The Phitile

A while back (early 2004 to be exact), I decided that the Traditional interpretation of the Opposition, 180 Degrees, didn’t really work as the Culmination of a 360 Degree Cycle. A Cycle doesn’t begin to Break Down till the Waning Square, 270 Degrees. So what happens then between the Opposition and the Waning Square?

Well, if we look at just the first dozen Harmonics, there’s the Quinnovile, 5/9, 200°, Learning Introversion. There’s the Quadriseptile, 4/7, 206°, Mastering Time. There’s the Septunx, 7/12, 210°, Breaking Time Karma. There’s the Quinoctile, 5/8, 225°, Learning to Adjust. There’s the Septelvile, 7/11, 229°, Natural Timing. There’s the Waning Trine, 2/3, 240°, Natural Guidelines. The Sepdecile, 7/10, 252°, Timing of Fortune. The Quinseptile, 5/7, 257°, Learning Timing. And the Octelvile, 8/11, 262°, Adjusting our Self-Respect.

Oh, and there’s the Phitile, 360/φ or 360/1.618, 222½°, Attunement with Nature. φ is the “Golden Angle” that appears everywhere in Nature.

All of those Angles sound like they map out a good path toward Getting Ready to Shift Gears. But it seemed to me that the Harvest of the Fruits of the Cycle should occur at the Waning Trine, where Harvest should be Effortless, something Given To Us rather than something we Do or Take. So I’ve been referring to the Opposition as the Blooming of the Cycle, rather than the Culmination, and to the Waning Trine as the Fruiting of the Cycle, with apologies to Rudhyar. And it seemed to me that an appropriate place for the Culmination of a Cycle would be the Phitile, the Angle where Nature Feels Complete in her Design Process.

The Phitile, though, is hard to compute, even harder than Quintiles and Septiles. Here’s what I wrote about the Phitile in February 2004, in a DIY blog (WordPress didn’t appear till 2007 – it has its faults, but it’s still far superior to the old HTML/FTP process)…

The old Pagan cross-quarter holiday Samhain, halfway between the Libra Equinox and the Capricorn Solstice, at the Midpoint of Scorpio, one of the Power Points of the Zodiac. Lonsdale‘s take on 13 Scorpio is Compulsion to Explore What’s Denied by Everyone, Living in the Shadow of a Culture. Taking the shutters off the Windows to our Programming, in other words. Like Karma and Dogma, Programming is supposed to seem like it’s the only way things could possibly be.

Yes, now that you mention it, that was a “Fun” table to make in HTML.

The Yin Gate and PIAVAs

Except for posts where I forgot to add the Category, everything we’ve written about the Yin Gate can be found at 

https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/configurations/yin-gate/

The best summary among those articles is probably…

https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2016/10/18/portal-18-10-part-1/

and the geometry of the Yin Gate Configuration is illustrated at…

https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2014/06/13/full-moon-yin-gate-and-portal-7-5-15/

The Yin Gate is a special case of the Golden Rectangle, which is the blue rectangle in the picture.  Blue lines represent Energies of Grace or Ease.  This particular blue rectangle is called “Golden” because the ratio of the length of the long lines to the length of the short lines is the “Golden Ratio” (~1.618 to 1.000).  That ratio is called “Golden” because it is found everywhere in Nature – among tree branches, among leaves, among veins in leaves, among bones and vessels and nerves in Critters, in Crystals, in molecular structure, etc.,  etc.

We might also encounter it as the “Golden Angle” (360 Degrees divided by 1.618 or 222.5 Degrees).  We’ve written about that Angle in astrology, at 

http://www.jbuss.com/jbl4/bluemoon204.htm

We focus our astrological Attention on the Angles between planets because the Angles between them indicate the sort of Energy the planets Act Out through their combinations.  The Signs in astrology represent Flavors of Expression, the Houses represent Material Manifestation Styles, and the Angles (“Aspects” in astrologuese) represent Energies.  We happen to believe that the Essence of the Universe is Energy; Matter is just a side effect.  So we focus on the Angles – the Energies.

We differentiate the sort of Curiosity that seeks Answers from the sort of Curiosity that’s Perpetual.  Perpetual Curiosity is akin to Awe and Wonder, like the Awe and Wonder you can see in the eyes of a Newborn when they’re Safe, or what you’re likely to Feel during a Total Solar Eclipse.  We focus on Perpetual Curiosity because it Allows us to escape from our Birdcages.  

When we Understand, we create a box or a Cage to put ourselves in.  We do it for Safety.  Just as an example, suppose you’re walking down the sidewalk of a road that has curves in it.  At some points in the curve, cars will appear to be coming directly at you.  Do you leap out of the way every time this happens?  No, because your Understanding tells you that the driver will follow the road rather than go straight ahead and run over you.

This saves you from burning out your adrenals every time you go for a short walk, and keeps your clothes and shoes tidy because you spend less time in the shrubbery.  Now, once you encounter a driver who’s composing a text on their cellphone instead of paying Attention to the road, then, once you get out of the hospital, if you do, you’re going to recognize that your Birdcage needs to have some of its bars adjusted.  This is the Danger of Understanding; it works till it doesn’t.

When we study the metaphysical Universe, Understanding is constantly in our way.  The more we Feel Safe about our Understanding, the more Danger we’re in, physically.  Of course there’s no metaphysical Danger; cars can’t put Souls in the hospital, as much as they Enjoy the game of trying.  Or so we Understand.  

There are things we Know, a priori.  These things don’t come from the mind’s Understanding, they come from the Heart’s Knowing.  Understanding is Dangerously subject to mass hypnosis and a slavish Devotion to Logic and Pleasing.  While everyone focuses on what’s Logical, they seldom mention that Logic is irrelevant when you Change the Assumptions.  Without specific and carefully specified Assumptions, Logic is nothing but propaganda, also often known as Bullshit.  And while everyone focuses on Pleasing and Conforming, they seldom mention that it freezes off your Creative Genius as if it was a wart.

We were all raised to Understand (and sometimes follow) reasonable Limits of socially acceptable – in our Culture and in our family – behavior, thoughts, and Emotional Expression.  Maturity it’s known as, and you’ll look long and hard to find folks who Understand that Maturity is propaganda.  This is called our “Programming,” and it’s not easy to break out of.

There are places for all of us where our Programming and our Heart’s Knowing don’t jive with one another.  Self-Sabotage is the result.  Deprogramming ourself and eliminating Self-Sabotage is a worthy goal of astrology, since your natal chart shows how you ran your Energy before you were Programmed to Conform to socially acceptable Understanding.

Which is not to say that many forms of social standards aren’t very handy – no one needs to be murdered while just walking down the street because someone’s Deprogrammed self thought it would be kicks, or because their Emotional Response to Fear was to strike out.  On the other hand, the Heart’s Knowing is far less likely to be murderous than, say, the mind’s Ideals or the Solar Plexus’s or Belly’s Emotions, so Deprogramming to the Heart’s Knowing is not in general anti-social.  

The mind doesn’t know that everyone’s Heart’s Knowing is different from everyone else’s.  The Heart does Know this, and accepts it Fully.  “Don’t bother me with the Facts” is completely legitimate when it’s the Heart that’s speaking.  When it’s the mind’s Ideology that’s speaking, it’s rhetoric and propaganda.

All this is a long way of saying that the emphasis in a Yin Gate is on the green Xes, and the green lines represent Curiosity, hopefully Perpetual Curiosity.  Perpetual Curiosity is Yin (Magnetic); Understanding is Yang (Dynamic).  An important facet of Perpetual Curiosity is Paradox – the Yin side of Contradiction.  The mind is Dualistic; the Universe is Multifarious and Unitary.  Dualistic Either/Ors Limit us; Multifarious Both/Ands Expand us.

So the mind has to be retrained to simultaneously accept what appear to be Mutually Contradictory ideas or Emotions.  We sometimes refer to this as “Cognitive Dissonance,” after Castaneda, but the term is sometimes used differently by others.  For instance, can your Attention be simultaneously within your Body and outside of your Body?  Attention is the scarcest “commodity” we have; if we can retrain our Attention to be Multifarious, we’ll be Living much more fully, living more Multidimensionally.

That’s our Objective, to be as Present as we can, to as much of Reality as we can, as much of the Time as we can.  

We recognize that the Logical mind can not take us there, so we use “Right-brain” or Yin Manifestation techniques, which we call PIAVA.  If you’re at https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/ (as opposed to pointing at one of the articles) you can scroll down to the list of Categories (in the right-hand column) and click on “PIAVA,” or you can just read…

https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/piava-review/

for a more concise review.

This is important because only the “Right” brain can access Perpetual Curiosity.  While we could use any of the PIAVA techniques to address one of the green lines in the Yin Gate, we often use Wonder.  

In astrologese the green lines are called “Quincunxes” – an “Unx” is one twelfth, and “Quin” means five – so we’re looking at an Angular relationship between planets where one planet is five twelfths of the way ’round the Zodiac from the other planet.  (We often use this type and indentation for technical astrological notes.)

In the particular Yin Gate that Blesses us as we speak here in early December 2016, the four green lines connect…

• (1) Lilith (Self-Sovereignty) to Chaos (Unlimited Potential) – the format is “planet (meaning)”.

• (2) Haumea (Rebirth) to Sedna (Embracing Fear).

• (3) Ixion-Pholus (Recovering our Abandoned Genius) to Sedna (Embracing Fear).

• (4) Lilith (Self-Sovereignty) to Uranus-Eris-Ceres-Mnemosyne (Memories of Deviation from, or Rejection of, our True Self).

So the way this Yin Gate Mystery School game is played, you can assign a PIAVA of your Choosing to each of the four green lines, assembling your PIAVAs using as building blocks the meanings of the planets (given above in parens) and relevance to your own Life at the moment.  For instance, I might Choose…

• (1) “I Wonder what Potential Surprising new ways I will Create or be Given, to Survive and Thrive in the face of Cultural Collapse, when I am more fully Deprogrammed.”  (ie, Self-Sovereign, rather than being Driven by Unconscious Programming.)

• (2) “God, Goddess, Creator of All That Is, I Command that my Ego be Gently revamped so that my first Instinct is to Embrace Fear Lovingly, Breathing into it.  It Is Done, It Is Done, It Is Done…  Thank You, God/Goddess…  Show me…”   (This is a specific Ritual format; see https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2015/11/02/piavac/ .  By Ritual, I simply mean that there’s Power in Repetition; I don’t mean that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to do it.  The Ritual portions are in purple.)

• (3) “Ganeshi, please Remove All Obstacles to a  Loving and Gentle introduction to the Fears that Restrain my Unique Creative Genius, and please Remove All Obstacles to my Lovingly and Gently Embracing those Fears and Liberating my Brilliance, Gorgeousness, Talents, and Fabulosity.  Thank you, Ganeshi!”  (Another Ritual form, less structured than the first; see https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/17297.Marianne_Williamson .)

• (4) “Great Spirit, please Lovingly and Gently and Rapidly and Completely grant me the Self-Sovereignty to Let Go of of Self-Sabotage and Fully and Permanently Embrace my True Self.” (Here I’ve put the adverbly clause in purple to emphasize it, because it’s a very useful addition to most PIAVAs, in an attempt to reduce or eliminate the “Healing Crisis” or Ego’s Resistance to Change, without hampering the Request.  We’re courting Ego Death here, and the Organism has a very deep Drive to Survive; the Ego’s job is to keep the Soul’s Physical Vehicle Alive, and it Reacts Vigorously to threats!)

 There are a couple of ancillary “Rituals” or suggested additions to the PIAVA process.  The process is designed to Trigger the Intuition and Soul-Connection, so to use it we have to get the mind and its Birdcage of Understanding out of the way.  To do that we “Change the Subject,” or do our best to forget that (and what) we just PIAVAed.  

Test this with your lost car-keys or anything else that you’ve misplaced or that has gone Walkabout.  If you “look everywhere” for them and can’t find them, PIAVA to find them.  When you Change the Subject, you’re very likely to “happen upon them” in a place where you never would have “thought” to look.

Yesterday for instance when I came in from Gardening I noticed that my new clippers weren’t where I have become accustomed to putting them.  I often set a tool down in the Garden and then forget to return for it.  So I checked the other places I may have put it, then retraced my paths through the Garden as best I could remember.  No clippers.  So finally I asked Ganeshi to “Remove All Obstacles” to finding my clippers.  Almost immediately I had a clear picture in my mind’s eye of the clippers slipping to the bottom of the box that I was putting my harvested Nettles into.  Clippers found, Soup delicious.

The general observation is that when we have no Unconscious blocks to a Manifestation, the Universe will Respond directly to a PIAVA.  When we do have Unconscious blocks, or Conflicting Goals, the Universe will show us the blocks instead.  It uses the Fisherperson example – give someone a Fish, and they’ll eat; teach someone how to Fish, and they’ll sit around in the boat drinking beer all afternoon, then maybe they’ll get to eat, if the ballgame didn’t scare away the fish.

So the third part of the PIAVA process is, after a suitable hiatus, “Paying Attention.”  If we haven’t directly Manifested what we PIAVAed, or gotten some useful information about it, within a day or two, we want to review what we PIAVAed while we Ask what occurred, between the PIAVA and the review, that was Unusual or Unexpected.  That will be a clue to our block or Conflicting Goal(s).  Since the blocks and Goals are likely to be Unconscious, the clue will probably be in the form of a riddle or a funhouse mirror, a role reversal, or another befuddlement.

So we may have to PIAVA that we come to Understand the relationship between the original PIAVA and the Unusual or Unexpected Event.  For instance, suppose you PIAVAed World Peace and Equal Rights, and the next day your fellow countrypersons elected a Misogynist and Racist to be your Fearsome Leader.  “Great Spirit, what the heck does that say about the sort of Self-Sabotages the Unconscious might be perpetrating to World Peace and Equal Rights?”  

And off we go from there, Exploring the Unconscious Wilderness…

Native American New Moon I

As we mentioned in the last post…

“There are actually two other Configurations in … Monday’s New Moon chart, [which] color it strongly.  One of them will provide Epiphanies about our Soul Self and [about] how [we might] adjust our Values and Identity to manifest [our Soul Self into our current Lifetime] more strongly (which Epiphanies will be multiplied by our intervening success at achieving Beginner’s Mind).  

“The other is about being Reborn into the Unimaginable through taking small steps toward Embracing our Orphaned Forbidden Genius.”

“Which are in turn, (1) a Uranus Mjolnir (a third planet at the far Midpoint between two planets that Square one another) on a base of Venus Square Saturn, and (2) a Golden Rectangle between dwarf planets Eris, Chaos, Haumea, and Ixion, with Centaur Pholus Conjunct Ixion, the New Moon Conjunct Haumea, and Uranus Conjunct Eris.”

A Mjolnir is two Trioctiles from each end of a Square, merging on a third planet, which becomes the focus of the Mjolnir.  The Configuration is sometimes called “Thor’s Hammer,” and the term Mjolnir is Norwegian for just that.  Thor’s Hammer is often associated with destructive force, but that’s not quite accurate.  In the same sense that Uranus represents Disruption – Disruption of what is no longer in alignment with the Soul’s path for us in the Lifetime, Thor’s Hammer represents penetration of any Defense – as in any Defensiveness that protects the Ego from following the Soul’s path in the Lifetime.  Lightning is a good representation of the Mjolnir, as it is for the corresponding symbol in the Hindu tradition, the Vajra – sudden illumination of the Darkness, or Epiphany.

The Waxing Trioctile, 135 Degrees, combines the Eighth and Third Harmonics – Adjustment/Rebalancing and Love with Wisdom.  In the evolution of a Cycle, it sits between the Trine (120 Degrees) and the Biquintile (144); between the Grace that follows from aligning one’s path with the Zeitgeist (Trine), and the Realization of the Value of Tradition and the Power of Ritual (Biquintile).  The Biquintile in turn is followed closely by the Quincunx (150, Curiosity), the Triseptile (154) – Shamanic Power exercised for the Good of All, and the Quadrinovile (160) – Mastery gained through Self-Examination in Contemplation.  

This is a powerful section of the Zodiac, corresponding to Leo and early Virgo.  There are massive Changes going on, but they’re faced with the Courage of Leo, because the Uncertainty and Confusion of the earlier sections of the Zodiac have passed under the Bridge, and by now we kind of have a feel for what’s going down.  The notion that a Trioctile is a minor Square (often called a “Sesqui-Square”) is valid in only one sense: the sense that the Ego is a Trickster that can point one in the wrong direction if one focuses on Greed or Revenge.  Of course the zone of the Waning Trioctile and its near neighbors corresponds to Scorpio – the Debriefing that follows the Phitile.  While Leo embodies Courage, the defining quality of Scorpio is Fearlessness.

In today’s Mjolnir, the Waxing Trioctile is Venus to Uranus: Adjusting and Rebalancing our Values to better reflect the ongoing Descent of our Soul Self.  The Cycle Initiated in March at 15 Aries, “A Native American weaving a ceremonial blanket.”

The Waning Trioctile is Saturn to Uranus: Debriefing the Ego to discover what it has Learned about the Soul’s Intention as a result of its Experience with the Cycle that is beginning to unwind – which was “The Pope Blessing the Faithful,” 30 Sagittarius, February 1988, part of the Harmonic Convergence.

The Square is Waning, Venus to Saturn: Challenge to Ease up on the Ego’s role as the Protector of our Physical Vehicle.  The Cycle is “Native Americans making camp after moving into new territory,” – 26 Scorpio, November 2014.  In other words, some of our Beliefs about what we need to Survive have become Limiting Beliefs, that we’re Challenged to Let Go of.

So really, there are Big Questions here…

• Ritual and Tradition are strong here.  What a “coincidence” that this New Moon occurs on Native American Day.
• Since March, what have you connected or reconnected with, that you Feel is Sacred?  Have you established a Ritual, or Ritual Object, of some sort to honor it?
• What has the Ego Learned since the Harmonic Convergence!  Wow.  Who were you in 1986?  What’s Changed in your Field since then?  What’s different now about the way you Defend your Health and your “turf” and the externalities that you Identify with (work? Relationship? Family? Money? Religion? Sports? Politics?)?  Does your current Perspective seem like Growth, or backsliding, compared to where you were in 1986?  Of course it’s Both/And; in what ways is it Growth, and in what ways is it backsliding?  Where are the razor-wire fences you can Levitate over?
• Things in your Life were Changing rapidly in late 2014 and early 2015.  You made some Decisions about what you needed to do to Support yourself.  Decisions are like Instant Karma; they create Patterns that are useful in the short run, but which seldom come with their own Sunset Provisions.  We forget we made them, and we don’t revisit them to see if they’re still relevant.  What Decisions about Survival did you make in late 2014 and early 2015, and are they still relevant?  Or are they holding you back?  Both/And?  How to Rebalance/Adjust them to bring them into the Present Moment.  

Decisions don’t have to be explicit; recurring thoughts can have the same Power.  What were you thinking about in late 2014 and early 2015?  Were your thoughts Constructive, or Fearful in nature?  

So you don’t have to get bogged down in details, you may want to just PIAVA that obsolete Decisions and Patterns come to your Attention, gently and lovingly, and Adjustments appropriate to Now become Clear.  Make sure you include the gently and lovingly, because a PIAVA like this could turn your Life upside down if you didn’t also ask for Grace.  You may want to limit it to recent Decisions and Patterns, or, if you don’t, be watchful for Overwhelm, and respond to it with a compensatory PIAVA on the order of Visualizing or Affirming that the Changes in your Life occur at exactly the right speed, so you’re neither too early nor too late to synch with the Planetary Changes.  Or, you can just Levitate over the fence.

In the next installment, we’ll go into “The other [Configuration] is about being Reborn into the Unimaginable through taking small steps toward Embracing our Orphaned Forbidden Genius.”

Harmonic Climax

Elizabeth points out that over the last several days Saturn has reached the Phitile position in its Cycle with Uranus.  The 44-year Saturn-Uranus Cycle is about the Ego carrying out instructions received from the Soul.  

The Phitile, 222 and a half Degrees (360/1.61803), is the Golden Angle of Sacred Geometry.  You can also see it as 137 and a half Degrees (360-222.5).  Treelimbs branch at that angle.  Flower petals form that angle.  You can read more about it, and play with it, at… 

http://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/nature-golden-ratio-fibonacci.html 

It’s not so easy to calculate, so we’ve provided a table of Phitiles, at…

http://www.jbuss.com/jbl4/phitiles.htm 

Cycles have several culmination points.  The Opposition (180 Degrees) is where a Cycle Blooms.  The Phitile is where it Fruits.  And the Waning Square (270 Degrees) is where it collapses in on itself and drops into the Void or Zero Point Field, where the deck is shuffled before the subsequent Cycle is dealt. 

This Saturn-Uranus Cycle’s Initiation was an integral part of the Harmonic Convergence in 1988.  The predecessor newsletters of this blog began in 1988, at the time in an effort to help people avoid personalizing the non-personal Big Events occurring in the Unconscious during the Convergence.  Now we try to help people TO personalize the Big Events occurring here after the End of Time as We Knew It, because if we don’t Take Ownership of the Planet we won’t work to rescue it as a viable home for our Physical Vehicles.  The Uranus-Saturn Initiation occurred in the last Degree of Sagittarius, near where the Galactic-Center Stellium sits now.  The last Degree of Sagittarius means “The Pope blessing the faithful.”  In other words, a substantial portion of the Harmonic Convergence has come to Fruition.  Who knew in 1988 that it would be the Pope to rescue the Planet from the ravages of Predatory Capitalism!

This is good news to me.  It tells me we’ve reached a significant milestone in the reorganization of our approach to Life.  The Saturn-Uranus Cycle wasn’t the only Cycle Initiated during the Harmonic Convergence, just the first.  There was also Jupiter-Chiron, Saturn-Neptune, and Uranus-Neptune, all Powrful harbingers of Change.  Because Neptune move much more slowly than Uranus, the Saturn-Neptune Cycle (“An illustrated lecture on natural science“) reached Phitile in 2010.  That Cycle, which governs the Relationship between the Ego and the Collective, drops into the Void in late November of this year.  We can expect increasing disorder, as the Collective and the Ego try to dance in the darkness and step all over each other’s feet.

Uranus and Saturn

Now that we’ve survived the Station of Eris, what’s next? 

Venus

On July 25 Venus turns Retrograde, till early September.  Everybody’s writing about that, and Venus dances more in Consciousness than in the Unconscious, so we’ll leave that up to Everybody.  When the time comes, we’ll instead write about the Venus-Mars Conjunction and Initiation that’s coming up at the end of August.

Uranus

Of more interest to us is the Station of Uranus, which occurs July 26.  That’ll have a huge influence on the Station of Venus anyway.  So this coming week is about having our Yintegrity tested.  Are we really willing to Support ourSelf and walk our Soul’s Path for us?  Or is it more important that we keep up “business as usual,” self-abuse, and Pleasing Others rather than ourSelf?  An old story by now, but gosh, there are so many layers, aren’t there?  And isn’t it amazing how persistently we can Resist?  Unfortunately, the longer we Resist, the harder the tests. 

At the very least, it will be Self-Loving to PIAVA a Gentle and Loving Release of our impediments to Yintegrity and an easy and smooth Transition to our next layer.  Just to be sure we remember…

• Yangtegrity means doing what we said we were going to do.
• Yintegrity means doing what we dang well Feel like doing, moment to moment.  It’s about Trusting our Instincts and Intuitions.

Remember that in order to Live Yintegrity in a Yangtegrity World, we probably need to reduce our Commitments, be willing to Renegotiate a lot, and make Amends when Renegotiation isn’t possible and the Connection is important.

Yintegrity sounds harsh and Selfish, but if we want to follow our Soul’s Path for us, that’s what we need to do.  Yes, our less-than-stellar Emotions will trip us up at times, but when they do we can Trust that we’re Learning something that the Soul wants us to Learn.  That means we also have to Pay Attention, stay out of Victim, and Listen.  We probably won’t be able to think our way into what the Soul wants us to Learn from our follies, as the mind is such a narrow tool relative to the Soul.  We’ll probably have to hone our PIAVA skills and Ask for Clarity a lot.  No need to be proud.

Saturn

Then on August 1, Saturn turns Direct.  Saturn means Pay Attention to The Most Important Thing, so when Saturn is lit up we’re often asked to not Pay Attention to everything less important.  That can be scary, since the Less Important Things are often sources of Security for us.  For instance, as the tests of our Yintegrity get more and more severe (whose side are we on, anyway – Soul or Ego?  Transformation or Inertia?  Rebirth or Karma?), increasingly The Most Important Thing may be just that – our Yintegrity. 

While that may be true in general, though, you’ll need to determine your own The Most Important Thing in the moment.  It’s not hard – it will be what keeps interrupting you as you’re trying to focus on the Other Things.

The current Saturn-to-Uranus Angle is a Waning Biquintile; that’s very close to a Phitile, or the peak of the current Saturn-Uranus Cycle that began at the Harmonic Convergence back in 1988 (when these missives first began, by the way) at 30 Sagittarius, “The Pope, blessing the faithful.“

The Phitile is 222.5 degrees, the Golden Angle of Sacred Geometry.  A Cycle blooms at the Opposition, and fruits at the Phitile.  They’re not easy to calculate; for a table of Waxing Phitiles see http://www.jbuss.com/jbl4/phitiles.htm .  For the Waning Phitiles, read the table backwards; ie, the Waning Phitile from Saturn at Sagittarius 1 to Uranus would be at Aries 19.

The current Pope is certainly one of the strongest voices around, if not the strongest, for breaking through the many Denials inherent in predatory capitalism.  So we can hope that this trend remains strong even if it’s fruiting.  The Waning Saturn-Uranus Phitile is exact at the end of September.

To what extent have we been faithful to the Promise inherent in the Harmonic Convergence?  And to what extent have we been swimming upstream trying to preserve the Security we have in business as usual?

Saturn and Juno, Portal 3.8-14

Ego and Archetype.  Which is which?

  Δ    Δ    Δ    Δ    Δ  

 A reminder about format: this font is for everyone to read…

This font and indentation is for those with some knowledge of astrology, and for anyone who’d like to learn a little astrology, which we maintain you can do “by osmosis” just by reading this font casually for a while.

This font and indentation is used to explain astrological terms and go into more arcane astrological closets; read it if the other fonts instigate questions, or if you want to learn more about astrology; otherwise ignore it.  You can also use the “Categories” at right as an index to terms, or feel free to leave a Comment with a question.  Be mindful that many of the definitions and concepts we introduce in this font are our own, and may not be shared by other astrologers.  Everyone has their own Perspective, and they’re all valuable.  It’s Both/And, and up to your Experience to Discern which Perspectives are most useful for you in which circumstances.

  Δ    Δ    Δ    Δ    Δ 

As we drop back into the final Uranus-Pluto Square, the almost-simultaneous Stations of Saturn and Juno make it very clear that our assignment here is to

Pay Attention to the Edges of Consciousness

So often we go to the Edge, look into the Abyss, shake our heads, and step back.  We don’t have to take a flying head-first arms-wide dive into bottomlessness, all we need to do is step in.  We can even leave one hand grasping some firmly-anchored object in the Present Moment.  In fact, most of the time it’s a good idea to remain mindful of Present Moment “Reality” so we don’t, as Kesey warned, “Trip out so far that we never get back to know that we’ve left.”  Most of the time.

It happens to me almost every time I step into the shower, for instance.  Some event out of my personal history will pop out of the drain – an opportunity for Regret or Shame, for example, or an opportunity for Growth or Excitement that I let pass because I feared at the time that Regret or Shame, or even just too much Complexity, would result.  My usual response is to quickly re-Experience the moment, then shake it off with “Whoo, glad that’s not still going on!” and wash my hair.  I should sit down on the edge of the tub and take several minutes to move from re-Experiencing the then-moment, to fully Experiencing the present-moment Emotion, lovingly and gently move all of my Attention into it, and see where that doorway leads.  Then Embrace my historical (or Karmic) self with “Wow, you were really Feeling ___, weren’t you.”  Then wash my hair.

Saturn stops just shy of its Waning Square to Neptune (2:57 from it), so we won’t get the Square itself until November.  A Waning Square is the beginning in earnest of the winding down of a Cycle, the time when we drop into the Void in order to Clear Space for the next Cycle.  If we don’t Clear the Space, we’re always “fighting the last war” as they say, or still trying to deal with our previous boss or employee or lover or postman, which can be very confusing for our current boss/employee/lover/postman.  You’ve been on the other side of that equation many times – right?  “Don’t get even, get odd!” is excellent advice when you’re dealing with TSA or the Gestapo (or your previous lover), but it’s terrible advice when you’re trying to develop Relationship.

Which Cycle are we winding down?  The current Saturn-Neptune Cycle began during the Harmonic Convergence, in 1989.

March 3, 1989 at 12 of Capricorn, “An illustrated lecture on natural science reveals little-known aspects of life.“

The Saturn-Neptune Cycle shows the current flavor of major Cultural currents, and has a big impact on our Relationship to Spirit.  What’s changed in the way of major Cultural currents since the First Gulf War in Kuwait?  Here in the US, the tone has changed from “bombing them back to the Stone Age” to giving lip service to “converting Hearts and minds” – though of course the favored method of converting Hearts and minds remains the threat of bombing folks back to the Stone Age.  Since the US is a for-profit institution and bombs are a, if not the, major export, that’s only logical.  The shift in Global Balming Denial has also been meaningful. 

What about our Relationship to Spirit, how has that been changed by Insights from “natural science”?  It’s alternately pitiful and hilarious to watch the hyperscientists still taking their ever-higher-tech scalpels to the brain in their belief that Consciousness resides there and that Reductionism will enable them to find it.  I’d say that the Kepler project and the widening realization that “Oh gosh, we may not be the onliest ‘Life’ in the Universe after all!” – Duh! – is testament.

So, come November, we’ll be literally in the Void with respect to Cultural currents and our Relationship to Spirit, till our new Cycle begins in February 2026.  It never makes sense to look ahead to see what the next Cycle is about, because until we’re washed clean by the Void, we can only see the Future through the eyes of the Past, guaranteeing that Change won’t happen.  But I can tell you that the next Cycle will be pretty exciting.  Saturn-Neptune isn’t the only Cycle out there – there are many.  But it’s an important Cycle, as it mediates the Relationship between the Ego and the suprapersonal Spirit.  We don’t need Validation for The Shift, we can Feel it.  But we do need reminders, as we’re constantly bombarded with propaganda from those who fear loss of the status quo and its impact on their profits.

This person spends 85% of her time traveling the World teaching it, so she knows of what what speaks…

“There is a huge wave of awakening and healing sweeping our planet right now, and I think all of us are feeling a ‘pull’ to respond to a global imperative that we be a part of the change, the healing that our world so sorely needs during these tumultuous times.  And we seek practical work, work that is real, down to earth, that gets measurable results.  Work that helps clear our blocks, silent saboteurs and our limitations.  Work that gets right under our skin to the root cause of our emotional and physical issues and clears them.  Work that opens us into our essential greatness, into the love, the freedom, that is our own essence.  We all long to have a direct experience of our own authentic greatness.  We want to liberate our lives and experience the natural joy in the core of our being.

“Ultimately we want to take the lampshade off our own lights and discover our own truth, find our own answers.  We want to live a guided, grace-filled authentic life, lived from the love that is our essence.”    –Brandon Bays, The Journey, pp.xii-xiii.

A Saturn-Neptune Void between 2016 and 2026 increases the odds of an economic downturn before the 2020 beginning of the Digital Revolution.  Not that one isn’t due anyway, just on the basis of averages.  It also suggests a good deal of Confusion around the 2016 US presidential elections.

The Saturn Station itself (the influence of a planet is particularly Strong at its Stations) occurs at 8am PDT (http://www.jbuss.com/tt/pdt8.htm) March 14, with a preview at 2am PDT (http://www.jbuss.com/tt/pdt2.htm) March 12, plus or minus three hours (when the Moon crosses Saturn).

We give these times because they’re excellent times for Meditation or PIAVAs, amplifying your Power.

Typically a Saturn Station makes us feel squeezed – Saturn represents Contraction.  Contraction is a legitimate state, facilitating Safety.  Without Safety, we don’t Grow.  It’s not Limitation, it’s Focus or Concentration.  A Strong Saturn feels Limiting because it asks us to focus on The (One) Most Important Thing, and set everything else aside for the while.  When The Most Important Thing is our Mission, and we Fear failure, that’s scary.  We don’t realize that our Mission is Pass/Fail, and any effort yields a Pass.  Like Pluto, Saturn has an “upstream” and a “downstream,” one being easier than the other.  The downstream course simply comprises Focusing on The Most Important Thing.

Meanwhile, the Juno Station occurs at 1am PDT (http://www.jbuss.com/tt/pdt1.htm) March 13.  Juno is the Roman name for Hera, wife of Zeus.  Hera was the jealous type, always turning Zeus’s many lovers into Stone.  So Juno represents the Archetypes – those Unconscious constellations of Energy that hypnotize us and prevent us from Acting of our own accord (without our realizing it of course) – turning us to Stone, so to speak, or Archebots.  Juno also represents Identity, who we Merge with, who we’re Codependent with, whose Will we act out rather than our own.  While believing it’s all for the Good of course.  So we kernelize Juno as the Edges of Consciousness.  So this week is about letting other priorities slide while we Focus on the Edges of Our Consciousness.

Well, the Edges of Our Consciousness are normally invisible to us.  Other than a Swan dive into the Abyss or sitting on the edge of the tub or Meditation, our best strategy may be to put our Pet Peeves in the Mirror and Ask, Who Is It that’s so peeved?  Is that really me?  Is that really a core Value of mine?  Or is that some Archetype?  The Libertarian Archetype perhaps, or maybe the Inner Two-Year-Old Archetype?  But reread Bonnie’s illuminations, several times, carefully – Focus on it…

https://dancinginthetao.wordpress.com/2015/02/20/changing-consciousness/

What is it that she’s recommending? 

Our old friend Curiosity!! 

Any time we want to reach across that Edge of Consciousness to the Other Side, we need only PIAVA (https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/manifestation/piava/).  That’s what the Magnetic Approach to Manifestation does, it enlists the cooperation of the Unconscious.  That’s why most of your Female friends are so good at Intuition; it’s what they do.  So we might Ask, “God/Goddess, Creator of All That Is, may I please Lovingly and Gently, and for the Benefit of All, take One Step closer to my True Self?”  One Step at a time is a good strategy; as it increases the odds that you’ll notice the Change and be inspired to take another Step.  And nothing prevents you from being Given a Big One Step, if your Guides believe you’re ready for it.

The Juno Station Trines the Saturn Station, so there is much Grace available!  This Trine makes a Tricolor with both Mercury (intellect) and Neptune, so the Juno-Neptune/Mercury Quincunx is the route recommended by our astroguides for a headstart in dealing with the Challenge in the Waning Saturn-Neptune Square.  Neptune (also symbolizing the Unconscious, especially the Cultural Unconscious) is the mechanism by which Archetypal hypnotism takes place – or is undone, and Mercury represents one possible route, the Cognitive route (which is unlikely to work as well for Emotional or Passionate thinkers – those with their Mercury in a Water or Fire Sign), to undoing Archetypes.

So another good PIAVFA might be, “I Wonder what sort of invisible Archetypal Monster has a grip on me.”  Play that one with the Monsters, Inc. movie in mind; no need to be heavy about it.

Of course the antidote to Merging is Boundaries, symbolized by Pallas, and Pallas joins Neptune in making a Quintile Yod focused on Juno.

There is tremendous Power available to us here, for breaking through our Self-Sabotaging Archetypes.  Like any Habit, there is Power and Skill in any Archetype.  What we want is not to reject the Archetype, but for our Healthy Ego to gain Power over it rather than vice versa.  That way we can use those Skills (which as a trained soldier in the Archetype’s infantry, we know well) when they are useful and appropriate, and use our other Skills when the Archetype’s Skillset would Sabotage us. 

Juno is also the focus of a Finger of God (Quincunx Yod) on the base of a Sextile between Mercury and the Separating Chariklo-Hylonome Conjunction.  In addition, during the Saturn Station, the Moon crosses the Chariklo-Hylonome Conjunction.

There is some confusion in astrology between the terms Waning-Waxing, and Approaching-Separating.  We use Waning-Waxing to signify stages in a Cycle; so when a faster planet is moving from Conjunction toward Opposition with a slower planet, it makes Waxing Angles, while Waning Angles are made during the second half of a Cycle, when the faster planet is moving from Opposition toward the subsequent Conjunction. 

In a Waxing Angle, the Energy of the Cycle is Building; in a Waning Angle – once we’re past the Phitile (222 and a half degrees) – the Energy is moving into the Void between Cycles.  The Phitile is the Golden Angle of Sacred Geometry.  For practical purposes, you can usually use the Waning Trioctile to estimate the Phitile, as the Trioctile only two and a half degrees further on in the Cycle.  The Phitile makes a Cycle five-eighths Constructive and only three-eighths Deconstructive.  You can assign Ascension and Devolution to either phase, depending on your orientation.

On the other hand, when a faster planet is within a few Degrees (of Orb or Sensitivity) to making an Angle with a slower planet, we consider it to be Approaching.  Once the faster planet has completed the Angle with the slower planet, we consider the Angle to be Separating.  When a Retrogradation causes an Angle to occur several times, the faster planet can be Approaching the slower one from the “far” side.  We consider the Energy of the Approaching Angle to be much Stronger than the Energy of the Separating Angle, but that depends on the degree of Consciousness of the person encountering the Angle.

If you know that planet Fast is about to make an Angle with planet Slow, and you understand what it means and can relate the events and circumstances in your Life to the astrological Angle, then the Energy drops off precipitously after the Angle is Exact.  If you are instead Reacting to and Resisting the events and circumstances in your Life that are associated with the Angle, and you make Decisions to Protect yourself against the Energy, you’ve created Karma that persists long past the astrological event. 

The classic example is “9/11.”  It was a Manifestation of a Separating Waning Saturn-Pluto Square, so the astrological Energy was nowhere near as Strong as the Manifested event.  Yet the resulting Fear was manipulated intensely for negative purposes, and so persists to this day, as you well know when shuffling toward an airplane without your shoes and belt, or getting felt up because of your Titanium hip.  The Manifested 9/11 event itself was delayed so as to coincide (to the hour) with the first Out of Bounds Moon of the 2001-2012 series, because the Out of Bounds Moon amps up Emotional Reactions and thus served the manipulation.

The January 26, 2015 Initiation of Chariklo by Hylonome occurred at 30 Degrees of Sagittarius, “The Pope blessing the faithful.“

When a faster planet Conjoins a slower planet for the first time, we consider it the Initiation of a new Cycle between them, and refer to the slower planet (the Teacher or Guru) as “Initiating” (Shakti) the faster planet (the Student or Messenger).  In this case we’re assuming that the Chariklo-Hylonome Conjunction was an Initiation, without checking it out thoroughly, because since the Centaur orbits are by definition irregular, and since they travel at roughly the same speeds, they can take turns Conjoining one another for Centuries – literally, so it’s very difficult to tell which is really faster and which is slower, and which Conjunction is the first of a Cycle.

While the orbits of the asteroids between Mars and Jupiter aren’t usually irregular, their speeds are so similar that it’s also very difficult to say which Conjunctions among the asteroids are Initiations.  Because their speeds are so similar, a single Cycle between two asteroids can span many Centuries and include hundreds of Conjunctions, even though their orbital period is only about four years.

The Centaur Chariklo symbolizes Beauty and Grace, while the Centaur Hylonome represents Grief unto Ego Death.  So this Initiation is sorta like the Wicked Stepmother banning Cinderella from attending the Ball, and the Cycle would be the story of Cinderella sidestepping the ban and ending up with the Prince, or at least the royal personage formerly known as Prince.

Whatever Stories have been handed down in your family about what can only end badly, are particularly vulnerable here to being extinguished.  For instance, a good friend’s ancestor grew up in the 1930s, during “the Depression,” when any misstep would lead to the loss of your job – if you were lucky enough to have one – because there were hundreds just over the line waiting and ready to take your place.  So my friend works hard, pays close Attention to what’s Expected of them, and “keeps their Light under a bushel,” so they won’t be noticed as out of line.  That would be a perfect example of an Unconscious Habit eligible to be Shifted – an Edge of Consciousness to be Expanded – this week. 

What Archetypes might be similar?  Master-Slave?  Owner-Worker?  Pleaser?  Codependence?  “Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy, and they’ll be nice to you?”  Overconfidence?  Arrogance?  Inequality?  Racism?  In the US there have been a couple of nice, if token, Racism breakthroughs this week already, in Missouri and Oklahoma.  Wouldn’t it be great if we saw some Inequality breakthroughs to ease any economic downturns we might be heading toward!  Miracles that Shift the whole picture could happen any day.

The Saturn Station is Biseptile to Chiron, so it’s entirely possible that we could reach Tipping Points here that feel like Miracles, as the Seventh Harmonic and Septile series of Angles rules Tipping Points, hundreds of Monkeys, Assemblage Point shifts, and Accumulating Energy in general (in the Castaneda-Don Juan sense).

Before the Juno-Saturn province demands All of our Attention, at 9am PDT March 11, Uranus Initiates Mars (http://www.jbuss.com/tt/pdt9.htm). 

At 15 Degrees of Aries, “An Indian weaving a ceremonial blanket.”

2014 – Venus and Eris

http://www.viralnova.com/simon-beck-snow-art/

Venus Retrograde

As usual, Kelley Hunter’s New Moon notes are fabulous…

http://heliastar.com/uncategorized/new-year-new-moon/

She mentions an important detail that I forgot to mention – Venus’s 8-year pentagonal pattern – and does a better job on the topic than I would have anyway.  There’s an error, though, if she hasn’t corrected it already: where she says “2005-6, 1998-9, 2000-01,” I believe she meant to say “2005-6, 1997-8, 1989-90.”  Boy it’s easy to forget numbers and get them confused these days, more than usual!  I have to write everything down, even if it’s just for use a few minutes later.

Void – of Course or Otherwise

Another thing she mentions is the “Void of Course Moon” (often referred to as “V/C” or “VOC”), which I haven’t mentioned because I don’t usually use it.  V/C is the space between the last major Angle that a planet (or other heavenly object or symbol) makes, and it’s entry into the next sign.  The major Angles are Conjunction, Opposition, Square, Trine, and Sextile.  Seems to me the Quintile also belongs in that group, but I don’t know enough about V/C to know for sure (VC still means “Viet Cong” to me).  If you want to read more about V/C, try…

http://www.mountainastrologer.com/standards/editor%27s%20choice/articles/void_of_course.html

and a more technical view at

http://theastrologydictionary.com/v/void-of-course/

V/C can evidently refer to other planets as well as the Moon, though since I regard the Moon as the trigger for Manifestation and as the symbol for the glue that holds Energy together as Matter, and since I regard the Angles between Bodies as the “meat” of astrology (because it describes the Energy rather than the Manifest results), it would certainly seem to apply more to the Moon than to other planets.  Since it fits so well with my basic philosophy, you’d think I’d use V/C – maybe I’ll look into it.

I usually use the term “Void” to refer to the last three eighths of a Cycle – the time between the Phitile and the following Conjunction.  The Phitile, which astrology usually ignores, is the Golden Angle of Sacred Geometry, 222 and a half degrees.  This Void is when Energy retreats into Potential so it can be remixed and baked into new cakes – similar to the V/C process, actually.  Does all this talk about the Void bode ill for 2014, relative to our usually Desire to Manifest more and more?  Well, I agree with Kelley’s “Shopaholics beware” note, that we’ll continue to move into more Sustenance for a long time, since Sustenance is the flip side of Sustainability.

Kelley’s note that (paraphrasing) “Venus’s retrograde is the biggest planetary theme of the month” did give me pause, as I’m still thinking about that storm of Mjolnirs, the Mystic Rectangles and Chiron Initiations, the Eris Station, and the big T-Square that started the year.  But of course she’s right – I just don’t give the inner planets as much attention as they deserve.

The Station of Eris

It wouldn’t hurt to review that Eris Station though.  She turns Direct in 22 of Aries at half past 2am PST January 9 – which means it’s Stationary now.  The Moon crosses Eris at a little past 3am PST on January 8, so we might see an even larger impact then.  Out at her apogee (furthest extent) as she is, she’s only moving a little more than one degree per year, so we could make a solid argument that she’s always Stationary – but we can certainly give her ten days!  And a meaningful Station it is, making a Grand Cross with Sun-Venus, Lilith, and Vesta-Ceres…

No wonder all of the New Year blather on TV was all about Women!  Other than a huge focus on the Liberation of our Female Voices, what would we say about such a Grand Cross?

It’s all about changing our Mythology (Vesta) in order to create a space where our Female Voices (Everything Else) can be Sustained (Ceres).

You might call it your Morality or your Philosophy or use some other word, but we all have a Personal Mythology – the way we think the World came to be, is, and is likely to cease to be.  Our Personal Mythologies are all Self-Sabotaging to one degree or another.  Since our Feminine Voice contains our Values (Venus), there’s a high correlation between Sustaining our Female Voices and eliminating Self-Sabotage.

The Biquintile (orange line) to Pallas says we need to…

Adjust our Boundaries so we can defend our Female Voice, even when she’s goring someone’s sacred cow.

The Quincunx (green line) to Saturn says…

I wonder what sort of infrastructure we could build to help Sustain our Female Voices.

And the web of Septiles (light blue lines), which we’ve been living with for a while – and which is actually a Very Big Deal, uniting as it does Eris, Neptune-Juno, Pluto, and Saturn, tells us that…

The Global and Cultural Unconscious is shifting in the direction of Sustaining our Female Voices, as is the archetypal Personal Ego – but it’s a matter of timing.

Think Hundred Monkeys, or Tipping Point.

While this chart is drawn for January 9, all we have to do is swap out Sun-Venus and slip in the Moon, and we have the same Angles on a January 1 chart at midnight – in other words…

Add Sustainable Manifestation to the benefit list for Recovering our Uncensored Female Voices and we can apply the chart to the whole of 2014. 

It’ll just get a bit more subtle after January 9.  This is probably why the numbers are so fuzzy even – the Female Voice is more into Quality than Quantity.  That should intensify until January 9, then settle out.