Intuition, Choice, Self-Sovereignty IV

As much importance as we assign to the Meaning of asteroid Moira, it behooves us to look in detail at her Retrogradation.

Planets appear to go backwards or Retrograde when, on our way around the Sun, we “pass” them.  It’s like when we pass another car on the freeway – if we focus on the other car, it looks like they’re going backwards.  Of course we’re all going “forward,” but the sort of astrology we use looks at the planets as they’re seen from Here.

To filter out the effect of the Earth spinning on it’s own axis, we have to take a snapshot of the Sky at the same time every night to detect an other planet going backwards.  And of course we think the other planets and Stars “rise” in the East and “set” in the West, but that’s the Earth’s rotation.  The other planets, when moving “forward,” actually move from West to East, so on our daily time-lapse photo series, “backwards” movement is East to West.

When a planet goes Retrograde, it crosses a given patch of Sky thrice – once prior to its Retrograde Station, a second time while it’s Retrograde, then after its Direct Station, a third time.  A Spiritual Purpose of the moving planets is to Educate us.  When we have to suffer through a Lesson three times, we know that it’s an Important Lesson.

Moira’s Retrograde Station, on 21 March 2020, occurred at 19:05 Scorpio.  Her Direct Station will occur on 15 June at 7:30 Scorpio.  She first crossed 7:30 on 22 January, and She’ll cross 7:30 again on 15 August.  So our Moira-in-Scorpio curriculum spans 22 January to 15 August, and 7:30 to 19:05 Scorpio.  So we’ve finished the first Repetition of this Deep Exploration (Scorpio) of Fate versus Choice (Moira), and beginning the first Remedial session.

Astrological Signs are divided into twelve “Duads” of 2½ Degrees each.  For Scorpio, the first Duad is the Scorpio Duad of Scorpio, the second Duad is the Sagittarius Duad of Scorpio, etc.  So our span of 7:30 to 19:05 is about the Aquarius through Gemini Duads of Scorpio.  The Meaning of these are…

• Aquarius Duad – Deep Examination (Scorpio) of our Relationship to our Community and Culture (Aquarius); are we Victim of, or Adept with (Moira), our Community and Culture?  We had this Lesson initially from 22-29 January.

• Pisces Duad – Deep Examination of our Unfinished Emotional Business; does it Victimize us or are we Enthused by the Opportunity to Confront our Held Emotions and Let Go of our Self-Sabotaging Karma?  That Lesson was 30 January through 7 February.

• Aries Duad – Deep Examination of our Spiritual Creativity; does it Burden us or Motivate us?  Initial Lesson 8-17 February.

• Taurus Duad – Deep Examination of our Relationship to Matter; does it Rule us or do we Rule it?  First Lesson 18 February through 1 March.

• Gemini Duad – Deep Examination of our Willingness to Let Go of Who We Are in Order to Allow a Greater Identity to Form; Victim or Master?  Preview 2-22 March.

Now that Moira is Retrograde, we now go through this curriculum in reverse.  This second iteration is when we really get the opportunity to study the material – the initial set of Lessons merely introduced the Issues, mostly as Questions.  Now we begin to look not for Answers, but for Strategies for dealing with the Issues.  This is Real Life, not college, so the Issues don’t have Right-or-Wrong Answers, they only result in new ways of Organizing our Experience.  Eventually they’ll result in Wisdom, but that may take many Lifetimes.

So our curriculum for the next three months looks like this…

• 23 March-11 April, Gemini Duad, Are we Victims of our Losses, or are we Grateful for the Opportunity to Grow a New Identity?

• 12-25 April, Taurus Duad, Do our Possessions and our Health Define our Identity, or are we Adept at Manipulating Matter and at Manifesting Wellness?
  

• 26 April-7 May, Aries Duad, Are we Clear about what Inspires us, and do we Allow it to do just that, or do we Shut Down our Deepest Desires in order to avoid rocking any boats or Confronting our Programming?

• 8-19 May, Pisces Duad, Yes, we’d rather Die that Feel or Do That again.  Do we Cower before this Fear, or do we Recognize it as an Invitation to Liberation from our Limitations, and Bravely Embrace the Fear as our Power in Disguise?  Remember that Bravery is the Fundamental requirement for success between 2020 and 2055 (Saturn-Pluto), but don’t forget that we still have access to what we Learned between 1982 and 2019, that Spiritual Forces Surround and Assist us.

• 20 May-15 June, Aquarius Duad; So, do we Choose to spend our Attention and Energy on Ruing what we don’t like about the World we Live In, or do we Let that World Go and Persistently Devote One-Pointed Attention to a Vision of the Community that We Want to Live In?

The third and final series of Lessons is mostly about Exercises that allow us to Acknowledge our new-found Confidence that we now know how to…

• We now have Confidence in our Ability to Focus our Energy on a Community that Enlivens us, whether we Feel that we’ve Created it already, or we still need to PIAVA it more, all the while staying in Gratitude for what we have already Manifested in the way of Community.  Aquarius, 16 June-11 July.

• We now have Confidence in our Ability to Recognize that any Experience we don’t Like is an Opportunity to Jettison our Karmic Pattern to Create it again and again, and Let It Go.  Karma is Dead.  The only thing that keeps it Alive for us is our Unwillingness to Let It Go, because we’re so accustomed to it, and frightened by the possibility that the Alternative could be worse.  It won’t.  Pisces, 12-23 July.

• We now have Confidence in our Ability to Recognize the Sources of our Inspiration, Invite them when they’re Absent, and Follow them Wherever they lead us, no matter what anyone else will think or say.  Aries, 24 July-2 August.

• We now have Confidence in our Ability to Manifest What We Need and What We Want, When We Need It.  Taurus, 3-10 August.

• We now have Confidence in our Ability to Recover Quickly from Losses, Be Grateful for What We Have Kept, and Be Able to Swivel Quickly when Conditions Change.  Gemini, 11-15 August.

We need to get very serious about dumping this Karmic shit, and our Belief in it – which perpetuates it – while we still can.  Otherwise we’ll just be Dancing on the Wheel for several more Millennia on some other Planet after this one has finished Atlantis II.  Or on this one after it has split in two.

“When the apparition ended, there in his notebook was ‘The Gospel According to the Dark.’  The handwriting was his, but he had no memory of setting down her words…

” ‘Say to the Nations, let there be no light upon the face of the Earth.  Let the machines all cease their movements, the wires their humming.  Let the skies be empty of satellites and silver birds.  Let the forests return and the watercourses find their way.  All things seek their Mother – save man only.  Now is the hour of Her return.’ …

” ‘Not one syllable of all that is written will remain.  Of the former things, not one will be remembered.  Did you suppose that what was written by the wind on water should last forever?  How much shallower are the traces left by man.‘ ”

–Clark Strand and Perdita Finn, The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary, pp.53-54

Shades of Hank Wesselman.

Repeating Astroevents

One of the reasons I wrote about Anxiety specifically recently, is that several folks have expressed concern recently about whether nightmares of one kind or another that they endured when an astroevent happened, will recur when the event repeats.  Just as an example, the 9 June Uranus-Eris Conjunction will come back to haunt us on 26 September – that will probably be an intense time for Britain.  When we personally have planets in our natal chart triggered by outer planets in the Sky, it’s even more intense.

The way I look at it (from several decades of personal experience), when an astroevent repeats it’s because the Universe wants us to Learn something very well.  If we’ve never experienced the particular event before, of course we’re going to be caught off guard the first time it occurs – at times even shaken to the core!  That’s why we call the first occurrence the “Can-Opener” – it opens Cans of Worms, or venemous Snakes, that we didn’t know about.

The second and subsequent events are usually a little less intense, but if we’re swamped with dread from memories of the Can-Opener, we can actually make it worse through our Anxiety and Expectation.  Expectation turns out to be a lot like Intention (which is what’s most Self-Sabotaging about our Limiting Beliefs), and as we said earlier, Anxiety can actually create Limiting Beliefs, through Decisions.

After we’ve experienced a Can-Opener, we need to take notes on our Internal and External Realities – what were we Feeling, and what Happened (plus, what Happened and how did we React to it).  We refer to the second episode of any astroevent as an “Exposition” – it Exposes a lot more information about the first event.  So as the second event approaches, we can be reviewing our notebook and Expecting to Learn a lot more about those Feelings and Occurrences that the Can-Opener triggered.

The more Experience we have with anything, the more likely we’ll deal with it calmly and confidently.  Sometimes astroevents go on and on, like the Uranus-Pluto Squares of 2012-15.  Back in the 1980s and 1990s, Saturn and Chiron Opposed one another over and over again for eleven years!  The Universe was shouting, THE MOST IMPORTANT THING HERE IS LEARNING HOW TO DEAL WITH DESPAIR!, as Pluto crossed Scorpio.  I grayed that out a bit lest someone think we’re referring to the Present Moment.  What we got from that was the Recovery Movement.

When we’re dealing with planets in the Sky now, like we write about here, both planets are moving, and if they’re moving at similar speeds they can chase each other around playing tag for a long time.  But since our natal planets are fixed, personal astroevents usually happen only three times.  Those new dwarfs out beyond Pluto can move so slow that it takes them several years to go just one Degree, so they’re exceptions, but their impact is deep in the Unconscious, and they may have less direct impact up here on the Surface for many folks.

If we were taking good notes at our Exposition, we probably Learned a great deal about any Overwhelm we experienced at the Can-Opener, and the third occurrence of an astroevent is usually a “Confidence-Builder.”  The same Feelings recur but we’ve now integrated them.  Similar External Events happen, but now we’re a relative pro at dealing with them.  

This approach to “Transits” (as astrologers call interactions between Sky-Now-planets and natal-planets) is one of the strongest gains one can make from following one’s “Stars.”  It converts one from being an unwilling Victim of one’s Transits, to being a willing Student of them.  As a friend of mine once said, “I know that ‘This too shall pass,’ but you’re an astrologer; you know when it will pass.”

The other major impact we can make from knowing our Transits, is Decision Prevention.  Prevention of inappropriate Decisions, that is.  If you were following the in-the-Sky-Now Transits at the time of “9/11,” you’d have understood that The Most Important Thing at the time was Dealing with Your Fear of Death, as the Saturn-Pluto Cycle had just moved past it’s climax.

Instead of being a Student of the astroevents of the time and Learning about Ego Death and Transformation, most folks rushed eagerly into being their Victim, leaving the US open to being manipulated into buying what Dubya called “Perpetual War” by America’s leading export industry, the Arms Industry, and into loss of considerable civil rights through the Patriot Act.  Both of these are still Self-Sabotaging the US fifteen years later.

When we discuss 2020, as we’re planning to do, we’ll have to take into account that the decade begins with Initiation of a new 33-year Saturn-Pluto Cycle centered around Awards for bravery in combat.  We’ll have to see whether the awards go to storm troopers or freedom fighters.

The current Saturn-Pluto Cycle began in 1982 at 28 Libra, Becoming conscious of Spirit.  The next one begins in January 2020 at 23 Capricorn, Awards for bravery in combat.  

The Jupiter-Saturn Cycle that marks the beginning of the Digital Age doesn’t Initiate till the December Solstice in 2020, at 1 Aquarius, An old California adobe mission.  Pluto Initiates Jupiter in early April 2020 in 25 Capricorn, An abundance of Oriental rugs.

If we combine these new beginnings with the Fresh Violets in an Ancient Pottery Bowl Chiron-Neptune Cycle that began at the Derivatives or “Mortgage” Crisis, we have a lot of old Technology surviving into the Digital Age – passive mud-brick buildings, weaving, pottery, Plants; Sustainable technology for a nuclear winter after a Trumpian fit of pique or Planetary climate diaster?  Violets are edible.

Or maybe just Sustainable technology for an expanded Back-to-the-Land Permaculture movement for the billions who won’t find a place in Digital society.

Stations of the Tōkaidō

This is a technical note about astrology, though I think most folks will find it useful.

Because we all go around the Sun at different speeds, for part of the year most of the planets appear to go “backwards,” or “Retrograde.”  

We use “Tropical” astrology, which means we look at the planets as they appear from Earth; in Sidereal astrology (as the planets would appear from the Sun, if you have your asbestos booties on) there are no Retrogradations, everybody’s just in the same roller derby.  Also, in Tropical astrology, we locate the planets in Signs relative to the March Equinox, not relative to the location of a particular Constellation in the Sky, as Sidereal astrology does.

The planets and Moon move in the Sky from west to east; it’s the turning of the Earth that makes it look like they’re moving from east to west.  To see their true movement, you have to take a series of snapshots of the Sky every night at midnight and play them in a zoetrope.  When we pass a slower planet in the derby, that planet will appear in this series of midnight snapshots to stop, go westward for a while, stop again, and then resume its eastward motion.

When a planet stops, it’s said to be “Stationary,” or to be “having a Station” or “Standing Still.”  But there are several important nuances to this term, that we usually gloss over.

The most important thing to know is that the influence of a planet is Strongest in the days (inner planets) or week (outer planets) before it’s Exact Station.  

The influence of any planet is always relative – if there are six Big astroevents going on at the same time, any one of them by itself probably won’t seem as overwhelming.  And the Strength of a Station depends on our Sensitivity – in general, to that planet, and to the Location of its Station.  If it Stands Still on one of the planets in our birth chart, for instance, it may as well be Standing on our toe.

We say a week for the Strong influence of a Stationary outer planet because that’s about as much time as we can get without contamination for a zillion other astrothingies, and because that’s approximately where my span of Sensitivity lies for the average outer planet.  If your Sensitivity is greater, you’ll Feel a Station earlier; if you’re a Muggle, you may not Feel it at all.

It also depends on your ability to distinguish one Energy from another.  If six planets are Stationary at once, like at the Centaur Convention on the Galactic Center a few years back, or if there are a number of Strong Angles going on at the same time (like now), it’ll take a very Discerning eye to separate out the Influences – as if it mattered.

This week Neptune and Makemake were Stationary at the same time, with less than a day between them.  We couldn’t really tune into Makemake while Neptune was still Stationary – the Energy we were experiencing wasn’t Neptune, but Neptune-Makemake.  Once Neptune found its Exact Station, its Strength began to wane, and we could tune in to Makemake more readily.  

Next week Pallas and Juno will do the same trick; Pallas’s Exact Station occurs about half-past 6pm PDT on 21 June, and Juno’s at 1pm on 22 June.  So we’ll be feeling Pallas-Juno for most of the 21st, and Juno after that – though there’s a whole lot else going on next week, so I don’t expect these Energies to stand out prominently, unless they’re Standing on your toes.

While there is a moment of Exact Station, when the planet literally turns about, they don’t screech to a sudden stop, then burn rubber; they slow down and speed up gradually before and after their Stations, and in general the slower they’re moving, the more they’re saying “Hey, Look at Me!”  So we often say that a planet “is Stationary” when it’s within one Degree (inner planets) or one week (outer planets) of it’s Exact Station.

We find the Energy to be Strongest before the Exact Station.  A planet speeds up gradually after the Exact Station, and while it’s still moving very slowly it’s still technically Stationary and still Stronger than usual, but not as Strong as before the Station.  With this week’s Neptune and Makemake Stations, for instance, we mostly talked about how Strong they were leading up to their Exact Stations, not so much afterwards.

As with any astroevent, we’ve found that Consciousness is primary.  If we’re Aware that Pallas is Stationary, for instance, then we won’t be surprised if we see Boundaries coming up for renegotiation.  If we aren’t Conscious of what Pallas is up to, we may be caught off guard, and avoid the suggested renegotiations.  If we renegotiate in a timely fashion, then the Energy is deflated once the Exact Station passes.  If we don’t, then the Energy can drag on.

In particular, Decisions can extend any astroevent.  For instance, if someone insults or harasses us on the 21st and we don’t call them on it (here’s a helpful tool: https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/nwrn.org/files/Nw16N/NW16News0316.pdf  ) and instead just Judge them, then we lose our Curiosity and poison our Relationship with that person.  That Energy could last “forever.”  If we renegotiate on the spot and Revert, then Pallas Energy moves back into the background.

The poster child for this is 9/11.  The Saturn-Pluto Energy that provoked 9/11 was finished in August.  But the Lizards had other plans, introducing their 1000-page Patriot Act and US-economy-supporting (as arms merchant to the World) “Perpetual War” within a few days anyway.  So we’re still dealing with that Energy fifteen years later, and it shows no sign of de-escalating.

A planet can be “Stationary Retrograde,” when it’s slowing down to turn backwards, or “Stationary Direct,” when it’s slowing down to turn forward again.  Personally, we find that the Strengthening of a planet’s Energy at either Station is much more important than whether it’s turning Retrograde or Direct, so we usually just focus on the Station.

Similarly, we don’t usually make a big deal out of whether a planet is Direct or Retrograde.  There are some cases where the impact is obvious – as with Mercury – but usually it’s just a matter of whether we’re being Extroverted or Introverted around the planet’s Energy, and we find that whether the planet is Stationary is much more prominent than whether it Retrograde.  Your experience may differ.

One thing that does matter, is that when a planet turns Retrograde it crosses a patch of Sky three (or more, if the planet is far away) times instead of once, implying that the Universe really wants us to get the hang of this piece of Sky.  If the planet makes a triple Angle to another planet in the Sky, or to a planet in our birth chart, that’s a Big Deal.

When a planet makes multiple Angles to another, we refer to the first event as the “Can-Opener,” because the Energy often appears to come out of “left field” and surprise us.  If we’re dealing with slow-moving outer planets, we may have little or no experience with that particular combination of Energies in our Lifetime, so it may really catch us off guard.  The Can-Opener occurs before a planet turns Retrograde.

As the multiple Angle repeats, we gain experience with it, so we refer to the second (Retrograde) and subsequent events as “Expositions,” because they Expose us to the Energies so we can get more comfortable with them.

The last event of a multiple Angle we call a “Confidence-Builder,” because by now we’ve probably gained enough familiarity with the Energy combination that we feel confident dealing with it.  The Confidence-Builder occurs after the planet turns Direct again.

When folks refer to a Retrogradation, they’re usually referring to the timespan when the planet is actually Retrograde.  To an astrologer it’s more important to know when the planet first enters the patch of Sky over which it will later Retrograde, and when it finally exits that patch of Sky, after it turns Direct again.  

This entire span is called a “Shadow Period,” in both time and astrological Degrees.  It’s important because it encompasses the Can-Opener and the Confidence-Builder, while the Retrograde period itself only includes the Expositions.

The two most important things to know about Stations are (1) that a planet’s Influence is Strongest just prior to its Exact Station, whether it’s turning Retrograde or Direct, and (2) that we need to look ahead to find a planet’s Shadow Period, so we can be Conscious of Can-Openers as the arise.

Now Retipuj Too

If we look for the most unique news event in the Collective during Mercury’s first crossing of Pallas and Pluto, and Squaring of Uranus, we find the recovery of the SpaceX first-stage rocket.  

Background, if you’ve missed the story: The US Space Agency, NASA, has been inviting private industry and small startups into the “Space Race,” in the effort to spur innovation and reduce cost.  Successful bidders include SpaceX, a rocket company founded and run by Elon Musk (PayPal, Tesla, SolarCity), whose primary motivation seems to be to colonize Mars.  

Satellite-launching rockets cost tens of millions to build, and they’ve been considered disposable, used once and discarded.  Musk’s notion is to recover and reuse them.  In mid-December a SpaceX rocket successfully launched eleven communication satellites, then turned ’round and came home, landing nose up in a bed of fire a few miles from its launch site in Florida.  Jeff Bezos’s (Amazon) rocket company, Blue Origin, has also successfully recovered used rockets by landing them vertically, but his rockets don’t reach orbital altitudes.

SpaceX aims to reduce space travel costs by 99% with rocket recovery.  Potential for increased space littering aside, this kind of puts us back in the 1960s, when the Sky was no longer the Limit, and folks purportedly walked on the Moon, before OPEC threw a wet blanket on our plans to emulate the Jetsons.  Global Warming, Syria and Russia, and the rise of China were also prominent at the Mercury-Pluto Can-Opener.

So we can expect more development of the subway-to-Mars story in mid-January, at the Mercury-Pluto Exposition.  Apart from the time-local Mercury Can-Opener template, the SpaceX story is also an excellent example of another phenomenon, the astrological Cycle.  We’ve been referring to 2012-15 as “The Return of the ’60s” because Pluto Initiated a new Cycle with Uranus in 1965, and a characteristic of the astrological Cycle is that a new Energy emerges at the Initiation, then goes underground during the first one fourth of the Cycle, or until the planets “Square” one another.  After this Waxing Square, the new Energy spreads widely.  The Uranus-Pluto Square spanned 2012-2015, and we’ve seen a number of other ’60s themes becoming prominent – civil/human rights and marijuana decriminalization among the most obvious. 

Two planets are said to “Square” one another, or to “be Square” to each other, when they are 90 Degrees apart, or one fourth of the way around the Zodiac from one another.   In “Tropical” astrology, which we practice, the two imaginary lines drawn from Earth to each planet would be perpendicular to each other.  So one of them would be rising or setting when the other was directly overhead.  

A “Waxing” Square is created when the faster planet reaches one fourth of the way around the Zodiacal loop, ahead of the slower planet.  The slower planet is moving too, so the Square doesn’t occur 90 Degrees from where the planets met, but rather when there are 90 Degrees between the two planets in real time.  The “Waning” Square occurs when the faster planet is 270 Degrees ahead of, or 90 Degrees behind, the slower planet.

Keep in mind that the planets move from West to East.  Its the daily turning of the Earth into the East that makes it look to us as though the planets and Stars and Sun and Moon move from East to West.  You can see how the planets themselves move by taking a snapshot of the Sky every night at midnight.

As the name implies, a Square signifies a Fourth Harmonic relationship between the two planets.  The Fourth Harmonic is about Dominion, and the Square is about Mastery through Challenge.  If you think about your frustrations and breakthroughs in trying to Relate to someone who is very different from you in ways that you don’t understand, you’ll get a good handle on the Square.  If you succumb to Preconceptions and Judgments and Other People’s Opinions and Expectations, you won’t get very far in either Relationships or Squares.  If you’re genuinely interested in overcoming the barriers, willing to learn and practice new Skills, able to try something else when one strategy doesn’t work, open to Surprise, able to Suspend Judgment, and willing to give yourself credit for all the hard Work, you’ll find both Relationships and Squares to be Exciting and Rewarding.

Now it’s Jupiter’s turn to face the Mirror at the back of the bus – Retipuj Egardorter.  We pay attention to the Stations, when a planet is changing directions, because that’s one of the times when a planet’s influence is Strongest, and because of these triple-plays, which are often Life-Changing.  Jupiter’s triple-cross spans 14-24 Degrees of Virgo and mid-October 2015 through early August 2016.  Jupiter starts moving forward again on 9 May.  

One of Jupiter’s triple-plays, for instance, is an Opposition to Chiron.  The Can-Opener occurred in early November.  Jupiter may have Expanded your Discouragement then, in an effort to get you to step over the wall into Miracles.  If you allowed Preconceptions and Judgments to slow you down then – this is common for Can-Openers, because they introduce us to new territory – we get another chance at the Exposition in late February.  Expositions are easier, first because we’ve now seen it before, but also because events and feelings unfold more slowly and gradually, giving us a better opportunity to study and understand what’s going on.  Our Confidence-Builder will occur in mid-August.

The Jupiter-Station chart is a busy one…

• The Jupiter-Edargorter Station is Conjunct the North Node, while the Moon and Ixion T-Square the Nodes
• Jupiter is also the focus of a Yod based on the Ceres-Eris Sextile
• It’s also the tail of a South-Node Kite, Grand-Trining Pallas and Sedna
• Sedna’s the focus of a Yod from the Haumea-Moon/Ixion Sextile
• Haumea has it’s own Yod, based on the North Node-Eris Sextile
• Pallas is also the focus of a T-Square across the Haumea-Eris Opposition
• Eris is Stationary, turning Direct in two days at the head of a second Kite with s Chaos-Ceres-Haumea Grand Trine, T-Squared by the New Moon 
• The Eris-Haumea Opposition also forms a Trioctile Box with the Orcus-Neptune Opposition

It’s going to be a hard month for keeping secrets, and for keeping our remaining Masks held tight, as the New Moon extends this chart into the rest of January.  Our “Pathological Genius” – our Unique Skills that have been Shamed into the Dungeon – will be irrepressible.  Fear may be prominent, especially Fear of Abandonment and Annihilation as we move through the Ego Deaths necessary for Rebirth into our own Truth.  There will be Boundaries to be moved, to Allow new parts of our Self to emerge into the Light of Day and to Defend their right to do so.  It won’t feel any better but it will help anyway, if we remember that Courage is not the absence of Fear but the willingness to Act in the face of Fear.  

If you have any natal planets in 14-24 Degrees of any of the mutable Signs (Virgo, Pisces, Gemini, Sagittarius), Jupiter is asking you to Expand around them.

This is basically the Pisces, Aries, and Taurus Duads of Virgo, a Duad being one twelfth of a Sign.  If we regard Virgo (which we do) as the place where we dissemble the individual Ego in order to prepare to meet Other, then this is the area where we’ve pretty much dissembled, and now we’re starting to experiment with rebuilding.  

Edargorter

 ?Edargorter seog tenalp a nehw sneppah tahw

Well, we need a mirror to be able to read what’s going on.  A journal would also be handy.  By the time a planet does go Edargorter, it’s already taken us on a journey.  In case you haven’t noticed, Edargorter is Retrograde spelled, of course, backwards.  By the time a planet turns Retrograde, we’ve already missed the point.

When a planet turns Retro, it crosses a section of the Zodiac, stops, backs up over it again, stops again, then finally runs over this same section of the Zodiac for a third time, before moving on.  If we happen to be Ego-identified with that section of the Zodiac (let’s say we have a natal planet there), and the Gnidargorter planet happens to be as Heavy as a Mack Truck, we want to know when it’s coming through the first time, so we can step out of the way then.  By the time it’s backing up, our Ego is already just a grease spot.

We use a simple rule, the Experience Rule.  It says that the more times we’ve Experienced a particular astroevent, the easier it is, simply because we have more practice dealing with it.  

That’s one reason why we say that if you have a Square and especially a T-Square in your natal chart, you’re the Expert on that subject, because you have more Experience with it than anyone else around.  Squares never Feel good, especially if we have a perfectionistic streak, or if we compare our Life to that of Others.  So you probably discount your Skill.  But you are the Expert, and once you begin to understand that, your Life Changes forever, because you’re no longer the Victim of your own Life.  You become the Master instead.

This rule is also why we pretty much ignore the inner planets, because they zip around the Zodiac so often that we all have plenty of Experience with them.  Yes, Mercury’s turning Edargorter, but that happens three times a year, so we’re all Experts already on Mercury Edargorter.  Of course, Mercury doesn’t thrice cross the second half of Capricorn three times a year, it only does that once every six years.  But Mercury crosses your natal Capricorn planets every year, and Squares them twice a year.  

Compare that to Pluto, which only crosses anyone’s natal planets every 250 years – most of us go a Lifetime without Experiencing that, so it’s a Big Deal.  When one of those outer planets takes a mind to triple-cross one of your natal planets, this is a whole new Experience for you.  One of the guidelines of Time Management says that you can’t estimate how long something will take to do if you’ve never done it before.  Similarly, you can’t know how to deal with Pluto crossing your natal Mercury if you’ve never Experienced it before.

Mercury crossing Pluto isn’t nearly so intense as Pluto crossing Mercury, but it’s a good example of how to deal with Sedargorter.  Mercury will be Retrograding over the last half of Capricorn this month, and in the process Retrograding over – that is, thrice crossing – Pluto and Pallas.  It’s already run over them once, so while Mercury’s more like a Smart Car than a Mack Truck, it’s already knocked down Pluto and Pallas for the first time.

We consider that first crossing the Can-Opener crossing, because it introduces whatever Difficulty we have with the two planets.  Mercury crossing Pluto might Challenge us to find a new, Transformed way of thinking, for instance, or it might force us to think about something we don’t like to think about, or make us talk about something that makes us very uncomfortable, because we don’t have much practice at it.  That happened on 19th December, so it’s Water under the bridge.

Except that whatever unfinished business we have around that – maybe someone feels insulted by what you said on 19 December, or maybe your Mother’s Ghost stands at your shoulder, eyes like ice, a little bit colder, saying to you, “You cannot do that, it breaks all the rules you learned in school” – will be revisited during the second and third crossings.  Mercury will cross Pluto again on 21st January.  We call that second crossing the Exposition phase.  We get to Experience the Can-Opener again, but this time having seen it once already, we’re a bit wiser, and it happens in slow motion.  The process is Exposed, and we get to practice with it – maybe make amends, or tell our Mother’s Ghost where to go.

Mercury crosses Pluto for the third time on 28 January.  By then we’ll be old hands at this.  We’ll just thank Mom’s Ghost for contributing, we’ll have learned how to Speak our Truth without insulting anyone, and the Transformation of our thinking will be complete.  So we call this third crossing the Confidence-Builder stage.

Mercury over Pallas works the same way.  Can-Opener 22 December, when we were probably forced to make new Discernments, or more likely, got in trouble for not making a Discernment we didn’t know we were supposed to make.  The Exposition is 12 January, when you’re likely to figure out why they’re mad at you.  And the Confidence-Builder is 21 February.  We can make a big deal out of the Roman Caristia holiday on the 22nd, and make amends for whatever faux pas we committed at the Solstice – or maybe let that person who took our omission so seriously then know that they were out of line to Blame us for their Expectations.

Pluto’s just entering the second half of Capricorn.  Pluto in Capricorn means “Just fix it!”  We all know it’s a problem, and we know how to fix it, so let’s just get to work and get it done.  The first half of Capricorn is all business, completely pragmatic.  But the second half is the Cancer half of Capricorn.  In the second half we remember that there’s more to Life than business or engineering; we have to make sure the results are nurturing for the People and the Planet.  So this is our first introduction to softening the hard edges of our “Just fix it” efforts, where we start to think about what needs to be done and how we might do it.

Mercury also Squared Uranus on 20 December, the Can-Opener Square, probably when we realized that we’ve still got a few Masks to take off before we can be True to ourSelf.  Those’ll be Exposed more on 20 January, and we’re likely to find the Confidence to remove them on 30 January.

Bottom Line: if we want to be able to step out of the path of those Mack Trucks, we need to know about these Sedargorter before they happen, not while they’re happening.

Nep Tunes, Pisces, and Saturn

Here’s a wonderful example of Neptune’s Grace…

https://soulspeak2013.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/at-the-table-the-resurrection-vision/

The astrological Signs are divided up into “Duads,” two-and-a-half Degree chunks, so there are twelve of them in each Sign.  Neptune turns Direct in the eighth Degree of Pisces on 18 November, near the beginning of the Fourth Duad of Pisces.  Planets go backward (“Retrograde” in the vernacular) and then Direct again when they want us to Pay Attention to something.  

Here Neptune – which signifies All Things Larger Than the Self (such as Culture, Gods and Goddesses, Union with the All, even at times Fear) – crossed this Fourth Duad of Pisces between mid-February and mid-June of this year, then stopped and backed over it from mid-June till Now.  Now it will cross this Territory again, for the third time, just in case we missed the Universe’s Message the first two times.

The usual process is that the first crossing of a Territory is what we call a “Can-Opener,” as whatever closet Resistance we have to what the Universe wants to convey, is triggered, and we’re caught off guard.  It’s been 250 years since Neptune last crossed this Territory, so it’s not like we got our homework assignment before this February-to-June pop quiz.  

If we manage to avoid Blaming someone or something for the Shock of the Can-Opener, and maintain our Curiosity and Awe about what’s happening “to” us during these Can-Openers – even though we are seeing through a glass darkly, then during the second crossing we are able to stay open to developing a clearer understanding of the Message.  We call the second crossing the “Exposition” phase, because the Message is “Exposed” more clearly then, and in slow motion – in this case mid-June to Now.

If we succumbed to Blame during the Can-Opener, then when the Universe repeats the Message during the second crossing, we’re Shocked again, giving us a second opportunity to receive the Message – or deepen our descent into Blame.  If we “get” the Message, in either of the first two phases, then the third crossing, which here spans Now through early March of next year, is what we call the “Confidence-Builder” phase, as the Universe “Shocks” us again, but this time our Experience allows us to understand what’s going on enough to Respond rather than React.  

It we miss the Message the third time, well, we miss out.  Like the Oath we swore in third grade never to Trust a Teacher again, the missed Message accrues to our Karma, and we’ll just have to work it out later.  No Pressure – that’s just the way it works, and we’ve been doing it since Time began.  There will always be another opportunity to Liberate ourselves.  It’s just easier if we do it sooner.

The interactions between planets are much more distinct and compressed in time, so it’s easier to Notice and Respond to those, than it is to Notice and Respond to the subtle differences between the Third Duad of Pisces and the Fourth.  For instance, in mid-April Vesta (symbolizing Unconscious Beliefs) danced with Neptune, and we were able to Learn about where we were Unconsciously Resisting Processes Larger than Our Self.  And next week Saturn (signifying our Projection of Order onto the Universe) will dance with Neptune, so we’ll get to see places where our concepts of Cultural Order are no longer functional – places where in the rocket’s glare the flag has lost its meaning.

The Saturn-Neptune Square is Waning, so basically, as we enter the Void phase of the Saturn-Neptune Cycle…

The Organizing Patterns we’ve projected onto our Culture and onto other Cultures, and the Organizing Principles we’ve been projecting into the ineffable realm of the Gods and Goddesses, no longer work, as we enter a ten-year period where Cultural and Religious conceptualization are thrown into a brown bag and shaken up, with an ultimate result that hasn’t been Co-Created yet – we won’t find out till we open the bag in 2026.  The result will depend a lot on how quickly and thoroughly we’re able to Let Go of our old concepts and drop into “Don’t Know” or “Beginner’s Mind” about Culture and Religion and other Neptunian Realms.  

This Saturn-Neptune interaction is a Can-Opener, and we’ve probably already seen the Shock we’d expect to accompany it, though we’ve been interpreting it through the eyes of last week’s and this week’s astroevents.  The Shock could intensify between now and next Thursday, when the Saturn-Neptune dance is “complete.”  The Exposition will occur next June, and we won’t see the Confidence-Builder till next September.  The Confidence-Builder won’t be about how well we’ve Reorganized our Cultural and Religious concepts; it will be about how well we’ve Let them Go.

But that’s next week; what about this week?  We’re dealing with that Fourth Duad of Pisces, what’s that about.

The Duads take their name and meaning from the Signs.  For Pisces, the first Duad is the Pisces Duad, the second Duad the Aries Duad, the third Duad the Taurus Duad, the fourth Duad the Gemini Duad,…, the twelfth Duad the Aquarius Duad.  

For Leo, to take another example, the first Duad is the Leo Duad, the fourth Duad the Scorpio Duad, the seventh Duad the Aquarius Duad, and the tenth Duad the Taurus Duad.  

The first Duad of Sagittarius is the Sagittarius Duad, the fifth Duad the Aries Duad, the ninth Duad the Leo Duad, etc.  Can you see the Pattern?  

Pisces is about Confronting Held Emotions.  Held Emotions are the cement that makes our Karma look like a formidable fortress wall.  Pisces is the last stage of the Void; the overriding opportunity is to Clear these Held Emotions so we can watch the Karmic fortress crumble like a sand castle in a rising tide.  The Nemesis of Pisces is Resistance.  Pisces has to Surrender to these Emotions, let the rising tide have its way with us, and wash us Clean.  That’s how we prepare to start afresh in the next Cycle.

The First Duad of Pisces is about getting overwhelmed by these Held Emotions.  Neptune “Rules” (is very Strong in) Pisces, so Neptune in the First Duad was probably pretty intense for most of us; check your Journal for April-July of 2011 and February-April of 2012.  

If we Surrendered to the tsunami in the First Duad, the Second Duad of Pisces is about beginning to make Lemonade, beginning to do something Creative with our Emotional Energy.  The Second-Duad Can-Opener found us in April-July 2012, during the second Transit of Venus across the face of the Sun and the first Uranus-Pluto Square, then again in February-April 2013, where we began to get our footing after Time Ended, with the assistance of all the Grand Trines that Pi was using to help us over the Threshold.  

In the Third Duad of Pisces we were Challenged to Stabilize our new Energy, our new way to use Emotional Energy.  Emotion, after all, is what molds and holds Energy into Material Form.  Once the Grand Trines ended, in May-July 2013 (and again starting in March 2014), it was up to us to hold on to what we gained in the Second Duad, up to us to begin Habituating new Patterns that would promote our Mission rather than Sabotage it.

Finally, starting in March of this year, we’ve moved into the Fourth Duad.  Here we begin to Spread our newfound, Stabilized Skills at using Emotional Energy to Create what we Want.  We’re Challenged to Let Go of our Pride over what we’ve already Created, so we can get ready to Design Version 2.0.  And to Imagine how we can Expand our new Skills into additional realms.  We’re beginning to Imagine how we might Co-Create new models of Community, models that Support us rather than Control us.  Starting 18 November, we start into the Confidence-Building stage of this process.

We can’t forget that this Neptune Station is followed a day and a half later by a Station of dwarf planet 2007 OR10 – Becoming Conscious of our Unconscious Beliefs.  Stations of Nessus and Vesta have intervened since we talked about OR10, so we might want to review…

https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2015/11/03/2007-or10-part-i/

https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2015/11/03/2007-or10-part-ii/

We Experience simultaneous Stations as similar to Initiations, and OR10 Initiated Neptune recently anyway – for many purposes they’re still Conjunct.  We’ll say more about all this soon.

Venus-Jupiter 25.10.2015

A reminder about format: left-justified bold italic is meant for anyone to read and hopefully understand.

Indented plain text is intended for folks who know some astrology, or who want to pick some up by osmosis (just read it; don’t worry much about understanding it – the idea is that soon you’ll start recognizing words and remembering meanings).

Doubly-indented italicized text is used for defining astrological terms and getting into the astrological nitty-gritty.

  §    §    §    §    §    §    §  

A friend who practices Jyotish worries that the October 25 Jupiter-Venus Initiation occurs on a Degree that Rudhyar suggests may be about Karma.  Evidently the combination of Venus and Jupiter doesn’t bode well in Jyotish, even though both are benefics.  The Degree, 16 Virgo, is about “Children at the zoo coming face to face with an Orangutan.”  For his time, Rudhyar indeed practiced Spiritual astrology.  But Rudhyar grew up in Europe before traditional Territorial Colonialism collapsed.  While he advanced astrology and philosophy considerably in the US, he was still a product of his birthplace.  His very adopted name, Rudhyar, honors the God Rudra, a celebration of humanity’s root uncivilized Wildness.  So without the Colonial context, his interpretation of this Degree as a Regression is a bit surprising.

The Venus-Jupiter Cycle is about Walking in Beauty, a reinforcement of our 2012-15 Yintegrity Work and our June 2016 Revelation of Who We Really Are.  And if our Walking in Beauty is to increase in Wildness then we can also see it as a corroboration of our Pholus-Ixion Work, our Taking Full Responsibility for the pros and cons -Both/And – of our Pathological Genius.  We take it more seriously when several astrological indications corroborate one another.  If Venus-Jupiter bodes ill in Jyotish, I’d assume that it bodes ill for the established Ego, as it will soon be Asked to move toward Authenticity.  Like all the other Religions – in contrast to their Esoteric traditions – Hinduism as practiced was the cement that bound the Established Order in its place.  Wild, like Authenticity and Genius, does not further Lawn Order.

It’s interesting that the Initiation occurs five Signs from asteroid Karma (“a.Karma”), suggesting strongly that one Intention of this Venus-Jupiter Cycle is to instill Perpetual Curiosity about the Relationship between Karma, Walking in Beauty, and our root uncivilized Wildness.  Curiosity that does not seek Answers, but which welcomes Insight, though tentatively of course.  Can we Walk in Beauty if we constantly deny our most basic Animal Instincts for the sake of our acculturation?  Sounds like Self-Betrayal to me.  I don’t see us fist-walking through the streets or sniffing one another’s butts in greeting instead of fist-bumping, but we could certainly be less contrived about Who We Really Are.  Interesting too that while Orangutans are orange, Orang actually means “person” in the language of nearby Hupers.

Intriguing too that Venus-Jupiter and a.Karma-Uranus duplicate the Quincunx Box we wrote about in Breaking Patterns, 

https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2015/10/09/breaking-patterns/ 

Venus-Jupiter occupies the space that the Balsamic Moon occupied in that Box, and Mercury-Juno has moved into the space occupied by the Sun.  The other end of the box remains the ongoing Unx between Chiron and Uranus.  a.Karma remains Conjunct Uranus, suggesting that we Let Go more vigorously of the vestiges of our misunderstanding of Karma as Retribution rather than Inertia.  If we’re heavily invested in preserving our born Privilege, we’d certainly want to make any pretenders to our throne feel Guilty about their jealousy by convincing them that it is somehow, Shamefully, their fault that they live in destitution.  The other Religions are no better; they’re designed to preserve the status quo.  Many of us as children felt that Inertia, when our parents used Shame to preserve their Privilege at our expense, and used Shame to try to tame our Wildness and our Pathological Genius.  

Mercury-Juno itself suggests intellectual Insight into the Edges of our Consciousness – more corroboration of Ego Growth.  The Configuration as a whole suggests that Breaking Patterns will be another Intention of this Venus-Jupiter Cycle -Breaking our Patterns of Walking in Ugly.  The Opposition between Mercury-Juno and a.Karma-Uranus is T-Squared by Pluto, implying that it’s not optional to Grow the Edges of our Consciousness by recognizing that it’s only Habit that keeps us from Levitating over the razor-wire to greater Authenticity.

Uranus Initiated a.Karma on 27 July (“A pugilist enters the ring“), just as Uranus was Stationary.  Our friend inquired about these goings-on near the time when the a.Karma-Uranus Conjunction was in its Exposition phase, suggesting that they will probably better understand how their Established Egoic Order will be Challenged when they check their journal for the end of July, when the Can-Opener occurred.

Angles between planets often occur multiple times in succession, as one or the other of them goes Retrograde.  The first occurrence of the Angle usually introduces some Challenge, so we refer to it as the “Can-Opener.”  Subsequent occurrences are less of a surprise and usually develop more slowly.  We call them the “Exposition” phase.  The final occurrence is usually the “Confidence-Builder,” as we re-encounter the Challenge but now we’re prepared to ace it.

 

Authenticity and Self-Sovereignty II

Nothing beats a Manganotantalite Crystal, if you can find one, for facilitating Communication.

  Ö    Ö    Ö    Ö    Ö 

Pluto, which is Standing Still today (that means it’s influence is much Stronger than usual) represents Transformation.  Since we only see the shadows of “Reality” on our cave wall – which means that the small part of it that our six senses allow us to Witness is filtered through our Limiting Beliefs – we usually spell that “Trance(Re)Formation.”  That is, the Trance that our Limiting Beliefs impose upon us, is up for revision.  Another word we often associate with Pluto is Mandatory or Compulsive.  Shifts promulgated by Pluto are often just that – not optional.  We often perceive them as happening to us rather than something we Created, and since we usually see Pluto as bigger than the Individual, there’s a large grain of Truth there.

There are obviously many many facets and flavors of Ego Death running around, and Pluto qualifies as a trigger for that, though there are multiple other triggers as well.  But what most folks consider the Bigger Transformation is when we Change Vehicles, or Let Go of our current Physical Body.  Here’s a long-time palliative care nurse (that means nursing to the Dying) listing the most frequent Regrets that people have as they’re Letting Go of their Body…

http://bronnieware.com/regrets-of-the-dying/

The most frequent Regret is…

“I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”

That’s the Yintegrity we’ve been talking about for the last several years as we’ve worked through our 2012-15 Uranus-Pluto adventures.  The third-most frequent Regret is…

“I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.”

Which we’ve been talking about in the previous post.  Reading that post, you may well come up against a Dilemma.  If no one is willing to hear them, what to do?  There are only so many Pisces Folk around willing to soak up spilled Emotions, and the more Trance Reformations there are, the more Emotions there are to be spilled.  Trance Reformations are usually introduced by a cataract of suppressed Trauma emerging into Consciousness, which triggers a flood of Present-Moment Emotion in response, and Liberates a tsunami of Fear of an Unknown Future.  That’s the best case!  More often, our internal Protectors try to block the original cataract, which then Manifests as untoward exterior Events, creating more Trauma.  Taking Full Responsibility for mopping all that up is a Herculean task.

A paragraph from Van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, p.296…

“It is one thing to process memories of trauma, but it is an entirely different thing to confront the inner void – the holes in the soul [or aura] that result from not being wanted, not having been seen, and not having been allowed to speak the truth.  If your parents’ faces never lit up when they looked at  you, it’s hard to know what it feels like to be loved and cherished.  If you come from an incomprehensible world filled with secrecy and fear, it’s almost impossible to find the words to express what you have endured.  If you grew up unwanted and ignored, it is a major challenge to develop a visceral sense of agency and self-worth.”

We begin to see why Change is so dangerous, and we haven’t even considered how often it’s purposely hijacked by the internal and external Lizards to their own advantage – the internal Lizards shift the Energy into long-repressed and over-reactive Anger channels, and the external Lizards use the resulting Confusion to stoke their Greed.

So the Planet is awash in a Biblical flood.  What to do?  The Galactic Center informs us that we just have to Take Full Responsibility to move ourself forward one slog at a time.  If there is no one to hear you Express your Feelings, write or paint or draw them out.  Take time to Listen to music that does Express or trigger your Feelings, Notice what happens in your Body when you do, and be Loving and Gentle with it and with yourself.  Love is All There Is.  No matter how horrible a Feeling can be, if you work at it you can find some Empathy for the part of you that Feels it.  “You Poor Baby, that’s Horrible!” and Embrace that Poor part of you.  Even if you Hate that part of yourself, you may be able to find some Empathy for your Hater.  “You Poor Hater, they really treated you Horribly!” 

One small step toward Loving some orphaned part of ourself.

Just opening the door a crack.  More will follow, but none of it will be as hard as that first small step.

If you are lucky enough to have a Feeling-Expression partner to practice with, you’ll have plenty of Challenges with that too.  Mercury (Communication) is Retrograde in early Libra (Introduction to Other), after all.

Mercury Triple-Crosses Vesta, Juno, and Pluto during this Retrogradation.  We usually refer to a Triple-Crossing as the Can-Opener, the Exposition, and the Confidence-Builder; look up one of those terms in the CATEGORIES list if you’re a new reader.  Vesta (Limiting Beliefs) and Juno (the Edges of Consciousness) are the Star Dancers in this weekend’s Total Eclipse of the Heart.  And we know about Pluto now!  Mercury thrice Conjoins Juno, Opposes Vesta, and Squares Pluto.

And by the way, the Eclipse chart features a Quintile Yod to Mars.  A Quintile Yod says this is what we’re Learning here.  Mars symbolizes Action and Assertiveness; it may be Asking you to tone down certain Reactions where you verge on Power-Over, and it may be Asking you to beef up other Reactions where you allow Others to Power-Over you, and probably both.

So what suggestions can we provide that might make Feeling-Expression a little easier?  Maybe these…

• When someone succeeds in Expressing a Feeling, and they know that it’s been Heard, they usually don’t need to say a lot more (about that Feeling).  You’ll see a shift in their shoulders or their breathing or the tension in their face.  If they’re intellectualizing their Feelings, they’ll go on and on about them and you’ll never get a word in edgewise.  If you get filibustered and can’t find a way to change it, you may just need a different Feeling-Expression partner.
• Sometimes it works to ask whether or not you’re Hearing their Feelings correctly; “So it sounds like you might be Angry about the way they treated you?”  If “Angry” is a hot-button word for them they might Hear your question as an accusation, but even if they do, it has the potential to move the exchange from Venting to actual Communication.
• When is it your turn?  Some people are so tangential with their Feelings, or so backed up, that they have no room to Hear anyone else.  Don’t martyr yourself to try to rescue them; that’s a lose-lose strategy.  When you’re bored listening to them repeat themself, it’s time to change venues.
• If you can introduce a Talking Stick or a timer, that might help, but you’re better off watching for that deep breath or lowering of the shoulders or relaxing of the face muscles as your cue to hand off the Talking Stick, rather than a timer.  A timer can easily introduce greater Frustration.
• Be watchful for your own Fears and Protections.  If you get uncomfortable hearing someone Fearfully talking about their Fear or Angrily talking about their Anger, that’s a huge clue for you about what you probably need to Open up to.  If you’re unable to be Present and Neutral for the Other, it’s probably best to change the plot.  Even just saying “Whoa, that scares me!” or “I’m really nervous around Anger; can we detour?” or the like has the potential to create progress.  They may be comfortable enough with their process to be able to stop and be Present for you to talk about what’s coming up for you.  Or you may need to take a break and work on your own with Lovingly and Gently Embracing your own Feelings for a while.
• Any exchange of Feeling Expression can get lost in the Emotions.  It’s a fabulous way to Notice when you or they (or both) get hijacked by the Emotion and are unable to Witness it from a more Present and Neutral part of the Self.  That’s invaluable Guidance, but your exchange may or may not be able to recover from a hijacking.  Even if you can’t recover the exchange, you can follow the Guidance.

It’s a lot easier to list these things than it is to do them.  Remember that Confusion is the First Sign of Growth and that Curiosity is what gives the Cat nine lives.  If you start to get Overwhelmed, Tap on it.  Use Trial and Success – give it a try, see what worked and honor yourself and your practice partner for it, Gently look to see what might be improved and be Loving and Gentle with your tendency to self-criticize.  If you can do such a post-mortem with your exchange-mate, that’d be very valuable.

Who Was That Masked Man?

A wonderful and timely painting by reader Mahasweta, used with permission.  See http://creationsfromstillness.com/maya/ .  “Removing our Masks” is a metaphor we frequently use to describe Uranus Squaring Pluto, as our True Self becomes more and more insistent on enjoying the Light of Day.

 Œ  Œ  Œ  Œ  Œ

Late additions are in green…

If you’ve never seen or heard The Lone Ranger, you won’t understand our title.  The Lone Ranger (one of my childhood heroes) was a fictional do-gooder of the Olde West in the USofA, who wore a simple black eye-mask.  As he rode off into the Sunset at the end of each episode, one of the done-good villagers would be heard to say, “Who was that Masked Man?”  Here’s an example, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XChIBk_MBsk .

 Œ  Œ  Œ  Œ  Œ

Sheila asks:

“Natal moon is 15 Cap — I suspect many another’s moons are  involved as well.  For us, what?”

Excellent question. 

First we need to look at Transiting Pluto crossing your Natal Moon – that’s one of the heavier Emotional adventures we can have, so I hope you’re Witnessing and Journaling like crazy for the next few months!

This will be what we call a “Can-Opener,” and we’re usually caught off guard when a Can-Opener hits.

When one planet crosses another three (or more) times as they take turns Retrograding (appearing to go “backwards” for a while, as they’re wont to do), the first episode is called a “Can-Opener” because it opens a previously latent Issue or Growth opportunity.  The second crossing is called an “Exposition” because we re-experience the Can-Opener, but this time the Drama evolves more slowly, and we’ve been there before, so we can come to understand the Issue or Growth opportunity.  The third crossing is a “Confidence-Builder,” because the Drama repeats, but we now know how to handle it.

We could easily recast all of astrology as a game of Experience – for instance, the Moon crosses each of our natal planets monthly, so we have a lot of Experience with it.  But we’ll get a Pluto crossing only once at most (though it may be multiple, as in the paragraph above), so it’s bound to blow us out of the water.

Your Pluto-Moon “Exposition” doesn’t occur until early June, and your “Confidence-Builder” late December (the timing will vary for folks with Moons that are more than a few arcminutes distant from Sheila’s), so to the extent that you can, it would be a good idea to…

Suspend Judgment and just set your sensistat to Raw Experience for now.  You’re just collecting Experiential information (not to mention Existential information!) for processing later.  Hard to do, I know, but just plan to roll your eyes a lot and have a lot of “What Now?”s at the ready.

Above all (or “beneath everything else”) Pluto means Transformation or Trance Re-Formation, so aside from all the Sturm und Drang, what’s really going on is that your Moon-Life is being significantly upgraded, but it’ll be almost a year before you understand what that means!

Pluto is also the Lord of Death, so Ego Death is likely.  In Ego Death, it Feels Like you’re Dying, or like you’d rather Die than go through that again.  You just need to move the emphasis to the other syllable; it’s not “I’m Dying!” it’s “I’m Dying” – your Ego (“I”) is being Transformed.  Ego is a Trance.  Someone, it may have been yourself, hypnotized you into Believing you’re who you think you are.  As your Consciousness Grows you’re in the process of learning to think you’re someone other than that, as a new Trance takes hold.  Meanwhile, your Old Ego is “Dying,” and its Loss must be Grieved.

It helps not a bit to have Uranus and the Nodes all tied up in this adventure, because that adds about seventeen other layers to what’s going on.  Eventually you’ll be able to sort those out, but it’ll take a while to make sense of it all.  So take copious notes!  You’re a Living research project on human evolution.  I can’t wait to read your book about the process!

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That said, we can talk about the “larger” (less Personal) Perspective. 

We often use what’s called a “90-degree wheel.”  It’s a little hard to understand if you aren’t used to thinking in circles, but on the 90-degree wheel the Cardinal Signs are collapsed as if they were all one Sign.  So…

Most of the rest of this post will apply whether your Moon is in Capricorn, Aries, Cancer, or Libra.  If your birth Moon is in mid-Capricorn, the above will probably outshout the below for you, though both will be relevant.  If your Moon is in mid-Aries, -Cancer, or -Libra, the below will probably be more useful to you than the above.

The notion of Can-Opener, Exposition, Confidence-Builder apply as well to Transiting Squares and to a lesser extent Oppositions, not just Conjunctions (a “crossing” is a Conjunction).  But the Emotional Intensity applies more to the Transiting Pluto-Moon Conjunction than the other Angles.  The Square will just Challenge you to Master your Emotions; the Conjunction will almost certainly overwhelm you.

“Transiting” means a planet in the Sky now, that illuminates a natal planet – Sheila’s referring to “Transiting” Pluto crossing her Natal (birth) Moon.

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I think of the Moon as having three “layers”…

• “Random” Emotions – At times some things are really irritating (or grievous, or scary, or…), at other times the same things are no big deal
  • Compare to Venus, our Values, where our Emotional Reactions are pretty consistent, and Vesta, our Beliefs, where our Emotional – or intellectual – Reactions can be extreme
• Instincts – when we “obey” our “Random” Emotions (ie, interpret them as meaningful), the results will often be surprising (though our Instincts are often years ahead of our “Plans,” so it’s not always obvious)
  • Compare to Lilith, which is more specifically about our Instinct for Yindependence
• Manifestation – “Science” is a looong way from verifying this, but eventually they’ll realize that Emotion is a window on the glue that holds a physical Manifestation in its current Form and keeps it from Re-Energizing as something else
  • Compare to Makemake, which is more about Creativity
  • Note that these distinctions are just distinctions that I use, not universal.  Other astrologers will use different distinctions; astrology is like Tea leaves, it’s a trigger for Intuition, it’s not a recipe or a blueprint.  So everyone’s triggers will be different – and almost every astrologer who isn’t just running an interpretation program or reading a book, will add new, complementary Perspectives.  Even two interpretations that are complete Opposites will be instructive – it will advise you to look at the Coin rather than the heads or the tails.

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So how Uranus-Pluto-Nodes will impact your Moon is likely to depend on which levels you usually Live your Moon on – and which levels your Moon Lives you on.  For example…

Random Emotions

• You could be having a lot of “Random” Emotions that are really Karmic “flashbacks” – in this case you’d probably be spaced out a lot, as each of these “Random” Emotions would probably strike you like a ton of bricks, even though you wouldn’t recognize them as “your own.”  As much as possible you’d want to avoid drawing Conclusions or making Decisions based on these, as you’ll still be seeing “through a glass darkly” till the Exposition.
  

The Mind is a trickster, and Mercury is triple-crossing us here – Mercury fiddles with our mid-Cardinal hotspot January 15-16 (ie, today), 26-27, and February 28-March 1.  It’s in Aquarius, but in a sense that makes it worse, as everything will be indirect, like a funhouse mirror.  It’s an excellent time to see as much as you can as Cosmic Humor.  Mercury rules Conclusions and Decisions (at least, those made purposely), and we don’t want to be distracted by erroneous preconceptions when we get to our real Exposition/Understanding phase in Linear Time.

• Much of what you’re Experiencing Emotionally won’t even be “yours,” as you’ll be an Emotional antenna.  Separation (Ego) is an Illusion; we’re really All One, or, on a more practical level, all very connected through the Unconscious, where Individuality (as well as separate Past/Parallel Lives) is a fuzzy concept.  So relative to your own Life, when you pick up on Emotions that your neighbors or friends (or someone on the subway, or your Doppel in another Drama) are Denying, and the strength of Emotion you feel is proportion to the strength of their Denial, part of what you’re Feeling is truly “Random” (to the extent that there is such a thing), as it depends on who your transmitters are.

Someone has to “own” or Take Responsibility For (be willing to Respond to) all Emotions, so when we don’t own our own we make our friends and neighbors process them.  It’s not possible to own someone else’s feelings, though, so that just Confuses everyone.  Confusion is the first stage of Growth, in this case Growth in Boundaries – from a Personal Perspective it’s more important to Learn how to not own someone else’s Feelings, than it is to Learn to take Responsibility for our own.  Of course from the Community’s Perspective, it behooves if everyone Learns to take Responsibility for their own Feelings.

Emotions are no different than the Weather – if a Belief System prevents a Community from Taking Responsibility for their own Feelings, they create an Emotion-Storm that afflicts neighboring Communities.  When the Community is large enough, or when the Emotion-Storms are bounced back and forth as if it was ping-pong, it can become Global.  You can probably kernelize today’s entire Zeitgeist with the notion that almost no one is taking Responsibility for their own Feelings of Insecurity.  Like the Butterfly in Chaos Theory, it’s possible for one person not owning their Emotions, to initiate a Storm that envelops the Planet.  We don’t need to worry about that though, because there are plenty of people not owning their Feelings.

However, Mercury’s in a Twelfth-Harmonic Relationship to Pluto, so for all of us our intellectualizations here will be useful for Breaking Patterns – and Breaking Patterns is exactly what we need when we’re dealing with the South Node.  The Mercury-South Node Angle is a Sextile – Grace after we take the first step.  So we’ll all be finding a shift in the way we think here.

With natal Moon in mid-Cardinal Signs and Mercury in the same Degrees, you’ll want to take good notes about what you’re thinking as well, and as much as possible try to distinguish your Emotions from your thoughts.  You’ll actually be Learning a great deal about how Emotion and thought interact.

Instincts

• Expect a lot of “synchronistic” phenomena, like Mahasweta reported, as she was making the painting above at around the same time as an earlier Uranus-Pluto astroevent.
• Your Instincts could be Scary, as they Ask you to make bigger Changes than you’re used to making all at once, and your Instincts could be more insistent than you’re used to (Pluto doesn’t much like Resistance).

What’s the difference between Instinct and Intuition, as I use the words?   Instincts are usually about Survival, Intuitions can be about anything.

• The North Node represents your Mission in the Lifetime, and your Deepest Desires are a Metaphor for your Mission – our Mission per se is too multidimensional for most of us to understand, so our Desires are sent as a surrogate.  Desires are unquenchable because our Mission won’t leave us alone.  So Expect many of your Instincts to come through as Desires.  If we have a Personality that leans toward Addiction (which often means a strong natal Pluto or strong natal Scorpio), we could see that either strengthen, suddenly stop, or demand a lot of Attention as it shifts.
• We all have “Uranian” Instincts – the urge to be True to our Deeper Self.  But we usually decide, no, it’s better to just “get along.”  Our Uranian Instincts will be stronger here.

Manifestation

• “Be Careful What You Ask For” is the traditional warning for times when our Manifestation Skills are particularly lit up.  For instance, we could Ask for more money and find a beloved relative dropping dead.  If you PIAVA Consciously, it might help to append “Lovingly and Gently” to the end of your Requests.  If you catch yourself PIAVAing inadvertently (such as “Damn it!”), you can “Cancel, Neutralize, Upgrade” (Cancel the Request, Neutralize the Energy initiated, and Upgrade the Requestor) – you just say it, Trust, and forget it.
• In general, the End doesn’t justify the Means.  So because Pluto can be a sledge, you want to Consciously err on the side of Gentle whenever there’s an apparent Conflict or Obstacle.  With Pluto on your side you will get there, no worries.  So you don’t need to sweat the small stuff.
• When there are major Castles Burning, Let Them Go.  Uranus clears away whatever is no longer in Alignment with your Soul’s current agenda for you, so if you’re particularly Attached to anything that no longer serves, you could lose a fingernail or two.  All Losses must be Grieved, so don’t squash those Emotions, even if they seem out of proportion.  South-Node Grief passes surprisingly quickly.
• Don’t be surprised to see new Structures assembling themselves with remarkable speed, as Moon and North Node interact.  You probably don’t know what they’ll be good for yet; Trust that they’ll be important.  You could wake up one morning and know that you need to move to Peru.  That would be way too much work, so you have permission to Resist and laugh it off.  The first two mornings.

Portal 10.29 – Gestalt Astrology

The Earth isn’t really that close to the Sun, it’s just Photoshopped in to demonstrate how big those Sunspots (the darker areas) are.  Fortunately, they haven’t been aimed toward Earth when they’ve ejected Solar Flairs.  The Sun is 109 times larger in diameter than the Earth, meaning its circumference is 342 times that of Earth, and its volume over 9,000 times as great.  It’s a heavy dude – its mass is about 330,000 times the mass of the Earth.  And it’s not really grey.

* * * * *

A primary principle of the Gestalt process consists of translating negative Energies into positive Energies.  Re-interpreting Control as Protection would be one example.  If we appreciate someone’s effort to Protect us, our Feelings and Behavior and Reactions and Responses are very different than when we rebel against someone’s effort to Control us.  Yet they’re often the same Energy.

We could call what we do Gestalt Astrology – translating Energies usually seen as negative into the positive is one of our primary techniques.  Saturn, for instance, is often seen as Limitation.  What’s the positive function of Limitation?  Focus.  So we see Saturn as telling us to Focus on The Most Important Thing.  We feel Limitation when we’re attached to lower priorities.

Eris is often seen as Dischord, as her contribution of a Golden Apple inscribed “The Fairest of Them All” to a banquet of the Gods and Goddesses produced a very dischordant banquet, and ultimately led to the Trojan War.  Yet the Competitiveness among the Goddesses was there before the Golden Apple.  The Apple merely brought it into Consciousness (or at least, provided the opportunity for same – it’s not clear from the Mythology that anyone’s vanity actually became Conscious).  So we see Eris as the Revelation of what’s Unconscious.

We usually refer to that as the Revelation of Denial, but Denial is not a dirty word to us.  The Ego’s function is to keep us Alive and Safe, and the Ego is fairly easily overwhelmed, leaving us vulnerable to danger.  Denial is the natural process that allows us to Focus on what we perceive to be The Most Important Thing (our Egoic Stability) rather than on the Elephant in the room.  Most people use the word Denial as an accusation, when they’re insisting that The Most Important Thing to them become The Most Important Thing to us.

Pandora is usually seen as the vehicle by which Evil was released into the World of Hufolk.  But like Nassim, we have to ask “What came before that?”  The answer is Unconsciousness.  By bringing Evil into Consciousness, or at least providing the opportunity for same, we gain the opportunity to Choose not to indulge it.  So we can see Pandora as symbolizing Self-Awareness.

On October 29, Pandora backs across Eris.  Eris Initiated Pandora in mid-July, so this represents an “Exposition” phase of their dance together…

When two planets cross, we refer to it as the slower (message-giver or guru) planet Initiating the faster (messenger or neophyte) planet, and alternately as the faster planet Conjuncting or Conjoining the slower planet.  So this is Pandora Conjunct Eris.  It’s not Eris Initiating Pandora because…

When planets Conjoin, they often do so multiple times, as one or both of them turn Retrograde.  We only consider the first Conjunction to be the Initiation of a new Cycle.  The Sabian Symbol of the Initiation degree is a clue to the nature of the Cycle that the Initiation begins, or the period till the next Initiation.  Pandora being an asteroid orbiting between Mars and Jupiter, the Pandora-Eris Cycle lasts a little over four years. 

For convenience, we use the shortcut term “planet” to refer to planets, asteroids, dwarf planets, Centaurs, TNOs, Lights (Sun and Moon), symbolic points (the Nodes, Lilith), and anything else that orbits the Sun or the Earth.

The Initiation is considered a “Can-Opener,” as new material is released from the Unconscious, and we’re called to adjust to it quickly, without much warning.  If there are multiple Conjunctions, then the subsequent Conjunctions are considered “Expositions,” when the same issue recurs, but recurs more slowly, giving us time to witness, identify, and differentiate it into Consciousness.  The final Conjunction is a “Confidence-Builder,” because the Demons attack again, but this time we know from experience how to handle them, and it’s effortless or nearly so.

These three stages, Can-Opener, Exposition, Confidence-Builder, apply to any multiple Angle between two planets.  For instance, the Uranus-Pluto Square recurs seven times between 2012 and 2015, giving us five Expositions, including the one we’re embarking upon now.

The Eris-Pandora Initiation occurred at 24 Aries, “Blown inward by the Wind, the curtains of an open window take the shape of a Cornucopia” – signifying that the Denial that’s revealed will lead us to Abundance.  Releasing any Mask saves us a bundle of Energy that we can use for more productive purposes, and also clarifies our perspective so we’re more likely to pursue and achieve our own goals.

Whatever Demons were released suddenly into your World in mid-July 2014, you’re now getting the opportunity to re-experience them in slow motion.  Back then they caught you off guard and created uninvited difficulty in your Life.  But it was just material being released from the Unconscious, being brought into the light of day so you could Choose whether or not to indulge it.  As it turns out, this material will prove to be very valuable to us, and we’re in the process of discovering how this will be.

The current Pandora-Eris Conjunction occurs at 23 Aries, “A pregnant woman in light summer dress,” suggesting that this Exposition will be Powerful.

The current Conjunction, with both planets Retrograde, occurs October 29.  It’s within three degrees of Sensitivity from October 15 till November 20.  Pandora turns Direct November 30, and the Confidence-Builder phase occurs on December 30, as Eris is Stationary.  They’re within three degrees of each other from December 9 till January 12.  The Confidence-Builder is also at 23 Aries.