Dateblog: October 2013

See all the red in this month's diagram? That represents Scorpio. And Scorpio is the sign which represents everything in and about life which tests our security and sense of satisfaction...and which gets us to dealing with whatever we need to do in order to increase same - or cope with threats. Or at least what we perceive as threats.

(And yes, Scorpio is rightfully famous for getting us to imagine threats where there are none and for being the sign of overreacting as often as the sign of denial).

The 'famous' triad of issues Scorpio is rightly known for is: money, sex and power. And yes, they are all Scorpionic in the sense that these are issues which can provoke emotionality and/or which test our emotional stability - particularly as that pertains to how well we know our own ability to tolerate emotionality...or to survive emotionality and learn a good deal in the process.

So to say Scorpio is just 'money, sex and power' is pretty matter-of fact. Even rather bland. UNTIL they become a matter between me and thee, that is. (Or you and anyone else, of course!)

In all things Scorpio, it is the interaction which puts something at risk. Sometimes the risk is real and physical – as in surgery. (Yes, surgery is a Scorpio ‘operation,’ if you will.) (Bad puns rule!) But sometimes Scorpio risks are simply about embarrassment. Or ‘saving face,’ as it’s translated from the Japanese culture. In Scorpio we risk rejection. We risk being vulnerable – whether physically, financially, emotionally or any other way.

Of course the instinct is to try to control those risks. But that’s what Scorpio is all about: learning what needs to be controlled, what needs to be avoided, and what is simply a pea-brained choice on your part.

Or an insecurity which you really would do well to think through and own rather more than you do already, perhaps.

As the New Moon in Libra rolls through on October 5^th, Scorpio Venusian-ness hits full tilt and we find out what works, what doesn’t work – and maybe that we’re just appealing to the wrong person for the wrong thing (or wrong reason, take your pick!). And interactions don’t stop there. With the Sun in Libra, Mercury in Scorpio and Venus in Sagittarius there’s a lot of energy going into finding out how to make things work.

But there is a fly in the ointment. It’s name is Mars in Leo. As October starts, Mars is moving into Leo’s third and most worldly decanate. It’s time to let go and see how far your wings will carry you! It’s also the point at which you may get shot down. And let’s face it, nobody likes getting shot down!

This gets into that ‘fixed sign’ thing. Leo and Scorpio are both fixed signs. But where Scorpio tests our ability (and willingness) to risk our feelings in a more or less personal setting where we choose who to interact with and what the stakes really are, Leo calls for a more global release into a theoretical marketplace which is far less personal…until you get shot down, that is.

And of course, all of this is happening in the weeks leading towards a November Solar Eclipse. In what sign?

Oh yes...Scorpio!

But before we even get that far, there’s going to be a Lunar Eclipse at 25 Aries. Occurring on October 18^th, this is a high spirited time which functions on both the ‘cause’ and ‘effect side of the coin. That which we are or have done may shine. That which we have done and not done all that well…those dirty little pigeons may come home at this point to do a little roosting. (Not roasting, roosting!)

For good or ill, by the time that happens Mars will have moved on from Leo into Virgo, meaning emotions are far more likely to froth sans the cappuccino prior to the lunar eclipse than after. Mars in Virgo tends to be rather pragmatic – and that may well have be needed, as the week prior to the Aries Lunar Eclipse is going to be not just the final huzzah of Mars in Leo but also part of Mercury’s run-up to retrograde.

The net of all this is that the middle of October is going to be an intense time for everyone. Even if you’re playing it cool floating in a pool, things and people around you and in lifeare bound to make a few waves.

It’s just the nature of the time.

In the wake of the lunar eclipse, feelings of urgency and fervency will subside a little bit. But the end of October? With the Sun moving into Scorpio on October 23^rd (or late on the 22^nd for those in the Americas or eastern Pacific basin) …and with Mercury already retrograde? This is a recipe which can cook up some very intense thoughts – and the notions that certain decisions have to be made and acted on.

But not yet. When under Mercury retrograde, the ‘rule’ is that we don’t start anything new – and that we need to really think things through before letting go of something old.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone if given the impending Solar Eclipse the temptation, the urge, the desire to get past something or to be free of something overwhelms some of us…but if that happens, what you (or whoever does something) thinks will result aren’t likely to work out quite as expected.

There’s a lot of karmic pressure going around as October ends. It may surface in your life as emotionality, as financial issues, as matters which concern power or control – even the need to make some serious changes.

You just don’t know everything yet.

Most astrologers under most circumstances would say “wait.” But considering that November’s eclipse is going to occur under Mercury retrograde, the whole process of changing your mind or changing your mental perspective (or your ability or willingness to so that) may well be exactly what’s being called for. If your natal chart is being aspected with any exactness by 11 Scorpio (the degree of the eclipse) the very nature of what you think and how you think about something…even everything…may well be on the table.

It’s to think about.

DEGREES MOST DIRECTLY AFFECTED BY THE NOVEMBER 3^RD SOLAR ECLIPSE: 

The Challenging Aspects:
6 through 16 degrees of Scorpio, Taurus, Leo or Aquarius
9 through 13 degrees of Libra, Sagittarius, Gemini or Aries

The Opportunity Aspects:
8 through 14 degrees of Capricorn or Virgo 

Aspects indicating Transformations of Ongoing Dynamics:
6 through 16 degrees of Cancer or Pisces
.
.
.

Mercury in Scorpio

The Perseus Nebula is about 1043 light years from Earth.

(photo credit: Spitzer Space Telescope - NASA JPL, Caltech,

L Cieza/University of Texas, Austin, October 2006)

.

When Mercury enters Scorpio on September 29th at 11:29 in the morning (UT/+0 time) it will be adding what we might think of as another ‘layer’ to the intensity and complexity of everything which is already going on in life. We’re all doing some ‘testing of the waters’ and we’re all experiencing some form of being tested.

Venus is already in Scorpio – and Venus will remain in Scorpio until October 7th. That means our desire quotient is more insistent than usual and now our thoughts are coming to bear on how we can have what we want…or…wait, is that really what I want?

This is the inward-versus-outward sort of effect this Venus/Mercury combination can truly have. And as we feel ourselves moving back and forth and back and forth between our personal yes-no-yes-no of wanting and realizing no, maybe I don’t want that, we’re all going to get a bit dizzied. Or maybe confused. And yes, certainly frustrated. After all, with the current Sun in Libra there’s some underlying sense that we should be able to make this work…and when it doesn’t work – or if someone disagrees with us or even causes us to feel like we’re being frowned upon, we’re likely to get all out of hand.

We think it’s them. It’s not. The weeks…no, actually the months ahead of Mercury in Scorpio are NOT about them. They’re about us. They’re about our ability to understand why we want what we want and why it’s so hard to change what we want even when it doesn’t work for us.

Even when it’s bad for us.

Even when it’s self destructive to want it or go after it.

Before I go any farther, I want to explain what I said back in that last paragraph about Mercury’s lengthy stay in Scorpio, because this is going to be a doozie of a traverse. Mercury enters Scorpio on the 29th, as stated. Then on October 1st, Mercury will cross the “invisible line” into the shadow of it’s upcoming retrograde. 

,
Yes, you heard me…Mercury is going to go retrograde in Scorpio. By the time it gets to doing that, it will have moved all the way up into Scorpio’s high ‘teen degrees – which is the most intense of this seriously fixed water sign.

Call it intensity intensified, and you just about have it. Just remember we’re talking about our mental attributes, our focus…and in particular, the emotionality we bring to any subject.

This is high stakes mentality we’re talking about. And let’s not forget that by nature Scorpio is an interactive sign – and that applies whether you’re interacting, or whether you’re totally anti-interactive. All signs have polarities and hardly anything is thought of as more polarizing than Scorpio, a sign which represents everything which can scare us out of out of our wits not necessarily because the thing itself is scary, but because the feelings we bring to the situation, to the transaction, to the event, to that moment when we face the music (so to speak) are scary to us because they mean so much to us.

Yes, Scorpio is the sign of war and conception and death. But Scorpio is as much a sign about reclamation as it is about destruction – so why do we all get the jitters when something Scorpio comes up?

Answer: because Scorpio anything is about letting go of control. Yes, you can try to control things – you can pick the finest surgery for the operation, you can build the very best weapons and supply the largest army the world has ever seen. You can discuss an investment and read up on market theory and prospectuses on the company and on and on and on.

But when it comes to Scorpio, there is a moment when you have to let go…or when by the very nature of the act or situation, things become unpredictable. They may go exactly as you predict. Then again, they may not. And it’s that exact Scorpio quality which gives us the queasiness, the nervous twitch, the moment of ‘what if’ which is so very, very Scorpio.

Mind you, Scorpio is also very tough. This is a sign about survival so while the prep and wariness goes on you will also feel yourself prepared to endure no matter what. In spite of anything. Scorpio fires our survival instincts like nobody’s business and that’s all well and good.

And that’s pretty much the point: the fear, the positioning, the shyness, the lust, the desire to win, the craving to control or not to have to be in control…all those Scorpio things are good OR bad depending on where we are with ourselves on our ability to survive.

Sometimes yes, this is physical survival. But most of the time, transits of Scorpio are about emotional survival, the making ourselves make it through no matter what comes along.

And let’s be real – there’s a lot of Scorpio action already in progress. We discussed Venus and that’s one part of the puzzle. But Saturn is also transiting Scorpio, and that’s a sure-fired signal that there’s a lot of important growth going on. There’s a lot to be done, and as much as our inner twinge might get to us, we know there are responsibilities we really have to be dealing with.

So in light of that…how much risk will we take?

The Nodes are counting down through Saturn’s first decanate degrees like some sort of space launch countdown. As Mercury enters Scorpio the North Node is at 8, and 8 Scorpio is a degree known for emotional glitches and our ability to outsmart ourselves through our very cleverness. Since the North Node is about relationships and how we need to pay attention, we can hope that the first few days of Mercury in Scorpio will have us focused on those areas where our attentiveness can do us the most good.

I just wouldn’t count on it. Yes, we can insist of ourselves that we do the right thing and in particular, do that Scorpio Thing and not assume we know what’s best for everyone without asking. Scorpio is a sign where we would like to impose our will simply because our emotionality is so strong it feels like invalidation to have to change.

Within a day of Mercury entering its shadow, the Nodes will move back a degree into 7 Scorpio – a degree noted for an indescribable and mysterious strength which appears either as charismatic...or an “alternative”…or even a "rebellious" form. With the North Node resting in this degree for the rest of October, the balance of Mercury’s transit of Scorpio (which is mysterious enough!) is going to like as not be an ocean of wanting to know what is best, wanting to know which is the right choice and wanting to both seize our power and not have to be in charge perhaps at all.

Once Venus moves in Sagittarius on October 7th the sense of what we just might be able to do lightens and brightens. We may not understand everything yet…but we’re likely to find the right questions to ask – and quite possibly the right person to pose those questions to. Providing we don’t get overly pushing about things, there’s good progress to be made in the week or so before Mercury reaches its station/retrograde point (on October 21st) but that ‘don’t push’ is going to push us – and our “buttons” pretty hard!

Pragmatism settles in as Mars hits Virgo on October 15th, at which point one of several things is highly like to be true. Some of us will be in the ‘slow and steady wins the race’ mode. But others of us are definitely going to be feeling stymied and stuck. You may not have the answer or enough information yet (which is very common just prior to a Mercury station)…or you may just not have the courage to decide something – most likely because you know your decision either means you’re ‘risking’ something…or because you out-and-out know that to decide in ‘this’ direction means ‘that’ will happen, but deciding in favor of ‘that’ means something else will happen.

Yes, this would be one of those ‘can’t I have my cake and eat it too?’ sorts of moments. And there is some chance that you might be able to have and eat cake, but you’ll never know unless you commit to one thing or another. And there is that pesky niggling point about how if you thought you were in trouble and it turns out you were simply driving yourself nuts, that’s a whole other brand of being wrong.

In other words…why DID you get so cornfuzzled? What in your psyche caused you to be fear driven? Where did you learn – and through what did you learn – to be so scared of being wrong about anything that dealing with that fact can freeze you in your tracks and lead to even more consequential results?

Ah yes…our mental life is such fun, isn’t it? And with a quick ‘don’t throw anything at me, please…’ the next item up for grabs is a Lunar Eclipse – this one being at 25 Aries on October 18th.

Can you say “wild card”? This is definitely a celestial wild card…with the emphasis on the ‘wild’ side. The nuances of the eclipse itself will be discussed a bit down the road, but just the fact that it is occurring with the Sun in the sign ‘behind’ that Mercury is in puts the Moon (our feeling self and sense of ‘how things are at the moment) in an 8th sign harmonic TO Mercury (below, in yellow) and a 6th sign harmonic FROM Mercury (below, in red).

And that makes the period going into and around the time of Mercury October 21st station/retrograde point a power struggle. Many of us will experience our struggles with something which has to do with what we’re working towards (i.e., that which will afford us the ability or power to move forward in our lives) while others of us struggle with someone…as still others of us struggle with our Self, trying to understand or become better aligned to being the person we know we need to be but have some problem with being.

Make no mistake: this is an intensely provocative moment. But what it’s intended to provoke is not some full scale war, but an awareness of what it means to be in interaction with other people. Or working with other people. Or just being on the planet with 7 billion-plus other people.

Once the Sun moves into Scorpio early on the 23rd (UT/+0 time) the reconciling of our mentality to reality (or to realities) begins in earnest. Life will present us with pressing situations which need negotiating in or carefully negotiating through and woe be to those of us who simply think we can stonewall life.

Yes, you may (MAY mind you!) be able to forestall effects for the moment. But not forever. And those who do evade, avoid or postpone the reality are going to earn what we might negative karmic points… which is a fancy way of saying dealing with whatever is not being owned now later on is going to cost you ever so much more.

And we ain’t just talking money here, buck-os!

So the solar eclipse rolls through on November 3rd, then Jupiter (still in Cancer) goes retrograde on November 7th, doing so at a degree which will trine Mercury’s station/retrograde point.

Not that Mercury will still be lurking there, no. But this should be taken as life’s way of ‘holding us to some point’ and making us mind whatever process is going on.

Or maybe we’ll just mind it a lot, if you take me.

Either way, that Jupiter trines Mercury’s station degree is sort of a la-dee-dah celestial way of saying ‘you thought this was going to be easy? Maybe not!’ which rather goes along with Mercury’s being in retrograde since hardly anything ever gets ‘settled’ under Mercury retrograde.

Then…at last…Mercury goes direct and by Wednesday November 27th, Mercury clears it’s shadow and goes toodling on about its Mercurial business just in time for retailers in the US to do  their boombox holiday business and for lots and lots of people to be traveling not just on Thanksgiving here in America, but throughout the world over the holidays as the Sun heads into Sagittarius on November 22nd (UT/+0 time) and life carries on.

But probably not as it was. Not quite. Between the Solar Eclipse in Scorpio and this rather long Mercury (aka Mercurial) transit of Scorpio, by the time December 5th rolls around and Mercury follows the Sun into Sagittarius, a lot of us will have found out a whole lot more about who we are – and in particular, how well our ‘who we are’ quotient functions when it comes to making decisions, creating alliances and…to paraphrase a well known line, how well we do unto others, since between the things which go into how we do unto them and how where we stand with ourselves determines who we do what unto…how well all of that is working.

Here’s to our recognizing our errant ways – and to the courage and fortitude it not only takes to change us, but to go back and make amends with whoever we might have treated rather badly along the way.

They say ‘to err is human…to forgive, divine.’ Too often we tend to think that’s about forgiving ourselves and just moving on. But where Scorpio is concerned…or I should say especially where Scorpio is concerned (not that anything is scot-free under any other sign) the interactive nature of the energetic requires that we purify ourselves and then connect (or reconnect) and purify that connection. 

Or the process of connecting.

If you’re familiar with Tantra, this is akin to Tantric liberation. Tantra is not just about sex, though many think of it that way. Tantra and Tantric processes are about harmonic alignments and the ‘fine tuning’ of our beings which, through the accessing of our energetics and the matching of what we might call a ‘vibrational frequencies’ allow us to dissolve barriers which lie within us - and between our Self and another (Tantric sex or intimate Tantric unity) - and between our Self and our world.

Seen in this light, the universality of Tantra is very much akin to the universality of the unbounded whole which is Pisces.

Thus because Scorpio as our depth of emotional experience is found as a 9th harmonic – the sign through which we learn or expand our horizons – from Pisces…it is through this that we come to understand that the ‘alliance’ which allows us to access or unlock our Tantric Self and our Tantric experiences with others (which would include our fullest expanse of Scorpio power and personal transformation and transformative experience) is initiated through a “Libran” pathway which requires openness of our Self and to our Self. It requires not the ‘appearance’ of beauty but the willingness to be beautiful in the integrity of our being…which coming from Pisces includes the admission of our fears, our flaws and our humanity.

Scorpio has always been seen as the sign of that power which allows us to understand and reclaim our inner sense of vibrant being. While Mercury is traversing Scorpio during these days of an unfolding solar eclipse cycle, we have a singular opportunity to see without and look within…and thus find that we need to know in order to empower our moving on into greater growth.
.
.
.

A Pause to Reflect

One from the famous 'The Blue Marble' series of photographs taken

of Earth while the Apollo 17 mission was on its way to the Moon

(photo credit: NASA)

 

Though we're not yet half way into the eclipse season, seeing as there was nothing new and entirely 'major' on the celestial horizon I thought this would be a good moment to post this link.

- link -

Carl Sagan: The Pale Blue Dot

'The Pale Blue Dot' is an iconic piece of video. It makes the rounds of the internet now and again and this time showed up in my email box courtesy of a friend in the UK who had received it as a thoughtful sort of way of celebrating the fact that as of about a month ago, NASA's Voyager spacecraft has left our solar system.

One thousand five hundred and ninety pounds (722 kg) of Earth's essence is on its way to somewhere else. It will take thousands of years to get there and by that time human beings will have surely figured out how to traverse space in a far more effective manner than we do now.

If we haven't killed each other off, that is.

And that brings me back to Sagan's quiet if touching commentary on what it means to be a human being living on our Earth.

If you haven't ever seen the video, it's a couple of minutes long and well worth it. The link is of the Youtube variety, so you'll be able to skip the ad about 10 seconds after it starts.

After that, what enters your mind and soul is all about you.

.

.

.

Sun in Libra / Juno Direct: Our Need to Be Who We Are

Saules Sonata Scherzo (Sonata of Sun)

by Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1907)

The Sun will enter Libra on September 22nd at 8:45 in the evening, UT/+0 time. Two days later, asteroid Juno will go direct at 3 Aquarius.

The Sun’s Libra ingress is one of the two days a year when day and night are in ‘balance’ - hence the idea of Libra as the scales. We tend to think of this as a time of equilibrium…but this astrologer isn’t quite sure that’s how this year’s Libra equinox is going to manifest.

For one (yes, you know what I’m going to say)…we’re in the ‘break down’ period preceding a Scorpio Solar Eclipse. So anywhere where our willingness or ability to ‘negotiate’ life’s waters – particularly in areas where emotions are either on the table or to be evoked (or provoked) – life is going to push our buttons. We’re going to meet up with things which test our inner willingness to be straight with ourselves.

In other words, are we in balance with our Self? Is what we are doing true to our nature or are our ways of coping or operating ‘out of balance’ with what we really want out of life? Are we even capable (emotionally, as in Scorpionically) of facing, dealing with or risking what it would take to get into balance with ourselves and thus have the life we want to have?

0 Libra is what it is – the point where our inner world meets the outer world and we begin to experience life as a process we do not wholly own or have the ability to work on. What we do, what we are, what we put out there, what we say or don’t say – all those things generate life’s response. And the response of people and entities and whatnot in our life.

There’s also the fact that supermassive black hole M87 sits just inside the cusp of Libra. Black holes are the ‘looking glass’ entities of astrology: whatever is going on, we either see, begin to understand – or get hit with ‘the alternative’ experience. M87 is a black hole which is about our relationship to another…and carries with it all the images of ‘fantasy love’ which go with that concept. The early degrees of Libra are all about self-and-others, making this a time when we’re ripe for projecting some image we want to project (which can be useful, say, in business or the creative arts) and at some level wonderful if we want to ‘enchant’ someone in particular.

You know…that ‘let me just Venus myself right into your world’ thing.

But this isn’t hard core reality. It always pays to remember that Libra is about the (air sign) idea of the thing, not the concrete (earth sign) reality of the thing. Heck, it’s not even about the (water sign) feelings the thing can evoke. We think of Libra as love because we like the idea of love. But Libra isn’t love per se – although at its best Libra is about the care and the caring which we exhibit when we love someone. The Venusian ‘Aphrodite’ ‘how pretty it looks’ thing which is so popularly associated with Libra is fine if you’re just looking…and MAYBE fine if you’re buying…but this is the district of the zodiac definitely marked ‘caveat emptor’: buyer beware.

UNFORTUNATELY…for some this will now be too late. How do we know that? We know that because this ingress comes equipped with a grand sextile to call it’s own.

The above is a confusing sort of drawing, I know – and yes, I’ll explain in a moment. In part it’s a definite case of astrologer-versus-Microsoft Powerpoint. But beyond that, it’s also a fact that when you look at real charts they aren’t always so ‘perfect looking.’ Because sometimes houses are small and sometimes they’re big (unless you’re casting a chart in an Equal house or Aries wheel format) we do get these out-of-kilter images.

Anyway…the point here is that this grand sextile is yet another in a long series which on a metaphysical level seems to have been set off by Sedna’s turn to retrograde back on August 25

- link to-

Sedna’s Station as Grand Sextile Herald

All of these grand sextiles have been posed as earth against water, offering us the opportunity to understand our feeling selves at an ever deeper and more realistic level while bringing to us situations which stir our emotions precisely because reality is at stake. This can be financial or familial, This can be a matter of traditions, culture or some image you’ve been carrying around in the back pocket of your brain about ‘how life is going to be’ when that may not be the way life really works at all.

That the water side of this grand sextile is composed of Saturn/North Node plus Chiron plus Black Moon Lilith is a whole litany about what we need to learn by doing and why it’s better to decide for yourself who you are whether or not others – be that your peer group or society or your culture or your family – likes it or not.

The rationale here is posed by the earth side of this proposal – the reality of how your life can change or be drastically changed by realities which come upon us.

If you’re anyone who has been through something in your life which a moment (or hour or day or whatever) later you said ‘oh, how I wish I could take that back!’ …or do that over again, this series of grand sextiles is all about that sort of reality. It’s about knowing who you are way deep down inside because no matter what you feel about someone else (which would be a Libra-Scorpio thing) and no matter what someone else or ‘society’ wants to think of you as (the Libra-Scorpio experience as thrust upon you) …in the end, we all need to live with ourselves. We need to be okay with what our life is and has become.

And that means sometimes we have to cope with a difficult situation – a feeling we don’t want to have, a reality we can’t afford to face (for whatever reason). Maybe we’re not ready to do something. Maybe we aren’t even sure of who we are or how we feel about something yet.

The Libra balance here is between the ‘what we know’ and what we don’t know or aren’t sure about yet. In all such cases, it is up to us to manage ourselves.

And how do we know that? We know that because Juno is going direct. Known as the ‘keeper of the hearth’ and defender of the household, Juno has long been thought of in connection with wives and motherhood and matriarchs and all that sort of thing.

But astrology is personal. The ‘position’ or symbol someone may seem to have in a worldly sense is just one part of astrological imagery, and in the world of western (Tropical) astrology, probably the secondary form of said dynamic.

The first image for anything astrological in the western teaching is about US. It’s ALL us, because its OUR nativity and these are energetics which are manifesting as waves of time/space in OUR lives and affecting what WE do or don’t do, what WE EACH need to confront and how we will pursue our lives as individuals.

And at that level, Juno is all about ‘managing our individual household’…which is to say, managing our individuality. Or to put it another way, Juno is self discipline. Juno is the ability to know ourselves and to keep ourselves in ‘order.’ It’s about protecting the hearth of our being – our sense of safety and security…and to the extent that we live a life which is not defined by us, but by someone else or some societal or cultural force…that’s where Juno issues surface.

If you don’t know by now, I’m a somewhat counter-cultural person. For all that I’m very into human standards, I don’t tend to hold a standard vision of what’s “right” and “wrong” apart from the obvious: killing people is bad, pedophilia is bad, rape is bad – all those things are the obvious. But apart from that, I’m not much for traditions as a guideline. If they fit you because that’s who you are, fine. But if they don’t, the need to be who you are – providing that doesn’t interfere with someone else’s need to be who THEY are – is generally, to my thinking, the optimal choice.

From there, let me just say that being an astrologer for plural decades will get you to consider all sorts of different walks of life. If you’re a professional, you’re going to see and hear about it all, either from clients or when you’re hobnobbing with other professionals.

Lets face it…astrology itself is still pretty ‘not so mainstream.’ But it’s getting there. Twenty years ago western medicine was anti-acupuncture and chiropractic. Today, both are pretty well accepted and well on their way to being mainstream.

In part, this goes to speak to exactly what Juno is: the minding of our individuality at a level which says ‘I need to be who I need to be, whether or not society understands this yet.’ Valid is valid. Real is real. Thirty years ago most gays were in the closet. Now in a lot of places they’re able to get married just like anybody else. This ‘de-genderizing’ of partners is part of the incoming Aquarian Age, and who better than Gen X (the Pluto in Libra tribe, which represent an evolutionary trine to the Age) to usher in such things. Another form of wiping out the old was the Gen X ‘friends with benefits’ routine. And it was when the front end of Gen X started coming of age that we saw the whole matter of interracial marriage sort of fade away as a question. Between Gen X and Gen Y, give it a couple of decades more and it’s highly likely that the ages old ‘he’s older/she’s younger’ thing with regards to marriage and marriage partners is also going to go by the wayside.

Granted, there are always some people who will remain rigid traditionalists. Populations are their own bell curves and while some are at the front breaking ice, others are at the tail end being sticks in the mud.

So where was I going with this whole ‘traditional/non-traditional’ thing? I was going to tell you something about Juno. Never let it be said that I don’t live up (and down) to my chart’s native abilities: my Saturn/Moon in Scorpio plus a Sagittarian Mars in the highly emotional (and intimate) 8th house has pushed my astrological research in a couple of different directions. One is business – specifically business products and the success and timing of that.

The other…(have you not guessed yet?) is sexuality. Specifically, “non-traditional sexuality” – from fetishes to S&M to D/s (Dominance and submission) to polyamory, you name it.

And yes, it’s really interesting. (Did you think otherwise?)

Anyway...the point about this for today is that wherever we go in this non-alternative lifestyle thing, Juno plays a part. Juno represents our ability to govern ourselves just as much as Juno represents the ability to know who we are…and to manage that in a real life, real time, realistic way.

So with all that said, Juno’s opposition to dispassionate Pallas (the intellectual wisdom symbol) suggests there is a real need to see things for what they are at this time. There’s a need to know ourselves during these days going into the Sun’s Libra ingress and coming out of it.

Remember, planets and asteroids et al get ‘station window allowances.’ So that Juno is going direct two days after the Sun enters Libra says that Juno’s station begins AT the solar Libra ingress…which will have the Sun setting off that M87 ‘alternative’ quotient (which in your life can mean any of a million-zillion “non-traditional” things) as Juno goes direct.

And let's not ignore the fact that Juno's station is not just in opposition to Pallas but also in square to the (relationship oriented) Nodes. Just that gives the very difficult, very challenging image of a grand square, one which in this case is being presented in fixed signs.

PLUS that Nodal axis...that Nodal axis is where the grand square and grand sextile intersect.

 Juno as pictured in a detail from 'The Origin of the Milky Way'

by Tintoretto (c 1575, oil on canvas, National Gallery)

This marks these days as a period when it's hard to understand the full parameters of things, when stress may run exceptionally high, when your aims and those of other people are likely to be at odds...it's just a tough moment.

Then we get to the degree of Juno's station, which pretty much echoes this whole energetic. Juno is going direct at 3 Aquarius, a degree which is all about how hard it is to get where you really want to go. This degree stresses the fact that life is not all lollypops and cuddles. In fact, it’s more along that line I like to quote from the masterful writer Kahil Gibran: “out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.”

To be complete here, this degree is known for the loss of loved ones – which is interesting indeed at a moment when the Sun is entering Libra, a sign all about relationship. Probably less likely (but still informational) is that 3 Aquarius has a reputation for things having to do with legs (and which relates to the metaphysical ability to 'get to where I want to go') and in a more general sense, accidents.

No, the nature of those 'accidents' isn't defined. They could involve anything...and that's the BIG 'anything.'

And with all this happening in that ultra-vibrational period prior to a Solar Eclipse?

Let’s not forget that Pluto has also just gone direct, which makes this whole event sound a bit like a cosmic recipe, and thus fertile ground for that ultimately useful saying coined by honcho astrologer (and nice guy) Robert Hand: use the energy wisely, lest it use you unwisely.

So…what will you ‘make’ of your life now? Or will life be making you over without your (conscious) consent? Will your life be ruled by your compulsions or are you willing to see things as they are in reality and deal with what we might want to be true, separating that off from what the truth really is?

One of the things about Scorpio is that good or bad, it’s effects tend to stay with us. And part of Scorpio’s fame (and that delicious shudder we all grin guiltily at when the subject of Scorpio comes up) is that there is part of all of us which is attracted to dangerous things.

Why is that? That’s because life wants us to learn what we can survive…and what we can’t live with. With the Sun moving into Libra, we are all going to feel a further ‘ratcheting up’ of pre-eclipse effects. The stakes are getting higher and they are specifically now focused on relationships, whether we relate to others truthfully for our own and their parts…and whether we know who the fern we are to be putting ourselves out there.

The less we know, the more afraid we are, the more unwilling we are to be honest, the more difficult life will tend to be. Because there is a grand sextile associated with this ingress with the Sun moving into the cause-becomes-effect sign of Libra, this would be a classic time to ‘get the news.’

Then again, it may well be a time when you let go of all ‘that’ and all the old presumptions in an effort to…

…well, that would be the question: are you trying to live your mask? Or are you willing to get psychically naked and be who you really are?

The former…inevitably…leads to self-imprisonment, which in this moment would be your handing your Juno power to someone else. The latter? Well, ultimately, knowing and being who we are is our path to personal freedom. Not everyone will like our choices, but they will – to the degree that they respect themselves for their own honesty – be able to respect us in turn.

Which is what we need for ourselves...and that which is like as not now in the forefront of our needs.
.
.
.

In our Facies: Upton Sinclair

Upton Sinclair in 1906

(photo originally published by the New York World Telegram

and Sun Newspaper Photo - courtesy of the Library of Congress collection)

If you don’t know who Upton Sinclair is, I’m not sure if I’m sorry…or if I think you’re lucky. I met up with his name in middle school, and have been flinching ever since.

The man Upton Sinclair was born on February 20, 1878 – which makes his birthday the same day as that when Pluto will go station/direct here in 2013.

Here’s his chart:

Upton Sinclair

born September 20 1878 - 9:00 a.m. (+5-06-27) - Baltimore MD

With the South Node in Leo, this would be an opinionated man. In fact, with that South Node conjunct the Midheaven in Leo, and with Leo’s rulership by the Sun pointing us to a Sun conjunct Mars in the 11th house, having his say in a big way was Upton’s forte.

Which indeed it was. Author, political activist and general rabble rouser of his time, Upton Sinclair had a way of getting under people’s skin. He was roundly hated by many (including a couple of Presidents of the United States) for his inability to stay quiet whenever he found something going on he thought was terribly wrong.

And seeing how back in Upton’s day, Facies was at 6 Capricorn – that puts Facies, a snarky little nebula if there ever was one – conjunct his 3rd house cusp.

Upton Sinclair - natal chart detail

 

And since the 3rd house is always the house of mentality and communication, and since Facies is known to torment us as much as we torment others because we feel so tormented, we can bet that Upton Sinclair felt tormented by what he saw going on in his world – and hence why he tormented others.

A friend of mine refers to this as ‘sharing’…which only goes to show that sharing is not always about sharing the good stuff. When we feel tormented or upset or hurt or maltreated, we share our displeasure. We share our anger. We share our negativity.

In the metaphysical sense, we’re stirring the pot. At the very least we’re trying to let someone else know that their right to swing their arms ends about the time they punch us in the nose (or some other place which is equally if not more painful).

Sinclair was a man who wanted to get things done. Sun conjunct Mars in the 3rd ten degrees of Virgo said he saw things being (Virgo) done wrong and the placement in the 11th house says this was on a societal level.

The opposition to Saturn at 29 Pisces just helped things along. Yes, he felt it ‘critical’ to do something about it. Any time we see anything at 29 degrees of any sign there’s an emphasis, a focus, a ‘need’ to attend to whatever that symbolism speaks to. In Upton’s case, there were three modifiers – besides the opposition, I mean. His Saturn (an indication of career and business) was conjunct Agamemnon, indicating a stubborn tenacity…conjunct fixed star Scheat, a quotient which is always all about what we or others don’t want to look at or accept as the truth…and our not-so-good, good friend Sedna, the emblem of ‘take your blinders off, and stop thinking in those rose petal terms. If you keep on like you’re doing, in the end the person you’re going to hurt worse is going to be yourself or someone you love.’

-link to-

The Sedna Conflict

There are lots of other things we could say about Upton Sinclair as a man who wanted to get the word out. Certainly his Moon at 7 Cancer in the 9th house was all about how society functions and letting his feelings be known. Conjunct Vesta, he was all about the cost of what we do…and what we don’t do.

Chiron at 7 Taurus sitting atop the Descendant and conjunct Neptune and Ceres would basically describe Upton Sinclair as someone who didn’t have any ‘plan’ about how he was going to take others on, he just knew when he had to say something…and when we flip this around, he was pretty much saying ‘you may not have thought about having a plan about dealing with what’s wrong about what’s going on, but you probably should get one.’

Like I say, he was a real sharing kind of guy.

So why did knowing who Upton Sinclair queeze me out back when I was in middle school? That’s because my class was required to read one of his many (many) books – a rather notorious book called “The Jungle.”

"The Jungle" - 1st edition cover

 

I thought it a pretty horrifying book. Why? Well, “The Jungle” is all about big business of its day and is focused on the meat slaughtering business. And maybe it’s because I read this book as an early-mid teen, or maybe it’s because I went through a deal of violence as a child…but were author Jack London (“Call of the Wild,” “Valley of the Moon,” “White Fang,” etc.) thought “The Jungle” was about the corruption of people in power sort of on that ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’ sort of level and the evils of what he referred to as ‘wage slavery,’ I thought of “The Jungle” as a litany of mankind’s inhumanity not just to man, but to the creatures of this earth.

To me, “The Jungle” was all about just how callous and uncaring we can be as people. It was about how easy it is to wrap ourselves in the righteous garb of institutional processes and ‘that’s just the way we do it’ without regard to the fact that real lives – and life – is at stake.

“The Jungle” was released on February 26, 1906. Here’s the chart:

Publication chart for "The Jungle" by Upton Sinclair

Release date: February 26, 1906 

28 degrees of Gemini rising puts Betelgeuse (then at 27 Gemini) right behind the Ascendant. The book is thus all about that Betelgeuse thing of doing what comes easily.

And plainly, writing about societal ills came pretty easily to Sinclair. I’ve recently begun studying asteroid Lucifer, and after a first round of examination, the point seems not to be about “Satan” per se, but how ‘bedeviled’ we can be, or how ‘devilish’ we can be with regards to others…and in a greater sense how ‘the devil is in the details.’

With Upton Sinclair, the devil was plainly in the details and with his Lucifer conjunct Betelgeuse in his ‘let’s discuss this’ Gemini 8th house of power and how we negotiate, clearly Upton Sinclair saw his ability to write a way to force people’s hands.

Which he did. When “The Jungle” came out, many – including President Roosevelt – called Sinclair a crackpot. But after reading it, Roosevelt moderated his stance, saying that the book had a lot of valid points.

Apparently so. After publication of “The Jungle” a lot of ‘sanitizing efforts’ went towards the meat packing business from top to bottom. Corruption in the business also got taken on – and spread to other businesses.

Looking at the book publication chart, it’s Midheaven (it’s “public point,” if you will) is at 4 Pisces – which at the time was the position of Hidalgo (protocols or the manner in which something is done) and Eurydike – the emblem of understanding the cost. With the Sun plus dispassionate Pallas united at 7 Pisces it’s not surprising that “The Jungle” would be something which dispassionately…some might say even coolly…discussed something so vital, so venial, so…whether you’re talking about how people or animals were treated…so very emotionally disturbing.

Today Fomalhaut, the royal fixed star which warns us that success comes only when our ‘dreams’ (aims) are not corrupted – whether by means dark or rose colored – Fomalhaut is sitting at 4 Pisces. 

And Neptune is conjuncting it.

- link to -

The Royal Stars of Persia (Part Four): Fomalhaut

A lot of us are dealing with dreams which are coming to nothing and our desire to ignore or not feel feelings which are difficult to manage.
But we need to.

Meanwhile, Pluto is going direct as this post hits the blog, and it’s doing so at 8 Capricorn, conjunct the Uranus end of the book’s Uranus-Neptune and conjunct Sinclair’s 3rd house cusp, setting off his Facies/Moon opposition.

We are all of us facing various forms of wanting to ignore and wanting to simply ‘go along to get along’ and feeling like victims while ‘sharing’ our hurts. Escapism is bigger than ever and so is the wholesale abuse of power. “Wage slavery” as Jack London termed it, is back in vogue and again crushing the life out of countless lives, thus undermining the riches of all for the purpose of a few who think their domination can last.

Life simply doesn’t work that way. When that which ‘nourishes’ us – be it food or income or the ‘milk of human kindness’ is tainted, so our world becomes tainted too.

That was Upton Sinclair’s ultimate message in much of what he wrote.

Metaphysically, the timing of his birthday would seem to suggest we need to ‘clean up our act.’ We need to care less about the end product and more about the process. The idea of Pluto going station-direct atop Facies is shown ably by this combination of charts. But in our lives…in our individual lives, it has more to do with where early Capricorn is in your natal chart by house – and whether anything is pictured there. It has to do with where your Pluto is located natally, and the distance from there to early Capricorn.

*****************************

For those born under Pluto in Cancer (roughly 1914 – 1938), this is an opposition. It’s time to let go of the old and face what is yet left to do. Take it easy…fighting won’t help and by now you have the wisdom to know better.

For Baby Boomers born under Pluto in Leo (roughly 1939 – 1958), this is an inconjunct. It’s time to do what you need to do in order to become the person you know you should be…not the person its necessarily easy to be. Try to share judiciously, but don’t shut up. Where wrong is wrong, you need to make it right, whether that’s in your own life or in the greater world around you.

For Yuppies born under Pluto in Virgo (roughly 1958 – 1972) this station activates trine energy. Quality, not quantity is the byword. The focus should not be on what you can’t have, but what you can be. Look within.

For Gen X’ers born under Pluto in Libra (roughly 1972 – 1983), this energetic is a square. To see life as ‘us and them’ is to undermine your own interests. Being the bigger better version of yourself – the person you would be in awe of if you met you – requires big-time effort but is worth it.

For the Gen Y / Pluto in Scorpio generation (roughly 1983 – 1995) this energetic is a sextile. You have the opportunity now to see the flaws in your thinking. Change those and you will free yourself of much grief down the line. You’re likely to feel ‘no, this way is the right way’ and where that’s integrative, fine. But where it’s about power and personal gain…not so much.

For the Millennials – the Pluto in Sagittarius tribe (roughly 1995 through early 2008) you’re in for some trying times as this station represents the sort of semi-sextile energetic which gets you to see a really useful (and bigger) perspective by delivering a series of hard knocks. Don’t be offended, consider what you have to gain by expanding your vision and you’ll be fine. Well…more or less fine, and yes, it will take a while. But you can get there!

The little tykes among us – the Pluto in Capricorn group – are fighting battles with themselves at the moment, battles which have to do with learning how to be secure in themselves as individuals. This is all about a balance of being secured without being hovered over: parents beware!

********************************

One of the strangest-seeming facts about astrology is the fact that our charts live on after we die. Just as JRR Tolkien's chart reflected the release of Peter Jackson's 'Lord of the Rings' films (I didn't check 'The Hobbit') and just as things have happened since the passing of first my father and then my mother which reflects on their charts, so this Pluto turn atop Facies echoes Upton Sinclair's chart - and the 'natal chart' for the release of his book "The Jungle."

The cycle is coming around again. But then, they always do.
 
Whoever you are, and however you think of your life or the lives of those who have gone before us, hopefully you recognize the patterns in your own life. Hopefully you are able to see your life as a part of the greater world and the cycles of the greater world as operative in your own life.

Not to mention those cycles which are individual and important to our lives as individuals. Humans, like the society they live in are as driven as manifestations of a point in the vastness of time and space which is every bit as evolutionary the cycle of the dinosaurs, creatures which started as little amphibian things and evolved to become astonishing behemoths.

We just don't have a gazillion-million years to get our cycles straight in. But then, it's likely that dinosaurs weren't great thinkers. And no...(yes, I'm laughing)...some of us humans aren't such great thinkers either.

But we have the option to think, and that's what really counts.

It's our choice. 

Wherever you are on your journey, here’s to living a life as filled with conviction as that of Upton Sinclair.

And here’s to remembering some of the lessons he worked so hard and spent his life trying to make us aware of, lest we go through life blinded by the sheer desire to not see.
.
.
.

Pluto Direct

A Hubble Telescope photograph of WR124 (in nebula M1 67) spewing clumps of hot gas outwards from its star core at some 100,000 mph

(photo credit: Hubble Space Telescope, NASA-JPL, March 1997)

Pluto is going direct on September 20th at 3:27 in the afternoon, UT/+0 time. As noted several posts ago, it will be going direct at the exact degree of Facies – a fixed star (nebula, actually) which has a pretty problematic reputation with astrologers.

- link to -

Pluto/Facies: Moving On

Considering how Pluto’s keywords are ‘create, deny, destroy’ we can probably all expect a little of this energy to be circulating through our lives from the simple ‘I don’t want to talk about that’ to the full scale war complete with the horrors of death and destruction.

But there’s a reason why Pluto is associated with the image of the Phoenix. Whether the destruction is brought about by fire, flame or societal…even personal vulnerability or failings, that which is affected by Pluto opens the door to something new which in time will ‘rise from the ashes.’

That Pluto is making its ‘turn’ in conjunction not just with Facies but with Industria tells us the most likely place for challenges to arise…or where we’re likely to have our ‘ship come in’ (get results) is in any area of work or personal effort. This station is thus (more or less) either about what’s we’re working to build, or some structure which is in our life which is preventing us from building what we need to build or building anew.

Not that we’re likely to be all jingles about the thing, no matter what it is. People who are already in the process of ‘transforming’ their lives are going to find it’s a heavy time for details and effort. As all of us do when confronted by such a moment, it’s going to feel like the more we do, the more there is to do!

That would very naturally bring out the Facies ‘many parts, much to do’ and feeling very put-upon (i.e., like a victim). And there’s of course that fact that when we’re feeling all bogged down and overwhelmed how anyone breezing by seems callous, heartless and worthy of a big sign on their back which reads ‘villain.’

A lot of what goes on now is going to be about perspective. With Pluto in opposition to Black Moon Lilith (Lilith/Child conjunct conjunct Sirius) there are going to be a lot of people leaving the physical nest (however old they are!) and a lot of people leaving the emotional nest.

We just know it’s time to be something more real in our own minds. There comes a point when the acquiescing to others becomes less comforting and comfortable and more of a burden on that Self we know we are and which we really want to become.

This would be one of those times.

For those who don’t have anything in particular in the pot or on some back burner, this is likely to be a particularly trying passage as they see change going on all around them. Just to pick one popular harmonic to these placements, the third harmonic (representing the thought and mental attitude) to Pluto-Facies’ position would be Piscean – which is why those who achieve things in the worldly and Capricorn sense (not to mention those with important Capricorn placements) think in universal terms. Where Aquarius is ‘mass movement’ and social interaction, Pisces is the universality of emotion – and let’s face it, we all live in our emotions as human beings. Even those of us who try to avoid our emotions do so because they don’t feel comfortable to us!

The third harmonic to Cancer, on the other hand, is Virgo…telling us why those who are opposing change will now couch everything in terms of whether something is ‘pragmatic’ or ‘workable’ or even ‘healthy’ for us to do.

It’s an interesting oppositional dynamic – the common chord and the level at which humans ‘live’ (their emotional sense of Self) being the key to knowing how to achieve anything versus the localized ‘we need to deal with this right here, right now.’

And that’s pretty much the issue – universality versus localized visions on how life should be structured and what we need to do to make our lives more viable, workable, safe and satisfying at the same time.

Barring the idea that your home is being flooded at the moment (in which case, why are you reading astrological posts on the internet?) or there’s some real-time calamity going on, this gets down to one very simple idea: the safety and functionality of our personal world is predicated on the greater world in which we live.

Now, I know as I say that how there are people who think that if they earn enough money or gain enough power they won’t have to deal with anything.

That might work except for things like famine, earthquakes, world economies, plagues and all that stuff.

Oh yes, that.

Yes, that. We are all subject to the world around us, which is why the statement ‘I don’t care about anyone/anything but my own (insert term)’ tends to not just sound like folly but BE folly.

...Which rather gets back to some of what I was noting here at Ye Olde Bloggery last week when talking about Pluto-Facies (see link above). 

It’s at times like this that such folly reveals itself as follow. For all the resisters and desist-ers, for the anti-change nay-sayers and control freaks of this life, if your chart answers to 8 Capricorn, you’re in for a bit of a steam-roller-ing. Life is trying to unwrinkle your contracted soul – which to you may feel like getting hit with a hot iron.

Which yes, would be two sides of the same experience. But what’s your choice? We cannot retreat from life…not that I don’t know a few people who give that their very best shot. (No, it doesn’t work.)

Thinking back to those harmonics, the universal considerations which go with the implied Capricorn-Pisces connective are certainly heightened by the fact that we are talking not “just” Pluto, but Pluto-Facies. Issues of discomfort, feelings of haplessness and being helpless to do things the way you might want to do them are probably to be expected, at the very least.

Applying this to the idea that we give celestial objects a two-days-before, two-days-after ‘station allowance’ window, with the Moon entering Pisces on September 17th that Moon – representing feelings and values and our susceptibility to them and everything which provokes emotionality – ‘triggers’ the third Pluto-in-Capricorn harmonic on September 18th at about four-twenty-something in the morning (UT/+0) time.

Of course there are twelve ‘natural’ harmonics to any placement (there being twelve zodiac signs). So why care so much about the third?

Part one: because that represents our mentality. The station is the station is the station…and the sign its in is the sign of ‘awareness’ – the first harmonic derivative. But that all-important moment of thinking through things and realizing we need to deal with them and cope with them? That’s the third harmonic.

Besides, Chiron is sitting at 10 Pisces. So this Pluto station atop Facies is going to be ‘setting off’ our Chiron-in-Pisces “no, I don’t want to have to deal with that” feelings…which the Moon is going to trigger early on the 18th (or late on the 17th if you’re in the western Americas). Chiron in Pisces is a whole sea of processes which challenge us to explore our own emotional makeup and to deal with whatever incongruities exist between our vision of reality and our vision of the ideal. Or life in real time versus the life in our head. Or the fact versus the thing we’d like to think is the fact…or how we’d like to feel as opposed to what our real feelings are about anything.

Or yes, anyone.

Moreover, as the Moon set’s off this ‘Piscean thought-wave,’ as it reaches 8 Pisces (the perfected sextile to Pluto at 8 Capricorn) this creates another Grand Sextile…

In case you're wondering, I don't color the signs in red and blue because

I'm an American, but rather to show the alternation between Yin and Yang

signs as we move around the zodiac.

 

…which but an hour later, as the Moon moves forward into 9 Pisces is re-struck by Venus moving into 8 Scorpio.

Scorpio is the 11th harmonic to Capricorn, which brings up the concept of negotiating our way through life and negotiating of/in relationships of all kinds in our life. The Sabian Symbol for 8 Scorpio is an apt one: A DENTIST AT WORK, which astrologer Dane Rudhyar very astutely summarizes as ‘overcoming the negative results of social prejudices and ego-cravings.’ Venus so often manifests as the ‘what we want’ in life and our Venusian challenges are to realize that what we get out of anything depends on what we are going into it and what we do as part of it…which in the wonderful (and as I almost typed that, ‘wound-erful’) world of Scorpio tells us that the basis of relationship with someone – be they our platonic friend, our business partner or employer or our most luscious and beloved squeeze – that relationship doesn’t happen ‘by magic.’ It has to be negotiated. Too often in life we get ourselves in trouble by ‘assuming’ we know what somebody is thinking. Or what they prefer.

Scorpio is all about showing that up as an error on our part.

So often we think we can just ‘go for the standard role’ in a situation or relationship, completely forgetting how unique we are and how unique everybody else is, too.

Scorpio will show up those miscalculations as well.

There’s a longstanding myth which people evidently want desperately to believe that relationships “shouldn’t need work.”

The ‘I don’t have to work at it’ (or me, or my relationship) doesn’t work either.

Sooner or later our not negotiating our relationships backfires. What passion may sustain starting out falls through thin Scorpio ice (which the passion has heatedly melted through, one suspects). Or we find out that beneath the shiny exoskeleton of that Scorpio situation lies something rotten.

You know…which then the dentist has to work on – hence the symbol.

All of this is part of the process of moving forward towards the 11 Scorpio Solar Eclipse which will occur on November 3rd. The watery grand trine from Venus in Scorpio to (Moon) Chiron in Pisces to Black Moon Lilith in Cancer (which is opposing Pluto) is a contradictory energy, one pole of which wants to dig in and forget changing anything and the other pole of which realizes changes are desperately needed even if we don’t know (consciously) how to make them.

The Chirotic answer is to allow ourselves to feel our feelings and whatever reluctance or fear or haplessness goes along with them while walking forward through our veil. Chiron always asks that we do something we don’t know how to do and through doing it, transcend who we have been in realizing we can be so much more. As it’s doing that, Venus is sextiling Pluto’s station from Scorpio, guaranteeing that we can change our place in the world and what we conceive of as our place in the world if we will only release our death grip on our current status quo.

This is one of those ‘give a little, get a lot,’ moments.

However, as I say that, I also fully believe that giving a little now means a huge personal evolution – a life transformation – yet to come.

What we need to do may not be popular. No, not even with us. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be done. Plus there is that old metaphysical lesson about energy and energetics. Energy is never lost. It changes form, it can be shifted from one place to another (to some degree) rather as you can do with water in a water balloon. But in the end, the energy we fail to use or that we refuse to utilize becomes energy which life simply brings to us in the form of something which we then have to respond to and which we have no input on.

And that’s a whole other – and more universal – conceptualization of the Facies ‘victim-perpetrator’ concept. We now have a chance to shape our world and life moving forward. If we fail to take that on or follow through and make best efforts (complete with a measure of letting go and clearing/cleaning out) could it be that we’re perpetrating some sort of ‘victimization’ of our greater potential or ability to grow with life…or in our life?

Perhaps.

As always with any such station, those who have major placements (planets, dwarf planets, nodes or chart angles) within 5 degrees of the conjunction, opposition point or squares will experience the greatest focal…or in the case of squares, challenge from these next few days at least. So that would mean anyone with any important placement between 3 and 13 degrees of Capricorn (the conjunction), Cancer (the opposition), Libra and/or Aries (the squares) are going to be most affected now.

Let’s also not forget that such stations also work in the charts of nations, companies and relationships as well.

One other thing worth noting here…on the date of Pluto’s actual station (September 20th) the Moon will be in Aries.

The Grand Sextile is still there, yes. But with Venus now at 10 Scorpio and the Moon exactly conjunct Uranus, not only are we likely to feel whatever energy is around being ‘brought home’ to us, but despite our tendency to react in very personal terms (which is natural and very Aries), those two green lines forming a “V” shape… which in astrological terms actually form the “Y” of a Yod are telling us that our answers lie not in embodying the Uranus/Moon 11 Aries tendency to over-react, exaggerate (in reality or in our mind) or get all about ‘that other person’ but instead to embrace the ‘other perspective’ which is shown through 11 Libra, a degree which asks that we think things through and work through the issue or situation at a manageable rate.

In other words, can the explosions and go for a step-by-step, more managed and interactive, even negotiated (there’s that word again!) solution to the situation. The Sabian Symbol for 11 Libra is one I’ve always liked: MINERS ARE SUFACING FROM A DEEP COAL MINE which is all about ‘digging deep’ into ourselves in how we go about being who we are in the world…which amounts to the ‘cause’ which garners the ‘effect’ from others and from life.

The implication here is that this moment and this station really are about who we are – but in the externalized sense: what we are in the world determines who we get to be in our own life. And thus this Yod is an opportunity… a trying one maybe, but an opportunity nonetheless.

Can we learn from our experiences of others and from life itself what we have the potential to become? Some changes probably need making, yes. But that would be the theme of this moment…and this season as a whole.

With all that said, I know I have left one question unanswered until now: how do we know a good Pluto thing from a "bad" Pluto thing? Be it a relationship or a hobby or a choice of job/career or anything else, the underlying issue is how compelled you feel to do that.

Pluto compulsions tend to be seriously emotion-driven. We crave this, we want to be with that person, we feel 'less than' or lessened by being involved in or not being involved in something.

In a nutshell, that statement pretty much explains Pluto's role as the lure and allure of the Scorpio outcome - and thus the reason why when we go to make our Mars choice whether to initiate or not to initiate, the underlying issue is how conscious we are of who we are and why we're doing/not doing whatever it at stake...or how much of that urgent sort of "competitive" feeling is driving us to make some given decision....the 'to do, or not to do' which in turn gets us into a 'to do' or not.

That "competition" is not with others: it's with our sense of Self. We're trying to win our own self-esteem and thus grow our own feelings of satisfaction...you know, all those things which are endemically related to Taurus, Scorpio's polarity sign. Taurus is the personal end of the Taurus/Scorpio polarity and Scorpio is the interactive end - the where we go to try and get what we think will fulfill us.

Whatever the good or bad is in this formula, that is shown by the placement of our natal Pluto and the placement of our Mars...and the placement of Scorpio - and whatever objects/planets we have positioned in Scorpio. Learning how those things work, learning why they tend to manifest in our lives as they do - those are our Plutonic lessons.


There's a lot more to be said about Scorpio (and thus Pluto and its lessons) during these next weeks ahead, seeing as we are not even half-way through the lead-in to the Solar Eclipse which will occur at 11 Scorpio come November. Those places where we tend to be annoyed with others are like as not where the eclipse energy is playing out.

Likewise are those places where we have 'created' something we think is going to 'transform' our lives and 'fix' our sense of self-esteem or security. Anything you have gotten involved in (or are getting involved in) which is all about 'fixing' something in your life through some sort of emotional experience (as opposed to an intellectual experience) is likely to be driven by Pluto.

That's one of the truly odd things about Scorpio. This sign of passion and desire is best handled and wrangled through all things where we are able to be dispassionate. Thus anyone with a really problematic Scorpio or Pluto natal issue (and you surely know who you are!) only solves that issue by...

a.) getting involved in something which allows them to understand the underlying vulnerability...

b.) finding something intellectual and growth oriented to be 'invested in' which will "drain off" some of the Pluto energy to the point where Pluto energetics are not going to be able to run your life...

c.) recognizing compulsive choices when they are made and recognizing that "that choice" is a bad one because it's not about how 'delicious' the 'thing' is but more about life wanting us to trigger our underlying issues so we can maybe (this time) get real about our denied (avoided) emotional/self-worth issues.

Slow growth - enduring growth - is Saturnine. Compulsive growth which tends to end up be "cancerous" on the emotional level (or at any level which 'hits' us in our emotionality) is Plutonic.

And then there's....

d.) finding a way that you can approach those obsessive energetics under the guidance of someone who you trust enough to govern your operation in said realm.

This last choice ("d.") is particularly important for anyone with a Moon in Scorpio or Taurus...OR with a Pluto in Scorpio (Gen Y - this is you!)

And yes, I say this knowing full well that any one of these placements will be part and parcel of a chart of a person who will tend to be highly resistant to that very suggestion even if (deep inside) they know they have issues.

You know, Pluto issues. We all have some Pluto "stuff" to deal with...it's just whether we can manage to dig our way out of it without creating a cave-in.

Going to get my shovel now…
.
.
.