Nine to One

In my view, that’s what today was all about – moving from July’s Nine on a Scale of One to Ten (where Ten is most challenging) to early August’s One on the same Scale.  Fish are jumping, and the Cotton is high. 

We finished out South Node-Eris adventure early today, and started our Venus-Saturn-Chiron Grand Trine, which lasts till August 3.  The rest of August doesn’t appear to be much worse!

It will be an interesting test to see whether the global traumas we’ve been reading about – Ebola in West Africa, perpetually escalating violence in Gaza, 16-foot swells in the Arctic – will abate with this shift in the Energy.  I haven’t been doing the news much lately, so I don’t know where the famines are.

I haven’t finished looking in all the nooks and crannies, but so far, the rest of August looks pretty benign (or rather, be-one) as well.

Mean Node Wins

Apache Tears – translucent Obsidian – protect the Root Chakra from exterior influences, so you can focus on what’s going on inside your own Field.

* * * * * 

Well, so far, and for me at least, the Mean South Node wins over the True South Node as the meaner of the two.  I didn’t notice much when the True South Node crossed Eris (July 24), but I’m sure feeling South-Nodey now that the Mean South Node is approaching Eris (July 29).  How has it been for you?

I’m feeling a lot more heavy Karmic (been there done that) material now than I was last week.  How about you?

Interesting that both Node-Eris adventures are accompanied by Grand Trines (Big Dumb-Luck Grace), the first by Mercury-Saturn-Chiron July 23-26, and the second by Venus-Saturn-Chiron July 30-August 3.

This last week Miracles of Understanding were available to us.  During this next week Miracles of Forgiveness are about.  That means Miracles of Self-Forgiveness as well as Forgiveness of Others.  Self-forgiveness is a big part of Healing ancient Karma.  Self-Sabotage occurs when we Judge an important part of our True Self, and it has to go underground to survive – which means Guilt and Shame and Instinct-crippling Hesitation.  We won’t even know to look for the positive function in our Self-Sabotage until we find a way to Love the cluster of negative Emotion surrounding it.

The basic issue here is our Patterns of Self-Sabotage.  They could be lit up big and we could be noticing that they’re up and seeing how they work, giving us an opportunity to begin flushing them.  Huzzah!

Self-Sabotage Patterns could also be lit up big and we could be reacting to them as Victims.  These Karmic bundles aren’t simple; if they were we’d have sent them packing Lifetimes ago.  Sometimes we can make progress with analysis, but we’re almost always better off with PIAVA.  Whatever makes you feel like a Victim here, PIAVA to grok how the Energy works, or simply that the Energy moves on.

Whenever Self-Sabotage is lit up, the opportunity for Changing the Pattern is at least as big as the potential for Sabotage.

Another name for Self-Sabotage is Denial.  Be mindful that no one can be clear about anyone else’s Denial.  Believing you know what someone else is Denying is always a Projection.  Turn it around – whenever you’re tempted to use an accusatory You-Statement, back off and reframe it as a Fourth-Step I-Statement. 

If someone else is accusing you of Denial, don’t take it on.  Review it, as there may be useful information embedded in it for you, but remember that they’re talking about themselves, not about you.  Don’t think you know what they’re saying about themselves, however – that would probably end up as just be another accusatory You-Statement.

Of course there are exceptions, mostly around whether or not you or Other asked for an opinion on the issue.  But don’t take it as more than an opinion – Humans are enormously complex, and there really is no window of understanding from one to another.  On very narrow issues it can feel that way, which is great, but don’t confuse that with knowing.  Even if you (or Other) are Psychic and have very useful information in the circumstance, don’t forget that it’s all metaphor.

Then there’s Ego.  It’s such a temptation to want to feel Superior to Other (to compensate for our chronic sense of Inferiority), and the illusion that you know them better than they know themselves is particularly poisonous.  Learn to recognize the sense of Superiority as a symbol for Ego-bloat.  PIAVA to be simultaneously Conscious of your compensating Inferiority.  If you can hold both in your Attention at the same time, or even rapidly switch from one to the other, you can neutralize the dichotomy that traps you out of Balance.

Bits and Bobs

A melange of assorted but related news:

Shift happens (Lilith)…

http://thecarolblog.com/9-signs-energetic-shift-of-women/

We might have to add “Expanding” to our PIAVA list, as this seems to be useful…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuM678WXs0c

So much for the illusion of Security (Ceres and Eris)…

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/23jul_superstorm/

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/186805-the-solar-storm-of-2012-that-almost-sent-us-back-to-a-post-apocalyptic-stone-age

A note on 432Hz (see Hazel)…

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/12/21/heres-why-you-should-convert-your-music-to-432hz/

I’ve only been using woodchips on my garden for a couple of months, and they’re only an inch or two deep in most places, but after similar weather, my water bill is down 20% from last year.  Last week I noticed an African Basil looking half-dead.  Six feet away, another African Basil was looking happy as can be.  They were last watered a few days earlier on the same day by the same sprinkler.  The half-dead Basil was planted in a foot of fabulous organic topsoil with an inch of woodchips on top.  The happy Basil was planted in a foot of woodchips with a quarter-inch of the same topsoil below and around it.

Here’s an idea worth emulating…

http://www.therealfoodchannel.com/videos/farming-1/-urban-farm-generates-6000-lbs-of-food.html

These folks also have their own website…

http://urbanhomestead.org

Enjoy.

Hazel

My friend has completed the sixth in her series of wonderful cinematic odes to the Sacred Trees, on Hazel or Coll.  The Mandalas are spectacular!  For Hazel see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vSQ9sxnwhc

(full-screen recommended!) and for the series see

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgo2TspugaEbsToYRNRalQw

 

Eris and the South Node

For now we see through a glass darkly – a brown Diamond.

Spirit is not bound by the same Limitations as Matter.  Matter is usually viewed in three, four, or eleven dimensions.  Spirit has no such Limits.  Consequently, Matter (which includes our Human costume) always strives to return to the Limitlessness of Spirit.  The Human fascination with explosions is a lame attempt to imitate that striving, by converting Matter back to Energy, which has fewer Limits than Matter.  But Spirit is far more than Energy.  To cite just one example, Spirit has Unlimited access to Time, Space, and Information, on any scale; Energy by comparison is a large active Ruminant in a store full of fine porcelain.

As we’ve said, the Main Event this month is Eris Initiating the South Node, a Cycle that runs about as long as it takes for the Earth to circle the Sun nineteen times.  The main theme of the Cycle that begins this month is “Openness to the influx of Spiritual Energies.”  There are two subthemes – Abundance and Intellectualization.

Abundance means Having Enough to Share, and that Feeling is the Absence of Fear.  We achieve the Absence of Fear by Identifying with Spirit, or with our own Soul, or even with our own Mission.  A few days ago I had the honor of spending an afternoon with Paul Gautschi, touring his gardens.  He can hardly walk, using his rake as a cane.  Yet he’s as Alive as anyone you’d ever meet, filled with Passion.  He’s merged with his Mission, and he knows it’s an important one.

The Main Event occurs at 24 Aries, “Blown inward by the wind, the curtains of an open window take the shape of a Cornucopia.”  The “influx…” interpretation is Rudhyar’s.  Classically in astrology, Air represents mind, while Fire represents Spirit.  Wind, however, is a strong Physical force that is invisible except for its effect on Matter, so it’s a decent symbol for Spirit.  But…

Air and Wind are tricksters – they always involve the danger of intellectualizing into dualities and missing the higher dimensionality of Spirit.  Paul pointed out that there are two Trees in the Jewish/Christian Bible – the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge, the Tree of Life symbolizing a Heart-Centered Life and the Tree of Knowledge a Mind-Centered Life.  If we think of the intellectual as Either/Or and Reality as Both/And, we’d have to think of Spirit as All/Always.

Sharing – Cooperating to achieve a Common Mission – is probably the only thing that can reverse the trend toward the horrible Future you’ve seen in all those movies.  For comparison, the previous nineteen years have been about “The surge of new potentiality after the crisis.” 

The previous Eris-South Node Initiation was in March 1996 at 19 Aries, “A new continent rising out of the ocean.”  The potentiality interpretation, again, is Rudhyar’s.

What “crisis” might we be talking about in the mid-1990s?  Well, for example, the first financial derivative crisis occurred shortly after that Cycle was Initiated.  The 2007-2008 financial crisis was bigger, and the next one, probably due soon, will be much much bigger (since the underlying cause has only been compounded after 2008), but the process began in 1998.  We could find similar examples in Climate Change and other topics.

We’ve listed July 18, 19, 24, and 29 as potential peak Openings of this Portal, as well as the recent Full Moon.  July 20 and 21 are possible as well.

Saturn is Stationary turning Direct on July 20 (2pm PDT) and Uranus is Stationary turning Retrograde on July 21 (8pm PDT).

We’ve chosen July 18 as a prime candidate because the Moon crosses Eris and the South Node that day (2pm PDT), and the Moon is often the trigger that manifests astrological Energies into Matter where their impact can be more easily observed.  Let’s look over that chart.

An artist-astrologer reader has gifted us with lovely pictures of that moment, for which we are very grateful.  Here’s the overall Pattern…

The upward-sloping red line from left to right is the meat of the issue, which we’ve been talking about – Moon Conjunct Eris Conjunct South Node on the lower left, and Mars Conjunct Vesta Conjunct Ceres Conjunct North Node on the upper right.

Let’s break it down, starting with the Square Fez…

Squares: red lines.  Trine: long blue line.  Sextile: short blue line.  Quincunxes: green lines.

A Fez Configuration combines Challenge, Grace, and Curiosity.  Here the Challenges have to do with Dark Places in our Consciousness and the Limitations that Culture Wants to Put on Our Yindependence, on our ability and willingness to Trust our Instincts.

The Dark Places being implied by Juno Squaring Chiron, as Chiron challenges us to invoke Miracles to overcome our Discouragements.  The Limitations derive from Saturn Square Lilith, misinterpreting Saturn’s Energy as Limitation rather than Focus.

The Major Grace involves the gift of Focusing on Miracles.  We get there from our Discouragement by Wondering how we might shift our Focus.  Our Focus is very very Strong here, bordering on the Obsessive, so it’s extra important that we point it in the right direction, and keep bringing it back there when it reverts.  To bring Light into Dark Places, we need to change our Perspective.  But we don’t have the information we need; if we don’t know where the Sun is, we don’t know which Tree we need to fell in order to bring Light into our Garden.  We get the information we need by Wondering – by PIAVA.

That is, resolving Chiron (Discouragement) Square (Challenge) Juno (Consciousness) by moving to Juno Quincunx (Curiosity) Saturn (Focus), which releases Saturn Trine (dumb-luck Grace) Chiron (Miracles).  Saturn is not only Stationary (Strong) but the point of a Yod.

We can Help Ourself overcome our Dark Places by Wondering what small step we might take toward greater Yindependence or Autonomy.

Moving to the Lilith-Juno Sextile (kick-starting Grace by taking the first Action) from the Juno-Chiron Square through the Chiron-Lilith Quincunx.

We get to Big Grace from Hesitation (ie, not Trusting our Instincts – eating from the Tree of Knowledge instead of taking our Sustenance from the Tree of Life) by Asking Source for the Miracle of Self-Respect and Suzerainty over our own Affairs.  We can get things moving by Focusing on what Limits us and Imagining that it’s melting.

Resolving Saturn Square Lilith by moving through Lilith Quincunx Chiron to liberate Chiron Trine Saturn.  Invoking the Juno-Lilith Sextile through the Saturn-Juno Quincunx from the Lilith-Saturn Square.

There’s also a Trine Fez…

This Configuration brings more Effortless Grace into our Hesitation.  It’s invoked by Affirming that we Focus on the Soul’s Intentions.  This is especially important because both our Focus and our Soul are very Strong and Present here.  We’ve mentioned Affirm and Intend, but don’t forget the other letters in PIAVA (Pray, Ask, Visualize), including the “silent” C (Command) and W (Wonder).

We’ve already covered Saturn Square Lilith to Lilith Quincunx Chiron to Chiron Trine Saturn.  What’s new here is resolving Lilith Square Saturn by moving through Saturn Quincunx Uranus to Uranus Trine Lilith.  Both Saturn and Uranus are Stationary.

You can see how important it is to control our Focus – where we put our Attention – because of the Saturn Yod, strengthened doubly by Saturn being Stationary…

Sextile: blue line.  Quincunxes and Yod or Finger of God: green lines.

The Finger of God tells us that the Most Important Thing here is the possible Grace between the Edges of our Consciousness and our Deep Self, the Self beneath all of the Masks we believe we must wear in order to get along in the World.  The available Grace must be invoked by us Intentionally, it’s not automatic.  Most of these Masks we put on in our childhood to avoid punishment from our parents or other significant adults (or other Lords of the Flies).  In a monocultural World where everyone is more or less a clone of our parents and our village or yurt or igloo is so distant from others that we never encounter strangers, those Masks will work fine.

The World is not at all like that any more, and those Masks are failing miserably, and while it might seem like the easy way out, killing all the strangers is not an effective option.

Most of our Masks are below the Edges of our Consciousness.  We know we’re wearing some of them, though, especially the ones we put on to avoid conflict or otherwise manipulate others, as employee or merchant or manager or parent or spouse or gender or any of the other Roles we play in the course of an average day.  Those are the specific-purpose Masks we can put on and take off pretty much at will, though a stiff drink may be required to remove some of them.  It wouldn’t hurt to pay Attention to these Masks, one at a time, and maybe PIAVA to reduce our use of them by five percent. 

We might well be near a crisis point where we can’t afford the luxury of time, but if we can make the process gradual and take small steps, our likelihood of success increases.  Imagine what it would be like to just “be yourself” all the time, and not have to make constant adjustments depending on circumstances and people.  If you’re thinking about revenge for all the Identity compromises you’ve had to make to stay Safe, you’re on the wrong track.  Think instead about having full access to the full range of unique Skills that only you can contribute to solving a problem.  Each of our True Selves and all of our Skills are necessary to pull this Species out of its nosedive.

The Masks that are well below the Edge of our Consciousness are more difficult.  Some of our programming occurred before we were verbal, and it is very difficult to access those programs intellectually.  We may need something like rebirthing sessions with a well-trained facilitator to access and shift those.

Many of our Masks are not personal, but cultural.  If our tribe made its Living by killing animals, or had to fight for survival with the hated baby-eating tribe across the river, killing may be a Mask we don’t feel we can afford to give up.

But be assured that all of our Patterns, no matter how far from the Edge of our Consciousness, have their roots in other Lifetimes.  Which brings us back to the Nodes, and the basic Configuration we’re working with this month…

Nodal Opposition: red line; Quintile and Decile: orange lines.  Chiron forms a Quintile Bridge across the Nodal Opposition, making Chiron our Teacher here.

We’ve been talking a lot about the Stellium (group of planets) on the North Node, but review wouldn’t hurt.  In addition to our long-term 2012-2015 program to find our True Self and the very very long-term Fresh-Violets-in-an-Ancient-Pottery-Bowl New Paradigm that we’ve embarked upon after the 2007-2008 Derivatives Crisis, the Universe is asking us to Actively get our Ducks aligned so

• Our Mission in the Lifetime,
• Our Deepest Desires and thus our Strongest Motivation,
• Our Sense of the Sacred, 
• The ways we Sustain and Feed ourselves, and
• Our Actions

are all on the same page, pointing in the same direction, and Durable.  The other side of Sustainability or Durability is Sustenance – we enhance our ability to maintain by letting go of what is not necessary.

True Self: Uranus Squaring Pluto.  New Paradigm: the Chiron-Neptune Cycle.  The rest: Mars Conjunct Vesta Conjunct Ceres Conjunct the North Node.

This is the counterpoint to the Moon-Eris-South Node Pattern that is making us dig deep into our Psyche and strive to shift our Self-Abandonment Patterns.  Most especially the self-sabotaging Pattern that tells us that our Deepest Desires are Forbidden.  It’s in Code, but your Deepest Desire IS your Mission.  We don’t stand a chance of aligning our Energies for the final Summit push until we address that issue.

You know very well what we’re talking about here.  For the last month or so you’ve been wishing and otherwise casually PIAVAing that your Deepest Desires be fed.  Casual PIAVAs are very dangerous – “Be careful what you ask for because you just might get it” – and the unintended consequences of it!  We need to get serious about exactly what it is we Want – How will we Feel when we get what we believe we Want – and PIAVA just that, without the excess baggage. 

This is a point of incredible Leverage.  Use it!  We are learning to access Miracles.

July Full Moon

The July Perigee Full Moon occurs at half past 4am PDT July 12.  Perigee is the place in an ellipical (oval) orbit where the orbiting body (Moon) is closest to the orbited body (Earth), so a Perigee Full Moon looks a lot bigger and brighter than usual.  This one is a preview for the upcoming Eris-South Node fireworks.

If we relax our usual 3-degree limit for impact, which is quite appropriate here, then the Full Moon makes a Grand Cross with the Nodes – which means South Node-Eris, and North Node-Vesta-Ceres-Mars.  You could make a good case that this Full Moon is more likely to be the peak – or at least one of the peaks – for the whole Revealing Karmic Denial business.

By the way, when I was listing hot dates like July 18 (Moon Conjunct Eris) and July 19 (Eris Stationary Retrograde half a degree shy of the South Node), July 24 (True South Node Conjunct Eris) and July 29 (Mean South Node Conjunct Eris) earlier, I forgot to mention that Saturn is Stationary Direct on July 20, and Uranus is Stationary Retrograde on July 21.  Their Stations Quincunx one another, so…

The more we can approach the rest of July with Curiosity, rather than Dread or Expectation, the better off we’ll be.  In any Ego Death, who we’re becoming is always a Mystery.

One easy keyword for Saturn is Ego, and an easy keyword for Uranus is Soul – so both our Ego and our Soul are stopped cold and looking over their shoulders at one another, wondering WTF? as Eris tosses her Golden Apple into the party.

As usual, Kelley Hunter has a great summary of her perspective of this Full Moon, at

http://heliastar.com/cosmic-news/tidal-shift/

While it’s easy to focus on the Big Action with Eris-South Node, we don’t want to neglect (let alone Deny) the action going on at the North Node, which is about Actively Making our Mission Permanently Sacred. 

Actively Making (Mars – in Mythology Eris’s brother) our Mission (North Node) Permanently (Ceres) Sacred (Vesta).

There is also a Neptune (Spirit) Mjolnir (Epiphany) across the Sun-North Node Stellium Square – we can expect a significant Spiritual intervention to assist us in Affirming our Sacred Commitment to our Mission.  In a way, Neptune at the far Midpoint of one side of a Grand Cross is similar to a Kite – we could call it a Box Kite – which would make Neptune the Grand Ruler of the entire Cross, and of the Full Moon itself.

Remember that while Neptune Creates Confusion around Material Form, it Creates Clarity around the Spiritual Perspective.  Remember also that Confusion is the first stage of Growth.

So we have to consider whatever occurs around Karmic Denial and Self-Sabotage and Revelation, to be clearing the way for that process of Actively Making our Mission Permanently Sacred.  Wouldn’t it be fantastic if Humanity woke up to its Mission!

As always when we’re approaching the Crossroads, Prayers are appropriate.  Taking just one example, like Climate Change, we can PIAVA that Humanity wake up without a World-shattering calamity.  We can extend such PIAVAs to all of the Personal, Cultural, and Global Dysfunctions that we can think of.  It’s a great time to append “Lovingly and Gently” to any PIAVA, and to Pray that we Learn everything we would have learned from a catastrophe, while forgoing the catastrophe.

Personal and Planetary Self-Sabotage

“The Tower will make it clear to you, and so you have now the chance to obliterate blocks to your own self-realisation, regardless of fears of failure, fears of losing what you have, and even fears of being wildly successful.  Get ready to view your life through new eyes.” – http://www.thetarotclub.com/the-tower-xvi

* * * * *

Natacha says,

“For now, it seems to be the disorientation phase, and a really tough one.“

For sure, and it’s likely to get more intense through the end of the month.

The South Node crosses Eris on July 24 (True Node) and July 29 (Mean Node).

Some of the astrological phenomena that we include in the arbitrary category “planets” jiggle, including the Nodes. 

The Moon’s orbit around the Earth does not occupy the same plane as the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.  The North and South Nodes (of the Moon – other bodies have Nodes too, but we’ve only ever discussed the Moon’s Nodes) are the places in the sky where the Moon’s orbit rises above (North or “Ascending” Node) and dips below (South or “Descending” Node) the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. 

Tricky, I know, but the point is that as the Moon and the Earth and the Sun dance together, there’s a wobble or two.  So when you’re talking about the Nodes, there’s either the True Node (which tracks the wobble) or the Mean Node (with the wobble averaged out).  I haven’t studied or researched the difference between the True and Mean Nodes; if someone else has, maybe they can enlighten us.  

The Mean Nodes are always Retrograde.  The True Nodes are usually Retrograde.

We’ll also write more soon about July 19, when Eris is strongest because it’s Stationary, even though its Station is a half-degree shy of the Node.  And about July 18, when the Moon crosses Stationary Eris, the Moon often acting as a trigger to bring Energies into physical Manifestation.

As you by now know, Eris represents the calling out of Denial, and the South Node represents our Karma or self-sabotaging Patterns.

If we’re taking Full Responsibility, nothing ever happens to us, “we” manifest it all.  Just exactly who this “we” is, is the problem for most of us.  When something occurs that we don’t like, if we want to take Full Responsibility, we have to ask who in our Unconscious menagerie called that forth.  Then we have to figure out how to get to Know and Love them.  This can be a daunting process, especially if we’re dealing with a serious disease, nasty crime, or other major trauma. 

This may not be the path everyone needs to walk.  Victims of disease or crime or trauma often feel like this is a “Blame the Victim” game.  In fact, it’s a “get out of Blame” game, but Blame is a conceptual Universe unto itself, and it cannot be escaped by Logic or Plan-Execute.  It requires a PIAVA, and before we can get to that, we need motivation.  Often some sort of Miracle is necessary.  Responsibility – the Ability to Respond – lies outside of the Blame Universe.

If we are motivated to take Full Responsibility, or even to just take More Responsibility, the process is well mapped out in Fritz Perls’s Gestalt Psychology. 

As you might recall, one of the events that occurred at the End of Time in 2012, was the retirement of Gaia, who moved on to other pursuits, and the ascension of Pi, the Goddess who took Gaia’s place as Governess of our Planet.  Responsibility is part of Pi’s Prime Directive.

Denial is a healthy process.  It protects the Ego from overwhelm, and the Ego is in charge of keeping us Safe.  Denial, however, can become ossified, and ossification is Karma.  The minor planet Eris is about opening the box where our Denial is kept.

We all have self-sabotaging Patterns – unsavory portions of our Karma.  We’re Victims of those Patterns, we believe they originate outside ourSelf.  Otherwise we’d recognize them, bring their positive motivation into Consciousness, and integrate them with the rest of ourself, eliminating the sabotage.  In astrology, self-sabotage is often represented by the South Node.

Well, in July, Eris meets the South Node – Denial meets Responsibility.  If we’re very lucky, we’ll be able to transcend Blame and wipe out big chunks of negative Karma.  We’ll talk more about it all, but Big Days will include July 18, 19, 24, and 29.  This isn’t new; we’ve been working toward it since at least the beginning of June.  It starts getting really intense about now.

The South Node is the faster-moving “planet” here; it entered three-degree sensitivity to Eris in early June, and it enters one-degree sensitivity around July 10.  One-degree sensitivity to the July 19 Eris Station began in March.  The Eris-South Node Cycle Initiates at 24 Aries, “Blown open by the wind, the curtains of an open window take the shape of a cornucopia: Openness to the influx of spiritual energies.”

So the critical thing we need to be on the lookout for, is any event or process that we’d usually consider to be negative.  Then we need to PIAVA that we discover the positive function of the part of the Unconscious that wanted to manifest the negative event or process. 

You don’t need to accept the premise that We Are All One, or As Without So Within.  But building up our Reality from principles found in the “perennial wisdom” (the portions of thought that are common to long-enduring esoteric philosophies and religions) works a lot better than using a foundation of principles found in faddish philosophies like Science or any of the modern religions.

If you do want to accept the premise that We Are All One, or As Without So Within, then that Energy we’ve been externalizing is part of our own Unconscious.  And if it sabotages us, then we can explore it and Love it into submission, so it becomes the ally of the larger Ego and Consciousness that we become after Opening ourself to the Energy.  What was before sabotaging us, becomes Power in our own scabbard.

This will be applying on the Personal level for each of us, and on the Cultural and Global levels.  What are the biggest areas of Global Denial and self-sabotage?  Probably Climate Change, the Illusion that Economics serves us, the notion that War is necessary and honorable, Patriarchy.  The biggest areas of Cultural Denial (ie, relevant to specific regions or countries) could be around the role of Government and who runs it for their own benefit, or the distribution of Power. 

Or we can just watch the headlines for the next several weeks, if we have any Attention left over after dealing with our own Personal issues as they arise.

But if You Try Sometime

Our questioner responds,

“So when you write: ‘That’s why it’s so important to PIAVA not what we Want, but the way we’ll feel when we get what we Want,’ I note you did not write in the conditional, i.e., ‘the way we would feel if we got what (we thought) we wanted.’

“And as when you refer to Both/And, are you implying that we can have our cake and it eat too IF we get it?  In other words, once (and I realize this is not happening in linear time) we get that what we really want = our mission, we can still have that fulfilling relationship or some fun toys or world travel, because we won’t be so intense about it and it will just be something fun that we manifest?  Or does bypassing the Siren mean we can’t have what we think we want because it’s not what we really want, which is our Mission? 

“I guess I’m saying, I’m intrigued by my Mission but would still like to get properly laid in the process, as Louise said to Thelma in the eponymous movie…!”

The Universe is fractal.  That means it repeats itself at different scales.  So once you transcend your current Ego, the Patterns that your reborn Ego will enjoy and rue, will rhyme with the Patterns that your current Ego enjoys and rues.  But it’s as if you hired a Walk-In; your current You doesn’t know what parts of itself will carry over, and how they’ll be Changed.  You don’t know which parts will be in Iambic Pentameter, which in Free Verse, and which Widdershins.

In other words, the more you focus on the content of your current Dreams and Wishes, the more you cast your current Ego in concrete.  Karma is just inertia – the more you practice a given Pattern, the more entrenched it becomes.  On one level, when we long for what we haven’t Manifested, what we’re doing is establishing a Karmic Pattern of Want or Lack.  We might be better off focusing on our Gratitude for whatever approximation of our Deep Desire’s content that we do Manifest.  At least then we’d be establishing a Pattern of Abundance.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether we choose to pursue the candies our current Ego craves, or strive to escape the treadmill that it turns.  Mostly it depends on whether we ever get unhappy enough to PIAVA, perhaps inadvertently or in a moment of pique, that “I’d rather die than go through that again!” (again, that’s “I’D rather die” – Ego Death – not “I’d rather DIE“).

Our current Ego’s cravings are seldom current-moment.  If they were current-moment we’d just go out and use our adult skills to Manifest them, or some approximation of them.  Our cravings are almost always from a prior era, in the current Lifetime or others.  Like any other element of Recovery, when we go back and pick up that thread to weave it into our tapestry, we have to recognize it’s lesser age and nurture it bravely but gently into the present moment.

In addition, if we’ve been craving something that we’re having difficulty Manifesting, it’s almost always because some other, probably less-Conscious, part of ourself doesn’t think it’s such a great thing to have.  In your Expectations, if you’re brutally honest with yourself, what sort of baggage do you expect will come along with “getting properly laid”?  You can use Gestalt Psychology techniques to identify the positive function (Safety?  Independence?  Wholeness?) of that nay-sayer and negotiate win-win with them. 

Then you could certainly have your cake and eat it too, or at least bread.  It could be the “nay-sayer” portion of your Desire Body that carries your Mission, and the waving, brightly-colored “properly laid” flag may just be an effort to get you to notice the nay-sayer, by reflection!  The important part is to keep it a Mystery.  If we believe we understand, we’re in our dualistic mind.  The Heart is where we want to be.

Discouragement and Expectation

Those cute little Angel Wings are crystalline Wollastonite, a Calcium silicate.  Wollastonite links the First and Seventh Chakras, connecting us simultaneously to Spirit and Earth so we can “walk the Spiritual Path with Practical Feet” as Angie Arrien likes to say.

* * * * *

A reader writes…

“Could you please explain what you mean by:

” ‘It takes perseverance to stay alert and navigate through that narrow space between Discouragement and Expectation, and patiently and lovingly keep bringing ourselves back to Curiosity and Wonder, over and over again.‘

 

“Do you mean positive expectation or negative expectation?  Can you give an example of how one might be discouraged and at the same time expectant?  This feels important.”

You bet.  I meant positive Expectation, but certainly negative Expectation would be a problem as well.

The mind will naturally try to paint pictures to illustrate why we might be feeling Discouragement or Despair.  We need to recognize this, and prepare ourselves to keep fishing ourselves out of that fen over and over again.  Hence the need for perseverance.  If we have a cynical streak, we can easily add negative Expectations. 

But suppose we succeed!  Suppose we pop out of our dark well into the Light.  Our Deepest Desires speak to us in a language we understand.  Let’s take our Heiros Gamos for example, the Inner Marriage of our Inner Male and Inner Female.  When we aren’t in full Conscious contact with one of them, we’ll project them onto Other (ie, Not-Self), and in that case we’ll believe that in order to get our Needs met, someone else must provide them. 

So we might pop out of our dark well and think, “Oh!  I can have a Miracle!  My White Night/Fairy Princess will come save me after all!”  That’s the sort of (positive) Expectation I originally meant.  Or, let’s say it’s not Inner Union but Abundance that has avoided us most of our lives.  Then we might pop out of our dark well and start Fantasizing about that job where they pay us enough to buy the toys we’ve always wanted, and give us constant Approval, just for being ourself.

If that Fantasy would have worked for us, we would have Manifested Abundance long ago.  Abundance means having enough to Share, not having what we Want all the time.  So that Fantasy of having all of those toys is the sort of Expectation that I meant.  Our Deepest Desires are passed up from the level of our Soul in code that is intelligible to our current state of Consciousness.  Our Mission might be Community, but the code we understand is toys, because that’s what we believe we’ll get when we’re accepted into Community.

So “navigating through that narrow space between Discouragement and Expectation” means on the one hand becoming Conscious of when we’re in Discouragement or Despair so we don’t need to attach to the content of our Discouraging thoughts and feelings, and on the other hand not being seduced by the Form that our Hungry Ghost has pasted over the front of our Mission.

That’s why it’s so important to PIAVA not what we Want, but the way we’ll feel when we get what we Want.

That feeling quality is True to our Mission and Deepest Desire.  We all have an icon tacked on to that feeling quality, some thing that we believe will bring us closer to our Goal.  A False God so to speak.  A normal Egoic journey is to manifest that thing, enjoy it for a while till we realize how empty it is, then endure an Ego Death, then graduate to the next thing that will redeem us – “Wer immer strebend sich bemüht, den wollen wir erlösen” as Goethe put it.  Or “Follow your Joy” in Joseph Campbell’s words.

That Hero’s Journey works, it’s just very painful during the Ego Deaths, and never quite satisfying during the Quests.  So, we know the Despair side, and we well know the Striving side of our Wormhole to the Soul.  We don’t know the Wormhole because it’s an Unknown.  It’s a shift of Consciousness to a new plane.  We might recognize it when we get there, but our current Ego doesn’t know that territory. 

There is an Angel willing and able to guide us through, and that Angel is the feeling quality that we get when we Fantasize having our Deepest Desires met.  Let go of the Desires – Expectations – and Focus on the feeling quality.  That half of the equation is as important as learning to quickly recognize and neutralize the Despair.  Remember, Despair includes Unconscious Despair, or the belief that getting our Desire met is not physically possible.

7.6-7.11 – Busy Week

 Diamond Consciousness.

* * * * *

” ‘When I worked for other people, I tried to fit in,’ Sando says, ‘When I gave up everything and said I’m only going to make myself happy, that’s when everyone came on board.’ “

–“The Bean Tracker: Steve Sando and the Quest for Heirloom Beans,” by Nancy Matsumoto, in Organic Gardening, Aug/Sept 2014, p.35.

* * * * *

Busy week.  Earlier we tagged it

“Boundaries which have been difficult may fall into place“

But it turns out to be a lot more than that.

The Boundaries business was “Sun-Saturn-Chiron Grand Trine with Pallas Opposite Chiron, making a Kite focused on Pallas,” aka…

There’s also a Tricolor – Sun Square Uranus Quincunx Saturn Trine Sun…These are drawn for July 7, as the Moon crosses Saturn, but the Moon will be there only briefly.  Using three degrees of Sensitivity, these Configurations with the Sun are in effect for six days.  We can translate the Tricolor as…

When you feel the ground slipping out from under you, shift your Attention to Wondering about who you’re about to become.  Later you can grieve the loss of who you used to be.

And a new kind of Fez, which we’ll have to call a Sextile Fez…

The Square Fez has Squares along the non-parallel sides, a Trine along the bottom, and a Sextile across the top.  The Trine Fez has Trines along the sides, a Square at the botom, and a Semisextile across the top.  The Sextile Fez has Sextiles along the non-parallel sides, a Quincunx across the bottom, and a Square across the top. 

In all of these, the Squares provide the Energy, Motivation, and Challenge, while the crossed Quincunxes in the center provide the keys to Resolution.  Notice that this Fez has an extra Quincunx, making two Yods pointing at the bottom corners. 

The Yods say Pay Attention! to the bottom corners, Saturn (Focus on The Most Important Thing) and Uranus (Who You Really Are when you drop your Masks).

And the Venus-Pallas Square advises that we can set Boundaries sweetly to make space for our own priorities.  Being a Square, it also suggests that our Nice programming might be an impediment to same.

When faced with the Choice of trusting our Nice habits or trusting the Expression of our True Self, we gain most by Wondering where we can most effectively Focus our Attention – which is likely to be somewhere totally unexpected.  We don’t Decide, we Wonder who will respond and how they’ll handle it.  We don’t know our New Self until we meet them.  If our Old Self makes decisions about it, we’ll never meet our New Self.

There’s also a Venus T-Square, as Chiron is Opposed by Pallas.  The T-Square is Bridged by Saturn…

Watch carefully for Discouragement or Impossibility.  Miracles are available if you let go of trying and Wonder how the Universe will meet your needs.  Discouragement or the sense that that what you Want is not Possible are cues that tell you you’re on the Edge of a Miracle.  All you need to do is shift to Wonder.  “If that WAS possible, I wonder how it would evolve!?!”

Notice that Saturn’s involved – and on July 7 Moon-Saturn – in all of the Configurations above…

The Most Important Thing we can do is shift our Attention from what is NOT working, to Wondering what it might look like if it WAS working.  It’s not something we can Plan and Execute – our current Self doesn’t believe it’s Possible.  But we can Dream.  By eschewing both Discouragement and Expectation and sticking with Curiosity, we can find the narrow wormhole that will take us to a new Self where anything is Possible.  It takes perseverance to stay alert and navigate through that narrow space between Discouragement and Expectation, and patiently and lovingly keep bringing ourselves back to Curiosity and Wonder, over and over again.

If we put all those Configurations together, we get this Knot…

Count the Angles (colored lines) emanating from each point.  Saturn and Pallas have five, all the others have four…

We encounter our New, True, Self by Focusing our Attention on the Boundary between who we’ve been and who we’re becoming.  We want to support our New Self whenever possible, but how will we recognize Her to support Her?  We can’t.  We just have to keep supporting our Curiosity about how She’ll evolve and how we’ll meet Her.

We can’t ignore the Stellium that we’ve been working with, and that will continue to work us over for a while yet.  How does it relate to the Knot above?  Through Biquintiles and Deciles…

The Pallas-Chiron Opposition makes a Biquintile Bridge across the Nodal axis.

The Decile is a Tenth-Harmonic Angle.  It represents Fortune.  It’s in the Fifth-Harmonic family, so we know it’s Learned, rather than inherited. 

We “Choose” the quality of our Good Fortune or Misfortune by Taking Responsibility for it.  Responsibility is not Blame, it’s The Ability and Willingness to Respond rather than React.

Through Learning what evolves when we Wonder about how our New Self will emerge, we move into our Mission.  From there we can watch “everyone come on board.”

Earlier in the day on July 7 (several hours around 10am PDT), the Moon makes a second Sextile Fez by Squaring Lilith, Sextiling Pluto, and Quincunxing Juno.

July 7 is a critical day, when deep urges arise that may seem foreign to us.  Trust yourself to follow them, as they will reveal Treasures.