Chaos-Achilles on Station

Clearing Storm

(photo credit: Rennett Stowe, 2013)

Though today’s world seems addicted to hyperbole and all things exotic and extreme (which doesn’t always equate to necessity no matter how loudly someone shouts or insists), I’m going to disappoint you by saying TNO Chaos isn’t necessarily at all ... or even vaguely chaotic.

In other words, if you’re looking to beat the drums of disaster, look elsewhere. The term ‘chaos’ as it is used today (to mean an unimaginable mess) - or rather I should say the redefinition of the term ‘chaos’ was made popular by a Roman poet named Ovid. He’s the guy who decided ‘chaos’ meant messy and unpredictable - not that the state wouldn’t exist anyway, but Ovid decided we should all use the term ‘chaos’ to describe said messy and unpredictable status.

The term itself, however, is much older. Dating back to Ancient Greece, the term ‘chaos’ originally wasn’t a negative at all - it meant a state of endless possibilities and fertile inspirations.

So what was Ovid’s problem? That, I don’t know. But the point of this point is not Roman, but Greek. In other words, all along its 309.1 year-long orbit the astrological TNO/Cubewano Chaos speaks to finding our way through various choices to that one course of action or presentation which has the lowest chance of being some ‘illusion’ which will trip us up (or compromise our efforts) and the greatest chance of being something we can either utilize well or embody as we continue about our life.

To this of course, we add the degree - which would be 17 Gemini, the degree of fixed star Rigel ... which somewhat changes the perspective as Rigel always speaks to a learning/teaching quotient of some sort. So are we looking for that which we can learn through and succeed? Are we about to meet up with some wonderful idea which we can teach/offer to others and thereby improve many things for many people?

Being that Chaos is a TNO (a Trans Neptunian Object, meaning Chaos orbits way out yonder beyond Neptune in the giant vastness of the Kuiper Belt) ... Chaos represents things which we haven’t encountered before. Effects will of course depend on how this point is aspected and positioned in your natal chart, but with its 300-plus year cycle Chaos covers only a third of the zodiac in any given century, representing what we would probably think of as the ‘general limits’ any given period ... what people think is valuable, interesting, enjoyable or (yes) possible to do at that time. 

Back in the year 1900 Chaos was in early Aquarius. So everyone alive today has Chaos in Aquarius, Pisces, Aires, Taurus or Gemini, with the change from 4th quadrant ‘big picture’/’global’ zodiac signs to the ‘learning how to be me’ 1st quadrant signs occurring as Chaos cycled back and forth across the 29 Pisces/0 Aries during 1952, finally committing to its transit of Aries as of February 20, 1953.

This is important in part because though Kuiper Belt objects are often things we have to work with individually, they’re seldom entirely personal (on an individual basis) ... something or someone else gets affected or is in mental play when we deal with TNOs. And because of that, there will be very different considerations being applied by those born before that 1953 date and those born after it, especially as Chaos moved into Aries and the zodiac’s first quadrant, splitting populations into two big groups - those born with a natural 4th quadrant ‘big picture’ natal feeling about possibilities (which would lead to  spending some, much or most of their life dealing with possibilities from a seemingly personal or individual perspective) versus those born with Chaos in a 1st quadrant sign (Aries, Taurus or Gemini) who are apt to see possibilities in terms of what they can make of their own life (as an individual) rather than what they can do to build (shape, contribute to) their world through developing or expressing their various Chaos possibilities, opportunities and inspirations.

a Cubewano/TNO Chaos orbital diagram at February 28, 2015

(diagram courtesy of JPL)

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Yet with all this nicely ‘us’ sort of thing said, Chaos is still a TNO. So its notions ... and on some level its application is always going to work best when not entirely personal - which might seem to favor those born before that magic February 20, 1953 date.

But it doesn’t ... not really. And why not? Answer: because while those born with Chaos in Aquarius or Pisces have some native orientation towards ‘big picture’ contemplations, they were also born under an astrological Age which has been phasing out for most of the past century. (Full disclaimer here: this question of when the Aquarian Age comes into force is one still being debated by astrologers. But considering how life on Planet Earth is now digital and technologically driven, that debate strikes me as unnecessary in the light of reality and facts.)

In any case, those born under the Age of Pisces may have been born with TNO Chaos in ‘big picture’ signs Aquarius or Pisces, but those born with Chaos in Aries, Taurus and Gemini were born into the Aquarian Age ... which isn’t exactly “addition is commutative” (meaning 2+3=5 is the same as 3+2=5) in terms of life experience but it does mean that in the end - give or take whether we start thinking globally or learn to think big picture and globally - both population groups will be called upon to integrate both quadrants in their (Chaos) plans.

(Does that mean part of the learning process on both sides will simply have to do with learning to respect each others’ process? Maybe. Whatever happens, this is an interesting way to think about why older and younger populations operate differently.)

(Also - please note, I’m not using the term ‘generation’ here - and that’s for a reason. Astrologically, generations separate and sort themselves out by the sign Pluto is positioned in at birth and I’d like not to get anyone confused on that point. If you’re an astrologer, it’s bad enough that mainstream societies around the world guesstimate generations without any rationale arising from any real timing mechanisms - as an astrologer I’d like not to add to this messiness!)

That 17 Gemini is a degree known for qualities of planning and needing plans if things are going to go well. It’s also known as one of Gemini’s ‘handy’ degrees with a distinct emphasis on the hands and what those hands get into, recalling the old saying ‘the burned hand teaches best’ - all of which are qualities bound to be encountered through whatever we do with (or about) matters which arise now or which have become sufficiently ‘Chaos-like’ (multifaceted) as to require some sort of plan, even if that plan is to react to each thing as it happens.

However ... along with Chaos going direct (meaning we’ll now be meeting up with possibilities which exist around us, which comes to us via others and which we find out about by participating in daily activities), asteroid Achilles is going retrograde.

A symbol of skill, Achilles is going retrograde at 16 Scorpio, a degree which wants much and which is known for ‘bad actors’ and people ‘acting out’ for all those negative emotional reasons we dislike so fervently in others: denial, rage, fear, jealousy, lack of trust or that ever-popular desire to control what others say, do, have or are. Known for its tendency to be judgmental and to imagine grievances where there are none to speak of, 16 Scorpio embodies everything which people do (and why they do it) when folks would rather focus on what they see as wrong in others rather than why they feel so passionately (not to mention negatively) about it.

In going retrograde in this degree, Achilles asks us to reflect on what we’re doing and why people are acting as they are. It asks us to not judge lest we be judged ... or if humanly (or humanely) possible, to work on getting a clear(er) view on who we are to be being so upset with others.

 Asteroid Achilles' orbital diagram at February

(diagram courtesy of JPL)

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Remember: this is Scorpio. And in Scorpio, we meet up with everything which has any possibility of unsettling us as Scorpio’s primary function - that of moving us past our ‘risk sticking point’ to where we are ready, willing and able to weather life’s raucous and untamed currents, storms and occasional emotional tsunamis. We’d like to think the storm is going to abate - but it isn’t. The thing about Scorpio is that it reflects whatever ‘hidden’ emotions WE bring with us, delivering to us whatever it is which will ‘satisfy’ or elicit our most base or basic vulnerabilities so that we can deal with them and be that truly capable person able to deal with the big world ocean of society when we get out there.

And for those who truly can’t deal with deep emotional water? For them, Scorpio is a warning - and for them, Achilles going retrograde here may just say ‘you’ve reached your limit’ while posing the question ‘do you have enough (Achilles) skill to get out of this?’

For some, what they see as Chaos possibilities now are attractive. For some, they’re highly unattractive. Whichever we meet up with, our job is to be (Achilles) skillful enough at living our own life to either avoid troubles, to take advantage of opportunities or to grapple with what we need to know/know how to do, lest we exceed our (Achilles) skill level and end up paying with what would otherwise have been our means to avail ourselves of opportunities, whether that means amounts to time, respect, money, stability or anything else.

These are not major stations. Most of us will move through these days of station allowance (February 26-March 2) with a few high points and a few moments where we decide not to step up to the plate. But since anything which happens in proximity to a solar eclipse has the potential to be important and/or part of the process of ‘breaking down’ walls which we build allegedly against the world but in reality to order to wall out some part of our Self we are less than thrilled about contending with openly and honestly, some people are going to meet up with Chaos now - and through that experience come to know a bit more about what their Achilles skills are ... and aren’t.
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A Cancer Full Moon Reflection

 

 Rodin's Orpheus and Eurydice

(Metropolitan Museum of Art, photo Ad Meskens, July 2009)

This month’s Full Moon takes place at 7 Cancer on December 28th and 10:22 in the morning, UT/+0 time.

But that’s hardly the only astrological item on the calendar. Within hours of the Full Moon, asteroid Hel goes direct at 3 Taurus. And Achilles goes retrograde at 11 Virgo. And dwarf planet MakeMake goes retrograde in late Virgo (29 Virgo, to be exact).

With all of this happening as the Sun has just moved into Capricorn, it’s a ‘first high water mark’ after the seasonal “changing of the guards” (as it were). Capricorn being a cardinal sign, this is an action-oriented period, whether we’re doing the actions, on the receiving end of the actions, or merely witnessing the actions.

With all the ‘standard’ planets in early numbers as this Full Moon occurs with the exception of Venus and Mercury (the Nodes too, but they’re not planets) there’s a natural focus on the Self which comes on this Full Moon, but whether that’s truly about you (the who you are or how you’re going about living your life)…or whether that has you comparing yourself to someone else or to where you want to be? That’s individual.

However…all those stations plus the New Moon are rather interesting, particularly when we consider their placements against Sun in Capricorn, Mercury and Venus in Sagittarius and Mars in Aquarius.

What I mean by this is probably most easily seen in a picture…

With the exception of the Moon (which often acts sort of like an astrological “trigger”) all the other “personal planets” (Sun, Mercury, Venus and Mars) are grouped rather close together. All four are in public signs, with Venus, our ‘what I put out determines what I get back’ and Mercury (the idea, communications and mentality planet) in interactively expansive/idea-testing Sagittarius. Against this we have the Sun (consciousness) and Mars (assertion) in two signs which are more global and less localized.

What do I mean by that? What I mean is that while the talking and the thinking and the everyday transacting of life is personal, the aims and the parameters are global, structural and/or systemic. So whatever we’re doing, there is the immediate level of dealing, coping and transacting…and there’s a more universal level of the aims, the goals, the “rules of the game” and the many ‘world factors’ we have to take into account.

(Oh yes…and that may be your world…or it could be the world…or both, depends on you and your chart!)

The minuses of this ‘personal grouping’ lineup are likely to turn up as irritating moments when others don’t agree or don’t appear to be cooperating with your aims. Or where you try something then find out it won’t work in the long run. But the plus is that you’re going to feel united in your own mind about what direction you’re going in (or want to go in) at the moment.

Into all this comes the Full Moon. Like any Full Moon, this one will mark a ‘high tide’ moment in some way which feels personal. Or which means something to you personally. This Full Moon having reached its fullness from a start at 21 Sagittarius, this is something akin to the (Sagittarius) effort ‘coming home’ to us. Or maybe sinking in, as we discussed back in this month’s New Moon blog.

LINK to blog post on the December New Moon

But what’s happened to bring us to whatever point we are at now at the Full Moon doesn’t fully describe the energy to be expected in the lives of those most affected by this Full Moon. Taking place in Cancer, the first of the zodiac’s watery emotional signs, right away we know the feelings evoked are basic. Maybe even primal. The degree – 7 Cancer – that the Full Moon takes place at is specifically known for manifesting in various ways, too. Emotional issues are the obvious and physical or rash actions or reactions fall right in line here. Results stemming from rash choices or unstable/ill-founded methods, methodologies or assertions also fit in here.

But then, so does unmitigated joy. And feelings of relief, gratitude and peace.

So which is it going to be? That would all depends on what you’ve been doing prior to this time, of course – Full Moons represent the culminating of one phase of a process before you move on to a next. If you think of them as a check point, that’s not far off. It’s at the Full Moon that we realize what’s right and what’s wrong…or, to put it in Monopoly-Speak - where we can collect $250 and continue on our way and where we do not pas ‘Go’ and do not collect that $250.

(Going to jail is an option, but not mandated!)

So ask yourself this…Achilles going retrograde at 1 Virgo speaks to how well you do something and whether you’ve been doing whatever it is that you do well and with a sense of time, place, responsibility and morality. Those who haven’t will have the harder time and tougher day – that’s part one of the ‘it’s that simple’ formula.

Part two would be asteroid Hel going on station and turning to direct motion. Representing ‘the hard time’ we may give ourselves or get from others, Hel is turning from the ‘getting in our own way’ phase to the ‘being put on notice’ by others. Those phrases (getting in our own way and being put on notice) should be taken literally only with a grain of salt; asteroid Hel tends to be all about how life gets made harder for us, and since we each have a little asteroid Hel in our charts, that is where we tend to ‘trip ourselves up’ or ‘ignore at our own peril’ and such. For the past several months Hel has been retrograde, indicating a time of either making our own lives harder or when we learn how and why we tend to do just that.

 A Blue Moon

(photo credit: Craig Deakin, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK,  September 2012)

As Hel goes direct, those who have done their “homework” will get tested by circumstances and survive not by ‘give it to them’ or ‘giving in to them’ but by understanding who they are and why they do what they do.

The more I watch this asteroid…the more I tend to think it has everything to do with getting us to be better people and live up to our better standards. You know, those ‘better angels’ of our spirit.

Which makes the name of the asteroid rather ironic, yes. But it does seem to work!

The last symbol we need to check in on here is dwarf planet MakeMake. Named for a Rapa Nui (Easter Island) deity, MakeMake represents a ‘creator’ or ‘creative’ energetic generally referring to bringing something into being. With MakeMake going retrograde at a critical degree (29 Virgo) this signals intensity, and perhaps…or maybe hopefully?…a degree of self-reflection.

Which works with any Full Moon. Considering that the Full Moon is the physical manifestation of our inner and most mortal or spiritual selves (the Moon) reflecting the Sun without any of daily life (the Earth) “getting in the way” what we have and haven’t been doing and how well or properly we have been doing it – even how morally our choice has been or our efforts have been…those now come to a moment of reflection.

Considering where the personal planets are, our aims may be meeting with resistance. Or maybe we need to adjust our expectations or methodologies. Some of us will now realize that the course they’ve been on isn’t taking them where they want to go.

How this happens – whether you ‘see’ it for yourself or life somehow thrusts some hard-nosed reaction in your face – whatever that is, the good news is that this is just a Full Moon. The upsurge, the ‘high tide’ of emotion will soon enough ebb.

So you can …maybe…grit your teeth and ignore the whole thing.

But if you do, who are you kidding? The good news is indeed that life goes on. The bad news is that if you ignore some problem, life goes on and catches you even harder when things come around again.

Cancer being the zodiac cycle’s ‘foundational’ emotional energetic, this is where we plant our flag and found our plans. Many of us will now strap on those shoes and set a new path, knowing it’s (MakeMake) time to get done those things which really need to get done – and done properly.

For such people, this is likely to be a time of challenge and pride-in-self. They’ll sleep soundly knowing they’re taking on their own dragon hunt and that they know how to slay the problem and ultimately win their own respect and with that, open the door to finer days yet to come.  
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