Internal Adjustments

Manganotantalite, an Oxide of Manganese and Tantalum, will help keep Communication flowing, especially the all-important Communication between our Olde Selves and our New Selves here in this era of Great Change.

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Other than Portal 10.1-8 (we added more information to the end of that post at about 2pm PDT October 2), Mercury’s October 4 (10am PDT) Retrograde Station is pretty quiet.

It would make a Mercury-Square-Juno-Quincunx-Neptune-Trine-Mercury Tricolor, but you’d need 7 degrees of Orb to count it, and the big Orb would apply to the Quincunx, and few astrologers would ever give you that, even in a natal chart.

In case you’re a total newbie, Mercury turns Retrograde for three weeks at a shot every four months.  The traditional meaning is that Communication and Travel may become difficult, though I find that interpretation to range from subtle to irrelevant.  Retrograde means the Energy is directed inward rather than outward, and the majority of folks think that’s weird (or pathological) because only 25% of us are more introverted than extroverted, and extroverts have zero Empathy for introverts.

When a planet turns “Retrograde,” it appears to move backward in the sky.  To see this “backward” motion you’d need to take a snapshot of the sky every night at the same time, then compile the snapshots into a movie.  The planet isn’t really moving backward, we’re just passing it (or, in the case of Mercury or Venus, it’s on the other side of the Sun), so it appears to move backward. 

When a planet changes direction, it’s either “Stationary Retrograde” (turning Retro) or “Stationary Direct” (starting to go forward again).  The influence of a planet is very strong when it’s Stationary, whether Retro or Direct.

The Real impact of a Retrogradation – other than these two periods of planetary strength while the planet is Stationary – is that we get to (or have to) review three times the curriculum covered by the planet’s Retrogradation.  The planet crosses this playground once forward, then stops and backs up across it a second time, then stops again and crosses it again.  At the Retrograde Station, the planet has crossed the playground once, and it’s about to start crossing it again backwards.

The official term for this playground is the “Shadow Period.”

So in this case we have Mercury Retrograding over the last half of Libra.  Mercury is basically about Thinking.  Libra is about the self-absorbed individual meeting for the first time Other – we usually think of Other as Other People, but really it applies to anything that the individual sees as Not-Self.  The first half of Libra is about encountering Other.  The second half is about how, having encountered Other, the individual is changed.

So in the Big Picture, here in Pi’s domain after the End of Time, we’ve now encountered Other from the place of Responsibility (Ability to Respond) rather than the place of Blame (Who did that?).  This is the first Libra Mercury Retro since the End of Time.  So for the next three weeks we’ll be rethinking our Relationships to Other, making more space for Responsibility and less for Blame.  That usually means owning our Projections – recognizing that it’s our Reactions that are causing us discomfort, more than their Behaviors.  But this World is New, so who knows what it will mean now.

In the Medium Frame, we’re about five sevenths of the way through the Yintegrity work we’ve also been doing since 2012.  For the last three weeks we’ve been meeting Other through the frame of our evolving Yintegrity.  Some folks are pleased with our Yintegrity and some folks aren’t.  How have we Reacted and Responded to these differences?  We’ll be rethinking them for the next three weeks.

In the more local Picture, we’ve now met Other after the early-September Centaur Stampede Galactic Download that we briefly summarized in Portal 10.1-8.  Centaurs are, after all, half Human and half Other.  Mercury entered the playground on September 14, so we’ve been encountering Other through the filter of the Galactic Download since then.  Have you noticed how Other has seemed different since September 14?  For the next three weeks we’ll be rethinking our Relationships with this Other as well.

Our Yindependence is another changing element in our 21st-Century evolution and devolution.  How has Other Reacted to these Changes, and how have we Responded to their Reactions?  How have we Reacted to growing Yindependence in Other?  Yindependence is a big part of the Centaur Stampede Grand Trine.  Another issue we’ll be rethinking over the next three weeks.

The other thing that’s useful to know about a Retrogradation, is which planets are danced with three times, as the Retrograding planet crosses the playground thrice.  These are the interactions that the Universe wants us to review very thoroughly.  There are several here…

Pallas Initiates Mercury on September 11 at 14 of Libra.  Libra 14 isn’t within the Shadow Period, but Mercury Conjoins Pallas twice more in October and November.  Libra 14 is “In the heat of the noon hour a man takes a siesta.“

A major element of our rethinking will be about how we need to shift our Boundaries with Other.  For instance, suppose for us Nature is part of Self or Other.  How then do we React to the news that so many species have gone extinct in the past forty years?  Empathize for a moment with an extincting species.  How would it feel to be the last remaining individual of your species?  How will your Boundaries be shifting to adjust to the Changes in your Yintegrity, your Responsibility, your Yindependence, and your Relationship to the Galaxy?

On September 16-17 Mercury Waxing Squares Juno and is Initiated by both Haumea and the North Node, at 21 of Libra.  On September 19 Mercury Opposes Eris.  All of these Angles are repeated twice more in October and November.  Libra 21 is “A Sunday crowd enjoying the beach.“

As we’ve been harping on at length, we’re being Reborn anew as the hidden elements of our Karma are Revealed and Released.  This new Entity we are Becoming will need to be rethinking all of their Relationships and Boundaries with Others of all stripes.

While Mercury’s Shadow Period is over by October 26, the Confidence Builder recurrences of the Mercury-Pallas and Mercury-Juno adventures won’t occur till mid-November.

Portal 9.11-17-22

Biotite – Iron-rich Mica.  Mica forms in sheets, and a cluster of sheets isn’t called a “Crystal,” but a “Book.”  Iron and black are both Grounding.  We need to peel off the layers of Discouragement, Despair, Impossibility, Powerlessness, and Hopelessness, one at a time, then go back for more.  The Challenges are insurmountable, so we need to PIAVA Miracles.

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The next phase of our September-October adventure begins around September 11, peaks on the 17th, and extends through September 22nd.  This project involves adjusting our Consciousness to integrate what we’ve experienced so far – namely Letting Go of some degree of historical Despair – so we can make space for the Galactic Download we’re in the middle of.  Consciousness is a larger animal than our intellectual concept set, and larger than the Limiting Beliefs that our Emotions define.  Larger than our Birdcage.

You can think of Consciousness as the span of experiences and circumstances where you’re able to be fully in the Present Moment, and fully Present.  For most of us, that’s a pretty small space, especially these days, when most of the time we’re lost in our childhood Powerlessness (a sepia portrait of our Karma), projecting those frustrations onto the facts of our current experience, and scared or frustrated or both because we don’t understand why they don’t seem to fit.  When we aren’t totally spaced out unconsciously processing the Download, that is, or merged with the paroxysms of the Planet.

If we’ve been on schedule, for the last two weeks we’ve been Letting Go of this ancient and Archetypal Despair to make room for the new information in the Galactic Download.  It’s all relative, so if you’ve made any forward progress at all, congratulate yourself.  No sense being Discouraged about Despair. 

For the next two weeks we’ll be reorganizing our orientation toward our Personal History, discovering Epiphanies about our Mission and Desires, and working out ways to Sustain our new Freedom to be more Present.  Most of these processes will occur without our direct knowledge or direction; we’ll occasionally get a glimpse, but don’t be surprised if you find yourself doing and feeling and thinking things that don’t seem to have a context.

Three Squares have been added to the Galactic Grand Trine.  Juno has come ’round to T-Square the Nodes, while Eris still clings to the South Node, and both Mercury and Haumea approach the North Node.  And Ceres Squares Jupiter.

With Haumea being the (dwarf) planet of Birth and Rebirth and Mercury the planet of comprehension, their presence on the North Node is quite a Blessing.  The North Node Initiates Mercury on September 17 at 21 Libra, “A Sunday crowd enjoying the beach: A revivifying contact with the Mother-force of nature and of social togetherness.”  Haumea Initiates the North Node in the same degree on September 18.  A friend today asked the Great Spirit why they felt grief, and Her Creativeness answered “Why do you only pray for yourself?” which reminded them that it was 9/11.

Eris has already Initiated the South Node.

This first picture below shows the T-Square in dark red, the Grand Trine in dark blue, and a resulting Trine Fez (the trapezoid with the light green “X” across the middle), as the recent Saturn-Vesta Initiation Trines Juno and Quincunxes Eris-South Node to finish the Fez.

The base issue (the Square) in the Fez is Juno to Eris-South Node, indicating Mastery through Challenge in adjusting the Edges of our Consciousness to the barn-sized Denials we’ve been opening up to.

The Quincunxes tell us that the solution lies through

• Curiosity about which rigid Beliefs we need to relax, and which lapses in discipline we need to tighten, in order to blow away the self-sabotaging Denials permanently (Saturn-Vesta to Eris-SN), and
• Curiosity about how to open to the Downloads that are coming in from the Galactic Center, particularly with regard to being Blamed unfairly, and the Grace involved in whatever “good” Karma we have (Juno to Chariklo-Pholus).

Remember that Karma is not retribution, it’s inertia, so “good” Karma is not a reward, it’s a Habit that’s constructive more often than not.  A Karmic Habit is an epigenetic Habit that you learned in other Lifetimes.

There are a couple of issues where we’ll be far ahead if, rather than trying to understand, we stay in Curiosity, and let the issue remain unresolved as long as we can.  These arenas are about

Where in the general high-speed blur we should Focus our Attention,

and

Anything that seems Unfair. 

We can deal with those using PIAVAs.  Use them iteratively, so you don’t get stuck thinking you know what’s going on and quench your sense of Wonder.  What’s coming down is much larger than you sense it to be, by many orders of magnitude.

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The second picture, below, shows a second Trine Fez that’s also present.  This one spans September 12 through September 26.  The base Challenge is Jupiter-Ceres, a Cycle Initiated with “A Well with bucket and rope under the shade of majestic Trees,” suggesting that there are Global Warming and other Survival concerns involved.

The Quincunxes that can lead us to Mastery of the Challenge include (1) Curiosity about Expanding our Openness to Miracles and our willingness to Embrace our Despair as Witness (Jupiter-Chiron) and (2) Wonder about how to make our Yintegrity more Sustainable (Ceres-Uranus).  Again, we want to use our PIAVAs iteratively, to maintain our Curiosity.

There is a second element in this second picture, namely a Yod to Chiron from Pallas and Jupiter.  The Pallas-Jupiter Cycle began in August 2013 at 10 Cancer, “A large Diamond in the first stages of the cutting process: The arduous training for perfection in order to fully manifest an ideal.”  The Yod says Pay Attention to Chiron, to transforming Despair (especially what we don’t even know is Despair because we don’t even conceive of a possibility that what we want could occur) into Miracles through Empathizing with our own Discouragement.  The base Sextile says, Keep at it; it’s not a one-time event!

The other element in the Portal 9.11-22 adventure recommends that we avoid drawing any conclusions about how to be True to our Soul’s Path, so we can be open to Change, recognizing that “now we see through a glass darkly.”  The longer we can maintain our Curiosity, the more we’ll Expand our Consciousness.  Again, iterative PIAVAs are in order.  Try to keep them a couple of days apart; otherwise the Pay Attention phase gets too confusing.  But if you think you’ve got the Answer, come up with another Question quick.

Another iterative process recommended is Empathizing with our Despair.  This Portal tells us that we need to keep doing that over and over again, as we are approaching Challenges that will require the utmost Mastery, and we can’t afford to be faint of Heart.