The 21st Century IV – The Most Important Thing Is Fear

This’ll Expand your Perspective a bit…

http://inspiremore.com/nasa-just-released-the-largest-photo-ever-taken-what-it-shows-will-shake-you-up/ 

While you were watching that, did you Feel Smaller than usual, or Bigger?  Was it Both/And?  In what ways did you Feel Smaller and in what ways Bigger?  Expanding is one of the esoteric processes that extend PIAVA.  Watch it again, full-screen, while you Imagine having What you Want.

Saturn means The Most Important Thing.  It tells us when we need to quit multi-tasking and focus intensely on Priority #1.  On 1/1/2000, Saturn danced with the Moon, Pallas, and Uranus, advising that The Most Important Thing during the 21st Century will be Trusting our Instincts and adjusting our Boundaries to make room for our True Soul Self to Manifest (our Yintegrity) without its Habitual Masks.  

Saturn Opposed the Moon and T-Squared Pallas and Uranus at 12am on 1/1/2000 – in the Western Hemisphere.  In the Eastern Hemisphere the Moon-Saturn Opposition forms a Grand Cross with the Nodal Axis instead of the Pallas-Uranus Opposition.  We’ll consider the implications of this fascinating dichotomy later.

Saturn Feels like Limitation because we’re usually scared to put all of our Attention on Life Priority #1, because if we fail at that, we’ll really be a failure.  So we put backup Priorities in place, to keep us Safe just in case Priority #1 doesn’t work out.  And often, we “hired” a Significant Other or two to actively discourage us from working on Priority #1 (in order to increase the likelihood that we’ll bring it fully into Consciousness), often with punishment, so we’re scared we’ll be punished or humiliated if we drop all of our other Priorities.  

“Most people view the past as a ‘learning experience.’  They think, ‘Something happened, so I learned to feel or act in a certain way.  But that was years ago.  I’m older and more mature and I know it’s not the right thing to be doing – so why won’t it go away?  There must be something wrong with me.’  The thing to keep in mind is that there may be something wrong, but it doesn’t have to define us.  It means that there are certain unprocessed memories that are physiologically stored in our brains that contain the emotions and physical sensations that were there at the time of the event [or ongoing chronic negative Experience].  Because these memories are unprocessed, they continue to generate negative thoughts and feelings whenever they’re triggered.  That’s why you may have heard or seen some very successful friends suddenly begin to talk and act like children when they get on the phone with a family member.”  –Francine Shapiro, Getting Past Your Past: Take Control of Your Life with Self-Help Techniques from EMDR Therapy, pp.70-71 (emphasis mine)

It “won’t go away” because our Soul’s Plan is that we need to bring it into Consciousness.  Without all of our Fallbacks, we Feel very Limited.  But sooner or later we have to Transcend our Resistance to our First Priority.  There are no actual failures in Real Life, just Learning.  So we may as well get on with The Important Stuff.

We interpret dwarf planet Sedna as Actions Taken out of Fear.  When we’re lucky, Actions Taken out of Fear may lead to Safety, but unintended consequences often arise because we’re Acting from our Karmic Self – Reacting, not Able to Respond from our Grounded Presence.  On 1/1/2000, Saturn was Merged with dwarf planet Sedna.  

When two planets are Conjunct, their influences are Merged.  

With Saturn and Sedna Merged, we won’t be able to differentiate between The Most Important Thing and Acting out of Fear.  Even when we Respond to The Most Important Thing, we’ll second-guess ourself because we’ll think we Acted out of Fear.  You can see the Climate-Change Deniers trying to manipulate the Economic agenda to their financial advantage by relentlessly pressing this button.  And when we Act out of Fear, we won’t be sure if we’re actually addressing The Most Important Thing.  Hence much of the Confusion or Hopelessness over what to do by the people who see the impending Planetary Collapse, and self-aggrandizement by those whose temporary success prevents them from seeing it.  Not to mention the Fear of the people who see it and are scrambling to accumulate as much ephemeral wealth as they can before the Crash, in hopes it will insulate them from it.

Sedna Initiated Saturn the previous summer, at 17 Taurus, “A symbolical battle between ‘swords’ and ‘torches.’ ”  “Swords” represents the mind – our Shoulds.  “Torches” symbolize Spirit, our Truth.  This Cycle runs until 2030.  Saturn-Sedna is Trined (Grace) by Sun-Juno, implying that Expanding Consciousness is Big.  Saturn-Sedna also Quincunxes (Permanent Curiosity) Chiron-Pluto (Flag-Eagle-Chanticleer), implying that if we manage to avoid preconceptions we will be continually Surprised by how Getting Conscious of our Fear complements Expanding our Identity to the Light Body.

This changes our interpretation of Saturn’s role in the 21st Century to The Most Important Thing is Getting Conscious of our Fear of Trusting our Instincts and our Fear of Living in Yintegrity.  A good time to review…

• Yangtegrity means Doing what we said we would Do
• Yintegrity means Doing what we Feel like Doing, moment to moment

In order to Live in Yintegrity while the rest of the World lives in Yangtegrity, we’ll probably have to minimize our Commitments, Renegotiate often, and when we can’t Renegotiate and the Relationship is important to us, Make Amends.

Remember that we Lose the Veil in the 21st Century – Neptune on the South Node.  Neptune means Confusion when we view the World through Material Eyes (which is fine when we remember that Confusion is the first stage of Growth), and Clarity when we view the World through Spiritual Eyes.  The South Node represents our Old Habits.  The Veil “protects” us from understanding that it’s Spirit and Consciousness that are Real, not the Material World.  The Veil was useful while the experiment in Flesh was tentative and unstable, so Materiality wouldn’t disintegrate when we sneezed.  We’ve grown some now, and we can not only maintain stable Materiality while Being Spirit-Consciousness, but play with Materiality like Leggos.  Or at least, that’s where we should be after the Transformations and Trance Reformations of the 21st Century.

Our day-to-day Identity is more or less determined by the position of our Venus.  Folks with Venus in a Fire Sign (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius) will lead this Transformation, because they have the least distance to travel to Identify with the Light Body.  Venus represents our Unconscious Values.  Moving to “I am the Light Body”  from “I am my Body” (Venus in Earth, Taurus or Virgo or Capricorn) or “I am my Emotions” (Venus in Water: Pisces, Scorpio, Cancer) or “I am my Thoughts” (Venus in Air, Aquarius or Libra or Gemini) will be more difficult, but the first step is becoming Conscious of Who you routinely Believe Yourself to Be.  If you ever catch yourself saying “I’m not one of those people who…” and examine it, you can learn a lot.  In the Lifetime, our basic sense of Identity doesn’t change.  But we can Learn alternate Identities as if in Theatre, diversifying our repertoire.

For many of us, Venus will Progress through three of the four Elements (Fire, Earth, Air, Water), four if we live long enough.  As Progressed Venus moves into a new Element, Identifying with that Element becomes much easier.  Your Sense of Self will be influenced not only by the Element your Venus is in, but also the Modality, Sign and House placement, Degree, and its Angular Relationship to other planets. 

Not sure we’ve ever mentioned a Progression.  Advancing a chart by one day suggests the Life circumstances at age 1, 2 days at age 2, 40 days at age 40, etc.  Since Venus moves on average one Sign a month, by age 30 (if not sooner) your Progressed Venus will be in the next Sign and therefore the next Element. 

Fire-Spirit, Earth-Matter, Air-Mentality, and Water-Emotion are the four Elements; Cardinal-Creative, Fixed-Stabilizing, and Mutable-Changing, are the three Modalities.  Four Elements times three Modalities gives you the twelve Signs, each of which features a unique combination of Element and Modality.  Elements and Modalities are critical in understanding the nature of the Signs.  Fire and Air Signs have Dynamic Polarity, while Earth and Water Signs have Magnetic Polarity.

We spoke earlier about Venus and Vesta, which are Merged in the 1/1/2000 chart.  Vesta represents our bottom-line Unconscious Beliefs, Beliefs we’re willing to Die or Kill for.  These are not fixed.  To a large extent they are Karmic – based on old Habits – so they can change, but first we must become Conscious of what they are.  Unless we were born when Venus and Vesta were Merged, the dissonance between the Century’s Merged Venus-Vesta and our own distinct Values and Unconscious Beliefs, will help bring contrary Beliefs into Consciousness because we’re drawn to the Merger.  If we were born with Venus and Vesta Merged, then the Century’s Merger will exaggerate our Identification, which again will help bring it into Consciousness, but in a very different way.

If we were born with Venus Conjunct Vesta, we won’t be able to distinguish our Values from our Unconscious Beliefs.  Like most astrological influences, this is good and bad – good in the sense that your Life will probably include less Self-Sabotage, bad in the sense that you could be “too” sure of yourself on the Ego-Material level, and reject other valid Perspectives that could potentially advance your Consciousness.  Since Venus moves four times faster than Vesta, they will eventually Progress apart.

We aver that in the 21st Century The Most Important Thing is Getting Conscious of our Fear of Trusting our Instincts and our Fear of Living in Yintegrity, but it’s obvious that many people are living this on a whole different level, the level where The Most Important Thing is Rescuing Ourself from Fear or The Most Important Thing is Milking the Fear of the Masses for Our Own Gain.  The “War on Terror” is a bellows to accelerate these conflagrations for personal gain.  The Medical-Pharmaceutical-Insurance Cartel is a Master at milking the Once-Born’s Fear of Death.  

It’s often said that Evil feeds on Fear, but I think it’s More Important to see the Light feeding on Fear.  We came here to Absorb and Transform the pandemic of excess Negative Emotion, to help prevent it from spreading to other parts of the Galaxy.  We do that by Being Present with Fear – ours and that of Others – and grounding it.  We do that most effectively by Identifying with the Light Body.  The Light Body does not Fear Darkness because it knows it to be only a Shadow that the Chanticleer will dissolve.  The Light Body does not Fear Death because it knows it to be a misinterpretation of Material Transformation.  The Light Body, like Winnie, does not Fear Fear itself because it knows that Fear is just an artifact of the Emotional Body becoming Ungrounded.

More Tricolors

We’ll be a little more technical in our bold-italic sections here than we usually are, but bear with us, because this material is bottom line, even if it’s more astrological.  If you run into Confusion because of the geometry or the fractions, just skip that part that’s Confusing, and move on to the next paragraph.  Confusion is the first stage of Growth, but you don’t need to resolve Confusion intellectually.  You don’t need geometry or fractions to understand this, it’s really about Human Nature and Opportunity.

* * * * *

More very welcome questions about the Tricolors…

“It is difficult for me to grasp a subtle distinction between the Major and Minor Tricolors, hence I am submitting three questions to you:

1) Could you please explain how the 4th harmonic, symbolizing dominion and healthy control, is interrelated with the 3rd, 5th and 12th harmonics contained in the Major Tricolor?

“2) As for the Minor Tricolor, I do not understand, according to your definition ‘…teaches us to share Dominion with our partners’, how it works with the principle of Pattern Breaking (12th harmonic), that the Major and Minor Tricolors involve.

“3) Is it relevant to say that the 5th harmonic is related to ‘Learning’?

“Again, thank you so much for your help on these matters.”

Questions are always welcome – thank you!  And namaste!

* * * * *

The correlation between the Major Arcana in Tarot, and the major Angles in astrology, is very strong.  I’m sure there are as many different schools of Tarot as there are different schools of astrology, but I’ve learned from Angeles Arrien’s excellent The Tarot Handbook: Practical Applications of Ancient Visual Symbols.

* * * * *

The Fourth Harmonic

The most Challenging Angle in astrology is the Square – two planets 90 degrees, or three Signs, apart.  The Challenge arises because you have two planets trying to cooperate while they’re in different “Elements” – Fire, Earth, Air, Water. 

Cuspal Squares follow a different Pattern, but that’s a topic for another day.

We’re working in these years, by way of example, with the Uranus-Pluto Square, from Uranus in Aries (Fire) to Pluto in Capricorn (Earth).  So Uranus, which is scarily Spontaneous already, is very excited about flinging itself into all manner of Exoteric Arian Adventures, while Pluto very much wants Capricornian Practicality and Moderation.  That’s a Challenge, eh?  Put any two different Elements – like Fire and Water – in the same sandwich, and you get similar results. 

You get all the way around the Zodiac by putting four Squares end to end.  So the Square is the astrological representative of the Fourth Harmonic.  In the Major Arcana, that’s the Emperor, symbolizing Dominion, or Healthy Control.  We’ve noticed over the years that a Square symbolizes not just Challenge, but Mastery.  Our Squares reveal our greatest Skills, because they show the places where we never feel like we’ve “got it right” – it’s never satisfying enough that we get complacent and feel complete.  So we keep trying different approaches, on ever more subtle levels, and collecting the resulting Experience and Wisdom. 

So, immer strebend (as Goethe put it), we become, as we get older and more experienced, the true Expert on those issues, though we’ll have to work on ourself quite a bit to recognize this, since it doesn’t feel that way.  We’ll always feel like a failure, because our Fourth-Harmonic standards are unreachable.  As the Emperor we’re always dealing with tradeoffs, nothing is ever “black and white” or “cut and dried.”  If it is, we’re deluded.  We’re lucky when the odds in a situation are “60-40” and not six of one and a half dozen of the other.

So we refer to the Square and the Fourth Harmonic as Mastery through Challenge.  The more you recognize that you’re in the game to gather Experience and Wisdom rather than to “get it right,” the better you’ll feel about your Squares.  You might even Consciously make a Choice you know is “wrong,” just to gather experience around that Choice (which would actually just be bringing your true motivation up into Consciousness!).  Squares are primarily Motivating.  Always something else to do to try to make things a little better, or patch up past missteps.

The Square – the noisy, messy, never-fully-resolved issue that demands Attention – is the core of the Tricolor. 

* * * * *

The Quincunx

The Magical portion of a Tricolor is the Quincunx.  A Quincunx symbolizes Curiosity.  Curiosity, Wonder, Awe – those are most Sacred places to reside.  There is no Judgment while we’re in Curiosity, so it’s Unconditional, like Love.  A Quincunx is formed by two planets five Signs apart, or five twelfths of the way ’round the Circle from one another.  So it combines the Fifth Harmonic with the Twelfth Harmonic.

Yes, as your third question avers, the totem for the Fifth Harmonic is the Hierophant, master of Teaching and Learning.   So we have the potential for an Open mind.  The Hanged Person stands for the Twelfth Harmonic.  The Hanged Person is hanging by their heels, not their neck (or fingernails), so the Twelfth Harmonic is about seeing the World through a perspective that’s different from the one we usually use.  That allows the Hanged Person to be the Pattern-Breaker, because they can see newly how they can Change things to better meet their Values and Goals.  Like Chiron, and Einstein’s advice that we can’t solve a problem by using the same thinking that created the problem.

So you can see how the Quincunx and Curiosity get linked intellectually – Learning how to Break Patterns, recognizing that Curiosity is the first requirement for that.  Curiosity means relaxing – nay, disarming – our usual Resistance to Change.  It’s like sneaking up behind the Ego’s usual attachment to the relative security of the status quo and Opening the back door to a fresh breeze.  Experientially, the link between the Quincunx and Curiosity is patently obvious, as we all know what we’re perpetually Curious about, long before we know where our Quincunxes are.

What a combination!  The Square’s indefatigable thirst for unachievable perfection, and Curiosity’s Openness to the New!  It’s no wonder that when we combine 1/4 and 5/12 we’re left with 1/3 – the Square is three Signs (3/12 or 1/4), the Quincunx five Signs (5/12), and there are twelve (12/12 or One) all together, so we have four Signs (4/12 or 1/3) left over.  To close the Circle, we need a Trine.

* * * * *

The Third Harmonic and the Major Tricolor

Four Signs is one third of the Zodiac, or a Trine.  The positive side of a Trine is automatic Grace.  The negative side of the Trine is Arrogance, as until we learn that everyone has different Skills, we’re tempted to think we must be pretty clever to be able to do this (whatever it is) so well without even breaking a sweat, while everyone else must be pretty dumb because they have such a hard time with it.  So we call a Trine “dumb-luck” Grace.  Trines make everything easy.  The only thing we have to do (and unfortunately it’s optional), is remember the flip side of Grace, which is Gratitude.

The Third Harmonic in the Major Arcana is the Empress, symbolizing Love with Wisdom.  She doesn’t encounter the hard 50-50 Choices that the Emperor has to make, so she’s free to dispense Compassion.  Yet there are consequences, so she must use her Compassion with Wisdom.  The Third Harmonic is harmonious because it links Signs of the same Element.

Again, cuspal Trines would operate differently.

So a naked Trine, without any complementary Tension (Square, Conjunction, or even Opposition), can give us a great deal of grief, if we mistake the Grace for Competence.  Just think of the “stuck-up” people you knew in high school, and you’ve got an excellent picture of an unacknowledged Trine.  Some of them ran into real difficulty once they got out into the World and were asked to be less one-dimensional, and had to start dealing with their Squares.  Or, out in the larger World, had to compete or cooperate with people who had genuine Competence.  To excel we need native talent and hard work, and while Trines are an excellent foundation for it, they ill prepare us for that Both/And necessity.

But tie the far ends of a Square and Quincunx together with a Trine, and you combine the Square’s indefatigable thirst for unachievable perfection, Curiosity’s Openness to the New, and Effortless Grace.  A Grand Cross (four Squares end-to-end) can make us super-Competent because we’re always forced to multitask to put out the constant series of brushfires surrounding us.  A Grand Trine (three Trines end to end) can provide so much Grace we seem invincible.  The combination of a Grand Cross and a Grand Trine is one of most powerful Configurations of planets, because it combines this-World Competence with lots of help from beyond the Veil.

But what an opportunity a Tricolor creates!  While the Grand Cross and Grand Trine are scattered all over a chart, the Tricolor is sharply focused on one Square, one contrast between Elements.  Like the 2012-2015 Uranus-Pluto contrast between Truth and Security (Fire and Earth), or the current Mars-Pluto contrast between Mind and Matter (Air and Earth), or the Venus-Lilith contrast (in the current Fez) between Consistency and Desire (Earth and Fire).

* * * * *

The Sixth Harmonic and the Minor Tricolor

The most powerful Configurations are those which fill the Zodiac – that is, their Angles add to 360 degrees.  The Grand Cross is 4×90, the Grand Trine 3×120, the Major Tricolor 90+150+120.  In a Minor Tricolor, a Sextile substitutes for the Trine, so we don’t get to a Full Circle.  However, we do have Challenge combined end-to-end with Curiosity and Grace.  But we have Sixth-Harmonic Grace rather than Third-Harmonic Grace.  That’s Grace through Work and Partnership rather than Grace through “Dumb Luck.”  That’s probably actually better for our Spiritual development, though since it will involve more Effort, probably not as automatic or monumental for accomplishments.

The Sixth Harmonic is The Lovers Archetype.  That brings with it all the Joys and Labors of getting along with another Entity.  Even if that Entity is your Soulmate, there probably won’t be more than a heady glance and a smile until one or the other of you is willing to expend a little effort to open the door.  Hence the understanding that a Sextile usually requires some initial Effort to get the Grace rolling.  And if the other person really is your Soulmate, you’ve got a lot of Work to do, because no one gets along with their Soulmate without doing their Self-Love Work.   Triggering your Self-Love Work is what Soulmates do for a living.

The Sixth Harmonic connects Signs that are not in the same Element, but in the same “gender.”  We don’t use the terms masculine and feminine to distinguish Signs, because those terms are too polluted with cultural bias.  Angeles Arrien uses the terms “Dynamic” and “Magnetic” instead, and we often just call them “Yang” and “Yin.”  The Elements Fire and Air are Dynamic or Active, and the Elements Earth and Air are Magnetic, or Receptive.  So a Sextile connects two Yin Signs or two Yang Signs.  There is mutual understanding, but it requires a handshake or a hug to acknowledge it.

So the Minor Tricolor can actually result in greater Self-development, while the Major Tricolor is more likely to work its magic in the outer World.  With the Minor Tricolor you’ll need to go back and rework that nettlesome Square over and over again, to smooth the Partnership path.  You’ll need to take Responsibility for your own muddle.  Thank goodness we’re Graced with the Curiosity, or the Challenge would be too great.  We should actually look for Minor Tricolors between the charts of Lovers and others in Relationship; it may be where the real value of this Configuration lies.

In the current Fez, it’s the Partnership between our Willingness to actively Support ourSelf in the outer World (Mars) and our Inner Female’s need for Suzerainty (Lilith) – or you could say, our Willingness to actively Support our Inner Female’s Suzerainty – that resolves both the Mars-Pluto (“Go for it!”) and the Venus-Lilith (“What would Momma say?!?”) Challenges.

* * * * *

Now, did I actually answer the questions?

1) Could you please explain how the 4th harmonic, symbolizing dominion and healthy control, is interrelated with the 3rd, 5th and 12th harmonics contained in the Major Tricolor?

The geometry is given to us by the chart – the Square (4th Harmonic), Quincunx (5th and 12th), and Trine (3rd), are presented to us by the Angles between the planets at the moment under consideration.  So it’s up to us as astrologers to combine the ideas of Dominion, Learning and Teaching, Pattern-Breaking, Challenge, Unacknowledged Mastery, Curiosity, Grace, and Potential Arrogance, into some view of the person or situation that provides Insight.  Of course we’ll need to also fold in the Signs and Elements involved, and temper it all by what the rest of the chart says.  Horribly complicated, yes, but that’s the nature of astrology.

That’s why I focus on reading first the Square then the Quincunx as the path to unlocking the Grace.  So for the current Pluto-Mars-Venus Major Tricolor, we can condense that into “We can resolve dilemmas about how vigorously to Act, by consulting our Values.” 

That is, We can resolve (Pluto and Trine) dilemmas (Square) about how vigorously (Mars) to Act, by consulting (Quincunx) our Values (Venus).

Wrapping in the Elements, we might say “When conflict arises between what we Think we need to Do and what is Practical, ask yourself what will create Stability.”

That is, When conflict (Square) arises between what we Think (Air) we need (Pluto) to Do (Mars) and what is Practical (Capricorn), ask yourself (Quincunx) what will create Stability (Venus in Taurus).  We could extend that to, When conflict (Square) arises between what we Think (Air) we need (Pluto) to Do (Mars) to get along (in Libra) and what is Practical (Capricorn), ask yourself (Quincunx) what will create Stability (Venus in Taurus).

Is this helpful?  Astrology is more like an “essay question” than a “multiple-choice” question.

In The Tricolor and the Fez we suggested a couple of alternate ways of looking at the Energy – our comments about the “swelled head” and “dead cats” and being “in the flow.”  But since so few people are at peace with their Squares, I’m betting that the Square-to-Quincunx-to-Trine reading will be the most useful for most people most of the time.

“2) As for the Minor Tricolor, I do not understand, according to your definition ‘…teaches us to share Dominion with our partners’, how it works with the principle of Pattern Breaking (12th harmonic), that the Major and Minor Tricolors involve.

True Partnership entails a degree of Equality that we don’t usually exercise in most of our day-to-day transactions with other Entities.  So I’m guessing that in most Minor-Tricolor situations, once we shift from Problem to Curiosity, the Initiatory Action that the Sextile will require, is that we shift out of Command mode and into Negotiate mode.  We can more or less Command a sales clerk to give us a loaf for a coin, but commanding a Partner to do something is more problematic.  “How do you feel about…” or “Would you be willing to…” or “Can we talk about…” will probably be a lot more effective than “A loaf of sourdough,” even if we were British and added a “please” at the end.

That’s why I emphasized “sharing Dominion” – hypothesizing that most of the time for most of us, sharing Dominion will be a Pattern-Breaker.  We would go from a Challenge to our sense of Healthy Control, into Curiosity about how to resolve it, into an Action that would trigger Grace, one that would most likely involve interaction with a Partner (Sixth Harmonic). 

Does that clarify the Minor Tricolor at all for you?

“3) Is it relevant to say that the 5th harmonic is related to ‘Learning’?

Absolutely.  The Fifth Harmonic is about Learning, and it’s flip side, Teaching.  We don’t really Learn something until we have to Teach it.  That’s when we discover what we’ve been assuming, that may not actually be True or relevant. 

My discussions of the Fourth Harmonic make it sound like I’m talking about Learning there too, but it’s different.  The Fourth Harmonic is about feeling that we’re on the Edge of being out of Control (as any Emperor always is).  I just suggest that we shift our focus from what we haven’t perfected, to what we’re Learning, as a way to defuse our frustration and recognize our accumulated Skills – our experiential Wisdom. 

 

It’s like the difference between the Third and Ninth Houses – the Fifth Harmonic and Third House are about Knowledge, while the Fourth Harmonic and the Ninth House are about Wisdom.  I’m always intrigued by the way Ursula Le Guin divided Knowledge among the faculty at the School on Roke in A Wizard of Earthsea.

 

How’d we do?  Are we making any sense?

Ten to Fourteen

Vanadinite, symbol of Abundance.

Let’s look at where the “action” is these days and how it might be dancing into our own lives.

The Uranus T-Square

The Main Effect – the Uranus T-Square with Pluto and Jupiter – is occurring at 10-14 degrees of the Cardinal Signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn).

As you go around the Zodiac, Signs have these qualities…

• Aries – Cardinal Fire
• Taurus – Fixed Earth
• Gemini – Mutable Air
• Cancer – Cardinal Water
• Leo – Fixed Air
• Virgo – Mutable Earth
• Libra – Cardinal Air
• Scorpio – Fixed Water
• Sagittarius – Mutable Fire
• Capricorn – Cardinal Earth
• Aquarius – Fixed Air
• Pisces – Mutable Water

The three-series, Cardinal-Fixed-Mutable (called “Modalities”) repeats and so does the four-series , Fire-Earth-Air-Water (called “Elements”), making the twelve Signs.  So the above list gives…

• Sign – Modality Element

Their Meanings are…

• Cardinal – Creating
• Fixed – Stabilizing
• Mutable – Changing (as in mutation)
• Fire – Spirit
• Earth – Matter
• Air – Mind
• Water – Emotion

So we’re dealing with Creating things here.  What sort of things?  Well, we’d look first to Uranus, sitting as it does on the focus of the T-Square.  We’d be Creating Disruption for anything that’s out of alignment with where the Soul wants us to go at this time.  And we’d be Creating the first hesitant pieces of the new Identity that is more in alignment.  Uranus is in Aries – you know the phrase, in the beginning there was the Word?

In Sanskrit, each character of the alphabet has a sound that reflects it’s role in the Creation of the Universe.  So sure, if you’re speaking Sanskrit then you can say that the Universe started with a Word.  The rest of our languages don’t have such deep roots, and to aver that a Word came first is to suggest that there was language and intellect prior to Creation – which is just silly.  In the beginning there was a Sound would be more accurate, but then, you know the old if a tree falls in the woods… homily.

We could say in the beginning there was an Idea but again, that presumes the pre-existence of intellect.  Words and Ideas just reflect the overintellectualization of Western culture.  So what was it, there in the beginning?  I suggest is was more like a germplasm or seed or kernel.  The essence which Word tries to capture, never fully.  Astrology puts Aries – Fire or Spirit – first.  So maybe we should say in the beginning there was a Spark.

Aries

Well, if it’s not a Word but a Spark, then it’s not obvious where it will lead.  It could light a fire.  It could heat a home, or burn it down.  It could become an Idea, or even a Word.  It could become a run to the dump, or a fine Thanksgiving dinner, an Experience, an Organization, or even a Movement.  Which is the Main Thing about Aries.

Aries has no idea what it’s doing. 

It’s following a Spark that hasn’t become a Fire yet, or a Movement, or an Organization, or even an Idea.  If you ever want to know what Aries is up to, wait five years, and then ask.  By then you’ll probably have at least a Fire.

When we speak of Signs, we aren’t talking about People – though we could be.  It’s not that “Aries People” don’t have any idea what they’re doing.  It’s that the Aries part of us doesn’t have any idea what they’re doing.  Aries People aren’t just people who were born in March and April, they’re anybody with strong Aries in their chart.  For instance, anyone born now would have their Uranus in Aries.  Uranus is pretty strong – it’s the Soul’s Urge after all, so everybody born all year these days would be “Aries People.”  And their Uranus would have no idea what it was doing.

That doesn’t mean it’s without purpose, not at all!  It means it’s without intellectualized purpose.  Aries knows exactly what it’s doing; it just can’t explain it to you, because it’s a Spiritual thing, not an intellectual thing.  So Aries is always very busy and purposeful.  You just have to wait five years to figure out what the purpose was.

Aries is three, or six, or nine Signs from the other Cardinal Signs.  So any planets in those Signs will make Second-Harmonic (halfway ’round the Zodiac) or Fourth-Harmonic (a fourth of the way) Angles to Aries, if they’re near the same degree of their Signs.  By and large, those are Challenging Angles.  So whenever you have three planets near the same degree of the Cardinal Signs, you have a T-Square.  Four planets, and you have a Grand Cross.  The same is true for the Fixed and Mutable Signs.

Ten to Fourteen Cardinal Degrees

Ten to fourteen degrees of Aries is the stage in its evolution where the artist has made and critiqued one sketch and, having some notion of where it might go from there, has finished the second version, with colors blocked in, and critiqued it.  Thus armed with a degree of understanding and experience, the artist is almost ready to dive into the final version.  Your soul is the artist here, and your Ego – you – are the painting.  In other words, at this stage…

You have a pretty fair understanding and a good degree of experience with who you really need to be at this stage of this Lifetime.  It’s not a total mystery.  But it’s a T-Square, so you’re Challenged to Master the neighborhood of who you need to be.  There are no right answers – this is a graduate seminar, and you’re being graded on how well you explore the issue, not on feigned Certainty.

The process in the other three Cardinal Signs is similar, but in Cancer rather than a Spark, you start with a Feeling, and by 10-14 degrees you’re well into the process of owning that Feeling, knowing how to respond to it, how to invoke it when you want it, how to start building a Community with it.  That’s where Jupiter is…

So you are inspired to start communicating your Vision of this Feeling and Expand it into Community.  Maybe you started wanting to know what Mutual Respect would Feel like.  Maybe Peace, or being part of a Team, or Random Acts of Kindness.  Or maybe you wanted to develop a theme of War, but with a difference this time.  Maybe you want to be a Devil’s Advocate to help some other group improve.  At this stage pragmatic achievability is important.  This is no longer pie in the sky.  The next step is joining and recruiting, finding others who want to play your game.

Jupiter’s been here before, in August 2013, and your recollection of that practice run will serve you here.

With Capricorn the process unfolds from a physical Seed.  You’ve worked through two generations of selective breeding, and now you’re about to select the final version for planting.  This is Pluto, so your task is not to Create or Control, but to Respond.  The Form is pretty well established, but it’s your job to make sure your version of it provides the right functionality.  As above, so below.  That is…

This is not your Creation.  It’s way bigger than either your Ego or your Soul.  If feels like your own because it is, but only in the sense that this is one job in an enormously large project.  It’s okay if you “fail,” because there is redundancy, and because we’ve never been here before, we’re playing it by ear, and the process is Trial and Success.  More important that it embodies the overarching goals than that it be right or perfect.  Your recipe will be one of many entries, and if you find one you like better, you’ll adapt yours to resemble it – while someone else might find they like yours better than theirs and adopt it.  No pressure except that your recipe needs to be yours, made to please you and no one else.

To sum all that up…

We aren’t rookies here; we do have an understanding of the kind of Community we’re building, and how it has to fit into the emerging Pattern of cumulative Co-Creation that the World is shifting into.  If you think you don’t know, ask yourself, “What if I did know?” and take the first answer you get – especially if it was the one you were about to reject as impossible or inappropriate.

Look at that Superbowl and the improbable gang of youngsters that made it look like just another day at the office.  Someone needs to do it, Why not you?