Eris on Stage

Next week we get the opportunity to meet Eris face to face, as she will be Stationary Direct on January 8.  Depending on your vulnerability to her charms, you could feel that as much as a week in advance.  Stationary means Strong, and Direct means that all of the reconsideration that’s been happening since she turned Retrograde will come tumbling out onto the World.  She turned Retro in mid-July, shortly after Uranus (Individuality, Creativity, our Soul Connection, Disruption of our false persona) did the same, and only a few weeks after the first Uranus-Pluto Square.  What’s the connection?  Well, the Uranus-Pluto Square dominates 2012-2015, and amounts to the 1960s becoming permanent – Civil Rights, Make Love Not War, Feminism, Let Your Freak Flag Fly, Flowers in Your Hair, for example, could once again become prominent issues.  Without the Agent Orange this time, ok?  Drones are bad enough.

We only had a few weeks of fun after the July Square till Uranus went Inward (ie, Retro), till December 13, when it went Direct again.  So we would expect to see a good deal of Uranus-Pluto energy being flushed out into the open after December 13, and for better or worse I believe we have already seen that.  Now, why is Eris involved in this dance?  Well, she is certainly a good stand-in for the Feminism component of the Uranus-Pluto Energy, and in case you haven’t noticed, Western Culture is overdue for a rebalancing of Gender Energies toward Feminine values and proclivities.  We listed a bunch of those recently, and in The Wizard of Us (p.2), She-Bear Jean Houston adds another very important one…

“Women have always been and continue to accomplish heroic feats with the difference that their emphasis has tended to be on process rather than on product – making things cohere, relate, develop, and grow.  While the heroine may be less strident, she is nevertheless courageous and brings a new focus to the inner experience being of equal value to the outer action.”

Before Eris was named Eris, she was called Xena (the Warrior) and Lila (a partial homonym for Lilith, symbol of the Deep Feminine).  Eris the Greek Goddess was known for “Discord,” just as Uranus is known for “Disruption.”  But just as Uranus disrupts what is no longer aligned with your Soul’s Life Plan, much of Eris’s Discord is about bringing Denial into Consciousness.  When she threw Golden Apples into the party and triggered “Discord” among the Lovely and Gracious Goddesses there, the resulting jealousy and greed was not of Eris’s making, it was just brought into visibility by her action.  This is what a Heyoka Shaman does.  But more important, Eris is heading our way.  Her elliptical orbit spans 560 years, and for the next 245 years she will be moving closer to the Sun, closer to Earth, and increasing in influence.  She’ll be closer than Pluto by the middle of the 23rd Century.

In other words, while December 13 unleashed a Pluto-inspired Uranus, January 8 will unleash a strengthening Eris.  The January 8 chart doesn’t forebode a great deal of trouble directly, but then, the feminine is often indirect, eh?  Eris Squares the Sun (we’re Challenged to be honest about who we really are), but Sextiles Ceres (the fewer pretenses we put forth, the less effort we’ll need to spend remembering which persona we use for which circumstances – which will allow us to use our Consciousness for Intention rather than manipulation).  But Pallas is approaching Uranus as, a Square away, Juno approaches Pluto.  In other words, the Challenge will revolve around being compelled to defend (Pallas-Pluto) what we personally identify with (Juno-Uranus).

So this is a real Challenge to get Conscious about who we believe ourselves to be.  Juno represents our Unconscious Identity, and as she approaches Pluto she becomes dangerous, because she will believe herself to be right, and probably believe it’s her mission to correct everyone else.  Red Alert!  Whatever we find ourselves defending in the first two weeks of January is probably a doorway to greater Consciousness – not because it needs defending, but because it’s probably a false icon.  On the other hand, this is how Change happens – Pluto represents the Global Unconscious, and as Juno is Initiated by Pluto (which occurs on January 14 at Capricorn 10), each of us (Juno) will be Unconsciously infected with Pluto’s New Trance.

At the Eris Station on the 8th, Juno is deep into the Void phase of its Cycle with Pluto, so we are very likely to be inspired to hurl Golden Apples.  Go for it, but don’t get attached to your Apples!  They trigger greater Consciousness, both for yourself and for their targets!  If you Ego-attach to the Apples (the “helpful” criticism or advice you’re compelled to provide, for their own good of course) that you release on the 8th, you’re going to get tied in knots as the Juno-Pluto Cycle develops over the next six months, because your Apples will be increasingly out of synch with the Global Trance.  Make Amends.  Just say out loud, “Omigosh, I’m sorry!  That was probably a Projection!”  That’ll take you off the hooks (they’re plural).  Better to be a little embarrassed now than to be a whole lot egg-faced later on.  The new Juno-Pluto Cycle that begins on January 14 is about “An Albatross feeding from the hand of a sailor.”

There is a T-Square (Mastery through Challenge) in the January 8 chart, to Chiron-Neptune from Moon and Jupiter, advising us to look to our Emotions for important clues about how we’ll expand into the New Paradigm.  If they’re Challenging Emotions, all the better.  The Vacancy for this T-Square is 7 Virgo, “A woman feeding Chickens and protecting them from the Hawks.”  Interesting parallel to the Albatross and the Sailor.  Birds often symbolize Spirit, but Chickens have lost their ability to fly, so in a sense the T-Square seems to be about protecting limited Birds from Spirit or Change, thereby maintaining our Birdcage.  Remember though, that a T-Square is about exploring, not about getting it right.  I’m inclined to read this combination as walking the Spiritual Path with Practical Feet, or exploring the edges between Giving and Receiving.

Eris, still two and a half times as distant as Pluto, is moving very slowly.  The January 8 Station occurs at 22 Aries, and she began her Retrogradation at 23 Aries – so the last six months have been a very tightly focused seminar!  Aries 22 is

“The gate to the garden of all fulfilled Desires”

and Aries 23 was

“A pregnant Woman in light summer dress.”

This edge between Giving and Receiving seems to be a peninsula of fecundity!  In fact, at her current distance, Eris  moves forward only a little over one degree per year, and retraces most of that while Retrograde, so her net forward motion is about a quarter of one degree per year.  So crossing these two degrees is a long project, begun in 2005 and not complete until 2018!

This spans both the Derivative Crash and the Uranus-Pluto Square.  This tells me that if we move to a feminine version of Collaborative Community, there are many riches to be harvested from the New Paradigm.  Fewer mod cons perhaps, but more riches.  If we look forward and include Aries 24,

“Blown inward by the Wind, the curtains of an open window take the shape of a Cornucopia.”

that takes us into 2022.

While we’re on the subject of the New Paradigm, the January Wired Magazine has a few salient comments.  This from an interview with Tim O’Reilly (p.67)…

“Your new credo these days is ‘Create more value than you capture.’  What does that mean?”

“Everybody wants to foster entrepreneurship, but we have to think about the preconditions for entrepreneurship.  You grow great crops in great soil.  And the soil is the commons.  Increasingly, we have monopolistic companies that try to take as much as they can for themselves [like Microsoft and Apple, as he later asserts].  And we have a patent and copyright regime that makes sure that nothing goes back into the commons unless by an extraordinary act of generosity.  This is not fertile soil for innovation.”

And from an article called “Imagine that 7 Out of 10 Working Americans Got Fired Tomorrow.  What Would They All Do?” (p.72)…

“It’s hard to believe you’d have an economy at all if you gave pink slips to more than half the labor force.  But that – in slow motion – is what the industrial revolution did in the workforce of the early 19th century.  Two hundred years ago, 70 percent of all American workers lived on the farm.  Today automation has eliminated all but 1 percent of their jobs, replacing them (and their work animals) with machines.  But the displaced workers did not sit idle.  Instead, automation created hundreds of millions of jobs in entirely new fields.  Those who once farmed were now manning the legions of factories that churned out farm equipment, cars, and other industrial products.  Since then, wave upon wave of new occupations have arrived…  It’s hard to believe, but before the end of this century, 70 percent of today’s occupations will likewise be replaced by automation.”

All that of course is a double-edged sword – replacing hard physical labor with Aeron chairs and flush toilets, but also replacing immersion in Life and Earth with windowless cubicles and fluorescent lights.  The point is flexibility.  Time has accelerated, and rather than expecting to do the same profession for a lifetime, we need to think about how we can apply the skills we already have to jobs that haven’t been invented yet.  To see if we can innovate our way back to Life and Earth without giving up the flush toilets.

Sulfur is a Healer on many levels.  Imagine one of those pure Sulfur Crystals in the center of each aching joint, or in each area of inflammation (pain) in your body, and on any area of irritated skin.  Put one in the center of each Emotional discomfort you encounter, as Sulfur can illuminate Shadows and any remaining pockets of Karma, and open them for Healing.  Drop one into any pool of Confusion, it’ll help ease the transition into new perspectives.

Big Solstice Chart

My hourglass is running low, but I wanted to say a few things about the Big Solstice End-of-the-World-as-We-Knew-it chart.  It kinda has the feel of a Spiderweb in a hole and isn’t particularly well organized.  I guess we could have expected that.

The central element is a T-Square (Mastery through Challenge) with Chiron-Neptune (the New Paradigm) at the Apex (primary issue) and Jupiter (Expansion) and Venus (Values) at the other two corners (supporting actor and actress).  Our Values are a relatively constant emanation from our Heart.  We can get stuck on intellectualizing our Heart’s Wisdom, and it’s always a constant struggle between our real Heart’s message and our programming.  Those little dudes on your shoulders with the halos and the horns aren’t part of your Heart or your Values, they’re part of your programming.  So when we’re asked to Expand (Jupiter) our Values (Venus), what that usually means is that we’re being asked to give up some of our false persona – our programming – in favor of our True Self.

The T-Square says that the New Paradigm is asking us to give up some of our false persona, that our New Communities will work better if we come straight from our Hearts.  Remember that during the Jupiter Portals (5am, 11am, 5pm, and 10pm) tomorrow – Ask for (or PIAVA) a loving and gentle and rapid and complete transition from your current persona to one that’s closer to your Truth.  The Jupiter Portals are open at about the same times on Friday, Solstice Day.  These are clock times anywhere in the World, they’re not times that need to be adjusted for longitude.

In addition to the Jupiter and Ceres Yods that we talked about in our Portals post, there’s a third Yod in effect, and we could even cast it as a complicating factor in the Jupiter Portals.  Jupiter is Conjunct Lilith, and both are Quincunx to Saturn and Pluto.  So we need to say that not only do we want to eschew some Heart-hiding programming here to facilitate our New-Paradigm lifestyle, it would also behoove us to open to the Deep Feminine.  And considering the Yod and the Jupiter Portals, it’s not “just” about

…putting our Attention into Expansion (Jupiter), we can open up to allowing our Focus (Saturn) on Transformation (Pluto) to surprise and delight (the Yod) us…

It’s more like

…putting our Attention into Expanding (Jupiter) our Deep Feminine (Lilith), we can open up to allowing our Focus (Saturn) on Transformation (Pluto) to surprise and delight (the Yod) us…

Factoring in the Venus-Jupiter-New Paradigm T-Square as well, it becomes something more like

…a Challenge to Co-Create (the T-Square) New Communities (Chiron-Neptune) founded on Open Hearts (Venus) by putting our Attention into Expanding (Jupiter) our Deep Feminine (Lilith), so we can open up to allowing our Focus (Saturn) on Transformation (Pluto) to surprise and delight (the Yod) us…

The thick plottens.  So what the devil is this Deep Feminine we keep talking about?  We could repeat the old line, If ya gots to ask, ya don’t gets to know, and in some sense that would be true, but it certainly wouldn’t be very helpful, except at splitting off the Muggles, and there’s more than enough splitting already, and in general She isn’t about splitting.  And we can certainly provide some preliminary clues about where in your Belly to look for Her.

You already know She’s About

• Magnetism and Collaboration rather than Dynamism and Competition.
• There’s certainly an element of We’re-All-in-This-Together as opposed to Us-Against-Them.
• PIAVA/Change the Subject/Pay Attention rather than Plan/Do/Drink Beer.
• Intuition rather than Logic.
• Yin Integrity (doing what we feel like doing moment to moment) rather than Yang Integrity (doing what we said we would do).
• Being led by your Heart instead of your Mind.
• Trusting your Emotions more than your Rules.
• Integrity over Morality.
• Self-Love over Discipline.
• Empathy over Expectations.
• Compassion instead of Detachment.
• Faeries over Fertilizers.
• Holistic rather than Analytical.
• Balance instead of Achievement.
• Power-with not Power-over.
• Listening more than Talking.
• Love not War.
• Curiosity over Judgement.
• Sharing instead of Pride of Ownership.
• Warm not Cold, Soft not Hard.

I could go on – are you getting the idea?

I mean, imagine a mother’s attitude toward her baby.  What if we all treated one another that way?  It would be horrible, worse than a small town where everybody knows everybody else’s business!  But not if people Listened, Respected your Truth and Freedom and Boundaries and Equality, Honored you for who you are, and made a constant honest effort toward Win-Win.  What if people got paid fair wages for “Women’s Work”?  I imagine most of us would be quite content, and quite productive, in a Community like that – what planet do you suppose that happens on?  Home?  What comes up immediately for me, is What about the millions of Win-Lose strangers that will try to break into the Community and rip everybody off?!?  I’ll be tapping on that old movie.

A lovely brown Raw Diamond for us.  We’ll need to quote Dorothy Roeder here, from Crystal Co-Creators…

 Diamond’s “energy is difficult to use.  You must know exactly what you want and be specific in your invocations with it because it is so accurate in creating the structure of your thought.  It invokes the potential in your whole being to help bring what you desire into realization.”

“Diamond symbolizes ideal balance of male and female polarities within the life flow.  It wants to eliminate any blocks to achieving that ideal.  It enhances partnerships only if you are willing to work on yourself to release barriers to achieving perfect balance between you and your partner.  If you cling to selfishness and self-centeredness, your search for the ideal will cause it to dissolve the partnership.  To maintain the flow between partners you must be willing to maintain loving communication.  This job has traditionally belonged to the woman, so it is she who is given the Diamond.  With the growing realization that both partners need to be responsible for the health of marriage, Diamonds might not be used as much [for that purpose] any more.”

Enjoy the Trance Re-Formation, and I’ll see you on the Other Side!

12/20 Power Portals

This is pretty subtle and complex, but fascinating.  Well, I think so anyway.  It’s a very long story, so I’m going to give you the bottom line right off, and if you want to just trust me, you can stop there and save yourself a lot of time reading.  If you’re curious why I’m saying such silly things, by all means read on.  Even if you don’t “study” the whole essay to understand all the twists and turns, you can learn a lot just by skimming and absorbing what catches your eye.  Here’s the bottom line…

I’m asking you to spend several hours in meditation on Thursday, December 20.  The reason I’m doing this is because there are eight powerful Portals open on Thursday at different times.  These times are unusual in that they are clock times, valid on your clock all ’round the World, whether your clock says 8am in Cairo or it says 8am in Tallahassee.

The Portals fall into two groups.  One of them provides a strong opportunity to amplify your Co-Creation of the New Paradigm, to shift it in a direction that suits you.  Don’t worry about cutting off someone else’s Desires – it’s always Both/And, and there’s plenty of room for everyone to get their wishes granted.  You do want to focus on what it will feel like in your body when you are excited about the World, not on what you will have when the World is your Oyster.

The second group of Portals is about fully embracing our own Mission on the Planet at this Time.  You don’t have to know what that is, because if you think you do, you’re probably looking at last month’s version of it.  Your Mission is a living, breathing thing, and it will be shifting constantly as we Co-Create the New Paradigm.  You know in your Heart what your Mission is – it’s what makes you excited about getting up in the morning.  You don’t need to be any more specific than that, lest your Head get in the way.  When this group of Portals are open you can just imagine waking up excited about what you’ll be doing.

Below are the start times for each of the Portals, and what each one is about.  These are times on your clock, no matter where you are on the Planet.  Start meditating at the indicated time, and focus on the given topic for half an hour if you can.  It doesn’t matter whether you feel the Portal opening, what matters is your Attention to the topic.

If you do feel a shift at any time during the half hour, make a note of the clock time, and adjust all of the other times accordingly.  In other words, if you start focusing on your Ideal Community at 4:45 am, and then notice that the Energy gets really strong at 4:55, try extending that meditation an extra ten minutes, and then starting the others ten minutes later than the indicated times.

If you can’t spare a full half hour for each Portal, give the first one a half hour, and notice when the Energy shifts.  If your first meditation becomes much deeper after seven minutes, at 4:52, and you can only spare ten minutes per Portal, then start each portal seven minutes after the indicated time.  For instance, for the Ideal Partner Portal you’d meditate from 11:07 to 11:17.  These adjustments are relevant because of small time variations across the Planet.

Even if you can only spend one minute on each Portal, it would be well worth it, especially if you can use the first Portal to find your local maximum.  If you’re anywhere close to the half hour of the opening (that is, say, 4:45 to 5:15 pm for the World Hunger Portal), you’re Golden.  Or, if you want to specialize, just pick a few Portals that you’re particular interested in.  Maybe Getting Paid for Fun and Respect are two of your core issues.

• The Community You Would Love to Live in, at 4:45 am
• Finding Your Tribe, at 5:45 am
• Your Ideal Partner, at 11 am
• Your Soulmate, at 11:45 am
• Getting Paid More Than You Ever Imagined Possible for Doing What You Most Love to Do, at 3:45 pm
• The End of Hunger, at 4:45 pm
• Being Respected by Your Peers, at 9:45 pm
• Being Really Heard When You Speak, at 11:30 pm

Note that your Soulmate is a mirror-image of you, while you and your Ideal Partner probably have very different and very complementary skills.  Don’t worry if neither match your current Partners (in Love or Business) – they can change, y’know.

You can use any meditation style you like.  One of my most effective styles is to just begin writing what I want.  I might start with “I want Community where I’m only expected to do what I love to do,” and write that several times, each time noticing if my writing is smooth from end to end.  Write it again, till your writing is perfectly smooth, with no jerks or kinks.  But let it change.  For instance, after three of those you might be inspired to write “I want Community where everyone is warm and helpful” several times, then something else.

Another of my favorites is to put my Full Attention into my Heart or my Belly, and just imagine how it will feel there when I’m in Bliss.  Just thinking about the topic is also just fine.

Negative material will force it’s way in, that’s inevitable.  “What if I can’t have that?”  “What will Mom say?”  When it does, just mumble Cancel, Neutralize, Upgrade – Cancel the negative thought, Neutralize the negative Energy, and Upgrade the Thinker.  If that doesn’t work, and most especially if you encounter Fear or Anger, then tap it out.  This is very important and very deep work, and it will have leverage throughout your own future and the future of the Planet.  If you encounter Grief, embrace it.  Be an older loving friend to yourself, and just hold and comfort your grieving self, without denying any Realities.

You may also encounter Resistance to positive Energy.  “What if they get jealous?” or “I’d feel so Guilty having that!”  Ask yourself whose voice that is.  If it’s someone else’s voice – your father or your third-grade teacher – thank them for contributing and gently let them go.  If they won’t leave, bark at them.  If it’s your own voice, embrace the part of you that’s saying such nonsense.  They’re feeling left out, and they need your Love more than ever.  There’s something they want too, they just don’t know how to say it positively.  Ask them what it is that they want, gently coach it out of them.

Honeysuckle symbolizes many forms of Love, as well as staying True to our Mission.

Now, here’s the real (long) story.  Thanks to Elizabeth for bringing all this to my Attention.  If you have the time and inclination to read through it, at least skim it, it will much deepen your meditation and add more Oomph to your process.

The Quincunxes and Yods

Let me provide some essential background…

A Yod or Finger of God is two Quincunxes pointing to the same planet.  A Quincunx (two planes five Signs apart) recall is about Curiosity.  So a Yod is a narrow triangle with an Angle of 60 degrees at the Apex, and two Angles of 150 degrees at the Base.  Robert Wilkinson writes about Yods, and considers them to be “squeezing” the Energy of the two planets at the Base of the Yod through the Apex planet.  Like your toothpaste tube.  I’ve only got one natal Yod, and I can see how that view might work.  But the perspective that intense focus on the Apex opens up the Energy of the two Base planets makes more sense to me.

And the more important point is that we’re dealing with Curiosity.  Eternal Curiosity.  Double Curiosity, Curiosity Squared.  And we regard Curiosity as one of the highest states of Consciousness, because it’s akin to Wonder and Awe.  Quincunxes are Awesome, in other words.  So a Yod would be Double Awesome.  No blessing quite like an Open Mind.  Now, sure, it takes nine lives to do a Yod, but maybe a Yod transcends Life-and-Death TranceFormation.  Maybe that’s why a Cat has nine lives.  Curiosity is akin to No Fear, and Love is an opposite to Fear.  A Relationship dies when you lose your Curiosity about the other person, and Judgement replaces it.  So Curiosity is like Love in more ways than one.

So I interpret a Yod as Eternal Curiosity about the elements governed by the three planets, a permanent absence of Fear, which I regard as a very high vibration.

The T-Squares

Meanwhile, we’ve talked a lot about T-Squares, three planets arranged in a fat triangle with a 90 degree Angle at the Apex and two 45 degree Angles on the Base…

A T-Square is two Squares to the same planet, and of course a Square represents Mastery through Challenge.  So a T-Square symbolizes Double Challenge, and Double Mastery.  A pain in the butt in other words, constant frustration.  We only get to Mastery by realizing that we will never Master the relationships between the three planets involved, we’ll only study it on deeper and more subtle levels.  It’s an Eternal Challenge.  Once we’re able to acknowledge our persistent and indefatigable dedication to these Challenges – and see the depth and breadth of our knowledge and wisdom about the dark corners of the issues involved when compared to someone without the same T-Square – then we’ll begin to honor ours Mastery!  And there is no greater Mastery!

The Diamonds

All of a sudden an astrological configuration has ascended into our Consciousness that folks are calling a “Diamond” pattern.  A Diamond is a Yod and a T-Square that share the same Apex.  When you draw it out, you see that the two planets on the Base of the Yod are Trine (Grace) and Sextile (Creative Grace) to the two planets on the Base of the T-Square, forming a bowl of Grace under the two triangles.

I have to say that, from my perspective, it don’t get much more glorious than a combination of Eternal Challenge (when seen from the perspective of Mastery of course) with Eternal Curiosity!  And that’s not even counting the bowl of Grace that provides a nice rounded foundation.  So I would interpret a Diamond pattern as a sign of a potentially extraordinarily competent person or extraordinarily fortuitous moment – albeit a person who may need some coaching to recognize their own skills, or a moment that may appear ambiguous from the outside.  And a person or moment that might have Momma Cat scurrying around rescuing the rascal by the scruff of the neck from trouble.

So we regard these new-fangled Diamond thingies as pretty fabulous.

The Solstice Diamonds

One reason this topic is up, is because someone has noticed a Diamond pattern forming on Big Solstice day.  That would be pretty neat, but there’s some controversy around it, because in order to create it you need the Ascendant.  I use Angles to the Ascendant, because it’s a very important symbolic point in a chart, having to do with how we relate to the World and how the World relates to us.  Ascendant is to Horoscope as Mouth (or Keyboard) is to Voice.  I regard it as highly significant if someone or some moment has a planet on the Ascendant, aka a planet “Rising” – since the Ascendant is the eastern horizon at the time that the chart was drawn for, the planet is quite literally Rising, which means it’s very important in the chart, and that the person has a lot to say.

The problem with using an Ascendant as part of a complex configuration in a temporal chart, is that Sunrise races all the way around the Planet every day.  So if we’re talking about an Angular relationship between two planets, that Angle holds no matter where you are on the Earth.  But if you’re talking about an Angular relationship between a planet and the Ascendant, that only holds for a few minutes in any given place, because the Ascendant circles the Zodiac every 24 hours.  So when we have a Diamond formation that includes the Ascendant, what we have is a very momentary phenomenon.

That’s when you’re in one place.  When we talk about the moment when an Angular relationship between two planets is exact, we have to recast the time of that moment for your own Time Zone, because the exact relationship occurs at an instant of time, and that instant is expressed differently in different global Time Zones.  The Solstice happens once, at twelve minutes after 3am PST, and if you follow that link you can see what the clock will say in your own neck of the Woods at that moment.

But an Angular relationship between a planet and the Ascendant occurs at the same clock time, no matter where you are.  Of course that will vary with how far you are from your Reference Meridian.  Time and the Earth’s rotation are continuous, but there are only a discrete number of Time Zones.  So the clock says the same thing in Boston as it does in Detroit, because they’re in the same Time Zone.  But the Reference Meridian for Eastern Time runs through Philadelphia, in between the two.  So if you’re in Philadelphia, your clock time is “true.”  But the Sun rises earlier in Boston, and later in Detroit.  So your clock time and the “real” time aren’t the same, but they’re usually less than a half-hour apart, so we don’t notice till we cross a Time Zone boundary and have to reset our watches.

The upshot of all that, is that an Angular relationship to the Ascendant will happen at more or less the same clock time anywhere in the World.  Very unusual for astrology, but it happens.

Now, as it turns out, the Big Solstice chart has two Yods in it, one to Jupiter (Expansion) and one to Ceres (Sustainability/Sustenance).  Each Apex planet has one Square to another planet, so as the World turns, a T-Square will be formed to each Apex from the Ascendant, and this event will occur at approximately the same clock time all ’round the World.  Like New Year.  Remember Peter Jennings’s fabulous New Year World tour at 1/1/2000?  Best thing that ever happened to television.

The Pentagrams

One final aside, before we try to integrate the four planets and Ascendant in each Diamond to see what the devil they might mean.

When you draw a Diamond in a chart, like the one at

http://grandtrines.wordpress.com/2012-patterns-focused-yod-and-diamond/

and ignore the five lines around the outside of the circle, what’s left is a five-pointed Star – a Pentagram.  What does a Pentagram symbolize?  Power, as in Magic is afoot.  The Tarot refers to it as the Hierophant – learning and teaching, and there is Power in both Knowledge and Wisdom.  In traditional “fairy tales,” a Pentagram pointing up symbolizes “White” Magic, and one pointing downward symbolizes “Black” Magic.  But it’s not that simple.  The difference between White Magic and Black Magic is political.  It’s an artifact of the Olde Male competitive view of the World, where there is contest between Good and Evil, and the difference is defined by Authority.

That’s waaay outa line with the Yin Integrity that our current-time- dominating Uranus-Pluto process requires.  And Uranus, when seen from the perspective of the status quo, represents Disruption.  And Disruption of Business as Usual is certainly in order.  I know, there’s more than enough Disruption going on already.  So maybe what we need is to Disrupt the Disruption.  Would that be White or Black Magic?

Regress for a few minutes to the time before the Pope redefined Saturnalia (the Roman equivalent of the modern Oktoberfest or Mardi Gras) as Evil, before the Angel of Light became Lucifer.  Those were political Trance(Re)Formations.  The word politics means Ego.  It means competition to have my Ego (and my Control over Power, Money, and You) dominate your Ego.  In today’s World, it’s not at all clear whether it’s White Magic that’s good or Black Magic.  Like Google, they can Do No Evil.  Of course they spy on your every keystroke (and your front yard and your Wi-Fi connection) and sell the information to obnoxious advertisers and others who do not have your best interests at heart.   White Magic is our Magic, Black Magic is their Magic.  And they eat Babies!

As we open the Planet to greater Gender Balance, and Eris and Lilith claim their Power as representatives of the Dark Goddess (from the perspective of the Olde Male), many of those now-old definitions will be turned on their heads.  Eris produces Discord by bringing Denial into Consciousness.  Fresh Violets in an ancient pottery bowl.  Think about whether Wall Street would in your view be a haven of White Magic or Black Magic.  Would your grade school teachers and your other cultural programmers have had the same view?

The point is that we have no way of knowing whether it’s White Magic or Black Magic that will rebirth the Planet.  I mean, She’s in Labor anyway, so what do we have to do with it?  Well, we’re part of Her Consciousness, and like it or not, we’re Co-Creating  the new Trance.  Who knows, it may even be Both/And, White and Black.  Wouldn’t that be unique!

The Other Angels, er, Angles

The Squares to both Apex planets are from behind (in the order of the Signs), so when we add the Square to the Ascendant, that will be ahead of the Apex, and the Pentagram will be “right side up,” pointing skyward, toward the Midheaven (Community).  To find the Diamond that points down toward Mother Earth (Security, known in astrology as the “IC”), we need to use the Descendant instead to complete our T-Square.  The Descendant is the point in the chart where the Sun would set, the western horizon.  The Descendant is every bit as important as the Ascendant, it just concerns our relationships with our Partners, rather than our relationships with the World.

Sorry, one more aside, but a short one…

Now, if we’re going to use the Ascendant, there’s no reason in the World why we wouldn’t also use the Midheaven and the IC – they’re every bit as important as the Ascendant.  Since our Diamond Pentagram is not symmetrical, when we move the clock to draw Squares to either of these points, the tall spur on the Star points left or right, but either way a short spur points up, and another short spur points down.  These clock times will give us either Grey Magic or Rainbow Magic, depending on whether you’re combining crayon colors, splitting the White Light into its components, or penetrating the Shadows for the hologram within them.

So we end up with four clock times as Portals of Power, one White, one Black, and two Rainbow.  Now it’s time to examine the planets involved, so we can guess what sort of Power we might be talking about.

The Jupiter Diamond

One of the Diamonds puts Jupiter (Expansion) at the Apex, Saturn (Focus) and Pluto (Tranceformation) on the Base of the Yod, and Chiron-Neptune (the New Paradigm) at one end of the T-Square Base.  Of course the other end of the T-Square Base is the Ascendant, Descendant, Midheaven, or IC, depending on the time.  Saturn and Pluto are Sextile (Creative Grace) to one another, so with a little kick-start from ourselves (the Creative part), Grace will flow when we Focus on the TranceFormation.  Focusing on the Trance is a little oxymoronic, since the Trance is mostly Unconscious, but what it amounts to is Focusing on what we want Transformed, and how we would like to see it Transformed.  You can Focus on what you don’t want if you like, but if you do, tap on it while you’re doing it, so you don’t manifest the negative.  The Unconscious is not Dual and it doesn’t know what negation is, but your Meridians do know what Balance is.

So basically, by putting our Attention into Expansion (Jupiter), we can open up to allowing our Focus (Saturn) on Transformation (Pluto) to surprise and delight (the Yod) us.  Since we’ve got Chiron-Neptune on one corner of the T-Square, we’re Challenged to Expand into the as-yet-undefined (aren’t we Curious!) New Paradigm and imagine how it might surprise and delight us!  What this says to me is that we have a lot of Power to change the World during these Portals.  It will be important to focus on the Mastery (What have we already learned?) more than the Challenge (What haven’t we learned yet?).

Now we have to present a passage from Marko Pogacnik’s Healing the Heart of the Earth: Restoring the Subtle Levels of Life (pp.17-18)…

“Earth healing is only possible by adhering to the following principles:

“1. The principle of cycles in the earth and nature realm should be respected.  In this way, the dark phase of decline and transformation is regarded as equal in value to the light phase of becoming and blossoming.  Under no circumstance should we ever try to ‘heal’ the seemingly ‘diseased state’ of a phase of transformation.  Whoever wants to heal has to discriminate between that which needs to be healed and that which shuns the need for healing – even if this feels upsetting.  Before anything else, healers should evaluate whether, by interfering with a phenomenon that seems to be crying out for earth healing, they are actually violating the integrity of a life cycle.

“2. If active steps towards earth healing are taken, we must not omit to alert the public or the person in charge of the place in question.  Mending a split in consciousness, transforming thought patterns hostile to the earth and acknowledging the divine nature of the earth’s systems are vital preconditions for any earth healing.  If we neglect this basic level then the results of healing, as impressive as they may seem, amount only to a tinkering with symptoms which does not touch the causes of the destruction of earth, nature and landscape.

“3. Clarity about our own motivations.  What moves us to dedicate ourselves to healing a place?  Is, perhaps, the strong upsurge in interest in earth healing also an unconscious expression of fear about the earth’s power to react by means of natural catastrophes to human disregard of her balance?  Or worse, does the urge to heal the earth mask a continuing determination to dominate the earth and her nature realms?  Traditionally this dominance has taken place through the power of human intelligence, therefore today this superior attitude towards the earth could find expression through a misguided ‘intention to heal’ that continues to debase the earth by regarding it as an object.

“These are no means just rhetorical questions…  It is far easier to perceive the alienation and destruction of the rhythms of life outside ourselves, in our environment, than to admit that our own spiritual-soul Self is a stranger or that we are living in a state of inner chaos.”

The four Angles are very personal.  We can see them as our Voice (Ascendant), our Security (IC), our close Relationships (Descendant), and our Community (Midheaven).  I’m going to focus on December 20, Thursday.  These Diamonds persist on other days before and after, to one extent or another, but they are strong on Thursday.  Tune in to the Airwaves when these Portals are about to open, so you can learn what it feels like when they open.  Then you can adjust your times accordingly, and feel for the same Energies on other days.  On Thursday the Jupiter Portal is open for about 45 minutes or so, on or around these times…

• Midheaven/Community (Rainbow), 5am
• Descendant/Relationships (Black), 11:20 am
• IC/Security (Rainbow), 5pm
• Ascendant/Voice (White), 10pm

In other words, using Marko’s “rules,” spend as much or more time on your own sense of Community, Relationships, Security, and Willingness to Speak Out about your Desires for the future of the Planet, as you spend on Healing the Planet.  Substitute Responsibility for Blame – that means formulating how we will respond to where we are rather than assigning Blame for how we got here.  And don’t keep your light under a bushel about this – Speak Up about how you feel about the state of the Planet and whether Human Institutions are Life-affirming or not.

I don’t recall where I read this, and I don’t recall the issue, maybe it was Global Warming.  Someone was interviewing people about how they felt about it.  The folks in the first house said they were very concerned about it, but they didn’t talk to their neighbors about it because they knew that their neighbors felt differently and they didn’t want to argue with their neighbors.  By the time the interviewer finished the block, three fourths of the households told them the same story!  You may see your neighbor driving a soot-spewing diesel, but not see them conscientiously recycling their milk cartons and washing their diapers.  The Tipping Point won’t happen till we start talking – and as we do, listening.  Not to find debating points, but to find commonality that can be nurtured.

Notice that these times do not divide the day into four even quartiles.  That’s because there are two other factors complicating the issue – the system of Houses that are used, and the Latitude.  There are several different ways to divide the Zodiac into Houses and position the cross of Angles that define them.  This House system (Placidus) consistently works well for me, but you may be using a different one.  In this system, the further you are from the Equator, the more asymmetrical the Houses become.

The Ceres Diamond

The second Diamond has Ceres (Sustainability and Sustenance) at its Apex.  We need to remember that Ceres Rising (in all Time Zones) was one of four prominent configurations in the 1/1/2000 chart, and hence dominates the Century.  Ceres Rising means Sustainability and Sustenance coming into Awareness.  For those of us in the Consumer Class, Sustainability means Sustenance, because we’re asked to give up luxuries.  For the rest of the World’s Peoples, and for the World itself and all of Her Conscious Beings (material or otherwise), Sustainability means facilitating Survival in a way that thrives and is in Balance.

The other planets in the Ceres Diamond are Rahu (the Moon’s North Node or Dragon’s Head: our Mission) and Mars (Energy, Assertion) on the Base of the Yod, and Pallas (Boundaries) on the Base of the T-Square, along with the Angles.  In other words, by learning to respond to impediments (the T-Square) from the place of Wisdom rather than the place of Passion (Pallas), yet giving our full Attention and Energy (Mars) to our Mission (Rahu), we will surprise and delight ourselves (the Yod) by creating Sustainability (Ceres).  Give or take 20 minutes or so on either side, the Ceres Portals will be open on or around…

• Midheaven/Community (Rainbow), 6am
• Descendant/Relationships (Black), noon
• IC/Security (Rainbow), 4pm
• Ascendant/Voice (White), 11:45pm

These should really be fun.  When we make a real shift in our Presence, we can feel our Future shifting from one road to another and the potholes filling in, and it’s exhilarating.

Tapping for Newtown

I’m forwarding this without Nick’s permission, but I’m sure he wouldn’t mind a broader distribution.  Nick and his sister Jennifer are the creators of the Tapping Solution movie that introduced me to tapping.

“Hi Jim,

“I never thought in my communication with you that the fact that I live in Newtown, CT would be relevant in any way.  Unfortunately, as you know, that all changed on Friday.

“I’ve lived in Newtown, CT for the last 4 years and grew up in the neighboring town of Brookfield.   My brother lives here in Newtown as well, with his wife and two young children.   My mother is a school psychologist in the neighboring town of Danbury, at an elementary school.   She used to work with Dawn Hochsprung, the principal who lost her life, when Dawn was previously working in her school district.

“So this has hit home…in a big way…

“I’ve been on the phone the last few days with colleagues planning some big things to help those affected by this terrible tragedy.

“If you’d like to learn about what we’re planning and would like to help the children, parents, teachers, firefighters, police officers, and everyone else affected by this terrible tragedy then please click on the link below…

http://www.thetappingsolution.com/blog/i-live-in-newtown-ct/

“I’ll see you there.

“Keep tapping!

“Nick Ortner”

If you’re called to help with this, by all means go for it!  Tapping has been just about the only working treatment for PTSD for soldiers returning from War, and has worked even for Vietnam vets who have lived with PTSD for 40 years or more.

Have I Mentioned…

Have I mentioned this She-Bear?

http://current.com/shows/the-war-room/blog/granholm-sounds-off-on-right-to-work-its-about-politics

She was Michigan’s first female Governor.  Here she gets Michael Moore’s perspective, another Michigander…

http://current.com/shows/the-war-room/videos/michael-moore-theyve-got-the-money-weve-got-the-votes

And in case you missed her Democratic Convention speech, it’s obvious political cheerleading, but still pretty intense…

http://www.nytimes.com/video/2012/09/07/us/politics/100000001765705/in-ohio-its-the-economy.html

But the impact of Uranus is mostly Unconscious.  So yes, while we can and should celebrate the ability and willingness to express ourselves creatively, and the ability and willingness of others to express themselves creatively, will we need to compensate for a potential flood of Creativity?  The 1950s, where I grew up, was all about Conformity and Control.  So my Spirit jumps for Joy when I hear someone speaking their Truth, though it becomes hard to hear when their Truth seems to abrogate my own Truth.

In The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups, Starhawk draws a “Talisman of Healthy Community” – a circle symbolizing Community, with a vertical line through it that balances Responsibility and Power, and a horizontal line that balances Communication and Trust…

“In a thriving group, people invest trust in one another.  But to do so, there must also be systems of accountability in place.  To create trust, to communicate in ways that transcend our normal win/lose dichotomy, we must shift our focus from advocacy to inquiry, from asserting our point of view to listening and opening to others.  We become a learning organization, enabling each of us to grow and develop.” [pp.23-24]

Lynn McTaggart, in her blog

http://www.lynnemctaggart.com/blog/205-i-think-im-turning-purple

joins the theme…

“Currently most relationships are forged from the erroneous idea that we have to be the same to get along and that differences between us are to be avoided at all costs.  In fact, conflict is considered so antithetical to the human experience that when others disagree with us, we conclude that they must be stupid or ill informed.  To justify this position, we find it necessary to debate them, demonize them and announce their ignorance to the world. In our minds, conflict can be resolved only with I win, you lose.

“In my view, the key to a more holistic relationship with anyone is to conceive of the relationship as a ‘thing in itself ‘ and to focus on the ‘space in between’ – the glue that holds it together – especially when you do not agree with each other.

“Once you view yourself as part of a bigger whole, you begin to act differently toward others.  By making this one simple change of perspective and offering yourself as a vehicle of service to the connection, you will easily find the Bond that is always present and embrace difference within that larger experience of connection.

“When you relate to others in this way, you do the opposite of what you’ve learned in critical thinking or debating classes.  You focus on what is positive, truthful, and wise about what others are saying, not the flaws in their arguments, and look for areas of common ground.“

This morning’s news is all about people expressing their Truth – somebody murdering dozens of schoolchildren, a federal contractor justifying its practice of paying folks poverty wages to stand guard on the tarmac at a New York airport without winter coats or sick leave.  Sounds like a very Libertarian view of Self-Expression.

Gloves Off

With Uranus now Direct, expect the gloves to come off wherever in the World folks are focused on competition rather than Collaboration.  You can list the likely candidates as well as I.  Uranus turned Retrograde less than three weeks after its initial Square to Pluto in June, implying that since then we have been mostly considering greater Self-Expression, Integrity, and Creativity.  Now that Uranus is Direct we’re more likely to take the risk – or ignore the consequences.  Of course that will also heat up the Resistance to Self-Expression.

On New Year’s Day Juno (Identity) makes a Waxing Square to Uranus, signifying a Challenge to let go of internal psychological constraints to Self-Expression even more.  The Cycle that’s Waxing is about giving one’s all in service to Community.  That opens many possible doorways, but I’ll let you decide which ones.  From the psychological perspective, anyone who gets stuck on giving their all may become increasingly self-destructive, as their opportunities for meaningful martyrdom begin to fade.

The Waxing Square puts us into the Void till 2014 around how our Self-Expression (Uranus) and Unconscious Identity (Juno) relate to one another.  On the one hand that’s great because we’ll tend more towards Honesty than Control.  On the other hand, those with pent-up frustration about permission for Self-Expression, and those with little experience and finesse around Self-Expression, are also likely to be more unrestrained.  The “Wild West” comes to mind, not to mention Babel.

For everyone, though, much Confusion is likely.  Those who understand that Confusion is the first stage of personal growth, and who have learned to recognize it before it mutates into other Emotions, will be constantly delighted, as the bars of their Birdcage of Limiting Beliefs melt.  We’ll of course be PIAVAing Safety, because without Safety there is no personal growth, only trauma.  If you haven’t studied your own Emotional response to Confusion, now is the time to get started, because Confusion so easily mutates into Fear or Anger, and if we’ve been running that pattern for a long time, the shift can be almost instantaneous, leaving us with little chance to welcome Confusion with open arms. and little forethought for Safety.  PIAVA Safety, don’t try to create it Consciously, because if your Ego is in charge, growth is far less likely.

Ah, Ruby!  And with echoing Grand Sextiles to boot!  Ruby is about Courage, the Heart.  When we defend what we know in our Heart to be True, there is no shortage of Courage.  Most jewels are Cyclosilicates, because the Silicate rings of Cyclosilicates make the gems hard enough to be banged around without too much damage.  But Ruby and Sapphire are Aluminum Oxide – sandpaper material!

New Moon

Well, that was Uranus all right – always surprising, for better or worse.  I depressed myself with those stories from the “Real” World.  Inspiration was a definite theme – or rather, the lack of it!  That’s one thing we have to remember about astrology – nay, about the Unconscious – we’re always dealing with the Coin, never the heads or the tails.  Since we try to use astrology to read what’s going on there in the Underwhere, it’s easy for us to get upside down – Heyoka.  Then this morning I get this email…

“The energy shift has almost immobilized me.  I had worked for the State doing consumer protection for many years.  After a new Republican governor was elected, the energy seemed to become reptilian.  It was very difficult.  Then something inside of me shut down, and I just quit.  I’ve been trying to restructure my life, and it’s been very scary.  I’ve tried to tell myself that this is the beginning of my ‘brand new life,’ but it doesn’t really help.  What has helped are your posts, which help me understand the energy in which we are surrounded.  I truly appreciate you reaching out to help others strive for a higher ‘octave,’ and evolve.”

I’ve been reading several books in the hope that I might find some institutional way to help rebirth the New World – Gar Alperovitz about worker-owned companies and taking over credit unions, Marko Pogacnik about Earth Healing and re-animating the Planet, PMH Atwater about the New Children and piercing the Veil, Starhawk about Power With and political action.  I was early for a meeting several years ago, sitting in my car doing a meditation from one of RJ Stewart‘s books about re-animating the Earth.  When I opened my eyes there was a flyer on the windscreen for a free showing of the movie The Corporation.  I went to see the movie, and afterward left thinking, Oh shit, I’m going to have to withdraw from polite society and go back to the barricades.

At that instant, from a sewer grate, a 7-foot Green fellow appeared and sent the thought pattern, No, it’s not about that and carried me back to a story RJ had told in his workshop about several women who had protested the first nucular power plants in England, and who were subsequently drummed out of the country for being “unpatriotic.”  They moved to California and started a meditation circle, from which seed the US environmental movement was born.  Like the Green fellow, the email brings me back to current moment reality – it’s not about the institutions, it’s about Community.

The Chiron-Neptune cycle won’t reach it’s Waxing Square until August 2042.  What’s the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything?  42.  This is a long process, and like the Uranus-Pluto Cycle that went underground between 1972 and 2012, we can expect the Fresh-Violets-in-an-Ancient-Pottery-Bowl New-Paradigm Energy to sink below the horizon till we get to its Waxing Square.  With Changes.  The 70s and 80s were nothing like the 50s – there was indeed a Change of Trance that persisted after the 1960s.  The 1945 Chiron-Neptune Cycle reached its Waxing Square in 1954, just in time for Big Chrome.  It took 9 years for that Cycle to come of age, compared to 32 years for the current Cycle – Chiron is moving out to the Uranian end of its elliptical orbit, so from our perspective moving more slowly.  In the mid-1940s Chiron was at the Saturnian end of its orbit, moving as quickly as Saturn.  It might behoove to review that history.

Between 1964 and 1974, Chiron Opposed Uranus repeatedly, as Chiron at its farthest distance was matching Uranus’s speed.  Apogee was 1971.  Opposition is about Awareness if you’re awake, as heads and tails stand in sharp contrast.  It’s about Contradiction if you aren’t awake enough to focus on the Coin.  It’s mentality that does duality; the rest of the Universe is Unitary.  If you think of Chiron as the messenger that picks up a download from our Uranian individual Soul, Uranus was making a very large data dump during that time.  Humans “discovered” Chiron in 1977.

The perigee (inmost end of the orbit) was 1996, so from 1986 through 2005 Chiron was matching Saturn’s speed, and repeatedly Opposing Saturn.  Almost twenty years of Saturn Opposite Chiron!  Shows you how thick the Human skull is – it took twice as long to upload the message from Chiron-Messenger to Saturn-Ego, as it did to download it from Uranus-Soul to Chiron-Messenger.  And you thought your modem was slow.  We have been very well prepped for this 2012 transition!

Saturn means Focus, but is often misinterpreted as Limitation, as Saturn tells us to let go of priority #2 but we’re attached to it.  Chiron means Miracles, but is often misinterpreted as Despair, as Chiron tells us to change paradigms, and without PIAVA we don’t know how, because change of paradigm is not a logical or dynamic process, it’s a magnetic or Deep Feminine process.  During this period the 1% Focused on Miracles while telling the story that they were in Despair about how regulations Limited them.  The rest of us easily bought the story, as we were in Despair about our own Limits – their Hoovering up all the Money was limiting us, and we didn’t know we were being Hoovered.

Another way to look at is that those dark blue kids – including many of the Occupiers, that PMH speaks of were born with a direct connection to their individual Souls.  It doesn’t matter that the Chiron-Uranus downloads were 10-30 years prior to their conception – it’s not like their Souls were born recently!  Another description of Chiron’s Despair-into-Miracles property, is that anyone born with Chiron Opposite Saturn who’s awake knows intuitively how to make lemonade.

So with this background, what’s coming up this week, in support of the Uranus-Station New Moon, the last New Moon before the Galactic Shift?  Not only is our Soul Portal wide open with Uranus Stationary, but the New-Paradigm Portal is wide open as well, as Waning Squares from Mercury (Awareness) to Neptune and then to Chiron bracket the New Moon.  The exact schedule looks like this…

• Mercury Squares Neptune 5am PST on Tuesday
• Moon Squares Neptune 4pm PST on Tuesday
• Moon Occults Mercury at 20 past 4pm on Tuesday
• Moon Squares Chiron at 1am PST on Wednesday (12/12/12)
• New Moon 1am PST on Thursday
• Uranus Stationary Direct at 4am PST on Thursday
• Moon Squares Uranus at 9pm PST on Thursday
• Moon Occults Pluto at half past 3am PST on Friday
• Mercury Squares Chiron at 3pm PST on Friday

All of the Squares are Waning – this New Moon is, even more than usual, about letting go of expectations and allowing ourselves to be surprised.

The Square is about Mastery through Challenge, and the Challenge of the Waning Square is to open our Birdcage, to release our self-imposed Limitations and open to Creative Imagination – Dreaming.  Building doesn’t begin until the Conjunction, but Design possibilities are rampant during the phase that follows the Waning Square.  Without the Dreams, nothing gets built.  The Waning Square of the prior Chiron-Neptune Cycle occurred in 1996.  What did we Dream about between 1996 and 2007?

Well, a lot of people Dreamed about Security, as many were suckered into impossible mortgages, and others were seduced by second and third mortgages.  Our house was a bank – we owned our own bank.  That’s a Dream that’s now starting to be built.  What did you Dream about between 1996 and 2007?  Have you started to build that Dream since 2010?  Not you Consciously, but you as seen from the outside, based on your own behavior.  Neptune is not a Conscious planet.  If you can’t see yourself from outside, ask a good honest friend to tell you what you were coveting in that decade.

This Awareness is a Challenge – PIAVA it.  We’re Challenged to release what we thought we knew about Survival, because those mostly-Unconscious Beliefs are obsolete and keeping us from engaging fully in our New-Paradigm destiny.  The portals that are open this week are Century-scale, but the portal that opens in less than two weeks is Eons-scale, as our Solar System crosses the Galactic Equator.  That’s not a discrete process, it takes a looong time.  But like aging, there are symbolic discrete celebrations to mark the passage – birthdays.  12/21/12 is pretty clearly such an Eons-scale symbolic discrete Initiation.  So I highly recommend that we do our dress rehearsals this week…

Great Spirit, this week may I please become Aware of any self-sabotaging Beliefs that are held in my Field, and let go of them gently, lovingly, rapidly, and completely.  May I please enjoy Safety, Grace, and Abundance while I am thus naked of these Beliefs that have been protecting me for so long.  May I please receive a download of new Unconscious Beliefs that will carry me Safely, Graciously, Abundantly, and Sustainably through the next three years, and form a firm foundation for the decades to follow.

Three years, till 2015, is how long our Uranus-Pluto Initiation lasts, and we expect Chaos to rule.  Chaos is pregnant with an extraordinary degree of Potential for Creative Change.  We want to be on top of this wave, not under it.

Benitoite, Barium Titanium Cyclosilicate, the State Gem of California.  It will be an excellent companion on this week’s journey.

I Wasn’t Using Them Anyway

Eleven years after the first Scoundrel Act passed, I still wish I’d have bought the button that said “Oh Well, I wasn’t using my civil rights anyway!” that I saw in an art supply shop at the time.  John Perkins brings us up to date in his December 5 newsletter…

http://www.johnperkins.org/newsletter-2/

Another new commentary on the event that supposedly triggered the whole “Endless War” and “War on Terror” business has been published…

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/12/seismic-evidence-prove-controlled-demolition-on-911.html

Business it is, no question about that.  At least the esteemed Congress of the USofA has finally acted to remove the lunatics, except for one holdout…

“The lone ‘no’ vote was cast by a Republican fr0m Texas, who said in a statement that ‘not only should we not eliminate the word “lunatic” from federal law when the most pressing issue of the day is saving our country from bankruptcy, we should use the word to describe the people who want to continue with business as usual in Washington.’ ”

Just in case you’ve lost the plot for the Fall of the Empire, here are some news bulletins.  Asia decides it will be better off not choosing the aforenamed USofA to play first base…

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NK27Dj02.html

And probably for good reasons…

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ap-impact-china-surpasses-us-013620339.html

While we document the decline of The Homeland…

http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/11/30/study-american-households-hit-43-year-low-in-net-worth/

The scores are in and the USofA has been declared only 27% corrupt, though that was probably before this news came out – or maybe because it came out…

http://truth-out.org/news/item/12845-anonymous-karl-rove-and-2012-election-fix

I’m sparing you the gruesome news from Europe and Japan.  Well, except for this lovely Norwegian video…

http://vimeo.com/53539837

I hope you got the memo – national and global are no longer Hot; local and (internet-connected) tribal are the new Blacks.  So all that Sturm und Drang about the World isn’t as relevant as it used to be.  I wouldn’t want you to get discouraged, with only 16 shopping days left till the End of the World as We Knew It.  See how this schedule works for you…

The Uranus-Stationary New Moon is a week and a few hours away, so the Canaries among us will already be feeling the Uranian rattling.  Most of us won’t start to feel it for real until sometime between Friday afternoon and early Saturday morning, when the Moon Opposes Uranus and Squares Pluto.  Start to feel what?  Well, maybe anxious… excited… kind of at “loose ends”… scared… compelled to Act Out… a need to Create or Speak Truth… endings and beginnings… a desire to clean out closets or finish business… panicked… an urge to Start Over… inspired… like a lunatic or like letting your freak flag fly… brief deja vu experiences that used to be heavy… even frustrated, if you feel trapped by Yang Integrity.

If it’s painful, it’s probably Resistance; try moving your Attention deep into the pain and see if it changes.  If you find a Door closing, bear in mind that new Doors are always about to open.  If we don’t Consciously make space for our New Adventures, we’ll do it Unconsciously.  Don’t forget to tap it out when it feels overwhelming.  We’ve been deep in this Uranus-Pluto personal Trance(Re)Formation since at least July, so by now we shouldn’t be finding too many drastic course changes, just extenuations.  Circumstances are likely to unfold in surprising ways, though.  Don’t expect to be able to figure it out.  Uranus behaves anything but logically, because we’re all dealing with an entirely new – and still mostly unknown – set of assumptions.  The best strategy is to enjoy the ride.

We’ll be learning a lot about our role in the New Paradigm next week – how our new Trance-ReFormed Self fits into our local and tribal Community.  We’ll detail that timetable in the next installment.

Our ReFormed persona will gradually take form out of the background of our Life, the way the red Feather is slowly taking form on the face of this Zinnwaldite Crystal.  Potassium Lithium Iron Aluminium Phyllosilicate Fluoride – a very complex Mica with many charms.  Aluminum for calming and easing transitions; Iron for grounding; Lithium for flying with the Angels; Potassium for Light Processing; Fluoride for breaking old patterns graciously; Mica for protection and good boundaries.  The first Zinnwaldite Crystal I encountered is still the most calming and joyful stone I’ve ever met.  Not quite as over-the-top exciting as these pure Platinum Crystals, but more grounded.  Use the Zinnwaldite when you feel discomfort, and the Platinum when you don’t.

An Open Window and a Fresh Breeze

P.M.H. Atwater researches Near-Death Experiences and trends in Kidhood.  This is from her 2012 book Children of the Fifth World: A Guide to the Coming Changes in Human Consciousness (pp.86-87)…

“Without meaning to, [kids born from 1982 to 2001] behaved as if prognosticators of a future they already knew and had previously agreed on.  Wave after wave of children are coming in like this now.  Many are quite open about it.  They may not consciously know what will happen in their lifetime, yet somehow, in ways no one can fully understand, they do know the future and their place in it.  This alarms parents, not kids. 

“This odd perspective is attuned to what in esoteric traditions is called the natural order.  Within this aegis they want to change the mainstream, or at least build parallels to it based on alternatives and sustainability measures that bypass the mainstream.  They … consider intuitive/psychic promptings of importance.  They listen to a guidance not their own.

“Their version of the natural order is plain enough:

• You know what is right.  It’s stamped in your heart.
• Return to an awareness of consequences.  Are you aware?  Do you care?
• Expect to live your life with others who are different from you.  It’s okay.
• We all make mistakes – admit, apologize, correct, move on.
• Guilt serves no purpose.  Blaming and obsessing are a waste of time.
• Your intention is who you are.  No need to defend this.
• Life is about focus, who you are inside, your intention.
• There are no free passes.  We’re all in this together.

There is not a leader alive who is prepared to handle this crop of citizenry…”

I’ll interrupt to remind that Uranus needs neither followers nor leaders.  And that the core Sabian Energy of the Uranus-Pluto Cycle that comes of age in 2012-15 is “A Ouija Board.”  PMH goes on…

“An immense plus many bring with them that skirts the way leadership roles have been conducted in the past is their ability to form holons.  A holon is a situation where opposing sides come together to accomplish a given task or project that is of mutual benefit for the greater good.  Young people understand that opposing forces are not going to change.  Trying to get along usually backfires…  They want solutions that make things better.  Their approach: get all sides together, figure out what needs to be done and how to pay for it, empower the people in the group to make work assignments and figure out details, do the work, finish the job.  By working together to accomplish a task at hand, progress becomes an organic mix of discovery – that opposing forces really are the same at their core.  The greater good wins.  No one changed, yet everyone changed.  A holon was created – The strength of a whole comes from the diversity of many parts working together.“

Thanks to Alice Miller for turning us on to PMH.

We’re in the middle of (specifically, from about noon PST on Sunday to about noon on Monday) a fantastic window for gaining insight into the New Paradigm, as the Moon will be Quincunxing (five Signs from, representing Curiosity) Chiron-Neptune.  For the latter part of this period, the Moon will also be Quincunxing Pluto, making a Chiron-Pluto-to-Moon Finger of God.  If ever Magic is afoot, this is it.  We can label a Moon Quincunx as Emotional Curiosity – openness to Change on a deep level, as our usual Emotional Blocks are bypassed.  And of course the Initiation of Chiron (Despair becoming Miracle as Empathy with our Despair Shifts our Assemblage Point) by Neptune (our Unconscious Cultural mileau) is the basis for our New Fresh-Violets-in-an-Ancient-Pottery-Bowl Paradigm.  While we haven’t finished Co-Creating the Form of this New Pear, the Energy is extant, available for all to read.

Pluto represents Rebirth, Transformation, a New Trance, flipping to a new slide in our Holographic Viewmaster.  So there will be permanent aspects to our Assemblage-Point Shift.  Of course we’ll backslide, we have to do that to recover the rest of our old persona and psyche, so we can reintegrate.  When our Assemblage Point shifts, it’s as if we climbed a hill – our perspective on the Landscape is very different from our new vantage point.  We can see Furthur, and we can see new relationships between the elements of our Weltanschauung.  When we come back down from the hill, nothing has changed, but everything has changed.

A number of other configurations abet the Finger of God to make Stronger Magic.  The Fingered Moon Trines (Grace) Uranus (our 2012 Soul Download) and Squares (Challenge and Reward) Saturn (the Ego), making the Shift penetrate deeply into the persona (Saturn).  If you put a Square (3 Signs) and an adjacent Trine (4 Signs) into the Zodiacal circle, what’s left?  A Quincunx!  The Saturn-Uranus Quincunx is fading (it’s been with us since Samhain (Halloween), and will continue till the Uranus-Station New Moon, then re-form in March-April and September-October of next year, if we have one.  A Saturn-Uranus Quincunx, as you can imagine, represents the Ego and the Soul encountering one another with Curiosity!  Bingo!

And there are two other simultaneous Quincunxes – Juno to Ketu (the Moon’s South Node or the Dragon’s Tail), and Mars to Jupiter.  The Juno-Ketu Q, in part, stands for the Heavies we’ve been feeling, as our Karmic Baggage (Ketu) and our Unconscious Identity (Juno) encounter one another with Curiosity.  Juno’s being buffeted from all sides, but the Quin is what involves the bars of our Birdcage.  We’ve survived another Mars-Pluto, at the recent Lunar Eclipse, and now Jupiter will be expanding that In-a-Sunlit-Home-Domesticated-Birds-Sing-Happily Energy, and we can’t help but be Curious about how this Domestication will integrate with all of the Uranian Give-Me-Liberty-or-Reform my Trance! Energy that abounds for the next few years.  Wouldn’t it be handy if we were prognosticators of a future we already know.

I didn’t have a handy portrait of Childrenite, so I put in a picture of its identical twin Eosphorite – they’re both Hydrated Aluminum Phosphate with traces of Iron and Manganese; Childrenite just leans more toward the Iron (Grounding) side and less toward the Manganese (Empathy).  Here’s a photo of it’s spectrum, borrowed from Mindat.  You can see how the Mineral illuminates various frequencies differentially when it diffracts Light…

Lord knows where the “Si” came from, maybe it’s mislabeled.  You can see from this how a Crystal can be Healing.  If on some dimension your own spectrum lacked intensity at these frequencies, the Crystal could Balance your Energy!  The Crystal would be in Blender X in our three-blender manifestation technique.

Another She-Bear

Here’s our Eclipse Launch Vehicle…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuOm2lLIOoU

and the Second Stage…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndEsn9gorKc

Enjoy!

By the way, the Moon Occults (hides) Jupiter at 4 minutes past 5pm PST tomorrow.  That would be pretty fantastic to see, though my back-of-an-envelope (literally) calculation puts it somewhere near Wake Island in the western Pacific.  Cosmologists theorize something called Inflation, when the Universe supposed expanded by zillions of times in a grillionth of a second.  Imagine if our Dreams were to do that!  I can’t think of a better metaphor for an Occultation of Jupiter than that sort of unfathomable expansion in our self-knowledge and self-confidence.