The T-Square and PTSD

Not that the T-Square and PTSD have any necessary or sufficient connection – this article just happens to be about both topics.

I was privileged yesterday to be able to sit in on a Memorial for someone I didn’t know, a young man who had been a paratrooper in Afghanistan, and died in May from a freak accident that occurred during a PTSD flashback of his war experience.  It was a profound ceremony, with a lot of emphasis on the young man’s lifelong character as an archetypal Warrior for Integrity – that is, a self-committed defender of Justice and Truth, not just somebody who fights for the sake of fighting.  Meanwhile, my internal skeptic was understanding that it was an eulogy, so a grain of salt was appropriate.

But when I got home I looked at his chart, and it’s all there – he was indeed a remarkable person, as they described.  The primacy of Integrity in his life is shown by his stationary (strong) Uranus (Soul Chord) – over the years I’ve known enough people with strong Soul Chords, that I know quite well what that’s like.  It’s not someone you waste time arguing with – they know exactly what they’re doing, and it’s not an intellectual endeavor for them.

And his Warrior Spirit is crystal clear – Vesta (that which is Sacred) conjunct (indistinguishable from) Pluto (that which must be done) opposite Mars (Action) in a T-Square (see below) with Jupiter (the Great Amplifier) at the apex, all in the first decan (first ten degrees) of the Fixed Signs (creative certainty, creative efforts to create security).  In English that comes out as an irrepressible need to defend at all costs what is Sacred.  Not just personally, because with Pluto involved there’s always an element of History, as if his Actions aren’t even “his own,” but dictated by an Energy larger than we can easily conceive.

But it’s a T-Square.  We’ve been talking a lot about the Grand Cross, because we’ve been living with a lot of them lately.  A Grand Cross is four planets evenly spaced around the Zodiacal circumference.  A T-Square is half of that – two planets at opposite points on the Wheel, with a third planet halfway between them.  When you draw lines to connect the planets, you get a “right triangle” – a triangle with one “square” or ninety-degree corner.  When you put the third planet at the bottom and draw lines to connect the planets to the center of the circle, you get a “T” with a long top – that’s where the name comes from.

In both configurations, Grand Cross and T-Square, all the planets are related in the Fourth Harmonic – the energy of Dominion through Challenge.  We’ve talked about that quite a bit, but to summarize, Dominion is to the Whole Body as Wisdom is to the Mind.  Dominion is Mastery.  It’s not Mastery honed by learning all the rules, it’s Mastery discovered by thoroughly exploring what works and what doesn’t, circumstantially.

With a T-Square it’s critical to understand that Life is an Experience, not a Test.  It’s not about Right and Wrong or Good and Bad, or even Better or Worse.  It’s about Will this work?.  You recall the Quincunx, which is about Hmm, I wonder if this’ll work.  The T-Square is more like (when lived as a Victim, which it the normal course for a T-Square) Damn it, will this work? or often even Why doesn’t anything ever work?. Or (when lived as a Master) What will happen if I do this in these circumstances?.  The Spiritual Function of a T-Square is to teach us not to be attached to Outcomes.  A T-Square with an attachment to Outcomes is a recipe for Frustration.

The programming that a child with a T-Square receives is formative.  If a T-Square child receives a strong dose of Right and Wrong, the result will probably be lifelong unhappiness, because a T-Square never gets it “Right.”  This young man chose parents who understood this.  A T-Square just constantly provides more information about how internal and external circumstances might influence Outcomes.  Not as a tool for ultimately achieving the desired Outcome, but as a tool for releasing the Need for the desired Outcome.  It’s like differential equations – there are no Right Answers, only Approximations.  Or quantum mechanics – there are no Discrete Outcomes, only Frozen Potentials.  T-Squares are about the process, not the Outcome.

I know, releasing the Need for The One Thing We Live For can feel like Death, or like we might as well be.  But that’s precisely the point – a necessary Ego Death that liberates us to manifest Other Outcomes that may be far more fulfilling than the Unitary Concept we were focusing on.  It’s partly a matter of dimensionality – an Attachment is ultimately one-dimensional, while Reality is gloriously multivariate.  Dimensions are multiplicative – satisfaction in three dimensions (say, emotional/physical/spiritual) is nine times as fulfilling as satisfaction in one dimension.  Remember, Juno (Identity, Ego Death) is the crux of the Solstice and Eclipse charts that dominate our Sixth Night.

Now, we could see a Grand Cross as two T-Squares back to back, or, if we spin the wheel ninety degrees, as four interlocking T-Squares!  And yes, there’s an element of that kind of ultimate frustration in a Grand Cross.  But the Grand Cross is in balance – there are too many angles and points for a single Outcome to dominate, so under a Grand Cross we’re quite satisfied to be moving in the right direction.  With a T-Square, it’s too easy to become single-minded in pursuit of the ever-elusive Outcome, dooming us to perpetual Frustration.

Which is why we speak of the Vacancy for a T-Square.  The Vacancy is the point on the Wheel opposite the third or right-angle planet of the T-Square.  If there was a planet at the Vacancy, the configuration would be a Grand Cross rather than a T-Square.  That would make things a lot more complicated, but a lot less frustrating, because the temptation to lock onto one ephemeral Outcome would be lacking.  In the case of this young man, the apex of his Mars-Pluto-Vesta T-Square was Jupiter in early Aquarius – so his temptation would be to lock onto an Outcome of Expanding (Jupiter) Social Harmony  (Aquarius).  Given the apparent state of “Human Nature,” that’s a Biggie.

The “Sabian” reading for the degree of the Vacancy for this T-Square is “Constellations of Stars shine brilliantly in the night sky.”  And from the testimonials at his Memorial, this young man, consciously or otherwise, was acutely aware of his Vacancy, and lived it very well.  Every person there talked about how bright a Light he had been in their lives.

The key here is “consciously or otherwise.”  Consciousness allows Choice.  Karma is Inertia, and it is Choice that allows us to liberate ourselves from Karma.  Consciousness is a moving target.  No one can judge how Conscious another person is, or judge how appropriate it is for that other person to be Conscious or Unconscious in any given circumstance.  The Ego’s job is to keep us Alive, and Denial is one of the Ego’s most powerful tools.  Our greatest skills, by far, are those which we perform Unconsciously.  And very little of our internal processes are actually communicated, so there’s no way to know when another person is Conscious, and when they’re just not communicating.

In this young man’s case, with Uranus stationary, and Vesta-Pluto in Scorpio, I’m guessing he was a lot more Conscious than most people knew.  Scorpio is Fearlessness, the knowledge that the way out is through, and the willingness to follow a glowing thread into any quagmire.  Scorpio learns very early that talking about it scares the biscuits out of most everybody else, so Scorpio learns very early that it’s not safe to talk about it.  Scorpio just makes a safe, and if necessary secret, space to just do it.  Scorpio’s reputation for Secrecy isn’t about Secrecy at all, it’s about other people’s Fear.

Consciousness matters because the eulogizers made a big deal out of the young man’s entanglement with the Archetype of the Warrior.  In the Jungian view, an Archetype is a kind of Karmic capture, an extrapersonal energy that takes a person over, and prevents them from living their own life and seeking their own fulfillment, because they’re overfocused on acting out the Archetype’s rituals.  Of course it’s all relative, and we could postulate an infinite range of Archetypes, to fit any situation.  It’s easy to put a positive judgment on Consciousness, and use an Archetype as a criticism, but that would totally miss the point.

Archetype is a constructive concept only when someone expresses a desire to break free of a Karmic loop.  It’s a concept that allows us to depersonalize a portion of our Ego, to create a healthy Separation between Self and Archetype, in order to learn to distinguish between those elements of the personality that are rooted in the Archetype, and those which are rooted in the Soul Chord.  I didn’t know this young man, so it’s a guess, but I’m guessing that his Soul Chord was strong enough and present enough that he was quite aware of the difference between his Essence and his Warrior.

This long story is of course related to what’s going on in the sky today – Juno, Identity.  One of the most powerful types of charts a person can have, is one that combines a Grand Cross or a T-Square with a Grand Trine.  The Grand Trine, as we’ve said, is three planets equally spaced around the Zodiac, and this Third Harmonic carries the energy of the Empress, or Love with Wisdom.  This young man also had a Grand Trine in his birth chart, with our friend Jupiter as one corner – the same Jupiter that’s the apex of his Mars-Pluto-Vesta T-Square.  The other two corners of his Grand Trine were Juno (Identity) and Chiron (Healing and Miracles).

A Juno-Jupiter Grand Trine is a ready source for the kind of apparently-unconscious, and un-self-conscious, self-confidence this young man presented to the World and inspired in others, according to the testimonials at the Memorial.  Chiron on the other corner gives this a profound Healing quality, with a flavor of the superhuman – he would have accomplished many things which most people wouldn’t even think were possible.  This young man was a Natural Healer – probably unconsciously, since it usually takes longer to become Conscious of a Grand Trine than it does to become Conscious of a T-Square, and this was a relatively short lifetime, by modern standards, for him.  By Warrior standards, it wasn’t a short lifetime at all.  When I was sixteen, we used to talk about making “Alexander’s Choice” – living life to the fullest and flaming out by 30.  And we weren’t even Warriors, we were just Teenagers.

Chiron was also the apex of a Finger of God (Pay Attention!), with Pluto-Vesta (uninterruptible attention to the Sacred) and Neptune (Spiritual Clarity) at the other corners.  A Pluto-Neptune Finger of God doesn’t give a person much latitude for personal Choice – it represents a life directed by sources far larger than the Self, and would suggest that the whole Warrior persona was more about teaching others than about fulfilling personal needs.  The whole question of Consciousness becomes kind of irrelevant, because this young man was Guided constantly by Angels.  And the Finger of God, representing as it does Curiosity, would have had him constantly, internally (probably “secretly”), questioning and wondering and learning exactly which pieces fit where to make sense out of it all, circumstantially.

Then there’s Neptune.  Neptune is at the apex of a second T-Square, this one with Juno (Identity) and The Sun (Essence) at the other corners, in the early degrees of the Cardinal Signs.  The early degrees of the Cardinal Signs are about laying eggs – creating foundations for buildings that won’t be built for many years hence.  While stationary Uranus indicates a person who knows exactly what they’re doing, the early degrees of Cardinal Signs indicate someone who’s acting at the behest of a New Energy that isn’t Conscious yet, a Wave that’s just beginning to move onto the Planet.  In other words, someone who knows exactly what they’re doing, even though why they’re doing it won’t become clear for many years.

Juno (unconscious Identity) was at the beginning of Libra (service to Harmony with Other), while The Sun (Essence) was at the beginning of Aries (service to a New Energy), with Neptune (service to the culture’s concept of God) in Capricorn (pragmatism) between them.  While Neptune represents Spiritual Clarity, it also represents Material Confusion.  It’s the ancient Lemurian dilemma – how to enjoy the glories of physical manifestation without getting our feet stuck in the tar.  The Vacancy for this T-Square is “A Cat arguing with a Mouse.”  There were probably some very sophisticated theological seminars going on in this young man’s head, which, with Scorpio Pluto, he may never have talked about out loud.  The two T-Squares are intimately intertwined, and connected by the Finger of God.  The tight interconnection would have contributed to his self-confidence.

The planets in this young man’s birth chart clustered into two configurations – the T-Squares in the early degrees, and the stationary Uranus in the middle degrees, the latter joined by a Moon-Mercury-Venus-Pallas Stellium in Aries, and the Axis of the Lunar Nodes in Scorpio-Taurus.  The Stellium would have given him the Wisdom that the testimonials attributed to him, but would also have made the kind of reductive thinking that modern schools propagate relatively unnatural for him.  He operated by instinct, not ideals or ideas, and his instincts would have been perfect.  His mind was fast, very tuned to emotional realities, and quick to identify edges.  The Lunar Axis would pull him toward the Castle, even though he was comfortable in the Swamps.  The Lunar Nodes were not closely connected to the Pluto-Vesta-Mars-Jupiter T-Square, which tells us that his Warrior persona was not Karmic.

The two clusters were joined by the Eighth Harmonic – balance, alignment, negotiation, truth.  The Eighth is our introductory course for the more difficult Fourth Harmonic.  He was drawn into his military career when the two clusters crossed – when Pluto in the sky moved across the position of his natal Uranus, and Uranus in the sky moved across his natal Jupiter.  He would have felt a major sense of integration at that time in his life, and might have used that to lock onto an idea that his Ultimate Goal of Social Harmony might be achieved through using his Warrior skills in service to the State.

The Memorial included an Honor Guard Ceremony, where two soldiers unfold a triangle-folded Flag, bounce it once like a trampoline to release the devotee’s soul, then carefully refold it into a tight Third-Harmonic (Love with Wisdom again) triangle.  There was real magic in this ritual – the Energy shift was palpable when they bounced the open flag.  The Chaplain who presented this part of the Memorial was an impressively alive and present person, but his assertion that the Flag was parallel to the Shroud of Turin was a stretch.

The asteroid Vesta, which is indistinguishable from this young man’s Pluto, was the Roman version of the Greek Goddess Hestia, Goddess of the Hearth.  The Greeks started and ended every ritual with a toast to Hestia, She who provided warmth and sustenance.  The Romans knew a good thing when they saw it, and made their Vesta the Goddess of the State, perpetrating the notion that it’s the State that provides warmth and sustenance, not Nature and Spirit.  Confounding the role of the State with the role of Nature and Spirit has been a curse that Western Civilization has endured ever since.

Eclipse

Saturday morning’s Partial Lunar Eclipse on Pluto (half past 4am PST) is fully visible from land only in Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea.  From most of Asia it’s visible only at Moonrise, and from most of the Americas it’s visible only at Moonset – though NASA points out that the Moon appears bigger at Moonrise and Moonset.  Europe is shut out of this one, but it’s only partial – the shadow will cover about half the Moon.

Otherwise, the Eclipse chart is the same one we’ve been talking about, with Ego Challenges and Surprising Grace as its main effect.  Local reports had the Critters freaking out at the New Moon – critters usually freak at the Full – and the New Moon was basically the same chart, so once the Full Moon gets here we could be in for a double whammy.  If you’re coping just fine, do be careful not to Lord it over anyone who’s having a hard time with it – the downside of a Grand Trine is arrogance, and arrogance will always come around and bite you in the butt later.

As we’ve said, one of the primary issues for us in this Century will be (is) sustainability (or sustenance), and the Eclipse illuminates that theme Big Time, as the Emissary of Sustainability (the asteroid Ceres) is standing right next to Pluto, directly behind the Eclipsing Moon.  Both Ceres and the Moon are particularly strong (“out of bounds”), and Pluto isn’t far from the line.  They’re all at high South Declination – according to some, that’s an indication that we’ll be given the choice of getting lost in our karma (inertia, old Identities), or discovering our karma, in the sense that with Awareness we have the opportunity to choose a different path.  Don’t hold back – go for it!

Solstice

We can consider this a “station” of the Sun – it’s standing still as it turns about and begins to head south again.  It should be obvious that the Sun is the most important Heavenly Body – without it we’d be up the (barren) creek without a lantern.  It’s up to some sort of mischief but no one knows what sort, as it’s also starting up a new 11-year sunspot cycle, and it’s a weird start-up relative to the oh-so very little we know about what it “oughta” be doing.

The Solstice horoscope is in some sense a chart that has relevance for the next three months, and to a lesser extent the next year.  It’s a lot like the recent New Moon chart, with the Grand Cross (Dominion through Challenge) and Grand Trine (Great Grace) focusing on Juno (Identity) – and on the Sun itself!  Kinda like the New Moon chart in spades.  Again, the Challenge is to release old Identities that limit us, so we can open up to the New Soul Pulse (Jupiter-Uranus on the Aries Point) we’re all receiving, and hold the higher vibration (Ceres-Pluto, Ceres outabounds).  The Grace is about accepting Miracles (Chiron-Neptune) and renegotiating our Boundaries (Moon-Pallas, Pallas outabounds).  There’s an extra bonus for defending what we regard as Sacred – while recognizing that we still see through a glass darkly (Mars-Vesta in Virgo).

I been seeing phantoms popping in and out of the nethers like they were doing early in the year, and violence in the field like was happening when Bush was about to invade Iraq.  Hope it’s not about Iran.  On the West Coast of North America, the Vertex joins Moon-Pallas, meaning our Channel will be wide open – and that we get to renegotiate our Boundaries with our Channel.  That’s pretty important, since it’s bottom line to our ability to remain in the Present Moment.  We don’t have any Dominion over our circumstances when we aren’t in the Present Moment.

So the Victim Opportunities are mostly about the serious stresses on Who We Believe Ourself To Be, as a new pulse of Cosmic Energy is forcing our old Ego Energy to make room.  An Ego Death is a real death, actually the realest death there is, since all the other deaths are just transitions.  Of course Ego Death is a transition too, but don’t tell that to the Old Ego – to him it’s annihilation, pure and simple.  Yes, we know, we owe you our current survival, no question.  You’ve every right to be outraged.  And yes, opening up to the New is risky, no question about that either.  Can you recognize yer Old Ego’s voice?  Mom’s?  Dad’s?  Ms. Grundy’s?  Sister Frannie?  Everything he’s feeling is totally legit, so ya gotta sit still for it.

The Growth Opportunity is actually as simple as that – simply recognizing that there’s two of you here, yer Old Ego and You.  Yer in the Victim Space when You are yer Old Ego, feeling his pain as yers.  Yer in the Growth Space when You embrace yer Old Ego as yer best friend, and open yer Heart to his feelings.  The most important Boundaries we have are our Boundaries between Our Ego and Our Self.  The whole process is likely to be quite emotional (Moon-Pallas), but the rewards (Jupiter-Uranus) will surprise and delight us.  Or, on the North American left coast, three of you – yer Old Ego, yer Channel, and yer Self.

From the Mayan perspective, we’re descending into the Sixth Night till mid-July.  Remember when you were lost in the jungle alone at night, and you could feel any number of hungry critters, Jaguar among them, tracking yer movements?  It’s about Merging – you can merge with Jaguar, acknowledge her hunger, and accept yer fate as the right one if yer destined to be her lunch.  Or you can choose to lose yerself in Fear and leave the Present Moment – in which case you’ll probably be more likely to be her lunch, you’d just be giving her indigestion as she digests yer Fear.  You are Jaguar – we be all One – so why give yerself indigestion?  You can’t have a better Guide than Jaguar, and that’s exactly the Growth Opportunity that’s about.

This coming Saturday’s Partial Lunar Eclipse keeps the same basic Grand Cross-Grand Trine chart, so we may as well just consider it the chart for the whole Sixth Night, which runs through November 2, 2010.  The Eclipse occurs at 5 Capricorn, “Indians in a War Canoe“, bang on Pluto.  Pluto represents inevitability, but an Eclipse represents Awareness, so I wouldn’t take it to mean that War is inevitable.  On the contrary, to me “Indians” represent our natural integration with the Planet and our natural right to self-expression.  Think of it as Gulf Fishermen on a War Shrimpboat.

Boundaries, Values, and Unexpected Grace

The New Moon chart that oversees the next few weeks, as we’ve said, features a big Grand Cross (Dominion developed by responding to Challenges) and a big Grand Trine (Grace) co-focused on Juno (Identity).  In other words we’ll be challenged by Old Stories which, if we’re willing to respond to them, will yield to New Freedoms brought about by the release of old limitations which were tied to our Identity – a revision of our Ican’ts and our Iwon’ts.  It’s not about forcing ourself to move through Icant or Iwont, it’s about making an honest effort to respond to the Challenges, after which we’ll discover new places where Ican and Iwill.  These new places may not even seem related to the Challenges; this is just a rebirth, and we don’t know what new skills we’ll have afterwards.  This is as true from the Planetary perspective as it is from the Personal perspective.

But that ain’t all – that’s the Big Deal in this Cycle, but there’s a whole buncha Little Deals, which if they weren’t overshadowed by the Grand Cross and Grand Trine, would be Big Deals in their own right in any other  horoscope.  And of course what’s Big and what’s Little is situational – RJ says that the Irish folklore traditions were ironic – what they called the “Little People” were huge, while the “Giants” were small of stature.  Of course they both carried powerful magic.

For instance, there’s a Golden Rectangle (Grace and Creativity) – also keying off of Juno!  And two intertwined Fingers of God (Drop your Expectations and Pay Attention!), pointing at Venus (our Values and Deep Feelings) and at Chiron-Neptune (Magic is afoot) that make a Golden Trapezoid (Learning things that we never imagined were possible, particularly in this case about sustainability – this also deserves its own essay).  Plus, the Grand Trine and the Golden Rectangle, sharing a Juno-corner as they do, make five parts of a Grand Sextile (Great Fun).  And finally – and this is what we want to talk about tonight, an Eighth-Harmonic relationship between the outabounds (strong) New Moon itself and the asteroid Pallas (Boundaries).

Remember a little while back, I suggested that we might study the Eighth Harmonic as an easier entry into the Fourth Harmonic, the latter being one of our greatest bothers.  Angie (Tarot Handbook, p.55) gives us the keywords Alignment, Balance, Negotiation, and Truth, as the Eighth Harmonic “pierces the webbed veils of illusion, delusion, and deception.”  Wow, is that ever appropriate to the overall dynamic of Old Stories giving way to New Freedoms!   As within, so without – in other words, we can take any small part of a horoscope (or anything), and it will reveal to us the Whole Story.  So we can use this single Eighth Harmonic as a key for the whole coupla weeks.

The two ends of the Eighth are the New Moon and Pallas.  Both the Moon and Pallas are out of bounds (stronger than usual).  Pallas, recall, is the Goddess of War and Wisdom.  Unlike the God of War Mars, she asks questions first, and shoots only if necessary.  She doesn’t hesitate to shoot if it is necessary, she just doesn’t waste the energy when there are easier and safer ways to proceed.  So we usually translate that as Good Boundaries.  Which is to say, we’ll be rebalancing and realigning and renegotiating our Boundaries with everyone this month, to bring them more into alignment with our Truth (which itself may be different than it was last month – we’ll be discovering these changes through trial and success, and through Curiosity).  Ifya want an example, look to Kyrgyzstan.  Everything is in flux, so don’t even expect to get anything right the first time, except through intuition or luck.

The New Moon occurred at 22 degrees of Gemini – Dancing couples in a Harvest Festival – which Rudhyar expands as “The wholesome enjoyment of organic processes and emotional drives.”  Which Good Boundaries allow us to do without holding back.  In other words, we been working our butts off for the last thirty to forty-five  years, and it’s time to celebrate the Harvest of our labors.  Sure, the Corporate Media is focusing on how great is the damage to the Gulf and the Economy and what a great pity that is, when they could easily be using these twin catastrophes to mobilize support for a sustainable ecological and financial future instead – but they won’t, because they’re slaves to their advertisers.  These bummers are a Healing Crisis – the emergence of suppressed symptoms which prove that the underlying disease is leaving town.  The die is already cast, and it is indeed time to celebrate.

And Grief Too

All losses must be Grieved, and that especially applies to a chip off our Identity.  So Grief can easily be a part of our experience of the current Lunar Cycle.  Grief has its own timetable, so it’s not good to rush it.  Held emotions are one of the processes that can close the microtubules in our mitochondria as if they were venetian blinds, constricting our links to the Zero Point Field, the source of Energy and Intuition.  The new Jupiter-Uranus Cycle on the Aries Point demands that we respond directly to any lapse in available Energy by finding a safe spot, eliminating outside stimuli, quieting the mind, and letting ourself drift into the darkness inside.  That’s where Intuition resides.  Rushed Grief easily becomes Held Grief.  Intuition can bring Peace to Grief, and supply new sources of Energy, and Energy-saving insights.

Everything is changing, and Miracles are available.  So of course our Old Ways don’t work any more.  Be gentle with them and Let Them Go, and let yourself Grieve the losses.  They were your good friends for a long time.  If you’re trying to make something happen or get something done, and it’s not jumping forward, ease up.  Look behind any frustration that arises, to see what’s there.  Confusion?  Grief?  Fear?  Anxiety?  Whatever it is, be loving and gentle with it.  Melting it into your Heart will open doors for you.  There will be less resistance from the inertia of the Old Ways after the First-Quarter Moon on Friday (10pm PDT).  In the interim, that quiet, dark space inside is where Miracles will spring from.  Why beat your head against an obstacle when you can just melt it with a Miracle.

New Moon Saturday

Saturday’s New Moon (quarter after 4am PST) will give us loads to talk about and work on – another Grand Cross (Big Fourth Harmonic Pattern about Dominion) and Grand Trine (Big Third Harmonic Pattern about Grace) pointing at Juno (Identity).  The New Moon chart applies to the next four weeks, particularly the next two weeks.

Methinks from now on we’ll try to include two readings – one from the Victim perspective, and one from the Responsibility perspective.  Actually, we usually do that, but we don’t label them thataway.  The Juno Grand Cross/Grand Trine business from the Victim perspective would represent a nightmare or maybe several (big challenges to the Dominion of the Ego/Juno, from the Grand Cross) that turn out to be pussycats (great Grace from the Grand Trine).  In other words, an opportunity to recognize that our Fears are just paper tigers.  So we can expect to be Terrified, as the underpinnings of our Identity are ripped away (a bar is torn out of our Birdcage in other words).  If we don’t remember to tap on the Fear, we’ll just regress into all our old Victim trips and lose it.  If we do remember to take Responsibility (ie, we’re able to respond rather than react) and we tap out the Fear, we’ll be delighted to discover that the Ogres were just the Ghosts of Ogres Past.

An aside about Juno would be appropriate.  Juno is about merging – it represents the sort of Identity where we don’t know we’re identified with someone or something or some notion or emotion.   We might be so unconsciously angry that we have no idea that other viewpoints are even possible.  We might be so paranoid of being controlled by Other that we join the Tea Party thinking it’ll help keep us “free” from those horrible socialist regulations that might ameliorate oil spills or bank ripoffs.  We might be so dependent on another that we don’t know we can survive without them.  We might actually believe the propaganda that Education and the Corporate Media slather on us.  So when we experience Juno as a Victim, it’s usually Terrifying.  Everybody of course has a different habitual reaction to Terror.  Some of us will freeze, some strike out, some run away, some circle the wagons.

Experiencing Juno through Responsibility would involve celebrating the opportunity to add a window to our Birdcage where before there was a blank wall, the opportunity to get conscious about a blind spot we’ve been living with, probably all our life, that’s been limiting our ability to manifest our Wannas.  That’s especially important now that Jupiter-Uranus has opened a new chapter on the Aries Point and a new Verse of our Soul Chord is descending, so our Wannas will be getting more important.  Maybe even Life-and-Death important.  Not to mention Everything speeding up cuzza the Mayan Calendar.  Reality is one thing, and our Conception of Reality is quite another.  Moving our Conception closer to the Real is what it’s all about.  The closer our Conception is to the Real, the more Dominion we have over our Life.  So any Juno adventure is a fabulous opportunity to get closer to Life’s real goals – Neutrality and Presence.  We just gotta be mindful to roll with the punches, rather than getting overwhelmed by the Lostness that happens when an Ego prop is pulled out.

Remember, Confusion comes first, and Confusion is good.  Well, okay, maybe Confusion comes after the Terror – but it could be the other way around, too.  Hey, just think, we could respond with Curiosity!

Meanwhile, here’s a fabulous perspective on the Dollar and the Euro.  It explains a lot of what’s been going on.

Jupiter-Uranus

The Moon crosses Jupiter-Uranus in a few hours – 11pm PST June 5 – bang on the Aries Point.  Jupiter crosses Uranus inna coupla days (5am PST June 8), but often the Moon crossing turns out to be the real event experientially.  The major impact of the Moon crossing will be from two hours prior to one hour after 11pm.  In case you’ve forgotten, this is about a major Descent or Devolution of Spirit into Form.  Enjoy!

The Mayan Calleman

We had the good fortune of hearing Carl Johann Calleman speaking last night on what he calls the Conscious Convergence, July 17-18, 2010.  The date appears to be the nadir of the sixth “night” in the Mayan Calendar (which is divided into repeating periods of seven “Days” separated by six “Nights”).  I think it’ll be worthwhile to summarize…

First though, this talk by Zbigniew Brzezinski is quite fascinating, and kind of sets the table.

The Mayan Calendar postulates nine of what Dr. Calleman calls “Waves.”  The Mayans call them “Gods,” which is fine by us, since we equate Spirit and Energy anyway.  Each Wave is one twentieth as big in time as the previous one, and they all finish up all at once, by Calleman’s calculation on October 28, 2011.  He doesn’t see it as an “end” but rather as a “completion” or fulfillment.  The Mayans refer to it as a “descent” of all nine Gods all at once.  When you take nine Waves, each twenty times as big as the next one, you cover a whole lotta time.  In fact, the first wave is some sixteen and a half billion years, which is just about as long as it’s been since what many cosmologists consider to be “the beginning of the Universe” or the alleged “Big Bang.”  (Like the “central dogma” of genetics that Bruce Lipton condemns, the “Big Bang” is more like an assumption than even a theory.)

So the Waves run

16.5 Billion years for Wave 1, about

825 Million years for Wave 2, about

40 million years for Wave 3, about

2 million years for Wave 4, about

100,000 years for Wave 5, about

5,000 years for Wave 6, about

250 years for Wave 7, about

13 years for Wave 8, and

7.5 months for Wave 9.

Since all of the Waves end at 10/28/2011, Wave 9 begins around March 9, 2011.  Wave 8 began in 1999.  Each Wave, in some sense, squeezes in roughly the same amount of evolution in form and consciousness as the previous Wave – which is what is implied by the idea that “time is speeding up.”

The basic notion he presented last night was that this is about co-creation, and that it’d be very appropriate if weall wanted to make some kinda intention toward what he called “Unity Consciousness,” perhaps even group intentions of some sort – which he’s helping to launch.  He wasn’t sure we’d all Ascend automatically, he thought some of us might wanna help midwife the process.  Here’s an article on his website about the Conscious Convergence, and another about his Vision for same.  While generalizations are always dangerous, we’ve observed for a long time that Folks on the Planet seem to be falling into two camps, those who believe that we’re all in this together, and those who believe that it’s us against them.  Without perceiving an Enemy somewhere “out there” in Other, hufolk seem to have a hard time getting organized to collaborate.

Here’s an interview with Dr. Calleman that’s quite similar to the talk we heard last night.  And this intriguing talk by Dr. Calleman talks about our economic situation relative to the Mayan Calendar’s “Days” and “Nights” – the graphic at 8:41 of the 10-minute talk is particularly interesting relative to our Abundance and Scarcity.  I think these Days and Nights vary in length depending on the length of the Wave.  The Days seem to be periods of relatively greater enjoyment by humans, while the Nights seem to be potentially rather tortuous for humans.  In the latter link he’s speaking of the thirteen-year Eighth Wave, so each Day and Night are about a year long.  Day 7 of Wave 8 seems to merge right into Day 1 of Wave 9.  In Wave 9, the Days and Nights will be only about eighteen days long.  Now the Mayan Calendar itself is a lot more complicated than this, with repeating time periods of 13 and 20 on different scales, but I think the Waves and Days and Nights provide a good start at an introduction.

Dr. Calleman still considers himself a “scientist,” which seems to limit his thinking quite a bit, but his perspective is certainly enormously useful, especially relative to the many less-grounded 2012 stories gallavanting about.  He was delightfully “don’t-know” about predicting – he was more into Curiosity about things.  You know how we feel about Curiosity.  And based on what I’ve read (which isn’t a whole lot), he’s probably studied the Calendar itself more than anyone, and more objectively than anyone.  The whole Mayan Calendar story cast as an Evolution of Consciousness seems a little anthropomorphic, though.  I mean, 2012 could just as easily be when They Who Left Us Here return to harvest the biomass for lunch.  It’s not easy to avoid the belief that the Universe is here just for us, and the belief that we’re so unique because we’re “conscious” or because we have language or use tools or recycle our Plastic. I know, those beliefs are pretty widely-held assumptions by “scientists,” but it only takes a few minutes of chatting with a Bunny or a Tree or a Breeze to discover how silly they are.

Important Tapping News

Gary Craig is “retiring” – moving on to some secret new endeavors – and Dawson Church is taking over Gary’s EFT newsletter and website, both of which are highly recommended.  Dawson’s new gig is http://www.eftuniverse.com.  You can sign up for the newsletter from there, and take advantage of a coupla free new ebooks ifya want.  If you’re really quick (today, maybe tomorrow, then the website goes away), and you aren’t already on Gary’s newsletter list, sign up at http://www.emofree.com, and Gary’ll keep you posted on his new endeavors, which I have no doubt will be profound.  Dawson might well keep us posted about Gary too, but to be sure, you wanna be on both mailing lists.  Gary also promised to update us today on the EFT for Veterans video.

Sleep, Work, and Play

It’ll take seven years for Uranus to move through Aries.  For this period, we need to change our attitudes toward Sleep.  Scheduled sleep will be a problem, as Aries and Uranus both have kinda passive-aggressive attitudes toward Schedules.   What’s important is the distinction between Work and Play.  Anything you define as Work (something you gotta do) is likely to be troublesome – you might have difficulty scheduling enough Sleep to be as productive as you’d like to appear to be, and your Work may be more draining than usual.  But anything you define as Play (something you getta do) is likely to be exciting enough that you don’t need much Sleep to excel at it.  Bottom line: don’t waste time or energy worrying about getting enough sleep.  If it’s your scheduled sleep time and you ain’t sleepy, get up and Play.  If you’re sleepy at the “wrong” time, take a nap.

Uranus has been in Pisces since 2003 (in the US, Bush II 2 and Obama 1).  Our Uranus in Pisces assignment was to release any emotional baggage that kept us from being True to our deepest Self.

Before that, from 1995 till 2003 (Clinton 2 and Bush II 1), Uranus was in Aquarius.  Those adventures were about releasing any intellectual baggage that kept us from being True to our deepest Self – releasing our Idealism.

Uranus was in Capricorn – just be honest about what you really want, okay? – from 1988 to 1995 (Bush I and Clinton 1).

During Ronnie Reagan’s two terms (1981-1988), Uranus spanned Sagittarius: releasing any Spiritual baggage that keeps us from being True to our deepest Self.  Whoa – isn’t Spiritual baggage an oxymoron?  Not at all.  Spirit is Energy.  releasing Spiritual baggage is the same as raising your vibration – or lowering your vibration if you were stuck in a more-Spiritual-than-thou place.

Do those changes relate to your own personal history, or your sense of your unfolding cultural or Planetary history?  Seven-year Uranian sign changes also often signal changes in relationships – not necessarily change of partners, but certainly change in the quality of relationship.

Uranus in Aries is about replacing Work with Play.  How does it feel in your body when you say the following out loud:

I feel really great when people pay me alotta money for Playing!

Then try,

And they do it all the time!

And then,

No matter how much I get paid for Working, it’s not worth it!

These – and the corollaries that come to mind as you think about them – are fabulous issues to tap on.  And it’s a lot more important to do just that, or the equivalent, than you can imagine!