Maelstrom – this is Real Time
Here’s a fascinating perspective on dis-ease and Ego Death…
“Dr. Kim” is an emergency room physician. Her book (see link above) is great. I haven’t taken her workshops or coaching programs, but I have no doubt that they’re fantastic. Click on “BLOG” on her website (link above) for more Powerful, quick Life-Changers.
Roots
This will take an hour out of your Young Life, but it will also save the Planet and yourself. It’s Joseph Mercola interviewing soil scientist Ray Archuleta…
Here’s the website Dr. Archuleta refers to…
http://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/main/national/soils/health/
And here’s a lot more very usable information, on Dr. Mercola’s web page about his interview with Dr. Archuleta…
If you’re planning to Ascend purely to save your own ass, Rapture-style, you needn’t bother with any of this. But even if you’re planning to Ascend and you also care at all about Mother Earth, this is the Bottom Line, where the Seed meets the Dirt. If you kind of like it here, then this is The Most Important Thing you’ll ever do. Let me know if you want more resources; I have tons.
Tumbled samples of the Mineral Jet, also known as Coal. Isn’t Coal the ultimate in Manifestation? A reminder that the road to Joy runs through Gratitude.
Ω Ω Ω Ω Ω
We’ve postulated that we’re being Ordered by the Galactic Command Center to Grieve the Loss of Unearned Privilege, or better yet, to celebrate the Loss as the Initiation of a Vision Quest to Retrieve an orphaned portion of our True Selves. And we’re also being Asked to Take Full Responsibility to be Loving with the parts of ourself which we previously rejected as unfit for polite company. Not Blame – which looks backwards to attempt to Understand Causes, but Responsibility – which looks forward to attempt to improve Outcomes. Bear in mind that Ego Death, while it Feels like “I am dying,” it’s actually “I am dying,” to make room for an Expanded sense of Identity.
We’re gifted with enormous Grace here, but we’re also given an assignment, to be Courageously Loving with ourself as we work through whatever “I’d-rather-die-than-go-through-that-again” Karma we come up against. If we could just Grow the Ego without pain, we probably would have done it a long time ago. But we have Limiting Beliefs, Beliefs that the World is a certain way, and that certain avenues are Verboten to us. If those Limits are still Painful to us, we’re better off than if we’ve accepted those Limits as “just the way thing are.” If they’re still Painful, we can Empathize with our Self in the Pain, and break through surprisingly easily.
“You poor Sweetheart, you’re really in Pain here, aren’t you,” we say to ourself. That immediately shifts our Identity, and we no longer are the Pain, we’re Witnessing the Pain. As Mother Teresa so skillfully demonstrated for us, we can Compassionately Witness Anything, no matter how horrible. We don’t need to go to the slums or prison camps to Practice what Mother Teresa was Teaching us by example, we just need to be Compassionate with ourself when we’re in great Pain. Karmically, after all, much of our great Pain was developed in slums and prison camps and their equivalents.
It’s part of the program that we forget that we came here to Heal the Pain, not to indulge it. We first Identify with it, in order to Embrace it completely when we do Heal it. Once we Embrace it completely, we retire it, and afterwards there is less Pain in the World. Our role on the planet is to be vacuum cleaners of Pain.
I’m not projecting that early September will be a time of great Pain, though as always, for some it will be. What I’m suggesting is that if it is a time of great Pain for you, Witnessing your Pain will begin the process of Healing and Integration.
We’ve chosen September 5 (6pm PDT, http://www.jbuss.com/tt/pdt18.htm ) as the poster child for the early-September Stellium of Stations, because at that time the Moon Conjoins the dwarf planet Chaos (Unlimited Potential, not Disorder), which Opposes the Stellium. The Moon is often the trigger for bringing Energy into Form, as Manifestation into Matter is one of the major functions of Lunar Energy. The prominence of Chaos opens the door to Unlimited Transformation. The Stations themselves fan out like this…
As we’ve said, the Venus Station is Trioctile (Compassionate Adjustment) to the Hylonome, Pholus, and Quaoar Stations, and to the Galactic Center.
The Grace arises primarily from a Grand Trine formed by the Stellium, Mars, and the approaching Uranus-Eris Conjunction. While Uranus-Eris won’t hatch until next June, it involves the Soul (Uranus) demanding that we Reveal to ourself some major elements of the Self, which we’ve been Denying (Eris), while Mars (who was after all Eris’s brother) means War if we don’t oblige. Denial, recall, is a healthy psychological function, allowing us to focus in situations where we’d otherwise be overwhelmed. But Denial has an ending date stamped on it, and it’s coming up.
While the Stellium Stations span 4 through 9 September, we can reasonably expect that we’ll experience them most strongly starting a week prior – that is, now. Once we get past 9 September, this Energy should drop off fairly rapidly, unless we’ve tried to Understand, made Decisions, and cemented the Energy into Form.
More Grace arises from the dwarf planet Haumea, which turns the Grand Trine into a Kite focused on Haumea, promising Rebirth if we navigate the shoals efficiently. We’ve dealt with this Kite before, when Jupiter sat in the position that Mars now occupies. Conveniently, Mars will fill this corner of the Grand Trine and Kite from 4 September till 12 September.
The implication is that we may be Feeling the Sturm und Drang of the Stations for the next several days without the Grace, which may not kick in until 4 September. If we’ve already personalized the Pain by then, we may not even be able to Notice the Grace.
The dwarf planet Chaos makes a second Kite with the Grand Trine, adding yet more Grace and the promise of Unlimited Growth. When a Grand Trine is supplemented by two Kites, it forms five out of six points of an enormously beneficial Grand Sextile, making the Vacancy at the sixth point arguably the most important point in the chart. As a Vacancy, it’s up to us to provide that Energy to complete the Grand Sextile. A Sextile, recall, promises Grace, but only after we take the first step toward What We Want. The Vacancy is 21 Aquarius, “A disappointed and disillusioned woman courageously faces a seemingly empty life.“
Hence the threat of Pain, and the importance that we provide the Courageous Response to it. If we’ve resigned ourself to Believing that our Limiting Beliefs are facts about the external World, then we will have to break through that mental fog before we can deal with the Pain – hence it might actually be easier if we’re experiencing Pain.
We know exactly how to deal with disappointment and disillusionment, don’t we. We usually use the words Discouragement and Despair instead, but we’re obviously talking about Chiron here, and how Chiron transforms Despair into Miracles by opening our eyes to new Perspectives which make the “problems” we’re Despairing about simply disappear. If we ignore for a moment the environmental disasters that fracking can create, for instance, fracking is a Chironean response to the “problems” of Peak Oil – suddenly and unexpectedly we’re awash in cheap oil (making Global Warming even easier to Deny).
We convert Chironean Despair to Chironean Miracles by none other than Empathizing with our Despair. “You poor Sweetheart, are you feeling like life will be empty now?” That simple shift of our Identity, from Victim to Witness, opens us to new Perspectives.
So how does Chiron fit into this chart? Chiron is at the far midpoint between Mars and Haumea – at the focus of a Finger of God, meaning nothing less than Pay Attention to Chiron, Devote all of your Attention to where Despair resides in your Body, Lovingly.
The Stellium of Stations also Squares the Nodes, meaning that it may trigger our “Worst Fears” (South Node) and prompt us to move toward our Mission (North Node). We’re aided by dwarf planet Makemake (Manifestation) and the Triple Initiation it’s making with Lilith and the North Node. The suggestion is that Yindependence and Creating the Feminine Way (PIAVA – https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/manifestation/piava/ ) will promote our Mission.
Saturn makes a Trine-Sextile Bridge across the T-Square from the last Degree of Scorpio. This tells us that The Most Important Thing is moving through our Worst Fears. Sagittarius is about Letting Go, and Chiron about Embracing, but Scorpio is about Getting to the Bottom of Things – Fearlessly. This makes Saturn Unx to the Stellium, the Angle of Pattern-Breaking. In other words…
The Most Important Thing here is Breaking the Patterns that Limit us.
While the Galactic Center is Sun to our Sun, as our entire Solar System rotates around the Galactic Center, there is an even greater Command Central named the Great Attractor (GA). The Great Attractor is sucking the Milky Way and all of our neighbor galaxies toward it. It’s at the Midpoint of Sagittarius, and Pallas currently Conjoins it. Sagittarius is a very busy place. Sagittarius symbolized Mutable Fire, or Letting Go and Moving On. Pallas is about Tightening and Loosening Boundaries – another clue about how to frack our Limiting Beliefs. Whom do we Judge? Whom do we allow to “get away” with more than is appropriate, and how do we really Feel about that? Locating those Feelings in our Body and Surrendering into the Feeling could be a productive way to expose hidden Limitations that are ripe for Expansion.
So in order to Let Go of our Limiting Beliefs, we need first to Surrender to the Pain that lies under them. What was it that caused us to make the Decision to cut off that avenue of Possibility? We probably don’t realize that it was “us” that made the Decision, because we’ve walled off that portion of our Identity – and the Decision may not have been made in our current Lifetime.
This is not an easy task. It might be easier to approach it through our Limits. Go to the barricades, wherever they are…
- “How could anyone Love me?”
- “I’ll never have enough money to do that.”
- “Cancer is terrifying.”
- “We’ll never make it out of here Alive!”
- “Humans are too self-centered to Cooperate – famine, pestilence, and war are inevitable.”
- “I’d rather Die than go through that again!”
- “No one will ever Understand me.”
Sit down on the barricade. What does it Feel like? Where in your Body? If you’ve resigned yourself to Limited Possibility, you won’t Feel much, because you’ve long since stuccoed it over. You may have to skip the next step and go directly to step 2 below.
1. If you can Feel your Block as a discrete place in your Body, put all of your Attention into the center of the Feeling. There’s usually a bubble of Fear around Deep Pain. Move your Attention into the bubble. It’ll feel spongy and foggy. Just sit with it. We have a week before the Stations begin, so we have plenty of time. We don’t need to do it all at once, just come back to it frequently, and give it five or ten minutes whenever you can. Keep an even pressure on your Attention-probe in the bubble; eventually the bubble will yield to your Courage. When you get into the center of the Pain or Block it’ll Feel very different, solid, with clear Edges.
Once you get there, just hold your Attention there, until the Pain yields. It will dissolve. When the Pain moves, you’ve succeeded. You can follow it if you want, but it will probably just get boring.
2. Now, take a couple of steps past the barricade. Imagine…
Stay there for a few minutes. Look around. Any Big Feelings come up? If it’s Fear or Anger or Grief or Anxiety, go back to step 1 and work with it.
If you don’t have negative Feelings, Congratulations! Step 3 will be exploring your Dream further, and Step 4 will be taking a Small Action to move toward it. You probably won’t be able to take a Big Action without triggering your Impossibility Feelings (in which case you can take it back to step 1), but a Small Action is all you need, it’s just a Conscious Commitment to assure the Unconscious that you’re on board.
A Caveat. Your most crippling Limiting Beliefs wall off your Deepest Desires. You’ve been indulging Fantasies about achieving your Deepest Desires all your Life, and Fantasies are designed to be impossible. Fantasies involve mechanism – How it will happen…
Mechanism is the Masculine approach to Creating, and it works great for specific tasks, but you’re nowhere near the stage where you divide your project up into specific tasks. If you get stuck on Mechanism now, you’ll stop the process. You don’t Consciously know how to get from where you are now to where you’d like to be. The Unconscious does know, so you’ll need to use PIAVA techniques to move forward. For now you want to spend as much time as you can afford enjoying already Being There, past all the roadblocks and Impossibilities and imagined Mechanisms. Just bask in it, till that Feeling of Bliss dominates your Life.
Opal comes in many forms, and is useful for many purposes, including Soul Retrieval. Opal is just Quartz with a bit of Water included in the Crystal Structure. It’s the reflection off the Water molecules that creates the “Fire” or Dance of Colors in Opal. This is an Oregon or Jelly Opal.
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After dwarf planet Sedna turned Retrograde today, it took three and a half hours for Wall Street to realize that the Fear had subsided and they could buy again. Sedna’s a newcomer, so nobody knows a lot about it, but I interpret it as Actions taken out of Fear, and that’s certainly what Wall Street’s been doing for the last several days. When a planet is slowing to a stop, in this case turning Retrograde (backward in the sky), we feel the planet’s effect very strongly while it’s slowing down. Then once it stops and starts moving again in the opposite direction, the impact usually diminishes quickly.
The exception is when we personalize the Energy, and make Decisions based on it. For instance, if we attributed the Fear around Sedna’s Station to economics, we might make a Decision to get out while we can. Then we’ll be selling into any Recovery the market makes. In that case, the impact of Sedna’s Station could linger long after the event. It remains to be seen whether this is the first body blow of the Monster Depression that the bears have been predicting for years. Economists are well know for predicting twenty of the last twelve Recessions. But as corrections go it’s pretty routine – sure, it was 1,000 points, but that’s only six percent, and a correction of that size is long overdue.
Which doesn’t diminish the fact that we’re in uncharted territory, where derivatives (which are gambles about bets on wagers) could turn a 1,000-point decline into 10,000 points overnight if the wrong bull was gored. And that yes, a Monster Depression is likely sometime between now and 2020, which is why we’ve been advising alternative approaches to Survival for many years as part of our Perspective on the Chiron-Neptune Cycle – growing your own food, exploring small-scale entrepreneurship with things like the Maker Movement, finding our Tribe, working toward Sustainability in any way we can.
Chiron is the poster child for a group of dwarf planets that we want to talk about today, the “Centaurs,” so named because they appear to be half asteroid and half comet, like the Centaurs of Greek fame that were half horse and half Huper. The astro-Centaurs orbit between Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – that is, between the Will, the Individual Unconscious, and the Cultural Unconscious, or between the Ego, the Individual Soul, and the Group Soul. As such they deal with Emotions that are on the Edges of our Consciousness. For instance…
The Centaurs represent Challenges, Challenges that we meet by Expanding our Consciousness to include Awareness of these Emotional issues which often blind-side us till we Learn to include them in our Emotional repertoire. One of the characteristics of Centaurs is that their orbits are unstable; they could get a wild hair and fly out of here in any given millenium.
The other group of dwarf planets that we want to talk about today are “Plutoids” – asteroids that orbit in the neighborhood of Pluto. There’s a big shift between Neptune and Pluto. Neptune is the last of the four “Gas Giants” – huge planets that are mostly Gas, too small but otherwise Star-like – along with Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter. Beyond Neptune we find only small iceballs like Pluto. Because it’s so large, Neptune’s gravity exerts a big impact on the orbits of many Plutoids.
Pluto is generally associated with the “Universal” Unconscious, or the Zeitgeist, the flow of Time. As such, it’s about Transformation – or Trance Reformation, as the Zeitgeist evolves or devolves – and about the things we pretty much must do or not do, if we don’t want to end up on a siding in the flow of Time. While the Centaurs work on the Edges of Consciousness, the Plutoids work, for most people, beyond the Edges of Consciousness. So we don’t normally see the Plutoids as within our Span of Control. Of course it’s As-Without-So-Within and We-Are-All-One (including all the Entities that we don’t routinely personify), so the Edges of our Span of Control are really only the Edges of our Consciousness.
Some of the Plutoids include…
Sedna is an outlier here; Pluto and all of the others orbit between 30 and 100 times as far from the Sun as is Earth, while Sedna’s orbit ranges between 76 and 936 times as far from the Sun as we are. For reference, Jupiter is at about five times, Saturn 10, Uranus 20, and Neptune 30 times.
All of which is background for early September, because between 4 September and 9 September, Ixion, Chariklo, Pholus, Hylonome, and Quaoar are all Stationary – and all more or less in the same place. Astrologers call it a “Stellium” when three or more planets convene in the same Zodiacal place, but here we have a Stellium of five, all Stationary at the same time. During a Station, as we said at the beginning, the impact of a planet is greatly exaggerated. And during a Stellium, the Energies of the Conjoined planets are combined, which creates Energies we aren’t used to.
For instance, we’re well acquainted with the Energy of Assertion, Mars, and the Energy of Receptivity, Venus. But now that they’re Conjoined (as they are on 31 August, with the Energy felt most strongly for the several days prior), do we know what to do with Assertive Receptivity or Receptive Assertiveness? “Go screw yourself” is a common insult, but we don’t usually mean it literally. If you “accused” most people of Androgyny, they’re likely to give you a similar insult. Yet achieving Androgyny, where our Receptivity and our Assertiveness are Balanced, is a Mission of the Soul. Would you recognize it if you saw it? And if so, would you admire it? Can you imagine how it might Feel to be Androgynous? And this is only two planets.
In our 4-9 September Stellium we’re dealing with five dwarf planets being Strong at the same time, all of which have impacts much more subtle than Assertiveness and Receptivity. And by the way, Venus is also Stationary during this period, and while it’s not in the same place, it’s in a Harmonic location to the Stellium.
Venus is Trioctile to the Stellium, indicating that the Stellium of Stations will be inspiring us to evolve our Values.
In addition, the Stellium is Stationary very close to the Galactic Center. This means that as these subtle Unconscious Energies combine they will be Channeling a message – Instructions – to the Unconscious from the Galactic Command Post. So we can Expect to see a shift – a Major Shift, whether too subtle to Notice or not – in the Consciousness of the Planet. What sort of Shift? While since it’s Unconscious it’s not for us to know in any detail, yet if we can get an idea of what to look for, we can in a general way Witness it and Grow our Consciousness.
There are many other related Planets in the early-September chart; we’ll discuss their role as we go on. But for now, let’s focus on trying to imagine how the Energies of the five dwarf planets in the Stellium might combine.
While the Stellium combines all five planets, two are close together but separated by a few Degrees from the other three, which are also close together. So we can start by looking at the Pair and the Triad, then trying to tie them together.
The Pair is Pholus and Ixion. We’ve talked about these two before, as they’ve been traveling together for a while. Ixion is Uncontrolled Desire, Pholus Full Responsibility for the consequences of our commissions and omissions. So this combination seems to be about Taking Full Responsibility for our Deepest Desires. Our religious training would suggest that we interpret that as Taking Full Responsibility for controlling our Deepest Desires.
But since the astrology we practice is about Healing and Integrating, we interpret it as Taking Full Responsibility for allowing and welcoming our Deepest Desires. To the extent that they’ve been repressed (which we can assume – if you already Love your Deepest Desires, this is an opportunity for you to go Deeper), there will likely be some personal and social discomfort involved at first, as we experiment with how to let them out of their cages.
The Triad is composed of Quaoar, Chariklo, and Hylonome, and this Triad sits astride the Galactic Center, so forms the core of our Instructions.
Chariklo symbolizes Beauty and Grace, and Humans are wont to give deference to Beauty and Grace – hence Chariklo has the flavor of unearned Privilege. Of course Beauty and Grace can be Learned and so may carry a price and Feel earned. Yet to Grow our Consciousness we may be Asked to Notice that we give deference to Beauty and Grace in situations where it may not be in our own best interests. He turns the notions of Beauty and Grace upside down (but so what – astrology is about dimensions, not directions on the dimension), but we can’t help but wonder if The Donald (Trump, that is) isn’t personifying this Energy. If that hunch is true, then we should expect to be hearing a lot less about him by mid-September.
Hylonome was a female Centaur who immediately committed suicide with the lance that killed her lover. So we have the concepts of Unbearable Grief, but even more important, the concept of Identification with Other to the point that the Self is virtually non-existent. The implication is that we all have elements of our Identity that are Other-based. Just as Fundamentalism is the process of Believing that your metaphors are literally true, Codependence is the process of Believing that your Mirrors are You. We often admire what we don’t have permission to Be in ourself. So while Grieving the Loss of our Identity is an Ego Death with all of the Soul-searing pain that involves, it’s actually a Soul Retrieval, as we are forced to give up Codependence and substitute a previously orphaned portion of our True Self. Let’s hope this doesn’t involve the demise of a beloved World Hero or Heroine, if we have any left.
As with other processes of Growth in Consciousness and Spiritual Growth, we’re Asked to Focus on the Unknown Future rather than the Known Past. In that task, Perpetual Curiosity is our greatest friend, as long as we can maintain it and not surrender to our craving and addiction to trying to Understand. The World is a Mystery; when we Believe we Understand, we murder the World. Confusion is the First Sign of Growth, but if we quash it with illusions of Understanding, we stop our Growth cold.
So we’re being Ordered (Quaoar) by Central Command (the Galactic Center) to Grieve the Loss (Hylonome) of Unearned Privilege (Chariklo), or better yet, to accept the Loss as a Return to Self, or the invocation of a Vision Quest to Retrieve a portion of the True Self through Honest Curiosity about an unknowable Future. But wait – we’re also being Asked to either Take Full Responsibility (Pholus) for the parts of ourself which we previously rejected as unfit for polite company, or Take Full Responsibility for the parts of ourself that our friends and associates would love to be able to reject as unfit for polite company (Ixion). Not Blame, which looks backwards to attempt to Understand a Cause (ie, murder), but Responsibility, which looks forward to attempt to improve an Outcome.
To me this suggests a further loosening of the yoke of Hierarchy and Inequality. As Power Over corrupts, Taking Full Responsibility for Power means shifting to Power With. If you haven’t read Starhawk’s Truth or Dare yet, this would be an excellent time to do it, as in it she Teaches us the difference between Power Over and Power With, all in the context of an Inferior Conjunction of Venus (the Descent of Inanna), which we’ve just experienced.
This is all happening in Sagittarius, the Sign of Letting Go. So while Noticing what’s going on is appropriate as part of Growing our Consciousness, Giving Up Control is also appropriate as part of Sagittarius. We can do Both/And, and it behooves us to do so.
We’ll look at the rest of the early-September chart when we continue…
Ruby, the Essence of Courage, here the Courage to Claim Sovereignty over the Self.
Θ Θ Θ Θ Θ
Thanks to Heart Shaped Eyes ( https://heartshapedeyes.wordpress.com/2015/08/21/women-and-emotional-labor-putting-down-the-weight/ ) for pointing us to Bethany Webster’s illuminating blog post on Emotional Labor…
http://womboflight.com/2015/08/21/women-and-emotional-labor-putting-down-the-weight/
In addition to the Exposition of our “Comedy of Human Nature” Relationship Initiation, we’re also at a major turning point around our Yindependence, and Bethany’s post does an excellent job of exploring the implications of Yindependence, Yintegrity, and the Responsibility issues we’ve been writing about and which will be increasingly prominent as we move into September.
I’m seeing lots of Attention devoted to Jupiter moving into Virgo, Saturn moving into Sagittarius, Eclipses, and the Stations of the Inner Planets, and while those astroevents have important meanings, I haven’t seen anyone writing about the Makemake-North Node-Lilith triple Initiation that’s coming up in September…
All of which occurs at 2 Libra, “The transmutation of the fruits of past experiences into the seed-realizations of the forever creative spirit.” The Cusp of Libra is also about moving from Self-Focus to Other-Focus. The Lilith Cycles run seven to nine years, the North Node-Makemake Cycle about 19 years.
The dwarf planet Makemake was named after the Rapa Nui God who rescued the people of Easter Island after their island lost its Trees. Makemake taught them, for instance, to plant on the lee side of Rocks, as the Rock would harvest Water from Fog. Makemake’s discovery chart is all about Creative Manifestation. The North Node represents the direction of our travel. Not the destination, but the direction. And Lilith represents Self-Sovereignty.
The Lilith-Makemake Cycle that we’re completing began in late November 2008 at 26 Virgo, “A boy with a censer serves the priest near the altar.“
Significant Change does not occur while we are in Judgment about the processes we would like to see Changed. Change occurs rapidly after we Acknowledge our old Patterns for the Value they provided. It’s worth repeating.
Significant Change does not occur while we are in Judgment about the processes we would like to see Changed. Change occurs rapidly after we Acknowledge the old Patterns for the Value they provided.
What Value might our Self-Sovereignty have claimed from Learning obeisance to rigidly defined and rigidly hierarchical protocols?
Yes, there’s the notion of getting very clear about what we don’t Want. And the notion that, now that we clearly understand, from the inside, how the old obeisance works, we are much better prepared to reject the seductive practices of those who would steal our Power.
Can you think of – or Feel – other Values your Self-Sovereignty may have claimed over the last seven years?
Whatever the shape of that intelligence, we’ve now harvested it, and the next decade is about putting it to work.
More September to follow…
A fair amount of Grief and Anxiety out there, you can see it in people’s faces as you drive or walk around. If in these Big Changes we focus on what we’re losing, or fear we’ll lose, that’s inevitable. If we don’t catch ourselves in that trap and Respond, we Project our Old Life, minus what we’re losing, into the Future. Respond how? Well, we could Embrace whatever’s going on in our Body, then Let It Go, and come back in a while to see if it’s Let Us Go. If not, reiterate, or try returning what you’re Feeling to the rightful owner. Notice that “Respond” is the verb form of “Responsibility.”
Responsibility isn’t the same as Blame. If you Believe you’re carrying someone else’s Feelings for them, there’s no need to Blame them; you just give them back, psychically. You don’t call them up and rip them a new one, you just silently deposit the Feelings next to their back door, and watch to see what happens. They might not even be the right person, in which case the Feelings will return or resume, for you to Embrace again – “Embrace whatever’s going on in your Body, then Let It Go, and come back in a while to see if it’s Let You Go. If not, … etc…” with your second guess about whether those Feelings are really your mom’s, er, I mean, whether they were really someone else’s Feelings.
There’s enormous Power in Responding to our Feelings as Feelings – Grief as Grief, Anxiety as Anxiety, etc – instead of Responding to what we Believe to be the apparent Cause or Content of our Feelings – Why we’re Sad, or What we’re Anxious about.
That said, we can also work with our Projections – the apparent Cause or Content. Notice that if you try to do this while Feeling Grief or Anxiety, what you’re going to Manifest if more Grief or Anxiety. It really pays off to Respond to your Feelings first, till you’re at least Neutral, if not Optimistic. This might be a long process, but if you keep returning your Attention to whatever’s going on in your Body (not in your mind), you’ll make the process a lot more efficient.
Let’s look at what Robert Moss (The Three “Only” Things, pp.178-9) recommends…
“The practice of imagination, on an everyday basis, involves clearing unhelpful images that block or misdirect our energies, and choosing to focus on positive, mobilizing imagery that gives us courage and confidence.“
“A paralyzing fear or a numbing block [as an ‘unhelpful image’] can hardly be called an image at all. Yet there is an image within the fear or the block that is waiting to be discovered, and when the image is brought to consciousness, and reworked, vital healing and forward momentum become possible.”
“Scanning and clearing can be a simple process, one that can sometimes be done on your own.
- “Identify a problem or challenge in your life
- “Pick a quiet place and time, close your eyes, and go to the place in your body where you feel that issue most strongly
- “Now ask for an image of that challenge to become clear to you
- “When you have that image, see whether you can rework it with your conscious intentions.”
He goes on to give an example of someone who “often felt ‘knotted up’ with anxiety” and the image she found was a “horribly tangled and knotted ball of string.” She felt Relief as she patiently untangled the string and turned it into a strong rope that she used to pull herself onward and upward.
On pp.171-2 Moss says…
“We tell ourselves that reality is out there, but we do not experience that reality directly. ‘What we experience directly,’ says physicist David Deutsch, ‘ is a virtual-reality rendering, conveniently generated for us by our unconscious minds from sensory data plus complex inborn and acquired theories (ie, programs) about how to interpret them… Every last scrap of our external experiencem is of virtual reality… Biologically speaking, the virtual-reality rendering of their environment is the characteristic means by which human beings survive.’
“Our lives are more or less authentic according to whether we are aware of the role of images and of our own ability to choose and discard or transform the imagery that rules our interactions with everything. Hermann Hesse put this very precisely: ‘There’s no reality except the one contained within us. That’s why so many people live an unreal life. They take images outside them for reality and never allow the world within them to assert itself.’
“The greatest crisis in our lives is a crisis of imagination. We get stuck, and we bind ourselves to the wheel of repetition, because we refuse to reimagine our situation. We live with a set of negative or confining images and pronounce them ‘reality.’ We do this because we let ourselves get trapped in a particular version of the past or in a consensual hallucination We do it to cling to the familiar, not daring to give up what we are or have been for what we are meant to become.”
We could also call it a crisis of Intuition, as we’re unable to Intuit the positive Future that our Mission pulls us toward.
Now we get to write about September, when we continue…
Well, I was wrong. On 31 August Venus Conjoins Mars at the Midpoint of Leo, but it’s not an Initiation, it’s an Exposition. Mars Initiated Venus on February 21 of this year, at 2 Aries, “A comedian reveals human nature.“ Then Venus backtracked, and now crosses Mars for the second time. So we might postulate that the dance between our Inner Collaborative Female and our Inner Competitive Male failed to see the humor in some Can-Opener event or process in February, and so we’re getting a second chance to discover how our Ego prevents us from dancing Gracefully with ourself around this issue. Of course our outer circumstances Mirror the dance between our Inner Collaborator and our Inner Competitor.
When two planets dance thrice (because the faster planet turns Retrograde and crosses the slower planet a second time, then a third time after the faster planet turns Direct), the first crossing introduces some Issue that our Deeper Consciousness wants brought up into Consciousness to Integrate. We call this a Can-Opener because it almost always catches us unprepared and triggers some Ego-Attachment that arouses Emotions we prefer to Justify rather than Witness.
At the second crossing (the Exposition), the Can-Opening event or process is repeated, but this time we’re better able to see what’s going on (as the faster planet is now Retrograde or as if in slow motion), and we gradually come closer to Witnessing and Letting Go. The third crossing is the Confidence-Builder, as the offending event or process recurs but now our Consciousness has Expanded to the point that we can handle the offense Gracefully and Confidently.
The Venus-Mars Confidence-Builder will occur on 2 November.
Wow, does this discover ever straighten me out! I’ve been fretting over having been ripped off last week, and experiencing all manner of unpleasant Emotions (mostly revolving around Fear) as a result. While I’ve been working with Robert Moss’s suggestions to see the messages hidden in the unusual circumstance, I haven’t yet had a real Aha! moment about it – till now. No wonder I couldn’t sleep! (The current Exposition includes a Mjolnir, symbolic of Epiphany! Some comedian!) In February I was very much fretting over having been ripped off in a very different way, and then mostly revolving around Anger. Two flavors of the same dance! Both times I concluded that my error was over-Collaboration and inappropriate Trust – the Venus side of the equation. Conclusions are a natural tendency, but they aren’t helpful. In February my Anger (the Mars side) isolated me; this time my Anger rescued me.
The “Coincidence” also validates the PIAVA process, where the key is that the first thing the Universe does to respond to a request, is to show us why we’re in Scarcity around what we’re Asking for, why we haven’t had Abundance around that all along – because the Universe would rather show us what we need to Change than just shower us with Rose petals. God Bless the Child who can stand up and say, I got my own! At least this Universe-as-Teacher process is relevant in my own Life, but I have a natal Grand Quintile (constant Learning/Teaching) and a strong Pluto-Nodes Relationship (Wer immer strebend sich bemüht), so I’d be very interested to know whether the same phenomenon can be identified in your Life.
So we don’t have a Mars-Venus Initiation after all, “just” a Venus-Mars Conjunction. But as we’ve already seen, it remains a profound one!
So think back to mid-February – what was going on in your Young Life then, that “rhymes” with what’s going on now?
If you’re experiencing what Feels like a Loss of Privilege, don’t fall for it – it’s a Paper Tiger, a hallucination out of your hypnotic bag of Karmic tricks. If you can detach your Ego from that ongoing Fear, you’ll discover a very powerful and productive Expansion in the way your Collaborator and your Competitor dance together.
The ongoing Chariklo-Hylonome Conjunction (Terminal Grief over Loss of Beauty and Grace) Squares the South Node (Karmic hallucinations), but the Square forms the base of a Mjolnir focused on the Venus-Mars Conjunction.
A Mjolnir (Norwegian for Thor’s Hammer) is formed when a third planet occupies the Far Midpoint between two planets that are Square to one another; in other words, a triangle formed by a Square and two Trioctiles. The Square represents the Insoluble, and the Trioctiles represent the Adjustments that make the Square usefully Motivating (via Insight – Epiphany) rather than Frustrating.
This means that Chariklo-Hylonome T-Square the Nodes, but the Mjonir forms a Bridge over that conundrum. Plus, Lilith and Makemake Conjoin the North Node, in preparation for their triple Initiation in early September. Lilith represents Yindependence – Collaboration without surrendering Sovereignty, and Makemake is about Creative Manifestation. Mercury is close by, implying that intellectual Understanding is possible. You can see how my conclusion that I was over-Collaborating would have condemned me to missing this remarkable opportunity to Expand – which is what conclusions do. Persistent Curiosity is so much more Powerful!
Venus-Mars Trines Pallas (Boundaries) – if I reframe my ripoffs as Boundary issues rather than over-Collaboration issues, it’s a whole new dance. Venus-Mars also Trines a Moon-Vesta Conjunction (Emotional Attachment to our Beliefs) – I obviously have a belief that I’ll be ripped off, which I can work on by being Loving and Gentle with it, perhaps, if I’m lucky and skillful, coaxing out the Inner Child and/or Karmic Experiences that give it Emotive Power. This makes a Grand Trine (Dumb-Luck Grace) which expands into a Kite (Grace with a Magnified Focus) focused on the Centaur Asbolus (Intuition) – Letting Go of Held Emotion (Karma) opens our Intuition because Held Emotions and Toxins literally cloud the natural Channels that connect each of our Mitochondria (Mother Cells) to the Zero Point Field (aka All of the Information in the Universe).
Moon-Vesta in turn Square Pluto (Mandatory), making Pluto to focus of a Yod (Pay Attention!) with Venus-Mars and Asbolus as its base. Which is to say, there’s nothing optional about all of this!
To be continued yet again…
“Coincidentally,” several posts by others have popped up that are oh-so relevant to our several Adventures here in August and merging into September…
We don’t usually speak in these terms, but I have no doubt that Ascension is also going on…
http://www.sandrawalter.com/unified-cosmic-trigger-higher-choices/
And Dr. Kim provides a broader Perspective, along with a great tool, for Clearing persistently troubling Emotions…
http://drkimderamo.com/are-you-energy-sensitive/
And here’s a great view of the current Descent of Inanna (Inferior Conjunction of Venus), post-2012…
https://heartshapedeyes.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/the-mouth-of-gaia/
And finally, a quiz to see if we’re doing our Identity homework…
https://soulspeak2013.wordpress.com/2015/08/19/at-the-table-filling-in-the-blanks/
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Let’s finish up August, as I’m eager to write about some fairly remarkable events coming up in September.
Our Old Egos are due for a comeuppance at, around, and/or after the 29 August Full Moon.
Most of us still have one foot in the Old Industrial-Era World of Exploitation, and a portion of our Identity likely remains wrapped up in that. Whether the Old Order gives us Validity through our Achievements or through Socialization with our workmates, gives us Security through our income, gives us a sense of Value through our “contributions to society,” gives us Juice because of the Competition, or however it props up our Self-Worth, we could be due for a shock.
If this occurs, Acknowledge and Witness any Fear or Anger or Grief that arises, and be Loving and Gentle with it. Review your understanding of Ego Death (https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/identity/ego-death/ ), so you can respond positively to the signs after you acknowledge their Veracity.
Your other foot is already in the New post-Apocalypse World of Collaboration and Cooperation. You may be growing some of your own food, establishing neighborhood tool-sharing, kickstarting or funding new ventures, playing with 3-D printers and milling machines at your local Makerspace, downsizing your use of resources, promoting Equality, or any number of other Activities oriented toward a Sustainable and Regenerative World. Once you’ve Embraced your Emotions about whatever nicked your Old-World Identity, redouble your Efforts toward your New-World Identity. If there’s a Leap of Faith involved, go for it.
While the Jupiter-Neptune Opposition isn’t Exact until 16 September, the Full Moon sits across it. On the same September day Makemake (Creative Manifestation, and it’s no accident that Makemake shares a name with the Maker Movement) Initiates the North Node (our Mission). This Opposition is a blooming of the Jupiter-Neptune Cycle that began in late May 2009, at 27 Aquarius. Long-time readers may recognize that as having occurred within a few days of the Chiron-Jupiter Initiation in the same Degree, and within a few months of the Neptune-Chiron Initiation, also in the same Degree, “Fresh Violets in an ancient pottery bowl.” This is the “New Paradigm” we’ve written much about, and which we regard as the major correlate with the Wall Street Crash of 2007-8. If you aren’t a long-time reader, look up “Chiron-Neptune” in the Categories list at right (https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/cycles/chiron-neptune/).
Meanwhile, the Full Moon very closely T-Squares the asteroid Hybris, a “misspelling” of hubris.
Jupiter is now past its Waning Square to Saturn, which means we’re dropping into the Void with regard to Social and Economic Activities, so we’re overdue for a review of the Jupiter-Saturn Cycles. Saturn-Jupiter Initiations occur in the same Element (Fire, Earth, Air, Water) for two Centuries, then they switch, with a stutter between Elements. The Industrial Revolution and it’s Wage-Slave consequences spanned the last two Centuries of Earth-Sign Initiations. Then, almost exactly coincident with the introduction of the mass-compatible (IBM-Microsoft) personal computer, the 1980 Initiation occurred in an Air Sign. The final Earth-Sign Initiation that followed, in 2000, coincided almost to the day with the “Dot-Com Crash,” initiating twenty years where we’re reviewing the Industrial Revolution to see what elements of it we want to keep as we move into the Digital Age.
The next Saturn-Jupiter Initiation in 2020 will be again in an Air-Sign, as will the following seven Initiations, till our first Water-Sign Initiation in 2160. While we think of the Age of Aquarius as being about Harmony and Understanding, Sympathy and Trust abounding, Aquarius is also an Air Sign, and Air Signs are about mindstuff and Duality. So while the advances in Scienterrific Knowledge and Technological Gadgetry will be phenomenal, the Digital-Age potential to Create Sustainability and Regeneration will depend on a lot more than thinking. Aquarians will need to do a lot more than sitting in the pub arguing about which Political system makes them happiest. Hence the importance of what we’ve been calling the New Paradigm and its implications for greater Equality.
Meanwhile, we’re in the last quarter of the last Earth-Sign Jupiter-Saturn Cycle, and the last quarter of a Cycle is about “Descending” into chaos (Disorder, not the dwarf planet). Interesting that many folks are focused on Ascension while our Social and Economic Order is Descending. We need to look for a moment through Rudolph Steiner’s eyes – while Ascension is about Matter merging into Spirit, Descension is about Spirit merging into Matter, one being no less Sacred than the other.
What normally occurs during the last quarter of a Cycle, is that the proponents of the Old Order redouble their Efforts to propagandize everyone into believing that the Status Quo is alive, well, and will Live on forever, while scrambling to keep their cheeks covered. In the interim, everyone else is focused on their struggle to keep it together. If we take a hint from the dwarf planet Chaos, though, and see the Trend for what it is – deconstruction of the Old to make Space for the unlimited potential of the New – and we avoid trying to pin down the New before the next Cycle starts, as that would simply perpetuate the Old – then we can Cooperate in destructuring our Old Patterns and making Empty Space for New Patterns to evolve into.
Two days after the Full Moon – a sufficiently short time that these two events will be closely intertwined – we enter a new province in our Relationship Dramas. Since this applies more than anything to our Inner Female and Inner Male, it’s impact will be wide-ranging. If you aren’t familiar with John Gray’s amazing work, this would be an excellent time to introduce yourself to it…
The new Cycle will be quite complex, so we’ll save it for when we continue…
The gory details on the “first Big Issue” that we talked about in August-September I can be found below in August I and II. Details on the second Big Issue, which we’ll summarize in a minute, are below in the several Parts of Who Are We?.
The second Big Issue is with us at least through 23 August, with a peak in a few days. It’s about a preview of the Big Reveal that’s due in June 2016, when our Soul can no longer hold it’s tongue about what we’ve been hiding from ourself. If we’re lucky. Otherwise what we’ve been hiding from Others could become public, though except for Politicians and other Trickster figures, I wouldn’t expect that to be common. It’s more likely that we’ll find out that no no one was fooled by what we think we’ve been hiding from everyone else. It should be obvious that we’ll do ourselves a favor by doing whatever work we can do now to Take Full and Loving Responsibility for the most Dangerous parts of ourself.
We’re looking at a Quintile Yod to the Conjunction of Uranus, Eris, and the asteroid Karma (the Big Reveal), with Juno (the Edges of Consciousness) and Saturn (focus on The Most Important Thing) as the base. On 19 August the Moon Opposes Uranus-Eris-a.Karma, which should light things up pretty good. The Uranus-Eris Conjunction is Exact in June 2016. They’re now just three Degrees apart.
By around 20 August we should begin working with our Worst Fears, with our Regrets about what we’ve done in the Past out of Fear rather than Love, and with Insights about what we’re doing now out of Fear rather than Love. The work will peak 26 August. There are many gifts here, so as long as we remember to Notice and be Loving and Gentle with any tendencies to Condemn and Reject ourself for these transgressions, we should be fine.
The dwarf planet Sedna (Actions based on Fear) is Standing Still (strong) and turning Retrograde on 26 August at 26 Taurus. That’s at the Midpoint between the reputedly nastiest Stars in the Sky, Algol and Capulus, though these reputations clear up considerably when you eliminate Gender Bias. But it means that we should be on the lookout for Unconscious Gender Bias in our own Programming. Sedna’s Station is Trine to both Mercury (Mental Clarity) and Ceres (Sustainability), so this Grand Trine should shelter us from anything too nasty.
The Station is also Quincunx to another Great Centaur Party, as the Centaurs Pholus, Hylonome, and Chariklo convene again on the Galactic Center, along with the dwarf planets Ixion and Quaoar. This complex will be lit up big time in early September, as they all turn Stationary Direct at basically the same time, around 5 September. But we’ll get to that.
To be continued again…
A note about format…
Bold Italic is for everyone to read, while…
Indented normal text is for astrologers and those who want to learn astrology by osmosis. Feel free to skip over this text if you want.
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So let’s review and look a bit ahead…
Here in mid-August we’re working with two Big Issues.
Before we get to those, though, we are in the middle of a short-term “Descent of Inanna” – a breakdown of our current Ego in order to open Space for a more Expanded Ego. Starhawk’s book Truth or Dare is a great guidebook for this process.
The “Inferior Conjunction” of Venus with the Sun, which means that Venus is hidden because while it’s between us and the Sun we’re looking at its dark backside – and that’s only (not) visible during the day anyway.
The first one is about the Rebirth that awaits us when we Lovingly Take Responsibility to move out of our Limitations – and Discouragement about them – and Open to our Unlimited Potential, on the way Integrating parts of ourselves that we’re in the habit of Rejecting.
Easiest way to do this may be to repeatedly Notice when we’re Discouraged, and just Let It Go. Instead, let yourself Dream about what would make your Life Really Exciting. Be careful to avoid thinking about how to get there – just Lovingly focus on the Destination you Want. It’s that limited thinking about how to get there that’s Discouraging us. Invite a Miracle instead, so you can jump straight from here to the Really Exciting place. Whenever you Notice either Discouragement or thinking about How, Lovingly and Gently bring yourself back to What you Want. You’ll be doing that over and over again.
This is the Chiron T-Square across the Opposition between the dwarf planet Chaos (Unlimited Potential, not Disorder) and the Conjunction between the Centaur Pholus and the dwarf planet Ixion (Taking Full and Loving Responsibility for the most Dangerous parts of ourself). Haumea (Rebirth) is Quincunx to Chiron, and Opposite the budding Conjunction of Uranus (the Individual Soul’s path) and Eris (revelation of what’s been hidden). These are all very slow-moving planets, so this Configuration persists for a while.
Venus Retrograde fills the final place in a Diamond Star through 25 August. Mars fills that place from 3-11 September. Venus Direct comes through again from 13-26 September.
To be continued.
jbuss Astrology 