Another Milestone for the Yang Feminine

The Patriarchy is Falling…

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/10/13/michelle-obama-just-put-a-huge-and-emotional-exclamation-point-on-trumps-hot-mic-tape/ 

Be mindful that this may bring up Memories for you, as we suggested in Portal 13.10 Part IV.  It’s a good time to Share those Emotions with Safe people, people who understand completely because they’ve been through it.  A good way to start a new Community – “We gain critical Leverage by Intuiting what to Keep and what to Discard; there are Jewels here, but there is also dead weight that we can’t afford to carry forward – Fresh Violets in an Ancient Pottery Bowl.”  This is Herstoric.

There is a Finger of God pointing to the Nessus-OR10 Conjunction (Irruption of Memories of Abuse and Privilege) from the Sextile between Varuna (the Life Force) and Makemake (Manifestation). 

Portal 13-14.6 – Scorpio and Virgo

Sagittarius and Scorpio.  Believe it or not, the Sagittarian Wisps are actually Crystals, of Natrolite, sitting on a more recognizable Crystal, Scorpionic Apophyllite.  Nevertheless, things are still not what they seem to be.  The recognizable Crystal is actually a Mica, Apophyllite, even though it looks nothing like a Mica.  And the Wisps are actually a Zeolite, even though they look nothing like any we’d recognize.  A Zeolite is a complex Mineral with pockets.  You wouldn’t think there’d be room in those Wisps for a pocket, let along a complex Mineral.  If you get the right Zeolite, you can dump it into a toxic mess, and the Zeolite will pocket the toxins and bring them out!  I know, She is truly amazing, especially when we forget She’s a Living Entity with many orders of magnitude more cleverness than we’ll ever dream of mustering!

Apophyllite (Potassium Calcium Fluoride Mica) is about Opening our Third Eye, appropriate for Getting to the Bottom of Things.  Green Apophyllite brings Compassion into our Intuition.  As we like to say, Apophyllite was used for Divining by the twelve Apophylls.  Natrolite (Sodium Aluminum Zeolite) is about Opening the Crown Chakra, appropriate for Letting Go of what Limits us.  Like much of the loveliest Apophyllite, this one comes from near Pune, India, a center for many different flavors of Spiritual pursuit.

  Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω 

Friday the 13th falls on a Saturday this month, as Pogo used to say.  Whatever you’re Grieving, Trust that it was not planning to be part of the next phase of this Gaia-Pi Adventure.  We’re in the process now of Co-Creating what we need for the next phase.

June 13-14…

• Makemake (Manifestation) is Stationary Direct (Strong)
• Saturn backs into Scorpio (Did we leave any Emotional Stones unturned?)
• The Moon Occults Mercury (Beginner’s Mind) at 5 Gemini (“A revolutionary magazine asking for action”)

Mercury and the Balsamic Moon rise ahead of the Sun, so they should make a lovely couple just before Sunrise, whether you’re in the right spot (east central Asia) to see the Moon cover Mercury or not.  The Balsamic Moon is about Letting Go, echoing our other themes.

  Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω 

Saturn points us to The Most Important Thing, and informs us that all of the other priorities will be just fine playing quietly by themselves while we put all of our Attention on The Most Important Thing.  Scorpio is about Getting to the Bottom of Things, so when…

The Most Important Thing Is Getting to the Bottom of Things,

we can – appropriately – be pretty obsessive.  Another useful key phrase about Scorpio, left over from the Recovery Movement in the 1980s (when Pluto was in Scorpio) is The Way Out Is Through.  Saturn has been in Sagittarius since Christmas 2014, and in Sagittarius The Way Out Is Letting Go.  So we’ve Lightened Up quite a bit since Christmas.  But there are still some bits of Egg clinging to the pan, so we need to go back and scrub a little more.

Till last Christmas, Saturn had been in Scorpio since October 2012 – in other words, The Most Important Thing has been Getting to the Bottom of Things since Time ended and Pi took over.  For the last two and a half years The Most Important Thing has been locating anything and everything that has stood between us and taking Full Responsibility for Everything in our Lives.  Though Pi gave us that first nine months of Grand Trines to ease our Rebirth into the New Era, of course that would feel like being poked with spears and knives by everyone and everything around us, as we were educated about where we weren’t taking Responsibility.

Soooo, what did we not quite finish up?  Responsibility means being able and willing to Respond.  It looks to improve the Future, not assign causality and Blame for anything from the Past.  Anyplace in your Life where you’re still feeling like a Victim, or where you want to Blame someone else for anything?  Those are the bits of Egg we need to work with; keep your eye out for them between now and mid-September, especially toward the end of July, as Saturn turns Direct on August 1.  After mid-September, we’re in the Let-It-Go Stage “for good” – well, for two and a half years anyway.

  Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω

The Station of Makemake in 29 Virgo (“A seeker after occult knowledge is reading an ancient scroll which illumines her mind”) suggests that…

We should be on the lookout for What We Need to Survive in this New Era.  We first experimented with meeting our new Next-Phase Tribe (Makemake in Libra) from mid-October 2013 to mid-March 2014.  Then last September we renewed this quest.  In mid-July we get serious about it.  In between – March-August of 2014 and mid-May through mid-July of this year, we review our own Blocks to receiving our new Community.  Virgo is about breaking down the Ego so we’re ready to meet Other without prejudice – without Judgment.  Ego is a force for good; it’s primary Mission is to keep us alive. The only problem with Ego is that it’s “sticky.”

Sure, Narcissism can feel like a pain if we’re stuck with having to deal with someone else’s Narcissism, but that’s just about our own unwillingness or inability to set working Boundaries.  Our own Narcissism?  Not to worry; it’s its own best frenemy. 

A caution for Virgo, though.  Since Ego-Recycling and Virgo are so poorly understood in Ego-dominated Western culture, Virgo ends up being seen as nit-picky and critical, and Virgo grows up with a programmed self-hate from introjecting this criticality.  So anyone with strong Virgo will likely worry about their own Narcissism.  But Virgo is the Opposite of Narcissistic.  What’s the Coin?  Self-Love.  Self-Transformation (Virgo) is about Self-Love, for sure.  Transformation isn’t about hating what’s being Transformed, it’s about Transcending what’s being Transformed.

A functioning Ego is flexible enough to Celebrate our own unique Skills fully – without having to compete them with the unique Skills of Others, and to Recognize when and where it would serve our Community better to delegate to the superior unique Skills of Another.  A “normal” Ego, more concerned with how many strokes we get, gets stuck on the last hurt or triumph, and loses track of the Present Moment.

This is what Virgo is about.  Pisces is about making a break from a Community that we’ve outgrown, with all of the Grief and unfulfilled Wishes and lack of Recognition and unexpressed Angers and Fear of Abandonment that’s involved in Letting Go of a Community without the assurance that we’ll be accepted into a new one.  Neptune and Chiron are working us through all that Drama and Trauma.  Virgo is about making a break from a sticky Ego that we’ve outgrown, with all of the Grief and unfulfilled Wishes and lack of Recognition and unexpressed Angers and Fear of Abandonment that’s involved in Letting Go of an Identity without the assurance that a new one will function any better than the old one.  Or, in a word, Ego Death.  Makemake is helping us through this wicket, and it’s an excellent Guide to have, as its focus is always on Co-Creating the new tools we’ll need to Survive in a new Era.

So as we go back into Getting to the Bottom of Things, we’re also back in Ego Death.  With Saturn, we’re just re-entering our last review period (ie, just tiptoeing back into Scorpio and hoping she doesn’t wake up).  With Makemake, we’ve already finished our review (ie, already backtracked into Virgo, and now we’re turning to exit for the final time), so we’re in better shape there.  Between now and mid-July we’ll be making the adjustments that will “fix” the Responsibility shortcomings that we’ve already encountered.

So while there may be a few Surprises awaiting us on the Emotional front, on the Ego front we’ve probably seen that last of them.  Is it any easier to step aside and Witness an Emotion that threatens to overwhelm us, than it is to step aside and Witness an Identity that’s sabotaging us?  You bet.  It’s when the Emotion and the Identity are intertwined, that the greatest difficulties arise.  And as we encounter the last few Emotions that Separate us from Joy and Light, we should already have some degree of Ego Detachment.

  Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω    Ω

Cuspal Saturn and Stationary Makemake are Sextile to one another, sharing the quality of Magnetism.

Sextiles connect two Signs that have either Magnetism or Dynamism in common, so on this basic level they aren’t competing with one another.  It’s the Sixth Harmonic, so the basic Energy is about Partnership – Win-Win. 

It’s a Waxing Sextile, several years into the Saturn-Makemake Cycle that began in September 2009 at 26 Virgo, “A boy with a censer serves the priest near the altar.”  In terms of current events, we could trip into a number of directions on that one, about boy-priest relationships or about “making things smell better.”

In our tradition of focusing on what’s being Healed, we’ll do just that, and propose that the current 33-year Saturn-Makemake Cycle is about Healing the lost art of Apprenticeship.  In pre-Industrial society, as children we “played” at learning the “work” our elders were doing, automatically learning Survival Skills in the process.  Since that link was broken by the various forms of Industrial Slavery (schools that removed children from parents so they could be propagandized into one paradigm, work that separated the workplace from the family so compassion could be removed from working conditions, etc), child-adult relationships have been strained and forced into unfamiliar forms.

A Saturn-Makemake Cycle would be about Building the Structures that Support Survival in the next Paradigm.  So we could see the current Cycle as Restructuring Apprenticeship to reintegrate Spirituality and Survival (“Work”) and Everyday Life.  Industrial and Religious Culture rigidly divided these into separate days of the week.  Remember that what we’re going here (2000-2020) in the Jupiter-Saturn Cycles is, on the Cultural level, deciding what parts of the Industrial Age we want to take with us into the Digital Age.  The Sextile represents Grace after we take the first step.  The Cultural level is assembled from accumulation of Personal levels.  So an appropriate question to ask ourselves might be…

Are there concrete steps I can take right now, to integrate my Spiritual Life with my Everyday Life and What I Do to Survive?  Have I already taken any steps like this?  Can I start to build them into Patterns that can become the infrastructure of Life in the Next Phase?

Show Up, Pay Attention, Speak Truth, Let Go

Here’s a nice tribute to one of my most important Teachers…

http://healthwealthwisdom.blogspot.com/2014/05/remembering-angeles-arrien-1940-2014.html

And another, with a few more details…

http://exopermaculture.com/2014/05/05/r-i-p-angeles-arrien/

That one reminds us that Angie died in April during the Big Mars-Jupiter-Uranus-Pluto Grand Cross (see Everybody Survive?)…

http://exopermaculture.com/2014/04/21/cardinal-grand-cross-week-personal-log-april-20-easter-sunday-day-one/

As Uranus prepares to Square Pluto again for the final two episodes, Mars, Jupiter, and Uranus are now making a Grand Trine (Portal 10.1-8, pictured in Uranus-Chiron Total Lunar Eclipse). 

We often follow the Cycles danced by two planets together; it would be a lot more complicated to follow Cycles danced together by three planets!  Selecting a few of the planets most prominent in the global trend, and closely following their dances, would be an interesting pursuit.

The Exopermaculture link above includes the segment…

“This emotional drama, in turn, triggered the recurrence of an old set of physical symptoms with my jaw and teeth, going back to my 30s, when I was briefly ‘with’ a decidedly war-wounded man and could not speak truth to him for fear of triggering his rage, and then further than that, back to childhood, when my long-running existential condition was that of C.J. Jung’s definition of ‘lonely:’

“ ‘Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible.’

“What was the unspeakable?  Nuclear war.  My fear of nuclear war.  A conscious, paralyzing fear that I had carried since August 1947, when I was not even three years old.  No one I knew carried themselves around as if they had already been obliterated by a mushroom cloud.  I was the only one.  All the other kids could play as if they were children.  I had to pretend and clamp my jaw shut.“

And then continues with…

“(For the astonishing story of how I finally realized that I personally was not responsible for nuclear war, an encounter with the Goddess Sekhmet in a small temple at Karnak that left me, finally, free, see Meeting Sekhmet.)“

Which highly recommended “astonishing story” is at…

http://tendrepress.com/2010/05/meeting-sekhmet/

All of which very graphically describes our current conundrum, where we’re up against all of the Limiting Beliefs and Held Emotions aka Karma that prevent us from fully appreciating the amazing blessings of the larger once-in-beyond-forever September-October Centaurs-Lilith-Eris Grand Trine (see for instance Chaos I – Portal 9.20).

I never met Angie or heard her speak in person.  My experience of her is through her books, particularly her Tarot Handbook, which guides my interpretation of the astrological Angles.  I woke up thinking of writing about how my version of astrology is guided foremost by the Configurations which the Angles compose.  Shortly thereafter a friend mentioned they’d been visited by Angie in a dream, and had been left with the impression that Angie had left because at this time she could work more effectively from the Other Side.  Angie herself said…

“Some native traditions see ancestor spirits (family members and friends who are no longer living) as important teachers of detachment because they have faced the process of letting go and of experiencing the ultimate unknown, death.  Indigenous peoples believe that these spirits literally stand behind us to support us in our life dream and purpose…  They believe that the ancestor spirits are invested in seeing that the current generations and the generations to come fulfill their dreams or life purpose.“

To be continued.

Discomfort

If like me you’re feeling a vague sense of discomfort (or worse) as we drop into the Day of the Dead, lean into it.  Our Egos are being overwhelmed, and they don’t stand a chance against Uranus OR Pluto, let alone both, let alone the two dancing in the Fourth Harmonic, and on the Day of the Dead besides.  The Day of the Ego Death.  Ego Death feels awful, because the Ego’s job is to keep us Safe, and it’s feeling like it’s failed.  But like a Crab molting its shell, the only way we can grow is to cast off our old Ego and protect our vulnerability while our new Ego chitons up and we don’t know who we’ve become yet.  Uranus and Pluto have our best interests at heart – Pluto to bring us into alignment with changes in the Universal Trance, and Uranus to bring us into alignment with our own Soul and it’s evolution. Change is always discomfortable, and Big Change the more so.  Embrace your discomfort –

You poor Dear, you’re feeling out of sorts, aren’t you.  I know, we aren’t sure what’s coming next, and we aren’t sure we’ve aced the last adventure either!  But you know what?  We’re still alive, and that means we’ve won, and it’s because of you, my Love.  You’ve done a great job, and now it’s time to retire and let someone else take over, and you aren’t sure that’s Safe.  Well, we’re in good hands here.  We can trust the Stars, even if we can’t trust much else on this Rock!  What say we go for a walk and just relax into it?

To Uranus and Beyond

Opened a book this evening and started reading, more or less at random, and lo and behold, it was about Uranus!

“Going beyond means going beyond the borders of the cage.  There should be no cage.  The soul is infinite.  It is free to expand everywhere.  It is free to experience all of life.  This can only happen when you are willing to face reality without mental boundaries.  If you still have barriers, and you know what they are because you hit them every day, you must be willing to go beyond them.  Otherwise you remain within your cage.  And remember, decorating your cage with beautiful experiences, fond memories, and great dreams is not the same as going beyond.  A cage by any other name is still a cage.  You must be willing to go beyond.”

“Would you like to go beyond?  Would you like to feel no edges?  Imagine a comfort zone that is so expanded that it can easily fit the entire day, no matter what happens.  The day unfolds and the mind doesn’t say anything.  You simply interact with the day with a peaceful, fully inspired heart.  If your edges happen to get hit, the mind doesn’t complain.  It all just passes through.  This is how great beings live.  When you are trained, like a great athlete, to immediately relax through your edges when they get hit, then it’s all over.  You realize that you will always be fine.  Nothing can ever bother you except your edges, and now you know what to do with them.  You end up loving your edges because they point your way to freedom.  All you have to do is constantly relax and lean into them.  Then one day, when you least expect it, you fall through into the infinite.  That is what it means to go beyond.”

Michael Singer, the untethered soul: the journey beyond yourself, pp.123-125.

Sounds a little extreme, eh?  But I mean, we don’t need to do it all at once.  We learn to dance with one edge at a time.

As we said earlier, it’s often easier to learn about astrology and about ourselves and our edges by looking at what happened in the sky yesterday, rather than tomorrow.  So luckily, Elizabeth points out that we missed a lovely Configuration that was in effect from about 11pm PDT October 27 till 11am PDT October 28.

As the Moon crossed Pallas (our Edges or Boundaries) during that span, it formed a tidy Grand Trine (“Dumb Luck” Grace) with Venus (our Judgments or Values) and Eris (our Denial, usually seen in the mirror as their Denial).

And Moon-Pallas happened to be at the far midpoint of the Uranus-Pluto Square (You must be willing to go beyond) – which means that it also created a Mjolnir (Insight, or someone dynamiting our cage)! 

What were your major experiences (internal and external) during that span?  Can you relate them to your Edges?

I was up later than I should (clue) have been (considering that I had to get up early to get to a meeting in the Big City), making a Soup out of a cache of organic Tomatoes that I found.  When I got up – early – I discovered that the meeting was postponed, which was a glorious surprise because though I was prepared for the meeting and relaxed about it, the day was supposed to be (and was) the Sunniest and warmest day of the week, perfect for Fall Garden cleanup.

My 2013 Uranus-Pluto and Juno-Nodes Edges have been between doing what I love (basically, astrology, gardening, and cooking), and cashflow (hence the meeting in the Big City).  Moving from Guilt and Scarcity and Resentment to Gratitude that I have the Opportunity to get cashflow, especially when so many don’t.

My experience of the Portal was mostly what I would consider an experience of the Grand Trine’s Grace – finding the cache of Tomatoes and enjoying turning them into Soup, being relaxed about the meeting, the delightful surprise that I got to spend the day playing in the Sun instead, the experience of raking leaves, harvesting Celery and Tomatillos and Alpine Strawberries and Elderberries, decommissioning Tomato and Bean plants, enjoying the Flowers.  I’m not sure I was Conscious of any big Insights at the time, but in retrospect, the notion that Guilt and Scarcity and Resentment are clues that I need to move to Gratitude is a valuable notion!

Meanwhile, Jupiter and Vesta made a quartet of interlocking Square-Quincunx-Trine/Sextile Jewels that we like so much.  Drawing it all out looks a bit like an Angel, though I think she’d look more angelic with hair…

Or an Angel in a bat disguise for Dia de Muertos perhaps.  There’s a bit of a straight-jacket feel in the picture too – that cage again!  In the picture the Squares (Stress) are red, the Trines and Sextiles (Grace) blue, the Mjolnir‘s Trioctiles (Realignment) purple – they’re hard to tell from the blue lines, but the purple lines are longer, and the Quincunxes (Curiosity) are green.

The Venus-Vesta Square would be about balancing our Emotional (Belly) Edges and the Edges of our Deeper (Heart) Beliefs, with the Curiosity link to Eris (Trine Venus) and Jupiter (Sextile Vesta) –

I wonder what I’m Denying about my Shoulds

I wonder what I can do to expand my Deeper Beliefs

are the rhetorical questions that I could have asked.  In retrospect I can see that it wouldn’t hurt to expand my Deeper Beliefs, which does feel like a new Insight as I write – I’ve been thinking of Vesta as fairly static, rather than living and growing!

The Jupiter-Eris Square would be about Expanding our Edges faster than we’re really ready for, with the Curiosity links to Venus and Vesta bringing us potential questions (remember, no answers!) like…

I wonder how my anxiety about such rapid Change can be tempered by Self-Love

I wonder how my Deeper Beliefs can guide me to being more comfortable with rapid Change

That feels like a current Insight as well – a Both/And about my Deeper Beliefs – they can guide me and be allowed to change and grow.  I actually feel those Insights as subtle shifts in my Sixth Chakra.

And of course there’s Singer’s Insight that Pallas can imply transcending our Edges as well as setting Boundaries!

I don’t want to write all night tonight, so I’m not explaining all this as well as I could.  Let me know if any of this is confusing, and I’ll fill in any gaps tomorrow.

7 Come 11

By the way, all this cosmic action is the result of lots of planets (and other hot spots) sitting at 8-10 degrees of their respective signs.  For the Dia de Muertos Yin Gate, for instance, Mars sits at 10 Virgo, the Moon at 10 Libra, the North Node at 8 Scorpio, the Sun at 9 Scorpio, Pluto at 10 Capricorn, Juno at 9 Aquarius, Chiron at 10 Pisces, Uranus at 10 Aries, and the South Node at 8 Taurus.  Retrograde Mercury’s just about to join the game, at 11 Scorpio on Halloween.

Eight to ten degrees of any Sign is the place where the Sign first encounters Challenge.  Eight to ten degrees of Aries for instance, is the Cancer “Dwad.”  Really! – who knows where they get these names!  A Dwad is a two-and-a-half-degree segment of a Sign.  (I guess it’s the same root as duo, for two; they just leave out the half.)  Cancer is Square to Aries.  The first Dwad of Aries receives a download.  The second Dwad tries to make sense of it and begin to manifest it.  The third Dwad does a conceptual test of the design.

In the fourth – Cancer – Dwad, we have to start building the thing, and the design flaws that made it past the intellectual shakedown show up in neon.  Basically, you start over.  Since Aries is just a receiver that has no idea what it’s doing or why, when the Cancer Dwad goes back to the Aries Dwad and asks Just what was it exactly that this thing supposed to do? Aries doesn’t really know.  It was just something Spirit said to do.  The Cancer Dwad is of course a sweetheart about it all, as is Cancer’s wont, but the Aries Dwad is ashamed of its seeming incompetence, and that gets in the way of its going back to Source for more details.

So there’s frustration all around.  Until everyone drops their Judgments and sees the whole game as an Exploration – it’s a Square after all.  This is just the Aries story, and the other eleven Signs have their own stories, but it’s the same plot – the 8-10 degree slot is where frustration and self-doubt must be overcome if progress is to be made.

So we can see all of these adventures – the Juno-Nodes T-Square, the Uranus-Pluto Square, the Mystic Rectangle, the recent Grand Sextile – they’re all about overcoming frustration and self-doubt by giving up Judgment and opening up to Exploration.

Since Karma actually died when Time went away last Christmas, witnessing and embracing our orphaned Emotions and reclaiming the Treasure hidden in the Dragon’s lair – which very Treasure will permit us to march on toward our Mission – (that is, the Juno-Nodes T-Square) is actually easy. 

We just forget that because our habit of avoiding and Denying our Orphans is so deeply engrained.  When our Orphans tug at our coatsleeves we regress and forget everything we’ve learned since we orphaned them – and Abandon them and ourselves all over again!  The whole process of Healing revolves around learning to recognize when we aren’t in the Present Moment, and acting to get there.

Same with the Uranus-Pluto Square…

The Trance ReFormations are going on around us; all we need to do is adapt to them.  Since it’s Uranus-Pluto, we know that when we do, we’ll end up with greater Authenticity to our Soul Self.  “We” don’t really have to do a lot except go along for the ride.

Which is the rub, as the ride is not likely to follow our usual commute.  Change is hard for some people to accept all of the time, and hard for all people to accept some of the time.  But that’s really all there is to it.  Oh – that’s Changed?  Okay, let me put my fingers back on the Ouija Board to see how I can adapt to that.

As always, it’s our Resistance that makes thing difficult.

So 8-10 degrees can be another clue for us.  If we notice Frustration or Self-Doubt start to creep in, we know we’re in Judgment, and we need to switch to Exploration.  Easy as Pi.

Descent into Yintegrity

Praying that the illustration was Photoshopped, we begin our slide into the Uranus-Pluto Event.  This is the fourth of seven Uranus-Pluto Events that span June 2012 to March 2015.  The Uranus-Pluto Cycle that we’re developing – this is the Crisis of Action stage in Rudhyar’s terms – was born in 1965 at 18 of Virgo, “A Ouija Board.”  These are Unconscious planets, and we’re working on dimensions beyond the usual four, so the concept of Action is muted.  It’s there nevertheless, asking us to Actively move toward Authenticity with our Soul Self, and toward accepting non-ordinary realities.

In general, if we stop any particular path of development at any particular age, when we resume development of that path, we restart at the age where we left off.  We may have stopped because of Fear, or Karma, or Control by others.  How old were we when our Betters began to train us to fit into polite society?  That may have begun when we were no more than a few months old, or even earlier.  If our Purpose in the Lifetime isn’t fitting into polite society, then there’s a good chance our development of Authenticity with our Soul Self may have been arrested quite early.

So now we’re asked to start Acting out the urges we felt at the age where development was arrested.  If that was really just a month or two, then a “Goo!” and a free Poop in our pants might be all there is to it.  If your neighbor regresses to age eight and their Mission in the Lifetime is to play the role of Eris with regard to the Denial embedded in your gun laws, you could be in trouble.  Don’t be surprised to see an “irrationally” violent Halloween.  They’ll blame it on “mental illness” – which means failure to fit into polite society – irrespective of Mission.  And they’ll probably work harder to repress anything out of “normal.”

Such is the nature of any Unconscious eruption – most of what you see will be Resistance to the erupting material.

On the way to the Uranus-Pluto Event we pass (or not) through a few more Portals.  For the Lunar Portals, if we use our standard three degrees of Sensitivity, they would be relevant for about six hours before the event, and (though diminished) six hours after.

October 29

In the first Portal, the Moon crosses Mars, a corner of the Mystic Rectangle we discussed in the last post.  That happens at 1pm PDT, allowing six hours on either side for the window to be open.  Since the Uranus-Pluto Event is a Crisis of Action (in support of Authenticity), and Mars is about Action, well, that should be pretty clear.  Mars Trines Pluto and Quincunxes Uranus, making a nice Square-Quincunx-Trine Jewel for us.  Last time we suggested that this might mean something like…

• If I’m having difficulty because everything is changing so rapidly, I can wonder what I might do about it?

You don’t wonder to get an answer; you wonder in order to let go of control.  Remember that the Muggle interpretation of Uranus is Disruption – so the changes that surround you may well have to do with the falling away of structures in your Life that are no longer aligned with your Soul’s Intention for this moment in your Life.  Don’t let it bring you down, it’s only castles burning, as Neil puts it.

We have to suggest that what you do is not to Act to disrupt the Disruption, but Act to move into greater Authenticity.  If you sense any impending Disruption in your Life now, or even if you don’t, it wouldn’t hurt to spend some time meditating on what Authenticity might look like in your Life at this time.  Mars likes quick decisions, and if October 29 is the first time the concept of Authenticity crosses your mind, you may tend toward protecting the castle.  On the other hand, if the quick decision comes from your Gut, it may be more Authentic than what comes from your Mind!  It’s meditating, not thinking, that should help.  In general, Act to Affirm, not to Defend.

October 30-31

This is a Venus Portal, so it’s open for about a day.  Look for it to be strongest from 4pm PDT October 30 to 5pm PDT October 31.  It’s a Septangle between Venus, Jupiter, and Uranus.  Uranus Biceptiles both Venus and Jupiter, which Triceptile one another.  In other words, a coherent Zodiac-filling Seventh-Harmonic Configuration.  Remember how Don Juan was always urging Carlos to conserve his Power and not waste it on trifles?  That’s what the Seventh Dimension is about – Focused Intention, so that maximum Power is directed into the Most Important Thing.

The focus of the Septangle is Uranus, so Venus (Walking in Beauty) and Jupiter (Expansion) are here to serve Authenticity.  It could Expand Disruption – if it does, listen up.  Uranus only disrupts what is out of Yintegrity.  It could also cause you to question your habitual Values.  If it does that, ask yourself which of your Values were installed by your childhood programmers, and which spring from your Authentic Self.  Some may be both.

October 31-November 1

While the Uranus-Pluto Square itself is exact at quarter past 4am PDT November 1, the “real” event is likely to peak at half-past 9pm PDT on October 31.  It’s a Lunar Portal, so expect it to be open for about six hours prior, and remain open till at least the exact Uranus-Pluto Event.  it’s by no means an evil Portal, but just because of the potential for Disruption (aka Trauma), I wouldn’t want to be out trick-or-treating during this Portal.  Certainly any Trauma would have a positive long-term result, but Trauma always implies the danger of backsliding and tightening the grip of Karma, so I prefer Loving and Gentle alternatives.

Remember that the impact of astrological events fades rapidly after the event is exact – unless you make defensive decisions under the influence of the event.  So by the time we get to the Eclipse on November 3, the Uranus-Pluto Changes should be settling out.

Suppose for instance you don’t want to continue doing a job that no longer feels Authentically You, but you don’t want to resign because of Fear that there may not be better options, or because you believe you should stick with it.

• So it gets hairy on October 30 or 31, and you can no longer stand the indecision.  You loudly declare the Intention to stick with your old job because of the security.  Maybe your boss asks for a re-commitment, or you notice how many kids are lined up at the Food Bank.  With an Intention like this, the Uranus-Pluto sense of Disruption will drag on long after November 1.
• If on the other hand you quit outright instead, then the Graces may find you a far superior position on November 2!  More likely though, since you hadn’t really resolved your indecision, you’d struggle for a while to establish your new Self in the World and to embrace your regret, and compromise your Authenticity in new ways.
• But if you respected both your Authenticity and your indecision and PIAVAed a gentle and loving but rapid and complete transition from your current dilemma to a situation that was both Authentic and comfortable, then Changed the Subject, the anxiety surrounding the Uranus-Pluto event would probably subside rapidly.

This is only the fourth of seven Uranus-Pluto events, so we’re still in the middle of a long series of Big Changes in our own Lives and for the Planet.

There’s a complication; Jupiter Stations on November 6.  During Jupiter’s Shadow Period it makes repeated T-Squares with the Uranus-Pluto Square, so Jupiter – Expansion – is intimately involved with the fourth and fifth Uranus-Pluto events.  Apart from the immediate processes and decision points, a bigger issue lurks behind the scenes.

When the fifth Uranus-Pluto Square occurs next April, Jupiter misses an exact T-Square with it by only one tenth of one degree and one day.  And when the November 1 Uranus-Pluto Square is exact, Jupiter is only 4 arcminutes from its Station.  So really we’re just setting out the lawnchairs for a party we’ll be having next April.  Decisions we make now will mold how much Authenticity we can glean then, but they won’t be anywhere near permanent.  Bottom line…

Be loving and gentle with your indecision.  Step outside of your usual Consciousness and Witness those feelings. 

Close your eyes and look down at your feet.  When have you felt those feelings before?  We want to release our Karma – let it go.  We don’t want to  re-lease it, or sign up for another year’s lease.

The Samhain Portal itself is a Yin Gate formed when the Moon Opposes Uranus and fills the Mystic Rectangle with two opposing Fingers of God…

If XXX means three kisses rather than Do Not Enter, then we’re good.  There’s huge Grace in this chart – most of which we’ve discussed before, but there’s also massive Change.

Big Portal 10.26/10.27

Moonstone and Labradorite are kissing cousins.  Who they appear to be depends on what angle you look at them from.

Our old buddy the Moon creates a Big Portal October 26, when it forms a Grand Cross with the Juno T-Square, and a Diamond Star with the remnants of our exploded Grand Sextile.  The Diamond Star will be with us from around 9pm PDT October 26 till about 5am PDT October 27.  The Grand Cross will provide a bit of temporary balance for the ongoing Juno-Nodes T-Square (Karmic Limitations and Deep Desires erupting into Consciousness) and the Diamond Star will add Grace of the highest order – Chiron and Pluto (Miracles of Transformation).  Here’s the Diamond Star…

Notice the green lines; they’re the Yod that creates the Diamond Star from the T-Square or Grand Cross (the red lines).  The Moon signifies Manifestation, the Challenge (Grand Cross) is growth of Consciousness, the Grace comes from the most potent Trance ReFormer and Reality Reframer that we know of, and the green lines represent Curiosity.  Which is important.  We need to ask…

I wonder how I’m going to be Transmogrified during this adventure!?!?

and while Pi asks us to Take Responsibility for what’s going down – it could easily be your Worst Fears manifesting, as that’s what Karmic Limitations are all about – you won’t get marked down if you also add…

Please make this Transition a Loving and Gentle one!

In fact, you’ll get a gold star for Self-Love if you do.

But that’s only the beginning for this Big Portal.  We’ve left the Diamond Star drawn in lightly, but added several elements…

The Grand Trine (blue Triangle) and Mystic Rectangle (blue box) are the remnants of our earlier Grand Sextile.  They aren’t nearly as temporary as the Moon’s Angles in the first picture, in fact they’re with us through November 1’s Uranus-Pluto Square.  They even make another Portal or two for us between now and then.  Meaning?  In a word, Gifts.

The Pluto-Mars-South Node Grand Trine says that even though our self-sabotage (South Node) will be very active (Mars) and unquenchable (Pluto), it will also be very easy on us (the Trines).  Just keep your eyes open.  Our Karma behaves like a multiple personality – when we begin to self-sabotage, our Sensible Self leaves town.

• If you’re aware of your self-sabotage but you haven’t gotten it together yet to stop it from taking center stage, then this is the moment to meet and confront this detractor of yours.  You might be thinking – Gee, I seem to be “getting away” with what I know isn’t good for me! – but it’s only a buildup to a big letdown.
• If you still think it’s somebody else that sabotages you, you’re probably about to meet them in the mirror.

The Mystic Rectangle is two Oppositions (Awareness of Contradistinction, hopefully leading to Awareness of Unity) whose ends are Trine and Sextile to one another.  Our old friends the Nodes, who’ve been so active lately, and Mars Opposite Chiron.  Mars-Chiron represents the contrast between doing it the hard way and manifesting a Miracle.  The worst kind of Despair is Unconscious Despair – when it never even crosses our mind that a Miracle is possible.  So we get into Sisyphean situations, where we know there are no good outcomes, yet we work our butts off trying anyway (overMars), just to show the coach that we have stick-to-it-ive-ness.

The keys to activating a Mystic Rectangle are the Sextiles – Mars-North Node and Chiron-South Node.  Sextiles require a smidgeon of initiative on our part before the Grace kicks in.  So we must take a step (Mars) toward what we really Want (North Node), and we must be willing to allow our lives to be turned upside down when we start to reframe our Limitations (Chiron), experience the Ego Death (nothing feels worse), and let go of the Fears and Rage that define who we have believed ourselves to be (South Node).

Then look at the green lines – all of these landmines are in the Portal!  A Uranus Yod and a Mars Yod.  Curiosity, right?

• I wonder what I will do (Mars) to merge my Soul Self (Uranus) with my Unconscious Identity (Juno)!?!?
• I wonder who I will be (Uranus) when I begin to Act (Mars) in accord with my Mission in this Lifetime (North Node)!?!?

Note that the Yods also form a bunch of those nice Challenge-Curiosity-Grace Triangles.  These are the places where we can consciously apply Curiosity to a perceived Problem and if we then stand back and change the subject, we’ll see Grace take over.  These are Jewels – using them Consciously, we can melt problems like butter.  Let’s work through a few of them…

• Pluto Square Uranus Quincunx Mars Trine Pluto – If I’m having difficulty because everything is changing so rapidly, I can wonder what I might do about it?

Remember you don’t answer the question; you wait for your Guides to reveal the answer to you, through what you do unconsciously, that you had no conscious idea actually related to the original problem.  You discover the answer after the fact, through self-observation.

• Uranus Square Pluto Quincunx Moon Trine Uranus – If I’m having difficulty because the World seems to be in Resistance to who I know I have to be, I can wonder how it will all work out?
• South Node Square Moon Quincunx Pluto Trine South Node – If my self-sabotage is interfering with what I’m trying to manifest, I can wonder what will be manifested?
• North Node Square Moon Quincunx Chiron Trine North Node – If my Deepest Desires are not Manifesting by themselves, I can wonder what sort of Miracle will reframe my Desires so they’re achievable?
• Moon Square North Node Quincunx Uranus Trine Moon – If what I’m trying to manifest seems to conflict with my Mission, I can wonder exactly who is in charge?
• South Node Square Juno Quincunx Mars Trine South Node – If my self-sabotage is holding me back, I can wonder what to do about it?

Remember that it’s the state of Wonder that you’re trying to achieve and maintain.  You don’t want Certainty.  In the case of a Square-Quincunx-Sextile, we may have to take an action after wondering…

• North Node Square Juno Quincunx Mars Sextile North Node – If I’m trying to manifest my Deepest Desires but it just doesn’t feel like me, I can wonder what I’ll have to do to align those two?  I may just have to wonder what would happen if I tried something different.
• Juno Square North Node Quincunx Uranus Sextile Juno – If it doesn’t feel right to act out my Deepest Desires, I can wonder who would I have to be to do that?  Maybe I can try play-acting a couple of roles.
• North Node Square Moon Quincunx Pluto Sextile North Node – If I don’t feel like I’m prepared to manifest what I need to manifest, I can wonder what sort of trance I would have to be in to do that.  I could try a few on just for laughs.
• South Node Square Moon Quincunx Chiron Sextile South Node – If I’m frustrated that my Limits won’t let me manifest what I feel like I need to create, I can wonder how I might reverse-engineer the issue, namely imagine that I can manifest it, and then see how different that feels in my body.
• Pluto Square Uranus Quincunx North Node Sextile Pluto – If it feels like my Higher Self is of synch with the World, I can wonder how I can be the change I wish to see in the World, and maybe PIAVA a new trance that will let me see how that feels.

See if you can find any that I missed.  You’re looking for any planet that has both a Square (short red line) and a Quincunx (green line) connected to it.  Then follow the Square to the second planet, and find a blue line (Trine or Sextile) back to the first planet.

Phew!  Lots going on!  You’re probably exhausted – or long since quit paying attention, unless you love puzzles!  Well, we ain’t done.  We’re still on the same 10.26/10.27 Portal, and there’s more…Two interlocking Mjolnirs!  Neither is dependent on the Moon, so neither is short-lived, though Venus will move away in a few days.  Mjolnirs are about Lightning-like Insight.  In some cases Insight that destroys a house of cards you’ve been building.  Suppose you’ve put a business or relationship partner on a pedestal, for instance, and you suddenly see that they aren’t who you’ve been thinking they were.  If you’ve been building a business or a Life or a family around them, this is Big Thunder.

The South Node (our Karmic Limits and Hidden Skills) Mjolnir has as its base a Square between Vesta (our notion of the Sacred) and Venus (our Values).  This literally comes down to

I’d do anything for Love, but I won’t do that! 

Think about your Values – what you’re Passionate about, and what makes you Angry or Aghast.  What’s Sacred to you is a little different.  Your Values trigger strong Emotions, but you wouldn’t be willing to die for them.  With a Square between the two, their differences are illuminating, and probably a little jarring.  You probably feel a little out of synch, or even a little out of Integrity.  The whole thing is complicated because Vesta’s in an Earth Sign, not a Fire Sign where it’s comfortable, and Venus is in a Fire Sign, not a Water Sign where it would feel at home.  Truth is, there’s probably no way you can resolve your sense of being out of synch.

But both are Trioctile to the South Node – so if you’re listening, this disharmony will tell you a whole lot about your Limiting Beliefs.  Chances are you’re familiar with this out-of-synch feeling.  You’ve been there before.  Close your eyes and look down at your feet (keeping your eyes closed).  What are you wearing?  Roman sandals and a toga?  Rags?  Furs?  Fine linen?  You may not be wearing anything.  Were you male or female in that Lifetime?  Are there other people around, or are you alone?  I know, it may not feel quite real – go ahead and pretend that it is.  What were you really good at in that Lifetime?  Anything?  Were you proud, or humble about it?  How did you die in that Lifetime?  This is Opportunity.

And the Vesta Mjolnir has as its base the Square between Juno and the South Node.  The South Node is in stubborn Taurus – it isn’t about to give up its secrets easily.  Juno is in Aquarius.  You’re wanting Community.  Are you worthy of Community?  Do you have to give more than you get in order to feel like you belong?  Do you have to get more than you give in order to want to belong?  Community includes what you do for a living – do you do what you love?  Or work to survive?  Are you fairly paid?

Do you blaspheme against your own sense of the Sacred?  Why?  As a Defense against feeling rigid or fearing Abandonment?  Are you overzealous about judging others who don’t measure up to your standards?  You wouldn’t want to be in Community with them now, would you.  Do you measure up to your own standards?  Like Woody, would you want to belong to a club that would have you for a member?  What compromises do you make in order to survive?  What would you rather die than do?

All those questions could easily prompt you for another session of closing your eyes and looking at your feet.  In the current Lifetime, you learned your Limiting Beliefs from someone.  They tried to control you with either Suffocation or Abandonment or both.  Even if it didn’t work, it did.  You’ve internalized those controls.  Who was it that demanded this of you when you were young and vulnerable?  If we’re conscious of that, we may have gone through Life accepting our Limits but blaming them.

But they go far deeper than that.  That person – or persons – who tried to control you, you’ve known them before.  What were the circumstances?  Were you in their jail?  Did they escape from yours by tricking you?  Were they your master or your slave?  Did you feel Powerless then too?  What were you both wearing?

Go for the Insights.  These are Big Changes.  When Pluto and Uranus and the Nodes are involved, “we” – our little Ego, that is – don’t actually have as much Power as we’d like to have.  Armies have been mobilized in the Unconscious, and they are marching.  The die has been cast, and Change is afoot.  We need to strive for letting go of our Limiting Beliefs, embracing our Deepest Desires, and dropping our Masks.  We need to do all that lovingly and gently, but rapidly and completely.  It’s not optional, it’s what the planet is evolving to.  We will have considerable mopping up to do and amends to make afterwards, reorganizing everything and apologizing for a Lifetime of disingenuous moments and acts and words.

It’s all good – everyone else will be in the same boat.

10.25-10.26

Very busy times.  In addition to the many other Configurations we’ve already talked about, there’s another Lunar Quintile Yod formed between around 9pm PDT October 25 and about 5am PDT October 26.  The base of the QYod includes Venus and Neptune.  This is a very different Energy from the Grand Sextile’s Mars, Chiron, and Pluto vibes.  Venus stands for our consistent Emotions, our Values.  Neptune symbolizes our Relationship with Anything Larger than Ourselves – God and our Culture are typical examples.  An Unconscious planet, Neptune can be considered deeply involved with our Cultural programming.

The main effects are the Uranus-Pluto Square and the Juno-Nodes T-Square, both having to do with releasing our Cultural and Karmic programming in favor of our True Self and Deep Desires.  So a Moon-Venus-Neptune Learning Opportunity as the supporting actress is likely to bring us into circumstances that allow us to notice where our Emotional Values are out of synch with our Truth.  Neptune is also famous for producing Confusion when seeing the World as Materialistic, and Clarity when viewing the World through a Spiritual perspective.  Which means, if we embrace the Confusion as a first step in growth of Consciousness, we may Manifest (Moon) a clearer picture of the relationship between our Ego and our Truth.

The Quintile Yod is the big orange Triangle.  But there are also two other things going on here.  First, the Tenth-Harmonic yellow Lines.  And second, the “wings,” or two orange Quintiles on either side of the larger Triangles.

The wings are Quintiles from Jupiter to the South Node, and from Pallas to the North Node.  The first will conveniently Expand our Karmic Limitations, so it will be easier for us to distinguish them from the Cosmic Background.  And the second will help us say NO! to the cultural forces that want to make us conform to their rules rather than trusting our own Truth.  The yellow and orange Triangle and cut-stone shape add an element of Learning about Abundance to the Yin QYod.  That is…

Mercury (Awareness) Teaching us (Quintile) about our Truth (Uranus) as a Tenth-Harmonic (Abundance) “wrapper” around the Moon-Venus-Neptune QYod.

The yellow Configuration is in place from around 3am PDT to about 6am PDT October 26.

10.24 III and Beyond

More Configurations keep popping out of the Background – I just noticed the Pallas Mjolnir across the Uranus-Pluto Square.  Plain and simple, that means we’ll be setting Boundaries against everything that prevents us from living in the manner to which our Soul Self would like to become accustomed.  This Mjolnir stays with us through the end of October.

A Mjolnir, recall, is about Realignment and Rebalancing.  It’s a gift really.  The Uranus-Pluto Square is exact again on November 1 (4am PDT, should you want to set an alarm), and Squares feel like Challenges, even though what they’re really about is Mastery.  Think story problems.  It’s about extending your concepts and skills into new arenas, like understanding where a Maybe might work fine, where a Hell No! is necessary, where a Hell No! can get you into serious trouble, where in order to win the war but lose the battle you really have no choice but to say OK, and what sort of inflection to put on your OK – excitement or resignation, for example.

Pallas was the Goddess of War and Wisdom.  The courage to change what can be changed, the serenity to accept what can’t, and the wisdom to know the difference.  While Thor’s Hammer or Mjolnir was known for its destructive power, Indra’s Vajra was known more for its magical power to penetrate the impenetrable.  The power to destroy impenetrable Karmic self-sabotage Patterns can be very useful, and the Lightning-like power of Insight to penetrate what was previously opaque can initiate that process.  Remember that the Trioctile combines the Rebalancing of the Eighth Harmonic with the Grace of the Third.  Much more gentle than the stark edges of Dominion (the Square or Fourth Harmonic).

In addition to the Pallas Mjolnir, we also carry with us into the November 1 Square five-sixths of a Grand Sextile, Pluto being one point of the all-but Grand Sextile, and Uranus topping a Finger of God with two other points on it (Mars and the North Node).  The Sextiles are about Creative Grace (Grace flows once we exert some effort to get it started), and the Finger of God urges us to be Curious about how our Soul Self (Uranus) will break through our defensiveness (Mars) and diminish our rejection of our Deepest Desires (North Node).  While the Finger of God says Pay Attention! (to our Uranian Yintegrity), the Finger of God is a Yin Configuration.  It’s not about Force, it’s about PIAVA.

And before we leave the subject of Mjolnirs, there is an asteroid named Mjolnir, and it happens to Conjoin Pluto on October 27.  What a coincidence, eh?  Light-ning.

And speaking of more Configurations popping out of the Cosmic Background, Portal 10.24 also includes a short-lived Juno Diamond Star!  That’s a Biggie!  Remember that a Diamond Star is a “bowl of Grace” that forms under a T-Square when the planet at the Apex of the T-Square is also the Apex of a Finger of God.  In this case the Moon and Mars, which of course are part of the 10.24 Grand Sextile, form the base of the Finger of Yod.

So we have a number of Configurations softening our upcoming exact Uranus-Pluto Square, and today a nice Diamond Star ameliorating our ongoing Juno-Nodes T-Square.  If anybody asked I’d have to say that a Juno-Nodes T-Square and a Uranus-Pluto Square have basically the same effect – bringing more of our Soul’s Purpose in the Lifetime into our everyday Consciousness.  So Pi hasn’t completely abandoned us to our own Responsibility here post 2012.  We’re still getting substantial assistance from the Cosmos.  Gratitude would be a very wise Response.

Beyond Samhain

The first half of November is a little busy…

• Mercury-Saturn Solar Eclipse at 12 Scorpio “An official embassy ball” on November 3.
• Jupiter Stationary Retrograde in Cancer on November 6.
• Mercury Stationary Direct in early Scorpio on November 10.
• Neptune Stationary Direct in early Pisces on November 13.

All about the Water Signs – Emotion.  Held Emotions are what keep our Karmic Limitations in place, and Liberated Emotions are what create new Realities.

If it feels like you’ll Die if you have to experience that again, EMBRACE it!  Lovingly and gently.  Ego Death and the disintegration of Held Emotions are the same thing.