“I just realized I am not well versed in the ‘vacant spot’ and how to read it; for example, 19 Virgo (near my Natal Jup) – Is the vacant point an important piece to incorporate Natal planet positions to understand creating the pattern within the transits? Or is the vacant spot more an indication of what is to be understood from the pattern configuration? If you have any references from your posts that I could study further? Or maybe a quick explanation will do the trick.”
Yes, when you’re at https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/, there’s a long column of keywords (“categories”) to the right of the text. If you’re looking at a specific post, it doesn’t show up. I try to add a keyword to a post only when the post explains the term, but I’m not totally consistent about categorizing all posts. I notice that there are two cubbyholes for “Vacancy,” one under “Planets etc.” and one under “Astrologuese.” They should be combined, as there’s no difference in how they’re used – but it would take me about an hour to combine them, so I won’t bother.
But let’s go ahead with a quick explanation, as we never know what we’re going to find from the keyword list – I “improve” my astrology constantly, so I’ll just tell you how I use Vacancies now…
Configurations in a chart are combinations of planetary angles that, usually, fill the Zodiac (usually that means they add to 360 Degrees). For instance, the Grand Sextille comprises six planets each two Signs or 60 Degrees apart, 6 x 60 = 360. The Grand Sextile (and the Grand Anything) is considered to be much more Powerful than six Sextiles randomly placed around a chart or less well organized.
I consider it an Almost-Grand Sextile when five of the six Positions are occupied, because if we supply the missing Energy in the sixth Position, then we Complete the Grand Sextile and Enjoy the Benefits (kinda like Bingo or the Lotteries, of a Full Hand in Poker). It’s similar with other Almost-Grand Configurations – Quintile, Septile, etc. Occasionally, when it seems appropriate, I’ll consider a Configuration with two Vacancies to be Almost-Grand. Like the four adjoining Septiles we had at the 25 April 2020 Pluto Station, where just for the heck of it we looked to see if there were Stars at the missing three Positions (still in my queue, Bob!).
Notice that an Almost-Grand Cross is a T-Square – the primary Benefit of any Grand Configuration is that it’s Balanced, including the Grand Cross. It combines four T-Squares, but it’s In Balance, so it’s not considered as Troublesome as the T-Square. The primary Challenge of the T-Square then is to Create Balance from it. We don’t usually consider the Vacancy of a T-Square, but it wouldn’t hurt to do so.
We were looking at a 19-Virgo Vacancy in the Almost-Grand Sextile in the 7 May Full Moon chart. I don’t have a way to check to see if a Vacancy may be occupied by asteroids (or even dwarf planets) that I don’t usually use – I wish I did, as it would help a lot. If anyone has a way to do this, let me know. So if none of the “planets” (meaning planets, asteroids, dwarfs, Lights, Nodes, etc) I use are there, I look for Stars nearby. That’s an iffy proposition, as there aren’t that many Stars that are cataloged for use by astrologers. However, if there’s a Biggie there, like Arcturus or Regulus or Sirius, that’s Huge.
Whether there’s a Star near the Vacancy or not, if you have a natal planet there, you automatically Complete the Configuration, without even trying. So for you it’s a full Grand Sextile, because you Embody the Energies of your natal chart. If you have natal planets near any of the other planets in the Configuration, that’s worth noting as well, because that natal planet will be Lit Up more than usual. As Huminals (Huper Animals), we’re like Viruses, with those little Spikes all over, corresponding to the planets in our natal chart, each of which is an Antenna for broadcasting and picking up (and maybe getting Stuck on) Energies from outside of ourself.
So that Almost-Grand Sextile in the Full Moon chart comprised…
Klotho – Beginning New Timelines
Sun-Mercury – Awareness of our Essence
Neptune – Our Relationship to Energies Larger than Our Own
Hylonome-Veritas – Insights into our Codependence
Moon – our Instincts
If we add a Jupiter to that in the Vacancy, which would apply only to you, we Expand everything. A Grand Sextile itself is about fabulous Grace or Good Luck in combining the Energies in each Sextile, which in turn is about Projects where we take the First Step and the Universe takes over after that. So for the next several weeks (Full Moon charts impact the following 2-4 weeks) we might be finding excellent progress around Expanding New Projects that involve Trusting our own Instincts more, and Listening More to (and/or PIAVAing the Assistance of) our Guides, instead of Playing to or Soliciting the Opinions of Others.
Now, for most of the rest of us, without a planet in or near 19 Virgo, we have to Consciously add the Energy of the Vacancy in order to take advantage of the Enhanced Grace of the Grand Sextile. For a guess about what that might mean we’d read the Sabian Symbol for that Degree, 19 Virgo: “A Swimming Race.” To me that means Efficiency at processing our Emotions. So for the rest of us for the next several weeks we might find great progress with New Projects that involve Trusting our own Instincts more, Listening More to our Guides and Soliciting their Assistance more, and Trusting our own Emotions (as Opposed to our Thoughts About them of course), instead of Trying to Please Others.
For all of us, the Programming we received from our Mothers is likely to be particularly Lit Up, since the Saturn Station occurs on Mother’s Day. And we can’t ignore the fact that the Moon goes Out of Bounds on Mothers Day, so it’s all going to be a lot more Emotional than it would be usually – though telling Mom to Butt Out of our Choices will probably always be a Chancy Conversation. But its a Grand Sextile, suggesting very Positive Outcomes from any Project that we Initiate, so it may be the best time ever to Begin our Self-Liberation.
Or, you can take an Easier path, especially if your Mum is Difficult (or Deceased), and use your Mirrors instead. Either way our Relationship with our Dear Mother is Changing, so we want to Make the Best of the Opportunity in whatever way Feels best to us – that is, by Trusting our Emotions. If our Emotions are Conflicted, as they’re likely to be, what an Opportunity to Stay Present with our Confusion and Avoid trying to Fix it.
If your Mother is the type to Demand Commitment, what an Opportunity to Stand your Ground (Veritas-Hylonome) – “Mom, I hear that you’re Asking for a firm Commitment, but I’m not Ready to do that, so we’ll have to leave the whole Issue Dangling till I am Ready, and I don’t know when that will be.” Then, while the odds of Success are Great (Grand Sextile), you get to Practice Not Trying to Fix or Manipulate your Mother’s Emotions!
You might think this all sounds Daunting, but it’s a Critical and Natural part of Claiming Your Power, and as we’ve said, there may never be a Better Time. Trying to stuff your Mother’s Heavy Emotions into your Carrion Bag for the Ascension Flight won’t work. They’ll bump you off the Flight for overweight.
The other elements of Big Grace in the Juno-Sedna chart, and the upcoming Sedna Station chart, are two Diamond Stars.
A T-Square (drawn as a red triangle) is made up of two planets Opposite one another, with a third at their Midpoint (ie, three Signs from each). It means a Challenge. The ultimate aim is to become Adept at this Challenge, but it’s via the School of Hard Knocks. If we haven’t Figured Out what we’re supposed to be Learning, we usually Experience a T-Square as Long-Suffering Frustration.
I mean, how would we know, if we didn’t have our chart drawn up? And even then, an Ego astrologer would concur that we were screwed. We’d just think it was horrible Karma!
That’s what I thought about my own T-Squares until I Realized that the Fourth Harmonic (a Square goes one Fourth of the way around the Zodiac) is about Dominion – Healthy Control, Mastery! (Or, without the possible hidden implication of Slavery as the inverse of Mastery, Adeptness.) Dominion is the Fourth Principle in the Tarot’s Major Arcana.
A natal T-Square is a Life-Long graduate seminar, where there are no real Answers, only better Questions, better because they lead to a fuller understanding of the Depth and Breadth of the Issue that the T-Square presents. So when we Reframe it thus, each Bummer in our Life-Long series of Bummers, has taught us a new Principle, Subtlety, Corollary, Insight, or Breakthrough about the subject of our seminar.
Each time we thought we were going to get it “Right” this time! We thought we could make External Reality match our Perfect Pictures. And every time we Failed. But each time we Learned more about it. Each time we got a little closer to What We Want, though many times we’ve taken wide Detours into places we didn’t know were Related until we went there. Truth is, we’ll never Achieve our Perfect Pictures, because Perfect Pictures are 2D Snapshots, while Real Life is a Hologram in an Infinite number of Dimensions.
Achieving our Perfect Pictures would be like trying to Grok the nature of a Butterfly by pinning it to a board. The hardest thing about a T-Square is that we can’t give it up. Dropping the class is not an Option, because What We Want is an Irrevocable Compulsion. It’s What We’re Here For. We often settle for an Addiction – we get so Frustrated by our Lack of Success, which we take as a Personal Failure, that we divert ourself with the small but Satisfying Pleasure that we can get from Sugar, Alcohol, MJ, Sex, or worse. It’s Temporary, but by the time we Indulge, we forget our Frustration.
Let’s take an Example. For instance, suppose we hypothesize someone who has a Life-Long Challenge (T-Square) to Figure Out how to set up Effective Boundaries (Haumea-Pallas-Aletheia) between their Soul (Uranus) and their Ego so they can Approach their LifeTime Mission (North Node). Oh, gosh, that’s one of the T-Squares in the Juno-Sedna chart, isn’t it. What a coincidence…
The North Node is symbolized by those earphones in the lower right. The red triangle that points to the earphones is the T-Square. Well, we know already that our Mission is like Differential Equations or Calculus – we never really get there, we just keep cutting the distance in half between us and it…
If What We Want is Water and it’s always just out of Reach, that’s the Picture of Frustration. We need to Reframe it – we may never get any Water in this Lifetime, but we’re sure going to Learn everything there is to Learn about Striving for it. And probably, literally, Die trying. Which is Cool – we was gonna Die anyway, so why not Die for a Cause. And there aren’t any Causes more important to us than What We Want.
So, this particular “Challenge to Figure Out how to set up Effective Boundaries between our Soul and our Ego so we can Approach our LifeTime Mission” isn’t Life-Long, it’s only temporary. We’re using the Mean Nodes, and they move about a Degree-and-a-half per month, so this Uranus-Haumea-North Node T-Square will only be with us for a few months. But meanwhile, here in the context of wresting Power out of Fear (Sedna Stationary), finding a Boundary between Soul and Rebirth that Serves our Mission is a Challenge that Confronts us.
For instance, the best Boundary here between Soul and Mission might be no Boundary, and Surrendering our Sovereignty to that Degree might Scare the Living Daylights out of our Ego, not to mention how it could Frighten our Dependents, as we might be Compelled to Abandon them for some abstruse Project like Saving Antarctica for the Penguins. Or it could Drive us to Drink. Here’s how some folks might do these Boundary Games…
“Full of anticipation, we set off and when we had adjusted our consciousness to the high vibration, we found ourselves in the Fairy sector. However serious the reason for our visit may be, first we must play. This is a necessity and not a frivolity because, until we have rushed about as fast as we can, there remain clinging to us, Earth ideas, and until we are rid of them, we are unable to concentrate. What fun this period is.
“We burst and reform only to disintegrate again almost immediately. In this destruction, the atoms of our bodies change their positions and one of our amusements is to stop them from rejoining those of the person to whom they rightfully belong. Of course we can never prevent them from doing this for long, but sometimes we keep them poised between the two of us, they look so funny that we begin laughing, our concentration vanishes until we are once more complete and ready to burst again.”
–Normus, “Travels,” in Daphne Charters, Forty Years with the Fairies, p.209.
♥ So, that’s a T-Square. But weren’t we supposed to be talking about Diamond Stars? Oh, ok, I remember now.
See the two green lines rising from the North Node? That’s called a Finger of God, and it means Pay Attention to this!!Some folks also call it a “Yod.” In these charts, red lines represent Challenge, green Curiosity, and blue Grace. Notice that when we connect the Yod to the T-Square, a web of blue lines is created on the other side of the central Opposition – literally, a Bowl of Grace.
This is a Diamond Star, and it means that the T-Square is a Self-Resolving Challenge because of the Grace in the blue lines, which make a double Trine Bridge, or two Easy Alternative Paths, across the T-Square. Like an escalator up the side of the Cliff we Expected to have to climb. So our two escalators in this Diamond Star are SuspendingDisbelief or Allowing our Beliefs to Shift (Klotho-Vesta), and Trusting our Forbidden Genius (Eurydike-Ixion), which will require a Shift in our Values (Venus).
If we are to Trust the Genius of our True Self, we’re probably going to have to Give Up some Obedience to the Values of our former Masters or Programmers. Recognizing that they were Doing the Best They Knew How at the Time, we just know that this is the time when we have to substitute Self-Trust for the relative Security of their Truth.
This is a Diamond Square, so this just happens, it’s not something we have to work hard at, though we may have to work a bit at Surrendering our Resistance to it – at least enough to enable us to Notice the Difference. After all, the overall Work this week is Growth of Consciousness – Juno-Sedna.
So the Bottom Line of this Diamond Star is that both our Beliefs and our Values will Shift, or have already Shifted. Have you Noticed any of that in your own Experience yet? This is a big Change in our Identity, since Values and Beliefs are the Foundations of Who We Are. And an Effortless Shift. We haven’t mentioned Nemesis or Ego Death once, and they aren’t involved.
Well, not in an obvious way anyway. Nemesis is Octile (Adjustment) to Mars (Action) and Trioctile (Rebalancing) to Pluto (the Underlying Energy). Without the Diamond Star that would be enough to create some Ego Death, and at any rate no Change of Identity takes place without some Ego Death. Death doesn’t have to be Unpleasant, however, if we Take Ourselves Lightly, like the Angels do. That Mars-Pluto Square is about An Angel with a Harp, recall.
If you’ve Noticed your Beliefs, Values, Identity Shifting in the last several days, have you Noticed any signs of Ego Death? Getting Lost in a familiar place, for instance, where it feels like part of you knows exactly where you are, but another part is Experiencing it as Brand New. That’s an important kind of Shift to Notice as we Grow our Consciousness.
♥ The second Diamond Star (notice the double green lines emanating from the point of the T-Square) is focused on the Stellium in Libra – Haumea-Aletheia-Pallas, or Rebirth of True Boundaries. If our Boundaries are Out of Balance with our Soul or our Goals or our Mission, we won’t know Who to Trust, or what to eat for breakfast, or when to Meditate and when to Act. So this is a Big Deal.
The roots of this Yod are Chiron (Despair/Miracles) and Juno-Sedna itself (Bringing our Fears into Consciousness). As we’ve said, when our Fears are Unconscious, they Control our Life. In order to Overcome them (or rather, Love them into becoming the Power that they really are) we need first to Bring them into Consciousness. Despair is totally appropriate when our Unconscious Fears rule our Lives, because we’re Powerless against them.
But fortunately, Chironean Despair is easy to fix – alls we gotta do is Poor-Sweetheart ourself. We say to ourself, “You Poor Sweetheart, you’re Feeling Overwhelmed, aren’t you.” That statement Shifts our Identity from Despair to Compassion. If we don’t Change the Subject afterwards though, we may get sucked back into Despair (though we could always Poor-Sweetheart ourself again).
Once we slip out of our stiff, scratchy Despair shirt and pull on our soft, warm Compassion hoodie, we can Change the Subject – do something else entirely, and divert our Attention. That will allow the Overwhelming Challenges that Triggered our Despair to Resolve themselves on their own, without the Interference of our Anxiety. After all, We are now Compassion, not Worry.
All Prayers are Answered, and a “You Poor Sweetheart…” is a Prayer of sorts, a Surrendering of the Overwhelm to your Higher Power. It’s also a Loving Moment like Gary Craig talks about in his Unseen Therapist process (https://www.emofree.com/), which is a very Powerful Healing technique to Learn. It’s also Easy to Learn if you’ve been PIAVAing for a while (https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/manifestation/piava-review/).
♥ We don’t talk about them often, but the seven short green lines are also important, and you can take advantage of them in any chart you find them in. They’re called “Unxes” because an “Unx” is one twelfth of something. The Twelfth Harmonic is about Pattern-Breaking. That’s one of the most Powerful Skills we can develop. After all, Karma is just Patterns, so if we can Break those Patterns, we’re Golden.
In fact, the South Node (Karma itself!) has two Unxes, one to Trusting our Forbidden Genius (Aletheia-Ixion-Venus), and the other to Suspending Disbelief (Klotho-Vesta). The implication is that these two Intentional Acts will shake a good deal of our Karma and Self-Sabotage Loose. We won’t turn that down.
The other Unxes and Opportunities for some relatively Easy Pattern-Breaking are…
Suspending Disbelief to Despair/Miracles (Chiron). An excellent Example of that – when you encounter what feels like a familiar Bummer about to repeat, Suspend your Belief that it’s Inevitable. It Aint. Just don’t Grab it. Just slip out the back, Jack; just get off the bus, Gus – there must be fifty ways to Leave your Karma. And don’t for a moment think that your Kinship with your Karma isn’t a Love Relationship – how long have the two of you been Joined at the Hip after all?
Despair/Miracles to your Soul (Uranus). What keeps you from Uniting your Soul and your Ego? You don’t even need to know it, you can just say to yourself, “You Poor Sweetheart, You aren’t Identifying with your Soul as much as you could be, are you.” Then just Change the Subject and Enjoy!
Soul to Consciousness of Fear (Juno-Sedna). I mean, what would your Soul have to Fear, anyway? Certainly not Annihilation, it’s Immortal by definition. Abandonment might Sadden Her, but even that’s Doubtful, as She surely knows that Getting Lost is the first stage of Getting Found. We may have already Resolved all of our Sedna Station Issues with that last Poor Sweetheart. Wouldn’t that be great!
Consciousness of Fear to Unlimited Potential (dwarf planet Chaos). Of course we’ve already Kegeled our Fear into Power, but even then, Unlimited is pretty Scary. Reminds us of when we used to Imagine walking off the Edge of the Flat Earth, or those Nightmares we used to have about the Grand Canyon. Better to PIAVA our Unlimited Potential. How else will we shake it free from our existing Limiting Beliefs?
Unlimited Potential to our Mission (North Node). How does that Feel – Exciting? If it doesn’t, Breathe. Better? You should be Feeling a Surge of Energy up your Spine. We may even be Wondering, what the Hell is my Mission, anyway? If so, great – Wonder is a hidden PIAVA (don’t try to Figure It Out though – that will Limit it). You could make it PIVAWA if you want, or even WIPAVA.
It’s really pretty Simple math – Fear Plus Breathing Equals Excitement, Fear Plus Kegels Equals Power. We’ll probably get lots of Opportunities to practice both over the next week.
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!
Okay, more about the Full Moon chart and the Partial Eclipse that’s a Gateway to the impending Big Total Solar Eclipse that shines a spotlight on the USofA…
As with all Signs, we can run them Positively or we can run them Negatively. Remember though that the World (and hopefully your segment of it) needs ultimately to be in Balance, and is Multidimensional as well, so don’t get stuck in Archetypes that worship either side of that Duality.
(Actually, the World and yourself are always in Balance, it’s just that whatever is needed to Balance your Conscious side resides in the Unconscious. Since the Unconscious actually rules us, then from this Perspective, the nicer you are, the meaner you really are – and vice versa.)
You’ve been to performances where you’ve been Exhausted afterward, and other performances where you’ve felt Energized after. That’s the difference between someone who builds their own Confidence by sucking other people’s Energy (we can think of a prominent example who lives in a house that’s being remodeled at the moment), and someone who Shares their Abundant Leonine Self-Love broadly. Abundance is having enough to Share, After all.
This is the Duality often represented by Leo, where Sun and Mars and Atropos (Endings) are all parked at this Full Moon, along with the North Node (Lifetime Mission), Veritas (Truth), and Varuna (Life Force). Varuna will be in Leo for the next quarter-century, which should put a very Auspicious carpet under this Planet for a long while. As for Mars in Leo, if we wrote a song about our Anger, would it draw a cheering crowd? And when we mingle with the crowd afterward, are they the kind of people we’d Feel at Home with?
We all need a place to return to where we are Understood and Respected and Loved for exactly Who We Really Are, so for all but the most Saintly among us, that first sort of Community is what we need to Create, to make a Safe Space for us while we put the finishing touches on our Saintliness. While Anger tends to Divide, the presence of Atropos suggests that Expressing our Anger may help to Let It Go.
This is what the Leo-Aquarius Axis, which this Full Moon Illuminates, is all about, the Coin that unites the Duality. Leo is the epitome of the Individual Self, Aquarius the epitome of Community. Leo represents Fixed Fire, Stabilized Energy, or Spirit Manifested into Form. Aquarius represents Fixed Air, Ideology, or Intellect Manifested into Form. Michael Roads goes to great lengths to differentiate Intellect from Intelligence. To him Intelligence derives from the Heart and Gut, while Intellect derives from the Left Brain.
The Intellect is more than capable of supporting Intelligence, though in the Patriarchy, it’s more likely to support Morality, Politics, and the Preservation of Privilege. Intellect is finely tuned for Logical Analysis, but Logic is a house of cards built upon Assumptions. Propaganda manipulates your Logic without being Clear that its Assumptions may not be Universal. To Transform Aquarius into Intelligence Manifested into Form, we need to Let Go of our Karmic Archetypes. Our Archetypes and Limiting Beliefs are no more and no less than Unconscious Assumptions. As long as they’re Unconscious, we can only see half of the Universe.
While Astrology deals with Dualities, it also deals with the Multidimensional. Leo and Aquarius are not Complete without the other two Fixed Signs, Scorpio and Taurus (and of course the Fixed Signs are not Complete without the Creative and Mutational Signs). Scorpio as Fixed Water or Emotion, and Taurus as Fixed Earth or Matter, represent the Stabilized Emotional and Material aspects of Reality. Of course, depending on your Archetypes, Emotion and Matter can be Stabilized into either Constructive or Deconstructive Directions.
The Klotho-Sappho Conjunction (Creating a New Timeline Based on Self-Love), which is the Focus of the Full Moon T-Square, is in Scorpio, so we’re dealing with an Emotional version of Self-Love. That means the tears that come naturally to your eyes when someone validates the parts of you that are Unseen – your Genius Project, for instance – and when someone perpetrates an Act of Kindness that your own Personal Values wish everyone would do All the Time. And the Grace you Feel when someone Validates your Anger. The Leo-Aquarius Full Moon is about the Dynamic between the Individual and the Collective – between You and Other.
Which means that the Taurus or Matter side of the Four-Dimensional Balance is Vacant – we need to Consciously Ground the Energy. Dan and the Arcfolk concur –http://danielscranton.com/a-process-for-connecting-with-5d-energies-%e2%88%9ethe-9th-dimensional-arcturian-council/. The Vacancy is at 16 Taurus, “The inadequacy of past knowledge in times of crisis.” Hmmm. I’d rephrase that as “…in times of rapid Change” – in a Stable environment, traditional knowledge is actually very Powerful in a crisis. But the point is that we need to PIAVA how to Ground ourself and our Milieu.
There is, however, a Fixed Star in that location, Almach, which is the left foot of the Sacrificial Goddess Andromeda. Foot as in Power, left as in Feminine Power. Andromeda is a symbol of an Out-of-Power Tradition victimized by the Dominant Paradigm. In other words it’s important to bring Self-Trust into Expression of our Anger, and to remember that our Intention is Self-Expression, not to be Understood. If the Perpetrators Understand our Anger at their Oppression, their Dominance will be threatened, and they will be highly Motivated to torment us further.
Our Objective in Expressing our Anger is not Revenge or Restitution, but to Let Go of its Karmic Grasp of us. Actually, our Karma does not Grasp us, our Ego Grasps it. It’s a foundation for our Ego. So to the Ego, it Feels as if it’s the Karma doing the Grasping. We cannot Raise our Vibration until we Let Go of our Archetypes, including our Anger. While it feels like we’re Angry at the Perps in our Present Life, it has Karmic Roots that will not be pulled out by striking out in the Present Life.
To Let Go of Anger or any strong Emotion, we need to start by Poor-Sweethearting it. Strong Emotions are not Comfortable, and we need to Empathize with our own Discomfort. “You poor Sweetheart, you Feel Angry, don’t you.” It’s meant as a declaration of Self-Compassion, not an Accusation. If being Angry makes you a bad person, find a substitute that isn’t. “Your poor Sweetheart, you really Feel Irritated, don’t you.” Or “Agitated,” or “Worked Up.” Then Change the Subject, and see how long it takes for your Anger to return as a thought-stream.
The next time it arises, Tap it Out (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzVd6Ww0as4). If it’s at all serious, it will take several Iterations. Measure the Intensity of your Anger on a scale of 1 to 10 before and after each Iteration, so you can Witness your Progress. Alternate Poor-Sweethearting, Tapping, and any other PIAVA you can Create, making sure to Change the Subject after each process.
We should note that the Full Moon and the T-Square occur on the Midpoints of the Fixed Signs, which are the Power Points of the Zodiac, symbolizing the Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse – Apocalypse to the Ego, Liberation of the Soul.
We mentioned Obsession recently in this context, as Obsession can make it particularly difficult to Change the Subject, and a reader wrote to ask us how one might address Obsession. Well, the first question I’d ask, is how might Obsession be indicated in their chart?
If it’s really an Appropriate Expression of their natality, then they may only need to Learn to Love it to Death. That may not stop the Obsession, but it would make it more Pleasant, as once they Learned that, Obsession would trigger Love and Pleasure for them instead of Discomfort. Of course, Learning to Love Obsession will likely involve a good deal of Ego Death, as at least some part of them wants it to go away, and they probably have a big backlog of Other People telling them it’s wrong. But that’s all just a map of where they need to go to Learn to be Loving with it.
So, is Obsession an Appropriate Expression of their natal chart? What would we look for?
Well, the most obvious place to start looking is Scorpio, and to a lesser extent Taurus. These signs, especially Scorpio, don’t Let Go when they get hold of something they don’t fully grok yet, especially something Emotional, and especially something that seems Unfair. Does our friend have planets in Scorpio?
Well, yes. seven of them. We work with 45 planets and other points, so the average Sign should contain less than four planets. So seven is a whole bunch.
We can start by what we would tell any Scorpio that might help them Love themselves…
Scorpio is Compelled to Get to the Bottom of Things. We first Meet Other in Libra, and it raises all kinds of Questions for us, about whether We’re Okay and They Aren’t or They’re Okay and We Aren’t, whenever there seems to be a Conflict or even Contrast between us. This is how we first Discover that our own Childhood may not have been as Loving as it could have been, so it’s not at all trivial.
It’s not easy for Anyone to get to You’re Okay and I’m Okay, and for Scorpio it becomes a Compulsion. It takes a great deal of Maturity to understand that the end point is You’re Okay and I’m Okay rather than You’re Okay or I’m Okay, which complicates the whole process until we Realize that. We also have to Realize that just because You’re Okay and I’m Okay, that doesn’t mean I have to Tolerate you if you aren’t my cup of tea.
Also, Scorpio is Fearless in their Pursuit of Truth. Fearlessness is the most prominent element of Scorpio. Other people do not Trust Scorpio, partly because Scorpio asks penetrating questions that require them to examine themselves more deeply than they usually like to, partly because Scorpio has a tendency to make and hold eye contact longer than most people are comfortable with. Other people often feel like Scorpio is Looking into the Soul (which it is), and if they aren’t fully in Self-Love, it makes them want to run away.
Because of these kinds of Reactions from Other, Scorpio is one of the most difficult Signs to Embody in Left-Brain-worshiping Western Cultures. Remember we aren’t talking about folks with Sun in Scorpio, we’re talking about anyone with a strong emphasis in Scorpio – or Pluto, Scorpio’s “Ruler” – in their natal chart or even in their Transits and Progressions.
These kinds of influences often draw Scorpio toward Addiction, and Teaching them to Love Themselves Exactly As They Are is the first step to helping them get out of Addiction, as the most prominent trigger for their Desire to Medicate is the Anxiety produced by their Need to Get to the Bottom of Things that are Forbidden to them. Strong Scorpio is a good indicator that a person’s Forbidden Genius lies in sophisticated Research of Private Investigation.
That’s the gist of what we would tell any Scorpio, or anyone with a strong Pluto, in a reading.
So, which planets are we talking about? Ixion (Forbidden Genius), Quaoar (Survival Instincts), Ceres (Sustainability), Klotho (Plotting a New Timeline), and Vertex (Intuition) are all at the Midpoint of Scorpio, which just happens to be (there go those Coincidences again!) where Transiting Klotho and Sappho (Starting a New Timeline based on Self-Love) happen to be sitting as we speak, making their T-Square to the 7 August Full Moon.
Whoa, this is Big. The Midpoint of Scorpio is one of the Four Horsefolk of Ego Death, so we probably have a case of chronic Self-Attack (that is Ego-Attack, not Soul-Attack). Sir Self-Lance-a-Lot. All very strongly Lit Up this week. So we’d prescribe a strong ongoing dose of Poor-Sweethearts. Can we even interpret a Klotho-Sappho Transit, Square to a Full Moon, sitting on a natal Ixion-Quaoar-Ceres-Klotho-Vertex Stellium?
Oops, have to interrupt again. A Stellium (three or more planets in the same place) isn’t easy. What would we tell someone with a Stellium in their chart, to help them Learn to Appreciate their Uniqueness?
Well, the Culture we grow up in has certain Differentiations that are an integral part of the Culture. For instance, Boys are different from Girls, and never the twain shall meet. What fireworks have been going on the USofA when that Differentiation is Challenged! The youngsters understand that they’re both just People, but the Differentiation is so ingrained in the brains of the oldsters that they fight it all the way to the “Supreme” Court, and Obsess (!) on it.
So when we have two or more planets in the same place, we don’t know the Difference. Folks who start a Life when Mars and Venus are Conjoined (in or close to the same Degree) have no idea that there’s any Difference at all! So they have a difficult time Relating to, and Being Related to by, anyone who’s Obsessed with the Difference, because their brains are wired very differently.
And that’s just two planets. With a five-planet Stellium, the difficulty of Communicating with Others is multiplied many times. To start with, only 2.5% of us will have a 5-planet Stellium (using 45 planets), so we can expect to be able to Communicate at all with one person in 40. However, what’s the probability that the next person with a 5-planet Stellium is going to have a Stellium that includes the same five planets?
Without breaking any blood vessels in my brain, I’d guess that would be something like 1/9 to the fourth or fifth power, or about one person in 60,000, although that assumes that the 45 planets are distributed randomly around the Zodiac, which is far from true. You could start a worldwide club, advertising on the internet to connect with everyone who started Life with a Ixion-Quaoar-Ceres-Klotho-Vertex Stellium. You might end up with just the people who were born on the same day and year as you.
And now you’re going to run into another problem. Very few of these people will have ever learned to Love themselves, even if their Stellium isn’t in Scorpio. When you meet a Soulmate, if your Self-Love isn’t Total, you’re going to Project your Self-Rejection all over one another, and end up hating one another, very soon. I once introduced two people with very similar, very unusual birth charts, Scorpios even, and they became housemates. That lasted about a month before they ran screaming from one another.
So until you Learn to Love your own Uniqueness fairly thoroughly, you may need to settle for non-intimate Relationships for a while. Look for people who are already Ascended or Enlightened, who may be able to Accept you Exactly As You Are, even if they’re not like you at all – they may even find your Uniqueness fascinating. There should be a reasonable number of those folks around. You won’t be their Onliest…
Since you are a shining light
There’s many that you’ll see
But I have to deal with envy
When you choose the precious few
Who’ve left their pride on the other side of
Coming back to you
as Leonard Cohen put it, but at least you’ll be Accepted, and you’ll get a taste of what it will be like to Love your Uniqueness, till you Lesrn to Obsess on Loving your Uniqueness.
Well, we know that this person, on the Soul Level, Intends in this Lifetime to Get to the Bottom of Self-Abuse (and I don’t mean self-pleasuring) once and for all (Klotho-Sappho). So they probably “hired” parents and other significant adults that programmed a good deal of persistent Self-Rejection (Ixion-Quaoar-Ceres) into them as Children. That’s how we do it – whatever we Intend to Let Go Of permanently in a Lifetime, we on the Soul level make sure we get a big dose of it, so we’ll Recognize it and be Motivated to Change the Pattern.
So, with Mars and Atropos on the Full-Moon Sun, it would be a fabulous time to start writing a series of Angry letters, that they don’t intend to send, to their Childhood Programmers, so they can begin Getting to the Bottom of their Abandoned Genius’s Real Feelings. We can Learn about Blame and Responsibility later.
Oh, did I forget to mention that Jupiter (Amplification) and Sappho (Self-Love) are also in Scorpio? So our friend is even more Determined to break out of her prison of Self-Admonishment, as she has Chosen (on the Soul level) to Obsess about her Amplified Desire for Self-Love!
Did someone say Obsession? Damn Right! Obsessed with this prison-break, and for damn good reasons!!! It’s a central theme of their Soul-level Plan for the Lifetime! So come Hell or High Water, they need to start Obsessing (and PIAVAing) on Learning how to Celebrate Obsession like it is the Incredible Gift to themselves that it truly is! Set a timer, and Celebrate Obsession at least once an hour, every day.
Okay, with the preliminaries out of the way we can get down the the meat of the issue. Their Ixion-Quaoar-Ceres-Klotho-Vertex Stellium is Opposed by Chiron (Despair and Miracle). That’s like a dagger held by her Programmers, slicing little chunks out of her skin constantly. To move from Despair to Miracle we need to Empathize with our Despair. “You Poor Sweetheart, you really Feel Down on yourself, don’t you.” Now, we know that Changing the Subject (which gets the mind and old Karmic Patterns out of the way so they don’t re-up the Despair) won’t be easy – that’s the whole issue, isn’t it.
So we can try building a strong practice of Tapping (YouTube link above). “Even though I’m Obsessing about this Despair, I deeply and completely Love and Accept myself.” Measuring the Intensity of Feeling (0 to 10) before and after each of many Iterations will be important – as long as you’re getting any reduction, keep Tapping, till you get close to zero. If you aren’t getting reduction, try alternating with Poor-Sweethearts, or Dancing, or doing anything Different. This is Multi-Lifetime stuff, so you need to be Obsessive about working on it, but then, that’s your specialty, eh?
Phew, that’s a lot, isn’t it. Are we done? Not a chance. Mercury, of all people, makes a T-Square across the Opposition between the Ixion-Quaoar-Ceres-Klotho-Vertex Stellium and Chiron. Now we have to interrupt again, since T-Squares are quite difficult, so we have to give our standard speech about how to Love a T-Square…
A T-Square is like a graduate seminar. We Expect to be able to “get it right” once in a while, so we can feel halfway Competent. But with a T-Square, there is no “getting it right.” In a graduate seminar there are no right Answers, only clever and relevant Questions. No matter how long anyone Lives a T-Square, they’ll never Feel Satisfied about it, until they Learn to Appreciate that on a Soul level they’ve adopted this Issue as a Lifetime Learning Opportunity, and each time it arises – which is likely to be daily – they’ll be working on a new, more subtle and broader, version of the same Lesson.
It’s pass/fail, and you only pass when you Recognize that this is your Lifetime Study Project, and Honor yourself for the Fact that you actually know a Hell of a lot more about it than most anyone else on the Planet, because you wrestle with it daily. You begin to Change a “bad” Habit by Noticing that you’re Doing it again, and Congratulating yourself for Noticing rather than Cursing yourself for Doing it again – substituting positive reinforcement for negative reinforcement, because reinforcement is cumulative.
So when you Notice that you’re working on that Issue again, Congratulate yourself for looking at it from yet another Perspective, and Honor yourself for all of the Perspectives you’ve already Discovered, rather than Indulging your Frustration at not getting it Right yet again, you’ll shift your Perspective toward what is otherwise one of your greatest Frustrations.
That’s what T-Squares are all about. Now, what about this Mercury T-Square? Well a Mercury T-Square (until you make the shift we just talked about) means that your mind is always picking at you. Anxiety ‘R’ Us, and it’s not just Worry, it’s Negative Self-Talk. So we have to Learn to Notice that we’re Doing Negative Self-Talk again, Congratulate ourself for Noticing, and Honor ourself for how Skilled we’ve actually become at dealing with Negative Self-Talk.
If a friend complained to you about their Negative Self-Talk, I’ll bet you could give them a thousand suggestions for dealing with it. You’re a World Expert on Negative Self-Talk. You could write best-sellers about it. You need to Honor yourself for that, even if it doesn’t Feel True at first. I guarantee you, it is True.
Now, we’re dealing with Negative Self-Talk about Chiron Opposite a Ixion-Quaoar-Ceres-Klotho-Vertex Stellium, which isn’t chicken-feed. With Quaoar-Ceres-Klotho-Vertex as part of your Stellium, a deep part of you (with strong Scorpio, Diving Deep is one of your greatest Skills) knows Intuitively (Vertex) that your Survival (Quaoar) is Assured (Ceres) once you Begin (Klotho) to Love Yourself Exactly As You Are. You just don’t know where to start because no one has ever Mirrored your True Self to you.
Then we add Ixion. We have to interrupt again for our Learn-to-Love-Ixion speech…
Ixion was the Bad Boy of the Greek Pantheon, who was basically a sociopath who thought all rules applied to everyone else (like that fellow in the house that’s pained white and being remodeled). Well, talk to any Accomplished Genius, and they’ll tell you they didn’t get there by following other people’s rules. To live Genius you need to break as many rules as you can get away with.
But you’ll always be condemned for it. So, not actually being a sociopath, you’ll need to develop a thick skin about Criticism from Others. And with your parents and other Programmers probably very Critical people, you’re going to have a lot of Olde Reactions to Criticism, and probably “Leave your Body” (space out) when someone starts Criticizing you. Well, you probably want to enlist some friends and Act Out a thousand Criticism scenarios, till you can Stay Present with Yourself when being Criticized, and Learn when Defending yourself is a waste of time that’ll just get more Criticism, and How to Defend yourself when it’s worth it (ie, with a Relationship you Want to Keep).
In Cultures that Value Conformity, Ixion is Rejected out of hand. That’s why we refer to that part of ourself as our Forbidden or Abandoned or Pathological Genius, and refer to Recovery of that part of ourself as our Genius Project. It’s a Big Project for everyone, but especially important for you. Eventually, once you become the World’s foremost Psychoanalyst, or the World’s most Unique Artist who Communicates with parts of people that have never been Communicated to before ever, you’ll understand how Unique you are, and Honor it.
But meanwhile, there’s homework to be done, because you’re probably in the Habit of giving your Unique Genius more Negative Self-Talk than anyone. So you’ll have to Learn toNotice that you’re Doing Negative Self-Talk about your Unmirrored Uniqueness again, Congratulate yourself for Noticing, and Honor yourself for how Skilled you’ve actually become at dealing with Negative Self-Talk about your Uniqueness.
Lots of work ahead, but at least now you have a curriculum.
What’s that? Oh, we aren’t quite done? Oh yeah, remember that Jupiter-Sappho in Scorpio? Well, it happens to be in a “Grand Cross,” Opposite a Stellium of Chaos (Unlimited Potential), Sedna (Fear), Chariklo (Self-Confidence), and Moira (Choosing Consciousness), with Sedna Stationary (Strong), Square to a Stellium of Sun (your Essence), Atropos (Endings), and Mnemosyne (Memory), which is in turn Opposite to a Stellium of Orcus (Breaking Vows), Hylonome (Escaping from Archetypes), and Lachesis (Duration), with Lachesis Exactly Stationary (very Strong). All this is actually enormously Positive, but there’s a lot in it that needs to be Learned to Love.
We won’t take that up now, we’ll save it for after you’ve digested some of the earlier homework, which is more than ample. The earlier homework is Lit Up Bigtime by the Full Moon, so it’s a more current assignment anyway. This later Grand Cross is Lit Up only by the Transiting Conjunction of Varuna (the Life Force) and Veritas (Truth), which is actually quite a lot, but nothing compared to how much your Mercury T-Square and Ixion Stellium are Lit Up.
Oh, also, when you’re ready, remind me to talk about the “Vacancy” to your Mercury T-Square.
And, once you’ve started on the earlier homework in earnest, we can talk about that friend you mentioned, and see how they might, by virtue of their own birth chart, inadvertently trigger either your Mercury-Chiron-Ixion-et al T-Square or your Lachesis-et al Grand Cross, or both. We’ll also need to cover Blame and Responsibility then.
Oh, and since Pluto (Transformation) is similar to Scorpio, and likely to be involved in Obsession, we should eventually look at that too. It’s after all Conjunct Saturn (The Most Important Thing), so that’s a strong indication that Obsession is actually your Greatest Skill, you just need to Learn to Love it. Also, Pluto-Saturn makes a T-Square across your Nodes (Why You Took This Lifetime), so that’s another indicator that This is the Lifetime you Chose, on the Soul level, to become the World’s greatest Expert on Obsession, and once and for all Let Go of your Ego Attachment to it, and Let Go of your Rejection of Obsession and of yourself.
Plus, Nessus (Abuse and Privilege) is on your North Node (Your Mission in the Lifetime) and Moon-Venus (Your Instincts and Values) is on your South Node (The Karmic Impediments to your Mission that you Chose on the Soul level to help you Accomplish your Mission in the Lifetime, which Impediments happen to hide the Skills you need to Accomplish your Mission), further complicating this T-Square.
That’s a lot, but Remember that, as the Findhorn Transformation Game says, the Hardest Assignments are only given to the Best People.
We don’t want to give short shrift to the 15 April Venus Station (3am PDT at 27 Pisces), so let’s finish up the Full Moon expeditiously. Let me know if any questions come up. Two other charts are fundamental to grokking the Full Moon, the chart of the Mercury (9 April 4pm PDT, 5 Taurus) and Hylonome (10 April 6am PDT, 9 Capricorn) Stations, and the chart of the Varuna Station (10 April 3pm PDT, 29 Cancer).
Here’s the chart of the Mercury and Hylonome Stations…
The big Grand Cross (red Square and Xes) and the two Grand Trines (equal-sided blue Triangles, which are actually Kites when we add the little triangles on one side of each of them) are the standout features. I don’t think we introduced the Grand Trine earlier.
A “Trine” is the Angle between two planets that are one third of the way round the Zodiac, and the “Grand Trine” is made up of three planets equally spaced around the Loop. Put a fourth planet halfway between two of those, and you have a “Kite,” so named because that’s what it looks like. A Grand Trine makes things so Easy that we refer to it as “Dumb-Luck Grace.”
The “best” charts are charts like this one, that contain major Motivation Configurations (Grand Cross) and major Grace Configurations (Grand Trines), because they Balance Work and Ease, so we neither exhaust ourself nor get lazy.
This is the chart of a highly Motivated Multi-Tasker who can learn how to Channel tons of Grace. Grace is its own Master; until we Learn that others have their own Unique Skills, a Grand Cross often signifies Arrogance, as folks seem incompetent to us when they can’t do what’s Effortless for us. The two Stations are both part of the Grace, not part of the Motivation, and the Complement one another very very well, being both in Earth Signs.
So we should be able to identify the Archeypes that we need to Let Go of relatively easily – don’t try to get hyper-analytical about it, just Ask your Belly what makes it Tense Up.
There are two Fingers of God, one pointing at Hylonome (Letting Go of Archetypes) and the other at Eurydike (Trust). These are the two Energies that the Universe is Asking us to Pay Special Attention to.
The Varuna-Station chart is more assymetrical…
We can see the Grand Trine (big blue triangle) and two “T-Squares” (big red triangles pointing to the left and lower left). A T-Square is half of a Grand Cross, and represents Mastery through Challenge. We usually don’t appreciate the Mastery because we usually get stuck on the Frustration of the ongoing Challenge; we eliminate the Frustration by Paying Attention to how much Mastery we’ve gained.
All that Pressure (where the red and blue triangles converge, at the focus of the T-Square and a corner of the Grand Trine) focuses on asteroid Sappho, which symbolizes Self-Love. We’ll be making our course Easier by exercising what Self-Love we’ve already Mastered, while we’re Learning more of it.
The other T-Square points toward a Stellium made up of Ixion (Our Forbidden Genius), Saturn (The Most Important Thing), Pholus (Taking Full Responsibility), Quaoar (Survival Instincts), and the Galactic Center (Instructions from Headquarters). This is pretty serious; basically the Universe is telling us that we all need to get busy Taking Full Responsibility for Recovering our Unique Genius, or our Survival will be in Question.
But neither of these, Big as they are, is the dominant Configuration – that’s the Yin Gate, the two green Xs in the middle of the chart, enclosed in the blue rectangle, and intertwined with the red Ж (Cyrillic letter Zhe) in the center. The bottom line of a Yin Gate is to Learn the Paradox represented by the central long red line.
Here that’s the Nodal Axis – the path of our Spiritual Progress during the Lifetime. The Paradox involved here is that We Need the Skills Hidden beneath our Held (maximally resisted) Emotions (the South Node or earbuds at the bottom) in order to accomplish our Lifetime Mission (the North Node or stethoscope at the top). That which we hate is our most Powerful tool, once we Learn to Embrace it.
Once again, The Donald is our role model. No, we wouldn’t want to be him, or be like him. But he’s Donald. You’re You, he’s Donald. Look at the flack he’s taking for being unabashedly Himself. That’s why we Abandoned our Genius in the first place – because Other People couldn’t stand to see it when their own Genius was so beaten down. Yes, he’d make an awful president, and yes, we can Embrace our Genius without being pathologically Narcissistic about it, and yes, he’s making a Shameful punching bag for the Patriarchy (which needs it badly), but he makes a Perfect Donald.
The difficult thing about a T-Square, geometrically, is that it’s out of Balance. It flops all over onto one side of the Sphere. It needs Balance, and the perfect Balance for it is a fourth planet opposite the third, creating a Grand Cross out of it. The Balance is so important that we call the place where that fourth planet would be a “Vacancy,” and consider it to be the most important point “in” the T-Square. The Sabian Symbol for the Vacancy in the Chiron T-Square is “A royal coat of arms enriched with precious stones: The certification of aristocratic status, at whatever level ‘nobility’ expresses itself in cultural eminence.”
A Sabian Symbol is an interpretation for a specific individual Degree.
That’s the Energy that the Universe doesn’t provide, the Energy which we need to provide, to bring the World into Balance. Remember Zaphod’s smugness? Try it on again, back to the Mirror. Go for it. How would it feel in your Body if you were The Donald? Not when he’s being pilloried, but when he’s being his happy-go-lucky self in his own Universe. Give yourself Permission to be smug, in a charming sort of way, without being insufferable. You can be Royalty, and enjoy it when everyone treats you like Royalty. It’s okay, because you’re treating everyone else like Royalty too.
We’ve experienced this completion of the Grand Cross – the Sun filled that role in mid-September, Venus around 24 August. And just to make sure we weren’t Avoiding the Lesson Plan too much, Mercury danced over it three times, in mid-August, around 11 September, and 2 October. Good example of how Retrograding is the Universe’s way to rub it in.
And now asteroid Hopi moves into that position, filling the Grand Cross, and staying there for the next ten days. Asteroid Hopi stands for Respect for All Things. All Entities, everything your mind can conceive as Separate, have Consciousness, and they are all our Equals, all Deserving of Respect. Because the Universe is Composed of Consciousness, and Consciousness alone. Suddenly it’s not just your colleagues and friends who are also Royalty, but the Bugs and the Dust Motes and the Pansies and the Gravel – each little Stone. Fortunately, Gravel enjoys being walked on, they like the way it tickles. You can hear their hoarse giggle as you walk on them.
There is Grace here as well. The budding Nemesis-Juno Conjunction (Consciousness of our Limiting Beliefs), now joined by Venus (our Values, which are Changing), Trine-Bridges the Chiron-Hopi Opposition.
If you were reading closely you noticed in Part I that we referred to the Chiron T-Square. We’ve talked about Chiron, so what’s a T-Square? Geometrically, it’s two planets that Oppose one another, with a third planet at their Midpoint. It puts a lot of Stress on the third planet – in this case, Chiron.
If you have a shred of Perfectionism in you, or even just want to get your Needs met, a T-Square will Frustrate you no end. It’s a problem without a solution. That’s in fact an oxymoron. If there is no solution, then there is no problem. Case closed. It’s like Chiron, you have to Change your Perspective. A T-Square is not a problem, it’s a Practice. You don’t Solve or even Resolve a T-Square, you Study it. No matter how thoroughly you Explore it, there will always be more to Discover. Life is like that, if you aren’t Dead to it.
We refer to a T-Square as Mastery through Challenge, because even though it Feels Frustrating, it’s the Essence of our Lifetime Study, and not only are we an Expert on it, but we Explore more subtleties about it every day, whether we recognize it or not. Very few of us Acknowledge ourself for this, but it’s never too late to start.
So a Chiron T-Square is a double whammy. Fortunately, we’ve been practicing Changing the Subject and Paying Attention a lot as we do our PIAVAs. And that’s all we need to do. When we detect the beginning of Chironean Despair, we Change the Subject with a quick “You poor Sweetheart…” and then go about our business. We may not even notice that Miracles have occurred, because “we” are no longer Identifying with the person who was beginning to Feel Despair.
When we start to perceive another dead end with a T-Square, we Pay Attention. Oh, right, this is a graduate seminar. There aren’t any Right Answers, only Creative Questions. What’s familiar about this Frustration? How is it different from the last one? Am I doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome (I think that was another Einsteinism)? Or am I Exploring a slightly different level or angle this time? When it feels like we’re in a rut, all we need to do is tweak one of the variables, Study it from a different angle.
The Chiron T-Square has been in effect (within three Degrees of Sensitivity) since the end of July, and it will be with us till late November. Unfortunately (from the Perspective of Ease – Fortunately from the Perspective of Learning, and this is an important Learning for a Huper), it peaked at the September Equinox, which means it’ll be with us for a year.
While in a T-Square the third planet gets the juice, the two planets in Opposition give us hints about what we’re Learning. At the September Equinox, one of these original two planets was Stationary – at its Strongest, temporarily rivaling Chiron for the Juiciest Award. That planet was the dwarf Chaos – which signifies Unlimitedness.
So we get a triple whammy – remember we said the worst kind of Despair was Unconscious Despair, when we just didn’t Believe something was even Possible? So now we’re staring into an Infinite Abyss of Possibility, virtually Douglas Adams and Zaphod Beeblebrox’s Infinite Improbability Drive. Talk about Frustration! Thank the Goddesses that the Equinox is behind us – though the impact isn’t, is it. What we “always” thought were Limits suddenly aren’t.
Unless of course we’re still in Denial, which most of us are. How do I know that? Well, the third planet in our triumvirate is Ixion, our Abandoned Genius. We’ve a pretty good wall around our Hidden Genius, and that wall keeps us Safe, so we aren’t going to give it up just because someone built a glass-bottomed bridge across a bottomless canyon. Even if they hung bungee chords from it.
“You poor Sweetheart, you’re dangling over a bottomless canyon that you’d never survive a fall into, aren’t you. And you poor poor Sweetheart, a very precious part of you is at the bottom of the canyon beckoning to you, pleading for your help, aren’t they. Woe Is Us! You poor Sweetheart, you’re in a pickle with no escape, aren’t you.”
Think about that. This is going on in your Life on some level. What is it about for you? You don’t have to tell anybody else, just admit it to yourself. Don’t worry about it making “sense” – it won’t. Not to the mind anyway, so don’t even try. Your Belly and your Heart know all about it, though, and they understand it completely. Don’t they.
And yes, You would never survive a fall, because the Dangling You would reunite with the Abandoned You at the bottom, and a whole new You would be born.
Haumea (Rebirth) makes a Trine Bridge (Free Pass) across the Chaos-Ixion Opposition. So does Uranus-Eris (Yintegrity, Authenticity), and together they form a Golden Rectangle (Lifetime Free Pass). What a Temptation!! And just to add another exclamation point, asteroid Veritas (Truth) is sitting on Chaos!
Just to rub it in, Pholus (Full Responsibility To) sits with Ixion, Asking us to be Fully Responsible To our Brilliant, Georgeous, Talented, Fabulous, Unique Genius. No two of us are alike, and the jigsaw puzzle doesn’t fit together without ALL of us, in ALL of our Goddess-Given Glory. Remember how smug Zaphod was? Try it on; it suits you. Try it on in the Mirror, see how you Light Up the room?
Once again, The Donald is our role model. No, we wouldn’t want to be him, or be like him. But he’s Donald. Look at the flack he’s taking for being unabashedly Himself. That’s why we Abandoned our Genius in the first place – because Other People couldn’t stand to see it when their own Genius was so beaten down. Yes, he’d make an awful president, and yes, we can Embrace our Genius without being pathologically Narcissistic about it, and yes, he’s making a Shameful punching bag for the Patriarchy (which needs it badly), but he makes a Perfect Donald.
Dendritic Talc. Talc is just a Magnesium Mica. The green Dendrites are Pyrolusite, a simple Manganese Oxide. Can you stop thinking long enough to understand what they’re saying? Suppose you really already knew their meaning. You don’t have to repeat it, just know it.
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A huge Blessing is upon us at half-past 1am PDT on 3 August (http://www.jbuss.com/tt/pdt1.htm). The Portal is Open for about six hours on either side of this peak Opening. If you’re stuck in one of the Traumas that are going on – your house burning down for instance – know that your Blessing is in disguise, to be revealed later. Taking advantage of the Blessing is easy. Here’s how Dr. Kim D’Eramo describes it in her fabulously Useful and Powerful little book The MindBody Toolkit (pp.43-46)…
“Become aware of how you are feeling right now. Do this on a scale of 0-10, ten being the best. Rate your emotional level and acknowledge it. Just your awareness of your internal state actually shifts your chemistry immediately. This shift occurs because it changes the thoughts you are having and the quality of your attention. You shift from having unconscious thoughts, which are usually negative and limiting, to being consciously aware and focusing on your internal state.”
“The fastest way I’ve found to become awakened is by feeling your body. You just bring your attention into your physical body and focus on how it feels. Your body only lives in the ‘Now’ so this practice immediately gets your mind out of past or future focus… Your internal state is never something in the past or something in the future. It can only exist Now!”
Of course it’s a boon to be Loving and Gentle with yourself wherever you are, Listen to your Body, Talk to it, Ask it if it’s Feeling what you think it’s Feeling (it may reveal subtleties you didn’t notice). Dr. Kim’s next step is to Breathe; ours is usually to Empathize.
This specific Window is the Moon crossing Chiron. That’s a big deal because Chiron is currently the focus of a Diamond Star.
The Diamond Star is a T-Square and a Yod with the same focus. The base of the Yod maps a double Trine-Sextile Bridge across the T-Square, providing a bundle of Grace to help us resolve what would otherwise feel Frustrating and impossible to solve to our Satisfaction.
The fastest-moving planet in the Diamond Star (except for the Moon) is Mercury, which is currently covering about two Degrees a day. So the Diamond Star will be in effect for about a day and a half on either side of our 1:30am peak – but the Moon (with it’s plus or minus 6-hour Window) is a Big Peak, and it’s Window is much more intense than Mercury’s.
This is also an excellent opportunity to begin to Open to the Secrets that will be spilling out under the closet door for the next ten months, as those Secrets – which ultimately promise a significant Rebirth – harmonize nicely with the 1:30am Portal.
The approaching Uranus-Eris Conjunction, which Opposes Haumea, forms an additional Trine-Sextile Bridge across the T-Square. That again gives us five of six points in a Grand Sextile, with the Vacancy again being the rug in the nursery – Self-Love, and Love for your Inner Rugrats – as the key to putting everything together. As for the T-Square itself…
We are faced with a conundrum, a significant Life Choice that will Create one Future or another, neither of which will be recognizable from the other.
That’s the way it Feels. It’s not really that way, but that’s how it Feels. You were enmeshed in that Drama last week, and you’ll be there again next week. You feel resolved now because of the Grace in this Portal. Memorize what it feels like here, so you can take it with you. The Anxiety isn’t useful, and Denying your real Feelings isn’t useful either. Anxiety arises from trying to resolve a discomfort with the mind. “Fake it till you make it” is useful at times, but it’s a form of Denial that we can’t afford at this juncture. The easy way to recall the Grace we’re enjoying here, is to use Dr. Kim’s technique we introduced above to get into your body. Her book has a lot more very Powerful techniques in it, and will prove useful over the next month.
The T-Square is the same one we’ve been talking about for a while now, as different foreground astroevents have emphasized various Perspectives on it. The base of the T-Square is the long-lived Opposition between the dwarf planet Chaos and the Pholus-Ixion Conjunction. In one form or another this T-Square has been hounding us since early May, and will continue until early October. So what is the T-Square about?
The basic issue is how much we allow ourself to express our Truth. As a child you were made to feel wrong about certain elements of your Self. No accident and – contrary to the way it feels – no Blame, as your larger Self was just setting up a curriculum for your Ego Self in the Lifetime. You’re very Confused about where the Edge is between Responsibility and Truth. You’ve been repressing this part (or these parts) of your Self for so long that you’re well adjusted to your compromises. But there’s still dischord there under the surface.
You’re beginning to see how the buried part(s) of your Self are natural and legitimate parts of a normal Human Life – whether your Culture or your Programmed Values think so or not. This Clarity may actually at times increase the Tension between your Truth and your Hidden Self. These processes are going on deep in the Unconscious, so while you’re very aware of their dischord, they aren’t likely to jump out of the closet suddenly and betray your cover – and they may not even be totally Conscious. But you’re beginning to see how other folks Enjoy this aspect of Life, and realize how much you’d like to do the same.
We of course have a complex web of Fantasies set up to normalize the Tension between our Hidden Truth and our Subterfuges. Fantasies are like PIAVAs in cages. They’re Intentions and Affirmations, but with blocks to keep them from Manifesting, because if they did Manifest into Form it would disrupt the rest of our Lives – which are built on the foundation of our Compromises and Compensations – too much. If you look, you can see many examples in the news, about folks whose Hidden Self has broken out beyond their ability to keep things under Control. You needn’t Fear that happening to you, simply because if you’re reading this, you’re much more Conscious than that.
Nevertheless, we don’t see a Resolution that won’t tear our Lives apart.
Which is the nature of an astrological Square. There is no “Solution” because there is no “Problem.” There is Tension, and Tension is Creative. It’s the root of Motivation. Whatever you’ve been thinking about the Tension between your Disallowed Truth and your Proper Persona, is just that – thinking. As Einstein said, you’ll never solve a problem using the same thinking that you’re using to describe the problem.
Stop thinking and Feel the Tension, as Tension. Where is it in your Body? Is it uncomfortable? How much so? What happens when you focus all of your Attention into the center of it? Does it Change? Feel better, worse, or the same – or just different? How long can you hold your Attention there before wandering? How many times can you bring your Attention back to it? Can you imagine what Life would be like if you broke your addiction to thinking, and just Lived directly from your Experiences in your Body?
No?
Good, it’ll be a Surprise then – what Fun! What we’re recovering here is our Innocence. As children we didn’t need permission to be Curious and Explore. That’s the internal state that we’re rediscovering. All of the Tension and Anxiety about what we thought has been a Conflict for us, are just that, Tension and Anxiety. When we escape from the Mental Body and just Be in the Physical Body, we can Feel that elemental Curiosity again. Maybe not right away; it may take some dancing around with our various Selves before we come to it, but that’s where we’re headed. Curiosity as our Natural State of Being. Not Curiosity for the sake of finding Answers, but the kind of Curiosity that “killed the Cat.” Permanent, Sustainable, Regenerative Curiosity.
Can you Recover a hint of it now, while this Window of Grace is Open? Maybe it’ll help you remember after it closes.
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Here’s a gloriously concise description of everything I’ve been using so many words to say…
Manganvesuvianite – the Manganese-rich form of Vesuvianite, named for the Volcano that decimated Roman Pompeii. Vesuvianite symbolizes the Mother Goddess, Creator of All That Is, and her Power to Heal “Miraculously.” It appears as a Miracle to the Limited mind; it’s everyday to the Goddess. The Manganese clears away Confusion so we can see the Growth that’s hiding behind it and Embrace it.
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A reader asks…
“Can you talk more about those of us who have a planet squaring the nodes?”
Which is an excellent question. It’s a similar situation for folks with planets Conjunct either Node.
A “Square” is two planets that are separated by one fourth of the Zodiac; they’re near the same Degree but three Signs apart. A T-Square is two Squares connected end-to-end, or two planets Opposing one another with a third planet halfway between them. Both mean Mastery through Challenge, the T-Square’s Challenge being more Challenging than a single Square’s Challenge.
First though, let me address another reader comment…
“That discussion of squares/Tsquares got me – depressed – no, actually, I recognized that feeling as despair when I read it. Your writings have taught me to recognize that feeling – despair. And unconscious despair. I never knew what that darkness was. It’s been interesting to note where, when, how often it comes. That’s helped clear a fair amount of it to an extent…just recognizing it for what it is. That post brought it on. Condemnation. I always thought squares were Mastery Through Challenge. So there is no ‘never.’ Mastery comes. Not just ‘getting it’ but MASTERY!! I feel like they should be called Infinitely Perpetual Challenge then. Give it up. You ain’t getting anywhere.”
Well, Infinitely Perpetual Challenge isn’t far off – till you Change your Objective. Let’s take any of us that have Squares to Mars or Venus for an example – that’s timely, with Mars Initiating Venus and Wabi-Sabi Stationary. We don’t even need a Square between Mars and Venus, just some other planet Squaring Mars or Venus. Those movie scenes and ads about Perfect Romance and Perfect Bodies and Perfect Faces are irresistible to us. Pant, Pant. And that’s the whole idea – it ain’t Real, it’s a Trance. I’ll wager that every Relationship you’ve ever been in hadsome positive feature. If you cut out each one of those boons and pasted it on your Ken or Barbie doll, you’ll witness your Mastery first-hand. You just haven’t put them together all at once.
That’s actually a great way to move toward What You Want – list the pieces or characteristics of your Desire, check to see which ones you’ve already Manifested, and then work on the others. When you get most of them checked off, list all the combinations – A+B, A+C, B+C, etc. and start working on those – you can Plan and Execute, or PIAVFA, or both. Then if you need to, work on the triplets – A+B+C, A+B+D, B+C+D, etc. – and the quadruplets. Sound too complex? Hmmm. Maybe it’s your Desire that’s too complex. Maybe you need to Prioritize a little.
Let’s try a thought experiment. Think about your unfulfilled Desire. Now pick its two most important characteristics. Just for the sake of illustration we’ll call them Passion and Security. Sound contradictory?
That may be part of your Frustration. Contradiction exists only in the mind, not in Reality. In Reality it’s Both/And; in Real Life it’s called Paradox, not Contradiction. If we’re striving for two Paradoxical qualities that we Believe are Contradictory, we will be doomed to Infinitely Perpetual Challenge. It’s very difficult to Manifest what we don’t Believe – this is part of the Powerful “Placebo” effect. So the first thing we may need to PIAFA is that we Believe our Desire is Possible.
Back to Passion and Security. Ever feel Passion toward your Desire? If not, Imagine it (Feelize or Visualize or …). Shake It Off, take a drink of Water, and then think about the times you’ve felt Security around your Desire. You may not have met any of your other requirements, but you felt Security. If you haven’t Experienced Security around your Desire, not even for a few minutes, then Imagine what it’ll feel like when you do. (If it’s a Relationship Desire, think Friendship.) Then Let It Go, Dance a bit, another drink of Water, then recall or Imagine Manifesting both Security and Passion around your Desire. Add Belief if you need to.
Feel good? Or are their Yesbuts squeaking in the background – or shrieking in the foreground? Yesbuts can feel Frustrating, but they’re just information about what else your Desire needs. A frequently Unconscious Yesbut is whether or not you Deserve to Manifest Your Heart’s Desire.
Virtually all of us went to the same Obedience School, where we were given a biscuit if we got the right answer, and if we’re very lucky only fingerwagged when we got the wrong answer. Lots of folks would consider it Sociopathic if you Believed that you just Deserved things without having to Earn them. Well, you doDeserve to Manifest your Heart’s Desire, right or wrong. If your Heart’s Desire is punishable by Life or the Chair, so be it, you’ll just have to face the music. But that’s not about Deserving; it’s about what your Culture permits and how well you finesse it.
Okay, you’ve Shaken It Off and Let It Go again and danced around the Fire, and now you’re sitting there feeling what it’s like to Believe in and Deserve to Manifest Safety and Passion around your Desire.
I know, they’re still Yesbutting you, but Imagine that Belief, Deserving, Security, and Excitement are all you Want, that they’re Enough.
Ahhhhh! – Wonderful, isn’t it!
No? Well, that’s it then.
Desire is indeed an Infinitely Perpetual Challenge. The basic problem is that Desire is misspelled. It’s really spelled M-o-t-i-v-a-t-i-o-n. Now there has to be a Balance between Motivation and Satisfaction, or else we’ll never feel good about Life. So what to do? Well, we certainly don’t need to give up our Desire, that would be the equivalent of Death. We might need to dial it back a little, and approach it one piece or characteristic at a time, or set intermediate and achievable Goals that we can Celebrate along the way, so we can enjoy the Journey and not just the possibly hallucinatory Destination.
But the real key to Enjoying a Square or T-Square is shifting our Objective from Desire to Learning. We’re always Learning, so we can Celebrate some quantity of Learning (even if we don’t understand yet what it is) from every Experience. So a Square or a T-Square is about Learning about our Desire. Once we make that shift we’re free to Play. Learning is usually Surprising – otherwise we’d already be Learned. So we’re open to Surprise as well as Success. We really can afford to Play with it, because when Learning is our Objective, the bigger and faster our failures, the more we Learn.
That is MASTERY. You’ve actually experienced it in your Life, around lesser Frustrations, like Spelling or Story Problems or DiffyQ or Asking for a raise or maintaining your Health.
And in fact, with a Square or T-Square, you are a Master, because you’ve always been Motivated to Explore the Edges of your Infinitely Perpetual Challenging Desire. Take Music as an example. If you’re Mozart, you were a Master at Birth. If you’re Salieri, you’ve been working your butt off all your Life, and he gets all the contracts. But suppose you’re Vivaldi, and you’re trying to figure out whether you want a minor or major key for your concerto about Spring. Mozart could tell you in a flash. But Salieri would be able to tell you why you need a minor key.
If you were depending on Mozart you’d need to ask him again for each Season. The answer you got from Salieri would allow you to figure it out on your own. So who’s the real Master – Mozart or Salieri?
This is Real, it’s not a rationalization or a PR trick. You may need to start your process by Believing that it’s possible to shift your Objective from your Desire to Learning about your Desire.
Conjunctions and Oppositions are similarly Heuristic. Oppositions Challenge us to escape Duality by recognizing that while the Heads and the Tails distract us from what’s really happening, focusing on the Coin will trigger our Intuition. Conjunctions Challenge us to Accept that just because our Perspective on the World isn’t popular, that doesn’t mean it’s wrong. In fact, the more unusual our Perspective, the more Powerful. You may end up writing things that won’t be understood for 200 years, or that only six people on the Planet will grok, but the Value in that is immeasurable.
Squares and T-Squares are members of the Fourth Harmonic, which is basically Mastery or Dominion; the Emperor. But it’s the Fifth Harmonic that’s about Learning, so we must be wrong, eh? No, we Master each Harmonic by adopting the Perspective of a higher Dimension. The First Harmonic, Conjunction, is about Self. The Infinitely Perpetual Challenge about Self is Other, which is introduced by the Second Harmonic, Opposition.
The Challenge of Self “versus” Other is resolved by Love, the Third Harmonic or Trine. The Infinitely Perpetual Challenge about Love lies in resolving Codependence, via Healthy Control or Dominion, the Fourth Harmonic – Squares. We resolve the Frustration of the Fourth Harmonic by using the Fifth, Learning, the Quintile. We resolve the Paradox of Inequality between the Student and the Teacher by moving to mutually respectful Partnership, the Sixth Harmonic or Sextile. And so on.
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Squares to the Nodes
Okay, finally we get to the original question. But I think you’ll agree that the detour was useful.
We’ve been equating the North Node to Desire and Mission, and now we’re talking about Squares as if they represented Desire. These are two different flavors of Desire. A North-Node Desire is hardwired in. Moving in the direction of a North-Node Desire produces the sense that we’re on the right track, even as Satisfaction avoids us. North-Node Desires evolve without much Frustration; we don’t recall how different our current North-Node Desires are from our picture of it five or ten years ago. The basic sense is one of Progress. A T-Square Desire on the other hand is an unachievable chimera that we set up to Motivate ourselves. It’s a picture of Perfection. It probably hasn’t changed substantially since we were five or ten years old. The basic sense is one of Frustration.
So, if we put them both together, Progress with Frustration, gradual evolution with our Perfect Pictures, the whole process can be very Confusing. And we may not remember that Confusion is the first stage of Growth. That’s probably the key we need to resolve a T-Square to the Nodes – remembering that Confusion is the first stage of Growth.
Note that since the Nodes by definition Oppose one another, a Square to the Nodes is always a T-Square.
There are a couple of productive processes for dealing with Confusion. We can acknowledge it with Gratitude. “Omigosh, there’s Confusion! Thank Goddess I’m Growing out of that dilemma! That’s Exciting!” And Curiosity. Unlike the programming we got in school, real Learning is always Surprising. If we had any idea how a real Life dilemma would be resolved, it wouldn’t be a dilemma. So acknowledging Confusion as the first step of Growth almost automatically inspires Curiosity. And Curiosity, like Love, is Goddessly, as both eschew Judgment. We don’t want to strive for Curiosity about how our T-Square will be resolved – because we’d get stuck to our Perfect Pictures again. Curiosity about what we’ll Learn next about our Desire fits perfectly, however.
We come to the difference between Desire and Fantasy. Suppose for instance that we crave Acknowledgement. If as ankle-biters we weren’t Valued for who we really were, we’ll spend our Lives craving Acknowledgement. We have a picture of how that might happen. We might be “Discovered,” for instance. That’s a very nice alternative to Earning Acknowledgement. Once who we really are is Discovered, everything else will fall into place, and it will all be easy. That’s how we know it’s a Fantasy – everything else becomes easy. Fantasy is a Manifestation-killer.
When we detect Fantasy we need to substitute Curiosity. We don’t know what it will look like when we’re Acknowledged – we’ve never been there. We know the Perfect Picture we daydream about, but our Desire is behind that Picture, not in it. When that Picture arises and we recognize it (how can we not? – we’ve been daydreaming it all our Life!), we need to pull the cord next to it so it rolls up like an old-fashioned window-shade. Behind it there’s a Wilderness, and it’s Delightful and Dangerous and Exciting and very Compelling. You can’t Imagine what’s in there! But doesn’t it inspire Curiosity!
So let’s take some examples. Suppose Saturn, which represents The Most Important Thing, Squares our Nodes. It’s never this simple, because many other influences are afoot – such as the Sign of our Saturn, and other Angles to it from other planets. But we could have a Lifetime Frustration about knowing what’s The Most Important Thing. Is it Learning new Skills or collecting boons by using the Skills we have? Is it Love, or is it Power? So we need to find a reliable way to move from Confusion to Curiosity around The Most Important Thing.
In Psychic School one of the first tricks you Learn is “What if you did know?” When Duality wants you to do Either/Or and you aren’t in touch with your Intuition enough to understand how Both/And might work in this circumstance, you can Ask yourself, “What if I did know?” Chances are you will have already rejected at least one answer to the question, and that answer will probably pop back into Consciousness. There’s a danger here. This is an exercise for developing your Intuition, it’s not your Intuition.
The answer you get is an excellent trial balloon, and a great first guess about what’s The Most Important Thing. It’s worth trying. But it may only work for a few steps. West might be the correct direction for the first three strides, but you need to be alert for when Confusion arises again, and Ask again. The next four might be North – or West again. If you decide that one direction is Most Important forever, you’re likely to end up in a swamp. After you practice this for a while it will become your Intuition, and you’ll develop the habit of recognizing Confusion and shifting immediately to Curiosity. Eventually you won’t even notice the intervening steps, you’ll just Intuitively know what comes next.
But it’s still a Square; you can never sit on your laurels. It will always be evolving, and you’ll always be Learning more about how to define The Most Important Thing, on more and more subtle levels, till you finally realize that there’s no one you can compare notes with, because no one else knows as much as you know about it – you are the Master. It Squares your Nodes, so knowing it is The Most Important Thing in your Life. When you Celebrate your Certainty about knowing the Most Important Thing, you’re about to step into the muck. Celebrate Learning more about how to discern The Most Important Thing instead.
Now, think back over your Life. How many times have you repeated this dance, and how many different ways have you Learned for dealing with it? Include all the ways you’ve forgotten that you Learned (what if you did remember?). In truth you’re the Master of this Process. There’s no one better than you to teach it to others, because you’ve Explored all the blind alleys and discovered all the thoroughfares. And more important, you know how to find the mainlines that haven’t been discovered yet.
The primary characteristic of any Square is a shortage of Self-Acknowledgement.
That’s another process for resolving a Square in any given moment – moving to Gratitude – make a list of what is working for you.
Or Jupiter – what if Jupiter Squared our Nodes? Jupiter is about Fortune, Expansion, Amplification. When Jupiter dances with your Nodes, your Mission is always foremost in your Attention. That’s fabulous, as no one will ever be able to accuse you of not immer strebend. But it’s never Enough, is it. Jupiter’s the Great Benefic, but Never Enough is a bummer. So Self-Acknowledgement of your Enoughness has to become your mantra. You’ve beaten it practically to death, but Enoughness is your Mastery. Now you need to Master Not-Quite-Enoughness. Your Challenge is to Learn to feel good about Performing at 90%. When you get pretty good at that you can try 80%. You’ll be More Than Enough at 50% – you can spend the other 50% having Fun. You’re already doing this, aren’t you. That’s MASTERY!
We just can’t Acknowledge that we’re actually Manifesting the Power to Serve Effectively when we’re the Victim of our own Unconscious Motivation. Dominion requires the Ability to Respond to “threats” to our Healthy Control. As long as the Power to Serve Effectively is our Goal instead of Learning to Use the Power to Serve Effectively, Frustration follows, because Life is a moving target and “those people” – who really are less competent and less dedicated than you because they don’t have Jupiter Squaring their Nodes – are your Teachers, Unconsciously of course. You’re underemployed, but you won’t be able to leverage yourself into a position where you also have the Authority and Responsibility to Serve Effectively – and the rewards, until you Learn to Honor yourself.
There’s still time to remember all of the little and big Successes along this course, and Celebrate each one. They’ll feel burdensome until you reframe them from Frustration about Failure, to Excitement about Learning. Buy three big sheets of gold-colored cardboard and a “Sharpie” permanent marker. Take an hour each week, choose one of your historical Frustrations, fully Embrace your Grief about how your hard work was unseen and unacknowledged and even actively thwarted, and then Ask “What did I Learn from this?” If what you Learned feels negative, Ask “What was the positive function of that?” “What was one positive thing that came out of it?
When you feel good about that Learning, cut a trophy honoring yourself for that Success out of the gold cardboard, and give it a title and an approximate date. As you process each historical Frustration there will be too many trophies (it’s Jupiter after all!) to keep on your mantle or altar all at once, so keep the extras in a box. Each morning choose one trophy to put back in the box, and replace it with a new one chosen “randomly” from the box. Spend a minute remembering the Frustration you felt as you climbed that mountain, and find the Relief you felt when you Learned that Lesson.
What about Venus? Venus stands for our Values, so you’re probably often at odds about which Value of yours to follow. Having multiple Values is fantastic – no danger of becoming a Zealot, eh? But boy, those Zealots sure look Satisfied, don’t they? Compared to my Confusion, that looks like a Blessing! What if being Multifarious was the Blessing? It’s a Square, it’s always a moving target. I think of a Spiral, where we revisit the same issue over and over again but with slightly different circumstances. A friend and reader uses the metaphor of “an elevator which stops at identical floors, but different things happen depending on where your head/vibes/frequency is.”
But the constant about is this is Constant Learning. Your Values are Universal, but for every moment a different Hierarchy of Values applies. If you’re anything like the rest of us, you’ve been programmed to apply the Values that were handed down by your family heritage in every moment. You’ll be Learning how to stop and reconsider every moment, so you can apply the Values that work best in the circumstances. You’ll know when you got it right because there will be a short burst of North-Node Satisfaction, the sense that you’re on the right track. Till the Square’s Never-Quite-Right Energy butts in again. No worries, it’s just Confusion, the first stage of Growth. Isn’t that Curious! I wonder which Values apply here – Growth or Certainty?
The Centaur Nessus Squaring the Nodes? Confusion over Action, how to meet one’s needs with finesse rather than force, and how to replace that Confusion with Curiosity and Self-Acknowledgement. Passive Pacifism isn’t worth much. A Pacifist who knows how to Embrace and Master their own need to Dominate is a Teacher of Value.
The dwarf planet Ceres would tie us in knots over what’s Sustainable, and beg us to replace our Preaching and Self-Abuse about it with frequent PIAVFAs about how to make it stick.
The poster child of dwarf planets, Pluto? Sorry, your Life Path is intense, and you won’t bargain your way out of it. You’ve probably already been in and out of Addiction, as there’s no faster way to understand Control. Your Hero’s Journey is the Heroin’s Journey, figuratively or literally. So what if no one listens to you – you see the Future, and they don’t. Let them stumble; it’s their Learning Experience. Your Certainty is a hindrance, though. See if you can reprogram your Trance to seek Curiosity instead – you’re the Master of Trance-Re-Formation after all, even if you haven’t Recognized it yet.
If it’s the Centaur Hylonome Squaring your Nodes, Grief is your constant companion. She’s just over your left shoulder. Don’t push her away any more; Embrace Her. Once you let Her swallow you like Inanna was swallowed by the Sun, over and over again, you’ll emerge Surprisingly quickly, each time having gained deep Insight. Be Curious about where Grief will lead you next, as it’s a deep service to Humanity and to the Planet.
Inanna’s symbol is the Grand Octile – the Eighth Harmonic is where we go to resolve the puzzles presented by Magic. This Ouija Board Uranus-Pluto Cycle is about Magic, and you know what comes next. You are a Visitor from the distance Future, come to try to steer us away from impending disaster. Embrace that Perspective without succumbing to Certainty or rejecting your constant Grief about being Unrecognized. Grief is your greatest Tool.
Ah, Lilith. It feels Confusing only because you’re ahead of your Time. The World is moving toward Yindependence – Universal Respect for Self-Sovereignty – and you’re the advance guard. Let yourself be Curious about how you can best help move the Planet forward. The Hero’s Journey is well documented; it’s up to you to document the Heroine’s Journey for us as well. Starhawk’s Truth or Dare is a good starting place for you.
Then there’s Uranus! Yes, there are deep mists between you and your Soul, and many false profits. You can’t dispel Confusion with Certainty, it must be Embraced. It’s all Metaphor, Both/And. What will happen if you Surrender to Confusion?
Warning: historically, Enneagram practitioners can tend toward the negative. Not that astrologers can’t do that too! I don’t see negativity in this Enneagram Institute material, as far as I’ve looked at it (which isn’t far).
Empathizing with our Self-Criticism is fine as a first step, as long as the second step is Rising Above It to Self-Appreciation. And we need to be the Witness to our Self-Criticism, rather than the Victim of it. Every Fault is a Skill when seen differently, and every Skill is a Fault. The Key is to use each Skill in situations where it works, and to use a different Skill in situations where the first Skill doesn’t work. And when it doesn’t work, we inquire which Skill we might have used instead, without Self-Judgment. Whenever you’re tempted to Self-Judge, Ask what you did well in the situation. Then you can Ask what you might do differently next time.
Nobody does anything perfectly the first time, except maybe Mozart. But if we Screw Up for the Umpteenth Time – well, that’s probably a T-Square (or even a Square). In this case we need to shift our Goals. What did work? Well, I’ll wager we Learned a bit (if we didn’t wallow in Self-Recrimination – or after we quite wallowing). T-Squares and Screwing Up Umpteen Times are about Learning. We don’t need to Surrender our Perfectionism (as if we could!), we just need to transfer it from what we thought we were trying to Manifest to what we’re Learning about Manifesting that (and about Manifesting what our Evil Twin wants; we need to Honor our Evil Twin’s Wants as our own).
This is one reason why Desire and Mission are intertwined in such a complex way. Our Squares drive us to Deep Desire, but frustrate us with never achieving what we Desire. If we have Squares to our Nodes, this is really true. Wer immer strebend sich bemüht, den können wir erlösen, said Goethe – folks who strive tirelessly can be redeemed. It’s easier if we don’t have Squares to our Nodes; our Desires and Mission are less convoluted. Not that a Square to anything else is fun – till you make it so.
We’re starting a new Venus-Mars Cycle, and it’s a Light-Hearted Cycle for once. If youall were born when Venus and Mars were Squaring one another, these suggestions have your name on them. A Square is about Mastery through Challenge. Because your Motivation to keep trying is boundless (which feels masochistic at times, but it ain’t, and don’t let anybody else tell you it is), you actually have more Experience than anyone else your age; which makes you more Expert at your Square than anyone who does it “perfectly.” When the World is Stable, the Expert is someone who knows all the right answers. When the World is Changing rapidly, as it is now, the Expert is someone who knows all the answers because they been there done that, because they know what to try next.
The Planet is Changing from Extreme Male-Dominance to Equality, and of course it will lean over the line into Female-Dominance before it swings back toward the center. So we all need to be willing to experiment with new strategies, which our Squares drive us to by necessity. Squares are Fourth-Harmonic Angles, and the Fourth Harmonic represents Dominion. Not Dominion as in Dominance, but Dominion as in Healthy Control. Being willing to Accept what we cannot Change, able to Change what we can, and having the Wisdom to know the difference. And the gumption to keep trying.
