Ends and Means IV

In her Cosmic News, Kelley Hunter also contributes valuable Insights on the New Moon and especially on the 16 November (when the Mean Nodes catch up and reach Cancer) Venus Station.  Find Kelley’s Wisdom at…

https://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/email/newsletter/1413709324

Her Insight suggests that, if the results of voting in the US are delayed, the news will favor “that which nurtures and protects Life.”  Of course a Racist or Nationalist would claim they are doing just that, and in a narrow sense they are, but it would be rooted in Fear, and when we Manifest from Fear, Fear is what we Manifest.  Fear doesn’t “nurture and protect Life” except in a very superficial and temporary way.

We need to stay Mindful of a fundamental astrological “fact” – the 21st Century was born under a Pluto-Chiron Initiation at 12 Sagittarius, “A flag turning into an Eagle, the Eagle turning into a Chanticleer saluting the Dawn.” 

The flag represents folks who Identify with their Nationality, Ethnicity, or Race more than they Identify with their Individuality or their Huperity or their Soul or their Species or their Planet.  They’re being replaced in this Century by far-seeing Eagle, Who sees the World through a larger Perspective.  Eagle is subsequently replaced as the logo of the Century by the Dawn, Enlightenment. 

The 18th Century “Age of Enlightenment” is also, and more appropriately, called the Age of Reason, and most of the Death Drive on the Planet today results from too much Reason.  The 21st Century Enlightenment is not about Reason, but about Ascension, or Merging and Collaborating with the Natural Flow of Co-Creation and Empathy with All of Mother Gaia’s Children – Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral, whether bigger or smaller than a breadbox.  Saint Francis of Assisi rather than Saint Augustine of Hippo.

We also discovered something interesting when we noticed our indirect reference to The Tower in the previous post, and investigated the 16th Harmonic (a “Semi-Octile” or 22½ Degrees).  The Tower represents “the principle of Restoration, renovation, and de-structuring of old forms” (Angeles Arrien, The Tarot Handbook, p.82). 

The purple lines already drawn on the Cuspal chart in https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2018/11/05/ends-and-means-ii/ Illuminate an Exact Septile Yod to the North Node from Mars and Saturn.  A Septile Yod occurs when two planets are both Triseptile (154½ Degrees) to a third planet, and Asks us to Pay Attention to Timing.  In 5D, when we’re In the Flow, Timing is Everything.  (We won’t notice it, because we’ll be in the Flow, but while we’re still in 3D it behooves us to Pay Attention to Timing, as practice for 5D.) And the Mars-Saturn Cycle says that The Most Important Thing is Action.

This Waxing Mars-Saturn Septile tells us that Action at this point in Linear Time will be very Powerful and Germinal.  The results may not be immediately obvious – as Energies usually do, they may wait for the Waxing Square before they reveal themselves fully.  This Mars-Saturn Cycle was Initiated last April at 9 Capricorn, “An Angel Carrying a Harp” – we’re beginning to see what Dan Scranton’s Channel meant when they said that Adeptness “comes when you are so certain that what you desire is on its way to you that you bask in the present moment and in whatever energy that you do have access to.”

So even if the results of the current election allows the Corporate-owned Media to continue to fuel itself on Fear, the cohort of Women entering Politics in the US here will bear Fruit at the Mars-Saturn Square – which happens just as they’re being sworn in, in January 2019.

The South Node in the New Moon chart is Exactly at the Midpoint between Saturn and Mars, 24½ Degrees from each.  24½ Degrees is actually closer to the 15th Harmonic than the 16th.  The 15th Harmonic (24 Degrees) or The Devil represents Levity toward that which ” ‘bedevils’ us” (Arrien, p.78).  As we pointed out earlier, we couldn’t find a more perfect Metaphor for the South Node.

So what about the New Moon itself?  Anything near the 16th Harmonic from it?  It turns out to be near the Midpoint between Venus and Mercury, which both happen to be Standing Still when the Mean Node retrogrades into Cancer at the Ides of November and also begins to help promote “that which nurtures and protects life.”  Mercury forms a Waxing Novile to Venus, which advises that Meditation and Prayer is a most Powerful Action this month.

The Mercury-Venus Cycle is about Becoming and Being Aware of our own Values.  The current one began in early March at 28 Pisces, “A fertile Garden under the Full Moon reveals a variety of full-grown Vegetables.”  That, and all of its Implications of Abundance and Well-Being, is our Image to PIAVA in our Meditations – the Arcturians remind us that “if we Want to Receive something that we’ve been Asking for,” we’ll probably have to access it Energetically before we can access it Physically.

The Venus-Mercury Initiation was also in the same Degree as Chiron, which puts us in a position where we can Choose between Despair and Miracles about our Connection to our Values – or about our Values themselves if they’re Obsolete.  Choose Miracles by Poor-Sweethearting yourself whenever you aren’t “so certain that what you desire is on its way to you that you bask in the present moment and in the energy that you do have access to.”

Since the position of the New Moon is refracted by its Conjunction with asteroid Eurydike (Trust), the Venus-Mercury Midpoint is less than 2 Degrees from the New Moon, making 17th-Harmonic Angles between the Moon and each planet. 

The 17th Harmonic is represented by The Star, which signifies Self-Sovereignty (Arrien p.85).  With Self-Sovereignty, we don’t really care what seeps out of the election; we just Manifest the Reality we Want to Live in, by Becoming and Being Authentic, and being Neutral to any Patriarchal or other Resistance we meet while we Persist in working around and beyond it.

Rent, Or A Weekend

Another of my favorite Frank & Earnest cartoons: “I just get my [Identity] budget in order, and along comes a big surprise, like rent, or a weekend!”

This lovely chart will carry us through January 27 or so. 

• Can you see the big blue Kite?  It’s pointing at the headphones in the upper left (that’s the “North Node” in astrologuese).  A Kite is a Big Boon, and it’s pointing at the North Node, which is our friend. 
• How about the big dark red triangle?  It points to the left off of the vertical spar of the Kite.  That’s Pluto (which looks like a martini on a cross) that it’s pointing at, in the lower left.  Big red triangles are “T-Squares,” and they’re Challenging, especially when they point at the God of the Underwhere, Pluto.  Not to fear, they also lead to graduate degrees, and the Kite more than neutralizes the Challenge in this one.  We’ve been working on this Masters Degree in Transformation and Ego Death for several years now, so we’re getting pretty good at it.  Even if we still haven’t learned to enjoy it.
• Then there’s the orange wedge and the lavender-grey wedge, both pointing at the asterisk on a cross at the top right.  The asterisk stands for the asteroid Juno, which symbolizes our Identity.  The two wedges mean that our Identity is lit up like a Roman candle.  Which is another Big Boon, because if we’re in the midst of Transforming our Ego, being Conscious of the Changes in our Identity helps a lot to remind us that we aren’t really “Dying,” we’re just crawling out of our cocoon and spreading our Wings.

And if we stretch our Sensitivity from the usual 3 Degrees, then Pallas (diamond on a cross), Mercury (horned circle on a cross), and the asteroid Chaos (written out – it means Potential, not Disorder) join to make a Grand Sextile (six-pointed star), one of the friendliest of Configurations.  Since this is actually a Birth chart (for our Trance-re-Formed Self), the more expansive Sensitivity is actually appropriate.  The chart is drawn for when the Moon reaches the Midpoint between Uranus (TV antenna on a circle) and the South Node (earbuds), 4am PST (http://www.jbuss.com/tt/pst4.htm) January 25.

The Moon usually shows us what’s really going on in a chart.

So while we expect this weekend to be pretty Intense again (or still), it should “end well.”  Our Mantra could be “Pay Attention, and look for the Silver Lining.”  We could be in for some Lifetime-Scale Epiphanies.

The orange wedge is a Quintile Yod, and the lavender-grey wedge is a Septile Yod. 

Yods (wedgy triangles, also known as Fingers of God) mean Pay Attention to this!!  A Quintile Yod is about Paying Attention to Learning (and Teaching), and a Septile Yod about Paying Attention to Magic (and Power).

The base of the Quintile (Learning) Yod is Chiron (K on a circle – Despair and Miracles) and the asteroid Ceres (cuphook – Sustainability), so…

One thing we’re Learning this weekend is how to Sustain our Consciousness of Miracles – providing we can Transcend the temptation to be Discouraged.  With Pluto Transforming everything, that shouldn’t be too hard, especially with a smidgeon of Effort on our part, once we figure out which “our” is us at the moment.  As long as our Identity is being washed, rinsed, and hung out to dry, we may as well take advantage of our Psychic nakedness and just merge with our Limitless Soul Self.

You know what it’s like when you’re flying, and coming in for a landing, and you can look out the window and see all those little houses down there, as if they were two-dimensional?  Well, sit up straight, let the airplane dissolve, and let yourself be sitting comfortably at the center of six or eight or twelve dimensions, rather than just two or three.  Pretty amazing, eh? 

Once the plane lands, you can get up and walk around like that, as big as a small town.  If you aren’t flying, you can get up and walk around like that anytime.  It’s a great space from which to Pray or Visualize or Intend or Ask or Affirm or Command what you Want from your Life, and to be Curious about how the devil it’s going to Manifest.  I mean, you’re Naked and Unlimited, so you can put on any sort of costume you want to put on.  You can be Anybody.  And Everybody.  All at once even.

The base of the Septile (Magic) Yod is Pluto and Neptune (fork with a cross on the handle – Spiritual Energy).  That’s a very powerful combination – Neptune (the GoddessHeart) Septile Pluto (Trance Formation), in a Yod with Consciousness or Identity (Juno)!  That’s Big.

I mean, really, the only Limits here are the ones you put on yourself.  Take them off and throw them in the washer.  Run around naked all weekend.  It’s the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius after all.

To Portal 6.26 and Beyond

Orb

Have you gained a sense of your Sensitivity?  Around here there was a definite shift at around four degrees, then a huge change at about two degrees, as the Grand Trine reformed.

Chiron Retrospective

As Mercury Stands Still and turns Backwards under a Solstice SuperMoon with Jupiter entering Cancer, it would be an excellent time to list every event, circumstance, drama, Emotion, or Pattern that Challenged you during the first half of 2013.   Then over the next three weeks take at least an hour a week to flesh out some details about each Challenge –

• What happened,
• What you were doing before it happened,
• What you felt,
• Who if anyone (or any thing) you felt like blaming for it,
• What you did about it,
• Whether you can detect any likely warning signs that could provide advance notice in the future,
• What you might do differently next time,
• How you might handle it if you were fully competent to do so.

No question that we’re going to be re-experiencing these Challenges over the next six months, and the purpose of the whole adventure is for you to become competent at dealing with them.  So a little directed Attention while Mercury is in a contemplative mood will be very powerful.

The difference between Karma and Consciousness is Choice.  When something sneaks up on us and we aren’t prepared to deal with it, we react from Habit, and it’s usually a Habit that fits the situation poorly, if not catastrophically.  We don’t have the opportunity to Choose – largely because, since it’s Unconscious, we don’t see it coming.  When the same Pattern approaches and we know it’s coming, we’ve dealt with it successfully before, we have some degree of confidence, and we have an array of strategies for dealing with it, then we have time to assess how the drama is unfolding, Choose a response, stay attuned to whether or not it’s working, and if not try an alternate response.

Keep your list handy, and Pay Attention when any of the Challenges repeat.  It’s going to happen anyway, but if you’re Paying Attention, you can make the process of ditching self-sabotage much easier and more powerful.

Gemini and Cancer

As we write this, Jupiter is crossing from Gemini into Cancer.  Jupiter represents Amplification, Expansion, Extension, Extroversion, Openness.  It’s not all that Signs are about, but each Sign is a reaction to excesses of the previous Sign.  Gemini is flibbertigibbet, to quote Sally.  Aries creates something brand new, then casts it in concrete in Taurus (in reaction to everyone’s complaint that they don’t know what it is – since Aries is all Intuitive, there’s no explaining and justifying), till it’s suddenly realized that it’s only a half-baked prototype, probably won’t work, and could be done a lot more effectively.  So Gemini tears it apart.

Nothing amiss there; Gemini is performing a very useful service – scienterrific types would call it reverse engineering, with improvement in mind.  The Gemini stage is equivalent to brainstorming – collecting ideas without prejudgment, as a first step toward version 2.0.  Ranking  and vetting the ideas comes later, but in the brainstorming stage no critique is allowed, in order to assure that no idea is intimidated before it gets onto the whiteboard.

Can you correlate any of these timespans with events or processes in your own life, or on any larger stages?

• Jupiter in Aries (Intuitive Creativity) – June 2010 to June 2011
• Jupiter in Taurus (Casting in Concrete) – June 2011 to June 2012
• Jupiter in Gemini (Disassembly) – June 2012 to June 2013

The US Supreme Court is certainly disassembling voting rights, for instance.  Of course the US Congress has been Disassembling democracy for far longer than a year, but has it stepped up its efforts since June 2012?

Now Jupiter is in Cancer.  By the time we get to Cancer, folks are quite sick of indecision, apparent disregard for consequences (Gemini can be very impersonal), and apparent obstructiveness.  They want to see something built rather than torn apart, they want to see some consistency, and they want to see some compassion.  It will be easier to go back to Creating, but with some knowledge about what we’re building and why, and with some experience under our belt about what might work and what apparently won’t.

Think It Over

It’s several hours before Mercury turns Retrograde, at 6am PDT on June 26.  Mercury asks us to review our Rhetoric three times a year, for three weeks at a shot.  Of course by the time Mercury – or any other planet – goes Retrograde, it has already crossed the area of review, and by the time it turns Direct again and then recrosses the same territory for the third time, it’s an eight-week process.  This time around, Mercury is asking us to review the Scorpio-through-Pisces zones of Cancer.

Just as each day has a morning that resembles Spring, an afternoon that’s like Summer, an evening that parallels Autumn, and a night that reminds us of Winter, each Sign contains a miniature version of the entire Zodiac.  The Sign of Cancer starts with the Cancer segment (pure Creative Compassion), moves to the Leo zone (Compassion for the Self), Virgo (Recognition of Hubris), Libra (Compassion for Other), and so on.  The Scorpio through Pisces zones of Cancer are about Understanding Compassion (Scorpio), Releasing Attachment (Sadge), Balancing Self-Care with Compassion for Other (Capricorn), Codifying Compassion (Aqua), and Opening the Heart (Pisces).

Starting June 26, we walk through this process backwards, starting with Opening the Heart (Pisces), then moving on to rewriting the “rules” for what Compassion is and isn’t (Aqua), and so on.  As you can imagine, a Retrograde period is an intense learning experience, as we, for instance, have to rewrite our conceptualizations about Compassion three times.  Keep in mind that this is Mercury – Intellectuality, Communication, and Trickster Magic.  So in the Pisces zone of Cancer we’re reviewing how our thoughts and words, and unseen Intentions and Prayers and Wishes, influence the way we nurture ourselves and others, and to what degree we do.

So all in all this Review, starting June 9, then backward till July 21, then forward again through August 8, is about how our thoughts and words put Compassion into our day-to-day lives, and impact other people.

Now that we understand Orb and Sensitivity, we can make sense of the fact that one degree of Orb around a Mercury Station lasts about a week prior to the Station, and half a week after the Station.  In other words, we spend one and a half of the eight weeks exploring the degree of the Retrograde Station, and one and a half weeks exploring the degree of the Direct Station – and the other five weeks reviewing the space in between.

Tomorrow’s Retro Station occurs at 24 Cancer, “A woman and two men castaways on a small island of the South Seas.”  While the span of the Retrogradation covers Scorpio through Pisces, the Station degree itself is actually within the Aries zone of Cancer – in the Aries zone we open to Accepting an entirely new way to live and express Compassion.  It’s not something we do, it’s something we Accept or Resist, though of course Resistance is futile.  So on balance, it sounds like we’re getting Conscious about how Competition and Manipulation impact our ability to be Compassionate and Collaborative.

The Wide Septile Yod

We first encountered the Wide Septile Yod in Midsummer Night’s Portal.  This “Yod” is still here, and dominates the Mercury Station chart, as all three of its corners are involved in the Big Configurations of the day.

• One corner is the Mercury Station itself, tightly Square to Eris.
• A second corner is Saturn, which is also a corner of the Grand Trine with Neptune and Sun-Lilith.
• The third corner is Moon-Juno, which is still the apex of a T-Square with the Nodes.

The tight Square from Mercury to Eris (confronting Denial) means that the Mercury Retro period will be bringing a good quantity of the clandestine into the light of day.  This revelation will feed the Septile Yod, which is about Occult Power.  In other words, expect the revealed information to have impact far beyond how it appears.

Saturn is tails when Jupiter is heads – as Jupiter represents Expansion, Saturn symbolizes Contraction.  But not in any negative sense – Saturn means Focus Your Attention on the First Priority, just as Cancer reigns in Gemini’s intellectual wanderlust.  While the Grand Trine (using three degrees of Orb) includes Neptune (Spiritual Clarity) and Sun-Lilith (pre-intellectual Instincts) along with Saturn (Focus), Jupiter is within five degrees of its impending Trine to Saturn, and Jupiter Trine Saturn means that Expansion and Contraction work together (contradiction occurs only in the Mind, not in Reality), Gracefully.  What’s the Jupiter-Saturn Coin?  Growth in Social Consciousness.

At the moment when Mercury is Stationary, the Moon is only a fourth of a degree shy of being Initiated by Juno.  Juno’s ongoing T-Square with the Nodes implies that our Unconscious Identity (Juno), through no overt action of our own, is shifting in such a way to bring us into clarity about our Karma and our Mission (the Nodes).  The Moon is a trigger-finger.  In other words, this Mercury Station could be a major Tipping Point for our adventures in Consciousness.

So the Septile “Yod” (Occult Power) unifies all three of the Big Events that are on tap astrologically – our

• Consciousness Growth and Activation of our Mission (Moon-Juno T-Square),
• The effortlessness (Grand Trine) of our Focus (Saturn) on Collaboration (Sun-Lilith-Jupiter) and Spirit (Neptune), and
• Revelation of hidden Manipulation and Competition (Mercury Stationary Square to Eris)

Such a unification could represent a great leap forward, personally, culturally, and Planetarily.

And Beyond

From June 28 till August 2, Mars steps Out of Bounds.  A planet has a stronger impact when it’s Out of Bounds (beyond the Tropic of Cancer or Capricorn, in this case the Tropic of Cancer).  Mars represents Action.  While it’s Out of Bounds it traverses 21 Gemini to 14 Cancer – once again emphasis on the transition from hunting broadly for new Ideas, to focusing on Nurturance.  For a week or so around July 20, Mars joins Lilith and Jupiter in the Saturn-Neptune Grand Trine.  That will be very dynamic.  We should see major changes happening in our Lives and in the World in mid-July.

Saturn, Lord of our Grand Trine, takes its own Station on July 7, turning Direct at 5 degrees of Scorpio, “A massive rocky shore resists the pounding of the Sea.”  Just to provide another lesson in Orb and Sensitivity, as we write this, Saturn is only seven arcminutes (less than one eighth of one degree) from the location of its Station.  Which is to say, Saturn is really Stationary (very Strong) as we speak.   Saturn has been within one degree of its Station since June 2.  If you’re wondering why you’ve been feeling like you need to Focus on The Most Important Thing (or figure out what that is!), this is why!

So the Saturn Station is Septile to the Mercury Station, meaning that getting Conscious about how Competition and Manipulation impact our ability to be Compassionate and Collaborative (Mercury) and Focusing on what will withstand the assault of extreme Emotion (Saturn) reinforce one another in unseen ways that are more powerful than we know.

Uvarovite

Love the name, Uvarovite!  Garnet isn’t a Mineral, it’s a fairly large family of Minerals.  Uvarovite fills up one branch of the Garnet family, the Calcium-Chromium branch.  It’s not only a Heart-Opening Mineral, but a Crystal that invites Magic.  It’s a yang version of Dioptase, the favored Crystal of the Faerie Kingdom.  Like Chiron and Miracles, Magic is just action that we don’t understand.  The less Conscious we are, the more we have to disallow Magic because we don’t know how it works.  Much Magic and Miracle occur in Dimensions that Muggles Deny the existence of.  Just because we don’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Midsummer Night’s Portal

Or, of course, Midwinter Night’s Portal if you’re upside down.  Same diff, just a little less Puckish.

The Solstice Portal

The Solstice horoscope features four prominent and tightly related features…

• Juno Square to the Nodes – Huge changes in our Unconscious Identity.  Old news, we been doing it for a while – except that now Juno has gone Retro.

• Mercury Conjunct Venus and Venus Conjunct Vesta – Potential for serious personal Integration.

• A wide Septile “Yod” – Lots of Magic afoot.

• Several days without a Grand Trine! – We’ve been Grand Trined for most of 2013, and we’ll continue to be through October.  But here we have a few days without.

The Solstice horoscope to some extent describes the year to follow, but most immediately, we’ve got a 3-day Portal defined by these four basically-simultaneous features.

Juno Retrograde

Turns out Juno went Retrograde when I wasn’t looking, on June 14.  We’ve been talking about Juno (Unconscious Identity) for a while now, since it’s been T-Squaring (Mastery through Challenge) the Nodes (our Karma and Mission) since early May.  Because the timing was so close to Chiron’s June 16 Station, and since it’s oxymoronic to name what’s Unconscious, we’ll consider Juno’s Backwardation as an embellishment to the Chiron Retrogradation.

One way to get a handle on the Unconscious is to Pay Attention.  Those Hidden Patterns are identifiable if you’re willing to look for them, or ask your friends to help.  One warning – don’t accept the temptation to richochet!  When you see a self-sabotaging Pattern, don’t suddenly try to switch to its opposite or avoid repeating it – by avoiding it you never leave the Coin.  Shift it by 10% – watch it while it repeats, but chop 10% out of the middle.  Repeat the Pattern but leave out a step.  Repeat the Pattern with a different Attitude.  Play with it – it has a great deal to teach you!

Mercury-Venus-Vesta

Every once in a while Mercury (Ideals) and Venus (Values) Conjoin, giving us an opportunity to align our Thoughts with our Emotions.  The two aren’t independent, but they sure can get out of whack with one another.  This one occurs just two hours prior to the Solstice, which more or less makes the whole next year such an opportunity.  Be kind to yourself when you notice what an idiot you seem to have been as you discover the places where your Head and Heart misalign.  Well, a lot of folks put Thought into the Third Chakra (which makes more sense) rather than the Sixth, so that would be where your Solar Plexus and Heart misalign.  That has a lot of implications for Power.

Mercury turns Retrograde (on June 26) before it gets to Vesta, but Venus goes on to get Initiated by Vesta on June 22 – close enough that it’ll stretch this Portal into a three-day window.  Venus-Vesta is about aligning the Fourth and Seventh Chakras – the Heart and the Crown, pretty bottom-line spiritually – and that makes the Solstice and year about aligning all three Chakras.  The Initiation occurs at 24 Cancer, “A woman and two men castaways on a small island in the South Seas.”  Doesn’t that sound like trouble!  On the other hand, we’re likely to find out who’s really in charge, eh?

Plus, we’ll have five or six weeks to think it over, as Mercury reviews much of the second half of Cancer.  That’s basically about how we Nurture our Community, and fine-tuning our Attitude so the Energy Exchange is Equal, and we’re neither giving ourselves away, nor holding back.  Both Mercury and Venus have come back In Bounds, so they aren’t as Strong as they were for much of the prior month.

The Wide Septile Yod

It’s actually closer to a T-Square or a Grand Trine in appearance, as this Triangle is made up of two Biseptiles and one Triseptile.  Septiles and other Seventh Harmonic Angles like these are about Occult Power.  The players are quite fascinating – Juno, Mercury-Venus-Vesta, and Saturn.  Well, didn’t we say that one of the best ways to grow Consciousness (Juno) is to Pay Attention! (Saturn), and of course our Unconscious Identity is going to be transformed bigtime when we align Head and Heart and Hearth!  What might that look like, this Occult Power?

As a tyke I drove my father crazy with my constant questions, and one of his habitual answers to my “How do you do that?” was “You have to hold your mouth right.”  And yes, he did occasionally play the harmonica.  But the subtler message is that everything depends on your attitude.  You can repeat one of those newly-recognized Unconscious Patterns using your habitual attitude (what, Anger? Fear? Expectation of Rejection?), or you can walk through it with a different Heartset – maybe Love, or Excitement, or No Expectations).  That’ll certainly inject some Chironian Magic into the situation – Occult just means “hidden” after all.

Grand Trinelessness

It’s only for a few days, but this’ll give us a chance to appreciate how the Grand Trines we’ve been living under are a great Gift, rather than taking them for granted as we’d be otherwise wont to do.  By the time Venus crosses Vesta, the Sun and Lilith will have moved into a new Grand Trine with Saturn and Neptune, and we’ll be back under Grace.  But for these few days we’re on our own.  The Grand Trines went away around June 17 – what in your Life has changed for the worse since then?  Not to worry, they’ll be back by June 23, until October.

You’ve probably noticed that the World has changed.  Sure, Syria is smelling more and more like the Spanish Civil War, but don’t bet on it.  A lot of people haven’t noticed, and they’re going to keep on with the Same Old Same Old, till the Shift hits their fan and they find that their old Power-Over games don’t work any more.

Labradorite

Nothing like the Feldspars, Laboradorite in particular, to illustrate how what you perceive depends on the Angle you’re looking from.  In this Feldspar, the Crystalline units (they aren’t Molecules, but they’re sort of like Molecules in that they’re ordered configurations of Atoms – but rather than being a coherent chemical actor like a Molecule, they’re building blocks, like Legos, that knit together to make Crystals) don’t quite get enough heat and pressure to mix fully, so there are microscopic layers in the Stone, like a Mica (which it’s not).  From some Angles you can see through the top layers into the layers below, which can appear as iridescence.

As the Buddhists would say, Change Your Mind – but in this case we’re Changing our Mind to align with our Heart, and Changing both to align with our individual Sense of the Sacrosanct.

Another Learning Opportunity

Forgot to mention that we’ve a couple of unusual Configurations going on here.

The last couple of days we’ve had a Saturn Septile Yod with Uranus and Venus.  The Septile Yod is about Shamanic Power – that is, the apparent Miracles that can be accomplished by Shapeshifting, by assuming a different Identity.  Venus-Septile-Uranus is about the Heart recognizing the Soul, kind of a Homecoming.  The Triseptiles to Saturn would be about Focusing on Homecoming, and preparing to adjust the rest of our Life to make room for it.  Seen anything like that in your own Life over the last few days?  It’s kind of a subtext for our Big Identity Makeover.

And then, starting about …now… a North Node Quintile Yod forms, with Uranus and Jupiter, lasting for the rest of May.  A Quintile Yod is a “Learning Opportunity,” in the sense that it’s often not really what we asked for, but (we have to conclude after the fact, since it is a fact) evidently something that we need.  The Jupiter-Uranus Quintile would imply that we’ll be greatly expanding our connection with our own Yintegrity, with our own Soul.  You know you’re in Yintegrity by the Three E’s – when Life is Effortless, Exciting, and you never have to Explain yourself.  The Biquintiles to the North Node will bring us to our Life Mission.  There’s no way we can live our Life Mission if we aren’t in Yintegrity.  All those moral lessons about hard work and self-restraint were just a test.  Be on the alert for the rest of May for any situation that requires Effort, that’s not Exciting, or where you’re asked to Explain yourself.  Those are the places where your Life needs adjustment.

Power Is Afoot

Apart from it’s Conjunction with Venus, Mars, and Eris, the most remarkable thing about the New Moon is the pair of Yods – Quintile and Septile Yods – aimed at the North Node…

A Quintile Yod (orange lines) is a planet (or significant point – the North Node isn’t a planet per se) at the far midpoint between two planets Quintile to one another, or one fifth of the way round the circle from one another.  The Quintile is about learning and teaching, so a Quintile Yod represents a “Learning Opportunity,” and unfortunately carries some of the Challenging connotation of that term.

A Septile Yod (light green lines) is a planet or other hot spot at the far midpoint between two planets that are Septile to one another, or one seventh of the way round the Zodiac.  The Septile is about Timing the Use of Power, so a Septile Yod represents a graduate seminar in the subject.  We don’t usually think in terms of Timing when we think about Power, but it’s critical.  In Physics it’s Resonance – the way vibrations reinforce or cancel one another.  In Pedagogy it’s the Teachable Moment, when what you have to say can actually be heard.  In Castaneda’s adventures it’s about Accumulating Power.  Consider asking your boss or a client for a raise – Timing may not be everything, but it’s close.  Unfortunately, it suggests that we maybe should be taking Jim Sinclair very seriously.

The North Node stands for Where We’re Heading.  I usually translate it as our Mission – the purpose for which we accepted our current Lifetime.  The difference between our Mission and our Fate is that Karma is actually optional.  We always have the Choice of becoming Conscious, to one degree or another, of the Patterns that run our lives, and changing them.  When we confront and embrace the Emotional Baggage behind our Limiting Beliefs (South Node), we release the skills hidden beneath the Baggage, and those skills propel us into a brand new Future.

As we said in The New Trance, the North Node sits near the midpoint of Scorpio.  The midpoints of the fixed Signs are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalyse.  The particular degree is 17 – “A woman, fecundated by her own Spirit, is ‘great with child’.”  To me that sounds very much like we’re going to be Learning something very important about our Mission (that is, our Soul’s Purpose in the Lifetime), and that we’re going to be experiencing one of those moments where Life bifurcates – where one Choice leads to a very different Future than another Choice would.  I don’t see that as a Win-Lose proposition, though some Choices are likely to be better than others.

One view of Life is that, for every Decision we make, we bifurcate into different Parallel Lives.  If there are an infinite number of Universes, then we simply beam into the one that’s consistent with our Decision, while another part of ourself transmogrifies into the Parallel that’s consistent with the alternative.  It’s possible that we can get a bit lost, or scattered, if we make too many Decisions that don’t serve our Soul’s Purpose in the Lifetime.  The strong presence of Eris and Pluto here advise that our Decisions are important, and that we have the tools to be able to Choose wisely.

In particular, the feet of the Quintile Yod are Uranus and the Vesta-Lilith Initiation (“Three fledglings in a nest high in a tree”) – we couldn’t do much better than that!  Uranus: our Soul Connection, and Vesta-Lilith: our Sacred, pre-intellectual Instincts.  Since this is a Learning Opportunity, we should be able to see the Karmic consequences of our Choices very clearly.  With the intellect emasculated, the odds in our favor are enhanced.

The feet of the Septile Yod are the New Moon itself, and Jupiter.  While Venus, Mars, and Eris aren’t close enough to be considered part of the Septile, they’re carried in because Venus-Mars-Eris characterize the New Moon.  And we can’t consider Jupiter without involving its Square to Chiron.  So it turns out that our Timing is important for Co-Creating Miracles (Chiron) that resolve our Denial (Eris) and further the integration of our Actions (Mars) and Values (Venus).  In other words, there are moments here when we can Miraculously Transform our Patterns and eliminate self-sabotage (which consists of Acting contrary to our own Values) in a flash.  Power is afoot.