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 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.

20-25 Degrees

Aa apparent newcomer has written to ask about their many natal planets at around 20 Degrees, in response to our October 2016 suggestion that we begin working with these Degrees now, since they will be Lit Up when our Home Planet begins Her Big Reorg in the early 2020s – see https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2016/10/20/2020-b/ for our article and their comment. 

Of course, as we repeatedly point out, these Degrees continue to be Lit Up by many of our planetary Companions today.  As we write, one quarter of the planets we follow are in or adjacent to this Zone, which is only one sixth of the Zodiac wide.  It’s a useful question, so I’ll answer it…

Our approach is to intend to befriend the Unconscious because we Believe that the Power of the Ego is minuscule compared to the Power of the Unconscious, and because the Ego is usually Unconscious of that fact.

We also intend to work not with Qualities but with Energies and Relationships, and therefore we work mostly with what we call the “Angles,” though most astrologers would call them “Aspects.”  We prefer Angles because that’s what they are in plain language – the Angular Relationship between Planets (and other astrological Hot Spots such as the Nodes).

Unfortunately there is an astrological term “Angles” as well, meaning the Ascendant, Midheaven, etc., or the major House Cusps.  We can usually live with this ambiguity because we very seldom talk about Houses, since we write for the whole planet, and House positions vary with location.  Folks who commonly use the astrological term “Angles” may be confused by the way we use the word, alas.

Most astrologers I know would not argue that the T-Square (a third planet halfway between two planets that Oppose one another) is one of the most problematic Angular Relationships, largely because it usually seems to indicate a Sisyphean area where Success is not possible but the Compulsion to Keep Trying is unrelenting.  Consequently, the most appropriate keyword for the Ego’s Relationship to a T-Square seems to be Frustration.

We also Believe that, (1) on a Soul level, we Chose the Configurations of planets in our natal chart, because that’s what “We” (our Soul) wanted to “Work On” in the current Lifetime.  Many folks have difficulty with this concept; the easy path to it lies through shifting your Identity till you find a place from which it’s True.

We often also interpret the Configurations in our natal chart as (2) the specific Earth Energies where we Chose to help the Planet Heal. 

The first approach assumes that our Soul is using the Planet for its own Education, while the second approach assumes that we are in fact Cosmic Healers who came here to Help Earth Ascend.  Take your pick, though as usual, I recommend Both/And rather than Either/Or.

Since our reader has Uranus T-Square to their Nodes, I have no doubt that they’re in the latter category.

As Ascension Helpers, then, our T-Squares indicate the places where our task is to suck up all the Frustration (Fear, Anger, Despair, Separation, etc) that the Planet Feels, and Transform it (we are after all nothing if not Energy Transmogrifiers) into what the Planet Prefers to Feel (Joy, Bliss, Attunement, Excitement, Unity, etc). 

How do we know what the Planet Prefers to Feel?  Easy.  She and We are One.

Note that more or less implicit in that paragraph is that Emotions are not Personal, but more like Weather or a Virus.  We Attach our Identity to an Emotion when we Associate or Merge with it, which is usually part of our Karma, or, we would suggest, because we came here to Learn and Teach how to Detach our Identity from that Emotion (look up “Poor-Sweetheart” and “Held Emotions” in the Categories list to explore further).

So, in the planets our new Friend has listed, we’d go straight to the T-Square, Uranus Square the Nodal Axis.  The Egoic side of Uranus is Disruption, and the Egoic side of the Nodes is the Desire to Let Go of Karma.  So we would suppose that our Friend, on the Ego side, is (or was, if he’s since Grown) often Frustrated by Attempting and Failing to Let Go of sticky Karmic Patterns, or what we often call Self-Sabotaging Archetypes. 

For instance, our Friend might try over and over to walk a “straight and narrow” path, only to wake up and discover that they’ve strayed from it.  Or worse, they might find that other people are repeatedly screwing them over…

Now, let’s turn this around and look at it from the Soul’s Perspective.  First of all, what Uranus Disrupts is everything that Inhibits its Purpose. 

Since most of us were Programmed to Receive Truth from Outside ourself rather than Inside, the Karmic Ego will be constantly Frustrated by the Uranian Disruption of our frequent Attempts to ignore our own Internal Truth in order to be Loyal to our Programming and Programmers. 

Truth resides in the Heart, and it’s Different for everyone, so only by Programming someone to Trust their own Heart (Uranus) can Uranian Disruption be Loved as the Urge to Liberation that it is.

Now, again from the Soul’s Perspective, the Nodal Axis is not so much about the Desire to Let Go of Karma as it’s about a Decision over which Earthly trends to emphasize.  Contrary to the usual Interpretation, Karma does not Grasp Us, We Grasp It.  So all we have to do, to quote Paul, is to “Let It Be.”

The Signs will give us more specific information. Our new Friend’s South Node is in Aquarius and North Node in Leo, indicating that their Intended (Soul-level) path runs from Social to Personal Integrity.  Learning to Love themselves Unconditionally, for instance. 

Meanwhile, Uranus is in Scorpio, which is Fearless and Relentless.  So our Friend is likely to be Driven to stop at Nothing in their Effort to Learn and Teach Unconditional Self-Love.

Which is Fantastic!  Now, what if the Ego and Programming still get in the way and continue to Sabotage us with Downers?  (Which may never actually go away, just become more quickly seen through.)  Well, Reframing help a whole lot…

A T-Square Feels Like the Compulsive need to Achieve greater Perfection around some Goal.  In this Uranus-in-Scorpio case, that would be Permanent Soul Contact.  Or, if the Soul is Dismissed, then something like an Irrepressible Urge to Disrupt Untruth. 

But even the part about Permanent Soul Contact is the Ego and Programming speaking.  If you’ve taken graduate seminars in a good program, you probably Noticed that there are no “correct” answers, there are only “interesting” questions and examination of them that is thorough and creative.

That’s where you find the T-Square – on the Soul level you’ve Intended a Lifetime where you re-examine everything over and over again, with slight variations, each time from a slightly different Perspective, so you become uniquely qualified to Teach the subject, since you’ve Experienced it from all angles, inside and out. 

And of course the key to all that is Noticing that there are no “correct” answers and that your Perfectionist Quest, while essential, was not for the purpose that you earlier supposed.  That’s the way our Mission (North Node) operates – we have a Shadow to Pursue, till we pounce on it and Discover that it’s just a Shadow, like Ged in Earthsea.

Once you’ve done this Reframing, Frustration will continue to try to sneak back into the driver’s seat, and that’s where Poor-Sweethearting, Tapping, and PIAVAing (look them up in the Categories list and practice them) will be useful and Powerful.

The ultimate Goal for all of us is Unconditional Self-Love, so eventually you’ll be Teaching us all.  Which we eagerly anticipate!

Thanks for writing.  Namaste.

Full Moon Scramble II

BTW, as of 11:30 pm PST 2 December, Mercury is Retrograde, till 22 December.  It backs across the last half of Sagittarius.  That’s the Gemini half of Sadge, promising more Change.  Mercury in Scorpio (16 October through 6 November) would have had us researching some topic exhaustively.  Then Mercury in the first (Sagittarius) half of Sadge, 7-15 November, would have us trying to shake ourselves loose from the conclusions of our research.  Sagittarius is about Burning Away what’s Unnecessary. 

Mercury in Scorpio wants Answers, but we know that it’s Wonder that Liberates us, not Understanding.  So we may have wrestled with ourself in early November, part of us Wanting Freedom, and the rest of us Craving Clarity.  This is what’s particularly educational about Cusps.  It’s an Either/Or, which always means it’s about Politics, Power, Judgment.  Which feels better, which is best – Freedom or Clarity.  With Either/Ors we always look for the “Coin,” right?  An Either/Or sticks us in one Dimension, a line, where we bounce between the two ends of the finite line. 

If we’re talking about something like Scorpio and Taurus, an Opposition, the Dance between Emotion and Matter, between Fearlessness and Beauty, it’s easier to find the Coin – it’s just Manifestation.  But Scorpio and Sagittarius are adjacent.  What’s the Coin between Ice and Fire?  We could say Water, but Water isn’t really a Dimension with Ice on one end and Fire on the other, it’s just what you get when Fire attacks Ice.  What if Ice wins.  What would you have then – Smoke?  You can see the Confusion.  But that’s what’s special about Cusps – Confusion is the first stage of Growth.

There’s a sense in which each Sign is a Reaction to the previous Sign.  Scorpio feels Compulsive, Sagittarius just Shakes It Off.  The Coin there could be Attachment.  There aren’t any Rules or Conclusions for this, you just make it up as you go along, because it’s your Growth and your Edges.  No one else’s.  And it’s different every time.  But when you move from an Either/Or to a Both/And, from a line to a “Coin,” you’re moving from Judgment to Inclusiveness.  That’s an important step toward Unconditional Love, toward Wonder and Mystery and Collaboration with the Universe.  Is there a sense in which you struggled with Attachment to something in the second week of November?

Then at the Ides of November we moved into the Gemini half of Sadge, till 2 December.  Chances are we didn’t know that we were being set up, that it was the first of three Adventures with these Degrees.  Usually when this first third of a triple Dance happens, we’re presented with what feels like a Problem, something that makes us nervous and inspires us to try to “Solve” it, or “Fix” it, or Change it, so we aren’t troubled by Anxiety anymore.  In Real Life, rather than in our mind, this is just Curiosity.  Western Culture trains us to need to squelch Curiosity, to come to some Resolution.  But Wonder is akin to Love, as they both Eschew Judgment.

So if we’re able to exit the Dualistic mind, we get to Wonder, to Detachment from needing it to be one way or the other, Letting it be both way at once, or even three or four ways at once.  Like watching a bonfire, watching the Flames Dance, uninhibited, as if no one was watching.  Now we’re getting somewhere.  How do we Feel while we’re watching the Flames?  Where is our Identity?  Are we the Wood?  The Fire?  The Air that the Fire needs to keep Dancing?

That’s where we are today.  Mercury has reached the End of Sagittarius, the End of the Gemini half of Sadge, and it’s slowed down and Stopped.  Our minds have Stopped.  Gemini’s about to go back and see what we’ve learned about Detachment, or about whatever Coin applies to your own recent Experience, your own recent intellectual Ruminations.  Can you tell the difference between your Experience and your Thoughts about your Experience?  Are you actually Living, in the Present Moment, or are you Thinking about it?  How many of your Senses are Engaged?  What does Identity Smell like?  Is Detachment Comfortable, or does it make you Anxious?

So for the next three weeks, while Mercury is Retrograde, we get to Explore these issues.  The movie has Stopped, and we get to get up and walk around in the Hologram, look at Attachment and Identity from many different Angles.  Try new things or Roles, things we’d never ordinarily Do or Be, just to see what happens when we do.

Meanwhile, Mercury has been Out of Bounds.  That means it’s Stronger than usual.  It went Out of Bounds on 9 November, and comes back In Bounds on 7 December.  So we’re doing some extraordinary Identity and Detachment work here.  We won’t put it all to bed till 10 January – once Mercury turns Direct again, it will be Dancing for a third time over this second half of Sagittarius – this Zauberisches Theatre, as Herrman Hesse called it, where we’re Free to Act Out any Role we Want to.  Try to Avoid Conclusions – we’ve barely begun to Explore.

Who Am I?  What Am I Doing?  It’d be a great time to read Steven Levine’s Who Dies, the quintessential Examination of Identity and Attachment.

  ♥  ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥  

Oh, did I mention there’s a Full Moon tomorrow?  I saw it last night through the Clouds.  Here’s the chart of the 3 December (8am PST) Full Moon…

You can see how strongly the Energy flows toward the Moon, toward Authenticity and Manifestation.  How can we be Authentic if we’re auditioning new Roles every few minutes?  That’s easy.  Authentic means Authentic in the Current Moment.  Consistency and Continuity belong in other Realms, not this one.  This is the Dance of Freedom, of Freedom to Be who we Want to Be in each Moment.

  ♥  ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥   ♥  

In addition to the Big Emphasis on Freedom to Change that we’ve been discussing here and in the previous post, the chart tell us…

Grace and Effortlessness flow from Trusting what lies beyond Ego Death… 

The Full Moon makes a Grand Trine with asteroids Nemesis (Ego Death) in Aquarius (Community) and Eurydike (Trust) in Libra (Meeting Other).  That puts the Sun (Essence) in Sagittarius (The Way Out is Letting Go) at the head of a Kite (Directed Grace, here Directed toward Essence).

We’re being Challenged to Open new doors into the Unconscious, into what lies beneath and behind our Limiting Beliefs, to Let Go of the Restraints that keep us from Respecting All Things, to be Present and Loving with the Truth of Memories that force us to alter our Self-Concepts…

Nemesis (Ego Death) Opposes asteroids Aletheia (Truth) and Mnemosyne (Memory), and the Opposition is T-Squared (Challenge to Mastery) by the Stellium (group of planets) of Jupiter (Expansion) and asteroids Vesta (Limiting Beliefs), Hopi (Respect for All Things), and Karma (Inertia).

Grace also flows from the Truth of these Memories…

A second Kite is formed on the Moon-Nemesis-Eurydike Grand Trine, this Kite focused on Aletheia-Mnemosyne.

And Greater Grace yet flows from Following our Guidance…

The two Kites make up five corners of a six-cornered Grand Sextile (Ease at Manifesting).  When a major Configuration like a Grand Sextile is formed but for one of its corners, that Vacant corner becomes the Most Important Point in the Configuration, because it’s up to us to provide the Energy of the Vacancy, in order to unleash the Full Power of the Configuration.  The Vacancy here is 11 Aries, “The ruler of a nation.”  We’ll ignore for now the implications of that Symbol around the Antichrist, and reframe it as Our Guidance.

However, the Stars won’t let us be so casual about it, as there is a Fixed Star sitting in the Vacany.  The Star Alderamin completes the Grand Sextile for us.  Bernadette, in Brady’s Book of Fixed Stars (p.104) tells us…

Alderamin “would relate to the concept of the successful king, raised to the heavens as an example for others to see and learn.  This star, therefore, could well talk of a different role model for male sovereignty.  At the moment the model, as a collective statement, is one of aggression.  At best it is simply out of step with planet Earth and the laws of nature and is thereby a destructive influence.  However, Alderamin could represent a balanced male energy in harmony with the feminine and the Earth but focused and concentrated, in contrast to the more intuitive energy of the feminine.”

We’re told that the essence of Conservatism with its focus on Separation and Me First (and often Me Only), is Attachment to Authority.  Conservatives are lost without someone to tell them what to Do and Believe and Say.  Authority can come from many sources.  If we render unto Mammon what is Mammon’s, we can seek our own Authority elsewhere.  This Full Moon will point each of us toward our own Authority.

Our “left brain” or analytical side likes to Believe that it thinks for itself, and enjoys following the Authority of Logic.  Logic, however, is a house of cards built upon Assumptions.  The nature of Karma is such that we often do not even know what our Assumptions are, we simply follow the Rules that we Believe will keep us Safe, without looking to see who is actually driving our Vehicle.  This Full Moon is a test for Authority of all sorts – the Authority of our Limiting Beliefs, the Authority of our Defining Concepts and Philosophies and Religions, and not least the Authority of our Communities and their Political Systems. 

We may even get to see whether the Ruler of a Nation is subject to the Authority of the Laws of that Nation, or vice versa.

 

Procrasti Nation and Walking in Beauty

There aren’t many Stones or Minerals that combine the two Heart colors, pink and green.  Zoisite (Calcium Aluminum SoroSilicate) makes two of them – Anyolite (green Zoisite with Ruby) and Thulite (green and pink Zoisite).  This is a lovely chunk of “massive” (Crystalline but not a discrete Crystal) Thulite.  The third Heart Stone is Unakite, a combination of pink Feldspar and green Epidote.  These pink-and-green Rocks symbolize Relationship, combining the two flavors of Heart Energy.  I particularly like this one because in the center it has a band of the third form of Zoisite – the brown form that it makes when Zoisite forms discrete Crystals.  Brown is a Third-Chakra color, so the Stone signifies Relationship without Codependence.

 Φ   Φ   Φ   Φ   Φ

Sitting around feeling guilty because you know you should be doing it, but you don’t feel like it at the moment?  Welcome to Yintegrity. 

This is what it’s about.  What would you be doing right now if you could do anything you wanted?  I know, it’s hard, but Yintegrity is just one Energy of many, and we need to stay in Balance.  Right now, being in Balance means being in Yintegrity, bigtime.  Not a time to be shoulding on yourself.  You’ll feel more like doing that other stuff next week.

Or not.  Maybe that other stuff is what you’re being asked to leave behind, because it’s no longer in Alignment with your Soul’s Path for you.  That’s a hard one if you have a big investment in that other stuff – for instance, maybe it pays the bills, or you vowed till Death do you part, or you promised Mom.  Uranus will do Scorched Earth if you back it up against the wall.  But it doesn’t need to be that way.  You can PIAVA a gentle and loving transition, or you can even PIAVA Both/And.  Maybe there are ways that that other stuff can change so it’s more fun and fits your temperament better.  There’s no need whatsoever to be closed to Miracles.

In fact, Mr. Miracle-Chiron Initiates Mr. Action-Mars at half-past noon PST (http://www.jbuss.com/tt/pst12.htm) on January 31, about 8 hours before Ms. Yintegrity-Uranus Initiates Mr. Karma-South Node.  The Chiron-Mars Initiation occurs at 16 Pisces, “In the quiet of their study a creative individual experiences a flow of inspiration“!  That’s pretty cool.  Why are we drudging about now when something exciting like that awaits us?  We should be celebrating!  What about Uranus-South Node?  14 Aries, “A serpent coiling near a man and a woman.”  That’s pretty germinal.  No wonder we’re in the dumps – you know the “Chinese curse,” May you be born in interesting times.  Well, interesting times ‘r us, so we may as well party!

By the way, to use the Sabian Symbols, or otherwise refer to Zodiacal Degrees, you always round up.  13:17 is 14 Degrees.  Why?  Because there is no “zeroth” Degree – 0:35 is in the first Degree of the Sign.  Aries 14 includes 13:01 through 14:00.  That means the Aries Point, 0:00 of Aries, is actually 30 Pisces, as Aries 1 (or 1 Aries) begins at 0:00:01 of Aries.  It’s better to read both Symbols, though, than to spit hairs – Both/And. 

Cusps are always transitions, and a good case can be made that Pisces 30 is actually the strongest point of Aries.  For instance, if a planet is 3 Degrees shy of a House Cusp, I regard it as being not just in that “next” House, but being “on the Cusp” of that next House, which in many ways is a place of great emphasis.  So if a House ran from, say, 16 Pisces to 14 Aries, I’d count planets as being in that House when they were between 13 Pisces and 11 Aries, and I’d count planets between 14 and 17 Pisces as being highlights of that House.  But when it’s important, Both/And is always better.

The reason I do this is because when two planets are Approaching one another, the Energy is much stronger than when they are Separating from one another.  So I expect Mars-Chiron Energy to be much stronger prior to noon on January 31, than it will be after 1pm.  I extend that logic to House Cusps, and to a lesser extent to Sign Cusps.  I consider a planet at 29 Degrees of Leo to be in Leo, but to be on the Cusp of Virgo.  Depending on other things (such as Conjunctions), I’d talk about the planet as having Leonine qualities, but I’d talk about the Energy as Initiating Virgo.

Sometimes the terms Approaching and Separating are used, respectively, to mean the Waning and Waxing phases of a Cycle instead.  I find that to be confusing and inaccurate, but the bottom line is that you need to be careful to be sure you understand what the speaker means when they use these terms.  Same with the terms “Sinister” (from the left) and “Dexter” (from the right) – even decades later there are some books that I still can’t decipher because they use those terms without clear explanation.

Of course the Chiron-Mars Initiation creates a Quincunx-Unx Bridge across the Nodal Axis-plus-Uranus Opposition and the Uranus-Pluto-Nodes T-Square, so it’s a Big Deal.

An Unx, recall, is our new name for a Twelfth-Harmonic or 30-degree Angle between two planets.  They used to be called SemiSextiles, but that’s much too clumsy.  The Twelfth Harmonic is about Pattern-Breaking, so when the South Node is lit up as it is today, it’s much too important to be considered as half of a Sixth Harmonic Sextile.  In general of course, there’s no better way to get your face rubbed in your Patterns than to get into Relationship (Sixth Harmonic)!  But that’s not necessarily what the South Node is about.

Chiron-Mars is also Square to Ms. Boundaries-Pallas…

There are some Boundaries that need to be Transformed here.  Often an experience of Guilt is generated in real time by Other People’s Expectations; it may not just be your own Programming.  Ask yourself, “Who’s bugging me here?” and take the first answer, then imagine holding a wardrobe Mirror up between you and them, facing them.  If after a minute or so your Feelings change, ask them (psychically) to use a different Communication channel.  Then you can just not answer the phone, and they’ll have to assume you’re otherwise engaged.  If your feelings don’t change you can try a second-most-likely person, but if your first few Mirrors don’t yield results, you want to PIAVA to take Responsibility for your Programming.

We aren’t against negative Feelings; we just don’t see any reason to Sustain them for longer than a few moments.  Why not get down to their root causes and shift the Energy.  Life’s too short to waste on bummers, except to make sure we’re comfortable with ALL Feelings, because it’s all one channel, so if we’re blocking out Guilt for Fear or Anger, we’re also blocking out Excitement and Ecstasy.  That’ll make it very difficult to Follow Our Joy.

Pallas also forms a Trine-Sextile Bridge across the Nodal Axis and the Pluto-Uranus T-Square, so Grace is available.

Mars-Chiron is also Decile to Ms Denial-Eris, and with the Chariklo-Hylonome Conjunction forms a Quintile-Decile Bridge across the Eris-Haumea Opposition.  The Conjunction of Ms. Charm-Chariklo and Ms. Grief-Hylonome is about…

Beauty has it’s own Karma.  By that I mean alpha males and alpha females miss out on a great deal of Life Experience by virtue of their natural attractiveness to others.  When someone is “spoiled” by their parents or other Power figures in their Life, or even stronger or smarter than the average Bear, or skilled in any admired characteristic, it’s a similar phenomenon.  So Beauty and Privilege are coming to some Grief here, and facing this Shift, where we’re sort of being “cut down to size” or brought closer to the norm, facilitates Miracles.  Resisting the Shift feeds Discouragement.  All Losses must be Grieved, and this is no exception; Embracing the Grief will move it through much faster.

And the Opposition between Ms. Revelation-Eris and Ms. Rebirth-Haumea…

There’s a major Rebirth awaiting on the other side of the Grief, but it involves facing up to some Denial.  If it feels like you’re being treated unfairly, then this is what you’re up against.  Rather than indulging your Anger or Offendedness at the unfairness, open to the Grief instead.  And rather than intellectualizing the Anger or Offendedness, PIAVA to Lovingly and Gently take full Responsibility for what you’ve been Denying.  You probably wouldn’t feel Offended without an underlying Feeling of Inferiority or Defensiveness.  There are clues there, but be very kind to yourself.

We and the Universe are always in Balance.  Whatever elements of our Life appear to be Out of Balance, these elements must be Balanced in the Unconscious.  It’s not fun to feel Inferior, so we shove it into the Underwhere whenever we can.  That’s compensated by a bit of a chip on our shoulder, so we’re Offended where no Offense is intended.  Once you explore it once or twice and develop the habit of looking through the Funhouse Mirror at yourself, these Imbalances are easy to resolve.

Just check the Angle of your jaw and spine.  If your nose is in the air a bit or your shoulders back, PIAVA what sort of Inferiority you’re hiding from yourself.  If your chin is pointing down or your shoulders forward, PIAVA what sort of natural or hard-earned Superiority you’re discounting.  Don’t forget to Change the Subject and Pay Attention (https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/manifestation/piava/).  Miracles await.

You may have noticed that these techniques can apply equally to either situation – we could easily have pointed our Funhouse Mirror at ourself to resolve our Guilt about what we thought was procrastination, and we could easily have pointed our wardrobe Mirror at our protagonist to resolve our Offendedness over what we felt was unfair.  It’s Both/And – both techniques are valid, useful, and instructive in most situations.  The only “rule” is Safety First.  If we push ourself onto unsafe ground, we can easily create trauma that impedes our journey into Expanded Consciousness and can even reverse it. 

So you might want to do the wardrobe Mirror (facing them) first, but without Blame.  Even when Mirroring someone relieves your discomfort handily, it doesn’t mean that the dynamic is really them pressuring you.  This isn’t Newtonian physics, it’s quantum.  You don’t know who or when or why or how you got Entangled with them.  You could make up Stories, but they’d be one of many that applied.  The notion that your Ego is Separate from theirs is an illusion, part of the Trance that makes up the Veil.  They’re just an actor acting out another part of you, and vice versa.  You’ll probably feel safer though after doing the wardrobe Mirror as if they were your protagonist, so your Funhouse Mirror (facing yourself) will be less biased toward the Defensive.  We can hardly Open to Denial when we’re Defensive.