A Gift from the Heavens

Our ever-watchful Chief Asteroid Officer has noticed that 45 minutes before the 22-23 January 2023 Station (Prominence) of Uranus (Our Soul), Venus (Our Values) and Saturn (The Most Important Thing) Convene and Initiate a New Cycle. The Venus-Saturn Cycle should Obviously be ranked among our Most Critical Cycles. At the times when our Values are NOT The Most Important Thing to Us, we Betray Ourself. While such Self-Sabotage is a result of our Programming, our Programming is a Mirror for our Karma, since Programming is how much of our Karma was installed into the Current Lifetime.

If you’re reading this, one of your Most Important Values is Enlightenment, aka Ascension or 5D. A primary prerequisite for Enlightenment is to Clear our Karma. That’s more Difficult while our Karma remains Unconscious, so Noticing our Karmic Patterns becomes Bottom Line. We get this Opportunity every time our Karma is Triggered, which includes every time we React from our Programming rather than Responding from our Values. Enlightenment means that our Ego and our Soul are Merging, and that can’t happen as long as Karma has a Leghold Trap on our Ego, which is exactly what Karma does for a Living.

This is a particularly Important Window for those of us who were Programmed to favor Thinking over Feeling, because as Jung said, People who Prioritize Thinking are Irrational, because they’re not in Touch with their own Emotions and therefore not in Touch with their own Values, since Values arise from the Heart, not the Mind. Many of us are much more Aware of Our Thoughts About Our Feelings than we are of Our Feelings themselves. Too many of us haven’t yet Learned to tell the difference.

Many of us first need to Learn to Find our Emotions, buried under the Thoughtstorm that they evoke. It can help to Focus on the Sensations that arise with Emotion. When we’re trying to Think Through a particularly difficult Conundrum, we can Ask ourself, What Is my Body Telling me through its Sensations? rather than What is my Mind Telling me through its Thoughts? Emotions (Water) and Sensations (Earth) share the same Style (Magnetic), as we explained in the previous post, so they tend to Collaborate.

Emotions and Thoughts (Air) have Opposite Styles, so they tend to Conflict. So Emotions and Thoughts are in Competition with one another before we even Feel or Think. And thanks to Western Medicine, with its ban on Intuition and its Intense Advertising Campaigns, we also have to Struggle with and get beyond our Thoughts about our Sensations (“O My Goddess, is that Cancer?”). We have to Focus on Where our Sensation Resides in the Body and What It Feels Like there, while Rejecting Thoughts the same way we do when they Intrude on our Meditations – “Oh, there’s Thinking Again. Thanks for Contributing, but we’re Doing Something Else now. Where was I?“

Venus-Saturn Value-Priority Cycles last about a year. The Cycle that’s Ending spanned 10 months, but the New Cycle will last 14 months, till the Aries Equinox of 2024, because Venus slows down and turns Retrograde in the Northern Summer and Southern Winter. Angles between Retrograde planets are called Expositions because they Expose the internal workings of a planetary Relationship. Consequently, they’re more educational. In this Retrograde part of the Cycle¹ we may be more Alone than we usually prefer, because we’ll be Learning to Appreciate our own Unique Strengths, some of which we’ve theretofore never Appreciated or even Noticed.² Knowing Ourself – our Natural Strengths and the situations where we’re better off Delegating to Others or to Spirit – is an Essential Foundation for Enlightenment.

The New Cycle Begins in 25 Aquarius (Honing the Inner Witness in order to Rebirth Intelligence). Without Realizing the Connection to Lonsdale’s interpretation for the Degree, in note ¹ below we’ve already written a lot about the Inner Witness! An Initiation is the Birth or a New Cycle, so it’s chart is a Birth Chart. So we shouldn’t be surprised when a Retrograde Period in the Cycle reiterates the Birth Reading for the Cycle. But the Cycle and the Degree are Independent of one another, so the “Coincidence” is still Remarkable.

We’ll look at the chart tomorrow. “Chrysanthemum Stone” is a good Rock to Contemplate for bringing forth the Inner Witness. The mineral composition can vary quite a bit. The Stone is so unusual that it’s known more by its Morphology and Mythology (of Immortal Love between Stones and Flowers) than for its chemistry. The fact that it appears in only a few places in the World, and appears with a mix of Chemistries when it does, speaks loudly that it’s Meaning lies in its Mythology. It’s also a Metaphor for the Bright and Focused Soul breaking through the Dark and Amorphous Matrix of the Ego and Karma.

¹ Venus is actually Retrograde from 24 July to 4 September 2023 and 29 to 13 Leo, but the Shadow Period spans 19 June through 7 October. A Retrogradation is like a Remedial Course – we have to take it three times to pass, and sometimes we don’t. That’s the case when we don’t Learn from an astroevent. When we do Learn, it’s not Remedial at all. A Retrograde Shadow Period has three stages. The Retrograde period, here 24/7-4/9 and 29-13 Leo, is stage 2. Stage 1 is when the planet crosses this Degree Zone the first time, while Direct. That will be 19 June to 23 July and 13 to 29 Leo. Stage 1, called the Can-Opener, is when we get Blindsided by the Lesson Plan, often quite Stressfully. So we may hit Loneliness and Self-Doubt during the Can-Opener.

Stage 2 is the Exposition, where since the planet is Retrograde, the Curriculum is Repeated, more Slowly this time, Step by Step, allowing us to Learn the Lesson. If we’re Paying Attention. If we aren’t Paying Attention, we’ll Re-Experience the Stress of the Can-Opener, and remain its Victim. Stage 3 is the Confidence-Builder, where the Curriculum is Repeated Again, and this time we Sail Right Through it, because we’ve Learned How! If we noticed the Correlation between the Can-Opener and the Exposition. It not, we could have a third Stressful Victim Episode.

Karma and Unconscious Limitations are Created when we Remain in Blame, making our Stress Someone or Something Else’s Fault rather than our own Curriculum, and make a Decision or Vow or Oath or Promise that we’ll Never Put Ourself in that Position again. Of course, it’s unlikely we’ll have a strong Negative Reaction unless it’s already Karmic for us. So we don’t Create New Karma nearly as often as we “just” add Fresh Cement to our Old Karma. If we are Accountable for our Reaction to the original Stressful event rather than Blaming or Projecting it onto Something Else, or if we Notice the Repetition and Become Accountable, we can Learn and Practice Changing our Original Reaction to a Different Response. Then we really do Gain Confidence in the third Stage. Our Skills don’t mean much without our Confidence in them!

Many people misunderstand this Process as Blaming the Victim, which it’s not. We’re Expecting the Victim to take Ownership of their own Reactions to Repeating Stimuli. We can all be Blindsided by New Can-Openers, and since our Karma is many-dimensional, we often have to Re-Experience it in many different Arenas before we Let It Go Completely. We may React with Blame to a Relationship Hassle once, and then React with Blame to a Job Hassle another time, without Realizing that our Reactions are Repeating. That happens to all of us all the time, as we have many Karmic Patterns happening in many different Arenas. But if we’re Alert to Noticing the Similarities between two Reactions, we can Become Conscious that it’s Karma and Choose to Change it.

² The Angles made between Venus and Saturn while they’re Retrograde are closest to four ninths and five elevenths of the Zodiac (the Quadrinovile and Quinelvile, 160 and 164 Degrees), which are about Mastering (4) Contemplation and Introspection (9) and Learning (5) to Appreciate our own Gifts and Talents (11). We derive the meaning of odd (indeed, all ) astrological Angles through the Correlation between the Tarot Major Arcana (Angeles Arrien, The Tarot Handbook) to the Harmonics of the Angles. For instance, the Quadrinovile is four ninths, or a combination of the 4th and 9th Harmonics (360/4=90° and 360/9=40°), equated to the 4th and 9th members of the Major Arcana (Emperor = Dominion and Hermit = Meditation). So the Quadrinovile implies Healthy Control over Meditation).

Ending Self-Sabotage 2

Most planets “Turn Retrograde,” or Move Backwards, usually annually. They don’t actually go Backwards, it just looks that way from here, because Earth in its orbit is passing the slower planet in its orbit. Because the Earth spins in a perpetual Sufi-Dance, we’d have to take a snapshot of the sky at the same time every night to actually witness the Retrograde planet moving Backwards. This is how a planet crosses the same region of the Zodiac three times, first Moving Forward (or “Direct”), then Backwards, then Forward again.

The first crossing (“Can-Opener”) Opens Issues, the second or Retro crossing (“Exposition”) Expands Upon Them, and the third crossing (“Confidence-Builder”) develops our Confidence that We Can Handle Them ok.

That’s if we’re Conscious that they’re happening. If we aren’t Conscious of them and succumb to Experiencing the Can-Opener as its Victim, we could Experience the second crossing as the Universe Beating us Up Again, make Decisions that we’ll never be Vulnerable to that again, or that we’re going to Retaliate, and Whoosh, we’ve just Created New Karma, new Unconscious Limitations and Negative Expectations.

The Zoning and Timing of asteroid Atropos’s 2020-2021 Retrogradation unfolds like this…

(1) Letting Go of our Sentimental Attachments (Pisces Duad of Cancer – a Duad is 2½ Degrees), 19:30-22:30 Cancer. First crossing 5-14 September 2020, Retro crossing 9 February-10 March 2021, Final crossing 10 March-10 April 2021. Whatever we want to Manifest, we first need Neutrality – we can’t be Attached to Outcomes. Then we need Passion, because the raw material for Manifestation is Emotion. If you think this is Oxymoronic, you need to find some way to make it Paradoxical instead (hint: Mind is Binary, Reality is Multidimensional).

(2) Replacing Emotional Attachments with Spiritual Connections (Aries Duad of Cancer), 22:30-25:00 Cancer. First crossing 14-22 September 2020, Retro crossing 29 January-9 February 2021, Final crossing 10-22 April 2021. Note that the Retro crossing runs the sequence backwards.

(3) Anchoring these Connections into Hardcopy Reality (Taurus Duad of Cancer), 25:00-27:30 Cancer. First crossing 22-30 September 2020, Retro crossing 20-29 January 2021, Final crossing 22 April-2 May 2021. You can start to see the importance of Consciousness – if we rued the ripping out of our Emotional Attachments instead of Recognizing that Change was due, then we could easily have skipped the second step, and now what we Anchor into Hardcopy Reality is not Spiritual Connection, but Blame, and Stewing in our Abandonment. But there’s still time to turn it around.

(4) Standing back and Giving these New Creations their Sovereignty (Gemini Duad of Cancer), 27:30-30:00 Cancer. First crossing 30 September-9 October 2020, Retro crossing 11-20 January 2021, Final crossing 2-11 May 2021. “Your children are not your children / They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself” –Kahlil Gibran.

(5) Re-Discovering Who We Are without these Attachments (Leo Duad of Leo), 0:00-2:30 Leo. First crossing 9-20 October 2020, Retro crossing 2-11 January 2021, Final crossing 11-19 May 2021. “First you must know who you are / Then you must know who she is / Then you must know who you are” –Richard Brautigan.

(6) Letting Go of Who We No Longer Are (Virgo Duad of Leo), 2:30-5:00 Leo. First crossing 20 October-2 November 2020, Retro crossing 21 December 2020-1 January 2021, Final crossing 20-27 May 2021. Time to Kick old Habits that Belonged to Someone Else, someone we used to be.

(7) Meeting what we’ve Spawned, as Equals (Libra Duad of Leo), 5:00-7:02 Leo. First crossing 2-27 November 2020, Retro crossing 27 November-20 December 2020, Final crossing 27 May-2 June 2021. Imagine that you started out on 5 September Focusing on What You Don’t Want, and you weren’t able to Let It Go. Well, the US election is tomorrow. What do you suppose you’ll Manifest?

We started this journey on 5 September, so we’re already at stage 5, Re-Discovering Who We Are.

What in your own Life matches the TimeLine above so far, over the last five weeks?

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.

That Guy with the Wings on His Feet

As it’s wont to do, planet Mercury turned around and started going Backwards 16 February 2020 (5pm PST).  This will be very difficult for you to verify, since Mercury is too close to the Sun to be seen most of the time, and “Backwards” in this context is kind of metaphorical.  Mercury symbolizes Communication, Awareness, Thought, and Analysis mostly.  Backwards (“Retrograde”) Mercury has a bad rap around travel, but if like the Angels we take travel delays and disruptions Lightly, we can still Fly.

A planet goes Backwards when it wants us to really Pay Attention to some Lesson it has in mind.  It crosses the same zone of the Zodiac thrice, to make sure we don’t Lose the Plot.  The Plot this month is about the Thinking we’ve been doing, and the Conclusions we’ve been drawing, about the way our Culture should work (Mercury thrice crossing the last few Degrees of Aquarius), and how we Respond to this Emotionally (Mercury thrice crossing the first dozen Degrees of Pisces).

Overzealous Emotions cause our Mentality to Misfire.  It’s one thing that some of us are Emotional Thinkers – when we’re Analyzing something, How We Feel about it is one of our most important criteria, and that’s just Who We Are.  But it’s quite another thing when something Triggers our Karmic Judgments and we lose all hope of Neutrality.  Neutrality after all is where we must be if we want to Change or Manifest anything.  For instance, if we try to Create Peace from a position of Anger, all we’re going to get is more Anger.  Trying to Create Peace from a posture of Bliss will probably only promote Denial.

And in the section of the Zodiac that Mercury crosses thrice, there sit a couple of dwarf planets that are likely to Trigger our Karma.  One of these is the symbol for Intrusive Memories (the as-yet-unnamed dwarf planet that we affectionately call “OR10”) which are usually Karmic.  The other stands for Abuse and Privilege (dwarf planet Nessus).  That’s almost always Karmicas well.  The timetable looks something like this…

• 2 February – Mercury begins its first crossing (at 29 Aquarius)
  • 6 February – Mercury Triggers Intrusive Memories
  • 11 February – Mercury Triggers Abuse and Privilege Issues or Memories
• 16 February – Mercury turns Backwards (at 13 Pisces)
  • 21 February – Mercury Triggers Abuse and Privilege Issues or Memories
    
  • 28 February – Mercury Triggers Intrusive Memories
• 9 March – Mercury goes Forward again (at 29 Aquarius)
  • 22 March – Mercury Triggers Intrusive Memories
  • 29 March – Mercury Triggers Abuse and Privilege Issues or Memories
• 30 March – Mercury finishes third crossing (at 13 Pisces)

When planets change their Direction, they Slooowww Dowwwn, Stop, and then slowly Accelerate again.  While they are Slowing and Stopping (ie, 16 February and 9 March), their Influence upon us is at its Strongest.

Do you have any record or recollections of what was going on for you around 6 or 11 February, give or take a day or two?  The usual astrological process is that this first crossing raises an Issue or Problem (we refer to this as a “Can-Opener”), which usually puts us into our Victim.  Then the second crossing (the “Exposition”), if we’re Awake and Responsive to it, Teaches us a lot about what’s really going down, and we can begin to see our own Role in it.  By the third crossing (the “Confidence-Builder”), if we were Awake at the second one, the original Issue or Problem recurs, but this time we Realize what’s happening, and we Handle it with Aplomb.

Mercury stutters like this three times a year, so we get a good deal of Practice with it.  Our Journey from Victim to Adept increases our Neutrality a lot, helping us to be more Objective and Effective Problem-Solvers.

If you happen to have a birth (“natal”) planet in the thrice-crossed Zone of a Backwardation, the Cosmic Headmistress is giving you a Special Lesson.  For instance, one reader has their birth planet that means Truth of the Heart (asteroid Aletheia) in the Zone of this Mercury trifecta, and that planet is in a Challenging Relationship (Square) to their birth planet that stands for their Soul (Uranus).  Birth-planet Relationships are with us for our entire Life, so the more Practice we get with them, the better.

So our reader may frequently run into Issues where they feel like the Desires of their Soul, and the Desires of their Heart, are in Conflict.  How can Soul and Heart be in Conflict?  Heart should Serve Soul, and do it Well.  But Karma can intervene and mess things up.  That makes it even more important to Practice with the Energy, and bring it into Consciousness, so they can Notice when the Karmic prompter is reminding them of their Lines, and Frankly, Not Give a Damn about what it is they’re Supposed To do or say.

Our reader’s Heart-Truth planet, with it’s Teasing Relationship with their Soul, is Triggered by Mercury on 4 February, 1 March, and 19 March.  The most important thing to remember about our birth-planet Relationships, is that they’re like a Graduate Seminar.  They aren’t Problems to be Solved, they’re Dramas to be Studied.  We don’t Solve Dramas, we just Learn how to Handle them a little better each time we deal with them.  They have no Clean Edges, they’re always Ragged.

Imagine you’re an fiction writer studying situations where a person’s Heart would lead them in a different direction than their Soul would, so you could write a realistic short story about their Adventures.  With that mindset, after several repetitions of this Pattern in your Life, you could write the script of your next episode of it.  That would probably help immensely to make it Easier for you to Step Out of that Role the next time those circumstances arose, and Enjoy playing the role of someone else in your script, or someone different entirely.

If we Endure our “favorite” Karmic – aka Educational – Drama once more and leave its Edges just a little less Ragged than the last time, then we’ve Succeeded Greatly, and we need to Acknowledge ourself with Celebration.  While we’re “still kickin’,” we’ll probably never know Why our Immortal Soul Chose to Experience a Lifetime with such a Drama in it.  We just have to Accept that it in fact Did, Trust its Wisdom, and try to be a good Student.

The more Conscious we can be about the Dramas hard-wired into our birth charts, the better, but we also have to remember that it’s not about Analysis (even when Mercury is being Compulsively Analytical), it’s about Experience.  We get a little more hip to our Dramas each time we Repeat them, whether we beat ourself up for Stumbling over them again, or Congratulate ourself for being Open to Learning more about them.  Analysis can give us “Book-Larnin’,” but it isn’t nearly multidimensional enough to give us Wisdom.  For that we need Experience.  That’s what Karma is all about – Inertia, Repetition, how to Use the Patterns we have to their Best Advantage, instead of being Victimized by them.

Big Doin’s This Week I

As we indicated in our initial Calendar entry (see https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2017/09/03/test-ii/)…

We start with Mercury going Direct again on 5 September 2017 (4:30 am PDT) in the same Degree as the Eclipse, 29 Leo (“A mermaid emerges from the ocean waves ready for rebirth in human form”).

Then the Full Moon on 6 September (12 am PDT), on the Eurydike-Neptune Opposition (Trust Spirit) near the Virgo-Pisces Midpoint (which wouldn’t be a bad surrogate for Ego Death itself), which makes another Flying Squirrel Configuration ().

Then ten hours later Nemesis (Ego Death) goes Direct, at 22 Capricorn, followed fourteen hours after that by the Station of Ixion (Forbidden Genius) in 24 Sagittarius.  In these Degrees we unleash the same almost-Grand-Unx Pattern that we saw in the Saturn Station at https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2017/08/24/eclipsalypse-iii/ .

I can usually tell when folks are agitated, because there are more visits to the Blog home page (rather than individual posts).  That doesn’t seem to be the case at the moment, which is an excellent sign.  Unless everyone is just out vacationing.  Ultimately we’re no different than the Critters, we get nervous just before an Earthquake, but unlike the Critters we just paper over our Instincts with Compulsive thoughts and Emotions, and Denial.  So when there’s more traffic on the home page I know it’s time to reorganize my Priorities and get to writing.

The coming several days look very serious to me. 

The threat of civil war in the US seems to have faded somewhat, apparently because the neo-Nazis have found themselves so outnumbered (they’d been Believing the Antichrist’s overuse of superlatives to describe the size of the throng of Ghouls behind him).  I’ve forgotten; can youalls remind me how to call Buffy?  And the Antichrist seems to have backed off its threat to default on US bonds, which would create the real possibility of throwing the World into economic chaos.  Not that this threat doesn’t remain with us daily; Denials are just easier this week than last.

Then there’s Global Balming, which pales beside the the Antichrist’s stoking of the US’s biggest export industry, Weapons.  Ten thousand deaths and seven million homeless – do you know which continent that’s happening on as we speak, in yet another proxy War that they’ve succeeded in keeping journalists away from?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/01/disaster-texas-america-britain-yemen

Folks in the US would behoove themselves by reading what their own Corporate-controlled media hides from them…

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/sep/02/socialism-young-americans-bernie-sanders

All that’s not a slam dunk, as the Antichrist’s Corruption of the US court system may well stop the current courts’ push to rectify twenty years of gerrymandering by the Republicrats, and Self-Interest (aka Jobs) combined with War on its own people (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2017/09/01/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-claim-that-a-violent-crime-wave-is-sweeping-the-nation/) may nullify the outnumbering of the Far Right.

And now the threat of Nuclear War seems to be very front-page.  We can only hope that Mo Rocca is right, that they haven’t given the Antichrist the real codes.

The coming several days look very serious to me. 

The 5 September (4:30 am PDT) Mercury (Communication) Station (Strength), in the same Degree as the Eclipse (Profound), is Conjunct (potentially indistinct from) Mars (potential Violence) and Atropos (Endings), and makes a T-Square (Challenge to Mastery) to the Opposition between Sedna (Fear) and Sappho (Self-Love). 

Which is to say, we may not be able to Distinguish between Strong Communication and Violence, which will be a Challenge to the ongoing Duality between Fear and Love.  Something is Ending, but we don’t know yet what it is (do we, Mr. Jones); we know that all this is a continuation of the Eclipse Energy, which was about a new Passion arising…

On “our” side is a Chiron  (Empathy Heals) Trine Bridge (Grace) across the Sedna-Sappho Opposition, and a Grand Trine (Dumb-Luck Blessing) between Mercury-Mars-Atropos, Uranus (the Individual Soal or True Self), and the Pholus-Quaoar-Galactic Center (Instructions from Galactic Headquarters to Take Responsibility for Improving Future Outcomes) Conjunction.

Which means that we can Expect Abundant Grace as long as we don’t duck our Responsibility to Speak Our Truth.

And a Major Tricolor (Call to Curiosity) forms across the Square (Challenge) from Pholus-Quaoar to Chiron (Pholus/Quaoar/Galactic Center-Square-Chiron-Quincunx-Mercury/Mars/Atropos-Trine-Pholus/Quaoar/Galactic Center).  The Tricolor suggests…

We have much to gain from PIAVAing something on the order of “I Wonder how to Lovingly and Gently Embrace the Pain that will likely arise when we Accept our Responsibility to Speak Our Truth.”  The subsequent Stations of Nemesis and Ixion suggest that it’s time for us to get serious about Embracing our Forbidden Genius, and that an Ego Death of some sort will probably be required.

Mercury backed across the space between 12 Virgo and 29 Leo.  These Degrees define a slow-moving, long-term Ego Death of the intellect, covering our Realization that we need to Molt (Triggered 24-28 July), our Searching and Fearless Inventory, Self-Forgiveness, and most of the process of Reconstructing a new Ego.  We’re going to be debriefing that process until 19 September.  The Eclipse was at 28:53 Leo, and Mercury backed up to 28:25.  Mercury crossed the Eclipse location at 10pm PDT 2 September, and will again at 2am PDT 8 September.

Fate and Choice

A video from last week’s Sedna Station…

Meanwhile, these poor folks keep Looking For Us in all the wrong places.  I Wonder if they’ll ever wake up…

https://www.universetoday.com/137008/breakthrough-detects-repeating-fast-radio-bursts-coming-distant-galaxy/

But what we really want to write about today is Thursday’s Station of asteroid Moira (Fate and Choice)…

By “coincidence” a reader wrote last week to inquire about their Relationship, and it turned out that they were in the middle of their Moira Returns – both of them!  A “Return” is when a planet returns to the same Sign and Degree it was in when you were born – a Birthday is just a “Solar Return.”  It’s basically a Reboot with regards to the influence of the Returning planet, in the case of Moira an Open Door to replace Ancient Habits with Conscious Choice.  When any planet Stations during a Return, we know we’re up for important Life Lessons.

Moira takes 4 years, six months, 7 days, and 8 hours (4.52 years) to complete the Zodiacal loop, so if you’re born any multiple of that from another person, you’re going to have your Moiras (Moirai in Greek) in the same place – that is, your Fate in the same ball game.  Think about that with regard to difficult siblings, cousins, parents, relatives, teachers, coaches, bosses, employees, subcontractors, clients, colleagues, teammates, neighbors, arresting officers, litigants, bounty hunters, wascally wabbits, or Antichrists in your Life. 

You can calculate the position of each person’s Moira by entering their birth date at http://www.true-node.com/eph1/?inputNumber=moira&day=1&month=9&year=2017&time=00%3A00%3A00&zone=GMT+0&interval_num=1&interval=day&lines=10&.submit=Get+Ephemeris&calendar=Gregorian&zodiac=Tropical&origin=Geocentric&lighttime=Apparent&clock=Universal+Time&zodsec=D%B0M&longitude=on .

It could make a Relationship (or a relationship) even more Confusing if one person’s Moira Opposed the other’s.  Remember though that Confusion is the first sign of Growth.

And an alliance or association would probably be even less Present-Moment, and hence even harder to understand, if the members’ Moirai Square one another (3 Signs apart in the same or adjacent Degrees).  You’ll be wondering what planet they’re from!

We have to say that a Relationship between two people with their Moirai in the same place, would be a “Fated” Relationship.  “Preplanned” would be a synonym in some Belief Sets, as would “Addictive” in others.  Very few of us are born in full Consciousness, and only Consciousness allows us to step out of Fate, step out of our Karma, and step into Choice.  So it’s going to take some time for most of us to “wake up” enough to be able to Choose whether or not a “Fated” Relationship is What We Want (if we have a Choice). 

With a Moira Return every 4½ years, we get to Reboot our “Choice of Fate (or not)” fairly frequently.

A “Fated” Relationship doesn’t at all have to be a “bad” one.  In fact, in most cases it would be a strong incentive for us to get Conscious, and if Consciousness is part of our Mission in the Lifetime, thinking of it as “Preplanned” is probably apt, if metaphorical.  If our “Fated” Relationships are Comfortable, we probably wouldn’t think twice about them; we’d just think that’s the way Relationships are supposed to be,, though we’d both probably have to be pretty Masterful at Self-Love.  Like those folks you know who met their Soulmates in high school and lived Happily Ever After.

If there were otherwise many Dischordant elements between our charts, we’d probably spend a lot of time Wondering why we’re attracted to someone so different from ourself.  Of course the answer would be So We Can Get Conscious, but they don’t usually teach that in school.

Our reader had their Exact Moira Return earlier in August; their partner won’t have theirs until next year.  Even though their natal Moirai are only a few Degrees apart, Moira’s Retrograde period intervenes.  Moira backs up from 10 Taurus to 26 Aries, a Degree Zone that has to do with finishing and critiquing the Design of a new Project, and building it out to the point where it’s recognizable for what it will eventually become.  Aries Projects are Compulsive, Impulsive, and Spiritually Motivated, so the intellect is flying blind – we know there’s a Plan and that it’s important, we just don’t know what the Plan is yet. 

We’ve come through the 26-Aries-to-10-Taurus Degree Zone once, now we’ll back over it and reconsider everything until mid-December, then make a second pass until early next March.  By then, whatever we’re working on should look pretty good.  We may even be able to guess what it’s about, though we’ll probably be wrong.  It’s better to leave Arian Projects as Mysteries, so we don’t screw them up with our Expectations and misguided Control issues.

In our reader’s case, at their Moira Return in mid-August they entered into a new phase in their progression toward Full Consciousness.  Now their new phase is on hold until December, while they revise their Approach to Life and their Personal history in light of what they’ve Realized.  Remember, Consciousness is not a process of Discovery, it’s one of Differentiation.  When we Become Conscious of something, it’s not new, it’s been their all along, we just haven’t Differentiated it from the background.

The most difficult part of any Relationship is Boundaries.  Putting it mildly, as if we’re Neutral in any Relationship, “Was that you that offended me, or am I being over-sensitive?” or “Am I rude and insulting, or is that you over-reacting?”  And the Bullying version, “I was just joking.”  In the case of interrelated Moirai, even more than usual, it would more often be “You just Triggered my Held Emotions, thank you very much,” or in the vernacular, “You Motherf…!”  As if anyone is Neutral when their Held Emotions are Lit.

Our reader also happens to have a Life Mission of Exploring Boundaries (asteroid Pallas Square to their Nodes), so they’ve “Chosen” (on the Soul level) a very serious Challenge for themselves.  As the Findhorn Transformation Game says, “The hardest jobs are only given to the best people.”  Their best bet in such a situation is probably to Dedicate their Life to Neutrality.  Gay Hendricks once spoke of a client of his who would reply to any Challenge, no matter how confrontative, “I Wonder how I might put that to good use.”

The prerequisite for Neutrality in difficult situations is Staying in the Present Moment.  Not at all Easy when our Held Emotions are coming up, but actually essential for any of us, if we hope to Liberate ourself from our Self-Sabotaging Archetypes.  Staying in the Present Moment means Attending to what’s going on at the moment in our Physical Vehicle.  Trading “You Motherf…!” for “Wow, do I ever feel strong Anger arising from my Belly!” or “Geez, my body temperature just rose ten Degrees!”  “I Wonder what would happen if I took a Deep Breath, or did Kegels.”  “I have to go to the bathroom; I’ll get back to you on this later.”

Sedna Teaches us that Anger and Fear are close cousins; Anger and Fear probably have their Moirai Square to one another.  If Anger is Fight, Fear is Freeze.  Flight is probably more often a reasonable Conscious or Unconscious Choice, as Anger is not your best friend when you Fight, and Freezing is a bad choice when staring at truck headlights.  If our aim is to Embrace Consciousness, then both Anger and Fear are prime Portals into What’s Asking To Be Examined.  Of course, Safety First, so when at all possible we want to be in a 100% Supportive environment when we Examine either Anger or Fear. 

If our environment isn’t 100% Supportive, we need a Safe exit, so we can Engage briefly, then Withdraw without penalty while we bring ourself back to the Present Moment as much as we can.  Tapping can play that role to some extent; Energy follows Attention, so we can productively Imagine that we’re Tapping in circumstances where physical Tapping would be inconvenient.  Another useful tool is our Mirror.

In any Difficult, Confusing, or Ill-Defined-Boundary situation, we can Imagine holding up a wardrobe Mirror between us and our protagonist, with the Mirror side facing them.  We can do this while they’re present and we’re Engaged with them, or while they’re absent, whenever we’re trying to iron out “who did what to whom when.”  Often we may need to expand the Mirror; sometimes we need a 360-degree dome around us, and sometimes we need to practice holding that Mirror long enough that we develop new Habits of Self-Protection.

Places where we have weak Boundaries are not accidents.  Someone Programmed us that way, and it’s Energetic equivalent is a hole in our Aura, often in the back of the Heart.  Not that we need to Blame them for Programming us, beyond being Honest with ourself about our Anger about it.  Eventually we’ll discover that we (Soul-we) actually Asked them to Program us, so we could Learn how to Recover from it and henceforth never again surrender Unconsciously to Manipulation.

When using our Mirror, the important thing is to watch what happens in the Present Moment.  Do we feel Safer or less Agitated?  That’s the primary objective.  Does their Attitude change?  That’s secondary, but still important; we have to Accept that we can Change no one except ourself.  But when we Change, the World Changes, because Real Life is not Dual, it’s Unitary and Multifarious. 

Ego Boundaries, while critically important to our Survival, are just a house of cards.  The Soul survives a million Egos, so Survival is really just an Ego thing anyway, but Exploring these Edges is precisely how we Expand our Consciousness.  So the Ego is in no sense trivial, even if its Illusory!

So if our protagonist’s Attitude changes, that’s evidence that our Mirror is working.

Learning how to Manifest a Safe Space for the Ego is an important part of Creating Peace.  How can we Tolerate anyone who is Different from us if we don’t have a Safe Space for our own Ego, our own Self-Protection?  While we appropriately disparage and disdain the 1% and the Antichrist and Extremists of all stripes, one thing they Demonstrate for us very well, is that they have a Safe Space for their Egos.  We can Imitate that without Selling Out, because we aren’t Sociopaths.

Make Ego Great Again II

A friend sent this link to a Vedic interpretation of Eclipses…

http://visionaryreadings.com/the-meaning-of-eclipses-in-vedic-astrology/

And then described how their Life has been bothered by bureaucratic snafus recently. 

Where we are Looking has a lot to do with how we Perceive Reality.  Consider the contrast between Looking at the Fear Propaganda on TV in the USofA, or Looking at, for example, http://www.onenessofall.com/newest.html or http://danielscranton.com/ .  Not to imply that the Arcturians have any kind of monopoly on Relevance to what’s happening on the Planet.  You might resonate more to the Pleiadeans or https://lightquest-intl.com/ or http://www.starwars.com/games-apps .

Vedic astrology has a tendency to Believe it does have a monopoly on Truth.  If it provides Perspective that is useful to you, then, as with any Perspective, by all means use it.  The more Lenses we have to see the World through, the closer we are to actually participating in Reality rather than our own Projections.  When any Perspective strikes Fear, though, we need to Tap Out the Fear before we use the Perspective.  If a Perspective is good for nothing more than bringing Unconscious Fear into Consciousness where you can Love it to Death, then it’s a very Powerful Perspective for you.  Alternatively, with a technique like Theta Healing, where the Outcome is immediately available to us, we can modify our Command until we find one that works, or alternate Theta and Tapping.

The root of the monopoly tendency in Vedic astrology is Religious Politics.  Simply put, if it’s Either/Or it’s Political.  If it’s Both/And, it’s Spiritual.  We make no claim that this is an absolute Truth, but we suggest strongly that it’s a very Reliable First Approximation and a very Useful Perspective.  Vedic astrology supported Political Hinduism, as distinct from Esoteric Hinduism.  Political Hinduism supported ongoing Abuse of the Dalit or Harijan caste just as Political Christianity supported ongoing Slavery and Abuse of Primary Cultures everywhere they were encountered.  Certainty is a Tool of Political Agendas.

We look at it this way.  Hinduism is frequently accused of promoting Fatalism, and Political Hinduism certainly appears to.  As with most Religions, I don’t believe that Esoteric Hinduism does promote Fatalism.  Fate and Free Will are usually seen as an Either/Or, so as with any Duality, we Know that this is a 3D Veil attempting to obscure the Both/And, Multifarious and Unitary Reality on the Other Side.

The difference between Fate and Free Will is that our Fate is what befalls us when we’re Captives of the Karmic and Generational and Social Archetypes that we usually refer to as our Limiting Beliefs.  Free Will is what we Obtain when we step outside of the Limited Reality of the these Archetypes.  Even the “Laws” of Physics are simply Archetypes, Projections of the Ego’s need for Stasis and the mind’s need for the Illusion of Understanding.  If you’ve ever had a Wannabe Guru Manifest in your bedroom in a pillar of shimmering colored pinpricks of light like on Star Trek, you’d understand this.  Or Channeled an Antarean, or met a Walk-In, or Encountered one of your Doubles.

To me Growth in Consciousness (which means Freeing yourself from some Archetype), which usually requires an Ego Death of some sort, is not about Discovery, but about Differentiation.  We See or Feel more layers of Reality when we start noticing that there are Trees in the Forest, Trees of different Colors, Trees that have Birds and Bears in them, Birds and Bear that may be different from one another and that eat different Foods, etc etc.  There is no better way to Illuminate an Archetype or Assumption that we’ve wrapped our Limited view of Reality around, than for it suddenly to disappear.

Would we notice if suddenly all the Birch Trees disappeared from the Forest?  We might only notice that something had Changed.  But if they reappeared while we were pondering what it was that Changed, then suddenly our Consciousness would have a whole new Perspective on Birch Trees.  This is precisely what happens during an Eclipse; that which we Assume is Constant blinks off for a short time, then returns to its former Glory.  And we’re talking about the Sun, which Symbolizes our Essence.  Hence we consider Eclipses to be about Illumination, and that’s precisely what they are. 

Remember that in the Unconscious there is no Negation.  When you Pray for No War, you’re most likely to get War, because the Unconscious does not have a No in its vocabulary.  As we usually put it, astrology and the Unconscious determine Dimension, but not Direction.  The Cat may still be Alive or Not.  Eclipse is the Absence of Light, as Fear is the Absence of Love.  The Dimensions in those statements are Light and Love.  The Direction – Absence or Presence – is a Political Decision by the Ego, by yourself.

When you make a Decision to Choose Light and Love rather than Absence on any Issue in your Life, you threaten the Karmic or Family or Cultural Archetype that would keep you in Scarcity, with Fire and Fury like the World has never known.  So guess what the Archetype does in return?  It threatens to surround your Ego with Missiles, while its Ally the Ego warns you to seek cover and “not” to look at the flash.  As if you would have time for anything approaching that.  Ego and Archetype are one and the same. 

Hence we always recommend adding “Lovingly and Gently and Rapidly and Completely” to our PIAVAs. 

https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/category/manifestation/piava-review/

PIAVAs directly address the Unconscious.  The Unconscious is in Charge, and one of its “Rules” is that no Prayer goes unanswered – that’s just a Perspective, but we suggest strongly that it’s a Reliable First Approximation and a Useful Perspective.   Use it as a filter to Examine your Life.  Every Negative thought you have is a Prayer.  Every Victim Emotion that you have is a Prayer.  Your Prayers specify the Dimension, and your Negativity and Victimhood specify the Direction.  Thoughts and Emotions are self-reinforcing, and their Negativity and Victimhood reinforce each other.  Your Negative thoughts and Victim Emotions are generated by your Archetypes.

When you PIAVA something and you’re ready to Receive it, the Universe will deliver it, just like Amazon or Taobao.  When you aren’t ready to Receive it, what the Universe will deliver, when you see the Universe through a Benevolent Lens, is Illustration of Why You Haven’t Been Manifesting That All Along.  That often looks like the Opposite of what you Asked for – the same principle as an Eclipse; often the fastest way to get you to Notice something that you’ve been taking for granted, is to Remove it.

There are some things which you have always been Abundant in.  Your Archetypes support your Ego in those arenas.  There are other things that have always been Difficult for you.  Those Define your Self-Sabotaging Archetypes.  Jane Roberts’s (Seth’s) The Nature of Personal Reality is an excellent exposition of this Lens.

Your thoughts and Emotions are not beyond your Control.  Your Ego can Choose to Intervene and Change the Direction.  It may take years of Persistence to shut down a strong Archetype, but never consider it Impossible.  You can PIAVA Assistance in Changing the Direction of the Archetype from Scarcity to Abundance – or vice versa for Abuse, though you’re better off Asking for Respect and Inviolate Boundaries, or whatever it is that you Want, rather than Asking for what you Don’t Want.

In Real Life this is an Either/Or Universe.  Fate is still going on.  If your Fate is to be Rich and Famous and Irresistible, then you may not want to Change it – though “Good” Karma is said to be harder to Change than “Bad” Karma, so when you start to get tired of being Rich and Famous and Irresistible, you may want to PIAVA Choice.  You may want to Choose Rich and Famous and Irresistible on Tuesdays and Fridays, Happy and Private on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and Surprised on Saturdays and Sundays and Mondays – but even that is an Archetype that will be Obsolete soon.

There isn’t much difference between Attention and Intention.  If your Attention is always on Negativity and Scarcity, whether in thought or Emotion, the Unconscious will consider that your Intention, and Manifest it for you.  Your Attention is under your Control.  You may have a nasty Habit of Focusing on your Negative thoughts and Bummer Emotions, and it may take a lot of Work to Change the Habit, but it is doable.  The Key is Noticing and Congratulating.

Rather than beating yourself up when you Notice that you’re Unconsciously indulging your Negativity, Congratulate yourself for Noticing.  You’re substituting Positive Reinforcement for Negative Reinforcement, and the more often you do this, the easier it becomes.  You’ll be surprised at how Effective this simple step is; Congratulate yourself for Noticing that you’re Repeating an undesired Habit, rather than cursing yourself for Repeating the Habit.

This particular Eclipse occurs while Mercury is Retrograde, and the Vedic Eclipse interpretation we linked to at the beginning of this article reads much like the average Western astrology’s interpretation of Mercury Retrograde.  Our approach to Retrogradations is the same as our approach to Eclipses.  But rather than Demanifestation of something routine, a Retrogradation may encourage Obsession on it – not a matter of Dimension, just a matter of Direction, so absolutely available to be Changed by the Ego with PIAVAs and Persistence. 

I usually find Retrogrades to be more Contemplative than Obsessive, but the same Energies apply – Contemplate What you Want, not What you Don’t Want.  If you’re particularly Skilled at Obsession, Obsess on What you Want, not on What you don’t Want.  We’ve already talked about Obsession and Changing the Subject, an important step in PIAVAing…

https://astrobuss.wordpress.com/2017/08/09/cause-an-defect-full-moon-iv/

If you can’t shake Negative Energy while you’re trying to Focus on What You Want, Tap it Out.  Be sure to measure the Intensity of the Energy before and after Tapping, and Recognize that you may need to Iterate, and even alternate with other forms of PIAVAing.  Persistence counts.

The dwarf planet that deals with our Unlimited Potential is Chaos, which is in the Air Grand Trine and Dynamic Grand Sextile of the recent Full Moon; see the previous post.  It’s joined in the Grand Trine by Haumea/Rebirth and South Node/Karma, but the other three, Fire, points in the Grand Sextile are North Node/Mission and Purpose, Eris/Revelation of Denial, and Lilith-Saturn-Ixion-Pholus/In Order to Achieve Self-Sovereignty the Most Important Thing is that we Become Responsible to our Unique and Probably Forbidden Genius.

The dwarf planet and Centaur Hylonome deals with Letting Go of Archetypes, and the asteroid Juno deals with the Edges of Consciousness.  It’s no Coincidence that they’re Conjunct as we speak.  Hylonome Initiated Juno in February 2017, starting a new 9-year Cycle at 8 Capricorn, “In a Sun-lit home domestic birds sing joyously.”  We’re in the middle of the Exposition (which actually peaked 28 July).  The Confidence-Builder occurs at the September Equinox.

Make Ego Great Again

Well, maybe we’d really be Choosing Famine after all…

http://mashable.com/2017/08/09/north-korea-nuclear-war-climate-change-winter/#.3pYlkGLQiqn

At least we finally understand ‘Rump’s rejection of the Paris Treaty – he had a “better” way in mind.  All the Grand Trines in the Full Moon chart suggest Positive Outcomes, but from the Ego’s Perspective we’re never sure exactly what a Positive Outcome really might be, since the Ego Loves to get Attached to Dead-End status quo situations. Maybe a Nuclear Winter would end up being kinder or more equitable than rising sea levels.  Or, once ‘Rump preemptively nukes Venezuela as well, the falling dominoes might leave few of us here to Enjoy a Nuclear Winter.

Mercury’s now Retrograde, till 4 September.  It backs over much of the first half of Virgo and the last Duad (two-and-a-half Degrees) of Leo.  So the path that we’ve trod in our Mind’s Eye (it’s Mercury after all) since 24 July has involved a likely rather significant Fall from Grace with ourself, as we tested our concept of Self-Love intellectually (Cancer Duad of Leo), found it to be a miserable failure (Virgo Duad of Virgo), then studied its Mirror-Image in Others (Libra and Scorpio Duads), Rejected that (Sagittarius Duad), then began to Start Over (Capricorn Duad).

Now we run this sequence in reverse.  We have to assume that when the Universe Asks us to Repeat a sequence three or more times, it means that we’re really supposed to grok this.  So our next step will likely be to look again for Babies in the Bathwater we discarded during the first week of August, then go back and review all the Vignettes we Re-Experienced in the last week of July (Realizing now that they’re reversed left-to-right, which may mean we might want to reverse the roles in the Vignetted scenarios), and through that process, somehow Fall in Love with ourself again.

Then, between 4 September and the Equinox, we go back through the process in the original direction.  Just as Mercury begins to go Direct again, Mars goes into Virgo, assisting us in our Efforts toward Self-Improvement.  See if you can shift your Attention from Self-Improvement to Self-Acceptance in September.  Virgo can do Ego Death either way – Criticizing itself to Death or Loving itself to Death.  The Criticism path is a treadmill, the Loving path leads to Permanent Growth.  “You poor Sweetheart, you’re Feeling like this is The End, aren’t you.” 

By the time Mercury breaks out of it’s “Shadow Period” (29 Leo to 12 Virgo) at the Equinox, Venus will just be entering Virgo, and we’ll be ready for it.  Nobody’s going to be “Ascending” till they can do Ego Deaths Lovingly.  Surrender (Giving Over to Forces more Powerful and Benevolent than our Ego, not Giving Up) helps a great deal.

When the Sky darkens during the Total Eclipse and you can see the planets lined up, starting west-northwest of the Hole in the Sky where the Sun used to be, and stretching in a line almost halfway across the Sky toward the east-southeast, you should see Venus, Mars, the Sun, Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn, in that order.  Venus and Jupiter will be brightest.  Mars, reddish, will be close to the Hole.  You might want to memorize this order, since you’ll only have two minutes of darkness, and the fireworks around the Hole in the Sky will be, appropriately, Demanding most of your Attention.

We have a great many metaphorical Rebirths and New Timelines these days.  This will help move us into them…

http://danielscranton.com/creating-new-timelines-%e2%88%9ethe-9th-dimensional-arcturian-council/

“We have observed that many of you are creating the timelines for yourselves that are ideal from your perspective, and we can see you moving closer and closer to these timelines.  This is the perfect timing to be engaged in such creative work, because you are supported by the energies that are upon you.  You are more supported in creating something new at this time than you are in creating some rehashed, ideal, third-dimensional existence.

[such as the Nuclear Winter that ‘Rump is preparing for us]

“In other words, you are moving forward, not backwards. 

[It’s only the Mind that’s moving backwards; the rest of us is moving forward]

“So in order for you to align with the energies that are moving you forward, you must be willing to go to places you have not gone before.  We are talking about vibration here.  We are talking about getting out of your heads and into the vibrational field you want to be in.

“Your heads are capable of telling you about all of the wonderful things that you have seen here on planet Earth in all of your lifetimes, and you can conjure up a pretty good experience for yourself through what you have seen, what you have done, what you have heard about, but what will absolutely knock your socks off is the unknown that you are creating.

“To create with vibration takes you beyond everything that you’ve experienced thus far in the physical and everything that you’ve ever wanted to experience as well.  Now, the fifth dimensional energies that are upon you are nudging you in this direction.  They are attempting to free you from the limitations of your minds and to nudge you into the unknown field of yet-to-be-experienced vibration.

“And then all you have to do is surrender to the process, because you could not possibly imagine how you are going to come to the timeline that you’re creating.  You cannot imagine because it’s something that you haven’t experienced, and you haven’t heard about yet.

“Soon enough, however, you are going to start to hear about experiences that others are having, unexplainable experiences, experiences that go beyond imagination, beyond thought.  This is what we see you all reaching for as you construct your ideal version of the fifth dimension and you continue to inch your way towards it.”

The Bottom Line is that we Create our Own Reality.  The more we Stretch ourselves beyond the daily Fear propaganda, the more we contribute to the Transformation of the Planet, and the easier it will be for all of us to Roll Our Own.

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.

No Medical History

Okay, so “where does Eris seem to be leading me next?”  What Masks are being pulled upon for me?  

Well, about 45 years ago I realized that dentistry was a treadmill that required more effort than payoff, and about 35 years ago I discovered that mainstream medicine wasn’t worth the money either.  Originally, I just didn’t want to devote my Life to buying someone else a new Mercedes every few years, without getting much in return.  As the years have gone by, I’ve seen many more reasons to eschew for-profit medicine and its master Big Pharma, particularly where it does more harm than good in the name of quarterly profits, inflated Lifestyles, and vested interests.

So a week ago, I woke up with a swollen face and neck from an infected tooth.  I’ve been through several abscesses, Healing them with other means, but never anything like this.  Plus, it freaked out my wife.  So we went to her dentist.  Turns out that sort of swelling can close the windpipe without much notice, so I ended up spending the weekend in the hospital getting a course of IV antibiotics and steroids.  After a third of a century of abstinence, stepping into the dental, mainstream medicine, and pharmaceutical worlds in one leap was certainly a huge Ego Death.

But it didn’t feel like it.  There was no clinging, no hesitation, no doubt.  My traditional self-Healing methods weren’t working, it felt like something I couldn’t just tolerate or adapt to, and, just one “easy” step after another, here I was in the hospital sucking up the drugs that destroy the first third of one’s immune system.  Of course I was hyperalert for the many unnecessary doctor visits and irrelevant tests that you read about hospitals using to exploit the unwary, and ready to be defensive about my choices if they tried to “diagnose” me.  Diagnosis is a label with enormous baggage attached to it.

But it didn’t happen.  The tests and docs all seemed pretty central to the issue at hand, the people were very nice, mostly genuine, educated, caring, and sharp.  So there’s the first piece of Eris intel – that our Eridean edification may arrive through witnessing that our accustomed Judgments aren’t valid.  Our Judgments are certainly Limiting Beliefs.  And mainstream medicine is powerfully good at dealing with emergencies.

Turns out I’m healthier than I thought I was.  Doc after doc, nurse after nurse, most of them said something like “70-plus, no medical history, no medications, relatively good health – how do you do it?  I’m on four meds already in my 50s.”  By the third time, I realized it was a serious question, so I started answering.  I told them to look up Functional Medicine, whose creed is from Aristotle – “Let Food be thy Medicine, and Medicine be thy Food” – and of course why and how to avoid Glyphosate.   Many of them were already partway there in their personal Lives.  Functional Medicine is new, but I’ve been following its precepts pretty faithfully for 35 years.

There’s the second piece of Eris intel – that the World is educable.  I’m sure it will take a looong time before hospital “food” gets up to snuff – there was nothing on the menu that I could eat, even after they dismissed surgery and allowed that it was Safe for me to eat.  Even the Broth – they had no list of ingredients for it, it just “came in a pouch.”  So I got my first-ever two-day Fast, which was easy and felt good.  More potential Ego Bullets dodged.

Once I got out of the hospital I had to start thinking about having the tooth pulled, and a friend inadvertently reminded me that Mercury was about to go Retrograde.  I don’t usually worry much about Retrogrades, but then, I don’t sign a lot of contracts.  The timeliness of the reminder gave me pause.  I didn’t think it would be possible to get it out before Mercury went Retrograde; could I wait till after it turned Direct again?  I didn’t want to revisit it again and again.

Differences of opinion among the docs – some said no way to wait, some said finish the antibiotics first (I’m still on followup oral antibiotics).  The oral surgeon’s office said he was booked for the next three weeks – maybe waiting was my answer.  But the surgeon offered his consulting services two days after I got out of the hospital.  At the consultation he proposed pulling the tooth at 9:30am on 28 April.  Mercury turned Retro at 10:20am – problem solved.

And with it another piece of Eris intel – don’t waste your time trying to Do and Plan – go straight to PIAVA instead.  That one’s BIG.

Of course, now that I’ve had the offending tooth extracted and had to go two more days at home with only liquid Foods, I see that fasting isn’t as easy when you’re feeling better and surrounded by all of those tasty treats that dance and sing and wave their tentacles every time you walk by.  So now we’re getting in a little deeper with this fourth piece of Eris intel – I’m intellectually Conscious that I eat to dispel Anxiety, but I haven’t scratched the surface of the Emotional Discernment that will be necessary to Change that Pattern.

As I’ve said many times, the Noticing is the hardest part, the Acting differently will be a Challenge, but once the effort begins, the process is self-reinforcing.  So it’ll probably be easier than I imagine.  But this use of Food for Emotional Control, rather than Nutrition or Celebration, certainly qualifies as one of those things that “we will discover in the way of unknown Beliefs, or long-standing Limits that we’ve misinterpreted as Irritations or social norms, and which are likely to come into Focus as Self-Sabotage.”  And that we’ll be clinging to, in an addictive sense.

Multiple personalities – the folks who have cancer in one personality and not in another, for instance – is a heavier situation than most of us are in.  But we all have multiple subpersonalities that may relate to each other only in passing.  In some mind-spaces I have no difficulty at all passing up a candy bar – why would I want to do that to myself?  In other spaces, it’s Sure, I can do that!  In yet others it’s Whoa, have you tried that new Ocho Dark Coffee organic-chocolate organic-coffee bar?  It’s incredible!  

These three people kinda know each other, but not well.  It’s almost as if they’re independent of the overall director of the Vehicle.  They kind of take turns running the show, and when one is in charge, the others may be distant witnesses, but it almost seems like they don’t care.  Of course tooth pain calls forth sub #1 (why would I do that to myself?) fairly reliably, because the negative feedback is immediate.

The fifth potential Ego hit will be around how to pay the hospital bills when they arrive.  And I can see another, sixth piece of Eris intel – once I’m back on my feet, will I withstand the pressure to give in to the dental treadmill?  I’ve yet to see dentistry really working – they wail on your mouth and checkbook, and the only result is that they want to see you again in three months, or sooner.  Or will I submit eagerly, if I can scrounge up the money, because it might seem easier than self-Healing?

Time will tell about this one.  The Eris-Uranus Initiation is still a month off.  We don’t know what will Change, or how we’ll Change.