The Most Important Thing

We’re down to a week before the July 7 Saturn Direct Station, so by now even the Muggles should be stressing over having to abandon their fallbacks because The Most Important Thing is demanding all of their Attention.  It can be scary because if we fail at The Most Important Thing, then we’ve really failed, haven’t we.  And what if we believe it’s our Mission?  Can we fail at a Lifetime?

Well, failure may be true if you live in a competitive linear bipolar Either/Or World, but frankly I hope you don’t spend a lot of time there.  This would be an excellent time to label that World, and the habits and situations and Emotions that take you into it, for what it is.  Once you recognize the road, you can put up a big billboard with blinking lights that says Warning, Self-Sabotage Ahead!

Failure is only possible in a competitive World, and this Planet is rapidly moving into a space where collaboration and cooperation replace competition – or else.  We all have self-sabotaging Patterns – we “win” by recognizing these Patterns, mapping the roads that lead us there, and planning alternatives.  It’s okay to compete against self-sabotage – with one caveat: losing isn’t possible, except as a natural short-term Emotional reaction, because every act of self-sabotage is another opportunity to recognize, map, and plan alternatives.

But it can still be very scary to have to give up our fallbacks.  I spend a fair amount of time doing an activity that is personally and socially constructive, but which isn’t What I Most Enjoy Doing.  I enjoy many aspects of it, but it’s not What I Most Enjoy.  Whenever I’ve contemplated giving up that activity, my Guides have always told me No, you still need to integrate more – meaning that I was still learning critical Life lessons from this activity.  But lately my Guides have been saying Yes instead.  Some Life Changes can feel terrifying.  I have depended on that activity for a long time, and abandoning it was not easy to accept without a leap of Faith.

So do I give up what I Know and dive into a scary Unknown?  No!  I live in a Both/And World, right?!?  I PIAVA a loving and gentle transition instead.  Specifically, I Pray to an Entity whom I’ve found to be very loving and gentle, and quick and efficient – the Goddess Pi.  In a Both/And World there is no competition between Entities and Energies, they all coexist quite peacefully.

(Well, peacefully except for the Warring Entities and Energies.  They’re welcome to Do Their Thing too – just somewhere else.) 

So I’m welcome to Pray to, or Ask of, any Entities and Energies that I’ve learned to Trust, and even sometimes to those I don’t know yet.  I mean, would my gas stove forbid me from using my electric refrigerator?

Pi responded very quickly, with an Attitude change – my Attitude.  That’s all that ever matters anyway, isn’t it.  With Chiron so recently Stationary, Miracles are afoot.  So now I’m much more Enjoying the activity that I was afraid to surrender, and I’m seeing how other Activities that are closer to What I Most Enjoy might evolve, and seeing them begin to evolve.  Suddenly it’s Both/And, and, moment-to-moment, Choice, with bows of Respect and Gratitude to Pi.

My whole point in telling this story is that Saturn’s demand to Focus on the Most Important Thing doesn’t have to be terrifying for more than a few minutes, if you respond to terror respectfully. 

Saturn’s up to several tricks as we speak.

The Grand Trine

This week’s Grand Trine is formed by Saturn, Neptune, and Lilith.  Grand Trine as in Grace and Effortlessness.  Lilith, the Lady who walked away from Adam when he suggested that he was going to be the boss.  Lilith, our Pre-Intellectual Instincts, which of course emphasize cooperation and collaboration, before all that business about Snakes and Apples.  Not to forget that Saturn is Stationary in Scorpio, where the Snakes live.  Snakes shed their skins to grow, throwing off old ossified exterior cladding and becoming vulnerable and new.  Same with Cancer the Crab, where Lilith is hanging out.

It’s a Water Grand Trine – Easy Emotions.  Emotions are a lot more than just frosting on a cake; Emotions are the glue that holds the Material World together.  And Authenticity to our Emotions, moment to moment, regardless of what we think about it, is what holds us on our Path through the Material World.  Neptune is in the third Water Sign, Pisces, the Sign of Endings.  Neptune that symbolizes Spiritual Energy and, when it’s done from the place of Spirit rather than social expectation, collaboration and cooperation.  Neptune symbolizes the Grace of God.

Neptune represents what we learn and internalize from our Culture, and Neptune in Pisces says we need to find Respect and Gratitude for our Cultures, for what we’ve learned and internalized, for its having gotten us to the place where we are – so we can Let Them Go lovingly and gently, and make space for a new and vulnerable Chaos from which new Cultures can emerge, Cultures of peaceful coexistence, cooperation, and collaboration.

The Snakes-and-Apples story is the story of Consciousness.  Growth of Consciousness is not without risk.  We are compelled to venture forth where we aren’t sure of the consequences, to see what’s going on there.  We get lost sometimes, that’s inevitable.  The trick is to get only a little bit lost, so we find our way back.  The story of Consciousness is the story of Coming Home.  Consciousness came first, Consciousness exists before the Material World, it’s Consciousness that creates the Material World.  Yet Consciousness is incomplete without the knowledge of what it’s like to be lost in Unconsciousness.

Growth of Consciousness is not about Discovery, it’s about Differentiation.  Those self-sabotaging Patterns were always there, we just didn’t Differentiate them from the background noise.  Like seeing Green but not distinguishing where the Pine tree ends and the neighboring Fir tree starts.  We are victims of our self-sabotaging Patterns, until we get Conscious about them.  That includes War, Greed, Environmental Devastation, Lack of Respect for the Sacred Sovereignty of Other, Impoverishment, Ignoring the Fact That We Are All One, and the other Cultural shortcomings that victimize us.

This Grand Trine allows us to move forward Gracefully and Effortlessly into more constructive Patterns, as individuals and Cultures.  All we need to do is Focus on the Most Important Thing – the One Most Important Thing, for you. 

You don’t have to do it all, you can let collaboration and cooperation do the rest.

The Juno T-Square

A T-Square represents Mastery through Challenge.  T-Squares are all about Failure – we never feel satisfied about the way we deal with our T-Squares, until we realize that T-Squares aren’t about succeeding and failing, but about Learning.  The only way we can Fail with a T-Square is by letting the Either/Or concept of Failure/Success take hold of us.  T-Squares are motivating – we are compelled to keep trying, no matter how miserably we “fail.”

Juno represents our Unconscious Identity.  We can each be merged with the Sanctity of our own Soul Energy.  Or we can merge with some other person, or some hero Archetype, or some failure concept, or some inadequacy concept, or even hubris – to name just a few options.  Juno is T-Squaring the Moon’s Nodes.  The Nodes represent the Soul’s Adventure in the current Lifetime, from whence we come (the South Node), to where we’re heading (the North Node).  From our Karma (Emotional blocks and hidden Skills) to our Mission (Following our Joy).

Be mindful of Both/And here – real Time is not Linear, Linear Time is an artifact of the Material World, and both the Unconscious and the Nodes operate in Dimensions beyond the Material World.  The Nodes can, and frequently do, switch positions.  It’s always Both/And.  As Alan Watts pointed out, it’s harder to release our “Good” Karma than it is to release our “Bad” Karma.

So Juno T-Squaring the Nodes is likely to mean that we’re more Conscious of the road blocks than we are of the road signs, unless we’re seeing the road blocks as the real road signs, our Teachers. 

This T-Square is in Fixed Signs, representing construction, stabilization, and even ossification.  Juno is Retrograde in Aquarius, implying that the Unconscious Changes that the T-Square is leading us through are happening at the Cultural level.

The Nodes are moving from Taurus to Scorpio – from bulwark to relentless investigation.  Shades of Ed Snowden.  Scorpio leaves no Stone unturned to find the Truth, including especially Stones at the bottom of Emotional Seas.  Saturn in Scorpio tells us to Focus on the Most Important Truths Hidden in Emotional Vaults, and the North Node in Scorpio tells us to Be Fearless in our Search.  South Node in Taurus says that Castles May Be Falling.  Let them fall – there are Treasures in the dungeons that will open when the Castle falls, Treasures that we need to complete our Homecoming Mission back into the Consciousness from which we sprang.

The Uranus T-Square

I’m sure you recognized Uranus-Pluto – Mandatory Reintegration with the Soul Self in the essay about Pi.  In the 1960s Pluto Initiated Uranus into a new Cycle, with the keyword “A Ouija Board.”  Chiron – Mr. Miracles – sat Opposite the Initiation, serving as the officiating Priest.  If you missed the 60s, it was a celebration of Self-Determination, Integrity, and Freedom – much of it in Shadow relief of course, like the Vietnam War.  As with any Colonialism, Vietnam was fought in the name of Freedom, but as is usually the case with Capitalism, this meant Freedom to exploit, not the Freedom to be oneself.

The defining astrological event of 2012 was Uranus Squaring Pluto – Uranus coming around to complete one fourth of it’s Cycle with Pluto, the stage where the Energy of the Cycle comes into the mainstream, where it “becomes permanent.”  This week the Sun completes a T-Square with the Uranus-Pluto Square, while this weekend the Last-Quarter Moon crosses Uranus.  The Sun-Moon Cycle is the most primary of Energetic Cycles here on Earth – the Cycle between Source (Sun) and Mirror (Moon), between Energy and Identity.

This weekend, this most basic of Cycles merges with the Uranus-Pluto Cycle.  While the Sun Illuminates Pluto (Transformation or Trance (Re)Formation, or Change of Unconscious Identity) through its Opposition, the Moon Mirrors Uranus (Yintegrity, or Authenticity to our moment-to-moment Emotions, no matter what we think about it). 

Big Doin’s.

The Septiles

A nest of Septiles ties all this together into one coherent process – Saturn (Focus) and Juno (Identity) and the Moon (crossing Uranus – Authenticity) are all in Seventh-Harmonic (Magical) “Septile” relationship to one another, and to recently-Stationary Mercury (Awareness).  This is a pretty amazing chart – imagine someone being born with a chart like this!  Twenty-thirty-forty years from now we should see some remarkable Changes, as this cohort comes of age.

The Seventh Harmonic is symbolized by the Chariot, or Stillness in Readiness for Action.  This is Potential, the yet-uncreated, about which no expectations can be held without limiting Creation.  Magic, in other words, like Chiron, manifestation of the unexpected through Intention without specifying form.  Like Shamanic Power, like Instantaneous Healing.

In other words, this weekend Attention, Identity, Authenticity, and Awareness all converge in one Magical knot, with enormous Potential for Change.

Once again the PIAVA process and it’s Change-The-Subject element becomes critical here, as too much Intellectualization or too much Expectation will crimp the process and limit the unfolding to what is already known.  Since all Prayers are granted, one Prayer is enough – the rest of the Prayer process involves opening one’s Consciousness to new understandings about how Prayers are granted and how our perception and perspectives need to expand to find appreciation for the resulting evolution.  Repeated Prayers can reinforce our belief that the desired result is not attainable.

So once we Pray, or Intend, or Ask, or Visualize, or Affirm (ie, PIAVA), then we need to look away, put our Attention elsewhere, and let the Magic occur unwitnessed.  If our focus stays on where we put our keys, we’ll be thinking about where we had them last.  If we focus on doing the dishes, we find them immediately, behind the dish soap.  We don’t need to know how Miracles occur, we just need to Intend that they do.  Not that Magic needs to put a taboo on the study of How the way Science puts a taboo on manifesting through mysterious mechanisms – it’s Both/And, and in some circumstances a scientific approach is more reliable and predictable than a Magical approach.

Wulfenite

A Crystal composed of Lead, Molybdenum, and Oxygen, Wulfenite helps clear the Second (Emotion) and Third (Will) Chakras to reduce Emotional blocks and self-sabotage so that Magic becomes routine.

To Portal 6.26 and Beyond

Orb

Have you gained a sense of your Sensitivity?  Around here there was a definite shift at around four degrees, then a huge change at about two degrees, as the Grand Trine reformed.

Chiron Retrospective

As Mercury Stands Still and turns Backwards under a Solstice SuperMoon with Jupiter entering Cancer, it would be an excellent time to list every event, circumstance, drama, Emotion, or Pattern that Challenged you during the first half of 2013.   Then over the next three weeks take at least an hour a week to flesh out some details about each Challenge –

• What happened,
• What you were doing before it happened,
• What you felt,
• Who if anyone (or any thing) you felt like blaming for it,
• What you did about it,
• Whether you can detect any likely warning signs that could provide advance notice in the future,
• What you might do differently next time,
• How you might handle it if you were fully competent to do so.

No question that we’re going to be re-experiencing these Challenges over the next six months, and the purpose of the whole adventure is for you to become competent at dealing with them.  So a little directed Attention while Mercury is in a contemplative mood will be very powerful.

The difference between Karma and Consciousness is Choice.  When something sneaks up on us and we aren’t prepared to deal with it, we react from Habit, and it’s usually a Habit that fits the situation poorly, if not catastrophically.  We don’t have the opportunity to Choose – largely because, since it’s Unconscious, we don’t see it coming.  When the same Pattern approaches and we know it’s coming, we’ve dealt with it successfully before, we have some degree of confidence, and we have an array of strategies for dealing with it, then we have time to assess how the drama is unfolding, Choose a response, stay attuned to whether or not it’s working, and if not try an alternate response.

Keep your list handy, and Pay Attention when any of the Challenges repeat.  It’s going to happen anyway, but if you’re Paying Attention, you can make the process of ditching self-sabotage much easier and more powerful.

Gemini and Cancer

As we write this, Jupiter is crossing from Gemini into Cancer.  Jupiter represents Amplification, Expansion, Extension, Extroversion, Openness.  It’s not all that Signs are about, but each Sign is a reaction to excesses of the previous Sign.  Gemini is flibbertigibbet, to quote Sally.  Aries creates something brand new, then casts it in concrete in Taurus (in reaction to everyone’s complaint that they don’t know what it is – since Aries is all Intuitive, there’s no explaining and justifying), till it’s suddenly realized that it’s only a half-baked prototype, probably won’t work, and could be done a lot more effectively.  So Gemini tears it apart.

Nothing amiss there; Gemini is performing a very useful service – scienterrific types would call it reverse engineering, with improvement in mind.  The Gemini stage is equivalent to brainstorming – collecting ideas without prejudgment, as a first step toward version 2.0.  Ranking  and vetting the ideas comes later, but in the brainstorming stage no critique is allowed, in order to assure that no idea is intimidated before it gets onto the whiteboard.

Can you correlate any of these timespans with events or processes in your own life, or on any larger stages?

• Jupiter in Aries (Intuitive Creativity) – June 2010 to June 2011
• Jupiter in Taurus (Casting in Concrete) – June 2011 to June 2012
• Jupiter in Gemini (Disassembly) – June 2012 to June 2013

The US Supreme Court is certainly disassembling voting rights, for instance.  Of course the US Congress has been Disassembling democracy for far longer than a year, but has it stepped up its efforts since June 2012?

Now Jupiter is in Cancer.  By the time we get to Cancer, folks are quite sick of indecision, apparent disregard for consequences (Gemini can be very impersonal), and apparent obstructiveness.  They want to see something built rather than torn apart, they want to see some consistency, and they want to see some compassion.  It will be easier to go back to Creating, but with some knowledge about what we’re building and why, and with some experience under our belt about what might work and what apparently won’t.

Think It Over

It’s several hours before Mercury turns Retrograde, at 6am PDT on June 26.  Mercury asks us to review our Rhetoric three times a year, for three weeks at a shot.  Of course by the time Mercury – or any other planet – goes Retrograde, it has already crossed the area of review, and by the time it turns Direct again and then recrosses the same territory for the third time, it’s an eight-week process.  This time around, Mercury is asking us to review the Scorpio-through-Pisces zones of Cancer.

Just as each day has a morning that resembles Spring, an afternoon that’s like Summer, an evening that parallels Autumn, and a night that reminds us of Winter, each Sign contains a miniature version of the entire Zodiac.  The Sign of Cancer starts with the Cancer segment (pure Creative Compassion), moves to the Leo zone (Compassion for the Self), Virgo (Recognition of Hubris), Libra (Compassion for Other), and so on.  The Scorpio through Pisces zones of Cancer are about Understanding Compassion (Scorpio), Releasing Attachment (Sadge), Balancing Self-Care with Compassion for Other (Capricorn), Codifying Compassion (Aqua), and Opening the Heart (Pisces).

Starting June 26, we walk through this process backwards, starting with Opening the Heart (Pisces), then moving on to rewriting the “rules” for what Compassion is and isn’t (Aqua), and so on.  As you can imagine, a Retrograde period is an intense learning experience, as we, for instance, have to rewrite our conceptualizations about Compassion three times.  Keep in mind that this is Mercury – Intellectuality, Communication, and Trickster Magic.  So in the Pisces zone of Cancer we’re reviewing how our thoughts and words, and unseen Intentions and Prayers and Wishes, influence the way we nurture ourselves and others, and to what degree we do.

So all in all this Review, starting June 9, then backward till July 21, then forward again through August 8, is about how our thoughts and words put Compassion into our day-to-day lives, and impact other people.

Now that we understand Orb and Sensitivity, we can make sense of the fact that one degree of Orb around a Mercury Station lasts about a week prior to the Station, and half a week after the Station.  In other words, we spend one and a half of the eight weeks exploring the degree of the Retrograde Station, and one and a half weeks exploring the degree of the Direct Station – and the other five weeks reviewing the space in between.

Tomorrow’s Retro Station occurs at 24 Cancer, “A woman and two men castaways on a small island of the South Seas.”  While the span of the Retrogradation covers Scorpio through Pisces, the Station degree itself is actually within the Aries zone of Cancer – in the Aries zone we open to Accepting an entirely new way to live and express Compassion.  It’s not something we do, it’s something we Accept or Resist, though of course Resistance is futile.  So on balance, it sounds like we’re getting Conscious about how Competition and Manipulation impact our ability to be Compassionate and Collaborative.

The Wide Septile Yod

We first encountered the Wide Septile Yod in Midsummer Night’s Portal.  This “Yod” is still here, and dominates the Mercury Station chart, as all three of its corners are involved in the Big Configurations of the day.

• One corner is the Mercury Station itself, tightly Square to Eris.
• A second corner is Saturn, which is also a corner of the Grand Trine with Neptune and Sun-Lilith.
• The third corner is Moon-Juno, which is still the apex of a T-Square with the Nodes.

The tight Square from Mercury to Eris (confronting Denial) means that the Mercury Retro period will be bringing a good quantity of the clandestine into the light of day.  This revelation will feed the Septile Yod, which is about Occult Power.  In other words, expect the revealed information to have impact far beyond how it appears.

Saturn is tails when Jupiter is heads – as Jupiter represents Expansion, Saturn symbolizes Contraction.  But not in any negative sense – Saturn means Focus Your Attention on the First Priority, just as Cancer reigns in Gemini’s intellectual wanderlust.  While the Grand Trine (using three degrees of Orb) includes Neptune (Spiritual Clarity) and Sun-Lilith (pre-intellectual Instincts) along with Saturn (Focus), Jupiter is within five degrees of its impending Trine to Saturn, and Jupiter Trine Saturn means that Expansion and Contraction work together (contradiction occurs only in the Mind, not in Reality), Gracefully.  What’s the Jupiter-Saturn Coin?  Growth in Social Consciousness.

At the moment when Mercury is Stationary, the Moon is only a fourth of a degree shy of being Initiated by Juno.  Juno’s ongoing T-Square with the Nodes implies that our Unconscious Identity (Juno), through no overt action of our own, is shifting in such a way to bring us into clarity about our Karma and our Mission (the Nodes).  The Moon is a trigger-finger.  In other words, this Mercury Station could be a major Tipping Point for our adventures in Consciousness.

So the Septile “Yod” (Occult Power) unifies all three of the Big Events that are on tap astrologically – our

• Consciousness Growth and Activation of our Mission (Moon-Juno T-Square),
• The effortlessness (Grand Trine) of our Focus (Saturn) on Collaboration (Sun-Lilith-Jupiter) and Spirit (Neptune), and
• Revelation of hidden Manipulation and Competition (Mercury Stationary Square to Eris)

Such a unification could represent a great leap forward, personally, culturally, and Planetarily.

And Beyond

From June 28 till August 2, Mars steps Out of Bounds.  A planet has a stronger impact when it’s Out of Bounds (beyond the Tropic of Cancer or Capricorn, in this case the Tropic of Cancer).  Mars represents Action.  While it’s Out of Bounds it traverses 21 Gemini to 14 Cancer – once again emphasis on the transition from hunting broadly for new Ideas, to focusing on Nurturance.  For a week or so around July 20, Mars joins Lilith and Jupiter in the Saturn-Neptune Grand Trine.  That will be very dynamic.  We should see major changes happening in our Lives and in the World in mid-July.

Saturn, Lord of our Grand Trine, takes its own Station on July 7, turning Direct at 5 degrees of Scorpio, “A massive rocky shore resists the pounding of the Sea.”  Just to provide another lesson in Orb and Sensitivity, as we write this, Saturn is only seven arcminutes (less than one eighth of one degree) from the location of its Station.  Which is to say, Saturn is really Stationary (very Strong) as we speak.   Saturn has been within one degree of its Station since June 2.  If you’re wondering why you’ve been feeling like you need to Focus on The Most Important Thing (or figure out what that is!), this is why!

So the Saturn Station is Septile to the Mercury Station, meaning that getting Conscious about how Competition and Manipulation impact our ability to be Compassionate and Collaborative (Mercury) and Focusing on what will withstand the assault of extreme Emotion (Saturn) reinforce one another in unseen ways that are more powerful than we know.

Uvarovite

Love the name, Uvarovite!  Garnet isn’t a Mineral, it’s a fairly large family of Minerals.  Uvarovite fills up one branch of the Garnet family, the Calcium-Chromium branch.  It’s not only a Heart-Opening Mineral, but a Crystal that invites Magic.  It’s a yang version of Dioptase, the favored Crystal of the Faerie Kingdom.  Like Chiron and Miracles, Magic is just action that we don’t understand.  The less Conscious we are, the more we have to disallow Magic because we don’t know how it works.  Much Magic and Miracle occur in Dimensions that Muggles Deny the existence of.  Just because we don’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Anxious

Feel the extra anxiety?  That’s the absence of the Grand Trines that have been easing our transition past the End of Time.  You can use the Anxiety to measure your sensitivity.  The Sun is moving into a new Grand Trine with Saturn and Neptune, and as it gets closer, we’ll feel the Grace returning.  When?  Depends on your sensitivity.  Sensitivity is multidimensional, so just because you’re sensitive to one Energy doesn’t necessarily mean you’re sensitive to another – though there’s a good chance of it.

Astrologers measure distance with something called “Orb.”  When a Configuration like the upcoming Grand Trine is moving into position, as it moves closer, the Orb gets smaller.  Orb is like slop – when an Angle between two planets is “exact,” orb is zero.  When it’s one degree apart, that’s one degree of Orb, or one degree of slop.  Usually Orb is a threshold – so, depending on the kind of chart, you might use eight degrees of Orb as the threshold, or three degrees, or one degree – when the slop is less than the threshold Orb, you consider the Angle to be in effect.

As we write this, the Sun is about four and a third degrees away from making an exact Trine to Neptune, which would complete the Grand Trine, as Saturn is already Trine to Neptune.  So if you were using five degrees of Orb, the Configuration would already be on the air.  Five degrees isn’t a commonly used Orb.  Often when we’re considering planets in the sky now and their impact on our lives, we use one degree of Orb, but it’s not that uncommon to use three degrees.

If we use a three degree Orb threshold, then the Grand Trine will come into effect at around 8am PDT on June 23.  A very sensitive person should easily detect a three-degree Orb for a major Angle.  Watch to see if there is a fairly distinct downward shift in your Anxiety level over the next several days, as the Grand Trine reforms.  You might feel the Tension ease, or your dreams lighten up, even before the 23rd.  Using two degrees of slop, the Grand Trine reforms on June 24 at about 9am PDT.  The Grand Trine reforms with one degree of Orb on June 25 at around 10am PDT.  Everybody should be feeling it by then.

The Sun moves pretty quickly (as you can tell from the above, about one degree a day – not a coincidence since there are 360 degrees in the Zodiac and about 365 days in a year), so the Solar Grand Trine will only last till June 29.  However, by then Lilith will be taking its place, and since Lilith moves much more slowly, the Lilith-Saturn-Neptune Grand Trine will be around till mid-August – using three degrees of separating Orb – that is, three degrees of slop when the planets have already completed their Angle and are moving apart from one another.

Then, by July 5, Jupiter moves into position, forming a Jupiter/Lilith-Saturn-Neptune Grand Trine.  Before Jupiter or Lilith move out of Orb, Mars joins them, and then Pallas after that, so the renewed Grand Trines go on for quite a while.  Then, one by one and two by several, as these planets move out of the Saturn-Neptune Grand Trine, they fall into a reconstruction of the Chiron-North Node Grand Trine, so we go back to the double Big Grace that we’ve been enjoying for much of 2013.  Once Saturn goes Direct again in early July, these two Grand Trines slowly merge, as Saturn crosses the North Node.

Don’t miss the Point there – Saturn (Focus on Priority Number One!) crossing the North Node (our Mission).  If we didn’t leave the Planet at the End of Time, we’re still here for a good reason – for our Mission.  It’s very easy to see this Saturn-North Node crossing as the focal point of our whole 2013 Big Grace/Juno-Nodes T-Square/Uranus Square Pluto adventure.

Lilith is the last to leave the merged Grand Trine, in mid-September.  Just as it does, Jupiter forms a new Grand Trine, with Pluto and the South Node, and as Jupiter moves out of Orb, Vesta moves in.  The result is that we’re under at least one Grand Trine continuously into October.

Which gives us this window of Opportunity to (1) find our Gratitude and acknowledge the Grace, and (2) get a handle on the kinds of Anxiety we’ll be feeling once the Grace lets go of us in October.  Gratitude is always really important, as it’s one of the more powerful of those Miracle Attitudes that can change the World as we experience it.  And Anxiety is really important because it forms a dark filter between us and Reality.  Not quite as dark as Fear, but usually more pernicious.

Thing is, because of Karma and other Unconscious Patterns, what makes us Anxious (or Afraid) is seldom what we think makes us Anxious.  An easy way to explore this – and it’s very important to explore it – is to tap it out.  It’s important to the future of the Planet, because the sooner more of us learn to differentiate Anxiety from the supposed causes of our Anxiety – and therefore stop needing to project our Karma onto Other, the sooner we cross the Tipping Point into Peace on the Planet.

Whatever triggers your Anxiety, tap on the trigger, then tap on the Anxiety itself…

• Even though I feel Anxious about Zombies, I deeply and completely love and accept myself…

compared to…

• Even though I feel Anxious, I deeply and completely love and accept myself…

Of course after your first tapping, your Anxiety will likely already be reduced, so you won’t be able to make a direct comparison between the two.  So take another Anxiety-producing trigger, and reverse the order…

• Even though I feel Anxious, I deeply and completely love and accept myself…

compared to…

• Even though I feel Anxious about Global Warming, I deeply and completely love and accept myself…

Even when Anxiety or Fear are completely relevant in the Present Moment, very very seldom is all of your Anxiety or Fear generated by the Present Moment.  In truth, most of us are competent to deal with the Present Moment in some adequate way most of the time.  Anxiety and Fear actually prevent us from realizing and executing our competence.  The more we master Anxiety and Fear as Anxiety and Fear, and not as the result of some alleged cause, the more we incite our natural competence, and enjoy cooperation and collaboration.  There’s little we can’t do from the space of cooperation and collaboration.

We see Emotions as our Emotions, but they aren’t.  Emotions are like Clouds – some high and icy, some lovely in the Sun, some dark and brooding, some pelting us with Rain or Hail or Blizzard or Lightning.  And Emotions are just as impersonal as Clouds.  They don’t belong to us.  It’s easy for us to grab hold of a particular Emotion, and refuse to let it go.  That Emotional Attachment is the glue that sticks Karma to the soul of our shoe.

Once we learn to process an Emotion as an Emotion of and for and by Itself, independent of any trigger or supposed cause, we realize that this is what we came to Earth for.  Earth, shrouded in dark Clouds of Fear and Grief and Anger, needs us to Heal Her, needs us to love those dark Clouds into rays of bright Sunshine.  Locate the Anxiety in your Body, and Focus all of your Loving Attention directly into that place.  See the Anxiety as an Energy separate from your own Identity and your own adventures, and embrace it.  Open your Heart to it, and Love it into Grace.

That’s why we came here – we just forgot, because Emotions are so sticky.  We wouldn’t be able to Heal these dark Clouds, if we hadn’t been willing to get lost in them first.  Your Mission could well open up into additional chapters, but even if it does, your Clarity about it will be a thousand times more acute if you first learn to be Loving with all of the Emotions.  That’s why we took Bodies here.

Opal – Quartz with nanoscale water enclosures that bounce the light around and refract it – captures Emotion and rebroadcasts it.  It takes skill and practice to use Opal, just as it takes skill and practice to Love all Emotions into submission.  Use it with care and respect.  When you use Opal, you aren’t the master, you’re a partner.

Galaxy III

Another glorious Galaxy portrait, by Randy Halverson of DakotaLapse.  Whatever you do, do not miss the 5-minute video of “Horizons” on the from page of

http://dakotalapse.com/

Midsummer Night’s Portal

Or, of course, Midwinter Night’s Portal if you’re upside down.  Same diff, just a little less Puckish.

The Solstice Portal

The Solstice horoscope features four prominent and tightly related features…

• Juno Square to the Nodes – Huge changes in our Unconscious Identity.  Old news, we been doing it for a while – except that now Juno has gone Retro.

• Mercury Conjunct Venus and Venus Conjunct Vesta – Potential for serious personal Integration.

• A wide Septile “Yod” – Lots of Magic afoot.

• Several days without a Grand Trine! – We’ve been Grand Trined for most of 2013, and we’ll continue to be through October.  But here we have a few days without.

The Solstice horoscope to some extent describes the year to follow, but most immediately, we’ve got a 3-day Portal defined by these four basically-simultaneous features.

Juno Retrograde

Turns out Juno went Retrograde when I wasn’t looking, on June 14.  We’ve been talking about Juno (Unconscious Identity) for a while now, since it’s been T-Squaring (Mastery through Challenge) the Nodes (our Karma and Mission) since early May.  Because the timing was so close to Chiron’s June 16 Station, and since it’s oxymoronic to name what’s Unconscious, we’ll consider Juno’s Backwardation as an embellishment to the Chiron Retrogradation.

One way to get a handle on the Unconscious is to Pay Attention.  Those Hidden Patterns are identifiable if you’re willing to look for them, or ask your friends to help.  One warning – don’t accept the temptation to richochet!  When you see a self-sabotaging Pattern, don’t suddenly try to switch to its opposite or avoid repeating it – by avoiding it you never leave the Coin.  Shift it by 10% – watch it while it repeats, but chop 10% out of the middle.  Repeat the Pattern but leave out a step.  Repeat the Pattern with a different Attitude.  Play with it – it has a great deal to teach you!

Mercury-Venus-Vesta

Every once in a while Mercury (Ideals) and Venus (Values) Conjoin, giving us an opportunity to align our Thoughts with our Emotions.  The two aren’t independent, but they sure can get out of whack with one another.  This one occurs just two hours prior to the Solstice, which more or less makes the whole next year such an opportunity.  Be kind to yourself when you notice what an idiot you seem to have been as you discover the places where your Head and Heart misalign.  Well, a lot of folks put Thought into the Third Chakra (which makes more sense) rather than the Sixth, so that would be where your Solar Plexus and Heart misalign.  That has a lot of implications for Power.

Mercury turns Retrograde (on June 26) before it gets to Vesta, but Venus goes on to get Initiated by Vesta on June 22 – close enough that it’ll stretch this Portal into a three-day window.  Venus-Vesta is about aligning the Fourth and Seventh Chakras – the Heart and the Crown, pretty bottom-line spiritually – and that makes the Solstice and year about aligning all three Chakras.  The Initiation occurs at 24 Cancer, “A woman and two men castaways on a small island in the South Seas.”  Doesn’t that sound like trouble!  On the other hand, we’re likely to find out who’s really in charge, eh?

Plus, we’ll have five or six weeks to think it over, as Mercury reviews much of the second half of Cancer.  That’s basically about how we Nurture our Community, and fine-tuning our Attitude so the Energy Exchange is Equal, and we’re neither giving ourselves away, nor holding back.  Both Mercury and Venus have come back In Bounds, so they aren’t as Strong as they were for much of the prior month.

The Wide Septile Yod

It’s actually closer to a T-Square or a Grand Trine in appearance, as this Triangle is made up of two Biseptiles and one Triseptile.  Septiles and other Seventh Harmonic Angles like these are about Occult Power.  The players are quite fascinating – Juno, Mercury-Venus-Vesta, and Saturn.  Well, didn’t we say that one of the best ways to grow Consciousness (Juno) is to Pay Attention! (Saturn), and of course our Unconscious Identity is going to be transformed bigtime when we align Head and Heart and Hearth!  What might that look like, this Occult Power?

As a tyke I drove my father crazy with my constant questions, and one of his habitual answers to my “How do you do that?” was “You have to hold your mouth right.”  And yes, he did occasionally play the harmonica.  But the subtler message is that everything depends on your attitude.  You can repeat one of those newly-recognized Unconscious Patterns using your habitual attitude (what, Anger? Fear? Expectation of Rejection?), or you can walk through it with a different Heartset – maybe Love, or Excitement, or No Expectations).  That’ll certainly inject some Chironian Magic into the situation – Occult just means “hidden” after all.

Grand Trinelessness

It’s only for a few days, but this’ll give us a chance to appreciate how the Grand Trines we’ve been living under are a great Gift, rather than taking them for granted as we’d be otherwise wont to do.  By the time Venus crosses Vesta, the Sun and Lilith will have moved into a new Grand Trine with Saturn and Neptune, and we’ll be back under Grace.  But for these few days we’re on our own.  The Grand Trines went away around June 17 – what in your Life has changed for the worse since then?  Not to worry, they’ll be back by June 23, until October.

You’ve probably noticed that the World has changed.  Sure, Syria is smelling more and more like the Spanish Civil War, but don’t bet on it.  A lot of people haven’t noticed, and they’re going to keep on with the Same Old Same Old, till the Shift hits their fan and they find that their old Power-Over games don’t work any more.

Labradorite

Nothing like the Feldspars, Laboradorite in particular, to illustrate how what you perceive depends on the Angle you’re looking from.  In this Feldspar, the Crystalline units (they aren’t Molecules, but they’re sort of like Molecules in that they’re ordered configurations of Atoms – but rather than being a coherent chemical actor like a Molecule, they’re building blocks, like Legos, that knit together to make Crystals) don’t quite get enough heat and pressure to mix fully, so there are microscopic layers in the Stone, like a Mica (which it’s not).  From some Angles you can see through the top layers into the layers below, which can appear as iridescence.

As the Buddhists would say, Change Your Mind – but in this case we’re Changing our Mind to align with our Heart, and Changing both to align with our individual Sense of the Sacrosanct.

Revelation

Now this is interesting timing on an interesting perspective on the Chiron Coin…

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/14/the-real-war-on-reality/

Notice the link (toward the end of the article) to the Greenwald-Snowden Hong Kong interview.

I smell Eris working here too, with her nose for ferreting out Denial.  In our Portal 6.16 catalog of Angles we missed the Ninth-Harmonic relationship between the Chiron Station and Eris.  The Ninth Harmonic is about Introspection and Wisdom, and their use to help bring us into Integrity.

Chiron at Work

Here’s a perfect example of Chiron at work.  Dichotomies – like Security and Privacy – freeze the mind.  They ask us to take sides and make a big noise.  But Reality is not dual, it’s Unitary and Multifarious.  As we said earlier, one of the great ways to escape from a cell with no exit is to empathize with the Self – You poor bugger, your mind is frozen!  But another great way to get from Despair to Miracle, which is Chiron’s modus operandi, is to just stop with the Dualities.  Let’s take Security and Privacy for an example.

Those are the heads and tails – what is the Coin?  In the real world, in a very real sense, my Privacy is my Security.  As rabid as all of the Fundamentalists – of one variety or another – have become in this century, Being Myself Out Loud is a very dangerous thing.  That’s why Uranus has to Square Pluto every once in a while, to pry us out of our shells!  But then, I was programmed to believe that it’s NOT OK to be myself.

Maybe it’s a good thing that 56% of folks in the US prefer Security to Privacy – maybe those are folks who were programmed to believe that it is okay to be themselves.  Uranus-Pluto won’t have as much work to do.  But Uranus-Pluto aside – again, what is the Coin?  For the 56% and the 44% both.  Privacy was not designed into government so you could be a criminal without getting caught.  Privacy was designed in so you could be Opposition without getting disappeared.  Privacy recognizes the tendency of Power to Corrupt.  Privacy has become a luxury for the People, but Privacy – Secrecy – has become a necessity for government?  So much for accountability.

One bottom line must be Fear.  Why do I need Privacy – what am I afraid might happen if I’m seen?  And why do I need Security – what am I afraid will happen?  If you’re grounded (imagine a cable running from the base of your spine to the center of the Earth), is either Privacy or Security an issue?  The Coin could be different for each of us.

Lawrence Lessig is the founder of the Creative Commons – a prepackaged set of legal documents that allow you to specify the level of Privacy and Security you want for Intellectual Property that you create, without having attorneys on retainer.  Whether you want to give it away outright, get paid anytime anyone uses it, get paid only when someone else uses it for financial gain, etc.  He has an excellent nose for the Coin…

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-big-brother%E2%80%99s-prying-eyes/

You can spend the rest of your life battling with Dichotomies on the Despair side of Chiron, the supposed Unhealable Healer.  Or you can choose to stop with the heads and tails and start looking for the Coins.  Chiron dances between Saturn and Uranus – between Ego and Soul.  Ego wrestles with Decisions, Uranus just follows Guidance.

Mercury is half-way into the first phase of it’s triple review of the last third of the Zodiac, as seen through the eyes of Cancer.

Which is to say, if you’re keeping score, in ten days Mercury will begin to Retrograde across the Pisces through Sagittarius Dwads of Cancer.  A Dwad is one twelfth of a Sign.

When we’re stuck on a Dichotomy, there’s an excellent chance that Mercury is involved, as those are the sorts of Dramas that Mercury loves.  Cancer is about Nurturance – You Poor Baby, you’re impaled on a Dichotomy!  And the last third of the Zodiac is about Finishing Business, about allowing evolution and its Tripping Points to make its mark.

Portal 6.16

Another fabulous portrait of the Milky Way Galaxy, this one by Miguel Claro, taken in dawning light.

Our next Big Adventure is already well underway, gradually building to a peak at 2am PDT on June 16th.   Chiron stops dead in its tracks at 14 of Pisces, then meanders backwards till mid-November.  It backs over the Cancer portion of Pisces, which means it just crossed the same portion, and it will again between mid-November and mid-March of next year.  When a planet does something in triplicate, it’s asking us to Pay Attention.  First, what do we know about Chiron?  And second, what do we know about the Cancer portion of Pisces?  That should be informative.

Chiron symbolizes Despair and Miracles.  There are places we can go, emotionally and intellectually, where there is no exit.  Pisces is pretty good at discovering these places, since Pisces’s job is to root them out and heal them.  If we need something that doesn’t exist in these places, we can only Despair that our needs will never get met.  Till we figure out a way to find the secret tunnel that leads out of the Labyrinth.  In some of those places – such as Blame or Fear – the secret tunnel can be almost impossible to locate.

If we do Pisces “right,” we spend the first several degrees wallowing in self-pity about how we’ve been dealt a bum hand.  For Chiron, that was April to July 2010 and February to March 2011.  Not the beginning of the Derivative Depression, but about the time when it became obvious that this was no routine recession.  One of the most reliable ways to move from Despair to Miracle is self-empathy.  There’s a subtle difference between telling ourself Poor Me! and telling ourself You Poor Guy! (or Gal!).  The critical difference is who’s talking.

In Despair, in Poor Me!, our Identity sits in the dumps.  In Empathy, in You Poor Guy!, our Identity sits outside, looking back at ourself in the dumps.  That’s the secret tunnel, moving the locus of our Identity, changing our Perspective.  If we had started with You Poor Guy! in 2010-2011, by now we’d have seen a number of opportunities for rebirthing ourselves, chosen one or a few of them, and started developing them.  At this stage they’ve become semi-independent, and we’re nurturing them.  We’re telling them You Poor Baby! when they encounter difficulty.

If we missed the initial Pisces Wallow, we now have the opportunity to make up for it – by saying You Poor Baby! to ourselves.  We become the project that we’re nurturing.  Folks who follow the Abrahams too literally miss the power of self-empathy, while Tapping puts it to work very powerfully.  Tapping is very good at tunneling us out of Fear – once we learn to recognize Fear in our body.  I’ve never tried Tapping on Blame – that would be an interesting experiment.

At this Station Chiron triggers an unusually large number of Angles…

• It makes a Third-Harmonic Angle to Venus and the North Node.  This is fabulous, as it feeds Grace to our Mission.  Be on the lookout for any place where you feel conflicted about your Values – those are the very places where you can invite Grace in.  The process is simple – “Goddess, please bathe this conflict with Grace” – then Change the Subject.
• It makes a Fourth-Harmonic Angle to Mars and Pallas, giving us the opportunity to discern any habits we have of applying too much Energy or too little Energy – or the wrong kind of Energy – to recurring disruptions in our lives.  The opportunity to discern how we unconsciously collaborate in failing to find the secret tunnel out of Despair.
• It makes a Fifth-Harmonic Angle to Jupiter and the Sun.  This is powerful, though when Learning situations like this first arise we’re likely to feel “Oh no not this again.”  Watch for that sensation, and empathize with it – Oh, you Poor Baby, you feel like Ohnonotthisagain!  You’ll be surprised how quickly you learn, and how liberating it will be.
• Chiron makes Sixth-Harmonic Angles to the South Node and to Pluto.  This is fortunate indeed, as it implies we’ll not only be stumbling into our most persistent habitual Despair places, but that we’ll be surprised at how easy it will be to find the secret tunnel!  And the Changes will be permanent.
• It makes a Seventh-Harmonic Angle to Ceres, which will open our Intuition to places where our Life Energy is wasted by trying to keep unsustainable projects alive, and by striving for what we don’t need.
• It makes a Twelfth-Harmonic Angle to Uranus.  Again, this is a Gift, as the Twelfth Harmonic is about discerning self-sabotage patterns, and Uranus connects us to our Soul Self.  This Angle is potentially Life-Changing.
• Finally, it makes a Fifteenth-Harmonic Angle to Juno, promising changes to our unexamined sense of who we are and what we are capable of doing and experiencing, that will allow us to Follow our Joy with less Resistance.

By the time a planet goes Retrograde, it’s already crossed the area of emphasis.  So it’s not like we’re in for big surprises – what we’re in for is a constructive reworking of all the places in our lives where we’ve found disharmony over the last four months.  It’s exciting, actually.  Think back over the span since late February – what issues have been lit up for you?  Those are precisely the issues that you’re likely to find resolved over the next nine months!  Exciting, eh?  Miracles are afoot!

I hope you’re noticing the Tipping Points that are occurring – see if you can set aside your cynicism about how it’ll all go back to Normal when the heat dies down.  Stay open to the possibility that Normal has changed.  Do notice how the usual line of dichotomy has bent toward the circular, as the far right and the far left merge in their reaction to Big Bro.  That’s a very good sign, as it means that Duality is breaking down.  It could even be replaced by some semblance of Reality!

Here’s a Tipping Point that’s still teetering and could use a little shove…

http://www.organicconsumers.org/bytes/ob382.html

This one’s actually probably more important to our evolution than either privacy or security.

Just More Tripping Points

Or was that Tipping Points.  Not  much new in this morning’s New Moon, just the same old same old –

• Uranus T-Square with Pluto and now Mercury – which should be good for becoming Aware (Mercury) of how we betray ourselves (Uranus-Pluto).
• Juno T-Square with the Nodes – this is a long-running Configuration, as Juno turns Retro just as it’s about to leave the T-Square.  It’s also about (becoming Aware of) self-betrayal, but from a completely different angle.  Uranus has to do with Soul Integrity, while the Nodes have to do with our Life Purpose.  Same diff, but astrologically they’re independent actors.
• The North Node remains in a Grand Trine with Chiron and Vesta – this is Grace flowing toward our Mission, aided by Miracles and our Heart’s Truth.  If you run into any Despair, know it’s only there to be embraced and cleared.
• Venus now completes a second Grand Trine, with Saturn and Neptune.  Keep your Focus (Saturn) on Spirit (Neptune) rather than Matter, and what was difficult should become easy.  Walk in Beauty, but with humility; this Energy is a gift.
• Mars is still Conjunct Pallas, as it was in Portal 6.07.

Mercury, Venus, and Vesta are all Out of Bounds (Strong), emphasizing the gifts of Awareness and Clarity.   With both Vesta (what we hold Sacred) and Venus (what we Value) in Grand Trines (Grace), this is a fabulous time to learn to permanently access your Guidance.

The deck is shuffled mid-week, as Venus replaces Mercury in the Uranus T-Square.  An opportunity, using our new-found Awareness, to bring our Values into alignment with our Soul’s Purpose in the Lifetime.

The next Big Deal is a week away, as Chiron Stations Retrograde on June 16.  More to follow on this adventure.  JoAnn sends an example of another Tipping Point – Peak Bullshit…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHl80Wmpj40

Let’s hope he’s right!.

Portal 6.07

What a gorgeous Michael Underwood photo of the rest of our Galaxy!

By now most all of us should be feeling the Neptune Station.  It occurs at half-past 1am PDT on Friday (June 7), but the ancillary events run all day…

• the Moon Squares Neptune while crossing Mars at 7am PDT,
• Pallas Initiates Mars at 2pm PDT, and
• Mars and Pallas Square Neptune at 5pm PDT.

The Pallas-Mars Initiation happens within four arcminutes of the Square to Neptune, and both Pallas and Mars are still within the same arcminute when they exactly Square Neptune.  All three Squares to Neptune are Waxing, Gemini to Pisces.  It’s rare to have this degree of exactitude and coincidence, so we can expect it to be a Big Day.

The Meaning?  We’ll get to the details, but

It wouldn’t hurt to expect healthy Anger to erupt.  Your own, and that of others.  Don’t be surprised if you’re unsure of the trigger, let alone the cause.

They’re obviously feeling it in Turkey.  If you were programmed to believe that there’s no such thing as healthy Anger, then this is a great learning opportunity for you.

For the rest of us it’s about getting into the Present Time and differentiating Triggers from Causes. 

If we’re unaware that we’re angry about some repressed event from our childhood or some unreleased Karma from “past” lives, then we get mad whenever something reminds us of the Cause.  It’s a major contributor to Blame mentality and the resulting Scapegoating.

Let’s start with the Initiations; they’re at Gemini 6, “Workmen drilling for oil,” which Rudhyar hears as “The avidity for knowledge which ensures wealth and power.”  There’s an obvious Edge between service, avarice, and sustainability.  Oil to fire Vesta’s Hearth and provide Light.  Gainful employment and useful Work.  Exploitation of the Commons, almost certainly for private gain.  Likely degradation of the Planet.  It’s a busy symbol.

Mars is one of the Initiates here, and the Actor, the Workmen.  Mars the God of War – since WWI oil has been considered essential for fueling the hardware of War; witness the younger Bush’s Iraqi debacle.  With Neptune as Confusion, we need to see what Energy is becoming permanent, as that’s what happens at a Waxing Square.  The current Mars-Neptune Cycle began in early February at Pisces 3, “Petrified tree trunks lie broken on desert sand” or, per Rudhyar, “The power to preserve records of their achievements which is inherent in mature cultures.”  Hmmm.

I think I’d be more likely to see that symbol in terms of the inevitable failure of all cultures, and their eventual return to dust.  Trees are only petrified when they’re buried by lava or permanent flooding.  Social breakdown has certainly been a common theme this year.  The Moon-Neptune Cycle, which runs only a month, initiated May 31 (Moore OK Day) at 6 Pisces, the same degree as Neptune’s Station, “A parade of army officers in full dress,” which Rudhyar extols as “service to community” and community support.  Us pacifists have a different take, but it’s great that the officers are parading in their Sunday best rather than shooting holes in one another.

What jumps out at me is the high degree of organization and obeisance, as such parades are tightly choreographed.  What about the Pallas-Neptune Cycle?  Neptune last Initiated Pallas in mid-February of 2012, at Pisces 1, “In a crowded marketplace farmers and middlemen display a great variety of products.”  Rudhyar speaks of “healthy community.”  Pallas is constructive here, as Pallas was the Goddess of War, but also the Goddess of Wisdom.  Mars shoots first, Pallas asks questions first.  We think of Pallas as Boundaries.  Elizabeth sees her as Discerning Patterns, certainly an important part of Wisdom.

We can draw the hierarchy…

• Neptune Stationing Retrograde as parading army officers
• Pallas Initiating Mars, drilling for oil
• Pallas Squaring Neptune in a crowded marketplace
• Mars Squaring Neptune in a desertified petrified forest
• The Moon Squaring Neptune on the parade ground
• Pallas and Mars Initiating the Moon while drilling for oil

You can see how the simultaneity amps up the Energy, as the interaction terms multiply.

One more ingredient before we knead the dough – what’s Neptune up to in this Station?  Neptune symbolizes the Cultural Unconscious; it’s Neptune Energy that ties a culture, a community, a People, into an ineffable sense of Belonging and Ownership.  Neptune entered the second Dwad of Pisces in early February 2013, just after it Initiated Mars, and just as Chiron was Initiating Mars.  The Chiron-Neptune Cycle should remain high in our Attention, as it symbolizes the New Paradigm that we’re Co-Creating.

Neptune Retrogrades over 6 to 3 degrees of Pisces.  This is the Aries Dwad of Pisces (a Dwad is one twelfth of a Sign, or two and a half degrees).  Pisces is about Unfinished Business.  As the last Sign, it’s not the Oscars, it’s the inevitable letdown at the end of a project, sweeping the floor after the award ceremony.  No lack of respect here – it takes great skill to execute this stage of the Loop gracefully.  The first Dwad of Pisces is about wallowing in it.  Again, no lack of respect – Grief is a legitimate and necessary process, and it does not proceed without first the wallowing.

So the second Dwad, the Aries Dwad, is about conceiving the possibility of Transcendence.  There’s still much hard work ahead, but at this point we get a premonition of our possible destination, the bright Halls that await us once we finish processing our Destiny.  Destiny is Karmic – till we let it go.  Then it evolves into Creativity.  This is the stage when we begin to see what might be possible on the other end of the journey, the stage where we receive Inspiration.  The stage when we allow ourselves to Dream.  In that context, let’s look at the hierarchy again…

• Neptune Stationing Retrograde as parading army officers
• Pallas Initiating Mars, drilling for oil
• Pallas Squaring Neptune in a crowded marketplace
• Mars Squaring Neptune in a desertified petrified forest
• The Moon Squaring Neptune on the parade ground
• Pallas and Mars Initiating the Moon while drilling for oil

So we’re searching for motivation (drilling for oil), beginning to organize (the parading officers), determined to survive and seeking the wisdom of past failures (the petrified forest), and seeking community (the crowded marketplace), as we prepare to review our objectives.  We’ve brainstormed our list and drafted a rough sketch of where we want to be (while Neptune first crossed the Aries Dwad), and now we’re ready (as Neptune Retros over the same territory) to go back over our manifesto and assign priorities, flesh out details, fill in colors, envision strategies, and determine dependencies and timelines.

All conceptual of course, as this is Neptune and this is Pisces, and this is only the second Dwad.  It’s still a Dream.  But we’re beginning to give the Dream enough substance that it can be our template for motivation.  In Pisces our work is Emotional, not engineering, so we’re ruminating more than taking pencil to paper or hammer to nail.  Remember that Emotion is the Glue that molds and holds Matter into Form.  Without Emotional Commitment we Create nothing.  Emotion is the papier-mache that we’re plastering onto the stick-figure outline of our Dream.

We consider and reconsider how we want to develop the details until Neptune goes direct in mid-November, then we polish it and dot the T’s till next March, when we move into the Taurus Dwad and get serious about construction.  But still, this is Pisces.  We’re a long ways from wood and clay.  We’re building our Emotional Vessel, a blueprint not for how it should look when it’s done, but how we want it to feel.  And much of that building is sculpture – we subtract what we don’t want more than adding what we do want.  Negative Emotions, in other words.  So-called Negative Emotions.

Michelangelo didn’t patch David together from gobs of clay, he hewed away the unwanted bits from a block of solid Marble.  That’s the spiritual equivalent of what we generally consider to be “negative” Emotions – Grief, Fear, Shame – and Anger.  Healthy Anger, grounded in Present Time, sets good Boundaries.  Like this example from the Constitution of the State of Montana, quoted from Paul Cienfuegos’s talk on Ending Corporate Rule…

“All political power is vested in and derived from the people.  All government of right originates with the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole.  The people have the exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent state.  They may alter or abolish the Constitution and form of government whenever they deem it necessary.”

Or Arundati Roy…

“The news item was brief and buried in the back pages: ‘India: Maoists Ambush Patrol, Killing 7 Soldiers.  Thousands of people have been killed in the past decade in violence involving Maoists, who claim they represent India’s dispossessed, particularly indigenous tribal groups.’  You may wonder, What’s going on?  Isn’t India a democracy?  In India, the U.S. and other countries the actual functioning of democracy has largely been hollowed out.  Yes, there are elections and people vote but the nexus of decision-making power lies elsewhere.  Corporations dominate the political process.  With their fistful of dollars they are able to exact outcomes that benefit them.  As environmental destruction continues unabated we must reimagine a different world.  One in which people and the planet are more important than profits.”

Michelangelo started with a block of Marble that someone else had already started sculpting, so he had to adapt to sections that were already missing before he began.  So it is with us, as our “Past” Lives and repressed childhoods are as if hewn by someone else, not by our Ego but by the Unconscious.  Much of Pisces is about Soul Retrieval, getting back the parts of ourselves that were stolen by predators, and Soul Return, giving back the parts of others that we adopted as if our own, by Choice or by Programming.

But we aren’t quite done.  The Square from Mars-Pallas to Neptune is one side of a Pythagorean Triangle – a benefic Triangle composed of a Square, a Trine, and a Quincunx.  The Square provides motivation, the Trine Grace, and the Quincunx Curiosity, all complementing one another – you can’t find a better combination.  The third corner of the Triangle is Saturn, at 6 Scorpio.  Saturn, Mr. Pay Attention, will facilitate Pallas’s efforts to bring the Cultural Unconscious into the Present Moment, and into Consciousness.  Very handy.