Sedna's Station as Grand Sextile Herald

'Hand of adult and child' - an image Sedna challenges us

to think of as being both our Self

(photo credit: Israel free image project, c 1970-1980)

With the Sun entering Virgo on August 22nd and Mercury following in on August 23^rd (both in the UT/+0 zone) we’re all officially in a zone all about ‘improvements.’ Life will be filled with questions. All the 'should's and 'would's of life will ask us what we want to do...and how to best get at what really needs doing.

This is likely to be a time when we'll all be considering our priorities and the ramifications of acting against the possible cost of standing still. We'll at least need to contend with our urges to be lackadaisical and make excuses...often to others, but really to our Self.

It's a period filled with plus and minuses and sorting out the difference between responsibility and obligation, between morality and guilt, between accomplishment and avoidance.

In the midst of all, we're likely to see how sometimes it’s not the ‘thing’ which counts, its being satisfied with what you’ve done, how well you’ve done it and why you chosen to follow your path.

What does what you're currently doing with your life really mean?

All of this sets the stage as dwarf planet Sedna turns to retrograde at 6:03 in the morning (UT/+0) of August 25th, a moment which finds Mercury and Orcus conjunct the Sun, making Sedna’s turn a focus on the consequence of what we are...or aren't. What we're willing to do, and how for many of us we are where we are in this world right now not because we planned it that way but rather because we've followed suggestions and images supplied by others.

Or even by society.

Sedna was discovered in November of 2003 at California’s Mount Palomar Observatory by the team of Craig Trujillo, David Rabinowitz and Caltech’s Mike Brown - who if you read this blog you know I think of as a rock star astronomer, not to mention a trés cool guy kind enough to answer this astrologer’s astrophysics questions when she stubs her mental toe. And considering it's only been a decade of knowing Sedna, much research remains to be done on both the astrological ond astronomical side.

But from what we understand so far, Sedna functions in the chart rather like the psychological concept of ‘superego’ does.

(And no, your superego is not where you dress up in a mask and cape and go save the world. Nice thought, but unfortunately that’s not the gig.)
 
So what IS a superego? Putting it in simple terms our superego is a set of standards or images instilled in our mind which either guides us - or which we rebel against. For some, superego concepts provide them with security. For others, superego energies feel like an eternal, subtle, constant critique. Most often our superegos somehow 'imbed' something about what our parents said. You know...how they said life would be. Or should be. The marked tendency for so many of us to grow up 'just like our parents' and indeed grow to be more and more like them as time goes along - that's the power of the superego.

But it isn't our parents. Nor are we supposed to be what the media or popular culture "says we should be." Often our superego images are merely just how we interpret external messages - and there is nothing cut and dried about this. Some of us will resist and end up destroying ourselves, some of us will comply with perceived 'instructions' and bury our dearest wishes, some of us will be made insecure by getting as far as knowing we aren't 'like' those images being thrown at us but without any idea of who we really are. Or if it's okay to be that unique and perhaps highly counter-cultural person. 

Just because you can't fulfill someone else's expectations doesn't mean you're a failure. That's part of the Sedna lesson. Thus whatever our early experiences are, there comes a time when we ask ourselves whether we should question those images, those expectations, the feeling that we should 'comply' or 'fit in' when that's really not who we are.

Whatever your situation is - whether you need to rethink or you need to change things, or even if you need to not insist of your children that they 'toe the line' because you did when you were young, the issue is individuation.

Sedna asks that we take a step back. Sedna is about gaining perspective - on who we are, on what we think life is, on what we truly believe our personal potentials may yet come to be if we allow ourselves to grow, perhaps purged of old assumptions which may or may not have been true or still be true.

That process, and whether we undertake the challenge of comprehending and accepting or reworking our imprinting is what we know of currently as the astrological Sedna Process.

As usual, there’s an interesting myth which goes with Sedna. If you’d like to read how that sorts out astrologically, here is a LINK to a piece on same here at the blog.

Most of us want to think that Sedna ‘individuation’ is just about learning to live on our own (the physical separation from our parents). But that's just where the work - and the possibility for real personal power - begins. Separating from feelings and ‘images’ left over from early hopes and dreams is what frees our psyche to be our psyche and function from the perspective of who we really are.

Maybe you have a little Sedna work to do...and maybe you have a lot. Whatever your Sedna Process is, it will swell up like cold water seeking to engulf you from below...from within...unbidden...as Sedna goes in and out of retrograde.

The good news is that Sedna works on us slowly; we generally experience its energy in ‘steps’ and ‘stages.’ At every ‘parting’ we feel freer and yet are confronted by the need to be invested ever more tangibly in who we are.

What we want to be.

Where we want to be being who we are.

Once we begin ‘owning’ our Sedna, we know things are changing because we know they need to change. And often it's as simple as that. Individuality as part of the Sedna Process is experienced as ‘sinking’ ever more deeply into our ‘sea’ of existence and personal potential. In the Sedna myth, Sedna is finally wrested from a life she was determined to cling to by an ocean storm - a 'storm of emotionality,' we would say metaphysically. And once her grip on all she knows is broken down, she is tossed into a surging ocean (of her own feelings) and there she sinks into the ocean's depths.

The depths of her emotional psyche, this would be. And there, alone in the dark and drowned to all save her soul she finds that power and purpose which allows Sedna to become a goddess - the Being we can be because we are each and every one of us born with unique human gifts.

In Sedna, we accept the singular qualities of our individuality - which seems sensible when we consider Sedna as an object. And no, this doesn’t mean that to accept your Sedna is to be a ‘loner,' but rather that Sedna is about understanding who you are and what  experience has taught you is true or not true about life...and about yourself.

Whatever that entails. 

Then again, with it’s 11,400 year-long orbit (plus or minus – not even NASA is sure on this one yet) by taking so long to transit through a sign Sedna also marks huge swaths of humanity (and thus eras of human development) at a time.

Oh how curious, right? At the same time that Sedna asks us to individuate by sign it also ‘binds’ millions of human beings to one another.
 
And maybe that’s the point. Individuation does not mean separation. Individuation is more about the ability to see each thing (or yourself) on its own as part of a greater whole - and in that it urges us to utilize our own talents and the knowledge we('ve) gained through getting a perspective on our own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to living our lives.

When it comes to making something of those lives.

When it comes to deciding who and how and what kind of people we should be investing our life time (the time we have here on Earth) with.

Currently in Taurus, Sedna’s most recent change of sign took place back in 1966 when it left Aries (and entered Taurus).

Before that, Sedna moved from Pisces into Aries back in 1865.

Do a little quick math in this regard and you'll come up with the obvious: for a dwarf planet which takes more than 11,000 years to go once around the Sun, Sedna is pretty much galloping along.

And that means Sedna must be near or at one of the ‘extremes’ (the perihelion or aphelion) of its highly egg shaped orbit around our local Sun.

Which it is - as we can see in this handy NASA diagram.

Image credit: NASA (2012)

Just to make this a bit clearer...with thanks to NASA... here’s another version of Sedna’s orbit generated last year by JPL’s orbital simulator (a wonder of Java technology if there ever was one).

Image credit: JPL (2012)

Sedna is currently about as close to us as it will ever be. And though that's still not all that close, on the metaphysical level that still means a lot, especially as we witness the incredibly rapid evolution society has been going through in the last hundred-plus years.

In fact, it's a sobering thought when we stop and realize that the last time Sedna was this close to Terra Earth the (earth) year was somewhere around 9,000 BCE.

In other words, society as we know society hasn't ever gone through anything like this Sedna period before.

We're it. We're the trailblazers. We're the novices.

We're learning what it means to be an individual born to have opportunities. Those of us born under Sedna in Aries are challenged to get perspective on who we are and who we were born to be while those born under Sedna in Taurus are creating 'opportunities' through which they can discover their own values - and their value as human beings.

This isn't to say our opportunities are always that obvious. We tend to think of 'opportunity' as a positive when the truth is that humans tend to learn more through tough sledding, hard times, defeats and painful inundations - physical, emotional or otherwise.

Evidently it takes a lot to get through to us. Where our images, 'programming' and tradition embody the pretty, the simple, the comforts of ease (all obvious traits in the original Sedna myth) they are the child Sedna's dream and that which leads to a downfall precisely because we - like the mythical Inuit girl - don't want to let go of some 'status quo' we've gotten our psyches 'married to.' We want to 'fit in' - even if it's with that image in our head, despite the many and manifest difficulties.

The whole idea of being individual scares most of us to death. We want to fit in.

And of course there is that other type - the determined individualist who would rather live with the echo of their dreams rather than any realistic, highly mortal Reality.

It's all about perspective - and often our lack of perspective on ourselves or what may truly be possible which causes all the problems.

That’s the hard part to face, starting with the idea that because Sedna asks us to let go of the images we have adopted or which were instilled in us, there's a lot of emotional challenge which comes with Sedna's transits, shifts and general energetics. Probably the one we all face across the board is the facing that our parents (those primal superego molders!) are just real and regular people with their own foibles and fears. They're not only mortal, the person they are may be very different from the person we've (probably unconsciously) internalized.

But until we become conscious and gain perspective on that...we're likely to continue patterning ourselves on initial Sedna images - both good and bad.

For instance, I have a friend (and you can imagine what it's like to be the astrologer's friend, right?) 'patterned' by parents who were each experienced as inconsistent in their own right - and inconsistent with each other. So now this person is 'magically attracted' to partners who, though they look different, evoke the same response.

It's sort of like we are out to prove they can't be loved so they can give up on being loved as a matter of being accepted - which was sadly, their original lesson about what love is.

We all struggle with this lesson until we realize just how blank a slate a child is. Children will imprint on their parents and since our most basic survival as children depends on the love of our parents, whatever they show us we 'image' as love.

When we look at a natal horoscopes, we see these 'love patterns.' And we see the oddly weird way we grow up to 'seek out' or 'pick' people who may or may not actually be like our patterning parents but who will end up evoking those same dynamics and feelings until we gain that very special perspective on life which is so utterly and completely Sedna.

No, it isn't easy. The first time we walk down that 'internally aware' Sedna road love doesn't feel like we're habituated to think it will.

It takes time to learn love and respect for our Self - from ourselves and from others - can be a whole different and often better thing.

But that all is as it is because this is the way life is constructed becomes more obvious when we look at the JPL image of Sedna's orbit, why Sedna represents that true 'above all' superego-type ‘perspective on perspective’ begins becoming obvious, considering how far away from our solar system's "central district" Sedna really is.

It's dark and cold out there, just as dark and just as cold as the depths of the cold northern sea Sedna sinks into...just as dark and encompassing as the depths of our own essence which we sink into when we begin grappling with our Sedna essence.

That chill of newness when the 'comfort' of the known is stripped away is disconcerting

But I guess you could say that we have to go 'out into the cold' to find our answers. So wherever Sedna is in our chart - by sign, by house, by aspect - that is the area of life where we will experience the provocation which drives us to gain perspective on ourselves and our abilities, capacities and personal truths. My friend has Sedna in the 5th house - the house of children, of dating, of doing what one wants to do. So it's not shocking that their "Sedna stuff" pops up in the dating scene, that they're half-past iffy about having kids, that they spend a lot of time in solitary pursuits all about finding out who they are, why they are who they are, why things work as they do and what this all means in terms of their capacity (which is part of why we're friends, I'm sure) and why - given the 5th house/11th house polarity...and how all house placements denote not just the object in that house but the need to 'complete the circuit' by enfolding the  opposition...how this perfectly intelligent, perfectly nice person has such quandaries about self and wanting to fit into their 'group.'

Except of course, that they don't fit in. And there is that pesky fact that when it gets right down to it, they don't want to fit in because their whole drive is about being not alone, but individual.

(Yes, they think it's alone.)

As someone born with Sedna conjunct their Ascendant, I feel for them. I can also tell you that Sedna asks us to step away from the norm and to own our departure from the crowd. This doesn't mean you have to go about preening in your separateness, it just means you go about doing what you do and that you recognize how our greater talents - our Sedna abilities - are part of that 'outer realm,' that 'shell' which both metaphysically holds us in and at the same time, urges us to leave our comfortable cocoons. 

In short, the Sedna Principle pushes us to understand avenues of personal realization which may seem offensive or difficult because they force us to recognize and own individuality and uniqueness. And how being an individual sets us apart at some level from others. Some will never be willing to challenge themselves or go their own way. Some people will separate emotionally if not intellectually while others will be willing to leave the intellectual nest but refuse to leave behind what they conceive of as their ‘comfort zone.’

It’s this state of ‘neither fish nor fowl’ (which with Sedna is more akin to ‘neither able to fish nor likely to want to identify what is so foul’) which confounds us...and which stands to inhabit, color and permeate matters now as Sedna goes retrograde in late Taurus.

At 24 Taurus, to be specific.

As part of the third and most worldly Taurus decanate, 24 Taurus is part of a series of metaphysical passages where our self worth experiences the blessings and trials inherent on a greater scale. This may be in our life in particular. Then again, it could be in the life of a collective – a national population. Or of the nation itself. Lore speaks of 24 Taurus as a degree concerned with spiritual mastery which either witnesses or experiences whatever difficulties such mastery of the ethereal is bound to encounter on this so reality-addicted plane.

Sedna’s turn to retrograde in this degree would seem to be about an awakening of spiritual consciousness…or conscience, however you receive it. Therefore we could expect this station (which begins on the 23rd and extends through the 27th) to arouse feelings akin either at the ‘is this all there is?’ end of things or through some disquieting awareness that in comparison with the whole of "possibility" you, we, our daily lives and world are all very, very small.

Yet on the other hand, we're all important too. If there's one thing science, religion, spirituality and philosophy all agree on, it's that all things happen for a reason. Good, bad, indifferent, terrible, wonderful, questionable - we are all born with abilities which mean something to the totality of What Is.

So in perspective (you know, that Sedna thing) though we may indeed be one tiny part of the Whole, we still are a vital part of that Whole. Nature (call it Incarnation) doesn't waste energy or effort. All that exists has a function.

Thus, so do we. And it's arguable - since we're all energy and everything else is energy too - that we function as the 'microcosm' to the Whole's 'macrocosmic' nature.

How would that be? The simple answer is that we're all energy. You, me, the doorknob - we're all just energy. The next answer is that offered by Systems Theory, namely that the same sequences repeat over and over and over again in life, in biology and botany, in everything from architecture to astrology to relationships. One is the whole, two is the duality, confrontation and opposition, three is the initial 'voicing' of combination and so on.

Systems Theory is actually why the same astrological premise - the horoscope - applies equally to people, puppies, products and nations.

And this matters now why?

Good question - and one I will answer thusly: people who know me in real time occasionally see me wearing this amulet.

 
This seal is one of a series of symbolic images known in esoteric circles as the “Seals of Solomon” - a reference which takes us back to the years 970-931 BCE. But as pertains to our discussion here, the idea of the interlocked triangles goes back much farther. Thinking in terms of what we just discussed, these interlocking triangles are a symbol of micro/macrocosmic reflection - one the Hermeticists of Egypt probably defined best in one simple and elegant statement: ‘as above, so below.’

It's an idea which applies very well with Sedna, our symbol of the inner Self which ends up defining our outer experiences.

Astrology knows the Hermetic star as a six-pointed figure known as a Grand Sextile: six points each separated by sixty-degree sextiles (with the standard sextile allowance of 3 degrees a given).
 
In astrological terms the sextile is ‘opportunity’ – a thing we can choose to utilize or not.

 
Of course when six ‘options’ occur together as a Grand Sextile, what we’re really seeing is a matched set of Grand Trines – each in aspect to other. And since Grand Trines are indicators of ‘ongoing energy’ which we have little-to-no opportunity to shift, change, start or stop, thus is opportunity transformed into a metaphysical… celestial… spiritual mandate.

Because Sedna is going into retrograde with the Sun in early Virgo, and since we know that first decan placements (a planet in degrees 0 to 9) are where signs manifest physically or through our actions, this is an active time all about life (Sun) and our thoughts (Mercury) and what we can do…should do…and what our priorities (read: responsibilities) really are.

So that’s the ‘everyday’ doings into which comes Sedna (a need for perspective) going on station and retrograde in a third decan degree.

Third decanate degrees (any degree between 20 and 29 of a sign) are all about what we put out into the world, how we interface with the world, how we are affected by the world, or how the world reacts to us.

So evidently we need perspective on how to approach things. And as we are doing that, the world (and people in it) will be testing our Sedna potential and probably giving us good reason to ask ourselves where we stand vis-à-vis our sense of mature individuality.

If your chart ‘answers’ to 24 Taurus (in particular), this time is about your ability to operate with perspective or in some manner which helps you to gain perspective.

Of course, you could be one of those folks who just rejects the whole thing, too. There are lots of them out there!

So...do you have a planet, position, axis point or node between 19 and 29 degrees of Taurus, Leo, Aquarius, Scorpio, Capricorn or Virgo?

If so, your ability to operate or understand matters represented by that planet, point, node or axis with enough perspective (on yourself, the origins of your choices and the ramifications thereof) is on the celestial table.

For those with planets, points, axis points or nodes between 22 and 26 Aries, Gemini, Sagittarius or Libra...

...problems or quandaries which arise now are all about a need for perspective. They key to all things probably starts with asking why people (yourself included) are doing whatever they’re doing.
 
No, you may not like the answer. But you may realize something vitally important.

Or maybe you have a positions, planets, axis points or node between 21 and 27 Pisces or Cancer?

If so, this is an opportunity to gain perspective or to utilize perspective in the gaining of some end which is prosperous and positive for you and everyone else. 

One other group merits a mention here - those whose birthdays (e.g., solar return) fall between the dates August 23rd and August 27th.

I don’t say this often enough – and yes, it applies whenever any planet, dwarf planet, asteroid or TNO takes station. I'm reminded of this because I have friends with birthdays on August 24th and August 27th (and happy birthday and many fine solar returns to you both).

The Solar Return point is this: if your birthday falls under the auspices of any ‘station window,’ your whole “birthday year” (solar return year, otherwise known as from birthday to birthday) is going to be colored, not necessarily by the specifics of any event, but by the underlying theme - in this case, the Sedna theme – aka a Sedna-conjunct-Capulus-at-24-Taurus theme.

Capulus is a the fixed star said to represent the sword with which Perseus cut off Medusa’s head. Typically associated with ‘penetrating’ energies (which indeed may be phallic), Capulus in Taurus is its own potent quotient which pits what we want to do purely for our own pleasure (or those we definitely favor) versus our willingness to open ourselves to greater possibilities.

Currently, Capulus is at 24 Taurus. That puts it in an exact conjunction with Sedna’s station.

I wish my friends well. One of them already knows to ask questions whenever they want and I trust the other one will learn. In the meantime, if you have a Sedna puzzle, please ask. After all, if you read this labor of love known as my astro-blog, you must know I care. And yes, that’s my Sedna-at-the-Ascendant. It manifests in many different ways, most of which make me uncomfortable as all get-out. So if you ever meet me in real life you'll find that I’m often awkward, in reality terribly shy and yet prone to frivolously playful drama which entertains others - that being my effort to help them feel better about themselves.

Like I say, that's my Sedna. I may feel awkward and shy but through helping them feel not so awkward and shy I facilitate our becoming closer.

It's a process. With Sedna, we take it all step by step by step. We figure out where and how our 'naked selves' are not so bad. In fact, we're pretty beautiful. And even when we hide...well, there are those who think of blogging as a 'clinging to anonymity.' Fifty years ago nobody knew what an author looked like and nobody worried. A hundred years ago people made firm and fast pen pal friendships with people they had never met.

Some of those pen pals even decided to get married. 

The world’s suspicions don’t make me a jot less or more sincere about what I do. So if I'm shy and if I can write to you here and give you a gift which just may be better delivered without any personal presence tainting the works, that's Sedna in the positive. And that this blog is all about offering you perspectives on Existence is exactly Sedna at the Ascendant: what I do (Ascendant = do) is "Sedna-like."

Hopefully some of it serves you well as you pursue your personal, Earthly Journey.

The last notion to contemplate here is how after the window on Sedna’s station opens on the 23rd (with Sedna going retrograde on the 25th), as the 27th rolls through and Sedna’s station effects fade, they fade into the appearing of a double grand trine – a Hermetic star – forming above us in the heavens. 

 
And that makes the Sun and Mercury entering Virgo leading into Sedna’s station a sign that what has been has been…and that we are – all of us – passing through a ‘bridging point’ where Above and Below stand in reflection.

This linking of linkages will be in effect only for a few minutes in the wee hours of early August 29th (UT/+0 time). But such links do tend to evolve over time - and since I have rolled through what is to come I can add here that this theme of 'grand sextiling' (if you will) is going to continue on into September...even for some October, depending on what kind of placements are in your personal natal chart.

(Yes, it works that way too. Also yes, if we have points which 'line up' closely with any given position of a grand sextile, that will be one of the funnels through which energy will focus in our lives and which we will be asked to evolve from.) 

All such double Grand Trines (or Grand Sextiles) will by definition link points in different elements. This one has four objects aligning in the 'tangible' element of earth: Pluto (transformation), the South Node (what we find easy to do) and Mercury (thought, communication, day-to-day activity)...against three other objects Saturn (time, structure, responsibility, commitment), Jupiter (growth, expansion, acquisition of knowledge-comprehension) and Chiron (that we need to do which we cannot understand except by doing) in emotionally evocative water signs.

Earth plus water sometimes equals unparalleled fertility and fruitful growth. On the other hand, sometimes earth plus water only equals mud – and hence the muddying of the waters, the washing away of earth, the dissolution of stability.

Four out of six points (Chiron, South Node, Jupiter and Mercury) are in second decanate positions. The second decan (degrees 10-19 of any sign) is where the sign manifests emotionally. So is South Node in Taurus about contentment, selfishness, self respect, lack of self worth, inertia or a willingness to do what you can? Is Jupiter in Cancer a new start? Is it opening the doors to others or the working on ways to remain hidden in your castle (mental or otherwise)? And is Mercury in Virgo the keeping on with what you’re doing or being too busy to be bothered? Is it doing what you’re required to but not really want you can do?

And Chiron in Pisces....? Well…that’s just every variety of ‘how to do what I know I need to do but which I don’t really want to do because…because…because’ with all the ‘because’s (read: justifications) being some variety about not wanting to experience your own emotions or emotionality.

Two of the four points in the emotional second decanate are in water signs. This is about how emotions effect you: how you express your feelings as a reaction to your own feeling process. Plus, seeing as one of these objects (Chiron) is in the unbounded 'emotional deep water' sign of Pisces, we know the Chirotic part of this equation is expressing feelings about how you feel about having to feel in any case - and not knowing what to do about it or how to deal with it. 

Then there’s Saturn and Pluto (Pluto/Facies, really) in first decan degrees relating to what we do and our physical existence.

(If you want to read up on Pluto’s ongoing game of dice with Facies, here’s a LINK to that post. There are several, so use the Facies or Facies/Pluto link in the sidebar if you want to read more.)

Saturn in Scorpio is the need to meet others on a genuine basis of equality. Nobody likes it, everybody needs to do it if they want to get create any lasting or valuable alliances. The opposition to South Node in Taurus represents the fear that we may be doing something wrong. Or doing what we’re doing with the wrong person. The question here is really about quality and trustworthiness though many will try to get by on flash (qualities which look good but don’t measure up) and uttering hollow promises.

As for Pluto (Facies) in Capricorn, nobody is getting away with not facing life’s complexities. Those who think they can ‘get away’ with not making quality efforts may succeed in the short run but they’re sure to lose in the long run. (Saturn will reach Facies in 2018.)

Sometimes Grand Sextiles (celestial six-pointed stars) will denote something coming into being. More often they refer to a fateful change which moves us from one ‘era’ of our life to another. I’ve had two years marked by Grand Sextiles in my solar chart and neither of them were gentle. In linking water and earth barely in the wake of Sedna’s station this Grand Sextile suggests an irrevocable shift of values which empowers an incremental gain in our grasp on life which causes us to feel our values more deeply.

Or maybe more acutely.

However...with that said, this is not a 'rock solid' Grand Sextile in the sense that sextiles are only given a 3 degree orb. Mercury - which serves as the linchpin in this planetary picture - is within 3 degrees of orb to Saturn at 9 Virgo and within 3 degrees of the sixty-degree sextile orb to Jupiter only once it moves into 10 Virgo.

So there are some 'purists' out there who would tell you that there is no Grand Sextile at all. Being someone who has experienced them and timed their effects, I say 'not true' to that. But I will - for the sake of being conservative - say that Mercury makes its move from 9 to 10 Virgo at 1:57 in the morning, UT/+0 time.

You be the judge from there. 

Many will now choose to allow themselves to embody, utilize and voice that which they learn now. Astrologers, astrologically savvy or merely as people wandering through this world, through what they separate from and recognize as their new reality, such people will become indelibly more self-reflective. They won’t have to search as much as they know who they are and thus can devote themselves to whatever it is they do and can now do in Reality because they have met, accepted and adapted to their sense of personal individuality.

To accept our Sedna is to be able to look at life – our life and that around us with understanding born of perspective. If your ‘before’ involved some hurt, you may not be able to ‘solve’ the hurt, but you may come to understand that what you now know and what you now value is in part all about your having been hurt.

All things have purpose. All experiences enhance our potential to understand. In the Sedna realm – which is to say in the lasting process of personal maturation - there is no ‘escaping’ the darker aspects of life. But that’s okay. Life’s dips, shadows and sorrows give shape, depth and richness to our achievements. They motivate our wisdom.

They give us a reason to love.

As we grapple with our Sedna process, we gain exponential human power. It’s not the type of power which grants dominion over this or control over that – this is the power of being.

And when we feel powerful as a being, we don’t worry about control or dominion. We become content to earn respect and the love which grows from that.

Through acceptance of the Sedna Principle we end our denials and stop trying to ‘fit in.’ Once we accept the power of our uniqueness we have no reason for either as we know why we are...and who we can become. It's the struggle, the regrets, the not knowing what 'lies beyond' that we know...the separating from long-held dreams or images bequeathed to us by loved ones which is hard.

But that's part of Sedna too. Learning that we can disagree with someone we love, we can like different things and accept that we are different and that we can still love them and be loved by them is the essence of having perspective on life as a whole. To accept the individualization described by Sedna's energetics is difficult. But without them we become a crippling force - and despite the tendency to project and blame others, the person we tend to cripple is ourselves.

Is it a lot to ask of a station that it escort us into a moment of fateful evolution? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Sedna's turn to retrograde speaks to a process of internal growth we will experience within ourselves and with or through our interactions with others, with challenges, with life. We separate from others not so as to be apart, but so that we can recognize our own potential to contribute and to be someone who is recognized for their abilities and attributes, their willingness to be who they are rather than 'the image' or that which is currently popular.

By the time next February arrives and Sedna goes direct again, we will have wrestled with this process a bit more. We will have met up with or witnessed or have been exposed to things which get us to seeing, feeling and sensing the difference between 'fitting in' or 'molding' our Self into anything which is other that who we are, whatever that means.

Some of us will let go and begin sinking into the depths of that enveloping darkness of total, inexorable being from which we are able to tap into our potential as something with which to contribute to a greater whole - a life, a world, a society, a family, a group of friends...whatever...in sync with our potential. Some of those people may understand for having gone through their own Sedna process, some will never understand.

We will stand witness, we will serve our purpose and service our sense of being through the contributing of our life to this world for all its worth without resistance.

In embracing our Sedna power we become part of the 'sea of capacity' and in that, we become capable of washing away that which needs to be washed clean. We become embodied and imbued with that power which can carry others away and dash hopes on sharp rocks of reality.

What we cannot do is live a surface life any more. And in that, for those who now manage to see their way past at least several of the images in our hall of mental mirrors, therein lies the Sedna dictate which separates one person from another, the matriculated beings from those who don't have the courage to trust that they have been created with potentials far more important and satisfying than possessions, physicality or anything which manifests as part of our everyday world.

As much as we want to be seen as individuals and 'own' our own lives, most of us are stunningly reluctant to be different.

And yet, that difference is the very definition of uniqueness. And human beings - apparently separate beings born one by one by one at precise times at precise places with signatures so unique they won't repeat for millions if not trillions of years...?

We are nothing if not unique. The only question is whether we're brave enough to be as wonderful as we are - and can be. 
.
.
.