MakeMake, Medusa, Orpheus: Making the Best of Things

Marie Louise Island in the outer Seychelles

(photo by ACP)

Once I was past the mandatory high school reading of Homer (the Iliad and Odyssey was something of a literary war for me) and Margaret Hamilton’s Mythology, Greek myths (and myths in general) didn’t mean much until I started reading psychology and family dynamics books in my somewhat late 20s.

About then it dawned on me that myths are not just fun stories, they’re about the nature of our world and human nature in particular.

So I started reading mythology again. Some people like international cuisine. I evidently get great nourishment from reading Myths From Around the World. Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Norse, Celtic, Indian, Japanese…I read it all. And seeing as this was about the time I got into working in the movie industry as a production accountant, I’m guessing it was a very good accompaniment to the main dish of money spending. After all, life on the road with anywhere between a hundred and three hundred (plus) crew members can be a fairly raw and woolly experience. But where better to see the in’s and out’s of human nature?

Far from being the glitzy thing so many think film work is, production is a bit like civil war – in a not-always-polite, if not strictly bloodthirsty civil sense.

Though yes, there are a few moments of awfulness. When you’re in the film industry or working locations you hear of them. Everybody grimaces and keeps working. (Yes, even if you were the target of the incident, you keep working.)

The myth which has probably impressed me the most through the years is that one which I think intersects our Moments Most Dire and those when we grapple with how we feel about life. That myth is the one of the gorgon Medusa - a myth which is entirely different than the story most of us know.

- link to -

Medusa: Through Our

Mental Mirror, Darkly

Don’t kid yourself: we all have a little bit of Medusa in our chart. In fact, exactly where you’re prone to resisting that idea is like as not connected to where your Medusa lives – in its own little cave of your personal psyche.

The thing to remember here is that Medusa is not about how we appear to others. Medusa is not about being afraid of what others know. It’s about what we’re afraid to know about ourselves.

As of June 12th, the stakes get raised in this ‘knowing about ourselves’ department by Medusa moving into Aries. Which means (to state the obvious) that on June 11th, Medusa will be crossing through that last and final degree of the rondo we call the zodiac, 29 Pisces.

And that’s where Scheat is.

If you’ve been around the astroPPM blog for a while, you probably know I tend to refer to Scheat as the fixed star we all love to hate. But that’s part and parcel of the “Scheat gig” as Scheat represents how (or where) we tend to reject others – or in having rejected them, tend to get rejected by them.

So when Medusa conjuncts Scheat, that suggests a lot of uneasiness (or out and out fear) with regards to what we might have missed out on. Or what others may not like about us, or what we believe.

As a degree, 29 Pisces has two distinct sides. (How Piscean, don’t you think?) The first is about intuitive or what we tend to call ‘psychic’ abilities. Those abilities come from our ability to be less ‘defined’ by our ego drives erecting ‘walls’ which define or separate” us from everything (and everyone) else. The aim of this ego-instinct is to know who the “I Am” of our life is, which is obviously at some level a good and necessary thing. But too much of that doesn’t allow us to be ‘one’ with the rest of Existence. The intuitive, the sensitive, the artist, the guru, the medium, the shaman - those who are live some portion of life without fully fortified ‘ego walls’ see – and are exposed to - what comes in from Beyond. And be that beyond the spiritual realm, the intuitive realm…or the compassion and empathy which allows us to feel for one another, that’s a whole plus-and-minus balance unto itself. Some are inspired by what they learn. Some are overwhelmed by it.

The other side of 29 Pisces is also about our ability to feel and sense or not, but this one has to do with our interactions with others. This is the area Scheat seems to be more active in, though there’s something to be said for Scheat’s having moved into 29 Pisces back in 1973 and the upsurge of interest in everything from parapsychology (ghosts and spirits) to holistic healing – the totality of energy of which we are all part – which began increasing around that time.

For the record, Scheat will be at 29 Pisces until 2044, so we’re only about half way through this ‘evolution,’ if that’s what you want to call it.

But to my point, Medusa passing over Scheat (otherwise known as conjuncting Scheat) is likely to create situations which excite or exacerbate everyone’s various insecurities and fears during the early part of this June, 2013 week.

Tête de Méduse (Head of Medusa) by Puget

(photo credit Jospe, July 2011)

And Medusa’s not alone. As Medusa reaches 29 Pisces, so does Orpheus, the guy everybody seems to think of as the ‘other half’ of Eurydike. Orpheus is an amazingly talented person. But he seems to suffer from that ‘with great power goes great responsibility’ issue which gets us all in various moments in our lives. In the care of Orpheus, he ends up losing the love of the person most dear to him – Eurydike – because he doesn’t have enough faith (faith being a Pisces thing) in the thing he has been told to do thusly…to not question a process which whether he likes it or not, he’s not in charge of.

Orpheus is used to being able to use charm and talent to get what he wants. And because he’s never learned any other way of handling life, in the end he loses that person, that love, that feeling of being loved which is most dear to him.

Orpheus and Eurydice by Michel Martin Drolling (1820)

And now Orpheus is conjuncting Scheat in Medusa’s company…ALL of which is happening as MakeMake goes direct at 27 Virgo.

Currently classed as a TNO (Trans Neptunian Object), MakeMake is being considered for dwarf planet status – which tells us that it’s not just a pebble out there in space. Should we take MakeMake as seriously as we all take Pluto? Maybe, maybe not, though certainly if it qualifies as a dwarf planet, that response will flip over resoundingly into “should.”

But will we? Probably not. And why would that be? That would be because MakeMake isn’t one of the more-than-several objects the orbits of which are controlled by Neptune. Known as ‘Plutinos,’ the list of such Neptune-controlled objects includes Ixion, Orcus, Huya, Pluto and a handful of objects which to date are only known by numerical assignments.

And this should tell us that it’s really that mysterious Neptune quality of ‘knowing/not knowing’ or being ‘controlled/out of control’ which creates the incredible, often blinding energetic we associate with Plutinos.

Put simply, that energy gets our carnal motors running. And MakeMake isn’t a Plutino. Classed in the TNO (subset) Cubewano category, like fellow Cubewano Deucalion (surviving life’s disasters and finding our way), MakeMake as the soul of creating, the ability to rise from the depths and to build something which becomes it’s own ‘island’ of reality and personal salvation and reliability in your life should be enthralling.

But it’s not. MakeMake just doesn’t stir that astro-emotional Neptunian fascination and thus all the hot-shot press.

An orbital diagram of MakeMake at June 15, 2013 as generated by JPL

As for 27 Virgo (the degree MakeMake is going direct at), this is a degree which stresses the most functional side of our mentalities.

So then we add in MakeMake. And when we add in MakeMake, it would appear that these mid-June days of MakeMake going station/direct are a test of our own resolve. Or our questioning of ourselves as to our motives and whether we’ve thought everything through before moving ‘building’ on what we’ve already done or accomplished. Given that stations get (at least) a 2-day allowance before and after, that means that this station begins on June 10th (maybe even June 9th, particularly given time zone considerations) and ends on June 14/15.

And since the ‘going into’ this moment is colored by Orpheus and Medusa passing over 29 Pisces and Scheat…and the ‘coming out’ of this station has Medusa and Orpheus both reaching 0 Aries, this is definitely about our Self.

So who do you need to be in order to be successful in your own life - or a success in this life? What do you need to do or how do you need to do it in order to be both aware of owning/using your own talents and truths and doing not just what is easy but hard for you to do regardless of what others think?

That this is happening as Mercury has just moved into the shadow of its upcoming retrograde says that these questions are probably not general. There is something ‘on the table’ which needs to be ‘built up’ so that you have something to ‘stand on’ that you yourself have created. It could be large, or this could be small.

What’s important is that it’s yours – and that it represents your abilities, probably inclusive of the costs involved.
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