (Stationary Retrograde or SR) and then go backwards for a while (Retrograde or R), then stop again (Stationary Direct or SD) and start going forward again.  This means that the space between the two Stations gets crossed by the planet three times – forward, backward, forward again.

On the Zodiac the Shadow Period is the space between the SD and the SR.  On the calendar the Shadow Period includes all three crossings of the Zodiacal Shadow Period.  So it starts when the planet first passes the place where it will later turn SD, and ends when the planet again passes the place where it turned SR.

Often a Shadow Period will include multiple crossings of other planets.  Basically, those constitute things we really need to Pay Attention to, as the Universe is shining a bright light upon them.  Between their respective Shadow Periods, for instance, Uranus Squares Pluto seven times between 2012 and 2015.

Pallas is dancing with Chiron, but that started in mid-December, so the two are not weaving a tapestry together.  During the Chiron Shadow Period we only have to deal with a mid-July Confidence-Builder version of a Pallas-Chiron Opposition (Despair over Boundaries or Miracles in our Boundary-setting habits).

Here’s the calendar…

• 2/27/14: Chiron enters Shadow Period at 14 Pisces
• 6/19/14: Chiron Stationary Retrograde at 18 Pisces
• 7/10/14: Pallas Opposes Chiron from 18 Virgo
• 11/23/14: Chiron Stationary Direct at 14 Pisces
• 3/15/15: Chiron leaves Shadow Period at 18 Pisces

So we’re basically getting an intensive lesson in 14-18 Pisces, as it relates to getting discouraged or Manifesting Miracles.  Chiron doesn’t have to be big Miracles – just getting out of discouragement is a fine small Miracle, for instance.

14-18 Pisces comprises the Leo and Virgo Duads of Pisces.

By the time Chiron gets to this section of Pisces, it’s already worked through everything it plans to Complete during this Purge.  The rest of the Purge will be about making amends or educating others, Consciously and Unconsciously, about how those manipulations don’t work any more, how you’ve changed, how you’re claiming your Power now, that sort of thing.  2014 is about putting the finishing touches on your Clearing.  2015-17 is about practicing your New You in public.

Remember, Chiron is about Despair and Miracles, including the worst kind of Despair, Unconscious Despair – meaning you’d never dream of anything like that because you’ve been convinced that it’s just not Possible.  Anything is Possible.  So any signs you see of Discouragement this year, celebrate them!  They mean that you’re in the last lap of clearing away that Karma.  When you’re feeling Discouraged, start imagining what your Life would be like if you were suddenly – and Miraculously – lifted beyond this place where your Deepest Desires are verboten or outside of the realm of the Possible.  Let your Imagination get carried away.

Chiron moves through Pisces only every fifty years.  We only get one or two Purges like this per Lifetime on this Planet.  The last time Chiron was in Pisces was 1960-67; the next time will be 2060-2067.  The current iteration spans 2010-17.  Remember how much you changed during the 1960s?  If you’re younger than that, you’ve never experienced this sort of Purge – ask your parents or grandparents how the 60’s were for them, and if they think they changed much, or watched the World change much, between Elvis and Disco.

Chiron’s orbit runs back and forth from Saturn to Uranus and back, ferrying messages from your Soul to your Ego and from Ego to Soul.  Yes, your Soul is primary, it was here long before your Ego and will persist long after.  But your Ego is the locus of your Adaptation to Material Form, which is an important experiment in the herstory of your Soul, so the feedback from your Ego to your Soul is important too. 

At the moment Chiron’s outbound, reaching the neighborhood of Uranus in 2022.  It dwelled in the environs of Saturn in the last half of the 1990s, where it had an extended conversation with Saturn.  As the two circled the Sun at about the same distance, their orbital periods synchronized and their Shadow Periods overlapped, as they chased each other around the Zodiac.  On the way inbound, from 1985 till 1995, Chiron Opposed Saturn a remarkable twenty times!  Then again on Chiron’s the way out, from 2003-2006, they Opposed one another another seven times.  What a long deep teaching about the Ouija Board that was!

If you missed much of that in this Lifetime, no worries.  Just PIAVA that you remember what you Learned when you were here in another Body during those years.  If you weren’t on this Planet, borrow the memories of someone that was here then.  We swap Identities all the time, it’s no big deal.

The Second Harmonic

A reader’s question…

“When you speak about the two oppositions in the Mystic Rectangle besides the central Opposition on the back to back Yods in the Yin Gate, you use the word ‘subsidiary Issues.’  Are you using the word “Issue” in the sense of ‘problem,’ or in the sense of ‘way out’ or ‘solution’ to the central Opposition?

Let’s take our recent Full Moon Yin Gate as an example, since it’s still very much in effect.  The central Opposition is Uranus to Vesta-Ceres.  The “subsidiary” Oppositions are Venus-Saturn and Lilith-Chiron.  It’s a “derivative” of Lilith, but we can refer to it as Lilith because that’s the primary new Energy involved.

“Problem” is a relative term.  If I’m into eustress, a “problem” can be motivating, even exciting.  If I’m into stress, then I certainly don’t need more “problems,” I’ve got plenty already!  The word “issue” is a more neutral way of referring to what would appear to be a problem to someone in stress.  I don’t use the word “issue” to mean “way out” or “solution.”  But there’s more to it than that.

An Opposition presents a “problem” only to someone stuck in the mind.  An Opposition is a Duality.  If we’re in Either/Or mode and feel like we have to “pick up on one and leave the other behind” as John Sebastion so eloquently put it, then you bet, we have a problem.  And there are certainly some cases where we do have to make a Choice.  Suppose we felt that we had to Choose between Following our Joy (Uranus) and being True to our Creed (Vesta).  That’s a problem.

In Both/And mode we could PIAVA to modify our Creed to be more Sustainable (Ceres), which I think is the real proposition being offered to us here.  (We probably wouldn’t Choose to modify our Creed because most of our Beliefs have roots deeper than Choice.)  The Opposition will illustrate to us which portions of our historical Beliefs are obsolete relative to whom we’ve become.  That could be a problem if we’re locked into some Life situation where specific Beliefs are required, but other than that it should be liberating to rebalance our Beliefs with our joie de vivre.

This is a very fundamental “issue.”  Angeles Arrien (Tarot Handbook p.30) defines the Second Harmonic as…

“The universal principle of intuition, independence, self-trust, and self-resourcefulness.  This is the androgynous figure who archetypally represents balance. … Mythically, this archetype also represents the journey homeward or the return to oneself.”

In other words, the journey from the Duality of the mind to the Inclusiveness of the Heart.  Sounds a lot like Lilith, actually.  The Second Harmonic is represented by the High Priestess, and the High Priestess is the quintessential guardian of the specific Rituals and Doctrines of her Lineage – in her linear role – quite the opposite of “intuition, independence, self-trust, and self-resourcefulness.”  Yet like the Empress she has the power to express Compassion.  Another situation where we want to look at the Coin rather than the heads or the tails.  The Coin here is Both/Either.  Oppositions always invite us to look for the Coin.

As we’ve said many times, there are no contradictions in Nature; contradictions exist only in the mind of the observer.  Nature is Unitary and Multifarious; the observing mind is Dualistic.  The Opposition appears to involve contradistinction – between, say, being self-directed (Aries) or being other-directed (Libra).  The Aries-Libra Coin is Orientation.  Heads is self-direction, tails is other-directed.  What’s the Coin? is a very powerful question to Ask whenever we find ourselves stuck in Either/Or.  So on a more fundamental level the Yin Gate is asking us to examine our Orientation.  Do we habitually look for the Rules, or look for Joy?

So, what about the “subsidiary issues?”  They provide additional information about the central apparent dichotomy.  To rebalance Joy and Creed in our Lives we may need to also rebalance Beauty and Order (Venus-Saturn).  We may have been hedging our Values in order to maintain Discipline, or letting Pleasure distract us from keeping our Focus on The Most Important Thing.  What’s the Taurus-Scorpio Coin?  Stability would be a good approximation.  Balancing Work and Pleasure enhances Stability.

If we consider the other Opposition in the Mystic Rectangle to be Lilith and Chiron, what’s the Coin there?  What universal principle underlies both Despair/Miracle and Yindependence?  That Coin is Power – we either give away our Power (Despair or Subservience) or we keep it (Miracle or Suzerainty).  The Coin for Virgo-Pisces is Completion.  So we’re being called to Finish Business in the places where we’ve habitually given our Power away.

So “in a word,” the deeper indication is that we are Reorienting our Relationship to Power and Stability.  That certainly rings true for my Life lately; does it for yours?  If this was a natal chart and we were talking to a client, and they didn’t immediately resonate to that very concise formulation, we could bring in details about Creed, Joy, The Most Important Thing, Values, Self-Direction, and Perspective.

The Yin Gate is an Initiation into Mystery.  This one Asks us to sit with the Mystery of how Joie de Vivre and the Sacred fit together Sustainably in the World and in our Lives.  A Mystery is something we don’t have to figure out.  We don’t need to know the mechanism that makes it work.  We don’t need to know why it occurs, or how, or when.  Your Science may have a number of tidy definitions of how Plants make Food from Sunlight – it’s about the Chlorophyll or the Electrons or the Fertilizer, depending on who you talk to.  But it’s a Mystery.  By defining it we make it into a machine so we can pretend to be the only Conscious and Powerful Entities about.  By defining it we lose respect for its Magic.

I mean, truly, do you really Believe that by always Following Your Joy you can manifest Power and Stability?  For most of us it’s quite the opposite.  That’s the Mystery.  The problem in that first sentence is the word Believe.  Believing is Seeing; we Manifest what we Believe.  But we don’t change Beliefs by Choice.  How do we change them?  Another Mystery.  I wonder what Curiosity might do for us here?