Venus: the Station

I know...ow. Just ow.

Yes - I know. Been there...doing it. Ow.

This is the start of the next three months. What we learn now - and going forward, echoes.

I have no answers for you at the moment except this is a moment to endure and learn from. As I write, the Sun is at 11 Aquarius (ON A VAST STAIRCASE STAND PEOPLE OF DIFFERENT TYPES, GRADUATED UPWARD) which seems to be the image of all we are going through at the moment which is giving us greater clarity - for good or ill - about where we stand with ourselves wherever we have gotten to in life.

Within a couple of hours the Sun will move into 12 Aquarius, the Sabian symbol for which is A BAROMETER...which is keynoted as 'the ability to discover basic natural facts that allow us to plan in advance for action.'

We're at a checkpoint - a point at which we look at the barometer and 'read' our pressures personal and external, considering as we do how it would seem a painful truth that human beings never let go of comfort or that desire to humor themselves or some cherished vanity until sheer need overcomes unwillingness.

That effect and concept will now deepen and move towards coloring central considerations as the weekend turns into next week, as Sedna goes on station, and as our capacity for greater perspective (or the lack of same) becomes that which governs critical choices leading to this year's external challenges and those realizations which amount to internalized success.

Other than that, this Venus retrograde almost became my death knell. Yes, it was an accident, but the whole affair made it very plain to me that what we don't know can indeed kill us - and that there are both prices to be paid for such ignorance...and clarity about what's worth anything which just maybe can't be learned any other way.

In any case, I hope these weeks were reasonably kind to you and yours. Going forward, what kind of human we want to be...as opposed to why we know we've been that person we are now...that's grist for our mill going forward.

And I wish us the very best with that.

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EDIT/UPDATE: From the emails I'm getting, I need to say a bit more - most of which falls under the general title "SCRAWLS FROM DETOX."

Come to think of it, it's worth saying. What happened is this: after I was told to 'go forth and detox' by all the Los Angeles MDs, I looked the drug up to see if there were any known 'side effects' which came with detox.

On that rather benign looking list was 'loss of appetite' and 'anorexia' - the latter of which my brain filed under "not in this life."

Seriously...once I got out of the house and had access to food I was fine about eating. Until I began detox, that is.

Let's just say I lost my appetite, which at first was fine. But then...well...I didn't get hungry, so...

Moral: what you don't know can kill you. There was a very sobering moment when a woman out begging looked at me and said 'are you going to make it?'

It was about then that I realized something was wrong.

Like I say...what you don't know can kill you. Food being a Venusian thing, this whole episode strikes me as strangely karmic as it strikes me as wholly Venus retrograde.

When I say that any retrograde can force you to get in touch with that 'quality' (like food, like nutrition) on the inside, that's how a retrograde works.

(No, some retrogrades aren't all that friendly.)

I'm okay. Venus is going station-direct at the top of my chart so I'll go with the idea that I'm simply owning this experience in public. Maybe by my doing that, you or someone you love will never go through anything like this.

And that would be good. :)
 

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Thanks for your emails and expressions of care. I really appreciate them. Grazi.

- Boots


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Having Been Eclipsed…

The partial solar eclpse of November 3, 2013 as seen in El Hierro, Spain

(photo credit: EPA/Gelmert Finol )

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From a recent email: 

…That’s the point. We each are being confronted with the potholes of not having been present for ourselves. That which is most difficult for us now is the polarity of that we want to do with others. 

The Gemini I wrote this to works in the health field. Their chart was squarely hit by the eclipse, and in manifestation thereof, the middle of rapid growth of their various practices was put in jeopardy by the Gemini's own health becoming a sudden crisis.

What we are putting out there is coming back to us. The equation here is a little oblique, but plain enough if you stop and think about it a moment. Moreover it reminded me of why Gemini is so aptly seen as a jig saw puzzle. Wherever Gemini is in our chart, wherever we experience the Gemini vibe, it's in that area of our life that we become challenged to understand the nuance and detail as well as the whole. Only by holding both concepts equally in mind can we come up with a choice which makes sense, which can be grown and which will ultimately bear fruit.

This eclipse, with its Scorpio dishing out of karma, it brought home much of this to all of us - as well it might. Gemini is the 8th sign (the "derivative 8th") to Scorpio. And thus in all things Scorpio we are presented with many facts, many facets, many choices, all of which direct us to make not the choice which works for us but the choice which works.

Whatever sign you start with, the derivative 8th always shows you the 'rule' which for you defines whether you get past the gatekeeper of opportunity or not. This wicket has become incredibly sticky of late (think Pluto) with most of the problems we're each encountering in our life having a 'right' and 'right' or 'wrong' and 'wrong' side which asks us - in the end - to decide between power and personal preference. 

Or even where power IS personal preference.

And yet...whatever situation you've been working with, it will only work if it works on all sides and for all levels. The trick of this season has been to operate with power while not becoming helpless, acknowledging our weaknesses while not succumbing to them.

It hasn't been easy, obviously.  As your girl astrologer, this Pisces fell into an abyss on one side of her life while taking care of things on the other side of her life. 

It's just not easy. I'm entirely satisfied with parts of my performance and seriously not proud of others. But that's how astrology tells us that life is going to be. It's never all good or all bad...it just is. And as solidly as any of us can focus on getting one thing done, it's a cinch not everything is getting done. So with my Moon/Saturn in Scorpio, and because the Moon (among other things) represents the 'chemical' level of body functionality, I was bang on to tackle a detox.

Use the energy wisely, lest it use you unwisely.

I'm a Pisces. And Pisces rules the experience of emotionality (at the psychological/spiritual level) and brings that to a physical level. So to detox a Pisces is also to detox their feelings - which at some level says those feelings need to be detoxed.

And yes, I had looked at the Scorpio eclipse before it got here. I knew something bizarre could happen, but scheduled my detox anyway.  Scorpio isn't always the signature of frolic and rose petals (or leather and black lace, for that matter), but it can be incredibly productive if you’re willing to feel a little ouch way deep down in your soul.

I will also fully own that as an astrologer I knew there was likely to be trouble between me and anyone whose chart was going to be hit as hard. This me-and-thee thing is something we seldom take into account as much as we should...that which ties or binds us is (astrologically) symbolized by a sameness of object positions in our chart.

And that means that if MY chart is being transited, so is yours. Which means when an eclipse shows up, both of us are going to get eclipsed. And if it's a tender place in our chart which is getting eclipsed and we're not particularly good with handling those energies, the results can be nasty.

Even just pitifully and painfully messy.

The eclipse passes...and we find much has changed.

Or we've changed.

Of course there are those of us who refuse to do any changing. Several years ago, a Taurus friend was confronted with that most terrible of solar eclipse challenges - the loss of a loved one.

He simply answered “NO” when life asked that he move on emotionally. He just didn’t want to deal with it. And let’s face it, no sign does the ‘standing one’s ground’ thing any better than Taurus.

We've known each other a while now, so I understood. He was hurt. He didn’t want to feel what he was feeling. He didn’t want to leave feeling connected to his beloved wife behind. He just didn’t want to feel himself dealing with his feelings.

Heck, he didn't even want to feel himself not dealing with his feelings!

And so, Taurus bull that he is, he snorted at life and dug his heels in, even going so far as to notify me that there would be a ban on all conversation on the subject.

You may be surprised to know I cooperated with him on this. But I did, yes. Part was simple affection for a friend. Part was that I felt for his pain.

But besides all that, I also own an ephemeris. And really good astrological software. So I knew what was coming.

Taurus Keywords:
security, insecurity,self-worth, self-doubt, stability,
status quo, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, self-respect,
self-avoidance, self-loathing, comfort, need-hunger-satiation,
peace, values, motivation, likes, preferences,
tastes and dislikes

Suffice it to say, ever since attempting to not change in keeping with the eclipse on his chart, this Taurus has been plagued by an onslaught of problems. The bulk of them have had to do with money – that most common of common Taurus/Scorpio things. How odd is it that we assign such power to something which intrinsically (at the level of paper money being paper and coins being little chunks of common metal) are not 'of value' at all.

In fact...if you understand that money is a 'barter medium' and a 'placeholder' for Taurus/Scorpio worth-power-personal satisfaction measures, you understand why money doesn't buy happiness. It is not the money which counts and not all which it can buy which evokes happiness. It is the person we are and why we do what we do and the validity of the feelings which come from that which evokes and satisfaction.

It is the (Scorpio) validity that what we are placing our (Taurus) values in and whether that is true to us (as opposed to someone/something we are selling ourselves out to) which determines the quality of our result and whether there will be any associated negative karma.

As for my friend, after a couple of years he started dating again. But though he had done all the outward mourning, he hadn't dealt with his true inner hurt.

Those relationships (particularly the Scorpio/intimate ones) didn't work so well.

But then, it's tough thinking that intimate relationships are going to go well if you're not emotionally available or not able to be vulnerable or emotionally intimate.

Fast forward to now: as we talk in the wake of this eclipse, not only is his financial life finally coming back together, he's finally letting go of his pain. It wasn't easy and true to him, he had to find the right way to exorcise his emotional demons on the subject - which is typical for eclipses. If they hit your chart with any sort of exactness, you're going to let go of something. You can do it now, you can do it later, but by gum, you're going to do it.

Scorpio is famous as the sign of control. And surrender, which is the part of Scorpio most of us don't think about a lot. And Taurus, in being Scorpio's polarity, is all about how stable and satisfied we are with ourselves...not really anyone else. Where Scorpios often try to control others in order to feel safe and secured, Taurus often try to control life itself.

He couldn't. And when this Taurus couldn't control life, he gave up on trying to live his life.

And life taught him that wasn't a good idea, applying pressure after pressure after pressure until he simply let go of trying to control and instinctively began working to find his place in this world again.

It's about three years later now. Remember how I told you that solar eclipses take three years to mature?

I tell you this story for many reasons, the most obvious being that if you understand the path this man took, you'll understand something more about how an eclipse will work in your life. But there's another reason too - one I think just as valid.

Like I say, I have been friends with this fellow for several years now. So I had heard his story and walked alongside him as he fought his battles with what he thought was Life, but which really was with his Self. I could see very clearly what he was doing and the futility of trying to fight time...existence...reality.

And right when I got done saying all that to myself, just as he began turning his corner, I began doing exactly what he had done.

Really! I was doing it my way (cue Frank Sinatra, please) but I was that very same thing...which is the reason to be talking to you about this right now. No matter what 'events' happen in your life in conjunction with any transit - and particularly a solar eclipse - the issue isn't "them" or "that." It's you. It's not about what they're doing to you, with you, without you, despite you - it's about YOU.

It's about who you are coming into the situation or moment. You've heard me say that sometimes we learn more through the negative than the positive, right?

Whoever we are, however tough or tender we are, life manages to just overwhelm us when such events happen. Apparently that's what it takes to each humans something - and that's what eclipses are about. When eclipses show up we get into situations which reveal us to our Self, often leaving us little option but to deal with some issue with (or about) that Self we may have.

And then they leave us to figure out who we need to be in order to deal with what we have learned.

Provided we learn it, of course.

Scorpio eclipses are probably the second scariest in the book (I'll put Pisces eclipses first, thank you.) The 'why' of that is because of everything I've been talking about.

We're all raw. We're all thinking of someone else or something else and thinking 'if they were just...' when the real issue is who we are and what we're basing our values on.

How real is it, in other words. Scorpio is the energy of connection, the indescribable essence of sensing that someone or something is there. Or not there. That reality is a powerful thing - and the difference between the real and the unreal, the respect and the lack of respect we hold for human relationships the key to our personal problems.

If we can't relate to ourselves properly and honestly,
 we have no basis for relating to anyone else.

That's one of the premises of Scorpio - and why the zodiac's one and only fixed water sign represents the realm where the real meeting up with the emotional and our meeting up with ourselves through our relationships with others is the "gateway" to the zodiac's four most worldly signs (Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces).

It's as if through meeting up with others, we meet ourselves. And if we're not good (enough) with our Self, we don't take us out of the box. We don't let us/get to go for that next step.

What happens really is a reflection of what goes on within our mind. (Or, as I have long thought of it, our Mind - but that's in my life as a writer...more on when the books get released, hopefully at the end of January.)

More to the point, it's why so many of us would rather try and be happy feeling nothing than feeling anything which has a chance of actually affecting us. The effort to deal with or put off such issues is our Scorpio/Taurus axis, and wherever we find it in our chart represents how we're willing to handle this matter.

Or not handle this matter, depending.

The thing to remember is probably how - as opposed to Scorpio (or the Scorpio/Taurus) energetic being is the energy of connection (sensing yourself through feedback as you connect with others) astrology defines the experience of emotional issues as Pisces/Virgo.

Which oddly enough reminds me to tell you something. You know how I've (rather relentlessly) pointed out how we're we're in a series of Scorpio/Taurus eclipses? That cycle concludes next year (2014), and being how eclipses cycle backwards through the zodiac (which they do because they're in part determined by the lunar nodes), you might be thinking the next couple of years would feature a series of Libra/Aries eclipses.

But nooooo. If you were thinking that, you would be wrong - which now that I think about it, doesn't sound like the worst thing on the planet. Why would I say that? Well...if I say 'my feelings/your feelings' and then say Taurus/Scorpio eclipse series and then point out that this series has been going on since 2011, growing more and more personal all the time, perhaps you get some sort of...image. Feeling. Impression.

Maybe the impulse to dive under a table.

Okay...so take out the 'my feelings/your feelings' part (don't you feel better just hearing that?) and insert 'my existence/your existence.' 

THAT would be a Libra/Aries eclipse series. Oh, just think of all the ways we mortals could find not to have fun with that!

(Pardon me while I gag.)

But no, we of Terra Earth are going to move from evolutionary lessons framed by Scorpio/Taurus to processes typified by Virgo/Pisces, bypassing the Libra/Aries phase.

How lunar of us. (Or maybe looney, I'm not sure.)

So take out the 'my feelings/your feelings' part (I still feel better hearing that - maybe it's just me...) and insert key words for Virgo and Pisces.

Ouch.

Or...(ouch)...maybe not.

You think the world is weird now? Just wait. I'm thinking ahead to an eclipse series (considering all else) in Virgo and Pisces and suddenly Scorpio and Taurus, with all its venomous moments, doesn't seem so awful.

Why not?

Here's something metaphysical to chew on: Scorpio and Taurus are interactive. Pisces and Virgo pit us against our Self.

That means we have nobody to blame.

Oh yeah...that. It's enough to make you like the world of relating and relationships - which maybe is a way to appreciate the hard times, those times when someone we respect or love fails our standards or trips and falls in some particularly decrepit mental sewer.

We're human, y'know? Feeling...and feeling connected to someone else has (at a guess) led to more social and emotional suicide than anything else on the planet. 

NOTE PLEASE: I'm NOT talking about physically killing yourself. I'm talking about the many and creative ways we have of killing ourselves and our feelings, our relationships and our fondest hopes all because we all want so desperately for everything to be okay.

How ironic, eh?

And more to my point, how Scorpionic for me that the thing I had forever wanted…to feel connected at that most intimate of levels we call human...how I came to this eclipse having denied my fear of exactly what I thought I wanted.

Sometimes just feeling yourself feeling is beyond our feeling tolerance.

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After a lot of thought, in the wake of the eclipse I put this notice up on my Facebook page.

It was a protest - an expression of my desire to transform a feeling of futility. I can't undo what I am because of some accident of fate. 

I also posted this message on a different social network. There I installed it with a caption: and it’s the stuff you don’t know which will get you. 

A number of people on that network who have been abused read that post. Nearly every one of them was focused on my caption because I was talking about the one thing people don't think about when it comes to abuse. Abuse lies not only in what we do, but what we don't get to learn to do. We can be just as abusive in silence as we can be when raging at the top of our lungs.

And it's not just about the events. Abuse also lies in what we don't learn to do. Or to tolerate. Or allow ourselves to consider (as if most solutions to terrible problems haven't been solved by considering those problems?). And yes, there is child abuse - the worst of which teaches us to continue the abuse by not allowing ourselves to wonder, speak up, ask questions or think outside some box even as adults.

On the other hand, if we truly believe that unbeknownst to us, the universe is unfolding as it should...there are good things that we can turn ourselves to no matter what. Yes, we'd like to think we could stop such things. But sometimes 'good things' will come of not doing what we didn't learn how to do: we compensate, we turn to other things.

I'm not thinking systemically. I'm thinking individually. After all, we all have different lacks. Maybe they are just opportunities in disguise. It took me many years to know that the fear I learned in a youth full of marginalization, violence and dehumanization made me into someone who not only hears what people say, but someone who thinks about what people have said.

And yes, sometimes it's a plus. Sometimes, however...?

Not so much.

As the Sun moves into Sagittarius here in the latter days of November it’s a moment for all of us to be coping and moving on, yes. The Sagittarian drive to make ‘it’ work (whatever ‘it’ is in your life) and continue moving towards goals is highly evident. So the eclipse – in taking place in Scorpio – is now the derivative (or harmonic) 12th.

Just to reiterate the point: the eclipse isn’t over. That can’t be said enough! We are going to continue seeing and hearing of financial and personal strife. We are going to hear stories which sound like miracles and disasters which are totally unexpected.

Whatever you were confronted with coming into the eclipse, the underlying emotional metamorphosis has only begun. Things you think are gone may not be gone – or you may just be doing what you need to do so that you can come back to them from a different vantage point.

Or as a transformed person...you know, like my friend who is just starting to walk on, now that life has taught him to learn how to accept the terror of love lost.

And that his process shouldn't be instantaneous? That works too. Sagittarius is not a sign of instantaneous anything - this is the sign of debate and education, so all is a process now. And as we moving through this Sun in  Sagittarius time with the eclipse still glowing in 12th house harmonic rear view mirror, we should expect that ideas will arise. We should expect the unexpected and a few changes of plan-or-parameter to pop out of the woodwork. Anything which can get us to stop and pause, or think things through, or recognize the flaw and realize we need better plans or more workable solutions...all those Sagittarian things are going to occur to us or get posed by others. Or be manifested by life.

Or arise out of the thick of our unplumbed (Scorpio) instinct. So ask yourself...what have I learned about myself, about my inner feelings? Or is it that you haven't learned why you're at emotional loose ends and how to deal with how preciously frightening relationships are simply because they matter so much to us?

With Scorpio in 12th sign position (which by the way may provide some insight if your natal chart has Scorpio on the 12th house) interactions with others and what comes (or has come) of interactions with others are going to…

a.) make us sensitive
b.) poke us where we are already sensitive
c.) expose sensitivities or expose things which in turn make us sensitive

…all of which takes us back to wading through the soul, mindset and all-pervasive self-confronting experience which is so very Scorpio. But this is not Scorpio “in your face” or in real life or real time. No – this is the emotional experience of all you really need to think about as a result of whatever happened over the past couple of months.

We should also be realistic here: 'sensitive' can mean uncomfortable.

Even scared.

Also to be Sagittarius-type-honest here, this isn't about what happened (or didn’t happen)…this is your going through an ongoing, intensely trying time which in any of a thousand ways causes you to experience own emotions.

And what you think of those emotions.

Or that you have those emotions.

Or that you have made this emotional choice or that choice (in life or relationships, wherever) which ended up being so positive or negative on the emotional level.

The good news is that in the grand scheme of things, for most of us our having been eclipsed is still metaphysical present tense. That’s one of the lovely things about Sagittarius – the land of where theory meets possibility. Here this Sagittarius opportunity causing us to see how things can be…or maybe still can be…or maybe how they still are.

Of course, some of us will want to think things through a bit more. But some of us - in recognizing the truth of what life was trying to get us to look at will find in that a measure of liberty and freedom. The Sun is in Sagittarius, so this is still an interactive time, suggesting that some of us will heave a sigh of final comprehension and move on. Or we'll tackle that problem. Or we'll retrace our steps and not back down this time.

Whatever that truth is, it is to explore - and hopefully to appreciate, even enjoy the exploring of. It is at this point...as all that as life and the essence, the magic and the theoretical machinery of eclipse energies...as all that moves on it begins to evolve. And as it evolves it gives us enough connection with enough distance that we are able to begin seeing that it wasn't the 'thing' which happened which 'was' our eclipse.

It was who we were coming into the eclipse which got eclipsed - each in our own individual way by other people who were being eclipsed in their own way.

Whatever happened, lore teaches, happened so that we could experience some hidden aspects of our Self. So that we would continue to grow and not just 'make do' but strive to be more of who we truly are. 

And so it happens....once we grasp that it wasn't the 'thing' but our nature - some facet of our emotionality or how we deal with emotions because of our history or perspective...which was the point of the eclipse, then we are able to decide what to do next in light of a new understanding of what is true to who we are...and what isn't.

All can be, may still be or proceed to become the way we want it to be. Chances are, our accepting some facet of our difficulties as a reflection of something we fear (or fear to feel) is probably the trade-off there - but there is one all-important fact to consider when it comes to our fearful inner response to feeling fear:

Fear does not reside in reality.

Fear takes hold of us from inside our mind.

And when you consider that, to have life urging us to consider where we need fear not just isn't the worst thing to be giving thanks for on this day.

Or on any day.
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Scrawls from Detox 3

William Blake's rendition of Dante's "Hell" from the Divine Comedy

(Canto XXIV - the Thieves)

Not to make life easy or anything, as the Scorpio eclipse (accent on the word “Scorpio”) moved towards formulation, pretty much everyone in my world went into meltdown mode. Personal...professional...in short, it was a series of days filled with such astonishingly awful announcements and behavior that even as a writer I would hesitate to report on it.

Then again, I could just say its my entree into the 'horror' genre.

But astrologically? Let's just say all this rang loudly of the eclipse.

Yeah, right...it rang loudly, all right. It rang like I was standing inside the bell having my head rung.

The opening round in this succession was a lighthearted email from a BF which said: (part one) ‘I’ve had some blood tests…’ and (part two) ‘I’m not particularly afraid of dying…’

Fortunately for the moment she is apparently okay and being properly/well taken care of. But her sending that email and promptly vanishing into the haze of life's grid for several days does not earn any girlfriendly points.

That's where the eclipse unfolded Round One of its final onslaught. Scorpio? Oh fine...let's go for death. That's always a popular human vulnerability.

The last round of this multi-day festival ended with a business associate just acting in a singularly inventive if addled way. Values I had never suspected surfaced in a most unpropitious way.

Scorpio: Values held in trust with others. Values which need to be negotiated with others so that you both stay on the same page. Personal values we acknowledge through experiences of others (i.e., the revelation of our shadow Self).

My recent encounter with all things and all aspects of things Scorpio...the death, haplessness, drive, desire, loathing, lust, caring, longing....they have left me wondering what good and bad really are. 

I know ultimately I am going to have to live within the claustrophobia of my regrets. I know some part of me will liquefy with fears every time certain thoughts cross its border, inciting emotional chaos as only deeply felt stirred feelings can…

And there is that very special ‘I did this to myself’ quality to all which has gone on this past month.You into self-degradation?

A few are.

Has there ever been a life…profoundly quiet or world-shakingly proactive, either way…which has been entirely calm?

I’m no longer sure. And maybe that’s the point – I’m not sure I’m sure about anything.

As soon as I say that however, and through the continuing veils of settling chemistry, I can say Detox Part One is past its critical period and moving towards a reconciliation. We’ve probably all had that day after a flu when you realize you’re finally on the mend, right?

It’s that moment that there is indeed an ‘after’ after all which is such a boundary to get to and cross. And being the astrologer around here, I guess that’s a good thing… (she says, glancing at the calendar)…as it’s almost time to change chapters, change ‘taking in’ processes over to ‘application’ and a few other things.

But that’s next week.

Meanwhile, I stand here rather abysmally grateful for the recognition that I will never have to take that medication again. I’m not saying it doesn’t have its uses…I just know that there was a moment in my life where I looked up and realized it wasn’t a matter of whether I wanted to take that drug, it was that I HAD to take it, or my life and ability to function would be terribly and horribly compromised.

That is so not what I signed onto when I got the  prescription. And then there was that nasty, snarky fight with the insurance company who, on a moment’s notice, changed its mind about coverage.

Such things reinforce one's dislike. Talk about trapped…I knew the insurance company had forever while I was trying to maintain access to a drug I didn’t like, but didn't want to run afoul of

In other words, I was in a bit of a rush. And yes, of course they knew it.

THAT’s the drug I don’t have to take any more.

Life is not all free-and-clear (as they say in the commercials) yet. No, if you remember, this ‘detox’ thing was only Act One of a two part play. Having gotten off That Drug by using a different sort of drug, now I still have to taper down (or off) Drug Two.

(Detox: ugh.)

But thanks for sticking with me. Every time I log in to Goggle’s Blogger system I see the numbers and I know you’re there. Trust me…it matters. I’m always urging you all to consider the people in your lives…and I guess you did – by letting me know I was one of those people.

So thanks. I care about you, too. I may or may not know you. You may or may not know me – and even if you do know me, you may not like me very much at the moment.

Still, I care about you. I care about you whether you are on your own good side at the moment or not. I don't care about your power, age or bank account, I care about you and its long been proven that I care at least as much about those who are trying even if they're scared to tar to try as I care about myself.

I also care at least as much about your defeats as your victories. You might be surprised to hear it, but I tend to think the measure of who you are is revealed much at one as at the other and shown to be what you are anywhere between.

No, it isn't all pretty. But then, you're human, right?

Being human is messy.

And me...? I just care because that’s who I am. I care because it has come to be an awareness of mine that life lies not just in being who we are, but in learning how to share – despite all our misgivings of so many kinds – with each other. When we finally realize that we long to know and be known as not just what someone else thinks but the journey which leads anyone to think as they do...

...then we take a step forward.

I think I've taken a step forward. Even a half-step forward in this case suits me truthfully. There remain some terrible hurts and I'm beginning to suspect there are some costs (beyond the financial) for six-plus years of taking that now bye-bye med.

There are, of course, also a few emotional issues I have to figure out how to heal. Or how to accept and live with if they don’t - or won’t heal.

But that little box of terror with the pharmaceutical label? That’s been eclipsed. It was a non-consensual relationship, and seriously…who wants to be abducted and held against their will by a drug?

And when it was over, then came a few soft-edged days when I felt the chemical tide retreat, leaving bare the wet, pliant nature of my unfortified soul. I thought about how many people I know have never met me without the hard chemical candy shell.

Those days swept by, dissolving with their passage all the anxiety built up over several years of trying to figure out how to get one prescription monkey off one patient's back.

I feel better for not having to worry about all that, apso-pozzo-lutely.

Moreover, this last part thought seems highly ironic, seeing as the medication which is the cause of all this?

It was originally prescribed for anxiety. 
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Scrawls from Detox

'Confidential (or) Red Velvet Room'
by Ralle (oil on board)

 

----- 

This is an interruption of astroPPM's

normal service. You will be returned

to your normal solar systemic

contemplations at the end

of this Message.

----- 

A few words from the swaddling middle of the nebulous cloud people call 'detox.' I’ve been spending my days trying to tell myself that everything is all right. And it is.

But it isn’t.

Allow me to explain. For instance, I know perfectly well how to take care of myself. Right now, I have every confidence in myself although I seem to be afraid that time itself is going to stop.

You know...just stop.

I’m not sure it’s going to happen. In fact, I'm pretty sure it isn't going to happen. If it was a couple of billion years from now I'd worry. But it isn't then, it's now.

And yet still...I'm afraid. And frightened is a terrible thing to be.

I've known about being frightened for a very long time. Heck, I was frightened early and thoroughly, and haven't ever gotten past it, try as I may.

But that's different from what I'm going through at the moment. Withdrawal from one drug in combination with a deft switch-o/change-o of chemical substances to a second drug....? 

It turns out that's a little tricky. And our bodies get very hinkty when we screw around with their chemistry.


Plus I didn't come into this feeling all Zen and peaceful. I know one story of someone who binged before doing a chemical detox and (according to them) they paid.

Me, I just took the deteriorate-as-you-go path...which turned me into an emotional Klein bottle before I took my chemical plunge.
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 The question with a Klein Bottle is whether they're holding stuff in or exclusing

it out. They would also seem to answer the old question about the liquid

container being half empty or half full once and for all.

(Drawing credit: Klein Bottle by Tttrung, July 2006)

 
Yes, it's the thing which ended me up in the current prison of ghastliness, but it's still different.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

 I understand that what has happened to us in the past is over. I also understand that because what happened destroyed my boundaries - particularly those which have to do with time in the finite sense most other people conceive of it as, I'm one of those people who stands on the brink staring into the abyss...well aware of what it is and equally well aware of the fact that other people haven't got a clue as to how scary 'scary' can really be.

Bless 'em. Bless all those people for all they don't know. May they never encounter it, may they never learn just how powerful power can really be.

I’m not alone in my terrified psyche, but I understand that any and every time we mess with our brain chemistry, we pay a price. The common form is inebriation – we all know the evils there, and that’s bad enough. But what I’m doing is transferring forms of inebriation – and that’s a process which is like getting sloshed around in some brain chemistry-filled bathtub.

I’m safe, I’m warm and cool as needed. I’m not very hungry (a common withdrawal thing, I hear) but I’m pretty robotic about making sure a can of soup gets consumed and something added to that.

Just think….with all of this hassling, I’m still one of the few truly privileged humans on the planet.

Also to think – by US standards I’m pretty darn poor.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

So I’m spending my days trying to be productive in whatever way I can manage it. I have a few friends who seem to be ‘withdrawal-proof’ who find it not offensive to be in the company of someone standing under the sluice of a brain drain.

I have two planets in Scorpio: Saturn and the Moon. They’re in the first – most physical and personal decan of the sign. While putting up with the nausea, headaches, body pain and lack of focus (total. It’s like having my attention span melted into a tub of hot cheese and topped with….) I still wonder what everyone else is experiencing as the solar eclipse is closing in.

And just wait…the Sun enters Scorpio next week.
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Sunrise over the South Pacific as photographed by ISS Expedition 35

(Photo credit: NASA-JPL, May 2013)

 

Okay…so where did I put that planet? I really should try to stay ground. (Or maybe just get grounded, yes.)

Hopefully this will all end at some point…there must be an end to the withdrawal thing, right?

Please tell me that there is!

I now know why some addicts turn and run at the mention of detox. What I don’t understand is why anyone who gets through this would go back and put themselves in a position where they might have to do it again?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Somewhere inside this mess, I’m sure I’m sane – if thoroughly strange. In a sense it reminds me of a couple of years ago, when after getting baked in an MRI for just over three hours (you'd think someone would realize doing that to a human being isn't a swell idea...) I emerged unable to speak and really pretty much think.

It’s called aphasia, and it’s also pretty bizarre. I was lucky…I recovered within a couple of hours. But wouldn’t you know…? As word got around my circuit of friends about what had happened, a couple of them said they would have given good money to be there when I couldn’t speak.

That’s right – they wanted to tell me a couple of things in a moment when I couldn’t have a thing to say about it.

(Sadists.)

Then again, as the person whose PTSD has managed to make her - at least for twenty minutes (which counts) - into one of the monsters which gave her PTSD, life is obviously an obtusely grand game of what you don't own about what you can't own...that can harm others.

And that, in turn, will deepen the deep mistrust you hold about being you - the person in whom was instilled a shard of darkness when you were too young to know that certain kinds of darkness are a bad thing.

I don't know that I'm ever going to let myself be close to anybody ever again. Even trying sounds like a stunningly bad idea. If I can arrange it, maybe I'll go live where I can't possibly PeeTSD all over anybody else.

(Yes, I'll make sure I can upload blog posts to continue my work. I get it...work is my thing.)

Drowning in the pudding of real self-recrimination while caught in a whirlpool of aberrant chemistry...I don't recommend any it. I've seen plenty of shows on people who get forgiven their vile behavioral behaviors, I just don't suspect that will happen here. That's maybe because...well, when you've done something you don't respect yourself for, everyone else looks worthy of forgiveness. You? Not so much.

My awful lead-in to the detox doesn't make withdrawal any easier. Then again, one's own personal Hell is not supposed to be a five-star resort, merely practice for some main event beautifully and evocatively provoked in some singularly Dante-esqued manner.

The set dec better be good if it's going to come up to par with the soulless soulful misery of self-immolating maceration in spiritual, energetic exile.

My very particles hang, condemned.

I have been rightfully rejected and there is no self-redemption. Some things we claim. Some claim us. I'm done with trying to claim anything as it's been apparently and abundantly proven to me that it is not mine to be owner, but rather to be owned by.

Abandoned, the karmic creature crouches by the side of the highway, waiting.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

But there is good news. The last time I tried to quit taking dronabinol I was stopped cold about 4 days into the process.

We’re past 4 days now. All I have to do is deal with a couple of weeks of feeling like a towel which has cleaned 10,000 cars then been rung hard, run under a couple of trucks and a steamroller and left to mold and become a shadow of its former self, lost and forgotten under the front porch as winter swept in.

Got the picture?
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 Falling Star by Witold Pruszkowski

(1884, oil on canvas, currently housed at Poland's National Museum in Warsaw) 

Maybe more importantly…aren’t you glad I wrote and scheduled a stack of posts before I started this?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

I now return you to more normal digital programming. We’re almost at the end of Libra now…which means that after the next few rounds of dealings with others we’re going to move into an intensely personal phase involving being exposed to our innermost relationship with Self.

You call that Scorpio.
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From an Astrologer's Notebook: Shut Downs National and Personal

The dome of the US Capitol at night in Washington DC

(photo credit: Florian Hirzinger, August 2010)

In case you didn't hear, the US government shut down. The last time this happened was back in the Clinton Era, and America survived that...so it's likely the country (and the world) will survive this.

The astrological question however, is why did this happen at this particular time?

For that, we look to the national chart - of which, when it comes to the US of A, there are many. Which is which and why which is used by whoever is a whole debate which goes on (rather endlessly) in the astrological community. Suffice it to say, however, the chart that this astrologer uses is that which is erected for the signing of a peace treaty by General Robert E. Lee in the tiny town (if you could have properly called it a town in those days) of Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia.

In other words, Chart USA - which is the only chart I know of which works by transit and return and whatever else, come what may - is the chart of the reunification of the United States at the end of the Civil War.

The keyword there is "reunification," a term which implies - accurately - that the country had broken apart. About the time that the Confederacy had written its own constitution, set up its own government and started printing its own money (it does always come down to money when you're talking nations, doesn't it?)...that 'terminated' the original 1776 compact...union...whatever you want to call it.

If you want to read more chapters and more verses on this, go to the blog sidebar and look under the list of national and political posts for 'Chart USA' posts. There's a bunch of them.

So this is Chart USA - the Appomattox Surrender Chart:

Chart USA (Appomattox Surender)

April 9, 1865 - 3:53 p.m. (LMT/+5:15) - Appomattox VA

Without belaboring the fact that this economics snafu has been long in the making, what we would be seeing during the course of this political season is a really sterling (ugh) example of the national Pluto conjunct Mercury in an Aries 8th house with both planets posited in Taurus.

Mercury is at 9 Taurus and Pluto is at 12 Taurus, both in premier position to be smacked by opposition by the November Solar Eclipse at 11 Scorpio.

That 11 Scorpio eclipse is in the nation's 2nd house - the house of security and 'our resources' (which would include money) but the effects are rather wide ranging. For one, the sign on the 2nd house where the eclipse is actually hitting is Libra. And Libra is ruled by Venus. The Venus of this chart is at 24 Taurus and the 9th house, a condition which tells us that this fight...and its repercussions do have widespread effects and that some of them will not be localized. In a national chart, any 3rd decanate placement (which is to say, anything positioned in the last ten degrees of any sign) is going to apply to 'them as well.' "They" will have input and opinions of what "we" or "I" do - in this case the 'we/I' thing being America.

In other words, with this Venusian 'ruling effect' coming from the 9th house, from education and media (both 9th house things) and in the international quadrant (the 9th being the house of all things 'foreign') the USA's actions are going to engender reactions in all those 9th house areas (media, foreign whatevers, etc.).

More close up, one would suppose is the fact that by being at 11 Scorpio, the eclipse is hitting both asteroid Industria (at 7 Scorpio) and the national 3rd house cusp - which rather brings up the whole 'what are they thinking?' reaction which has been heard from coast to coast (and abroad, as far as that goes).

Industria, in this notion, can be the effect on the nation's economy - and by Venusian implication - the international economy (which is to say, economies around the world). Being that solar eclipses have a 3-year 'evolution,' this is not any quick fix or quick dip in the economic shark tank, either.

Scorpio on the 3rd house tends to be insistent. Stubborn. The instinct is to try to get your own way, and why that would be - the plus and minus there - would be told through the rulers of Scorpio: Mars and Pluto. Mars is the 'choice' of what to do, not do, get involved with, deny, invest in or be 'operated' by when it comes to the pure Scorpio dynamic.

And in this chart, Mars is in Cancer (ouch) and the 10th house of government and world affairs. Mars in Cancer is Mars in a position to be insistent, sometimes to its own detriment. The Mars/Cancer effect generally stems from some sort of fear, and with Cancer being ruled by the Moon we look to the chart's Moon (which is in Libra, conjunct Black Moon Lilith and involving Black Hole M87)...and plainly that points to constituencies, political pressures and (Lilith) back room deals and other such things.

Meanwhile (back at the national ranch), the Pluto of this chart is sitting with Mercury in Taurus in a Mars ruled 8th house. What this rather tells us - because of the Mars ruling the effects/affects of this house - is that the US is perfectly willing to be badly behaved and even willing to discredit itself in the name of its (Venus in the rhetorical and theoretical 9th ruling the 2nd house of security and satisfaction with one's self) desire to do what it believes in...otherwise known as 'serving one's own purpose.'

So...what should we expect? We should expect a lot of 'pragmatism be damned!' and getting away with whatever can be gotten away from on the part of the nation as a nation - and specifically on the part of those who are in charge of doing the governing. The US of A is a nation which is willing to go out on any limb for what it believes in...and only once the (Plutonic) effects and outcomes hit does the nation respond. 

Call it 'clean up' mode. There are nations, just as there are people, who will just follow that theory right off a fifty story building only to do the 'uh-oh' thing as they plummet towards ground.

It's a trait.

Fortunately for Americans, the Pluto/Mercury in Taurus - once energized by a crisis, does well. But prior to that...? Uh, not so much. With Photographica ("the image") and Sabine ("being held captive by") conjunct Pluto and Mercury, we get the notion that until there IS some sort of crisis, the US will hold onto its theories and debate itself into a pickle barrel.

Perhaps also worth noting is the 2013 return on this chart...

Chart USA - Solar Return 2013

April 9, 2013  - 1:28 p.m. (EDT/+4) - Appomattox, VA

And oh...lookie there...! The 8th house natal is the 10th house solar, putting the issue of debt and finance right out there for all the world to see. Moreover, with the Midheaven (aka MC) at 23 Aries, Venus is exactly conjunct. So all that stuff we said about the 2nd house and Venus in the natal 9th and Industria will be affected - put that in BIG AND BOLD.

Incidentally, Industria doesn't only mean that government workers will be involved OR that the people working for (or as) the government will be the ones to set off the solar eclipse (or embody it, depending on how you think). No, this is also about 'work force' dynamics. And that natal Industria is very much in opposition to natal Mercury in Chart USA may give us the real clue about why and when this current shut down and the debt ceiling conversation soon to follow will get resolved.

Oh, there's nothing like debt to stir up an 8th house! And here it is, poised on the 10th house of governance. Issue...meet issue makers!

Et voila...the rationale for the problem.

But wait....! That's not all. Statistically speaking, the degrees which sit just before any angle are very powerful. So that puts Eris at 22 Aries, Mars at 21 Aries and the chart's Sun at 20 Aries right there to spoil for the honor of being most in the spotlight and most prone to thinking 'in the moment.'

The Sun in this solar return rules the Leo Ascendant. And with Circe sitting just behind that Ascendant, the (Leo) idea of the thing is spellbinding enough to reduce intelligence to mental myopia. That Circe is positioned at 2 Leo in the solar chart says it will "pick up" on natal Kleopatra at 4 Leo in the natal chart (with, for that matter, natal Kleopatra right under the solar Ascendant). Kleopatra was a very, very smart woman. But in the end, her cleverness drove her to a situation which somewhat bent to this purpose would refer to being a 'poisonous pain in the asp.'

(Yes, you can quote me.)

The closest planet/dwarf planet in this chart - which is to say the highest planet/dwarf planet in this return chart is Eris. And that tells us that disruption and discord will reign until such time as someone in government decides to make the (Midheaven) world a better place instead of just trying to prove their (Aries) point or have their (Aries) way.

Oh, and let's not forget that Pluto in 6. In a national chart, the 6th house is the house of its 'employee's and those who do the nation's business. So Pluto in that house, in an inconjunct to an intercepted Gemini Jupiter in the 11th house of income, social/societal thinking and social systems is a pretty darn good image of Congress not giving a graham cracker whether they screw up national functionality as well as their ability to not care whether they injure the income of a whole lot of people.

Put simply, Gemini is the sign of communication and thought. To have Gemini intercepted in the 11th in that inconjunct to Pluto is a perfect image of Congress just not 'hearing' what people are saying not just about them, but about what they're doing.

And let us not forget - Pluto is the 'outcome' ruler of Scorpio, as in "Scorpio solar eclipse." This Pluto in 6 with its attendant inconjunct is thus a perfect image of consequences and repercussions. 

The bottom line here is that this solar eclipse - like all solar eclipses - brings enormous focus to given subjects, wherever they may fall in our chart. (Or charts, should you want to also use your solar return and/or any applicable lunar return...and so on). Especially with a sign like Scorpio involved, we will tend to want to cling to some position or some sense of 'safety' or some notion even if we do so at some peril.

Solar eclipses are famous...yea verily infamous...for bringing out what really is funky and unworkable. In Scorpio, that 'thing' tends to be something we don't want others to know.

Heck, we don't even want to know such things about our Self.

We think (or know) they won't like us if we're honest... and that we'll have emotional hell to pay if we're honest with ourselves. It's all just a reflection of our shame or our fears or our insecurities with self - all of which are engendered when we refuse to grow, change, evolve and deal with our (Scorpio) emotions and the emotionality of life coolly, realistically and factually. With Scorpio, there is some tendency to glom onto ideals and forget the realities - the human cost, to ourselves and to others - for our trying to be 'perfect.'

Human perfection isn't theory. Human perfection is the process of being perfectly human, folks.

If we take our clue from the media (of which there is plenty of these days) it would seem to be that the 'Rule of Scorpio' which is to say, owning the truth calmly and factually and choosing to share that truth calmly and out of choice is the best way forward. Yes, there may be a moment of shock or dismay. But...

Washington Monument (photo credit: Snty-tact, July 2006)

....well, I'll just toss in here something from my own very human past. I used to be a gym rat. Health has kind of driven me away from that, though I still love grappling with weights and 'heavy feedback' (of all kinds, apparently!) Anyway...at once point I was invited by a friend of the day to work out at the very famous Gold's Gym in Venice Beach, California. And there, among the body buffniks and pro athletes, I soon found myself being cheered on by a bunch of pro wrestlers.

If you've ever seen pro wrestling, you know what I'm taking about - a bunch of guys who, if they know the word 'shy' certainly don't subscribe to it.

So there was very imperfect me, all gung ho but not anywhere near as fit as these guys, tackling the pig iron and going through my workout with these wrestlers standing around me urging me on with cries of  "JUST ONE MORE!!...GO FOR IT!!...YOU CAN DO IT!!"...and the like.

I finally asked one of them why they were being so supportive of someone who was plainly not in their class.

Their answer: "because you're here, and you're trying."

That's what Scorpio asks us to do. Scorpio asks us to try to be the better, braver - hopefully calmer and more 'think it through' person. Scorpio asks us to choose our friends, our associates and our efforts wisely, to recognize who we can trust, who we'd be a fool to trust, and to not get towed off track by what we don't know so that common sense - and human values (including the value of humans) - doesn't go out the window and thereafter return to haunt us, taunt us, and over time, undermine us.

Scorpio tempts us to think in response terms. Or reward terms. The temptation is to think in terms of power instead of self-respect. Scorpio will tempt us to deceive and not be honest about who we are and who we have been - most often to our own detriment.

Where we are blindly over OR under invested (in any sense) a Scorpio solar eclipse will explode those boundaries and barriers - particularly as it hits our Scorpio placements (should we have any). We will be asked and then forced to learn that we need to be trying, even when that's a very trying experience. The 'why?' here is obvious: life seeks to show us that we cannot live a depleted existence or a compartmentalized existence, that we are contiguous with ourselves and others.

You know...because of the E=mc2'd of it all.

And yes, sometimes we have to let go in order to hold on. The question is why and how we go about doing that. Scorpio is an intimate sign, so the public stuff, the outer stuff - and thus the money and prestige stuff - that's what tends to get in our way on the path to being the actual person we want to be.

So...

In that light (and on that note), the second half of this post is a form of personal "shut down" notice. No, I'm not stopping the blog - don't fret! This is more 'personally personal' than that.

As much as Scorpio is the sign of economics and debt and power struggles and intimacy and emotional conflicts big and small (from relationship trials to wars), there is also a very physical side to Scorpio which goes way beyond sex. Think through this list of Scorpio keywords: rehabilitation, detoxification, reconstruction, reclamation, purification, elimination.

For my solar eclipse, I'm up to a whole list of things. But then that's fitting, as this eclipse will conjunct my Scorpio Saturn/Moon while trining my Pisces Venus and Mercury. In short, a whole lot of chart factors, a whole lot doing in my life.

The Saturn part of this talks about what I'm doing to grow in an obvious and external manner quite consistent with Saturn being in the upper (public) half of my chart. It's also in the "thou" 7th house, which (all puns intended) 'speaks' to who I am with others and what I put out to others...and in this blog or any other work product or effort I make.

So it's apt that I'm in the middle of setting up publication of a four-volume epic fantasy. (Think "Lord of the Rings" if it had been written in a modern time with modern characters dealing with modern problems in a modern voice). This represents plural decades of work coming to fruition (which in Saturn representing duration and dedication seems apt). Plus I went into the production process to get these books into print just as I finished my year-long Saturn return.

All very fitting - and you can look for a release in the next few months. (I'll post an announcement here, on Facebook and LinkedIn when it happens.)

But there's another thing on my plate as well - on the 'who am I (the person) that I am putting out there? side of the coin. This concerns a medical process which in metaphysical terms is my 'eclipsing' a medical status in the purely Scorpio sense.

I want to be a better, less toxic me...which involves doing a detox. As noted above, any sort of 'detoxifying' is Scorpionic whether you're getting off some drug or refusing to go into some environment (like a home or some office) you find toxic.

Scorpio - as a process - is often about 'cleaning out' our life, our fears and any basis of relating or operating which is toxic, be that physical, emotional, sexual, financial, spiritual or otherwise. It can involve dealing with toxic waste, doing psychological work or utilizing any other form or format which activates the Scorpio 'reclamation,' 'tear down/build back' theme.

(Come to think of it, every part of that list applies to Congress...)

"Addiction" per se is astrologically thought of as Neptunian and Piscean. And yes, I am a Sun sign Pisces, which would tend to say my physical being is more prone to addiction than some - and you have no idea of the arguments I've gone through with MDs who have handed me plainly addictive prescriptions which I have then handed back saying things like 'I'm not in favor of addiction - are you?'...or the even more blatant 'Thanks, but I'm trying not to follow in Heath Ledger's footsteps.' 

That aside, when we talk about Pisces/Neptune addiction, we're generally talking about an addiction which grows out of some urge to escape, whether that's from life or physical or emotional pain.

At least that's where it starts. And it doesn't have to involve drugs. Wherever Pisces falls in your chart, that's the area of life which points to what you will tend to try to escape from, escape to or use as your medium of escape. (And sometimes all of the above are the very same thing.) I have a friend with Pisces on the 4th house who treats their home (and their office within the office complex) as their sanctuary and refuge. We all do that to some extent, but this person does it with such obvious 'flight' tendencies that the area around their (closed) office door vibrates like some energetic Hazmat zone.

In adult life they are flee the inability to tolerate feeling they were brought up as a child to avoid. And yes, childhood (as the experience of family) is also 4th house.

Pisces is a sign about our experiencing of our own  emotionality, emotional connections and the commonalty of human emotional experience, corporeal and otherwise. We often try to control our Pisces experience through escape when the answer is more about accepting how messy and imperfect - and yes, sometimes painful life really is.

We want the ideal. We want the dream. In Scorpio, we try to avoid invalidating the person inside ourselves who needs and wants that dream in order to feel better about life in general and in Pisces we try to escape feeling anything which hurts...which is why we manufacture that dream 'nirvana' in the first place.

Apply that to me and we get to a fact you already know if you've been around the blog long enough - namely that my sketchy (read: violent) early history has endowed me with all the anxieties and non-joys known as PTSD.

About seven years ago an enterprising MD put me on the medication I now need to stop. It was for PTSD and I didn't really fight it. I should have. But sometimes we have to learn the hard way. And that 'hard way' began for me when about three years ago I found out how unless you're fatally ill, you probably shouldn't take this medication but for a rather short amount of time.

NOW you tell me? Oh, great...

 Just in case you're into pharmaceuticals, no, this isn't

a photograph from any personal source!

I've tried all the common ways of trying to get weaned off this medication - all with stunningly bad results.And no, for the sake of the curious, I haven't abused my prescription.

Taking this all into metaphysics-speak we get yet another freaky example of Scorpio energetics and the 'use the energy wisely, lest it use you unwisely' lesson. I'm a Sun sign Pisces with a Scorpio Moon: I didn't abuse the drug but the drug has abused me.

So I get to do a detox...which may go just fine, but which (let's be real...!) may also not be a picnic in the park.

Full disclosure here...it probably hasn't been a picnic for people who know me in real time of late either.

Why? Well, for the last month or two I've been walking the edge of withdrawal. It's because of duration on the drug. Our bodies (which are amazing machines) learn to acclimate. So as you take many drugs, they do less and less...resulting in doctors amping up the amount of drug you take.

True to form however, given my stubborn little self, I simply refused to - as they say - "titer up." In part it's because I'd have to double the dose to change it at all (which sounds to me like a stunningly bad idea)...and since I've known this detox thing was coming, I've clung to my (maintenance) dose, even though of late I've been getting twinges of all those (very not cute) withdrawal symptoms which, as with most withdrawals had a way of turning me into one very anxious squirrel at emotionally provocative moments.

People in withdrawal just tend to be edgy and PTSD people in withdrawal tend to be very fight-and-flight prone. 

Yes, most people do 'fight or flight'...PTSD people tend to do fight and flight.

It's very decorative. (Not!)

Since I'm the child-abuse PTSD person and not the military grade PTSD person, the good news is that I don't shoot guns. But yes, I am a writer (surely you've noticed, right?) So I do tend to shoot my mouth off - most often when the mere idea of something scary scares me into trying to ward the scary thing off...Which usually makes it happen, yes.

Ah, life is so self fulfilling!

And once I manage to elicit exactly the thing I dread, I do what child abuse victims do - I go right to being childlike. (I'm guessing those on the receiving end call it childish.) In other words, I cry.

In fact, I have a PhD in weepery. (That's a joke, yes. But also not so much of a joke - also yes.)

I know...you're sitting there reading this and trying to envision your shiny-brained astrologer acting like a child. It happens, trust me. And people in real time have no better time with it than you're having imagining it - though I do have a few friends who know that no matter what happens, scared kids need hugs and reassurance and security.

So like everybody else who has been scared early and thoroughly, I freak out, I cry some (sometimes a lot) and then I...well...I guess you could say I 'sober up' and return to being the shiny-brained astrologer and generally glib girl most people think of me as.

Confession over. And now that you know much PTSD stuff you probably never thought you'd read on an astrological blog (though to be honest, having been abused is part of what led me to learning astrology)...on to the practical: for reasons classed as 'all of the above' I may be taking a couple of weeks away from the blog. As of today I will be setting it to 'automatic,' so you can still post comments. That way, if I do step away, a friend will step in to play monitor and delete anything off-color or off-track even if I won't be answering until I come back online, which at first guess will be...oh, after the first week of November.

In other words, until after the solar eclipse - at which time I'll catch up with comments, love notes and 'atta girls' left in the interim.

Whether or not I take time off, the process is akin to shutting down in order to clean up. I'm pulling back on the Scorpio interactivity side of things in order to reclaim and rebuild inside so as to be a better person to you...and myself as well.

Since I haven't jumped into the detox pool (it looks muddy) yet, I'm not sure how deep the water is going to be. Maybe all will be fine. But in any case, not to worry - posts will be pre-loaded to let you know what's going on. Therefore the worst case scenario is this: though you may miss my saucy Piscean presence, you'll remain informed on metaphysical doings.

I trust you understand.

 The glyph for Pisces

I also want to say that I'm telling you all of this not because I have some need to go public (I so don't follow that habit) but because I thought it would be a whole difference kind of good example of how solar eclipses - in particular a Scorpio solar eclipse - can work.

Positive things can come of whatever this eclipse brings, but the process of working through the whole of the eclipse's lesson can be difficult, challenging, trying, scary and ugly.

And let's not forget...eclipses have stages. First comes the 'pre-eclipse' break down of various things in our life. GIven that this eclipse is in Scorpio, the effect may appear to be external, but the real issue is internal.

Life is trying to get us all to learn something vital...and the closer this eclipse is to hitting anything in your chart squarely, the more basic or bigger the lesson is. As we often see with celebrities, politicians and such, eclipses frequently "out" us - or what we've been doing or hiding.

Particularly from ourselves.

Once the date of the actual eclipse passes, then we move into a 'coping' phase where we deal with whatever has happened and continue processing in present tense (i.e., what I need to do on a daily basis) as we (hopefully) also do a little contemplation of what this event - whatever it may be - is trying to 'tell' us in terms of who we really are, or should be.

Somewhere down the line...call it between two and two and a half years from now, those of us who have had a solid 'hit' from the eclipse (that would be me raising my hand, yes) will come across something or some situation or some person we would never have appreciated or 'known' was important had we not been through this time. 

But yes, eclipses can be a giant headache - literally and otherwise.

With that said, back to the book. As happy as I am about finally getting this book into print, there's also an aspect of wistfulness about it. My cousin likened this feeling to having children grow up and leave home. With the 'missing' of having something all to yourself is the understanding that an 'era' of your existence has come to its end.

And a new one begins, which brings us to the idea of how scary change can really be. It's no less scary to think of thinking of life in a new way at the governmental level than it is on an individual level. It's scary to think that the family you grew up with taught you things which now as an adult are crippling your life.

But at some point, we have to change. So just as I understand how many simply refuse to allow me to be anything but a titanium-minded computer who does astro-analysis at the drop of a diode (apparently I'm a clone of Commander Data) I also understand how hard it is for politicians to do what's right instead of what's popular.

I have seen wholesale bizarreness happen over the past few weeks and I bet you have too. My least favorite was the person who told me something was "illegal" when it plainly wasn't. They should never try such lines on someone prone to looking things up. (I'm a born research geek.)

By it happens. The Pisces in me wants to think they 'just don't know the truth' while my Scorpio Moon side suspects they're copping out. (Read: manipulate the situation, and 'manipulation' is a Scorpio word.)Or worse yet, that they've been lied to by someone trying to control them. (Control: another Scorpio word.)

Ah yes...so many questions, so little true and truly trusting and intimate communication of the Scorpio kind - the kind which challenges us to risk so we can grow. So many of us are so afraid of losing that we give up the chance to win.

Isn't that so often the way of humankind?

The glyph for Scorpio

 

But I understand why all of this is at stake and taking place. I understand the parameters of the Scorpio eclipse coming upon us, and the fact that it's going to affect each and every one of us in our own very special and equally trying way. (With that going double, yes, for anyone with planets, dwarf planets, nodes or axis points in Scorpio.) I comprehend our fears. I sympathize with our universal desire for comfort and security, however we define that for ourselves. 

Being human is seriously difficult. But what's our choice?

The old Zen master's saying...walk on...seems to apply here. And I hope that those who object to my vulnerabilities will, in spite of their preferences, choose to walk the road through life with me anyway.

And if they don't...for those who must walk their own paths for their own reasons, I wish them well and hope they can find it in their hearts to forgive me my very human and physical mortal failings even if they choose to follow a different...and probably equally challenging path.

We are in a time of shifting mortal energetics. And if I've learned anything as an astrologer it's that where Scorpio is concerned, hiding is a toxicity which corrodes, especially when we do it to evade our own fear.

Scorpio fears are about as toxic as toxic gets on the metaphysical level. And the power of that toxicity is in the fear, the secret, the denial and the unwillingness to believe you can live through whatever happens even if others don't like who you are or what you've done.

What's your choice - to live a lie? To deny that which would allow you to experience the greatest depths of your human self?

That's Scorpio at its most ineffectual.

I've compared Scorpio to ice (i.e., fixed water - which is what Scorpio is astrologically) many a time. To lie is thin ice. To own one's mortality and humanity and willingness to try in spite of our flaws... that's the ice which though perhaps not all slick and shiny is solid enough to walk on.

So there are a few comments on the eclipse and the US government...and my process of eclipsing that which I have been. Eclipses tend to bring out the worst like some overflowing sewer...and the worst of it seems to be looking at ourselves.

Whatever it takes for life to get us to let go, life will hand us. If we refuse to let go now, in 19 years (one Metonic or eclipse cycle) we will encounter the same process but at higher magnitude (as they say here in earthquake country) and with more devastating effects.

At some level the question is not can you hold on...but why would you want to?

And that's where the 'fixation' of Scorpio's gives way to transformation. Scorpio often manifests as wanting to be right when the better solution is getting it right - and 'right' is not what it looks like, but an intrinsic quality of unique individuality we each must find on our own.
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