Another Cusp Event

The “Square,”¹ which is astrologuese for Hassle or Challenge, gives us headaches because it attempts to join two parts of ourself that are in Fierce Competition – our Physicality v. our Spirituality v. our Emotionality v. our Mentality² – which aren’t likely to want to Compromise. It’s like the Heart and the Brain arguing over who’s More Important, when in walks the Anus.

On the other hand, the “Trine,”³ astrojargon for Sympathy and Understanding, Harmony and Trust Abounding, contributes to our Joy and Ease and Confidence because it links different parts of ourself that Love to Rock Out Together when they Team Up – like our Creativity, our Certainty, and our Evolution.⁴ Imagine our Dancer joining our Musician, our Writer collaborating with our Illustrator, our Artist enjoying Critical Acclaim and Financial Success.

When planets linger on Cusps, these traditional Relationships get crossed up. For instance, instead of our Creative Spirituality happily Dancing with our Evolutionary Spirituality, we might have our Creative Spirituality Dancing clumsily with our Emotional Certainty, where we might find (and Examine or Deny) our Bigotry.⁵ Or the Confusion of our Emotional Certainty encountering our Physical Evolution (Remember in our youth when we didn’t want anything to do with the Opposite Gender, till Puberty kicked in?) instead of the routine Challenges of the little Demons and Angels on our shoulders juggling our Emotional Certainty with our Spiritual Certainty.⁶

¹ Shown in our charts by a short red line between planets three Signs apart.

² Respectively, Earth, Fire, Water, Air Signs [Matter, Spirit, Emotion, Thought] – eg Leo 🥊 Scorpio 🥊 Aquarius 🥊 Taurus, or Capricorn 🥊 Aries 🥊 Cancer 🥊 Libra, or Virgo 🥊 Sagittarius 🥊 Pisces 🥊 Gemini.

³ Shown as long blue lines between planets four Signs apart.

⁴ Respectively, Cardinal, Fixed, and Mutable Signs [Creative, Stable, Changing] – eg. Aries ❤️ Leo ❤️ Sagittarius, Taurus ❤️ Virgo ❤️ Capricorn, Gemini ❤️ Libra ❤️ Aquarius, Cancer ❤️ Scorpio ❤️ Pisces.

⁵ Instead of early Aries to early Sagittarius, early Aries Trine to late Scorpio.

⁶ Late Scorpio Square to early Virgo, instead of late Scorpio to late Leo.

In addition, Cusps are by their nature times of Change, so in addition to the potential Confusion created by these crossovers, we don’t have our History or Herstory to fall back on.

For instance, in the 30 August 2021 Converting Fear to Power chart, Fear Challenges and/or is Challenged by both Trust and Domination. The Trust Challenge is a “Traditional” Challenge – the Material Certainty of Fear (we can Feel it in our Physical Bodies) versus the Spiritual Certainty of Trust. It’s about finding a Balance between Fear and Trust that works to keep us out of Fight/Flight/Freeze and allows us to Differentiate “Real” from Karmic Threats and Act Effectively in Response to each, parrying the Real and Becoming Conscious of the Karmic. But the Challenge of Domination is different. It’s about Physical Stability versus Physical Evolution – it’s about Fear of Change. Do we know what makes the Karmic Real? Do we know what can make the Real Karmic? ⁷

That’s not all. The Merging of Trust and Domination is also Cuspal. The Trust issue is about Self-Trust. We’d been working since early June on Trusting that our Ego can Handle the Changes, as part of Healing our Unconditional Self-Love. We were in the final stages of that process when Fear Tested us. The Domination issue is about Change. Change in our Willingness to be Dominated or Abused, and Change in our use of Domination (Abuse) in our approach to Getting Our Needs Met. We just started that three-year project, so we’re in the early stages of Discovering the Unknown Unknowns that we need to work on.⁸

⁷ In the Sedna [Fear to Power] Station chart, Sedna at the end of Taurus [Fixed Earth] is Squared by both asteroid Eurydike [Trust] at the end of Leo [Fixed Fire] and dwarf planet Thereus [Domination] in early Virgo [Mutable Earth].

⁸ Eurydike in Leo [Self-Trust] since early June, through 6 September 2021. Thereus in Virgo from early August 2021 through September 2024.

So if we maxed our Benefit from this Challenge (one of many) in the 30 August Fear-Power Curriculum, we were perhaps Discovering where Domination – Bullying or Codependence – fit into our Multidimensional and Unitary Karmic jigsaw puzzle. Are we Creating new Karma or Deepening old Karma through Repetition of Unconscious (or Semi-Conscious and Uncorrected) Domination or Codependence Patterns, and does that Frighten us, or maybe should it Frighten us? Are we Trusting too much that the Victims of our Domination Patterns aren’t hiding Conscious or Unconscious Resentment? Might our Codependence partners Resent our depending on them for Psychological or other “Services” that we should be handling ourself?

What’s the nature of our Karmic Contracts with these “Partners”? As the Planet Descends further into Disorder on way too many fronts all at once, how will this impact our Relationships with and within the Communities we’ll Need for Survival?⁹

⁹ A new five-year Eurydike-Thereus [Trust-Equality, Power Dynamics] Cycle begins on 21 September 2021 (7:12 am PDT), in 5 Virgo, “A person becoming aware of Nature Spirits and normally unseen Spiritual Agencies.” These people (the Nature Spirits and Spiritual Agencies) are Distressed that Hupers are not doing their essential part in Reanimating the Planet (ie, working with the Nature Spirits rather than ignoring them).

I just finished Thomas Mayer’s recently-translated book Answering the Call of the Elementals: Practices for Connecting with Nature Spirits, and I highly recommend it. I’ve been working and studying for many years to recover the Connection I had with them in my youth, before my father shamed it into Hiding, and the practices in Mayer’s book are the most Practical and Powerful that I’ve found. There’s also a promising 18 September online workshop sponsored by the Fairy and Human Relations Congress; see https://www.fairycongress.com/monthly-workshops/.

From here I’d like, if I find the time, to examine the Transcuspal Relationship between the dwarf planets that symbolize Unconstrained Freedom (Ixion in the last Degree of Sagittarius) and Taking Full Responsibility for our Survival (Pholus and Quaoar in early Capricorn). The influence of Unconstrained Freedom is Exaggerated (Stationary) until 12 September, and of Taking Full Responsibility for our Survival until 17 September 2021.

The T-Square 1

I Believe that one of the most powerful things we can do in Life is to convert our T-Squares from Lifelong Frustrations to Learning Opportunities.  The model I use is that our T-Squares Illuminate what our Soul Intends to Teach “us” in the current Lifetime.  Learning is Infinite – we re-Learn the same Lessons over and over again, in different arenas of Life and at different Levels, till we finally have enough Experience with the Curriculum that we can be said to possess Wisdom.  In this process we re-Train our Instincts.

Our Minds are two-dimensional instruments, but the World alas is Unitary and Multidimensional.  So we constantly try to Improve our 2D models of the World, to Improve our Perception and Collaboration with the World and its Forces.  The result is the Mess we Create on the Planet.  Our Instincts and Intuitions on the other hand are Multidimensional and Unitary.  They don’t have the same narrow Goal-Orientation as our 2D Minds.  Instinct and Intuition Operate through Education.  If we try to use them to Manifest something, what we’ll usually get is a Teaching about what we need to Change in our Orientation in order to Manifest it.  We usually interpret that as a failure, since it doesn’t directly produce what we Intended to Manifest.  But in fact, it’s the fastest route to Wisdom, and Wisdom will Manifest even better than Intention.

Another way to see this, is that All Prayers are Answered.  However, our Conscious Prayers are always paired with our Unconscious Limitations.  So when we “PIAVA” – Pray, Intend, Affirm, Visualize, or Ask (or Command or Expand or Wonder or several other terms – see https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/manifestation/piava-review/ ) something and it doesn’t Manifest, what will Manifest is an Illustration of the specific Unconscious Limitations that stand in our way.  This often Manifests as a Riddle, especially when we PIAVA many things in rapid succession, or several things at once.

We aren’t just talking about Material Manifestations – we could be trying to Manifest World Peace, for instance, or Universal Food Security, or Healing someone.

We’re Frustrated by our T-Squares because we Expect Perfection in that area of our Life, and we never get there – we could define a T-Square as a Long-Suffering Desire for Perfection that we’re unable to Surrender.  No matter how many times we “Give Up” on the Obsession, we find ourselves coming back to it, often initially disguising it from ourself, as we Explore yet another arena or level.

I’ve fallen out of the Habit, but for a long time I referred to T-Squares as Mastery through Challenge, or Becoming Adept through Challenge – being Challenged by the Universe over and over again till we “Master” the subject of our T-Square. I now try to avoid the word “Master” because it carries so much Slavery Baggage.

Astrological Angles parallel the Major Arcana of the Tarot. A Square Angle spans one Fourth of the Zodiac (known as the Fourth Harmonic), and parallels the Fourth Archetype in the Tarot – The Emperor, which “represents the universal principle of power and leadership. This symbol is the pioneer, the leader, and the visionary, … the explorer whose curiosity and initiative is always on the forefront of human experience, … the ability to make things stable, solid, and secure” (Angeles Arrien, The Tarot Handbook, p.37). But it’s Experience, especially Challenging Experience, that hones the Emperor’s Wisdom and Vision.

The peak (90° Angle) of a T-Square is where the Energy Converges and Festers into Frustration, because when the Manifestation congeals, it so seldom meets our Expectations of Perfection.  The base (Opposition) of a T-Square is where our Evolving and Ever-Inadequate 2D Model resides.

🦦 Examples will help. Here are the two T-Squares in the current 7 May 2021 Exaggeration of Self-Doubt and Self-Confidence (Station of dwarf planet Chariklo)…

We use red lines to indicate Stress or Tension. The T-Square drawn in heavy lines Focuses on Using our Unique Genius to Respond to our Survival Instincts (dwarf planets Ixion, Pholus, and Quaoar). Or not – our Unique Genius is often our Forbidden Genius. Not being able to legitimately Express our Unique Genius already Triggers Frustration and Self-Doubt, even without the T-Square.

The T-Square just makes it more Frustrating. And even if we’ve already Recovered our Unique Genius, this T-Square is likely to Trigger Frustration when we to attempt to apply it to our Survival. I can hear the echo of my father Ranting about the incompetence of politicians who can’t solve obvious problems – I hear the echo in my own Self-Talk Ranting about the same thing, knowing that it’s beyond my Competence to convince anyone of anything, and beyond my Willingness to make a Spectacle of myself trying! Another form of Self-Doubt, along with an Opportunity to bring some Semi-Conscious Limitations into Awareness.

The base of this T-Square tells us about the 2D Model that we use to try to Improve our use of our Unique Genius and our Response to our Survival Issues. The base involves our Instincts about How to Manifest (Moon Opposite dwarf planet Makemake), and their Failures to help us promote our own Survival. The T-Square Illuminates these Failures so we can try to Improve our 2D Model, or get Motivated to use a Perspective with more Dimensions than two!

If this T-Square was natal (as it will be for anyone born this week and month), we’d probably have a Life-Long Insecurity and Frustration about our Survival, subject to the Caveats we’ll reveal later. How might we deal with this? We may be ahead to Recognize that Survival is not within the scope of the 2D Mind. If we Ego-Identify with the Mind, we’re stuck in an Existential Conundrum, since the Ego’s Job is to Assure and Continue our Survival. To find a model that works better, we may have to Surrender our Survival to a Higher Power.

🐲 The second T-Square, drawn in lighter lines, Focuses on our Enlightenment, our Graduation into 5D (minor planet Zhulong). The doorway to Enlightenment has many Portals and requires that we complete many Trials, most involving Transcendence of the Ego. The base of this T-Square contrasts Self-Confidence with the Life Force (Stationary Chariklo Opposite dwarf planet Varuna). I’m always a bit shocked when I hear people bragging about their own Enlightenment, as it always sounds more like Ego to me, though who am I to Judge. Self-Confidence is totally Personal, while the Life Force is totally Impersonal. How do we Juggle these two Energies in 2D? Maybe it’s not as simple as Surrendering our Survival to a Higher Power – maybe we need to make a Personal Contribution as well.

🃏 Very seldom does astrology stick us with a naked T-Square. They’re almost always embellished with Grace of some sort, which we’ll take up in the next post.

The Most Important Thing 2

Yay!  Kristin Metcalfe has directed us to https://serennu.com/astrology/ephemeris.php as a place to get lists of asteroids and dwarf planets sorted by Degree, so we can find Heavenly Bodies that we don’t normally use, which will fill out an Almost-Big-Configuration!  Hooray!  Thanks a million, Kristin!  For example, our 7 May 2020 Full Moon 19 Virgo Vacancy in the Potential-Grand-Sextile, is occupied by an asteroid (Asclepius) named after the Greek God of Healing.  Goddess knows we can use that!

Meanwhile, let’s take the most intense Challenge (T-Square) in today’s 10 May (9:09 pm PDT) Priorities astroevent (Station of Saturn in 2 Aquarius – Yay Again!  I discovered how to use this color without having to post-process the whole post), and see what happens if we consider it an Almost-Complete-Configuration.

I’ll start with our traditional interpretation process, where the planet at the focus of the Challenge (in this case asteroid Sappho [Self-Love] at 30 Virgo) is Worried by a False Dichotomy (Opposition or Duality, False because the Universe isn’t Dual; here the Nodal Axis [our Life Path], with a Big Party on the South Node – dwarf planets Ixion, Pholus, and Quaoar [Climate Change and how our Unique Genius will handle it]).  The Challenge is basically then, How are we going to Love Ourselves Unconditionally when we know that our Culture and most of our Species is on a Suicidal trajectory and people just Glaze Over when we point out that the Sky is Falling? 

But of course we have to Take Responsibility for our own Unique Genius, “Save Ourself,” let our Tribe find us, and Let Go of the folks that the Sky will Fall upon.  They have their own Free Will, whether they Recognize it or not.  They who Fart in Church sit in their own Pew.  We can have Empathy and Compassion for them, but do we really want to Follow them to their Self-Genocide.  You can Martyr yourself in front of their bulldozers if you want, but that’ll just Bloody things up.

I know, we Fear that they will Destroy our Planet and leave us without a decent Home, but the Planet we Live on is a Mirror for our own Inner Peace or Lack thereof.  The notion that our Planet is Only Physical, and therefore unable to Manifest Differently to each Observer, is a 3D Trance that we need to be willing to shed.  Life is an Interaction between the Consciousness Constellated around our Identity (ie, “Me”) and the Rest of the Universe (from our Viewpoint, “the Unconscious”).  In Energy terms, it’s a complex Diffraction Pattern (Hologram) Created when these two complex Energy Waves cross one another.

So then, can we find a planet that Opposes the symbol for Self-Love and Completes the Grand Cross, which would then be Balanced?  Yes we can.  It’s the symbol for The Lord of the Wind (Trans-Neptunian Object Manwë, aka 385446, aka 2003QW [Tolkien’s Lord of Wind, Air, and Birds] at 29 Pisces).  Wind is Uranian, the Higher Manifestation of Mentality.

In its Discovery chart (25 August 2003 in Chile), 150km-wide Manwë is Conjoined by a Retrograde Mars [Action Behind the Scenes] and Opposed by asteroid Arachne [Grandmother Spider, who Weaves the Web of Life that we Live in] and Worried (T-Squared) by dwarf planet Chaos [Unlimited Potential] on one side and Ixion-Quaoar [Survival of our Unique Genius] on the other, making a Grand Cross.  Which is to say that the Actions of our Unique Genius (Ixion) will Open Doors that will never again be Closed (Chaos) – if we Allow our Genius out of its Cage.

The Mars-Manwë T-Square in the Manwë Discovery chart is also Self-Resolving (a Diamond Star) that will Resolve the Issues that it Opens.  The Path which the Resolution follows will Lead through (the feet of the Manwë Finger of the Goddess, namely) Rebirth (dwarf planet Haumea) and Trust (asteroid Eurydike).  That is, we need to be Willing to Abandon Ourself (Eurydike) to the Dark Unknown in the Rabbit Hole of Ego Death (Haumea) in order to Coax our Genius out of Their Closet.

So to give this symbol for the Lord of the Wind (Manwë) a one-breath phrase or keyword to use should we encounter it again, we might use Stepping Off into the Unknown, also a reminder that this Lord Lives on a Mountaintop.

So then, How are we going to Love Ourselves Unconditionally when we know that our Culture and most of our Species is on a Suicidal trajectory and people just Glaze Over when we point out that the Sky is Falling?  We’re going to Trust that our Hidden, probably Forbidden, Unique Genius will plot an Effective Course for us, if we Give ourselves Permission to Break the Rules that imprison Her, or Him, or Them.

Thus Emboldened, let’s Risk going a step further.  There’s one planet five Signs away (a Quincunx) from the Focus of the Challenge (the Sappho T-Square).  If there was a second planet also five Signs away in the other direction (making a Finger of the Goddess), we’d have a Self-Resolving Challenge (a Diamond Star)!  Why not make it Easy on ourself?

Well, turns out there is a planet there, an asteroid.  The symbol for the Goddess of the Soul Completes this Major Configuration (asteroid Psyche at 1 Taurus).  We’ve met this lady before, though it’s been a while.

So now, Where will we Look to see How Unconditional Love Heals our Culture and our Species from its Suicidal trajectory so we don’t have to Run Around shouting that the Sky is Falling?  We’re going to Trust that as the Goddess of the Soul (asteroid Psyche) Merges with Our Own Soul as it Descends into Matter (Uranus in Taurus), our Forbidden Unique Genius (Ixion) will Break Free from its Hiding and Find its True Effortless Role in Creating a Safe Place for Us and Others on Earth.

This Merger (Uranus Initiating / Conjunct Psyche) occurs on 26 May at 3pm PDT (in 9 Taurus, “A fully decorated Christmas Tree“) and Begins a New 5-year Cycle where we may Learn to Celebrate Ego Death as a Rainbow of Light Penetrating the Darkness of our Unfulfilled Desires.  Each time we Lovingly Embrace an Ego Death we get closer to EnLightenment.

This is more Indirect than I prefer to go, but it verifies that the process works.  Next time I will probably go directly to Filling a Vacancy in a Self-Resolving Challenge rather than Filling a Grand Cross Vacancy, if there’s already one five-Sign connection.

Over the course of writing these blogs we’ve tried to make a Big Deal out of our Reaction to Confusion, hoping to Learn and Teach us to Embrace Confusion Directly as an Emotion, without trying to Fix it or Change it or Trying to Figure It Out.  When we succeed in Eliminating Confusion we Eliminate personal Growth, and it we have a Goal of EnLightenment or Ascension or any other form of Growth, we Sabotage ourself.

And separately, over the course of writing these blogs we’ve tried to make a Big Deal out of how we deal with Curiosity.  Many or most of us have been trained to Believe that Curiosity should Inspire us toward Knowledge, that Curiosity automatically seeks Understanding, that it’s a Question seeking an Answer.  We’ve tried to Shift that to Curiosity in the Infantile sense of Wonder or Awe.  More “Wow, isn’t that Amazing!” than “I need to Figure Out how that works.”  More “I Wonder at that!” than “I Wonder How That Works.”

Curiosity is the primary keyword assigned to the five-Sign Angle (Quincunx), in both Ego astrology and Growth astrology.  But in Growth astrology we want you to replace the Question Mark that follows Curiosity in Ego astrology, with a period.  With PIAVA, if we don’t Change the Subject after our Prayer, Thinking rapidly removes the Opportunity for Change by reinstating our old Limiting Belief System, fencing out what we’ve PIAVAed.  It’s Thinking that considers Curiosity to be a Question and does the dirtywork of reinstating our old Limiting Belief System and blocking what we could have Learned.

The other Major Angles connect Signs that are Related…

• Three-Sign Angles (Squares) connect planets in the same Quality – Creative (Cardinal), Stabilizing (Fixed), Changing (Mutable).
• Four-Sign Angles (Trines) connect planets in the same Element – Spirit (Fire), Matter (Earth), Emotion (Water), Mind (Air).
• Two-Sign Angles (Sextiles) connect planets in the same Polarity – Dynamic (Masculine) or Magnetic (Feminine).

But Five-Sign Angles (Quincunxes) Connect planets in Different Elements and Different Qualities.  Categories and Judgments are useful, but they are also Arbitrary, and Inhibit us from Recognizing the Unity and Infinite Variety of Reality.  They are products of Thought and its need to reduce everything to Duality.

The Five-Sign Quincunx Angle offers us Opportunities to Look at the World a little Differently, subtly slipping out of our Habit of Naming and Constraining and Limiting everything we Encounter.  When we Ask a Biomancer to Teach us how to Listen to Plants, the first thing they tell us is to Let Go of any Names we’ve associated with the Plant.  Try it – unless you’re having Senior Moments (which have their advantages), that’s not easy to do.  But when we consider Curiosity to be a Question seeking an Answer, we blithely Discard that Opportunity to Learn and Grow in Consciousness.

Is your Life absolutely Perfect the way it is?  Then don’t Change your Habits of dealing with Confusion and Curiosity as Invitations to Research.  Otherwise, PIAVA to Disrupt them, post-haste.

The current Priority astroevent (Saturn Station at 2 Aquarius) happens close to a Sign Cusp.  We usually use three Degrees of Sensitivity (“Orb” in astrologuese).  That means that we may have Major Angles between planets in Different Qualities or Elements.  For instance,

• The Self-Love symbol (Sappho) at the End of the Ego-Death Sign (30 Virgo)

makes a Major Angle (Trine) to

• The Top-Priority symbol (Stationary Saturn) Early in the Group Relationships Sign (2 Aquarius).

There’s less than three Degrees Difference between them, but they Connect Changing Matter (Mutable Earth) to Stabilized Thought (Fixed Air) – Different Qualities and Different Elements.  Another Opportunity to see the World through Different Eyes and Potentially Crack Open our Ossified Perspective on “Reality.”

Since Four-Sign Angles (Trines) are considered Benefic precisely because they Connect Signs in the same Element, there’s even a legitimate Question whether Cuspal Trines are Trines at all.  All six Angles that the Self-Love symbol (Sappho) makes include Cross-Cuspal Angles.

Here, by the way, is the chart for the Saturn Station – a Flying Squirrel with one ear missing…

It’s a bit crude, but you’ll have to bear with me.  It’s been more than 50 years since my Cartography degree – I looked for my tools but couldn’t find them, so I had to draw it by hand.  My Canon printer turned ink-cartridge up, and thanks to the Spumonivirus the same brand wasn’t available, so I had to buy an HP printer.  Of course it wouldn’t talk to the ancient HP laptop that makes my charts.  So we’ll have to make do for a while.

Edges 5

In response to…

“So this week is not about Figuring Out how your Oaths or Limitations are Related to your Abuse or Privilege, it’s about Surrendering your Need to Figure It Out, and Giving In to Mystery.  There’s far more for us to Learn that way.”

Reader and friend Quilless says…

“Good, because I am ‘up to here’ with trying to figure things out.  It’s so flacking exhausting!”

Absolutely!  It’s Lit Up this week, but it makes an indispensable Lifetime Strategy.  Like Nick says about Tapping, “Try It On Everything” where in this case “It” is Giving Anything and Everything To A “Higher Power.”  And our own Unconscious is one of our most Powerful “Higher” Powers – that’s why I persist in refusing to refer to it as Subconscious.

The (not “Our”) Unconscious changes Moment to Moment, because it’s defined as Everything we aren’t Ego-Identified with in this Moment.  It’s “The” and not “Our” because when we are able to reach beyond our Ego-Identification, we don’t just access other parts of ourself, we have access to All The Information In The Universe.

So yes, a very Powerful Habit is Noticing when we’re trying to “Figure It (Anything) Out,” and instead PIAVAing Clarity, or Missing Information, or The Best Outcome for All Concerned, or whatever it is we’re trying to squeeze into the “Left-Brain’s” Limiting Dualities.  We could even PIAVA to “Intuit It Out” instead!

And Quilless bring up an astrotechnical issue as well…

“I am having trouble with finding the trioctile in my program, though.  I used a calculator for (360 / 8) x 3 and got 135, but isn’t that a sesquisquare?  My eyes tell me they are not the same because there are actual sesquisq glyphs on your chart on the orange lines, but we are looking at yellow.  Confused!”

Yes indeed, a Trioctile and a Sesquisquare are the same Animal.  We don’t use the “Sesqui” term because we don’t interpret Octiles as part of the Square family.  Certainly they’re related, but the Square has such a strong reputation as Ongoing Frustration, that we don’t want to pollute the Octile as well.  As you know, since the Fourth Harmonic is about Dominion, we interpret a Square as a Challenge to Adeptness or to Mastery.  The symbol for the Fourth Harmonic is The Emperor, and we choose to interpret that as a Strong and Wise and Empathetic Leader, one that everyone would Trust to solve their disputes and to project equitable policies.

So we reinterpret the Square as a Searching and Fearless Quest (which is after all the Fourth Step in AA) for Understanding and Remediation of the Compulsive Need that’s usually indicated by the focal planet, with help from the other two.  If we can reframe our Squares as Graduate Seminars (there are no Answers, only Better Questions), we can come to Peace and even Excitement about them, because it quiets the Perfectionism and Inferiority that we have painted them with, and allows us to see how we’ve actually made great progress with them over the course of our Lifetime.

In fact, we always try to convince People that their Squares are not their greatest Curse, though until they’re Reframed that’s what they feel like.  Your Squares are actually your greatest areas of Expertise, because you’ve not only eliminated many of the zillions of Strategies that don’t work Perfectly to “Solve” that “Problem,” but you thoroughly understand, through Experience, how and why and when each Strategy doesn’t work, and what’s to be Gained and Learned from using it in which circumstances!  Squares feel like Problems to be Solved, but they aren’t, they’re Issues We’ve Chosen to Study in great Depth and Breadth.

The Octile is a whole ‘nother Animal.  The symbol for the Eighth Harmonic is the Egyptian Goddess Maat, who is in charge of Law, Truth, and Justice (Angeles Arrien, The Tarot Handbook, p.55), and the interpretation is Returning to Balance.  While Resolving a Square by reinterpreting it as a Lifetime Learning assignment might Return us to Balance, that hardly makes an Octile a “Semisquare” or half of a Lifetime Frustration, as Ego astrology would have it.

Now a Trioctile combines the Eighth and Third Harmonics.  The Third Harmonic is the Empress, symbol of Love with Wisdom.  So we end up with Returning to Balance through Love and Wisdom!  Can we think of a more Desirable Strategy?  We abbreviate this interpretation as Insight.

When a third planet sits at the Far Midpoint of a Square, this third planet is Trioctile to both ends of the Square.  Even if we’ve Reframed our Squares as Exciting Explorations, they’re still Difficult, since Squares never get Effortless for us.  So if we can get a Double Insight about them, we’re Golden!

Ego astrology calls this Trioctile Yod Configuration a “Thor’s Hammer,” with all the Marvel-Comics baggage about Destruction.  As we mentioned, we chose a more neutral (because it’s foreign and probably unknown to most English-speakers) Norwegian term for Thor’s Sledge, “Mjölnir.”  I don’t know if Norwegians read Marvel Comics or not, so it may have been better to use the Vedic term Vajra.  At any rate, the interpretation we use for the Mjölnir is Epiphany – Insight Squared.

To better illustrate our new Trioctile Yin Gate, here it is without all of the other lines on the chart, and with the Octile family Angles drawn in purple…

We Recognize a Yin Gate by its Dos Equis.  In general, the meat of any Configuration lies in its Diagonals, but since interpreting all of those is arduous, we can follow our Quincunx Yin Gate precedent and simplify (ie, Surrender our Need to Figure It Out) by just Expecting to be Encountering Paradox around the central Axis – Abuse/Privilege and Oaths/Limitations, or Nessus and Orcus.  That’ll be great Fun to watch for.

And by the way, if we look at a Square as a Bioctile, we would combine the Eighth Harmonic Return to Balance with the Second Harmonic Ritual.  The shortcoming of Ritual is that it’s generally Dualistic, while the Universe is Unitary and Multifarious.  So if one was a wayward Priest or Priestess, and Returning to Balance meant Returning to your Dualistic Vows, then sure, the Challenges of your Square would simply be Temptations to stray.  But if we want to Live in a Dimension higher than 2D, Dualistic Ritual and Returning to Balance are Difficult or even Oxymoronic mates – hence Rudhyar’s original pronouncement that the Square was the Evolutionary Step that Huperity hasn’t Mastered yet.

And yes, Solar Fire uses the standard Sesquisquare symbol (a square with a bent tail) in the background chart, but the Trioctiles that they’re so indicating don’t apply to the particular Degrees that the Nessus Station chart asks us to use: 12 Degrees ± 3 for Nessus et al, and 12+15 or 27 Degrees ± 3 Degrees for the Octiles to the Nessus Degree.  And the Trioctiles that we’re indicating apply to planets that aren’t on the background chart because Solar Fire doesn’t include them in its library of planets.

The Sesquisquares/Trioctiles that Solar Fire did draw, looking just at those in Zodiac-spanning Configurations, make an interesting frosting for our Yin cake…

Again, the Octile family is drawn in purple.  They make a Trioctile Box.  It makes an interesting collection of Energies that we’re tasked with Returning to Balance…

• Venus, our Inner Female, Values, Heart
• Mars-North Node, our Willingness to Devote our Actions and Energies toward our Mission
• Saturn-South Node, our Willingness to Accept that our Unfinished Business is The Most Important Thing going on
• Ceres, Sustainability

That’s a bundle!  We’re Returning our Gender Identity to Balance, as well as the Sustainability of our Relationship to our Karma (the Octiles), and we can Expect Insights (the Trioctiles) about how Obsolete Values can perpetuate our Karma, and about making our Dedication to our Mission more Sustainable.  Remember that the Other Side of Sustainability is Sustenance, so the last-named may arrive as Insights about what can be eliminated because while it may be Valuable, it isn’t the Core Essence of our Mission.

If we Ask what the Coin is on our Abuse/Privilege Dimension, one excellent candidate is Equality, with Respect thrown in.  So what does today’s news media say about Abuse, Privilege, Equality, Oaths, and Limitations?  A bunch…

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/seattle-yoga-teachers-undoing-whiteness-class/

“Laura Humpf braced herself for fresh salvos of death threats, rage-soaked slurs and indictments of ‘reverse racism’ from media provocateurs.  The Seattle yoga instructor had endured it before, four years ago, after putting out word about a class for people of color only, at her studio…

“This spring, Humpf publicized an ‘Undoing Whiteness’ yoga class at Rainier Beach Yoga, geared toward white people wishing to ‘unpack the harmful ways white supremacy is embedded’ in their ‘body, mind and heart.’  Along with providing a contemplative space, the class would dissect the ‘pathology of whiteness’ — an obliviousness to the batch of privileges society grants white skin — and how it operates in daily life.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/in-alabama–where-lawmakers-banned-abortion-for-rape-victims–rapists-parental-rights-are-protected/2019/06/09/6d2aa5de-831b-11e9-933d-7501070ee669_story.html

“When a young woman came to the Family Services of North Alabama office last year for help with trauma, saying she had been raped by her step-uncle when she was 15, rape crisis advocate Portia Shepherd heard something that ‘killed me, shocked me.’  The step-uncle, who was getting out of jail after a drug conviction, wanted to be a part of their child’s life.  And in Alabama, the alleged rapist could get custody.”

https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2019/jun/09/black-hispanic-people-air-pollution-inequity-study

“The team found that white people and those of other races experience about 17% less air pollution exposure than is caused by their consumption.  But black and Hispanic people inhale 56% and 63% excess exposure, respectively, relative to their consumption.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2019/06/09/southern-baptists-are-supposed-talk-about-sex-abuse-right-now-theyre-discussing-whether-one-woman-can-preach/

“As thousands of Southern Baptists prepare to arrive this week in Birmingham, Ala., for their annual meeting, many have expected for months that it would focus on questions of how to handle sexual abuse and coverups in their own churches.  Moore is expected to be there, sitting on a panel on sexual abuse with several others, including the president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

But in the run-up to the meeting, Moore has become a focus of attention…  many Southern Baptists believe that women should not have authority over men and that by teaching men, let alone ‘preaching,’ they are exerting authority.  So it is rare for Southern Baptist women to preach or teach the Bible in front of men during a traditional Sunday service.”

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/the-flight-shame-issue-comes-home-to-rick-steves/

“In terms of carbon emissions that lead to global warming, there’s probably nothing worse we can do on an individual basis than take an intercontinental flight.  A single round-trip flight between Seattle and, say, Rome, emits about 3.5 tons of CO2 per person — the same as nine months of driving in the average U.S. car, according to the EPA.  The carbon cost of flying is so steep that in Europe it’s led to a new movement that the Swedes call ‘flygskam.’  It translates as ‘flight shame.’  The premise is: fly less, or even, don’t fly at all.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jun/09/plastic-bags-single-use-waste-everywhere-how

“Business has profited immeasurably for decades by using cheap plastic packaging, and yet the cost of cleaning up after them has fallen to consumers and local governments.  ‘These are complicated, wicked problems that require very complicated, multi-actor solutions,’ says Christopher Jones, senior lecturer in environmental psychology at the University of Surrey in the UK.  ‘Government can introduce legislation and guidelines that can also affect retailers, so you need retailers onboard as well.  But there is a degree of responsibility on the consumer – if you continue to buy cheap goods that are being sourced in an unsustainable way, then they are going to continue to make them.’ “

The notion that the end user can have any influence on the plastics industry is ridiculous.  When Fascist Governments are unable or unwilling to make laws that protect the Planet because it will impact someone’s profits, only Greed wins.  This is what Government is for, to solve problems that are too big for smaller groups to solve.  When the Fascists control the Government and the media both, the conversation is always Reframed to shift all Responsibility to the People who don’t have the scope to be able to contribute to a real solution.

We should all pile all of our Garbage on the doorsteps of the politicians that we’ve “democratically” elected to solve these kinds of Issues.  That might provide motivation to get them to do their jobs.

Huge Reboot 5

I’ll use Huge Reboot 4 as a template, grey it out a bit, shorten the material in earlier Huge Reboots, and add new comments in black.

Before we go into more detail about all the weekend Fireworks, I’ll built a Timetable, so we can at least test our Sensitivities.  Take notes, and tell me what you Learn.  The interactions between events will of course be Confusing, but that’s the nature of Real Life.

15 September…

• 8am PDT – Ixion Initiates Mars 23 Sagittarius (Your Abandoned Orphan begins to Feel that they have Permission to Act Out)

There could be lots of Excitement here, or Guilt, or both…  

• noon PDT – Varuna enters Leo (Celebrating the Life Force)

Varuna has been in Cancer since 1993; it’s as if the Life Force is graduating from high school…  

• 7pm PDT – Asbolus Stationary Retrograde 16 Gemini (Opening your Emotional Channel to Receiving Intuitions)

We all have a “preferred” or primary Channel for Receiving (or Ignoring) Intuitions; a Little Voice, a Picture, a Gut Feeling, etc…  

16 September…

• noon PDT – Full Moon and Penumbral Eclipse 25 Pisces (Busy, Busy, Busy)

The Moon Conjoins Chiron and the Sun takes Jupiter’s place in the Grand Cross we’ve been working with for a long time – Ixion-Pholus Opposite Chaos and Chiron-Moon Opposite Sun, with Mars perched between Ixion and Pholus.

When there is one planet on the eastern horizon, one on the western horizon, one straight overhead, and one straight underfoot, we call that a “Grand Cross.”  It usually means we have a very full plate.  Each of the four Right or 90° Angles would normally be a Hassle‡, but now there are so many Hassles that they Balance one another, and we’re just very busy, but not particularly freaked out.  It just feels like we’re Multi-Tasking.

‡ In our short-term Experience, a “Square” like this Feels like a constant stream of Hassles; from a larger Perspective, it’s what we call Mastery through Challenge, because, since we have so much practice dealing with it, it becomes our Greatest Skill.

Often though it’s our sense of Duty that determines our Priorities, and with a large number of Demands on us, we really do need to Prioritize.  Duty works fine as long as it serves our own Values, which means that what we Feel we Should do is reasonably close to what we Want to do.  When our Values are in flux, though (see 5am PDT 17 September, below), a Grand Cross can Manifest as Conflict or Confusion.

Confusion is good, right?  It’s the first stage of Growth, as long as we can avoid intellectualizing it out of existence (which would Freeze us into the status quo).  And Conflict?  Well, Conflict is only possible when we’re in Either/Or.  If we’re in Both/And, things can get In’-teresting, as Bugs would say, but they wouldn’t actually Conflict.  It would just be a Learning Opportunity, where we could try out new Responses to see if they serve us.

Here the Full Moon forms the vertical pole of the Cross.  Full Moons are about Illumination – something that was in the dark is getting “Lit Up.”  In this case it’s Chiron that’s getting Lit Up, as it’s sitting just behind the Moon.  Chiron is about our Victim Spaces, the places where we’re Frozen, where we can’t move in the Direction we’d like to move, because for one reason or another it would be too painful, or simply so Impossible that it isn’t worth Fantasizing about.

Chiron is also about Miracles.  When something happens that “Thaws” us, we Experience it as if it was a Miracle – that which was always so Impossible that it wasn’t worth considering, suddenly seems very possible.  Often we can Create a Thaw by putting our arms around ourself and saying to ourself, “You poor Sweetheart, you don’t even think it’s possible to get what you Need, do you.”  But first we have to Realize that this is what we think – usually we know it’s not possible, often because somebody said so and we trusted them.

Ironically, one arm of the Cross is the dwarf planet Chaos, which isn’t about Disorder, but about Unlimited Possibility.  Like Zaphod Beeblebrox’s Infinite Improbability Drive.  What a total (apparent) Conflict – the Impossible and the Limitless both Lighting up at the same time.  Which is actually therapeutic, since Nothing is Impossible, and Limitation is Self-Sabotaging.

If we can manage to squirm over to Both/And, we’ll Realize that like Fate and Free Will, this is a Semantic problem, not a Real issue at all – just our neurosis.  Which means we can Forget about it and just get on with Life.  With a little Self-Empathy and the right PIAVA (try several, till you get the right one, but don’t forget to Change the Subject and Pay Attention), we can then simply take a step or two toward What We Want.

The other arm of the Cross is one we’ve been talking about for a while – Pholus (Taking Full Responsibility) and Ixion (our Abandoned Genius) – joined now by Mars (Action).  Remember it’s not Responsibility For – that’s Blame, but Responsibility To.  What’s being called forth is our Ability to Respond To our Abandoned Genius or Unique Skills.

Our Unique Genius was Abandoned because no one ever Mirrored it to us, at least not in a positive fashion – simply because no one Recognized it.  Or it was beaten out of us because our Betters were jealous or frightened of it.  Either way, it can be largely Invisible to us.  But, with Mars there agitating it, it’s tapping us on the shoulder.  Something Invisible tapping us on the shoulder can be pretty weird, unless we’re already used to the Loss of the Veil.

At any rate, we should be following up on Weird Urges and Strange Ideas, to see where they lead, should they lead us to See the Invisible.  If you get Spaced Out, just put on some trippy music and get lost in it.  Stairway to Heaven maybe.  The Wilson Sisters’ tribute to Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and the gang is a great version…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFxOaDeJmXk

Or the original if you aren’t familiar with it…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOemwDVBlqE

Ooo, Makes Me Wonder.  

Moon-Chiron heads a Kite …

Wow, how many times are we going to revisit this shouting emphasis on 22-27 Degrees…

We’ve been working with this 22-27 Degree span, or close to it, repeatedly, and for a long time now…

17 September…

• 5am PDT – Haumea Initiates Venus 23 Libra (Beginning again on a new foundation of Values)

Haumea is Pele’s daughter…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQVBBdFY8pk

so our Values (Venus) are being Reborn.  The Venus-Haumea Cycle only lasts a year – we actually Mutate a lot faster than our Ego would like to know.  This Cycle is about A Chanticleer Saluting the Sunrise, Chanticleer being a romantic name for a Rooster.  I don’t expect many to remember, but one of the Transformations promised at the Dawn of the Century was that Humanity would Transcend Nationalism, gain Eagle’s Perspective, and Salute the Dawn.

That was the Initiation of Chiron by Pluto on 12/30/1999 at 12 Sagittarius, near the Great Attractor – which is an immense unknown Gravity Source that’s sucking our whole Cosmic Neighborhood in its direction.

Venus, as is her wont, is moving a little over one Degree a day, so if we usually have one Degree of Sensitivity to Venus Angles we’ll start Feeling this one on the 16th.  If we have two Degrees of Sensitivity to Venus, the 15th.  And so forth.  We’d Expect this to Feel like Confusion, as our Values are kind of a Foundation for our Ego to Stand on.  When they Shift, the Ego would wobble.  Growth again.

• 10am PDT – Jupiter Initiates Sappho 2 Libra (Expanding Self-Love with Wisdom)

18 September…

• 8am PDT – Pholus Initiates Mars 25 Sagittarius (Practicing Actions that Betray our Self-Sabotage)

• 3pm PDT – Makemake Initiates Sappho 3 Libra (Breakthrough in Manifesting Self-Love)

19 September…

• 4pm PDT – Makemake Initiates Jupiter 3 Libra (Profound New Skills with PIAVA – and PDSA)

Initiations (2)

We’ve written about Stations, when planets appear to Stand Still, because they’re one of several of the most important astroevents that we watch for.  Another is “Configurations” – when a number of planets line up together in meaningful relationship to one another at the same time.  And a third one is “Initiations.”  Think about your internal and external circumstances in 2005, then compare it to your Experience of 2009.  See any differences?  

At and around the time of an Initiation, the Zeitgeist Changes, and it’s often a significant Change.  

Or, think about how the Zeitgeist in Britain and in the rest of Europe Changed around the time of this month’s Eris-Uranus Initiation.  Some folks couldn’t stand to have their Freedom (Uranus) Denied (Eris) any longer.  Of course, the folks in London fear that their Freedom to make money off of the rest of Europe will be Denied.  

Astrology is like that; you never know which direction a Change is going to turn.  You know which Dimension the Change is going to happen on – here Freedom and Denial.  But you don’t know, a priori, whether Freedom will be Denied, or Denial Liberated from its subterfuges.  It’s usually Both/And.

We are Actors in this Play, and it’s Improv.  Our Intentions are very important to our Future, and to the Future of the Planet.  So when we talk about an Initiation, we play up what we would regard as the Positive side of the Dimension – Releasing Denial from its grasp on our Freedom.  That’s why we emphasize working on our Limiting Beliefs, which are none other than internalized Denials of our Freedom to pursue our True Self.  

If you happen to Believe that making money, or maintaining Control, is more important than pursuing your True Self, feel free to flip our Interpretations upside down.  We happen to Believe that Liberating our True Self will, after a period of Reaction, end up making us more Abundant, and giving us greater Healthy Control.  As they say, if you don’t have to lie, you don’t have to remember everything you’ve ever told anybody.

An Initiation – when a faster planet passes a slower planet (from the Perspective of Mother Earth) – begins a new Cycle.  A New Moon is an Initiation; the faster “planet” (the Moon) Conjoins the slower “planet” (the Sun) once a month.  Then the Moon zips around the Zodiac till it catches up to the Sun again and Initiates a new Cycle.  

A technical point; when we refer to an Initiation, we put the slower planet first, because it’s Initiating the faster planet the way a Guru Initiates an Aspirant.  When we refer to a Cycle, we put the faster planet first, as it’s the faster planet that’s making the Zodiacal loop in between new assignments from its Guru.

Uranus (84 years per loop) is faster than Eris (560 years), so we speak of the Eris-Uranus Initiation but the Uranus-Eris Cycle.  Not a biggie, just the way we say things.  It’s Uranus and Eris, or Eris and Uranus, either way.  

In a Cycle, the faster planet implements the program or pogrom suggested by the slower planet.  Each fast planet has many Gurus, and each slow planet many Aspirants.  Of course fast and slow are relative.  

We usually read the “Sabian Symbol” of the Degree in which the Initiation occurred.  As the 12 Signs each have their usual Interpretations, each of the 360 Degrees of the Zodiac also have Interpretations, called the Sabian Symbols.

The germinal text on Cycles is Dane Rudhyar’s Lunation Cycle.

For convenience, we refer to everybody in the Sky, whether they’re a planet like Uranus, an asteroid like Ceres, a satellite like the Moon, a dwarf planet like Eris, a Centaur like Chiron, or just a symbolic point like Lilith, as a “planet.”  It just saves us having to say “planet or asteroid or symbolic point or Light” all the time.  (The Sun and the Moon are sometimes collectively called “the Lights.”)

One of our most basic guiding principles is that the scarcer an astroevent is, the stronger will be its impact upon us.  

That’s just because our real Teacher is Experience, and if we have little or no Experience with an event, then we’re Deer in the headlights.  For instance, as we mentioned last time, the last Eris-Uranus Initiation occurred in 1937, so precious few of us have any Experience with such a Change, and even fewer of us have Experience with it as an adult.  

I always thought it was kind of cruel to put Children through Challenging astroevents.  If you were one year old this month, can you imagine how this Initiation would impact your Life, with all of your caretakers freaking out?  Or if you’re nine and just going into puberty?

The immediate impact of the average astroevent increases up to the exact moment of the event, then drops off sharply.  The immediate impact of an Initiation works the same way, but the Change in the Zeitgeist begins in earnest after the Initiation.  For instance, most of us were Challenged by our own Denial to one degree or another as we were led up to the 9 June Eris-Uranus Initiation.  We Reacted and Responded to that in various ways, and now that we’re downwind, we’ll begin to see the Changes reflected in our Lives.  The “Brexit” is an obvious example.

Because of the timing, we more or less regard the Eris-Uranus Revelation of Denial as an adjunct to the Mask-shedding 2012-2015 Uranus-Pluto Square.  We could easily see it the other way around.  Because Pluto moves twice as fast as Eris, Uranus catches up to Eris more often than it does to Pluto.  If we’re chasing a Tortoise and a Hare, we’ll catch the Tortoise before we catch the Hare – though Pluto would make a very slow Hare.

The prior Uranus-Eris Cycle spanned 89 years, from 1927 till 2016, while the prior Uranus-Pluto Cycle took 115 years, from 1850 through 1965.  So we have less Experience with Uranus-Pluto events than we do with Uranus-Eris events.  These orbits are not circles, they’re ellipses, so Cycles vary in length.  

It would be fun, but take a book – and a big one at that, to catalog all the current Cycles of the major planets.

Fun story: Stan Grof’s colleague and student, historian Richard Tarnas, wrote a book on Colonial history, The Passion of the Western Mind, that was widely acclaimed by his peers.  After this success he wrote a followup book, Cosmos and Psyche, describing the astrological Energies underlying his historical interpretations.

Neptune represents our Relationship with Everything Larger than Ourself, including with our Culture and with the Godhead.  

Chiron represents Despair and Miracle.  

I equate our mental Concept Set to a Birdcage.  We don’t allow into our Cage any idea that doesn’t agree with what we already know.  And we don’t allow Ourself to go out of our Cage.  Unless we’re wearing one of our Alternate Personas.

If we have a Shouldn’t about Chocolate, for instance, but we Love Chocolate (actually, it’s the Sugar; Chocolate itself is bitter, and most folks don’t like bitter).  So when we’re in our Chocolate Cage, we don’t eat Chocolate, but that just makes our Alter lust for it even more.  Chiron lights up when we’re at these places, where two parts of ourself are locked in a Power struggle and we can’t get out; Despair is the result.

We get out of this dilemma by adding a Chocolate wing to our Birdcage.  We introduce our Alters to one another, in such a way that they Empathize with each other.  Gestalt Psychology does this with its two chairs.  We do this with “You poor Sweetheart, you really Love Chocolate, don’t you” and “You poor Sweetheart, you Love your Ideas more than yourself, don’t you.”  Or, if it’s after our diabetes diagnosis, “You poor Sweetheart, you Love Chocolate as much as your Health, don’t you.”

We Change Perspective.  This is why we always recommend having as many Perspectives in our quiver as possible.

In 1945, Neptune Initiated Chiron.  With the dance between Chiron and Neptune, we’d expect that we’d encounter places in our cultures where we were up against Power struggles that were unresolvable – we’d either have to come up with some new Perspectives, or we’d explode from the pressure.  Here’s a timeline…

• 16 July 1945 – First A-bomb exploded at Alamagordo New Mexico
• 6 August – US drops A-bomb on Hiroshima, Japan
• 9 August – US drops A-bomb on Nagasaki, Japan
• 15 August – Japanese surrender announced
• 2 September – Surrender agreement signed
• 4 September – Neptune Initiates Chiron
• 24 October – United Nations formed

A note on Sensitivity (“Orb” in astrologuese) – Chiron entered within three Degrees of Neptune on 6 August.  Three Degrees is often used as the Boundary within which the impact of a current astroevent is perceived.

You can see the tension building up to the Initiation, and the Change of Zeitgeist after it.  Here’s a fascinating story about these few months…

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/energy/a21382/how-kodak-accidentally-discovered-radioactive-fallout/

Even though the Zeitgeist has Changed, those who were heavily invested in the Old Cycle still cling to their Privileges, causing the Energy of the New Cycle to “go underground” for a while, as the New Energy builds.  Typically, the buildup to the Initiation is chaotic, so the stability of the Olde Guard is welcomed as a restoration of order.

Once the faster planet moves one fourth of a loop ahead of the slower planet, however, the New Energy takes its place as a permanent feature of the visible landscape.  Astrologers call this one-fourth point in a Cycle a “Square.”

This term is used because the Angle between the two planets is now 90 Degrees, making a right or “square” Angle.  This Angle represents the Fourth Harmonic (360 Degrees divided by Four), symbolized by the Fourth Archetype of the Tarot Major Arcana, the Emperor – Dominion, or Healthy Control.  Since a Square signifies a time of Change and disruption of the status quo, it creates difficulty for many.  We therefore refer to a Square as “Mastery through Challenge.”

The Chiron-Neptune Cycle that was Initiated in 1945 reached its Square in 1954.  Look at what occurred in 1953-54…

• The USSR tested its first nuclear bomb
• The US launched the first nuclear submarine
• The US tested the first Hydrogen bomb
• The USSR opened the first nuclear power plant
• Boeing introduced its first commercial jetliner
• The Korean War ended
• Red-baiter Senator Joe McCarthy was dethroned
• Nikita Kruschev replaced Joseph Stalin as head of the USSR
• France lost the Indochina War, surrendering its Colonies in Southeast Asia, opening space for the Vietnam War
• Algerian Revolution begins
• US Supreme Court declares Segregation illegal
• Bilderberg Group formed
• Bill Haley, Elvis Presley create Rock and Roll 
• Dow Jones Industrial Average tops 1929 peak for first time

 Which is to say, the New Energy “became permanent.”

The Sabian Symbol of the 1945 Initiation was about Visualization.  Shakti Gawain was six in 1954.

At the prior Neptune-Chiron Initiation, in 1879, overextended US transcontinental railroad corporations melted down, as excessive competition met its ultimate end, railroad bonds collapsed, and the US and World economy rebooted.  

The next (after 1945) Neptune-Chiron Initiation occurred in 2010.  In the buildup to it, thanks to Greenspan’s asset inflation strategies, overleveraged US mortgage derivatives melted down, as excessive corruption met its ultimate end, mortgage bonds collapsed, and the Federal Reserve prevented the US and World economy from rebooting.

The Brexit panic following the Eris-Uranus Initiation is the collapse of the first card in the House of Cards built to deny the need for a reboot of the World economy after the Derivative Crisis of 2007-9 – which was billed as a “mortgage” crisis by the banks and their cronies in the media and government.  Many more cards will follow.

Look at this chart, for instance…

http://www.stockwatch.com/Quote/Detail.aspx?symbol=DB&region=U

This is Germany’s largest bank.  During the Derivative Crisis and its aftermath, this stock fell to around 15.  Today it’s around 14, and you can see from the chart that it’s troubles didn’t begin with Brexit.

The US federal government just did to Puerto Rico the same thing that Germany has been doing to Greece, forcing austerity and the sale of public assets to the 1% at bargain prices.  The same thing Dubya did to New Orleans after Katrina.  The same thing that the IMF has been doing to South America and elsewhere for decades.  John Perkins’s New Economic Hit Man and Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine document the process well.

Globalization is a key propaganda term in Milty Friedman’s economic doctrine – the mental Birdcage that is failing for the 1%.  It means basically that Corporations gain the Power to overrule Governments.  The World Trade Organization, and Bill Clinton’s NAFTA and its counterparts, including especially Obama’s TPP, give Corporations the right to overrule local laws whenever they would result in diminished profits for the Corporations, Labor and Environment be damned, literally.

In my high school civics class, this was the definition of Fascism.  Now it’s called Globalization.  We expect Fascism to be accompanied by brutal governments, but if your propaganda machine is good enough you don’t need brutality.  You just tell the same lies often enough.

For whites blinded by the Light of God and Truth and Consumer Goods, the propaganda works great.  For other races and immigrants legal or illegal, brutal government has been around for a long time already, especially since the War on Poverty was replaced by the War on Drugs – which gives US police the right to confiscate private property without the need for trial.  Now whites displaced by NAFTA and its friends – including the EU – are also no longer so blinded.

The rules of Vulture Capitalism say that no one should be able to stop you from ripping anybody off to get rich.  In the US, people are hypnotized into believing that they can join the 1%, if only the government will stop preventing them.  So they flock to The Donald, master showman of the 1%, instead of Bernie, who illuminated what’s really going on.  Clever move on the part of the 1%, as Cruz was too obvious in his ardor for Uncle Milty, and fear of The Donald’s instability will drive saner folks into the hands of Hilary, who promises business as usual.

I’ve been asked to say more about 2020 and the inauguration of the Digital Age.  This post is part of the background for that.

Now Retipuj Too

If we look for the most unique news event in the Collective during Mercury’s first crossing of Pallas and Pluto, and Squaring of Uranus, we find the recovery of the SpaceX first-stage rocket.  

Background, if you’ve missed the story: The US Space Agency, NASA, has been inviting private industry and small startups into the “Space Race,” in the effort to spur innovation and reduce cost.  Successful bidders include SpaceX, a rocket company founded and run by Elon Musk (PayPal, Tesla, SolarCity), whose primary motivation seems to be to colonize Mars.  

Satellite-launching rockets cost tens of millions to build, and they’ve been considered disposable, used once and discarded.  Musk’s notion is to recover and reuse them.  In mid-December a SpaceX rocket successfully launched eleven communication satellites, then turned ’round and came home, landing nose up in a bed of fire a few miles from its launch site in Florida.  Jeff Bezos’s (Amazon) rocket company, Blue Origin, has also successfully recovered used rockets by landing them vertically, but his rockets don’t reach orbital altitudes.

SpaceX aims to reduce space travel costs by 99% with rocket recovery.  Potential for increased space littering aside, this kind of puts us back in the 1960s, when the Sky was no longer the Limit, and folks purportedly walked on the Moon, before OPEC threw a wet blanket on our plans to emulate the Jetsons.  Global Warming, Syria and Russia, and the rise of China were also prominent at the Mercury-Pluto Can-Opener.

So we can expect more development of the subway-to-Mars story in mid-January, at the Mercury-Pluto Exposition.  Apart from the time-local Mercury Can-Opener template, the SpaceX story is also an excellent example of another phenomenon, the astrological Cycle.  We’ve been referring to 2012-15 as “The Return of the ’60s” because Pluto Initiated a new Cycle with Uranus in 1965, and a characteristic of the astrological Cycle is that a new Energy emerges at the Initiation, then goes underground during the first one fourth of the Cycle, or until the planets “Square” one another.  After this Waxing Square, the new Energy spreads widely.  The Uranus-Pluto Square spanned 2012-2015, and we’ve seen a number of other ’60s themes becoming prominent – civil/human rights and marijuana decriminalization among the most obvious. 

Two planets are said to “Square” one another, or to “be Square” to each other, when they are 90 Degrees apart, or one fourth of the way around the Zodiac from one another.   In “Tropical” astrology, which we practice, the two imaginary lines drawn from Earth to each planet would be perpendicular to each other.  So one of them would be rising or setting when the other was directly overhead.  

A “Waxing” Square is created when the faster planet reaches one fourth of the way around the Zodiacal loop, ahead of the slower planet.  The slower planet is moving too, so the Square doesn’t occur 90 Degrees from where the planets met, but rather when there are 90 Degrees between the two planets in real time.  The “Waning” Square occurs when the faster planet is 270 Degrees ahead of, or 90 Degrees behind, the slower planet.

Keep in mind that the planets move from West to East.  Its the daily turning of the Earth into the East that makes it look to us as though the planets and Stars and Sun and Moon move from East to West.  You can see how the planets themselves move by taking a snapshot of the Sky every night at midnight.

As the name implies, a Square signifies a Fourth Harmonic relationship between the two planets.  The Fourth Harmonic is about Dominion, and the Square is about Mastery through Challenge.  If you think about your frustrations and breakthroughs in trying to Relate to someone who is very different from you in ways that you don’t understand, you’ll get a good handle on the Square.  If you succumb to Preconceptions and Judgments and Other People’s Opinions and Expectations, you won’t get very far in either Relationships or Squares.  If you’re genuinely interested in overcoming the barriers, willing to learn and practice new Skills, able to try something else when one strategy doesn’t work, open to Surprise, able to Suspend Judgment, and willing to give yourself credit for all the hard Work, you’ll find both Relationships and Squares to be Exciting and Rewarding.

Now it’s Jupiter’s turn to face the Mirror at the back of the bus – Retipuj Egardorter.  We pay attention to the Stations, when a planet is changing directions, because that’s one of the times when a planet’s influence is Strongest, and because of these triple-plays, which are often Life-Changing.  Jupiter’s triple-cross spans 14-24 Degrees of Virgo and mid-October 2015 through early August 2016.  Jupiter starts moving forward again on 9 May.  

One of Jupiter’s triple-plays, for instance, is an Opposition to Chiron.  The Can-Opener occurred in early November.  Jupiter may have Expanded your Discouragement then, in an effort to get you to step over the wall into Miracles.  If you allowed Preconceptions and Judgments to slow you down then – this is common for Can-Openers, because they introduce us to new territory – we get another chance at the Exposition in late February.  Expositions are easier, first because we’ve now seen it before, but also because events and feelings unfold more slowly and gradually, giving us a better opportunity to study and understand what’s going on.  Our Confidence-Builder will occur in mid-August.

The Jupiter-Station chart is a busy one…

• The Jupiter-Edargorter Station is Conjunct the North Node, while the Moon and Ixion T-Square the Nodes
• Jupiter is also the focus of a Yod based on the Ceres-Eris Sextile
• It’s also the tail of a South-Node Kite, Grand-Trining Pallas and Sedna
• Sedna’s the focus of a Yod from the Haumea-Moon/Ixion Sextile
• Haumea has it’s own Yod, based on the North Node-Eris Sextile
• Pallas is also the focus of a T-Square across the Haumea-Eris Opposition
• Eris is Stationary, turning Direct in two days at the head of a second Kite with s Chaos-Ceres-Haumea Grand Trine, T-Squared by the New Moon 
• The Eris-Haumea Opposition also forms a Trioctile Box with the Orcus-Neptune Opposition

It’s going to be a hard month for keeping secrets, and for keeping our remaining Masks held tight, as the New Moon extends this chart into the rest of January.  Our “Pathological Genius” – our Unique Skills that have been Shamed into the Dungeon – will be irrepressible.  Fear may be prominent, especially Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation as we move through the Ego Deaths necessary for Rebirth into our own Truth.  There will be Boundaries to be moved, to Allow new parts of our Self to emerge into the Light of Day and to Defend their right to do so.  It won’t feel any better but it will help anyway, if we remember that Courage is not the absence of Fear but the willingness to Act in the face of Fear.  

If you have any natal planets in 14-24 Degrees of any of the mutable Signs (Virgo, Pisces, Gemini, Sagittarius), Jupiter is asking you to Expand around them.

This is basically the Pisces, Aries, and Taurus Duads of Virgo, a Duad being one twelfth of a Sign.  If we regard Virgo (which we do) as the place where we dissemble the individual Ego in order to prepare to meet Other, then this is the area where we’ve pretty much dissembled, and now we’re starting to experiment with rebuilding.  

Squares, Nodes, Mission

A reader asks…

“I’ve been reading about the ‘problem’ of resolving squares to the Nodal Axis.  What would you feel a strategy might be to resolve my natal square from Uranus to my Nodes?  I’ve often been confused – or been given confusing information about – the nature and function of my North Node in Aries in the 4th House.  Some say its a Mission to become more of ‘I,’ with a strong identity.  Within the realm of the 4th, which is supposedly focused on home, hearth, family and tradition, it almost appears I have my nodal axis upside down, and the North Node SHOULD be in the 10th, and vice versa.  With North Node in the 4th, is my Mission to become, as Garrison Keillor put it, a bachelor Lutheran farmer in Lake Wobegone?  The word and process that I reckon I’m tripping over is ‘resolve.’  Resolve what, and how?”

Yes indeed, a ton of meat here, much of it important.  For instance…

• Squares as “problems” that need to be “resolved”
• Squares to the Nodes
• Uranus
• The Fourth House
• Aries
• SHOULDs
• The North Node and our Mission
• How do we pick our way through the Maze?

There’s a fair amount of astrologuese in here, which would normally be indented in normal (non-italic non-bold) type.  But the astrologuese is pretty basic, and I explain it pretty well as I go, and this is a good example of how astrology is useful, and how it’s done.  So we’ll leave it in “general-reader” format (bold italic); skim any parts that bore or Confuse you – or Ask questions.

Squares as “Problems”

A “Square” is formed when two planets are three Signs apart.  Traditional Western Astrology regards a Square as, in so many words, a Curse.  Dane Rudhyar, one of our astrological mentors, regarded a Square as huperity’s Evolutionary Edge.  We consider a Square to be Mastery through Challenge.  There is one sense in which a Square is a Curse – Squares involve perpetual Frustration.  But we shift that by shifting our Attitude.  It’s our need for Perfection that is Frustrated, so if we Identify with Perfection (or even Satisfaction), then yes, Squares are no fun.  We could say that’s a Choice, but our own Identity is transparent to most of us most of the Time, so we have to bring it up into Consciousness before it becomes a Choice that the Ego makes – as opposed to a Choice that the Soul has made.  Clearly “Someone” Chose to be born into a Lifetime featuring a Square, so if we postulate some sort of Consciousness superior to the Lifetime, “Soul” is as good a term as any.

Squares to the Nodes

The planets and other sensitive points (such as the Nodes) in a Square involve Expectations.  In general, we’re likely to Feel a bit out of sorts when we’re Identifying with the South Node, because we’re likely to be engaged in Karmic Self-Sabotage of some sort, but likely to Feel pretty good about ourself when we’re Identifying with the North Node, since we can literally Feel the Future getting easier as we give ourselves permission to move closer to our Deepest Desires.  In the normal course of Life, this is a progression.  We’re Motivated by our crummy South-Node Experiences to find a lever to improve them, and we’re Motivated by our Deepest Desires simply because they dominate our Consciousness (whether we know it or not).  So all of us naturally Expect ourself to be moving, on average, with detours, away from Self-Sabotage and toward indulging our Deepest Desires.  A Square to the Nodes Frustrates that Expectation.

This is true of any Square.  For instance, a Square from Venus to Mars will Frustrate our Desire for a Satisfying Relationship.  A Square from Jupiter to Saturn will Frustrate our Desire for a Satisfying Social Life.  So, why would “we” (our “Soul”) Choose to live such Frustration?  Because “we” Chose to Study How to Create a Satisfying Life in regard to the nature of our Square, rather than Choosing to Enjoy a Satisfying Life in regard to the indicated arena of Life.  Once we realize that our Unconscious Objective is to Study the Process involved with our Square rather than to Enjoy it, Frustration dissolves, because when we’re Studying something, every “failure” provides more information to help us understand the Process.  No one ever “resolves” a Square; when we Master one level of our Study, we move on the next level of Subtlety.

Have you ever heard the axion “Those who can Do, Do; those who can’t, Teach”?  It’s often meant as an insult to Teachers, but it’s not that at all.  If you’re a Natural at something you can hardly Teach it, because it’s Unconscious for you – that’s what it means to be “a Natural.”  If you’ve struggled to Learn something and explored all of the blind alleys that lead only to perversions or subversions of your objective, you certainly don’t Feel like a Master – but you are!  And you have become the “Natural” to Teach it.  

There are two steps to appreciating your Squares: Honor the Mastery that’s hidden under your lifelong Frustration, and switch from Identifying with your Frustration about never “getting it right” to Identifying with your Mastery gained from Studying all the ways there are to “get it not quite right.”  So someone with a Square to their Nodes is someone who is, as Goethe put it, immer strebend, someone who können erlöst werden.

When the Zeitgeist is stable, the “Expert” is someone who knows all the right answers.  When the Zeitgeist is in flux (which it sort of is these days, just a little), the Expert is someone who’s Studied all the blind alleys – the folks with Squares.  

So someone with a Square to their Nodes has become a “Natural” at Teaching others how to Transcend their Karma.  I wouldn’t call it a “resolution,” I’d call it something more like an “accommodation,” or an “appreciation,” but there are two steps to such a “resolution” – Honor your Mastery, and switch your Identification from Frustration to Highly Motivated Student of the Subtleties.

Uranus

Now we get to Uranus as the Squaring planet.  The traditional Western astrological interpretation for Uranus is “Disruption,” because traditional Western astrology is oriented toward the Ego, the Material, and the Status Quo.  Uranus Disrupts that which is no longer in Alignment with the Soul’s Path in the Lifetime.  Uranus represents the Personal Unconscious, another concept that matches pretty well with the concept of “Soul.”  

So as we Honor our Mastery and Identify with our Student of the Subtleties, we need to be Mindful that Soul – Uranus – will be constantly bringing us up short whenever we start to Ego-Identify with any sort of Certainty.  In an undergrad course you get good grades for demonstrating your Certainty about some approximation to the “right” Answer.  In a graduate seminar you get good grades by raising new Questions to challenge the established Answers.  The Student of the Subtleties Teaches, but not because they know the Answers.  They Teach because they know what sort of Question will move someone to their next stage of Growth.  

If it’s already occurred, your Experience of when Uranus in the Sky crossed the place in your natal chart where the North Node sits, will Teach you a great deal.  Meditate yourself back into those Experiences.  If it hasn’t occurred yet, watch for it and Pay close Attention to the Experience.

The Fourth House

As the Zodiacal Sky is divided into twelve Signs, the Zodiacal Earth is divided into twelve Houses.  They correspond to one another, but while the Signs are about Energies, the Houses are about how Energies Manifest into hard copy.  The Fourth House, corresponding to Cancer or The Nurturing Mother, represents Security.  The Tenth House, corresponding to Capricorn or the Industrious Father (in the gender bias of Medieval Europe, where traditional Western astrology arose), represents Community.  The traditional meaning of the Tenth House is Career/Profession, but that’s a bias of the Industrial Revolution (which, recall, we’re leaving) and the introduction of Wage Slavery.  In Feudal Europe (most of us, except for our alternative efforts, are returning to a form of Feudalism, as the 1% hoard the planet’s Resources and enslave the rest of us; of course many have been there all along) before Industrialism, this was Community: the Cobbler made shoes for the Cooper, and Cooper made staves for the Brewer, and the Brewer made Kraut for the Cobbler’s kids.

The South Node in the Tenth House implies that you’ve brought into this Lifetime a good deal of Self-Sabotage around Community.  The Tenth and Fourth Houses are opposite sides of the same Coin; in traditional society Security depended very much on Community.  So the current Life is about Learning Security.  Chances are you grew up with little Security, so you may not be a “Natural” at it, based on your early Life Experiences.  However, the South Node is more than just Self-Sabotage.  It’s also Unconscious Skills.  You brought with you into this Lifetime a carpetbag full of Skills around Community.  Even as they remain Unconscious, if you look objectively at your Life, you can see how your Unconscious Skills with Community have kept you Alive and relatively Well.  

The South Node is also called the Dragon’s Tail.  Our Hidden South-Node Skills are symbolized by Smaug’s Treasure; Smaug is the Self-Sabotage that we need to “slay” (actually, befriend) in order to recover the Skills we developed in “Past Lives.”  We can also think of Smaug as the Veil that prevents us from reaching into the Zero Point Field (aka Akashic Records) to recover any Skill we need.  In modern biology, the direct connection between our Mitochondria and the ZPF is blocked by Held Emotions and/or stored Toxic Substances.  In the standard Hero’s Journey, we need to stand, in our fully Grounded Presence, face to face with our Greatest Fears, our “Past Deaths” so to speak, in order to overcome our Upper Limits or Self-Sabotage.

If my South Node were in the Tenth House, I’d sit in Meditation while evoking every Fear, or other Negative Energy, that I hold around Community.  Will my Community be there for me when I’m on the Edge of Survival?  Where do I Feel that in my Body?  Can I Embrace it Lovingly?  “You poor Sweetheart, you really feel Abandoned, don’t you.” – or whatever parallel Empathy is appropriate.  I’d stretch myself a little bit around Community; maybe go to a Meetup of some sort, and then afterwards Sit with all of the Feelings that arose before, during, and after.  We also may need to focus on Cleansing toxins out of the Body.  In our South Node we chronically underestimate ourself, as we Focus more on the Sabotage and seldom appreciate our Natural Skills.

You can also PIAVA Security; Imagine how it will Feel in your Body when you are completely Secure, and rehearse that Feeling frequently.  Work on your Discernment of Insecurity in any form.  Do you instantly recognize Anxiety as an Emotion when it arises, and Empathize/Embrace it on the Emotional level, or do you focus on the intellectual noise that Anxiety creates?  Security for you is a Choice.  Every day when you wake up, the first thing you want to do is PIAVA that you bring Insecurity fully into Consciousness.  You can’t Choose Security while Insecurity is Unconscious. 

Aries

Then there’s Aries.  South Node in Libra implies Self-Sabotage and Unconscious Skills around your relationship to Other.  If we are All One, who the Devil is Other?  If we’re each the Center of our own Universe, then Other is on the Periphery.  Go into Trance and have a look at how that is, objectively.  What’s the nature of the Attachment between you at the Center and Other at the Periphery?  Are you facing one another, or facing away from one another?  How far away?  Mutually Supportive, or adversarial?  Or ambivalent?  Are there Pitbulls between you, or Kittens?  Are you holding hands?  Arms crossed?  Akimbo?  What’s the Feeling?  Play with it, move the players around on the stage, add or remove props, till it Feels more comfortable and comforting.  Do that whenever you feel the need.

Aries is the “dumbbell” of the Zodiac, as it brings with it zero Experience on the Planet.  It’s driven by Spirit.  Ask Aries what it’s up to, and if you get an honest answer it’ll be “I don’t know.  It’s all an experiment.”  If it’s an Experienced Aries, “Ask me in five years” will follow.  Aries starts things,  It’s not in charge of finishing anything.  In retrospect, if Aries Trusted themselves and started what their Intuition told them to start, and didn’t let any Unbelievers (including their own Shoulds) talk them out of it, the Inventions of Aries will be remarkable.  But they’re of the Future, they make no sense in the context of the Present.  With North Node in Aries you’re flying blind.  Did you Trust your Instinct yesterday?  Then you’re on the right track.  There will be no confirmatory email.  It’s just Trust your Guidance.  That’s it.  Doesn’t matter whether it Feels right – that’s just Emotional noise.  There will be a very subtle nod of approval from the Soul when you follow your Guidance, but easily drowned out by the much louder Emotions.

North Node in Aries in the Fourth House: your Guidance is your Security.  If you try to steer using your Emotions, or second-guess your Guidance intellectually, or devolve into Certainty, go directly to jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.  Of course your Deepest Desires are your own, but once you work your way through the pretenders to that throne, you may find that your Deepest Desire of All is to Trust Your Guidance.  Not Faith in your “Self,” Faith in your Guidance.  If you Identify with your Guidance, you’ll resist Change.  You want to Witness your Guidance.  You get there by Discerning any Resistance to that and Loving it to death.  “You poor Sweetheart, Trust is Hard, isn’t it.”

SHOULDs

Of course our SHOULDs are mere intellectual noise.  Any semblance of Should must be recognized immediately as Captain Farrell, a diversion from the true path.  Ask who’s SHOULDing on you, see if you can develop a dialog with them.  If it’s you, how old are you?  What were you Feeling at that age – ie, what are they Feeling now as they’re SHOULDing you?  Empathize with them, see what their positive intentions for you are, and see if you can get them to Support what you Want by Supporting what they Want.  Make friends with them; once you negotiate Win-Win, they’ll be a strong part of your Guidance.

If it’s someone else, who?  What is it they want for you?  Even if their intentions are good, you need to Mirror them.  You don’t need them running your Life any more.

In this case, where you think the North Node SHOULD be up in Libra, in the outgoing section of the chart, you can probably blame your grade-school teachers.  Schoolteachers wouldn’t be teachers if they weren’t Extroverts.  Extroverts have no understanding whatsoever for Introverts.  They believe Introversion is a sickness, or a regressive gene that needs to be overcome, and they made that unequivocally clear to us when they had Power Over us.  When an Extrovert gets worn down, they recover their élan by being with Other People.  When an Introvert gets worn down, they recover with Solitude.  We’re all some of each, but usually one or the other dominates.  Which for you?  The Fourth House is deep inside us, some say deepest inside us.  You may need to Honor your Introvert here.

The North Node and our Mission

So no, no bachelor Lutheran farmer in Lake Wobegone for you.  Your children may be below average.  That would be constraining the Future, and Aries will rebel at the next crossroad, of which there will be many.  When Aries rebels, it will take you on a Heuristic detour.  Instead of moving forward in leaps and bounds, you’ll be tangled up in a remedial class in the briar patch.  If you Pay Attention to the lesson plan, you can get back to the High Road quickly.

When you’re tempted to follow your Emotions, or Believe your mental symphonies, and especially if you feel Certain about something, stop and Ask for Guidance.  Not Guidance for next week, Guidance for the next hour.  One step at a time.  That’s how Aries works.  So yes, a stronger “I,” but certainly not as in Certainty.  A stronger “I” as in constant and consistent Surrender of Control to your Guidance, constantly and Lovingly watchful for signs of Ego wanting to take credit for your many successes.  “You poor Sweetheart, you really wanted to take credit for that, didn’t you.”

How do we pick our way through the Maze?

Of course, your Nodal T-Square is only one element in your chart.  There are many others, and they all connect to one another.  For instance, what if dwarf planet Eris was near your North Node and dwarf planet Quaoar near your South Node?  Then Quaoar would Channel all manner of critical Survival Wisdom about Other and Community, while Eris would be constantly throwing Golden Apples (Revelation of what’s being Denied) into the ring.  So you’d have to Learn how to phrase your Golden Apples so as not to alienate their recipient.  Listen to a recording of one of Byron Katie’s sessions if you ever get the chance.  When she reads someone else, it sounds terribly Abusive.  But the person she’s reading is all smiles and nods, appreciating the Mirroring of their own Self-Abuse and the confirmation of their already Knowing how to escape into Self-Support.  It sounds Abusive to a third party, but if it’s an accurate Mirror for their own pain, it’s Comfort, not Abuse.

If your South Node is in early Libra, it was profoundly affected by the recent and ongoing dance there between Makemake, Juno, Lilith, and the North Node.  Your Nodes will Return to their original position every 19 or so years, and reverse their position halfway between.  With the North Node currently backing into Virgo (implying breakdown of the old Ego in preparation for Rebirth into Courage), it will have recently backed over your own South Node.  What was that like?  Your Soul’s Path in the Present Moment (North Node in the Sky) will appear to be the opposite of your Soul’s Path in the Lifetime (the South Node in your natal chart).  If you weren’t Conscious of this reversal, it could have been terribly Confusing.  If you were Conscious of the reversal, it would have been terribly instructive.  It could still be very instructive, in review.  If it was Confusing, fabulous; Sit Lovingly with your memories of that Confusion, it was the first stage of Growth.

Finally, it’s a T-Square, so there’s a potent Vacancy lurking Opposite your Uranus.  You have to Consciously supply the Energy of the Vacancy to complete the Grand Cross and bring the T-Square into Balance.  Add the Degree position of one of your Nodes to the Degree position of your Uranus, then divide by two.  Round up to the nearest full Degree (unless it’s x:00, in which case use Degree “x”) and look up the Sabian Symbol of that Degree.  That’s how you Consciously contribute to your own Progress in the Lifetime.  I think you’ll Enjoy that part.  Most of the rest of our natal chart has a Life of its own, whether we’re Witnessing it or not.  Our Vacancies are our opportunities to get involved with a lot of leverage.

Square Planets Up Your Nodes

Manganvesuvianite – the Manganese-rich form of Vesuvianite, named for the Volcano that decimated Roman Pompeii.  Vesuvianite symbolizes the Mother Goddess, Creator of All That Is, and her Power to Heal “Miraculously.”  It appears as a Miracle to the Limited mind; it’s everyday to the Goddess.  The Manganese clears away Confusion so we can see the Growth that’s hiding behind it and Embrace it.

   ϖ    ϖ    ϖ    ϖ    ϖ 

A reader asks…

“Can you talk more about those of us who have a planet squaring the nodes?”

Which is an excellent question.  It’s a similar situation for folks with planets Conjunct either Node. 

A “Square” is two planets that are separated by one fourth of the Zodiac; they’re near the same Degree but three Signs apart.  A T-Square is two Squares connected end-to-end, or two planets Opposing one another with a third planet halfway between them.  Both mean Mastery through Challenge, the T-Square’s Challenge being more Challenging than a single Square’s Challenge.

First though, let me address another reader comment…

“That discussion of squares/Tsquares got me – depressed – no, actually, I recognized that feeling as despair when I read it.  Your writings have taught me to recognize that feeling –  despair.  And unconscious despair.  I never knew what that darkness was.  It’s been interesting to note where, when, how often it comes.  That’s helped clear a fair amount of it to an extent…just recognizing it for what it is.  That post brought it on.  Condemnation.  I always thought squares were Mastery Through Challenge.  So there is no ‘never.’  Mastery comes.  Not just ‘getting it’ but MASTERY!!  I feel like they should be called Infinitely Perpetual Challenge then.  Give it up.  You ain’t getting anywhere.”

Well, Infinitely Perpetual Challenge isn’t far off – till you Change your Objective.  Let’s take any of us that have Squares to Mars or Venus for an example – that’s timely, with Mars Initiating Venus and Wabi-Sabi Stationary.  We don’t even need a Square between Mars and Venus, just some other planet Squaring Mars or Venus.  Those movie scenes and ads about Perfect Romance and Perfect Bodies and Perfect Faces are irresistible to us.  Pant, Pant.  And that’s the whole idea – it ain’t Real, it’s a Trance.  I’ll wager that every Relationship you’ve ever been in had some positive feature.  If you cut out each one of those boons and pasted it on your Ken or Barbie doll, you’ll witness your Mastery first-hand.  You just haven’t put them together all at once.

That’s actually a great way to move toward What You Want – list the pieces or characteristics of your Desire, check to see which ones you’ve already Manifested, and then work on the others.  When you get most of them checked off, list all the combinations – A+B, A+C, B+C, etc. and start working on those – you can Plan and Execute, or PIAVFA, or both.  Then if you need to, work on the triplets – A+B+C, A+B+D, B+C+D, etc. – and the quadruplets.  Sound too complex?  Hmmm.  Maybe it’s your Desire that’s too complex.  Maybe you need to Prioritize a little.

Let’s try a thought experiment.  Think about your unfulfilled Desire.  Now pick its two most important characteristics.  Just for the sake of illustration we’ll call them Passion and Security.  Sound contradictory? 

That may be part of your Frustration.  Contradiction exists only in the mind, not in Reality.  In Reality it’s Both/And; in Real Life it’s called Paradox, not Contradiction.  If we’re striving for two Paradoxical qualities that we Believe are Contradictory, we will be doomed to Infinitely Perpetual Challenge.  It’s very difficult to Manifest what we don’t Believe – this is part of the Powerful “Placebo” effect.  So the first thing we may need to PIAFA is that we Believe our Desire is Possible.

Back to Passion and Security.  Ever feel Passion toward your Desire?  If not, Imagine it (Feelize or Visualize or …).  Shake It Off, take a drink of Water, and then think about the times you’ve felt Security around your Desire.  You may not have met any of your other requirements, but you felt Security.  If you haven’t Experienced Security around your Desire, not even for a few minutes, then Imagine what it’ll feel like when you do.  (If it’s a Relationship Desire, think Friendship.)  Then Let It Go, Dance a bit, another drink of Water, then recall or Imagine Manifesting both Security and Passion around your Desire.  Add Belief if you need to.

Feel good?  Or are their Yesbuts squeaking in the background – or shrieking in the foreground?  Yesbuts can feel Frustrating, but they’re just information about what else your Desire needs.  A frequently Unconscious Yesbut is whether or not you Deserve to Manifest Your Heart’s Desire. 

Virtually all of us went to the same Obedience School, where we were given a biscuit if we got the right answer, and if we’re very lucky only fingerwagged when we got the wrong answer.  Lots of folks would consider it Sociopathic if you Believed that you just Deserved things without having to Earn them.  Well, you do Deserve to Manifest your Heart’s Desire, right or wrong.  If your Heart’s Desire is punishable by Life or the Chair, so be it, you’ll just have to face the music.  But that’s not about Deserving; it’s about what your Culture permits and how well you finesse it.

Okay, you’ve Shaken It Off and Let It Go again and danced around the Fire, and now you’re sitting there feeling what it’s like to Believe in and Deserve to Manifest Safety and Passion around your Desire. 

I know, they’re still Yesbutting you, but Imagine that Belief, Deserving, Security, and Excitement are all you Want, that they’re Enough.

Ahhhhh! – Wonderful, isn’t it!

No?  Well, that’s it then. 

Desire is indeed an Infinitely Perpetual Challenge.  The basic problem is that Desire is misspelled.  It’s really spelled M-o-t-i-v-a-t-i-o-n.  Now there has to be a Balance between Motivation and Satisfaction, or else we’ll never feel good about Life.  So what to do?  Well, we certainly don’t need to give up our Desire, that would be the equivalent of Death.  We might need to dial it back a little, and approach it one piece or characteristic at a time, or set intermediate and achievable Goals that we can Celebrate along the way, so we can enjoy the Journey and not just the possibly hallucinatory Destination.

But the real key to Enjoying a Square or T-Square is shifting our Objective from Desire to Learning.  We’re always Learning, so we can Celebrate some quantity of Learning (even if we don’t understand yet what it is) from every Experience.  So a Square or a T-Square is about Learning about our Desire.  Once we make that shift we’re free to Play.  Learning is usually Surprising – otherwise we’d already be Learned.  So we’re open to Surprise as well as Success.  We really can afford to Play with it, because when Learning is our Objective, the bigger and faster our failures, the more we Learn.

That is MASTERY.  You’ve actually experienced it in your Life, around lesser Frustrations, like Spelling or Story Problems or DiffyQ or Asking for a raise or maintaining your Health.

And in fact, with a Square or T-Square, you are a Master, because you’ve always been Motivated to Explore the Edges of your Infinitely Perpetual Challenging Desire.  Take Music as an example.  If you’re Mozart, you were a Master at Birth.  If you’re Salieri, you’ve been working your butt off all your Life, and he gets all the contracts.  But suppose you’re Vivaldi, and you’re trying to figure out whether you want a minor or major key for your concerto about Spring.  Mozart could tell you in a flash.  But Salieri would be able to tell you why you need a minor key. 

If you were depending on Mozart you’d need to ask him again for each Season.  The answer you got from Salieri would allow you to figure it out on your own.  So who’s the real Master – Mozart or Salieri?

This is Real, it’s not a rationalization or a PR trick.  You may need to start your process by Believing that it’s possible to shift your Objective from your Desire to Learning about your Desire.

Conjunctions and Oppositions are similarly Heuristic.  Oppositions Challenge us to escape Duality by recognizing that while the Heads and the Tails distract us from what’s really happening, focusing on the Coin will trigger our Intuition.  Conjunctions Challenge us to Accept that just because our Perspective on the World isn’t popular, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.  In fact, the more unusual our Perspective, the more Powerful.  You may end up writing things that won’t be understood for 200 years, or that only six people on the Planet will grok, but the Value in that is immeasurable. 

Squares and T-Squares are members of the Fourth Harmonic, which is basically Mastery or Dominion; the Emperor.  But it’s the Fifth Harmonic that’s about Learning, so we must be wrong, eh?  No, we Master each Harmonic by adopting the Perspective of a higher Dimension.  The First Harmonic, Conjunction, is about Self.  The Infinitely Perpetual Challenge about Self is Other, which is introduced by the Second Harmonic, Opposition. 

The Challenge of Self “versus” Other is resolved by Love, the Third Harmonic or Trine.  The Infinitely Perpetual Challenge about Love lies in resolving Codependence, via Healthy Control or Dominion, the Fourth Harmonic – Squares.  We resolve the Frustration of the Fourth Harmonic by using the Fifth, Learning, the Quintile.  We resolve the Paradox of Inequality between the Student and the Teacher by moving to mutually respectful Partnership, the Sixth Harmonic or Sextile.  And so on.

  ϖ    ϖ    ϖ    ϖ    ϖ

Squares to the Nodes

Okay, finally we get to the original question.  But I think you’ll agree that the detour was useful. 

We’ve been equating the North Node to Desire and Mission, and now we’re talking about Squares as if they represented Desire.  These are two different flavors of Desire.  A North-Node Desire is hardwired in.  Moving in the direction of a North-Node Desire produces the sense that we’re on the right track, even as Satisfaction avoids us.  North-Node Desires evolve without much Frustration; we don’t recall how different our current North-Node Desires are from our picture of it five or ten years ago.  The basic sense is one of Progress.  A T-Square Desire on the other hand is an unachievable chimera that we set up to Motivate ourselves.  It’s a picture of Perfection.  It probably hasn’t changed substantially since we were five or ten years old.  The basic sense is one of Frustration.

So, if we put them both together, Progress with Frustration, gradual evolution with our Perfect Pictures, the whole process can be very Confusing.  And we may not remember that Confusion is the first stage of Growth.  That’s probably the key we need to resolve a T-Square to the Nodes – remembering that Confusion is the first stage of Growth.

Note that since the Nodes by definition Oppose one another, a Square to the Nodes is always a T-Square.

There are a couple of productive processes for dealing with Confusion.  We can acknowledge it with Gratitude.  “Omigosh, there’s Confusion!  Thank Goddess I’m Growing out of that dilemma!  That’s Exciting!”  And Curiosity.  Unlike the programming we got in school, real Learning is always Surprising.  If we had any idea how a real Life dilemma would be resolved, it wouldn’t be a dilemma.  So acknowledging Confusion as the first step of Growth almost automatically inspires Curiosity.  And Curiosity, like Love, is Goddessly, as both eschew Judgment.  We don’t want to strive for Curiosity about how our T-Square will be resolved – because we’d get stuck to our Perfect Pictures again.  Curiosity about what we’ll Learn next about our Desire fits perfectly, however.

We come to the difference between Desire and Fantasy.  Suppose for instance that we crave Acknowledgement.  If as ankle-biters we weren’t Valued for who we really were, we’ll spend our Lives craving Acknowledgement.  We have a picture of how that might happen.  We might be “Discovered,” for instance.  That’s a very nice alternative to Earning Acknowledgement.  Once who we really are is Discovered, everything else will fall into place, and it will all be easy.  That’s how we know it’s a Fantasy – everything else becomes easy.  Fantasy is a Manifestation-killer. 

When we detect Fantasy we need to substitute Curiosity.  We don’t know what it will look like when we’re Acknowledged – we’ve never been there.  We know the Perfect Picture we daydream about, but our Desire is behind that Picture, not in it.  When that Picture arises and we recognize it (how can we not? – we’ve been daydreaming it all our Life!), we need to pull the cord next to it so it rolls up like an old-fashioned window-shade.  Behind it there’s a Wilderness, and it’s Delightful and Dangerous and Exciting and very Compelling.  You can’t Imagine what’s in there!  But doesn’t it inspire Curiosity!

So let’s take some examples.  Suppose Saturn, which represents The Most Important Thing, Squares our Nodes.  It’s never this simple, because many other influences are afoot – such as the Sign of our Saturn, and other Angles to it from other planets.  But we could have a Lifetime Frustration about knowing what’s The Most Important Thing.  Is it Learning new Skills or collecting boons by using the Skills we have?  Is it Love, or is it Power?  So we need to find a reliable way to move from Confusion to Curiosity around The Most Important Thing.

In Psychic School one of the first tricks you Learn is “What if you did know?”  When Duality wants you to do Either/Or and you aren’t in touch with your Intuition enough to understand how Both/And might work in this circumstance, you can Ask yourself, “What if I did know?”  Chances are you will have already rejected at least one answer to the question, and that answer will probably pop back into Consciousness.  There’s a danger here.  This is an exercise for developing your Intuition, it’s not your Intuition. 

The answer you get is an excellent trial balloon, and a great first guess about what’s The Most Important Thing.  It’s worth trying.  But it may only work for a few steps.  West might be the correct direction for the first three strides, but you need to be alert for when Confusion arises again, and Ask again.  The next four might be North – or West again.  If you decide that one direction is Most Important forever, you’re likely to end up in a swamp.  After you practice this for a while it will become your Intuition, and you’ll develop the habit of recognizing Confusion and shifting immediately to Curiosity.  Eventually you won’t even notice the intervening steps, you’ll just Intuitively know what comes next.

But it’s still a Square; you can never sit on your laurels.  It will always be evolving, and you’ll always be Learning more about how to define The Most Important Thing, on more and more subtle levels, till you finally realize that there’s no one you can compare notes with, because no one else knows as much as you know about it – you are the Master.  It Squares your Nodes, so knowing it is The Most Important Thing in your Life.  When you Celebrate your Certainty about knowing the Most Important Thing, you’re about to step into the muck.  Celebrate Learning more about how to discern The Most Important Thing instead.

Now, think back over your Life.  How many times have you repeated this dance, and how many different ways have you Learned for dealing with it?  Include all the ways you’ve forgotten that you Learned (what if you did remember?).  In truth you’re the Master of this Process.  There’s no one better than you to teach it to others, because you’ve Explored all the blind alleys and discovered all the thoroughfares.  And more important, you know how to find the mainlines that haven’t been discovered yet. 

The primary characteristic of any Square is a shortage of Self-Acknowledgement.

That’s another process for resolving a Square in any given moment – moving to Gratitude – make a list of what is working for you.

Or Jupiter – what if Jupiter Squared our Nodes?  Jupiter is about Fortune, Expansion, Amplification.  When Jupiter dances with your Nodes, your Mission is always foremost in your Attention.  That’s fabulous, as no one will ever be able to accuse you of not immer strebend.  But it’s never Enough, is it.  Jupiter’s the Great Benefic, but Never Enough is a bummer.  So Self-Acknowledgement of your Enoughness has to become your mantra.  You’ve beaten it practically to death, but Enoughness is your Mastery.  Now you need to Master Not-Quite-Enoughness.  Your Challenge is to Learn to feel good about Performing at 90%.  When you get pretty good at that you can try 80%.  You’ll be More Than Enough at 50% – you can spend the other 50% having Fun.  You’re already doing this, aren’t you.  That’s MASTERY! 

We just can’t Acknowledge that we’re actually Manifesting the Power to Serve Effectively when we’re the Victim of our own Unconscious Motivation.  Dominion requires the Ability to Respond to “threats” to our Healthy Control.  As long as the Power to Serve Effectively is our Goal instead of Learning to Use the Power to Serve Effectively, Frustration follows, because Life is a moving target and “those people” – who really are less competent and less dedicated than you because they don’t have Jupiter Squaring their Nodes – are your Teachers, Unconsciously of course.  You’re underemployed, but you won’t be able to leverage yourself into a position where you also have the Authority and Responsibility to Serve Effectively – and the rewards, until you Learn to Honor yourself. 

There’s still time to remember all of the little and big Successes along this course, and Celebrate each one.  They’ll feel burdensome until you reframe them from Frustration about Failure, to Excitement about Learning.  Buy three big sheets of gold-colored cardboard and a “Sharpie” permanent marker.  Take an hour each week, choose one of your historical Frustrations, fully Embrace your Grief about how your hard work was unseen and unacknowledged and even actively thwarted, and then Ask “What did I Learn from this?”  If what you Learned feels negative, Ask “What was the positive function of that?”  “What was one positive thing that came out of it?

When you feel good about that Learning, cut a trophy honoring yourself for that  Success out of the gold cardboard, and give it a title and an approximate date.  As you process each historical Frustration there will be too many trophies (it’s Jupiter after all!) to keep on your mantle or altar all at once, so keep the extras in a box.  Each morning choose one trophy to put back in the box, and replace it with a new one chosen “randomly” from the box.  Spend a minute remembering the Frustration you felt as you climbed that mountain, and find the Relief you felt when you Learned that Lesson.

What about Venus?  Venus stands for our Values, so you’re probably often at odds about which Value of yours to follow.  Having multiple Values is fantastic – no danger of becoming a Zealot, eh?  But boy, those Zealots sure look Satisfied, don’t they?  Compared to my Confusion, that looks like a Blessing!  What if being Multifarious was the Blessing?  It’s a Square, it’s always a moving target.  I think of a Spiral, where we revisit the same issue over and over again but with slightly different circumstances.  A friend and reader uses the metaphor of “an elevator which stops at identical floors, but different things happen depending on where your head/vibes/frequency is.”

But the constant about is this is Constant Learning.  Your Values are Universal, but for every moment a different Hierarchy of Values applies.  If you’re anything like the rest of us, you’ve been programmed to apply the Values that were handed down by your family heritage in every moment.  You’ll be Learning how to stop and reconsider every moment, so you can apply the Values that work best in the circumstances.  You’ll know when you got it right because there will be a short burst of North-Node Satisfaction, the sense that you’re on the right track.  Till the Square’s Never-Quite-Right Energy butts in again.  No worries, it’s just Confusion, the first stage of Growth.  Isn’t that Curious!  I wonder which Values apply here – Growth or Certainty?

The Centaur Nessus Squaring the Nodes?  Confusion over Action, how to meet one’s needs with finesse rather than force, and how to replace that Confusion with Curiosity and Self-Acknowledgement.  Passive Pacifism isn’t worth much.  A Pacifist who knows how to Embrace and Master their own need to Dominate is a Teacher of Value.

The dwarf planet Ceres would tie us in knots over what’s Sustainable, and beg us to replace our Preaching and Self-Abuse about it with frequent PIAVFAs about how to make it stick. 

The poster child of dwarf planets, Pluto?  Sorry, your Life Path is intense, and you won’t bargain your way out of it.  You’ve probably already been in and out of Addiction, as there’s no faster way to understand Control.  Your Hero’s Journey is the Heroin’s Journey, figuratively or literally.  So what if no one listens to you – you see the Future, and they don’t.  Let them stumble; it’s their Learning Experience.  Your Certainty is a hindrance, though.  See if you can reprogram your Trance to seek Curiosity instead – you’re the Master of Trance-Re-Formation after all, even if you haven’t Recognized it yet.

If it’s the Centaur Hylonome Squaring your Nodes, Grief is your constant companion.  She’s just over your left shoulder.  Don’t push her away any more; Embrace Her.  Once you let Her swallow you like Inanna was swallowed by the Sun, over and over again, you’ll emerge Surprisingly quickly, each time having gained deep Insight.  Be Curious about where Grief will lead you next, as it’s a deep service to Humanity and to the Planet.

Inanna’s symbol is the Grand Octile – the Eighth Harmonic is where we go to resolve the puzzles presented by Magic.  This Ouija Board Uranus-Pluto Cycle is about Magic, and you know what comes next.  You are a Visitor from the distance Future, come to try to steer us away from impending disaster.  Embrace that Perspective without succumbing to Certainty or rejecting your constant Grief about being Unrecognized.  Grief is your greatest Tool.

Ah, Lilith.  It feels Confusing only because you’re ahead of your Time.  The World is moving toward Yindependence – Universal Respect for Self-Sovereignty – and you’re the advance guard.  Let yourself be Curious about how you can best help move the Planet forward.  The Hero’s Journey is well documented; it’s up to you to document the Heroine’s Journey for us as well.  Starhawk’s Truth or Dare is a good starting place for you.

Then there’s Uranus!  Yes, there are deep mists between you and your Soul, and many false profits.  You can’t dispel Confusion with Certainty, it must be Embraced.  It’s all Metaphor, Both/And.  What will happen if you Surrender to Confusion? 

Anyone else wanting to come forward?

Busy Busy in EFT Too

We could really be at the Tripping Point.  The EFT (Tapping) World is heating up too.  Dr. Mercola sends this…

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2015/02/19/eft-healing-effects.aspx

Nick and Jessica Ortner and their posse are busy with another year’s World Tapping Summit…

http://www.thetappingsolution.com/2015tappingworldsummit/reg/AF/new-access.htm

And even Nilima Bhat, of our recent fantastic Kate Hendricks interview fame ( https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2015/02/19/cellular-healing/ ), presents EFT as a likely Healing modality of choice for folks who resonate with Enneagram Type 1…

http://sampurnah.com/content/?page_id=114

Note: Her link for determining your Enneagram Type doesn’t work, but if you want you can use this link instead…

http://www.enneagraminstitute.com/Tests_Battery.asp#FreeShortTests

Warning: historically, Enneagram practitioners can tend toward the negative.  Not that astrologers can’t do that too!  I don’t see negativity in this Enneagram Institute material, as far as I’ve looked at it (which isn’t far). 

Empathizing with our Self-Criticism is fine as a first step, as long as the second step is Rising Above It to Self-Appreciation.  And we need to be the Witness to our Self-Criticism, rather than the Victim of it.  Every Fault is a Skill when seen differently, and every Skill is a Fault.  The Key is to use each Skill in situations where it works, and to use a different Skill in situations where the first Skill doesn’t work.  And when it doesn’t work, we inquire which Skill we might have used instead, without Self-Judgment.  Whenever you’re tempted to Self-Judge, Ask what you did well in the situation.  Then you can Ask what you might do differently next time.

Nobody does anything perfectly the first time, except maybe Mozart.  But if we Screw Up for the Umpteenth Time – well, that’s probably a T-Square (or even a Square).  In this case we need to shift our Goals.  What did work?  Well, I’ll wager we Learned a bit (if we didn’t wallow in Self-Recrimination – or after we quite wallowing).  T-Squares and Screwing Up Umpteen Times are about Learning.  We don’t need to Surrender our Perfectionism (as if we could!), we just need to transfer it from what we thought we were trying to Manifest to what we’re Learning about Manifesting that (and about Manifesting what our Evil Twin wants; we need to Honor our Evil Twin’s Wants as our own).

This is one reason why Desire and Mission are intertwined in such a complex way.  Our Squares drive us to Deep Desire, but frustrate us with never achieving what we Desire.  If we have Squares to our Nodes, this is really true.  Wer immer strebend sich bemüht, den können wir erlösen, said Goethe – folks who strive tirelessly can be redeemed.  It’s easier if we don’t have Squares to our Nodes; our Desires and Mission are less convoluted.  Not that a Square to anything else is fun – till you make it so.

We’re starting a new Venus-Mars Cycle, and it’s a Light-Hearted Cycle for once.  If youall were born when Venus and Mars were Squaring one another, these suggestions have your name on them.  A Square is about Mastery through Challenge.  Because your Motivation to keep trying is boundless (which feels masochistic at times, but it ain’t, and don’t let anybody else tell you it is), you actually have more Experience than anyone else your age; which makes you more Expert at your Square than anyone who does it “perfectly.”    When the World is Stable, the Expert is someone who knows all the right answers.  When the World is Changing rapidly, as it is now, the Expert is someone who knows all the answers because they been there done that, because they know what to try next. 

The Planet is Changing from Extreme Male-Dominance to Equality, and of course it will lean over the line into Female-Dominance before it swings back toward the center.  So we all need to be willing to experiment with new strategies, which our Squares drive us to by necessity.  Squares are Fourth-Harmonic Angles, and the Fourth Harmonic represents Dominion.  Not Dominion as in Dominance, but Dominion as in Healthy Control.  Being willing to Accept what we cannot Change, able to Change what we can, and having the Wisdom to know the difference.  And the gumption to keep trying.