The Stellium Initiations

Clear Quartz, cut into a ball of many facets.

Looking at the Stellium reductively, we examine the nature of each of the Energies birthed into it.  Seen statically, a Stellium is a cluster of planets.  Viewed dynamically, a Stellium is a mass birth of Cycles.  The Energy of a Cycle is strong at it’s birth, though we can expect considerable Resistance as those who benefit from the status quo seek to Deny the Changes.  So a Stellium is a cauldron of Creation.

The July 5 Ceres-Vesta Initiation occurs at 22 Libra, “A child giving Birds a drink at a fountain.”  The 15-year Vesta-Ceres Cycle is about the Sustainability of our Belief systems – that is, do they grow corn.  Being the longest Cycle in the Stellium, it plays the senior role.  We have Innocence, Spirit, Emotion, and Compassion, perhaps Empathy, in the image.  Innocence serving up Emotion to Spirit – interesting permutation.  So

For the next fifteen years the most Sustainable view of the Sacred is that we are to surrender our Emotions to Spirit rather than try to analyze them.

On July 12 Ceres Initiates Mars at 25 Libra – “The sight of an autumn leaf brings to a pilgrim the sudden revelation of the Mystery of life and death.”  The 3-year Mars-Ceres Cycle governs whether we use our Physical Energy in Sustainable ways.  We have endings giving a seeker a relief from Grief.

North Node Initiates Vesta in the same degree on July 13.  Another 3-year Cycle.  North Node-Vesta would have us revise our Belief systems every three years, so Belief serves Mission as it evolves.  For this next three years then

By acknowledging Mystery we avoid wasting our Energy on trying to make sense of Emotions.  By honoring Emotions in and of themselves, without trying to trap them in Cause-and-Effect cages, we liberate our Instincts and are thus able to process information and respond to it orders of magnitude more quickly.  We also save our intellect for more productive endeavors.

Also on July 13, the North Node Initiates Mars in 24 Libra, “A Butterfly with a third wing on its left side.”  Mars-North Node is pursuit of our Mission.  The left side emphasizes the Feminine, and Magic.  It’s a 2-year Cycle.  The Butterfly implies impermanence and frequent transformation.

The next day, the North Node Initiates Ceres in this degree.  The 3-year Ceres-North Node Cycle involves our persistence in honoring our Deepest Desires, and also suggests paring away from our lives what doesn’t serve our Mission.

We don’t need to understand our Mission in order to PIAVA that we pursue it vigorously.  That will give us an advantage and allow us to respond quickly to its evolution, increasing our progress.  It will also make it easier to stick with it, and create less wasted Life.

Back to 25 Libra – the Leaf, the Pilgrim, and the Mystery – for the Vesta-Mars Initiation on July 15.  Vesta being the fastest of the big four asteroids, its speed is closer to that of Mars, so the Mars-Vesta Cycle runs four years, making it the second-most senior Energy in the Stellium.  Mars-Vesta is about Walking our Talk, putting supporting our Beliefs with Work.

Allowing our Beliefs to govern our Actions will regenerate our Energy.

* * * * *

Then we have to correct our initial reductivism, and reassemble these notions into a coherent Whole…

Our Mission is conveyed to our Ego through our Deepest Desires.  When you actually pursue your Deepest Desires, have you noticed how elusive they are?  They’re a Siren, beckoning and disappearing into the mist, again and again.  Of course, most of us just repress them as unavailable or forbidden.  So the first step toward moving into our Mission is to stop repressing our Deepest Desires.

The Stellium advises us to use a feminine approach when pursuing them.  We do that by eschewing analysis of our Emotions and trusting them as Instincts.  We honor the Mystery by using PIAVA rather than Plan-Execute, again, to avoid wasting intellectual Energy on trying to masculinize the process.  One of the first “rules” of Jungian thought is “Don’t seduce your Animus/Anima.”  What that means is that you want your Inner Male/Female to be an integral part of your Egoic Self, not an Other from which you (your unmerged Ego) seek gratification. 

A good way to do that is, rather than pursuing our Deepest Desires directly, we PIAVA to feel the way we will feel when our Deepest Desires are fulfilled.  That way we bypass the Siren and go straight to the Essence of our Mission.  

Full Moon Yin Gate and Portal 7.5-15

Swallowtail Selenite, a Crystalline form of Gypsum or Calcium Sulfate.  The same stuff that the inside walls in your house are made of.  Like Feminine Power – often so subtle that it’s not even seen, but what would you do without it?  Look at those subtle colors!

* * * * *

As we’ve said about the Full Moon’s Yin Gate…

“The Core Issue is the Mysterious Relationship between our Soul’s Path and our Personal Mythology.  And the way that Mystery is Changing, as our Personal Mythology changes, and as our Soul’s Path evolves and adapts to the Choices our Ego makes. 

“This is the central Opposition from the Vesta-Ceres Conjunction to Uranus, the central axis of the Yin Gate.”

“As in any Yin Gate, there are two Subsidiary Issues.  The first is the Mysterious Relationship between the concept of Order in your Personal Mythology, and the concept of Beauty in your Personal Mythology.  Do you know what it means to a Native American to ‘walk in beauty’?

“One of the other Oppositions in this Yin Gate is between Venus and Saturn.

“And the second Subsidiary Issue is the Mysterious Relationship between the concept of Miracle in your Personal Mythology, and the concept of The Feminine in your Personal Mythology.

“The link is indirect, which we’ll explain in a while, but the third Opposition is between Chiron and a derivative of Lilith.  Derivatives were not reigned in after they caused the Worldwide 2007-8 crash.”

Here’s a picture of the Yin Gate…

A Yin Gate is a Golden Rectangle (two parallel Trines with Sextiles between their ends, the blue lines) with embellishments – namely a planet that bisects each Sextile.  The two bisecting planets create back-to-back Fingers of God or Yods (the green lines) with the opposite corners of the Golden Rectangle.  Which means that there are three equally spaced Oppositions involved (the dark red lines).

In a Golden Rectangle, the two Oppositions provide the Energy, and describe any conflicts or Learning Opportunities that might arise.  But in a Yin Gate it’s the central Opposition that provides the Energy and intrigue, by virtue of the back-to-back Fingers of God.  A Finger of God (two Quintiles from a third planet to each end of a Sextile) basically means Pay Attention to this!

In this case the Core Issue is realignment of the Balance between the Yintegrity that we’ve been working with since 2012, and the re-examination of our deepest Values, which we’re in the middle of.

The actual Initiation of Vesta (our deepest Values, or that which we hold Sacred) by Ceres (Sustainability) doesn’t take place for a few more weeks, but they’ve been dancing together for a while now, so we can consider these realignments with our Yintegrity to be part of the Initiation, which as we said earlier was about “A child giving Birds a drink at a fountain: Manifest Form reconnecting itself to its overlighting Spirit.“

* * * * *

Sacred And Sustainable

As it turns out, this re-examination of our Deepest Values is very profound.  Take a look at this intense ten-day Portal that spans July 5 through 15 – though we’re actually already well into the preliminary training…

• July 5: Ceres Initiates Vesta at 22 Libra
• July 5-6: The Moon crosses Mars, Ceres, Vesta, and North Node
• July 12: Ceres Initiates Mars at 25 Libra
• July 13: North Node Initiates Vesta at 25 Libra
• July 13: North Node Initiates Mars at 24 Libra
• July 14: North Node Initiates Ceres at 24 Libra
• July 15: Vesta Initiates Mars at 25 Libra
• July 16: The Sun Squares almost everybody from Cancer (the Sun Squares Mars a few days later)

As if any combination of the The Sacred (Vesta) and Sustainability (Ceres) isn’t important, the involvement of the North Node means that new parts of our Mission in the Lifetime are coming into Consciousness.  Mars brings Energy and Excitement into this Renaissance.  And the Moon manifests it from Potential into Form. 

These Initiations span the Gemini and Cancer Duads of Libra, which imply that we as Individuals and as Cultures have worked our way through Social Self 1.0, Social Self 2.0, and Social Self 3.0, and we’re embarking on Social Self 4.0…

We’re bootstrapping a whole new way of doing business with Other (primarily Other People, but also any Entity other than what we habitually think of as Me and whom we habitually Defend as Me, which for most of us includes the Planet).  We’re basically starting over in July, rebuilding all of our Relationships on a very different footing, one based on Compassion.

Social Self 1.0 was based on Reaching Out (Libra), 2.0 on Barter (Capricorn), 3.0 on Excitement (Aries), and Social Self 4.0 will be based on Nurturance (Cancer).

The feet of the Vesta-Ceres Finger of Yod are Chiron (Despair, Impossibility, Miracles) and Venus (Beauty in every sense of the word, including Coherence)…

We can expect two things from this bootstrapping – Elegance, and Miracles.  Be very watchful here and in July for any sign of Despair, Cynicism, Skepticism, or any sense that something otherwise important is impossible.  When you catch yourself in Doubt or Disbelief,

Cancel, Neutralize, Upgrade.

Let me repeat that with emphasis, because it’s critical for the Planet. 

Be very watchful here and in July for any sign of Despair, Cynicism, Skepticism, or any sense that something otherwise important is impossible.  When you catch yourself in Doubt or Disbelief,

Cancel, Neutralize, Upgrade.

There is something you Want very deeply.  Never give up on that; it’s one piece of the jigsaw puzzle called Planet Earth.  When you encounter any reason why it’ll never work, forget everything you know, quickly PIAVA Both/And, and Change the Subject.

* * * * *

Yintegrity

The other pole of the Core Issue is the work we’ve been doing since 2012 (since the 1960s really) on our Yintegrity.  To review…

Yintegrity means doing what we feel like doing, moment to moment.  Yangtegrity means doing what we said we were going to do – the traditional measure of Integrity in a male-dominated World.  In order to live in Yintegrity we probably have to reduce our Commitments, renegotiate broken Agreements, and make Amends when necessary.  Avoid Explaining yourself whenever possible.

Not hard to see the connection between our Yintegrity work and Sustaining what we hold Sacred. 

The feet of the Uranus (Yintegrity) Finger of God are Saturn, and that funny little upside down “T” that we’ve drawn in the upper right corner of the blue box.  Saturn’s easy…

Saturn tells us that maintaining our Yintegrity – not giving away our Power or allowing someone we Love (or someone we don’t) to have Suzerainty over us – is The Most Important Thing.  We’ll be continuing our re-examination of the Sustainability of our Deepest Values in the context of our Yintegrity, not the other way around.

When there appears to be a conflict between Yintegrity and the Sacred, it’s your understanding of the Sacred that needs to be renegotiated, remembering that Now we see through a glass darkly.

There abide Faith, Hope, and Charity, and the greatest of these is Charity – there is no Love without Self-Love, and Yintegrity is the purest form of Self-Love.  With reduced Commitments, Renegotiation, and Amends, Yintegrity is also the purest form of Other-Love, as it eschews deception on all levels.  Yes, it sounds like Chaos when you’re in Resistance or attached to the status quo, but the status quo is Unsustainable.

So what’s that upside-down T all about?

There is no planet at the upper right corner of the blue box in the picture above.  This is the 18-degrees-of-Virgo Vacancy that will draft you into serving the Collective version of the Yin Gate if you have a natal planet or other “hot spot” there.

Okay, this isn’t really a Yin Gate – it’s missing a foot!  To avoid discriminating against the disabled, we call the missing foot a Vacancy, and invite one and all to fill it with a token from their Nativity.  True, but we should put it this way too.  It takes six points in alignment to make a Yin Gate.  When we have five of the six points, the Yin Gate is there in Potential.  We manifest it into form by invoking the Vacancy.  We can do that in several ways.

We can find someone who has a planet or other hot astrospot close to the Vacancy; they’ll be sort of a living key for opening the Yin Gate.

We can look for an obscure asteroid or a fixed Star hanging out there, and cast the implied meaning of the ‘roid or Star as the key that opens the Gate.

We can look up the Degree of the Vacancy, discover its meaning, and supply that Energy Consciously.  The Sabian Symbol for 18 of Virgo is…

“A Ouija Board: the ability to contact deeper recesses of the unconscious psyche, and sensitivity to psychic intimations and omens.”   That certainly very much complements our work finding a Sustainable Sense of the Sacred, and dropping enough of our Masks to find our Yintegrity.  In fact, it’s probably necessary work for the task!  A prime purpose of the PIAVA process, embedded in the Pay Attention part of it, is to become sensitive to psychic intimations and omens – aka the Unconscious Surround that we haven’t differentiated into Consciousness yet.  Most especially our self-sabotaging Patterns.

When we write about the second element of the Full Moon chart we’ll see how incredible this actually is – the second element is dominated by a Finger of God and a Mjolnir (not just Pay Attention, but also Epiphanies) pointing at Juno, our symbol for the Edge of Consciousness.  And shitohdear, why does that Ouija Board sound familiar?  Because it’s the very degree of the Pluto-Uranus Initiation in 1965, the beginning of the Yintegrity Cycle we’ve been working on!

When we find corroborating evidence like this – several indications pointing in the same direction – we not only know we’re on the right track, but we know that it’s an especially profound process that we’re working on, as the Heavens are making sure we aren’t going miss it!

But it turns out there actually is something near 18 of Virgo in the Full Moon chart.  The upside-down “T” in the upper right corner of the blue box in the picture below is the symbol for a “Midpoint,” which is just a point halfway between two planets.

Midpoints are sensitive places in a chart where the Energies of the two planets are blended.  Obscure, yes (except perhaps in Germany where their study originated, at least in modern times), but also meaningful.

Earlier we referred to it as a “derivative of Lilith” – it’s the Midpoint between Lilith and Ceres.

These are some pretty fundamental Goddesses we’re working with here – Ceres or Diana, the Goddess of Grain; Vesta or Hestia, the Goddess of the Hearth (who was honored in ancient Greece before honoring Zeus and after honoring Zeus, giving you an idea of who was really important); and Lilith, the Goddess of Yindependence.  Nobody does Yintegrity without first learning Yindependence.

Feminine Power often works invisibly. 

Just as this particular representative of Lilith (we’ll soon encounter another) is “imaginary” or symbolic, Lilith is pulling strings from behind the curtain, through her Midpoint with her co-matriot Ceres.

The symbol we routinely use for Lilith Energy is the second center of the Moon’s orbit around the Earth.  The Moon’s orbit is an oval, and ovals have two centers.  One is the Earth.  The other is a place in the Heavens that we call Lilith.

There is a subtle intimation that you may not get your macaroni unless you respect Ceres – certainly it’s true that you won’t get fed psychically without seeking your Yintegrity.

* * * * *

Whew, that’s a lot!  And it’s only the first of four major themes in the Full Moon chart.  How could I summarize this?  I’d just say Wow!  Zowie!  This is Big!  If you’ve lost the plot, go back to the parts in red and burn them into your eyelids in a large font.

Vesta and Ceres

Ceres doesn’t Initiate Vesta till July, but their nearly concurrent Stations here at the end of May are singing the Vesta-Ceres Song, and while the door is open, let’s talk a bit more about the Vesta-Ceres Cycle, which we introduced in the previous post.  To review…

“These Stations are only two degrees apart, as these asteroids are on their way to Communion in early July.  Ceres will then Baptize Vesta at 22 Libra, ‘A child giving Birds a drink at a fountain: The concern of simple souls for the welfare and happiness of less-evolved Beings who thirst for life renewal.’  We take exception to the part about Birds being ‘less-evolved’ Beings, but at least there is Compassion there, if not a lessening of homocentrism.  The Judgment is Rudhyar’s, and befits the Beliefs of his era.  Rudhyar usually sees Birds as intimating Spirit; we can modernize the reading to ‘A child giving Birds a drink at a fountain: Manifest form reconnecting itself to its overarching Spirit.’  Gratitude for the Bees made manifest, in other words.”

The asteroids between Mars and Jupiter all have orbits around four years long, so they chase each other around in very complex dances, as their Retrograde periods overlap and weave a dense fabric.  Some of their Cycles can be many centuries long, as we discussed when Vesta and Ceres turned Retrograde on March 1. 

The Vesta-Ceres Cycle runs sixteen to eighteen years; this one will be coloring our lives till early in 2030.  The Waxing Square will occur five times between 2016 and 2019.

Recall that the Energy of a Cycle is strong at its birth for those who are sensitive to it.  Then it appears to fade until the Waxing Square, as it prepares foundations underground.  The Energy “becomes permanent” at the Waxing Square.

We’ll be feeling strong hints of this new two-decade Cycle already – it’s about identifying and eliminating ossified Beliefs that prevent us from centering our Lives around the Heart.  With luck it will crack religious and scientific Fundamentalism wide open.

Fundamentalism means taking your metaphors literally.  Guess what.  The Universe is at the very least multidimensional and nonlinear, and the linear Dualistic mind is simply not a sufficiently useful tool for grokking the Universe.  While physicists get closer with their nonlinear and multidimensional mathematics (which some of them believe they actually understand), the mind isn’t even aware of what lies beyond the multidimensional and nonlinear.  In other words, it’s all metaphor.  Swami Beyondananda can teach you more about the Universe than Stephen Hawking.

A few scientists understand that the “real” scienterrific process judges metaphors (which they call theories) based on their utility and parsimony, not on whether they can generate grant money, pass peer review, or are sanctified by their department chairman, corporate hierarchy, or central dogma.  The rest use the same kind of thinking that the religious Fundamentalists use, they just base their logic off a different set of assumptions.

Expect Fundamentalist Resistance to strengthen for the next two years – that is, Fundamentalist ideology will appear to be stronger – and a Herculean three-year struggle to dislodge it will follow.  It’s easy to see how the religious Fundamentalists are throwing their sabots into everything.  And the religious Fundamentalists easily see how the scientific Fundamentalists are screwing us up – as few others do.

Religious Fundamentalists are so hopelessly out of date that they don’t realize that escaping from Egypt or controlling the next village or tribe will no longer fix what ails us.  Scientific Fundamentalists are so enamored of their Dualistic Reductionist view of the World that they can’t see the Faeries for the Flowers.  As long as the World is run From the Head, the only source of Hope is the knowledge that the Planet will eventually shake off her tormentors – and that bodes ill for most of us lovers of the status quo.

As many have long said, the World needs to be run From the Heart.  That is the change in the way of thinking that will create Miracles.

It’s intriguing that the fivefold Vesta-Ceres Square occurs right after the sevenfold 2012-2015 Uranus-Pluto Square has finished transforming us.  Certainly finding our Yintegrity is a prerequisite for reconnecting to the overarching Spirit.

Following the Vesta-Ceres Square, in 2020, two important astro-events occur.

In January Pluto Initiates Saturn.  The Saturn-Pluto Cycle fundamentally restructures society.  The current Saturn-Pluto Cycle began in 1982 (think Reaganomics and Thatcherism, and “trickle-down” propaganda), Waxing Squared in 1993 (first WTC bombing, NAFTA, repeal of Glass-Seagull, Waco & the Davidians), Opposed in 2001 (think 9/11), and Waning Squared in 2010 (think collapse of the old paradigm).

The old Saturn-Pluto Cycle began at Libra 28, “A Person becoming aware of Spiritual forces sustaining and assisting them.”  That’s certainly what’s been happening, but has that Person ever been fighting the trend!  The 2020 Saturn-Pluto Cycle will Initiate at Capricorn 23, “A soldier receiving two awards for bravery in combat.”

Then in December 2020, Saturn Initiates Jupiter, at 1 Aquarius, “An old adobe mission in California.”  The current Jupiter-Saturn Cycle, which began at the dot-com crash in 2000, started at 23 Taurus, “A jewelry shop filled with valuable gems.”  As we’ve pointed out…

The current Jupiter-Saturn Cycle is about deciding which gems from the Industrial Revolution we want to take with us into the two-century Age of Automation that begins in 2020.  We’re still deciding whether or not “we” (as a Culture) want to take Industrial-Age wage slavery with us.  That’s a losing game, as “Labor” will be obsolete in the Age of Automation, except for a few machine and game designers and armies of servants for the Elite.  By then a few of the Elite may have read about Henry Ford’s efforts to pay his employees enough that they could afford to buy his cars.

We’ve talked a lot over the last several years about the “Fresh-Violets-in-an-ancient-pottery-bowl” Chiron-Neptune Cycle and the “New Paradigm” it has heralded.  That New Paradigm isn’t about wage slavery, it’s about surviving on your wits and your Community.

The Rest of May

New ways of thinking lurking under cover.  Topazolite is the Yellow form of Andradite, a Calcium-Iron Garnet (Garnet is a family of minerals).

Before we get to the foreground, we don’t want to forget the two big ongoing events in the background.  First, our “dumb-luck” Grace continues through the end of May, and second, our Yintegrity work is temporarily winding down a little after a huge peak in April – though there’s some debriefing to do in mid-June.

The foreground also holds two significant events.  We don’t usually put “structure” and “Unconscious” in the same sentence, but that’s what’s happening here, as over the last two and a half years the Dissonance has increased between how we structure our view of Reality, and the “actual” Reality (such as it is) that we keep bumping into.  Dissonance between who we believe ourselves to be (individually and as part of a number of collectives) and how we see ourselves and our Communities acting and speaking, reveals critically important information about our Unconscious Beliefs – it betrays our Denial.  Dissonance represents a fabulous opportunity for Growth in Consciousness.

It’s a crossroads of sorts.  If we’ve been adjusting our sense of self and our sense of belonging as the Dissonance developed, particularly over the last year, then we’re at the point where we can take a fourth-step inventory of the other parts of our Life to see what physical Changes we want to make to integrate our Consciousness Changes.  But if we’ve let the Dissonance build up, without adjusting our self-concepts and our memberships along the way, then we have remedial work to do on our Identity.  Maybe we knew someone at UCSB, and our NRA membership is starting to give us second thoughts – that sort of thing.  Or maybe you aren’t taking enough time to be Consciously Grateful for the services that the Bees provide to us, even though you’ve noticed that the Energy Exchange between your two species is very unequal, perhaps fatally so for both of us.

The other big foreground event is about your Beliefs per se, and how Sustainable they are.  It’s very complementary to the first foreground event, but a little different.  The first event is about the Edges of your Consciousness and how ragged they are; this second one is about how you have to shuffle your deepest Beliefs in order to find the motivation to either keep on keepin’ on, or make some pretty serious changes in your Lifestyle to maintain your sense of internal harmony. 

In the first case you might be learning a lot of new things, and either anxious or excited about putting them to work.  In the second case you might be finding that many of your assumptions about Humanity or God or “those people” are actually dead wrong, and scrambling to figure out how to rebuild your Reality so it doesn’t sabotage you so much.

I’m splitting hairs here, since we’re going to be grokking them both as one set of Experiences.  Remember that part of the Big Grace in the background is the availability of Miracles.  To get to Miracles you have to change the way you think.  Not what you think about, but the way you think about what you think about.  How the devil do we do that? 

With PIAVA.  The most important part is Changing the Subject after you PIAVA.  What to PIAVA isn’t so hard – just Ask or Pray for something you want a lot but that’s not possible.  And don’t forget to Pay Attention after you Change the Subject.  Wait a while between the two steps, though, otherwise you won’t really be Changing the Subject.  Maybe keep a journal, do your PIAVAs on Tuesdays, then forget about them, but check back on Saturday to see what happened.  You’ll probably need to stretch (that is, Change the way you think) in order to find connections between your Prayers and whatever transpired while your Attention was elsewhere.

The first Portal is open for several days on either side of May 28, with the several days prior to May 28 likely to be stronger.  The second Portal has two peaks, one on May 27, and the other on June 1, with the window first opening around mid-May.

In the background, April’s chronologically intense Uranus-Pluto-Jupiter-Mars Grand Cross

The individual Squares and Oppositions in the Grand Cross were exact at almost the same time, hence “chronologically intense.”

has faded, as has the followup Uranus-Jupiter-Vesta T-Square.  We started this Yintegrity business in May 2012, and we won’t be done with it till May 2015, but the heat is off for July, August, and September this year.  June’s a little more complicated, but we’ll get there later.  Our current work here is around 14-17 degrees of the Cardinal Signs, which will light up any of your natal planets in this range.

The Big Grace comes from the Chiron-Saturn-Jupiter Grand Trine, which occurs in 18-20 degrees of the Water Signs, and will especially impact any natal process you have going on there.

The important thing to remember is not to self-congratulate for your brilliance, but to find your Gratitude for the Grace.  Self-confidence (nose points straight ahead) is great; self-adulation (nose points up) misses the point entirely.  If nose points down, get to work PIAVAing your Miracle.

As for the foreground, Juno Opposes Saturn on May 28 (the “first” foreground event), Vesta is Stationary Direct on May 27, and Ceres is Stationary Direct on June 1 (combined, the “second”).

To whit, on May 28 Juno Opposes Saturn.  The Portal will be Open for three of four days on either side.  This Juno-Saturn Cycle is about “Two men placed under arrest: A breakdown in the constructive relationship between the individual and society,” and the Initiation occurred in mid-September 2011 at 18 Libra.

The Opposition is a crisis point of sorts in a Cycle.  Cycles begin at the Conjunction (Initiation), the Music gets loud at the Square, and the Opposition is the point where you either realize you have remedial work to do, or recognize how much you’ve changed and modify the rest of your Life to fit whom you’ve now become. 

You can see the value of Consciousness; if you understand the trend, it’s easy to jump into the remedial work.  If you see Life as a constant, you’re most likely to just rue the lost opportunity to restructure your relationship to your Culture, not realizing that the real opportunity lies in front of you.

The Cycle starts to unwind after the Phitile, which occurs just after the Waning Trine.  The Opportunity to remedy unfinished work or expand results into other arenas occurs between the Opposition and the Phitile.

The Opposition occurs at 19 Taurus-Scorpio, so will ignite any natal hot spots you have at 17-21 of the Fixed Signs, as well as any natalities you have in the neighborhood of 18 Libra.  The Phitile will occur in the first week of August.  If you harmonize your Life between now and then, you’ll be glad you did.

Meanwhile, Vesta is Stationary Direct on May 27, and Ceres on June 1.  Using one degree of Sensitivity, their Stationary periods began about two weeks prior.  They’ve been Retrograde since their simultaneous March 1 Stations.  They’ve both been backing over the last Decanate of Libra, the Gemini Decanate.  Libra is Open to Other.

When a planet Retrogrades, it crosses its “Shadow Period” (the span of its Retrogradation) three times, once forward, then backward, then forward again.  It means that we’re asked to closely re-examine any issues involved with that Shadow Period.  A Decanate is a third of a Sign, or ten degrees.  The Decanates take the qualities of the following Signs of the same Element – here, the Air Signs Libra, Aquarius, and Gemini. 

So the first Decanate of Libra is the Libra Decanate (unrestrained Openness to Other), the second is the Aquarius Decanate (making sense of Other), and the third is the Gemini Decanate (puzzling over the way Other doesn’t make sense).

Each zodiacal Sign is a reaction to the previous Sign. 

Virgo’s spiritual purpose is to break up the self-focus of Leo, and as it is with all Mutable Signs (Mutable as in mutation), the result is in some degree chaos, as the old way self and society were organized breaks down into pieces that must be reassembled in new ways.  The Cardinal Signs react to Mutable chaos by creating a new sense of Order.  Libra’s notion of Order means Creating Community.  The Libra Decanate Reaches Out to Other.  The Aquarius Decanate tries to make sense out of what worked and what didn’t in that effort – though of course “what worked” is dependent on one’s objectives, and everyone has different objectives.

Since Reality is infinitely more complex than Duality, the mind never meets its natural objective of putting everything into neat categories.  So the Gemini Decanate is stuck with trying to fit the pieces together – trying to identify the parts of ideology that seemed to fit Reality and the parts of Reaching Out that seemed to work, trying to put those together, trying to understand why parts of ideology didn’t work and why parts of Reaching Out backfired.  The end result is an intense Curiosity inspired by the need to rectify Confusion (which, recall, is the first stage of Growth).  That takes us to Scorpio and its intense need to “get to the bottom of things.”

Any planets, asteroids, lights, house cusps, or other major symbolic points that you have in the last third of Libra will be triggered for you.

These Stations are only two degrees apart, as these ‘roids are on their way to Communion in early July.  Ceres will then Baptize Vesta at 22 Libra, “A child giving Birds a drink at a fountain: The concern of simple souls for the welfare and happiness of less-evolved Beings who thirst for life renewal.”  We take exception to the part about Birds being “less-evolved” Beings, but at least there is Compassion there, if not a lessening of homocentrism.  The Judgment is Rudhyar’s, and befits the Beliefs of his era.  Rudhyar usually sees Birds as intimating Spirit; we can modernize the reading to “A child giving Birds a drink at a fountain: Manifest form reconnecting itself to its overarching Spirit.”  Gratitude for the Bees made manifest, in other words.

The Vesta-Ceres Cycle runs sixteen to eighteen years; this one will be coloring our lives till early in 2030.  The Waxing Square will occur five times between 2016 and 2019.

Recall that the Energy of a Cycle is strong at its birth to those who are sensitive to it.  Then it appears to fade until the Waxing Square, as it prepares foundations underground.  The Energy “becomes permanent” at the Waxing Square.

We’ll be feeling strong hints of this new two-decade Cycle already – it’s about identifying and eliminating ossified Beliefs that prevent us from centering our Lives around the Heart.  With luck it will crack religious and scientific Fundamentalism wide open.