Charts of the Portals IX

When our Responsiveness to our Survival Instincts finally Reboots “for good” (for far longer than our Lifetimes anyway) in 2022 (Quaoar Initiates Pholus, 21 February 2022, in 7 Capricorn), the event is not Cuspal.  The “Stinkbug chart”…

…occurs on the Cusps between Signs, which is astrological important, particularly for Blessings (Trines).  Trines represent Dumb-Luck Blessings because they usually connect Signs of the same Element (Fire, Air, Earth, or Water).

For instance, considering Emotions or Water Signs, Cancer (Cardinal Water) Generates Emotions, Scorpio (Fixed Water) Consolidates them, and Pisces (Mutable Water) Changes them.  So there is a Natural Flow of Energy between the three Signs, which Allows us to potentially be Complete with a Transaction.

The Grand Trine in the Stinkbug chart, however, includes two Mind (Air) Signs – Chaos in Gemini (Mutable Air) and Sappho-Juno in Libra (Cardinal Air), and one Emotion (Water) Sign – Aletheia-Ceres-Gonggong in Pisces (Mutable Water).  So the Energy of the Stinkbug Grand Trine starts by Generating Dualities (Libra), then Changing the Emotions (Pisces) that evolve from these Thoughts, and then Changing the Thoughts (Gemini) that arise from the New Emotions.  Rather than Flowing Smoothly to Completion, this Pattern is more likely to Increase Complications and Confusion.

Of course Confusion is the first Stage of Growth, to it’s not to be rued, but it may not be as obviously Dumb-Luck as the average Trine.  It’s still a Grand Trine, so the Grace is definitely there, it’s just likely to be disguised.  Prepare to be Surprised when Apparent Difficulties become Unexpected Blessings.

Now if we factor the planets into this equation…  The Energy of the Stinkbug Grand Trine starts by Generating Dualities around Self-Love and Consciousness (Sappho-Juno), then Changing our Emotions around Truth, Sustainability, and our Personal and Karmic History (Aletheia-Ceres-Gonggong) that evolve from these Thoughts about Self-Love and Consciousness, and then Changing Thoughts that arise from these New Emotions into Expansive Fantasies about How It Could Be (Chaos).

In other words, we could be Experiencing Glimpses of the World In Which We Really Want to Live while Dreaming for once that they might be Possible – which will Feel Complicated and Confusing.  All our Life, with a lot of help from Others, we’ve been Discounting the Possibility of Achieving our Dreams, so that will be the first Pattern that arises.

But this is dwarf planet Chaos.  It’s not about Possibility, it’s about Potential.  So don’t Discount your “Expansive Fantasies” here, instead use them as the ground for your Focus on The World You Want to Live In, whenever you catch yourself thinking about The World you Don’t Want to Live In.  Remember that we’re at a Crossroads here, and we’re wasting the Fruits of a Hard-Fought Lifetime if we Decide to be Victimized by all of the Changes that are Going On and will increasingly be Going On.

Another Caveat…  We Create the Dynamic way by Discounting the Improbable and Planning all of the intermediate steps to Building what we want to Bring into Form.  Dynamic Manifestation requires that we know What We Want, What It Will Look Like, and How to Build It.  It’s not Possible to Change Our World with those Constraints.  We need Magnetic Manifestation – PIAVA – to Create What We’ve Never Created, only Craved.

So besides indulging your Karmic Habits of Discounting What You Want, the second-best way to Kill it is to Believe that you have to know How to Create it.  Magnetic Creativity works by Focusing on What You Want and assiduously avoiding Focusing on the Mechanisms that might Create it.  You’re in Design here, not Engineering.  You Build the Energy, and let the Form come to you – that’s the Magnetic part!

So, if you get Confused here, Let It Be.  We need to be able to Sit with Confusion as an Emotion, without trying to “Fix” or Change it, if we are going to use it as our Engine for Growing Consciousness.  And if things get Complicated, Laugh it Off.  The Complications are part of the Engineering.  Your job is to Hold your Single-Minded Focus on What You Want.

Now, as of today, Self-Love (Sappho) and Consciousness Growth (Juno) have moved out of Creative Thought (Libra), and into Consolidating Emotion, aka Passion (Scorpio).  So our Process has Changed.  Our Dumb-Luck Grace no longer has a Motivator (Cardinal Sign).  Chaos won’t get to Cancer (Cardinal Water) till 2023, so we’re going to have to look elsewhere for a Starter.  In other cases, we’d have to Generate the Motivation ourself, but in this case we’re in luck, we have a Kite (a fourth planet midway between two of the Grand Trine planets) and the top of the Kite is in Capricorn (Cardinal Earth)!

So now the Energy begins with How We Want to Respond to Our Physical Survival Instincts (Pholus-Quaoar in Capricorn).  Praying for a Planetary Healing is Noble, and every bit helps.  But Praying (PIAVAing, Meditating) for the World that WE Want to Live In, for the World that Supports Our Own Personal Survival and Bliss, adds a whole ‘nother Dimension, namely our Personal Passion, without violating anyone else’s Freedom to Manifest their own Reality – on their own World, not ours.

To move the Energy from Creation to Stabilization to Change (Cardinal-Fixed-Mutable), we need to run the Kite backwards (Capricorn-Scorpio-Gemini-Pisces).  So we use the Energy in our Survival Instincts (Pholus-Quaoar in Capricorn), which run about as Deep as any Energy, to Excite our Passion for Growing our Unconditional Self-Love (Sappho-Juno in Scorpio) to Allow our Karmic Limitations to Shift and Open Up our Boundless Potential (Chaos in Gemini) so it Changes our Emotional History (Gonggong/OR10 in Pisces) and Creates an Internal Reality (Emotion<->Thought) that Sustains the Truth of our Heart (Ceres-Aletheia) – which will Change (Pisces) as we bring it out of our Hope Chest and wipe away the Spiderwebs.

Heavy Fortnight 2

Hard to keep track of everything!  Kelley Hunter points out that the 5 June 2020 Full Moon (12:12 pm PDT) is an Eclipse.  Barely, but still an Eclipse.  Eclipses mean Enlightenment, and thus a continuation of our recent Consciousness Expansion Adventures.  Consciousness Grows not through Discovery, but through Differentiation.  We suddenly See things we didn’t See (or Feel, or Hear, or Intuit, etc), but they were there all along.  One of the best ways to do this is to suddenly Remove what we’re used to Taking for Granted.  That’s what Eclipses do, and that’s why we interpret them as Enlightenment.

As is her wont, Kelley provides a bunch of great information about it, so I don’t have to…

https://www.mynewsletterbuilder.com/email/newsletter/1414536394

She refers to it as a Venusian Eclipse, and I didn’t even put Venus on our Full Moon chart (previous post)!  It turns out that it’s a few arcminutes outside of our usual 3-Degree Sensitivity span, but that’s not why I left it out – being that close, I would have included it.  I didn’t notice it because I usually ignore Venus and Mercury, because most astrologers give them a lot of Attention – again, so I don’t have to!

We’re familiar with Processes and Events that happen all the time, and Venus and Mercury astroevents do just that.  We put most of our Attention in this blog on things that happen less often, things we’re less familiar with, which we Believe are the places where we most need additional Perspective.  It was SpaceWeather.com that first brought my Attention to Venus, pointing out that it was so close to the Sun that its dark side was facing us…

It took me a bit to figure out that picture – Venus is far too small, from where we sit, to block out the Sun!  Turns out the bright ring is Sunlight Illuminating Venus’s thin atmosphere not from behind but from nearby, and it was a very difficult photo to take because the Sun was so close.

Venus turned Retrograde on 13 May (in 22 Gemini) and actually crosses the Sun on 3 June (around noon PDT).  It goes Direct again on 25 June (in 6 Gemini), which means that we’ve been Evaluating the Flexibility (Gemini) of our Values (Venus) and our Egos and our Relationships (the Leo through Pisces Duads of Gemini) since early April, and we won’t be done with that till the end of July (the “Shadow Period” spans 10 April to 29 July).  Another angle on what we’ve said in the previous post (Nemesis, Orcus, Nessus, Atropos-Karma).  The Corollavirus has been doing this pretty well for us – or “to” us if it’s put us in Victim.  That suggests that the virus is far from “finished” with us.

Brenda Hoffman nails all this pretty well in her Channeling for today…

https://lifetapestrycreations.wordpress.com/2020/06/01/youre-starting-to-relax/

“You are shifting so rapidly that what was is no more.  Of course, you are concerned about the riots, the virus, and your seemingly never-ending life changes.

“But all in all, you feel as if you have a handle on your life.  Something you have not felt for some time.  For you can commiserate with those enmeshed in the pain of all that is happening, but you are likely observing not participating.  Even though you understand what is happening, you choose not to experience it.

“So it is you are starting to relax.  Not in the sense of negating your surroundings or needs, but instead feeling that others can protest, worry, or test themselves.  You are not interested.  For you are at a different place.

“You know who you are or are beginning to be.  Your new entity is no longer fully part of the 3D world.

“The 3D world seems to be dramatically emphasized now – as if all the pain and suffering is before your eyes.  Areas of suffering you have ignored or tried to ignore.  At the same time, you realize that such pain and suffering is no longer your job, your business.

“You forerunners are the ones with clear heads and concise ideas.  Not necessarily to save the world, but instead to live your life in comfort.

“How can you live your life in comfort when so many are suffering?  Such is so because you are no longer participating in the pain of others.

“Of course, such a stance seems to be wrong.  For are you not your brother’s keeper?  In 3D, you most definitely were your brother’s keeper for clearing the pain of others was instrumental in your caretaking duties.

“Those fully enmeshed in pain and suffering want you to join them.  Not because you can save them, but instead, so everyone is suffering.

“That last statement is difficult for many of you to understand.  But then, remember your past suffering and need to have others understand you via similar feelings.  And if they did not respond in kind, you searched for someone who could or would nurture you through the pain.

“Such is what is happening now.  Those fully enmeshed in pain and fear want you to feel the same.

“Instead, you are pulling away for you no longer play by those 3D rules, nor do you have a need to suffer.  You have cleared that path.  As the week goes on, you will experience more of the observer role – a new piece for you.  Yes, it is happening, but it is not your problem.”

Ending Limitation

Curious that both Daniel and Michael focused on Letting Go of our old baggage today.  Daniel…

http://danielscranton.com/re-creating-the-past-∞the-9th-dimensional-arcturian-council/

“What we really want you to recognize is that you created something in your past that was meant to serve you in some way, and until you see it that way, it cannot.  You cannot receive the benefit of what you have created until you accept that you created it and that you created it for a very specific reason.  The reason is always that you have something to gain from the experience.“

And Michael (2 April “365 Steps” email, http://int.michaelroads.org/ )…

“With the mind full of the detritus of life, it can literally ferment, causing a type of mental inebriation.  This is the person who, addicted to thinking, is regurgitating continually their endless negative mental clutter.  When we surrender the mind, discarding our burden of thought, letting go all attachment to our thoughts, to the ‘rights and wrongs’ of the ‘this and that’ of life, we become mindless.  It is quite a paradox when you consider that we need to be mindless to be more mindful!”

And the emphasis on Expanding beyond Limitation of the last few days – we wouldn’t normally see either of these as particularly Saturnian, though it makes total sense that they would be The Most Important Thing in this day and age.

Well, as is often the case, turns out there are good astological correlates.  What a coincidence!  Among other things, there are two Sign Changes, and a budding Initiation, that are all very relevant.

First, at 4pm PDT on 31 March, asteroid Atropos moved out of Gemini and into Cancer.  Atropos, which symbolizes Endings, has been anchoring one corner of the long-standing and now broken Golden Rectangle that we’ve been discussing for a long while, and which has provided the nest for our profound Yin Gates.

Gemini is good at Letting Go, but it has a short Attention Span; it’s just as likely to Grab It Back as it is to Let It Go permanently.  Letting Go is incidental to Gemini.  It’s primary job is to Disassemble a new Creation in order to find what is and isn’t working and what could be improved.  If the Creation stops working or fails to improve when Gemini Lets Go of a part, Gemini will Put It Back and move on to the next part.

Cancer on the other hand has a definite exogenous Purpose – Nurturing.  So it doesn’t matter if a part of our Creation works (to prop up an obsolete Identity for instance!) or not; if it doesn’t Nurture, Out It Goes.  That explains a lot of the background for Daniel’s and Michael’s readings.

Second, at 12am PDT on 1 April, asteroid Moira left Pisces and entered Aries.  Moira is about “Fate” – that which follows us faithfully till we Get Conscious about it so we can exercise Choice about whether or not we want to keep it and when we might want to use or disuse it.  Pisces is about Finishing Emotional Business.  And Aries is about Intuitively Creating a New Endeavor.

That makes it glaringly obvious that Holding On to what doesn’t work is just silly.  Who needs it!  Aries is completely non-intellectual about its Creation.  Aries has a quick mind, but it won’t have any idea what it’s Building till five years later.  It’s all seat-of-the-pants.

So Moira entering Aries will make us much more Willing to Accept the Unknown.  Normally we reject what we don’t Understand, but here we’ll be very Willing to walk undefended into unknown territory, and very Willing to drop our Defenses to do it.

And third, at 6am on 3 April, dwarf planet Chaos Initiates asteroid Veritas.  Chaos represents the Zero Point Field, or Unlimited Potential.  And Veritas means Truth.  So while previously we shied away from the relative Freedom of our Forbidden Genius because we Feared the Unknown, now we’ll understand the Truth of our Limitlessness, and recognize our former Limits as the Fake News that they were.

The Initiation occurs at 21 Gemini, “A tumultuous labor demonstration.”  This is a 64-month Cycle, so for the next five years we can expect those parts of our Selves that actually do the work – our Identities – to revolt against low wages (Lack of Self-Love), poor working conditions (unnecessary Limitation), and the absence of Respect and Safety (Self-Criticism).

Fateful Full Moon

There are three big themes to the 21 April Full Moon (10:30pm PDT) – Transitions, Fate, and Truth.

• Transitions because the Full Moon occurs on a Cusp between two Signs – a place of Change, Transformation, often Contradistinction.
• Fate because the asteroid Moira – Fate – Motivates (T-Squares) it.  Fate and Free Will are of course a Duality, an Either/Or, an Intellectualization.  Real Life is Both/And.  How can anything be Both/And when they’re Opposites? Well, if that’s upsetting to you, the answer is in your hand – you’ve shifted into Emotion – Cusps again, the Cusps between modalities of Perception.  You could also have shifted into Body or Spirit.  Either/Or is a characteristic of mind, and though we’re trained to Believe that mind is bigger than the Universe, in Real Life the Universe is much bigger than mind.
• Truth because both of the Truth asteroids – Aletheia (Greek) and Veritas (Roman) adjoin the Sun.  Which brings us back to the larger theme of Removing our Masks.

Let’s focus on the Cusps…

• The Moon itself is on the Cusp of Scorpio.  Here we Change from intellectually and Creatively contemplating the new-found concept of Other (Not-I, including Other People), to intense Emotional Curiosity about Other.  Does Other really exist, or is that just a Mirror?  Does the Other Side really exist, or is it just a Projection?
• The Sun is on the Cusp of Taurus, along with the asteroids Aletheia, Veritas, and Atropos.  Atropos is Responsible for enforcing the measure of length of Life – another form of Truth.  At the Cusp of Taurus we shift from Making Things Up, to Casting them in Stone.  The Edge between what may or may not be Fantasy, and what the Muggles would consider “Real.”  Natural-born Chemists think it’s Matter that’s Real, while natural-born Physicists know that it’s Energy that’s Real.  Yes, I do take sides, though of course it’s Both/And.
• The asteroid Moira – Fate – sits on the Cusp of Aquarius, as do we.  Sit on the Cusp of the Age of Aquarius I mean.  Here we move from hard-nosed down-to-Earth Pragmatism, to Idealism, or Idolatry.  Notice anybody worshipping Sacred Cows or Golden Calfs?  Such as Power, or Profit?

All together eight of the twelve Cusps are involved in the Full Moon.  If we’re worried that our Fate is to contemplate Truth and Compassion (if Other is a Mirror, we better find Compassion!), the other five Cusps each provide alternate paths that are easier than that one.

• Our first Escape Route is the Cusp of Capricorn (where reside the dwarf planets Quaoar and Hylonome), where we Change from Letting Go of difficulties, to actually having to try to Resolve them.  (Quaoar-Hylonome tells us that if we want to Survive, we need to Molt, shed our old Ego and Open Up to the new.)
• The Cusp of Pisces is our second path to higher ground.  Here we’re fairly rudely dumped from drinking beer and discussing grand schemes for solving the problems created by the existence of Other, to having to Feel the Realities that arise because of the existence of Other.  (On this Cusp we find the asteroids Pallas and Lachesis, and the dwarf planets OR10 and Nessus, reminders that a Life in the realm of Matter is a Privilege and a Deep Mystery, and one which has well-defined Boundaries.)

The last three Cusps are about Curiosity (Quincunxes to the Sun or Moon).

• The asteroids Ceres (Sustainability) and Mnemosyne (Memory) decorate the Cusp of Aries.  Buddhists say that if you immerse yourself in the Water (Emotion), you’ll come out in the Fire (Spirit), and this is the place where you’ll come out.  I Wonder where these Memories will lead me.
• The asteroid Karma is parked on the Cusp of Gemini.  On this Cusp we go from being Trapped in Stone, to being Liberated, free to walk around and Be whomever we want to Be.  I Wonder how we could ever find a more perfect place for Karma.
• Finally, the Cusp of Libra is where we find the dwarf planet Makemake (Manifestation).  At the Cusp of Libra we’ve just finished an unpleasant-feeling period of Ego Transformations, and we’re ready to test our new Selves out on Other People.  I Wonder how I’ll be received.

Adventures in Consciousness!

Aim Higher

Step One: Focus on What you Want, not on What you don’t Want.  This step is critical, don’t skip it.

If that’s hard, start by finding something you can be Grateful for.  Running Water.  Hot Water.  Clean Water.  Enough Food, or even some Food.  A roof when it Rains.  A flush krapper.  A little less Pain than last week.  Make a short list of things you aren’t Anxious about.  The other shoulder doesn’t hurt.  Someone said a kind word to you last month.  You have a comfortable chair.  Anything will do.

Good start.  Now make a short list – several things – of what you Don’t Want.  Doesn’t matter if you’re already afflicted with it, or if it’s just threatening, or if you’re Anxious that it might threaten.  Give each of them a number, 1 to 10, 10 being “I’d Rather Die,” and 1 being “Oh Bother.”  Tap on each of them a couple times: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzVd6Ww0as4 if you need a review.  Then give them numbers again, 1 to 10.  Any reduction?  If not, circle that one, you’ll have to come back to it later.

Now make a short list of what you Do Want, several things.  They can be an inch away or Pie in the Sky, no matter.  Give them numbers, 1 to 10, 1 being “That’d be cool” and 10 being “I’ll Die without That!”  Make a short note about how you’ll Feel when you get each one.  In descending rank order (starting with your 10), for each one, take a minute and practice Feeling exactly that.

Step Two: Focus on What you Really Want.  Take your top Want and really Feel how it’s going to be when you’re able to Receive it.  Touch it.  Smell it.  Hear it.  Taste it.  Embrace it.  See it.  If your second Want is close to your top Want in number, do the same with it.

Step Three: What has Stopped you from Taking What you Really Want a long time ago?  Your underprivileged upbringing?  Guilt?  Your Significant Others?  Fear?  Your Belief that it’s happening to you?  Your Mother’s Ghost?  Do you Deserve it?  Are these reasons external to you, or internal?  Tap on a few of your Stops.  Bring them inside; if it’s a Bully that’s been Stopping you, recognize that it’s your Unwillingness to Confront, or your Belief that you’d be worse off if you Confronted, or your Hopelessness.  Rather than spend a lot of time on this, take notes.  This is important, so you’ll want to come back to it later.

Step Four: Focus again on What you Really Want.  Take your top Want and really Feel how it’s going to be when you’re able to Receive it.  Touch it.  Smell it.  Hear it.  Taste it.  Embrace it.  See it.  Notice if it’s any easier or deeper than it was in Step Two.  If it is, make a note to repeat Steps Two and Three later.  If you want, do the same with your second Want.

Step Five: Aim Higher.  What if you could have more of What you Really Want, or What you Really Want with a lot of bells and whistles?  Feel how that’s going to be when you’re able to Receive it.  If you Change your mind and decide that what you Really want is something else entirely, great!  Feel how that’ll be when you Receive it.  Any Stops?  Take notes so you can come back to them later.

Step Six: Now Aim a lot Higher.  Stay with What you Want, but get ridiculous about it.  You Wanted a Mate?  Imagine having three!  A house?  Make it a mansion with its own caretaker, and a luxury RV with professional driver besides.  World Peace?  Go for Galactic Peace, or Universal Peace.  You Wanted Good Health?  Go for Good Health and Superpowers.

At this point in our Timelines, this is where we need to be.

The dwarf planet Chaos, which symbolizes Unlimited Potential, turns Direct on 29 February a few minutes after 3pm PST, 11pm UT.  It’s Stationary (at it’s most Powerful) now.  It’s in Gemini (Mutation).  No better time to nurture Huge Changes than when your Infinite Improbability Drive is firing on all cylinders.  Did you think Douglas  Adams wrote fiction?

The Chaos Station Squares Chiron, so there’s great potential for Discouragement or even Despair, but far greater potential for Miracles when we Empathize with any Discouragement we feel.  Chiron’s moving through Pisces, where it’s churning up every Emotional component of our Limiting Beliefs and exposing them to the Sun, which will sterilize them.

The asteroid Juno, which symbolizes The Growing Edge of our Consciousness, turns Retrograde on 2 March at a few minutes before 3am PST or 11am UT, meaning it’s Stationary (at it’s most Powerful) now.  This occurs at the Midpoint of Scorpio – one of the Strongest points in the Zodiac, particularly adept at turning over rocks and diving deep to uncover hidden motives.  No better time to remove Limiting Beliefs and Grow your sense of the Possible.  And Chaos will still be Stationary.

Between the Full Moon and 8 March, a Quintile between Pallas (Boundaries) and Vesta (Unconscious Beliefs and Limits) forms the base of a Quintile Yod focused on Jupiter (Expansion).  The Quintile Yod says that It’s Really Important to Pay Attention to Learning This!  Learning what?  Learning to Expand our sense of Self by stretching our Boundaries to Let Go of Limiting Beliefs.  Jupiter is in Virgo, and Virgo is about Disassembling the Ego in order to make Space for Growth.

Jupiter completes a T-Square with Chaos and Chiron, focused on Chaos – Expanding our Discouragement and Overwhelm about the sheer quantity of Possible Futures we face, and Expanding the incredible Potential for Miracles waaay beyond what we can imagine!  We just have to stretch into them.  While it’s a few Degrees out of orb, Saturn (The Most Important Thing) completes the Grand Cross – so it’s our Willingness to Focus our Attention on what we Want to Create that will Co-Create the Big Shift.

The Most Important Thing that the Lizards are here to Teach us, is that Crisis breeds Opportunity.  Read Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine and Tom Perkins’s New Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and turn them on their heads – like it or not, Crisis is here, and likely to remain till 2020 (when Saturn Initiates Jupiter), What are WE going to do with the Opportunity?  Do we have enough cumulative Attention to Focus on What we Want and Shift the Planet away from Greed and Competition, and back toward Community and Collaboration?  Do we have enough Self-Love to Create what we Need for our own personal Peace, in order to have Loving Attention to spare for the Planet, so we aren’t just Projecting our Anxiety?

Jupiter meanwhile is moving toward an Initiation of the North Node (Mission and Deepest Desires) – Expanding our sense of What we Want and Where we’re Going.  That’ll happen in June, close to when Eris Initiates Uranus and we come face to face with all the ways we’ve been forcing the True Self to Hold Back.  Jupiter and the North Node are now two Degrees apart – Conjunct, in other words – meaning that we can’t tell the difference between them.  The more Work we do with our Wants and Stops now, the easier June will be, and the impact will be exponential.

Lunar Portals along the way, all ± three hours…

• 10am PST 28 February, Moon over Stationary Juno
• 11pm 1 March till 7am PST 2 March, Moon over Saturn corner of the Grand Cross
• 11am PST 6 March, Moon over Pallas
• 11am till 9pm PST 8 March, Moon over Chiron corner of the Grand Cross
• New Moon at 6pm PST 8 March Conjoins Chiron, stretching the Grand Cross into the rest of March

If you focus on what you Don’t Want over the next several weeks, you’re going to be miserable, because you’ll be wallowing in everything you’re going to have to Give Up in order to Grow into What you Want.  If you focus on your Pain about having to Give Up what you Don’t Want but you like better than the Unknown, that’s fine – but Witness it and Embrace it.  Put All of your Attention into the center of your Pain, and leave it there until the Pain melts away.  Or step back and “You poor Sweetheart” yourself to Death.

This is, after all, a colossal Ego Death.  Re-read our Full Moon readings, Heavy I and Heavy II.  The World is Changing fast, and even when we stand up our arms aren’t long enough to reach the cord to ring the driver to let us off.  Focus on What you Want to Create, be Loving and Gentle with every Resistance you encounter, be especially Loving and Gentle with your Grief about what you’re Giving Up, but stay Present with the realization that what you’re Creating will be far better than what you’re Giving Up. 

Remember that Confusion is the first Stage of Growth, it means that your rigid mental structures, which are the intellectual rationalizations for your Limiting Beliefs, are starting to break down.  Try to avoid talking yourself out of Confusion.  Don’t forget Curiosity.  “I Wonder how the devil we’re going to pull this off!”  It is WE – we’re in this Together!  Curiosity is next to Love, as both eschew Judgment, and we know that Love is greater than Hope or Faith.

If you have notes from Steps One or Three or Four or Five, set aside as much time as you can spare between now and March 1, and between now and March 8, to work on these more.  Use your PIAVAs when you get stuck on something; see https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/manifestation/piava/ if you need a review.  If What you Want is important to you, the time you spend on this will be more important than that.

Not only are the relevant Changes happening in the Unconscious, but they’re shifting the Future, and most of us most of the time aren’t able to see either.  There will be plenty of time for Planning, Doing, Executing the details of our Manifestations as we go forward.  Now is the time for PIAVAing the Big Picture of What we Want our Manifestation to look like, and most of all, Lovingly and Gently Letting Go of all of our internal obstacles to Receiving what we Really Want.

To Portal 6.26 and Beyond

Orb

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

Chiron Retrospective

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

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

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

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

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

Gemini and Cancer

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

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

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

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

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

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

Think It Over

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Wide Septile Yod

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And Beyond

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

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

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

Uvarovite

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

Portal 6.07

What a gorgeous Michael Underwood photo of the rest of our Galaxy!

By now most all of us should be feeling the Neptune Station.  It occurs at half-past 1am PDT on Friday (June 7), but the ancillary events run all day…

• the Moon Squares Neptune while crossing Mars at 7am PDT,
• Pallas Initiates Mars at 2pm PDT, and
• Mars and Pallas Square Neptune at 5pm PDT.

The Pallas-Mars Initiation happens within four arcminutes of the Square to Neptune, and both Pallas and Mars are still within the same arcminute when they exactly Square Neptune.  All three Squares to Neptune are Waxing, Gemini to Pisces.  It’s rare to have this degree of exactitude and coincidence, so we can expect it to be a Big Day.

The Meaning?  We’ll get to the details, but

It wouldn’t hurt to expect healthy Anger to erupt.  Your own, and that of others.  Don’t be surprised if you’re unsure of the trigger, let alone the cause.

They’re obviously feeling it in Turkey.  If you were programmed to believe that there’s no such thing as healthy Anger, then this is a great learning opportunity for you.

For the rest of us it’s about getting into the Present Time and differentiating Triggers from Causes. 

If we’re unaware that we’re angry about some repressed event from our childhood or some unreleased Karma from “past” lives, then we get mad whenever something reminds us of the Cause.  It’s a major contributor to Blame mentality and the resulting Scapegoating.

Let’s start with the Initiations; they’re at Gemini 6, “Workmen drilling for oil,” which Rudhyar hears as “The avidity for knowledge which ensures wealth and power.”  There’s an obvious Edge between service, avarice, and sustainability.  Oil to fire Vesta’s Hearth and provide Light.  Gainful employment and useful Work.  Exploitation of the Commons, almost certainly for private gain.  Likely degradation of the Planet.  It’s a busy symbol.

Mars is one of the Initiates here, and the Actor, the Workmen.  Mars the God of War – since WWI oil has been considered essential for fueling the hardware of War; witness the younger Bush’s Iraqi debacle.  With Neptune as Confusion, we need to see what Energy is becoming permanent, as that’s what happens at a Waxing Square.  The current Mars-Neptune Cycle began in early February at Pisces 3, “Petrified tree trunks lie broken on desert sand” or, per Rudhyar, “The power to preserve records of their achievements which is inherent in mature cultures.”  Hmmm.

I think I’d be more likely to see that symbol in terms of the inevitable failure of all cultures, and their eventual return to dust.  Trees are only petrified when they’re buried by lava or permanent flooding.  Social breakdown has certainly been a common theme this year.  The Moon-Neptune Cycle, which runs only a month, initiated May 31 (Moore OK Day) at 6 Pisces, the same degree as Neptune’s Station, “A parade of army officers in full dress,” which Rudhyar extols as “service to community” and community support.  Us pacifists have a different take, but it’s great that the officers are parading in their Sunday best rather than shooting holes in one another.

What jumps out at me is the high degree of organization and obeisance, as such parades are tightly choreographed.  What about the Pallas-Neptune Cycle?  Neptune last Initiated Pallas in mid-February of 2012, at Pisces 1, “In a crowded marketplace farmers and middlemen display a great variety of products.”  Rudhyar speaks of “healthy community.”  Pallas is constructive here, as Pallas was the Goddess of War, but also the Goddess of Wisdom.  Mars shoots first, Pallas asks questions first.  We think of Pallas as Boundaries.  Elizabeth sees her as Discerning Patterns, certainly an important part of Wisdom.

We can draw the hierarchy…

• Neptune Stationing Retrograde as parading army officers
• Pallas Initiating Mars, drilling for oil
• Pallas Squaring Neptune in a crowded marketplace
• Mars Squaring Neptune in a desertified petrified forest
• The Moon Squaring Neptune on the parade ground
• Pallas and Mars Initiating the Moon while drilling for oil

You can see how the simultaneity amps up the Energy, as the interaction terms multiply.

One more ingredient before we knead the dough – what’s Neptune up to in this Station?  Neptune symbolizes the Cultural Unconscious; it’s Neptune Energy that ties a culture, a community, a People, into an ineffable sense of Belonging and Ownership.  Neptune entered the second Dwad of Pisces in early February 2013, just after it Initiated Mars, and just as Chiron was Initiating Mars.  The Chiron-Neptune Cycle should remain high in our Attention, as it symbolizes the New Paradigm that we’re Co-Creating.

Neptune Retrogrades over 6 to 3 degrees of Pisces.  This is the Aries Dwad of Pisces (a Dwad is one twelfth of a Sign, or two and a half degrees).  Pisces is about Unfinished Business.  As the last Sign, it’s not the Oscars, it’s the inevitable letdown at the end of a project, sweeping the floor after the award ceremony.  No lack of respect here – it takes great skill to execute this stage of the Loop gracefully.  The first Dwad of Pisces is about wallowing in it.  Again, no lack of respect – Grief is a legitimate and necessary process, and it does not proceed without first the wallowing.

So the second Dwad, the Aries Dwad, is about conceiving the possibility of Transcendence.  There’s still much hard work ahead, but at this point we get a premonition of our possible destination, the bright Halls that await us once we finish processing our Destiny.  Destiny is Karmic – till we let it go.  Then it evolves into Creativity.  This is the stage when we begin to see what might be possible on the other end of the journey, the stage where we receive Inspiration.  The stage when we allow ourselves to Dream.  In that context, let’s look at the hierarchy again…

• Neptune Stationing Retrograde as parading army officers
• Pallas Initiating Mars, drilling for oil
• Pallas Squaring Neptune in a crowded marketplace
• Mars Squaring Neptune in a desertified petrified forest
• The Moon Squaring Neptune on the parade ground
• Pallas and Mars Initiating the Moon while drilling for oil

So we’re searching for motivation (drilling for oil), beginning to organize (the parading officers), determined to survive and seeking the wisdom of past failures (the petrified forest), and seeking community (the crowded marketplace), as we prepare to review our objectives.  We’ve brainstormed our list and drafted a rough sketch of where we want to be (while Neptune first crossed the Aries Dwad), and now we’re ready (as Neptune Retros over the same territory) to go back over our manifesto and assign priorities, flesh out details, fill in colors, envision strategies, and determine dependencies and timelines.

All conceptual of course, as this is Neptune and this is Pisces, and this is only the second Dwad.  It’s still a Dream.  But we’re beginning to give the Dream enough substance that it can be our template for motivation.  In Pisces our work is Emotional, not engineering, so we’re ruminating more than taking pencil to paper or hammer to nail.  Remember that Emotion is the Glue that molds and holds Matter into Form.  Without Emotional Commitment we Create nothing.  Emotion is the papier-mache that we’re plastering onto the stick-figure outline of our Dream.

We consider and reconsider how we want to develop the details until Neptune goes direct in mid-November, then we polish it and dot the T’s till next March, when we move into the Taurus Dwad and get serious about construction.  But still, this is Pisces.  We’re a long ways from wood and clay.  We’re building our Emotional Vessel, a blueprint not for how it should look when it’s done, but how we want it to feel.  And much of that building is sculpture – we subtract what we don’t want more than adding what we do want.  Negative Emotions, in other words.  So-called Negative Emotions.

Michelangelo didn’t patch David together from gobs of clay, he hewed away the unwanted bits from a block of solid Marble.  That’s the spiritual equivalent of what we generally consider to be “negative” Emotions – Grief, Fear, Shame – and Anger.  Healthy Anger, grounded in Present Time, sets good Boundaries.  Like this example from the Constitution of the State of Montana, quoted from Paul Cienfuegos’s talk on Ending Corporate Rule…

“All political power is vested in and derived from the people.  All government of right originates with the people, is founded upon their will only, and is instituted solely for the good of the whole.  The people have the exclusive right of governing themselves as a free, sovereign, and independent state.  They may alter or abolish the Constitution and form of government whenever they deem it necessary.”

Or Arundati Roy…

“The news item was brief and buried in the back pages: ‘India: Maoists Ambush Patrol, Killing 7 Soldiers.  Thousands of people have been killed in the past decade in violence involving Maoists, who claim they represent India’s dispossessed, particularly indigenous tribal groups.’  You may wonder, What’s going on?  Isn’t India a democracy?  In India, the U.S. and other countries the actual functioning of democracy has largely been hollowed out.  Yes, there are elections and people vote but the nexus of decision-making power lies elsewhere.  Corporations dominate the political process.  With their fistful of dollars they are able to exact outcomes that benefit them.  As environmental destruction continues unabated we must reimagine a different world.  One in which people and the planet are more important than profits.”

Michelangelo started with a block of Marble that someone else had already started sculpting, so he had to adapt to sections that were already missing before he began.  So it is with us, as our “Past” Lives and repressed childhoods are as if hewn by someone else, not by our Ego but by the Unconscious.  Much of Pisces is about Soul Retrieval, getting back the parts of ourselves that were stolen by predators, and Soul Return, giving back the parts of others that we adopted as if our own, by Choice or by Programming.

But we aren’t quite done.  The Square from Mars-Pallas to Neptune is one side of a Pythagorean Triangle – a benefic Triangle composed of a Square, a Trine, and a Quincunx.  The Square provides motivation, the Trine Grace, and the Quincunx Curiosity, all complementing one another – you can’t find a better combination.  The third corner of the Triangle is Saturn, at 6 Scorpio.  Saturn, Mr. Pay Attention, will facilitate Pallas’s efforts to bring the Cultural Unconscious into the Present Moment, and into Consciousness.  Very handy.

Pisces and Gemini

The main effect for the next several days is a series of running Squares between Pisces and Gemini.  Gemini’s role is to make adjustments – little is Sacred to Gemini, anything is up for renegotiation.  Pisces is the last sign.  That means Pisces has “seen it all,” and that unfinished business becomes top priority.  The Challenge (Square) lies in the potential competition between Intellect and Emotion.  If Gemini renegotiates what Pisces has not released, there is hell to pay.  Major self-sabotage.  The corresponding Mastery lies in constructive, positive, cooperative flow in the feedback loop between Thought and Feeling.  That’s a Big Deal for the average Human life.

This has been going on for about a month, and will continue for several weeks, changing constantly as quicker planets like Venus, Sun, Mercury move through Pisces and Square the Gemini gauntlet (Jupiter, Vesta, Lilith, Ceres) in turn.  The Jupiter-Chiron Square (your choice – Expanding the Despair or Expanding the Miracles) has been a constant.  Tomorrow (March 1) the Moon makes Mjolnirs with each of the Squares, lighting them up in turn.

They change frequently, but at the moment (and as the Moon Mjolnirs them) the ephemeral Squares – Challenges and potential for Mastery – are

• Venus-Jupiter (Expanding emphasis on Values and Walking in Beauty),
• Sun-Vesta (the Sacred becoming primary),
• Mercury-Lilith (appreciating the Goddess), and
• Mars-Ceres (consistent application of Energy).

Vesta in Gemini is particularly intriguing, as what is Sacred is generally not renegotiable.  Learning tolerance is an obvious opportunity, learning that we don’t really need to insist that other people share our beliefs in order to be true to our own Hearts.  In a culture where Hate seems to be a strong Value in most of the religions on the Planet, this is a fabulous opportunity.  Vesta is about what is most Sacred in our Hearts, not in our rulebooks.

In the portrait, the Squares are shown in red, and the last Mjolnir in Orange.

The other obvious configuration in the chart, in green and blue, is the Rahu-Apex Yod with Pallas and Lilith.  Rahu (Dragon’s Head or Moon’s North Node) represents our Mission, our Future.  Lilith of course symbolizes the Deep Feminine, with characteristics like collaboration, equality, Community, mutual concern, and We Are All One.  Pallas will be contributing little patience for those who didn’t get the memo.  Of course the Yod is about openness, Curiosity, and learning, so there’s hope, but we can still expect some resistance from those who haven’t gotten the memo from Eris.  This Yod is in place for about ten days starting today.

Our Feline Friend is a reminder that the Uranus-Pluto Square is still the primary Big-Ticket Energy bringing the 1960s back into prominence.  It’s fashionable for sociologists to rationalize greed by telling us that Conservatives are every bit as compassionate as Liberals, they just have a deep respect for Authority.  It doesn’t take much imagination to cast them as obedient Nazis.  I won’t say that there may be a correlation with folks who prefer dogs for their mirrors.  Uranus dislikes being a leader as much as it dislikes following or having followers.  Leading and following both limit one’s freedom to enjoy the moment-to-moment variability of one’s true Yintegrity Self, as other people seek their security in the consistency of their leaders and fellow Lemmings.

How does such individuality jive with collaboration, equality, Community, mutual concern?  Through tolerance.  I always think of sports, where you don’t want your pitchers batting, and you don’t want your sluggers pitching.  You want individuals exercising their own special skills, respecting the special skills of others, and creating teams that perform far better than a herd of clones.