August-September VII

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.

  Š    Š    Š    Š    Š 

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…

• Chiron deals with Discouragement/Despair over the Shortcomings of our Limiting Beliefs, which we perceive as Limitations of Reality; once we Lovingly Witness our Despair we Expand our Consciousness and are visited by Perspectives beyond our previous Limiting Beliefs
• Chariklo deals with the Expectation of Privilege, from the Female side (Nessus from the Male side); like Self-Love, the Expectation of Privilege tends to be Mirrored by external Reality
• Hylonome deals with our Identity – Ego-Identification or Merging with people or things outside ourself, and in particular the Ego Death which we experience as Grief when our external Mirror-Image is broken
• Pholus deals with the Expectations of Others, and how well we meet them; it’s about Taking Full Responsibility for what’s important to us and important to those with whom we have tacit or explicit contracts

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…

• Quaoar – the Law-Giver, not for the sake of Order, but for the sake of Survival; Quaoar defines the Edges of Survivability
• Ixion – Impulse, the Desire Body, that operates without concern for Other
• Chaos – Unlimited Potential
• Haumea – Rebirth
• Eris – the principle of Denial and the Changes required by its Revelation
• Makemake – Manifestation
• Sedna – Actions taken out of Fear

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…

August-September V

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…

August-September IV

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…

August-September III

“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/

  Θ    Θ    Θ    Θ    Θ 

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…

http://www.marsvenus.com/

The new Cycle will be quite complex, so we’ll save it for when we continue…

August-September II

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…

August-September I

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.

Synchronicity

A Lemurian Dow Quartz wand.  Lemurians are characterized by the horizontal striations and (often) pinkish tinge.  A Dow Quartz is a Crystal with alternating faces of three and seven edges.  In modern times Lemurian Crystals were found in sand, already detached from their base.  Channeling reveals that they were coded with the story of Equality and Unity and left as a sort of time capsule in sand on a mountaintop by the inhabitants of  Lemuria before the demise of their continent.  Dow wands are particularly effective a directing Energy; Lemurians are particularly effective at Healing and at Integration of disjointed parts of the Self – Soul Retrieval.

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Speaking of Synchronicity (which we were in the Social Yintegrity post, https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2015/08/13/social-yintegrity/ ), I’ve “stumbled upon” (what a coincidence!) a fabulous book on just that!  It’s The Three “Only” Things: Tapping the Power of Dreams, Coincidence, & Imagination, by Australian Robert Moss.  “Only” things as in “It’s only a dream,” as a dismissal.  I somehow had not encountered Mr. Moss before.  Highly recommended.  A sample (pp.21-2)…

“Paying attention to the Three Only Things give us much more than a winning edge.

“Living this way – even for just five minutes of dedicated time each day – we put ourselves in touch with our inner truth.  We find our inner compass and get a ‘second opinion’ on vital personal issues in the midst of confusion and conflicting agendas.  We open and sustain a dialogue with a Self that is wiser than what Yeats called ‘the daily trivial mind.’

“We allow ourselves to move effortlessly into creative flow.

“We also allow our Big Stories to reveal themselves.  Australian Aboriginals say Big Stories hunt the right people to tell them, like predators stalking and sniffing in the bush.  The trick is not to go chasing them, but to let them catch up with us.

“Sometimes a Big Story seizes us through a riff of coincidence we simply cannot dismiss.  When we are seized by a Big Story, our lives are different.  We have the power to cope with everyday dramas with greater courage and grace, because we are aware of a deeper drama.  We have access to mythic resources, in the sense Joseph Campbell conveyed when he reminded us that healing is what happens when we ‘move beyond suffering into myth.  We now travel with a sense of mission, and when we travel with that sense of mission, we draw different events and people and opportunities toward us.

“We make ourselves available to the Big Stories when we make room in our lives for dreams, coincidence, and the play of imagination.”

Social Yintegrity

Molybdenite, the Sulfate of Molybdenum.  Molybdenum, or “Molly” as she is commonly known, is a Chrome-like element that does not occur on Earth alone, but always Crystallized with other elements.  She’s persistently Solid, with one of the highest melting points of any element.  In the Sulfate, the Molly atoms are tightly bound to each other and to the Sulfur, making solid plates, but the Sulfur atoms are loosely bound to one another, so Molybenite behaves like a Mica, with plates sliding past one another and cleaving off.  Michael Gienger says, “Sulphur wakens our shadow sides and helps us confront them and overcome them.  Then we find the shaft of light that makes it possible for us to accept things we rejected before and to integrate them” (Crystal Power, Crystal Healing, p.124).  Molybdenite also always contains a minute quantity of extremely rare Rhenium, an element that’s so persistently Solid that it’s used to line jet engines.

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An excellent question from a reader…

“Not sure where you’re getting ‘in a social context’ when you write of the June 2016 Uranus-Eris initiation: ‘…we’ll come to appreciate Yintegrity in a social context a lot more.’ “

Here’s the source, from Who Are We? Part Two…

“In June of next year another long Cycle (about 90 years) begins, when Eris Initiates Uranus.  Eris is a dwarf planet out near Pluto, and it symbolizes the Revelation of that which has been Denied.  Denial is a healthy psychological function, as it allows us to work on foundational issues without other more complex issues intruding into our Consciousness before we’re ready to work with them.  As this new Cycle begins to take hold (the more Sensitive among us are already Feeling it), we’ll come to appreciate Yintegrity in a social context a lot more.

“The Initiation occurs at 24 Aries, ‘Blown inward by the wind, the curtains of an open window take the shape of a Cornucopia.’ “

The issue arises because we’re programmed to Live in a Yangtegrity World, and from that Perspective, Yintegrity is Chaos (Disorder, not Unlimited Potential, ie, not the dwarf planet).  “Sorry, we couldn’t get your car fixed, because the parts person didn’t Feel like driving around today.  Maybe next week.”  Traditionally, the Masters enjoyed the privilege of Yintegrity, and enforced Yangtegrity among the Slaves with violence.  Under the Industrial Revolution it was a bit more “civilized,” with Bosses and Wage Slaves, but it was the same picture. 

Yintegrity is the natural state for everyone. 

When I learned Time Management, the major takeaway for me was “To succeed, moment to moment always do The Most Important Thing.”  Well, obviously, if you aren’t taking your marching orders directly from someone else, you really need access to your Intuition in order to discover The Most Important Thing moment to moment.  You can use your mind, but then you’re orienting yourself to the Past.  If you want to orient to the Future, you need your Intuition.  Except in cases where you have extensive specialized training and Experience (and often even then), in order to access your Intuition, you need to be Relaxed.  This is especially true when the Future will be different from the Past.  So the necessary corollary is “To succeed, moment to moment always stay Relaxed.”

In a friendly climate where there’s more Food than competition for it, Relaxation and Yintegrity are fairly easy, and unless they’re prone to violence by nature, most of the potential Masters and Bosses can be ignored.  When Scarcity enters the picture, the Political situation Changes.  We can still opt out, by working on our Scarcity, and the “New Age” has developed many tools for that.  Katrina Blair’s Wild Wisdom of Weeds or Sergei Boutenko’s Wild Edibles can even help us Let Go of our Scarcity around Food.  But eventually, the likelihood that we’ll Want something produced by the Human Collective increases, and with it the likelihood that we’ll revert to some form of Slavery – that is, Yangtegrity.

I know, I hear youalls saying, “But doing what you said you would do is Integrity!  I hate it when people don’t do what they said they would.  Just the other day I had to walk two miles in the rain because my ride didn’t show up like they said they would – ‘I forgot,’ they said!”  And that’s because we’re hypnotized to be Slaves, not Masters.  Just like we’re hypnotized to Believe that nothing exists outside of Cause and Effect and Linear Time, at least nothing Material.  So we come to Synchronicity.  Your mother drove by the place where you were standing, two minutes after you left it to walk home in the rain.  Mind orients toward the Past, Intuition toward the Future, but we have to be Relaxed.

So we get “in a social context” mostly out of necessity.  If we can depend on Synchronicity, and Pay Attention to what’s being Taught when it fails to meet our needs, then we can all do Yintegrity and Survive.  Otherwise, we have to save our Yintegrity for vacations and, if we’re lucky enough, retirement.  We’ve barely been introduced to Yintegrity and “Ouija Board” Intuition, especially if we were born after the 1960s.

The Ouija Board, recall, is the Sabian Symbol for the Pluto-Uranus Initiation that governs this Uranus-Pluto Cycle.

One of the first things that the Eris-Uranus Initiation will probably show us, is the keystone parts of ourselves which will allow us to Live Yintegrity without total social chaos.  We don’t Believe that permanent Yintegrity is possible.  Sure, we can read the stories of the Saints and other Masters, who achieved their successes through Synchronicities, but they’re Saints and Masters.  So, if we’re Open to it, Eris-Uranus can show us the places where we have Separated ourselves from the Flow.  It’s one thing to Manifest through Force of Will, but quite another to be in the Right Place at the Right Time to Receive Abundance Effortlessly.

We could relate several other Cycles (Chiron-Neptune chief among them) and Discoveries (Quaoar, Makemake, and Ixion chief among them), but we’ll save that for later.

Who Are We? Part Three

“Who Are We? Part Two” covered the background; here’s our homework for the Energies in the Foreground…

1. The Uranus-Eris Grand Quintile; see Part Two.
2. The Eris Grand Quintile will endure till around 23 August, with some carryover after that, depending on how well you’re open to new Perspectives on yourself and your World.
3. Eris Initiates asteroid Karma on 13 August at 24 Aries, the same Cornucopia Degree as the June 2016 Eris-Uranus Initiation.
4. Vesta is Stationary today, 11 August.  It’s turning Retrograde, and will back over the first half of Aries till mid-November.  It’s already crossed this span once, and if you look closely you can see that your Beliefs about Individuality and Creativity have shifted.  We’ll be exploring this more thoroughly over the next three months.
5. Pallas was Stationary on 2 August, turning Direct.  It’s crossed the last two thirds of Sagittarius twice already, and it’s about to cross it for a third time.  Pallas is about setting and loosening Boundaries, Sagittarius is about Letting Go of Pain, and the last two thirds of Sagittarius are about Initiating and Developing new approaches to Letting Go of Pain.  What Boundaries have you Changed since late January of this year?  Those Changes will be facilitating the further development of your Yintegrity.  Do you Feel good about them?
6. The Moon crosses Juno on 16 August.
7. Mercury crosses Juno on 19 August.
8. Also on 19 August, the Moon Opposes Uranus, Eris, and a.Karma.
9. The Moon crosses Saturn on 22 August.

We’ll spend much of August working on bringing elements of our Shadow (ie, that which we prefer not to see in ourSelf) into the Self-Integration project we’re in the middle of.  We’re likely to see a peak in our Insight (or, if we’re in Resistance, in our Pain) around 19 August.

Who Are We? Part Two

Blue Topaz – a simple Aluminum Silicate Flouoride – is another Stone that facilitates Integration.

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Great gratitude to our asteroid-hawk reader Elizabeth, who has pointed out several things we didn’t notice yesterday.  For example…

• If we have a Uranus Grand Quintile, we also have an Eris Grand Quintile, since the two are inching toward Conjunction
• The Eris Grand Quintile will endure till around 23 August
• Asteroid Karma crosses Eris  on 13 August
• Vesta is Stationary today, 11 August – highly relevant because our Beliefs will be Changing as our Identity Changes
• Pallas was Stationary on 2 August – relevant because Who Are We? Part One  ( https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/who-are-we-2/ ) emphasized Boundaries
• The Moon crosses Juno on 16 August
• Mercury crosses Juno on 19 August
• Also on 19 August, the Moon Opposes Uranus, Eris, and a.Karma
• The Moon crosses Saturn on 22 August

In other words, the plot thickens, a great deal.

Pluto represents, more or less, that which we can’t avoid.  We can manipulate it, but not avoid it.  I think of Pluto as a large River (the River of Time, literally); trying to paddle upstream is futile, but if we’re willing to be carried by the current, we can steer toward one bank or another, and if we Pay Attention we can “hear” rapids and waterfalls approaching, and portage around them.

Uranus represents, more or less, the Voice of our Personal Soul.  Uranus has a reputation for Disruption, because it Disrupts that which is no longer in alignment with our Soul’s Intentions for us in the Lifetime.  Uranus can be avoided, but at our peril, as the Voice gets louder and louder when we ignore it, till we have to stop business as usual, back up, and clean up the mess we’ve made by ignoring our Soul’s Voice.  Better to Listen Up.

Pluto Initiated Uranus – which means that the River of Time gave our Soul’s Voice an assignment – in the 1960s.  Think of it like the Initiate (Uranus) receiving Shaktipat from the Guru (Pluto).  Thus began a new 140-year Cycle.  Uranus-Pluto Cycles are about synchronizing the Individual with the Zeitgeist.  This particular Uranus-Pluto Cycle is about Learning to Trust our Intuition more strongly than we Trust Authority.

The Sabian Symbol for the Initiation was “A Ouija board.”

The Energy of a Cycle is prominent at the Initiation – witness the struggles in the 1960s between the youth and the Powers That Be, over the Vietnam War, over Privateering (the folks who get rich from War), over Racism, over Poverty, over Sexism, over Inequality in general.  The Energy then goes “underground,” where it slowly grows, though mostly out of sight.  Till the Cycle is one fourth of the way through – then the Energy of the Cycle emerges and become prominent again, this time “for good” (for the duration of the Cycle at least, but what the Cycle Teaches us is permanent). 

This “one fourth” point of the Cycle occurred in 2012-2015, when Uranus and Pluto danced together seven times.  So, as you may have noticed, all those issues – War and Inequalities of many sorts, are lit up again.  But this time they won’t go underground again, they’ll get louder and louder till we Listen Up.

We’ve been referring to this Energy as Yintegrity, and defining it as “Doing what we Feel like Doing, moment to moment” – as opposed to Yangtegrity – “Doing what we said we would.”  If you review the Marianne Williamson quote in “August II” ( https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2015/08/05/august-ii-big-integration-gets-bigger/ ), if you realize that Cooperation and Collaboration are at least as important in Nature as Competition (and probably much more important), and if you project that eventually folks will Learn to Tolerate Differences (Vive le), then you can dimly envision how a Society might operate based on Yintegrity rather than Yangtegrity. 

We propose that as the current Cycle develops further, we’ll see more Yintegrity and less Yangtegrity.  If you study Management or Innovation, you can find many examples where Individuals are making huge social contributions by indulging their Yintegrity.  Unfortunately, in most of those examples, the person who’s exercising their Yintegrity expects a great deal of Yangtegrity from others – with exceptions.  When a first mate demonstrates that their Yintegrity is productive, some captains can accept it.  Think Steve Jobs with Tim Cook and Jonathan Ive, or the Pixar team, where “constructive criticism” is the order of the day.  Eventually, as Humans expand their Consciousness and become less Defensive of their Ego Props, Collaborative Yintegrity will become available to more people than the Bullies and Radical Honesty graduates.

We normally use three Degrees of “Sensitivity” – that is, when an Energy is descending (or ascending) upon us, we start to Pay Attention when the two planets that symbolize the Energy are three Degrees apart.  Some of us are more Sensitive than others, so we’ll start to Feel the Energy sooner, but for most Energies, three Degrees is useful.  So while Uranus and Pluto won’t be dancing cheek to cheek, they will approach one another within three Degrees for a while, between 26 November 2015 and 9 April 2016.

If there’s any part of our Yintegrity homework that we didn’t finish in 2012-2015, we’ll get the opportunity (and it may not be voluntary) to polish our Techniques and Commitment between December of this year and March of next year.

In June of next year another long Cycle (about 90 years) begins, when Eris Initiates Uranus.  Eris is a dwarf planet out near Pluto, and it symbolizes the Revelation of that which has been Denied.  Denial is a healthy psychological function, as it allows us to work on foundational issues without other more complex issues intruding into our Consciousness before we’re ready to work with them.  As this new Cycle begins to take hold (the more Sensitive among us are already Feeling it), we’ll come to appreciate Yintegrity in a social context a lot more.

The Initiation occurs at 24 Aries, “Blown inward by the wind, the curtains of an open window take the shape of a Cornucopia.“

The current major Energies, of which there are two, are preparation for the new Uranus-Eris Cycle.  The current “Who Are We?” Energy tells us that The Most Important Thing is Expanding our Consciousness to allow our Self-Concept to include what we’ve been hiding from ourSelf.  And the current “Taking Full Responsibility for our Rebirth into Radical Honesty” (August I and August II – Big Integration) Energy is Creating the Miracles we need to lift ourSelf into greater Yintegrity.

We have to include the Pholus-Ixion Cycle in this complex, since it’s the bottom line of the current “Full Responsibility” Energy.  The Pholus-Ixion Cycle spans about 110 years.

That’s the background; let’s look more closely at the foreground in “Who Are We” Part Three…