Orcus at 6 Virgo: Our Possible Price

The Young Man and Death by Gustave Moreau (1865, oil on canvas)

Consequences. That’s the Orcus thing – consequences. Specifically those we can’t avoid.

And you know how much we all like a good unscheduled consequence, right….?

(Wrong!!)

Considering this (and changing the subject slightly if not at all), it continues to amuse (or maybe amaze me, I’m not sure) how the astrological world-at-large doesn’t make more of Orcus.

After all, look at all the attention Pluto gets. People are just fascinated by the allure, the craven draw of Pluto in all its potential disastrous-ness. Heck, we humans even get off on wallowing in the pain of our Pluto disasters. (We are quite the race, aren’t we?)

Our Pluto silliness isn’t really what I’m on about here…what I’m getting to is that Pluto is a dwarf planet. So is Orcus. Not to sound repetitive or anything, Pluto is also a Plutino – meaning it’s orbit is controlled by Neptune, the ‘big blue’ of our solar systemic planetary world.

And so is Orcus.

So…! Why DO we-who-are-metaphysically-inclined pay so much attention to Pluto and virtually NO attention to Orcus?

Answer: because Pluto’s energetics pertain ONLY to ‘what happens.’ We don’t much notice Plutonic consequences…we just feel the deliciously dangerous draw of their allure.

Pluto effects really hit in an event’s wake. It’s energies embody a less-than-fully-planetary-sized processing of our ability to forget (for good and ill), ignore (for the best and otherwise) and attempt to outguess eventuality (good luck with that). Where Plutonic forces function as part of our legacy, not all of us care (though some do fervently, granted) and where they pertain to our projecting our greatest desires on the future Pluto brings us those Grand Twists of Fate. Pluto is also about that we inherit through being born to whomever we were born to and how we harness (or don’t harness) our abilities in relationship to the world around us and our life in general.

Artist's image of Pluto based on Hubble's photographs

(image credit: C. M. Handler, December 2010)

In other words, Pluto is something we work with.

Orcus, on the other hand, is about consequence. In other words, Orcus is about that which is over, done, finis – and about which we can do nada, zilch and exactly zero.

With Pluto, in other words, we still have hope. How well founded that hope is….? Well, that’s what we might call “the Neptune side of Pluto” and all about how realistic we are and how well we deal with our emotionality. (And there’s nothing like a Pluto transit to teach us where we’re a wee bit wanting in the Emotionality Department… do I hear a seconding of this notion?)

(Don’t all groan at once, please…)

But to the point: where there is Orcus, there is no more negotiation. There is no hope of changing the situation as it stands. To the Romans, Orcus was the god-type who greeted you on the other side of the doorway through which you passed when leaving this life. And true to form when it comes to so much that Rome adopted from ancient Greece, apparently Orcus was the chilling godly sort of type who welcomed folks to the afterlife and then walked them to their destined destination in the underworld while having a (perhaps tastefully critical) conversation with them about what they did in life which… well… wasn’t so nifty keen and cool.

Nothing like a reminder after the fact, is there?

Like all of the objects controlled by Planet Neptune, Orcus tests our (Neptunian) responses to our own feelings and our reaction to being made to feel those feelings. With Pluto, the ‘lure’ (if you will) to get us into the situation which tests is primal and desirous.

With Orcus, it’s just fact. And it’s the very coolness and dispassionate factuality of Orcus which is so very daunting.

Yea verily to some – or to all of us on some occasions - even frightening.

Still, the thing to understand about Orcus is that the idea of ‘this is now dead and done, you can’t change it’ is not always as final as it sounds. Certainly we might expect to see (and yes, do see) transits from Orcus or to someone’s natal Orcus when someone dies. But Orcus isn’t a ‘symbol of death.’

It’s just an indicator that where you have been coming from – particularly as that pertains to what’s “ideal” to you emotionally…or idealized by you emotionally…that said ‘Neptunian illusion’ is no longer valid.

And maybe it was never valid.

Where Orcus is concerned, we face the utter lack of control which Pluto makes us think we can somehow get hold of.

And now Orcus is going retrograde.

The date: December 6, 2013 – which means the ‘window’ for station effects opens around December 4th and extends to…let’s say December 8th. During this time life will be becoming ‘ever more Sagittarian’…busy but introspective and filled with ideas and things which need – and which are worth contemplating.

But to put this a bit more cut-and-dried-ly, Mercury will be moving into Sagittarius on the 5th (the Sun is already in Sagittarius) and as of the 7th, Mars will move into Libra.

That puts Orcus – this ‘vibe of consequence’ (or maybe ‘consequential vibe’) right between two influences which would tend to say we went too far too fast and have either said too much or too little…and that we now (Orcus) are recognizing we have to face the consequences of our actions. Or lack of actions.

What has happened, what we’ve done or not done is the Orcus part. How we feel – and indeed whether we feel, whether we are willing to deal with our reality? That’s the Neptune part.
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A simulation of Orcus' orbit as example of the path followed by any of the Plutinos,

 all of which 2-to-3 resonance with Neptune.

Here’s the magic: with Neptune, to accept is to enshroud yourself with the ability to learn better (always good) and to – if you want to – improve things by adopting the Neptunian position of humility and admitting your errors or vulnerabilities at least to your Self.

That Orcus is going retrograde at 6 Virgo reminds us that the person we have responsibility for Self but at the same time how life cannot become a matter of our ego or ego drives, positive or negative – that when they do (or because they have) we may be ‘judged’ as wanting.

Unless of course, you’re willing to ‘own’ your own errors. At that level, Orcus transits (and stations, yes) are about knowing there are consequences…and how that pertains not just to us, but to the consequences others may ‘pay’ for us.

That’s the thing which over time…after now having had even just a handful of years as an astrologer in which to watch new (to us here on Earth) points and think them through…that’s the thing which is becoming more obviously to me than ever about Plutinos. Yes, they do each have their own particular ‘test’ and way of bringing about big shifts in our lives. At the same time however, they all also represent a ‘class’ of astronomical object which has (and should have) it’s own astrological meaning.

What I’m referring to here is the fact that what makes a Plutino a Plutino is the fact that its orbit is controlled by Neptune through Neptune’s amazing ability – as a planet - to influence vast swaths of space (and just about everything wandering through that space) all along its orbital path.

In short, Plutinos generate the sort of vibe which has a peculiar sort of ‘radiant’ quality. Think of Pluto in the unfortunate case of a terrible traffic or train wreck which everybody then has to come and stare at. Pluto has that ‘magnetic’ effect – the lure and allure, the fascination and all the possibilities of guilt and guilty pleasures which go with that.

And Orcus?

Orcus isn’t the train wreck…it’s what we do to create a train wreck in our own lives. And considering that, Orcus going on station at 6 Virgo says a lot. For one, the Sabian Symbol for this degree is ‘A HAREM,’ – a singular collective which stresses receptivity, with noted astrologer Marc Edmund Jones referring to this as ‘a fateful (even if sought after) subservience to the vagaries or desires of the emotional nature’ with Dane Rudhyar counting by thinking of this state of existence as ‘an emptiness of waiting’ which begs to be used for positive purposes.

Why we create what we create, and why that was important enough to serve as sufficient motivation to bet the most irreplaceable thing we have in life (time) is at least as important as what we create or what others think of us. It would seem we have each – in some part of our life – gotten ourselves to a place where we can do nothing but wait for some right moment or turn of tide.

Having created our ‘consequence’ (good, bad or mixed) we are now being asked to look at what some might think of as the most restrictive or punitive parts of our experience as a source of personal enlightenment.
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Pluto Station-Retrogrades in Capricorn

Image based on a photo of cocktail straws taken by Dave Gough (September 2006)

Amidst threats of violence and a rash of difficulties and damaging deeds, Pluto goes retrograde on April 12, 2013 at 7:33 in the evening UT/+0 time at 11 degrees of Capricorn, a sign astrologically ruled by Saturn.

That means the 'station window' (or 'allowance') begins on April 10th and extends through to April 14th, which does not mean that acts which are undertaken or committed to prior to this time don't apply. What the station and its two day 'allowance' to either time represents is the heart of a period which changes our perception (in this case, in a Plutonic manner) depending on what else is going on.

That said, in this case, Saturn went retrograde back in February at 11 degrees of Scorpio – in a perfect sextile to the station Pluto is taking now.

And since Capricorn is ruled by Saturn and Pluto is the ‘outcome’ ruler of Scorpio, in astrological terms this is something of a self-feeding loop.

 Since ancient times the Ouroboros - the snake (dragon, fish, etc.) swallowing itself

has been a symbol of a process which is either difficult to escape or which

is entirely self-supporting.

(From the Codex Parisinus, a late medieval Byzantine Greek
alchemical manuscript - c. 1478)

Okay…so maybe in our lives this isn’t so literal. (Or as literal.) But for some of us...maybe it is.

Saturn in Scorpio is all about building our lives and what it takes to get where we want to go.

Link to post: Saturn in Scorpio

Scorpio is an emotional sign which tests us through others and through the situations we encounter in life. Sagittarius is a fire sign which tests the viability of our ideas and the implementation thereof. And Capricorn is a sign about real world, real time, real life ‘commerce’ (be that business or otherwise) and how well or how badly we structure our lives…or how well or badly we have already structured our lives.

So the ‘outcomes’ we are experiencing now, or the challenges which are really ‘getting to us’ now are a combination of this back-and-forth sign rulership between Pluto and Saturn. (Which by the by has an astrological name – it’s called “mutual reception.”)

And the thing to remember is that all signs being polarities, this calls in some bigger questions – those posed by nationality, family, culture and upbringing (Cancer as the polarity to Capricorn) and our feelings of risk or security or threat to that security which are emblematic of Taurus as the oppositional sign to Scorpio.

Some of us are likely to come into this time – the Pluto station or the period surrounding it – trying to figure out how we can please everyone.

And yes, sometimes it’s too bad that people aren’t flex-straws.

 A contortionist playing 'Man-in-a-box'

(photo credit: Keith Allison, December 2006)

Evidently we don’t stop trying. And some of us (evidently) succeed at getting pretty good at it, whether it’s at being a human flexi-straw or finding our way through the thicket of human hopes, disagreements, conflicts and realities.

11 Capricorn is symbolized by this image:  

An illustrated lecture on natural science reveals little-known facts of life.

With Pluto taking its station and going retrograde in this degree, the effort we have put into things (Saturn in Scorpio) is now either bearing fruit or bringing to light ‘little-known facts’ which we need to consider. A lot depends on what kind of energy you have been putting out there, obviously. Some people have been resisting making changes, some people have been resisting knowing the truth, some people have been resisting taking responsibility for what they’ve done or their life or relationships or success, failure – what have you.

Saturn is the symbol of all we either put into something to build and grow and create lasting life structures, or Saturn is some sort of wall or limit you set up in your life, or which life confronts you with.

Of course there are many limitations and challenges to which we say ‘I just have to live with it’ or ‘that’s the way it is’ when that’s not really the truth.

And here we get into the big and karmic world of what we can do versus what we want to do – which is exactly the sort of concept Pluto generally brings to light.

And it brings them to light because Pluto represents not merely our psychic shadow (that which we don't want to admit to or see in ourselves) but that which brings out evidence of that shadow.

Hence so much violence and the taking of stances by those in our personal world as well as on the world stage who don't feel entirely good about who they are. Jealousy, grasps at power and control and a wholesale thrust to have what we want no matter how it affects others are very Scorpio-Pluto concepts. Add in Saturn and you have a 'making it real' factor which is particularly apt where something hard and sometimes tangible but always consequential is put forth as the means or the "weapon" of choice.  

But there is a whole other side to this Pluto-Saturn mutual reception. For those who have been working towards some goal ("earning" being the key idea here) this is a time when a rational approach and clarity of method yields results. So this can be an entirely positive time...it mostly just depends on whether you are working productively, honestly and openly with or within your Self. Those who have worked for something which is viable and ‘a positive’ in life will find a path forward being revealed. And though the forward path may not be easy, at least you’ll know it’s there for the doing...the taking on as a task and personal responsibility to yourself.

Conversely, those who have erected too many walls, or who have allowed their lives to get 'walled in,' life will now present challenges which seem exceptionally trying in a very primal, personal sense. Some will find themselves having to do with out - or face having to do without something "easy" in order to get to something less 'glossy' but more valuable on some intangible, intrinsic level.

Those who have based their values on things which don’t work for their true life Purpose? They will also find things more difficult. But why should Purpose enter into this? That would be because Pluto going retrograde at 11 Capricorn puts Pluto very much in opposition to fixed star Alhena at 9 Cancer, and Alhena is a premier emblem of Purpose among the fixed stars.

But we have even more to go with than that: in going retrograde at 11 Capricorn, Pluto is also going retrograde in opposition to dog star Sirius at 14 Cancer. So, considering that Sirius is all about personal brilliance and the ‘bright star’ we each can be in life as an individual, in ‘parsing the astrological opposition,’ Pluto’s station is asking us whether we are using our brilliance purposefully, or whether we are really serving the brilliance of Our Purpose, and that Purpose which can be supported by our brilliance properly.

Or even at all.

Considered to be a ‘true to theme’ degree of its sign 11 Capricorn has a bit of a Scorpionic quality in that it poses the opportunity and – on occasion – tests of confidentiality or secrecy. Another form of this ‘secret’ energy with this degree has to do with things we know which we utilize in our efforts to build our life, such as the experience we get on a job or the training we have invested in (“built into ourselves”) so that we can hold a particular job or be involved with a given career.

Pluto in any earth sign is going to ‘test the results’ in real time. All the hopes and dreams and theories of how things “should” work or how we might “want” them to work mean nothing in the earthy Pluto world where all that matters are results. And this goes to Pluto as a signature of transformative energies which, if we don’t keep them in perspective can become obsessions. Or obsessive drives which obliterate everything else.

And yes, that may even include our actual Purpose, which just may be shown up to you now through some little but brilliant fact.

Pluto committed to its transit of Capricorn in December of 2008. It will be in this most worldly sign of earthly personal and societal outcomes until 2024. Being that Capricorn is the third sign from Pluto’s ‘home’ sign (Scorpio), it is through all things Capricorn that Pluto gives ‘voice’ to all the ups and downs of Scorpio-like qualities.

 One from a famous series of photographs known as 'The Blue Marble' which

the Apollo 17 astronauts took while on their way to the Moon

(photo credit: NASA)

So these are the years of high persuasion and verbal manipulation. These years will show up the strengths of the human spirit and the terrible things which can happen to the human mind – and what those minds get put to. Considering that war is a ‘Scorpio thing’ it’s neither surprising that what war does to minds (PTSD and otherwise) and what kind of a mind launches a war is coming out now, nor should we expect this to be an easy ‘fix.’

Being that government is a Capricorn function and Cancer is the sign of 'the people' or a native population, the problems of government around the world are merely manifestations of this time. Whether citizens are trying to get rid of a government, whether governing bodies are taking away the rights of their citizens, this is Pluto working as a transformative and testing factor in the structural sign of Capricorn. Whether the question is states rights versus federal rights, democratic votes being overridden (or voters voting to override the will of those in power), whether it's a head of state refusing to give up the reins of power or a 'functional head of religious state' such as Pope Benedict choosing to step down when nobody's done that for many centuries...this is all part of Pluto passing through Capricorn and in doing so, testing what works and what doesn't work and the relationship between sheer power and negotiated agreement (the Saturn-Pluto cross-rulership quality) really means.

And how it does work, and where it doesn't work, and how the notoriously Scorpio ‘I want it my way’ quality can muck up the works.

Abuse being Scorpio and based on fear of loss with Capricorn being about having not just the authority and ability to punish but the responsibility to act for the greater and long-term "Cancerian" good is going to be a problem. So we will be hearing about tyrants real and fabricated. We will suspect those who accuse and we will oftentimes not want to believe the worst of someone we are in some way predisposed to like or feel loyal to.

And yet, they may be in the wrong. Or at least guilty of being as wrong as the "other side" is.

These years will test our own ability to recognize that might doesn't make right and how against that, sometimes there simply isn't no 'right or wrong' - there's only circumstances. And that’s just the problem. Pluto in any earth sign will tend to say look for results. But if there aren’t any, you have to ask why. Is it for lack of trying? Or as in this case, is there some other force (which at this moment would be represented by Saturn in Scorpio) which is blocking or “limiting” all possibilities for success because they can’t face being wrong or having their values be proven not so (Taurus as oppositional sign to Scorpio) valuable – or even viable?

The last time Pluto transited Capricorn - some two hundred and forty years ago - we were still squarely in the Age of Pisces. In the Piscean Age, Capricorn ruled the 11th house - the house of society.

A wheel representing the Age of Pisces with the border color-coded

to Capricorn's position on the 11th house

And so we come into this time with a lot of built up social 'inheritance,' if you will. The Piscean Age pictures two distinct groups - like the two fish of Pisces.

But the Age of Aquarius knows no gender, no bias, no class or caste or inequality.

At least that's it's purpose.

Aquarius is the most theoretical of air signs, the concept of the World as One which obviously sounds good but which quickly runs into human bias and the habitual human tendency to lust after weal, power, control, social status and all those trappings which prove to us that we're 'worth it' - which is precisely what the Scorpio-Taurus axis shows up: our vulnerabilities, insecurities and (in particular) those issues of self respect and self worth which people try to solve with "becoming worth" a lot of money or doing whatever they think they need to do to garner "respect" from others. 

This is all about the new paradigm: Scorpio at the top of the wheel of the Aquarian Age...

An Aquarian Age wheel with the border color coded to match Scorpio

on the 10th and highest house of the Age

...and Taurus at the bottom.

An Aquarian Age wheel with the border color coded to match Taurus

on the 4th house of the Age 

  
As Pluto moved through its home sign of Scorpio in the 1980s it set the trend of fervency (which some would call desperation) off. Yes, even if the attention is sometimes simple lip service or air-headed adulation, even if it's placation, manipulative praise or infamy, there's a lot of people who have already headed in this direction.

And there's more to come. The sign at the bottom of the wheel of any Age is the thing we come into that Age having very little of. In the Age of Pisces that was education - Gemini was at the bottom of the wheel.

Now it's Taurus.

Those who know their history know that education was not at the top of anyone's list 2,100 years ago as something everybody should have. That's a key to understanding where we are - and how likely we are to keep on with the whole 'substitute for self worth' epidemic for some time yet to come.

The truly successful among us - in the human sense of successful (i.e., success equaling satisfaction and contentment with one's life) will develop themselves and then build towards achievement, earning respect along the way. Those who do it the other way around may succeed on the outside, but feel hollow on the inside.

And yes, we've already seen and hear plenty of those stories. They're sad. From the outside you can see the person struggling to have that very thing they won't stop to accept: their own self respect. 

As for Capricorn, in the Age of Aquarius, Capricorn moves to the 12th house of the wheel.

The Aquarian Age with the border of the diagram color coded

to match Capricorn being on the 12th house of the wheel of the Age  

And if you know anything about the 12th house, it's a house which is all about our ability to deal with reality and all about everything we will do to avoid dealing with realities - with all of that involving (and prompting) the many ups and downs which embody the universal emotional experience of being human.

All that is now flowing through Capricorn. So with Capricorn being the sign of commerce and every kind of ‘worldly regulated social standing’ it’s no wonder that we’re hearing so much about the gay marriage and the right of women to be CEOs, priests or anything else of worldly standing.

Once Pluto moved into Capricorn, even reality TV moved on. Reality TV started under Pluto in Sagittarius (which is Pluto in the opposition sign to Gemini). Sagittarius being about how well our choices and ideas work we had shows like ‘Survivor’ and ‘Big Brother,’ ‘American Idol’ and ‘The Amazing Race.’

And while those may have lived on, as Pluto moved into Capricorn (the reality of how we deal with the world and build our lives) reality shows began exploring the Capricorn-Cancer realm of life, lifestyle and traditions or culture, giving us people creating a career (creating a Capricorn structure) rather literally out of their family, heritage or efforts to make their way in this world (Cancer).

We are each doing some form of all of this in our lives. We have shifted out of ‘playing at’ certain things (Pluto in Sagittarius) in favor of doing things ‘for real’ – the hallmark of Pluto in Capricorn. Things seem more real and at once more depressing and more possible with Pluto in Capricorn.

And now Pluto is going retrograde. This means the energy of ‘change’ is now moving from in the world (to which we respond) into us. So for the next several months (Pluto goes retrograde in September) will be a time for a lot of internal shifts, changes and transformations. They won’t all be easy. Plutonic energy isn’t known as anything easy and with the mutual reception in Saturn there are some hard choices and difficult challenges to be dealt with by each and every living last one of us.

But we can do what we need to do. It may mean giving up the easy or the comfy or even the popular. But if you are heading towards manifesting your true Purpose with authentic brilliance, you’re likely to come out on top.

As the old expression goes, slow and steady wins the race. With Saturn and Pluto both currently in retrograde taking the time to do things right and thoroughly is what will – in time – give you the rock to stand on.

And isn’t that what we all want – a rock which doesn’t roll out from under us at the critical moment?
That would be Pluto’s aim in Capricorn. Some of us are going to have to break out of a hard chrysalis shell before we can pump blood into our wings and take flight like a butterfly.

A Monarch Butterfly enjoying a flowery moment in a Birmingham (UK) garden

(Tony Hisgett, September 2011)

But what’s our choice? Do we really want to live and die inside a cocoon? Being ‘cocooned,’ whether in silken threads or not have a difficult reputation in the world of lore and metaphysics. It’s like being crippled, and who would choose to cripple themselves on purpose?

One other thing to stick in our Pluto bonnet here before we slip off into the experiencing our personal world of station/retrograde. That one thing is about the Solar Eclipse which will happen this November. It’s going to be at 11 Scorpio – the degree of Saturn’s February station and in sextile to Pluto’s current station position. (And yes, Saturn will be close enough to the eclipse to be involved.)

This is one of those celestial ‘messages on a wall.’ The message reads: change or be changed.

Those who make the needed changes now, or who are working towards them are likely to emerge from this fall’s eclipse with more clarity and better opportunities than those who refuse, reject or claim they ‘can’t’ change. And while I understand (better than most, trust me!) that when I say ‘emerge from an eclipse’ I’m not talking about an ‘over the weekend’ sort of thing, the implied reality – in its totality - is just as important.

Maybe even more important.
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Manti Te’o and Princess Diana: Jupiter, Neptune and Neptune / Mercury

 Jupiter's Great Red Spot as photographed by Voyager 1

(photo credit: NASA, February 1979)

Just about the time Lance Armstrong’s two-part Oprah interview hit the airwaves, a weirdly convoluted discussion about American (grid-iron) football player Manti Te’o and his ‘phantom online girlfriend’ also erupted.
 
From an astrological perspective, is this about sports stars? Or just celebrity?

I’d tend to say maybe both. And here’s why – starting with an Aries wheel of the zodiac indicating the current transiting positions of major planets.

Athleticism and the urge to compete are astrologically two different things. The physicality is Aries – the physical body, the “I Am” of corporeal existence. But the development of the body and the urge to test ourselves against others (otherwise known as competition) is a Leo trait. The real object of Leo is as part of the fixed sign cycle: Taurus, self-worth/resources…Leo, development…Scorpio, learning the worth of your resources or the current ‘state’ of your development process…and Aquarius, finding your place in the world, in the public, in the marketplace – and earning what can be earned depending on what you’ve developed in (or about) your Self.

All that is supposed to ‘complete’ the cycle and bring us back to Taurus having learned how to earn an internalized sense of self respect and self worth. Those who go through all the steps learn a lot. Those who avoid steps along the way, or who maybe inherit a lot of money or a position in the world which ‘allows’ them to ‘shortcut’ the process have an iffier time of it.

(No, we don’t like it, but evidently humans need to strive in order to end up feeling secure with themselves and within their Self.)

Celebrity is also a Leo trait. Leo – among other things – tests and teaches us how to deal with what might be loosely referred to as the ‘narcissism scale,’ hence those who become famous for nothing or famous for being famous, or the fact that we all know the difference between the person who is just ‘well known’ and the person whose depth or artistry or ability to touch our hearts makes them someone who will be known for all time? Not meaning to slight any reality star in particular, many of them are well known – they’re celebrity. But the enduring fame of DaVinci or Gandhi, that’s another thing.

Enduring fame is Piscean, Pisces is the sign of ‘universal emotionality’ where Leo celebrity is more the ‘entertaining image.’

This matters why?

This matters because it appears that a lot of what’s going on at the moment is life getting us to separate fame from celebrity through causing us to see how mortal some of our sports heroes really are.

Uranus is currently transiting Aries. And wherever we see Uranus, our lives in terms of those concepts gets (Uranus) ‘shaken’. Uranus symbolizes change – and all the forces which get us to change or which power that change. So whether the subject is Hurricane Sandy, the terrible doings in Libya, the saber-rattling of North Korea, the shootings in Newtown or the fall of sports heroes, there is an aspect of all of these things which is decidedly about our getting ‘shaken’ at some very primal and personal level, be that totally physical or through the other general aspect of that simple Aries phrase: ‘I Am’ which is so very much the essence of consciousness.

Life shakes us up so that we become aware. So that we will recognize that we value. And that what we do – or don’t do – in or with our lives matters. We all certainly have our ‘stuff.’ We each have a ‘personal mythos.’ And how we feel and relate to that mythos is – astrologically - made up of various symbolic parts. But when it comes to how we feel about sports figures and celebrities in general, there’s the part of that which is about them…and the part of that which is about us.

And that’s absolutely Piscean. Pisces, the sign of two fish headed in opposite directions is about reflections and the tendency to separate reality from the expectation.

 One of the stained glass windows of France's famous

Chartres Cathedral pictures the image of Pisces

But the success of that? That depends on whether we are having faith or supporting someone else (a connective urge) or whether we are avoiding being realistic about life…or our life in particular.


And that’s Jupiter-Neptune, the two co-rulers of Pisces.

One of the things to recognize about Jupiter and Neptune is that as planets, these are the two objects in our solar system which astronomers and other science-types tell us influence other objects. Neptune, as we’ve discussed, has an incredible quality called ‘magnetic resonance’ which literally controls the orbits of many other objects – the most famous of which is Pluto.

Jupiter’s magnetic resonance isn’t quite as obvious as that of Neptune (at least astrologically) but Jupiter does evidently affect the orbits of more than a few objects, notably those with orbits which cross various orbital tracks of planets without ever actually circling around the Sun.

Interesting, eh? Well, that’s what we get when we have a planet – Jupiter – which had it been just a wee bit bigger, might have been a sun.

There’s much to be said about Jupiter and Neptune as co-rulers of Pisces, but let’s go with the basics: Jupiter’s basic symbolism is about learning and knowing…which in Jupiter’s primary sign of (sole) rulership – Sagittarius – is about that vast bank of data we call knowledge. Seeking to know more, learning how ideas work in the world, education, new experiences – that’s all the Sagittarian Jupiter.

But as the ‘in’ door in Pisces, because Pisces is an emotional sign all about not just how we feel, but how we feel about our feelings, Jupiter poses the question ‘do you know your own feelings and why you feel as you do? Is that a valid premise?’

Thus, Pisces becomes the sign of all experiences and things which evoke or promote emotionality, and thus test our knowledge of our own emotions and the validity of those emotions – which is why Pisces is associated with delight as well as despair, and faith, spirituality and idealism on an equal basis with abandonment, loss and rejection.

All these things are coming to the fore now in the form of dozens of issues we’re facing and hearing about. The facts, the ideas, the learning about them and being presented with things which get us to scratching our heads and thinking is as I said in last weekend’s post a demonstration of Jupiter specifically being positioned at 6 Gemini over a period of time in advance of going direct on January 30^th.

Link to:

Armstrong, Assange and O’Neal:

Illustrating Saturn / Neptune Connections

But the ‘well there’s this, but…’ factor which seems so pervasive whether the subject is Lance Armstrong, national economies, climate change or the current debacle in the life of Manti Te’o – that’s a state of emotional confusion which is being signaled by Jupiter (in Gemini) currently being in square (by sign) to Neptune in Pisces.

Both planets are powerfully placed, though what ‘powerful’ means in this regard differs. And how that differs is best seen through a handy-dandy chart illustrating what astrologers call ‘Essential Dignities.’

Here’s a version of same, showing the two basic types of planetary dignities:

Neptune is in its sign of rulership: Pisces. And Jupiter is currently in a sign of detriment: Gemini. To make this easy to understand, both planetary effects are STRONG. But rulership versus detriment? That’s more or less about ‘achieving the optimal aim.’

Neptune in Pisces is going to push us towards the optimal aim represented by the sign of Pisces: emotional realism and separating the fantasy from reality so that we know when we’re fantasizing and know not to substitute fantasy for reality. Given Neptune’s reputation for ‘dissolving’ that which isn’t ‘real,’ it’s thus not surprising that all the things we have wanted to ‘just think true’ which aren’t so true are melting away at a rapid clip.

Or at least our veneers are. The ‘thing’ probably won’t change. But our regard for it? That will.
And that’s what begins to shift our regard for celebrity. That’s where ‘famous’ can become ‘infamous’ and where notoriety becomes somewhat tarnished in the light of real ability and fame which is earned.

By the by…we tend to LOVE (love, love, love) people who have been one thing and evolved to be the other. Princess Diana, for instance, was initially a celebrity. But through the oh-so Piscean experience of ‘marrying the Prince’ and finding out that life as a princess is not a fairy tale, Diana’s disappointment didn’t stop her from turning around and going out to work with people dealing with the darker Piscean manifestations: poverty, illness, abandonment by society to a life among land mines.

Princess Diana in Bristol at the official opening of the Whitehall Road community center

(photo credit: Rick, May 22, 1987)

The ‘detriment’ of Jupiter in Gemini is that the Jupiterian tendency to expand on what we know may go in the wrong direction. Or overstep bounds of decency or legality or anything else. Through sheer mental (Gemini) strength we may decide and determine to make a choice or to hold onto a choice – even one which patently doesn’t work - come what may.

We may even learn too much. With Jupiter in Gemini, decisions tend to be big. Ideas are big. We’re all pushing ourselves to do more, and maybe too much. Or maybe we won’t listen. Jupiter in Gemini can turn what you want to hear into all you’re willing to hear. And when we add in the square to Neptune and the Piscean quality, in come the feelings. So ideas become convictions and we’re so afraid that we might be wrong that we may end up nailing ourselves to our own proverbial cross.

Pisces has a weird astrological reputation for a reason. We’re all about what we feel, but WHY we feel what we feel? Where that comes from? Why we something scares us? Why something turns us on? Why we deny this or ignore that and give in when we know darn well we should be standing on our own? Those are Pisces questions.


And Pisces being Pisces, the easiest thing to do is point at something or someone, whether it’s your parents or your culture or your faith (or scripture) or something and avoid working to understand your own feelings on the subject because…gosh, that’s so darn scary.
 
Admitting that under the skin being human is hard and challenging and far more so the more technological and complicated things get? That’s Pisces in a nutshell. (Or clamshell, if you prefer.) And none of this is made any easier by our living in a period of shifting astrological ages.

The Age of Pisces is ending. So being virtuous is on its way out.

 In the Age of Pisces, Pisces (color coded to the

picture's border) is on the first house.

But that doesn’t mean virtue and Pisces values are gone. Far from it.

 In the Age of Aquarius, Pisces (color coded to the picture's border)

is on the 2nd house

In the (incoming) Age of Aquarius, Pisces moves to the 2^nd house of the wheel. In the Age of Pisces, Pisces on the first house of the wheel was the manifestation of humanity as being a vulnerable species. Now, in the Aquarian age, Aquarius – the sign of technology – is on the first house. We are our technology. We are our universality. To be elitist or apart or alienated is the vulnerability of the next 2,160 years (that being the length of an astrological age.) And with Pisces on the 2^nd house, the Piscean ability to understand our own emotions and emotionality and to (2^nd house) value that and utilize emotionality as a resource becomes the basis of the new ‘fixed house’ cycle.

I’ll write a blog just on that sometime. But at the moment, back to the current transiting Jupiter/Neptune square.

Neptune is where inspiration meets fantasy, where faith meets foolishness, where charity meets self-abandonment. Jupiter in Gemini wants to know. And the square between them says that where we can’t know, the high road is tolerance, ambivalence and caring interaction. But let’s face it – this is tough stuff. So in the absence of hard facts, people are going to try to make them up. With this Jupiter squaring Neptune with Neptune in Pisces, life is conspiring in a hundred different ways to get us to feel what we feel and why we feel that way. Or why we feel we need something. We’re being challenged (that’s the square aspect) to not just ‘go with our normal flow’ but to reconsider. 

And yes, maybe to change.

Adding in Saturn, planet of reality and hard facts, passing through Scorpio and we know that most of what is going to happen is going to come at us through others. Manti Te’o’s situation is a really good example of how things can be personal, social and societal all at once. That’s the combination we can expect since Gemini is in a purely personal sign (Gemini), Saturn is in Scorpio (an interactive sign) and Neptune is in Pisces, a global, universal, mass quotient sign.

If you didn’t read the blog on Saturn in Scorpio, you might want to read it. I got a lot of mail on that post, all of it saying it explained a lot of things. So here’s the link:

Saturn enters Scorpio

As of last Friday (January 25, 2013) Saturn moved into 11 Scorpio, the degree Saturn will go stationary-retrograde at come February 18th. This means we have had Jupiter sitting at 6 Gemini and going direct on January 30^th while Saturn in now at 11 Scorpio, about to sit there for something just shy of two months, in the middle of which it will go retrograde.
 
This IS a significant overlap as Saturn and Jupiter as signatures of what we do and build in this world and in our life. Their retrogrades don’t always overlap. But sometimes they do, as shown in this diagram.

Right now we’re in a section of the Saturn/Jupiter synodic cycle which has the ‘expansive spin’ of Jupiterian lessons (Jupiter being just about to come out of retrograde) overlapping Saturn’s moving into position to go into retrograde. So this is a time where the (Jupiter) lesson is being brought into (Saturn) reality focus.


And then (she said, feeling a bit like Rod Serling narrating an episode of The Twilight Zone), then we add in a bit of celestial hocus-pocus. What’s that? That’s about 11 Scorpio – Saturn’s station degree – being the degree of the November 2013 solar eclipse.

To borrow from today’s sports theme, that’s a bit of a celestial lay-up. Put most plainly, those who say ‘that can’t happen to me’ are kidding themselves – a fact underscored by the fact that in going direct at 6 Gemini, Jupiter is activating the ‘Aldebaran Quotient.’

Link to...

The Royal Stars of Persia (Part One): Aldebaran

That means this moment is not just about Lance Armstrong or Manti Te’o’s integrity. Or the integrity of those they have dealt with. It’s about what integrity is. And Manti Te’o is a premier example of how you can get in trouble for trying to play the ‘integrity card’ blindly.

 Manti Malietau Louis Te'o

January 26, 1991 - (no time) AHST/+10 - Laie, Hawaii

By all accounts, Manti Te’o is either a spiritual or religious person. I make that clarification because religion is Sagittarian: it’s a body of doctrine, a codification of ideas (and rules) which in theory are supposed to help us to learn about being human and being better humans.

Spirituality is Piscean. It’s emotional. Some people are very spiritual but not particularly religious. Some people are by-the-book scrupulously religious. They’ll follow every calendar date and ritual, but the spiritual part of religion, the carrying the idea in their heart – that’s not their orientation.
 
In Manti Te’o’s chart, a couple of things leap out at us in this regard. One is that his 20 Scorpio Pluto is in opposition to a 17 Taurus Vesta. Scorpio – as we all know – is the sign of sexuality. (Pisces is also related to sexuality, but it’s more of the sexual fantasy or sensuality quotient we think of as sexual.) Vesta is what it takes to keep our promises. In Taurus, Vesta is about tests of self worth and self respect. So it’s easy to see Vesta opposition Pluto as a person who questions who the right sexual partner is, and what sorts of alliances (sexual and otherwise) to get into.
 
But with Medea conjunct that Pluto, we have the signal that this is loving the idea of control to the point where it undermines your control. And with Echo within a degree of Vesta’s position, there is going to be a quality of following that you are told to do which ends up creating trouble.
 
Mind you, Princess Diana also has an opposition to Vesta, but hers is from Neptune. 

 Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales

July 1, 1961 - 7:45 p.m. (-1:00) - Sandringham, England

The challenge here is different. Diana’s Neptune is conjunct Atlantis, and Atlantis is the signature of that we have to give up fighting before we can find our bliss, our happiness in what we find through letting go of – in this case Neptune, the dream.

The opposition to Vesta is also from Scorpio, but Diana’s Vesta in Taurus is conjunct Polyhymnia and Menkar: reconsidering (Polyhymnia) the cost of bad advice or unworkable associations (Menkar) which in her case would have been driven by Neptune, so long as she was ‘clinging’ to the idea that ‘all would be well.’

Once Diana accepted her Neptune quotient – the fame and the fact that the royal commitment wasn’t working – she got her divorce, got her (Taurus) self-regard back on track and that was when she began owning her power.

Menkar is a challenging star. Until we own its temptation to do the easy thing or take the easy way out and convert that power to doing the right thing and standing with those who deserve our support instead of those who merely like it…until then we stand to stumble from one difficulty and rejection to a next. But once we become willing to ‘divorce life’s trappings’ and take on doing what we are truly capable of instead of what others might like us to be, then Menkar becomes a great symbol of the power to do good.

Manti Te’o’s Sedna is at 10 Taurus and his Vesta is at 17 Taurus. With Sedna being the ‘stormy waters’ we each encounter before we ‘take the plunge’ and live as we should, not as we had expected to, between these two points lie Echo, Sappho (universal poetry), Chaos (the endless supply) and Menkar.

As someone who has watched a lot of charts over a lot of years, at a guess, Manti Te’o will probably stub his toe a few more times before figuring out how to let go of thinking he can control life. But it won’t come easily. With Niobe (pride which precedes the fall) at 9 Taurus and conjunct Sedna, this is a proud man who may well express his pride through humility.

The current fracas seems to have come to its raucous head late last year (prior to being exposed now) as we came into and experienced last November’s solar eclipse at 21 Scorpio (conjunct Manti’s Pluto).

That, plus transiting Pluto’s trine of his 9 Taurus Niobe and 10 Taurus Sedna coinciding with this very public debacle may indicate the turn in Manti’s affairs.

But there are at least two more very potent figures in Manti’s chart to be aware of.

The first is that he has Saturn/North Node in opposition to Chiron/South Node. This is a very hard lesson about the practical and pragmatic realities of life which in all likelihood Manti is not going to begin realizing the full parameters of until Saturn approaches and makes its return to its natal position. And that isn’t due to happen for another six years or so.
 
Before that happens, Pluto will arrive at what may well be the core configuration in Manti Te’o’s chart – though that’s hard to say in the absolute sense, given that we don’t have a birth time. Manti Te’o has Neptune, Mercury, Tantalus and Vega ALL positioned at 15 Capricorn.

Vega is a fixed star all about the powers of charismatic speech. Or powerful ideas. When Vega is activated, we are moved deeply – at our core. In Capricorn, Vega is ruled by Saturn. Hence we know that Manti’s Saturn return (like all Saturn returns) is hugely important, and probably more important to him than others as it’s to-the-degree conjunct his North Node.

Tantalus being ‘temptation,’ the real issue here is Neptune – the ideal versus the illusion – being conjunct Mercury, the symbol of mentality.

This is what everybody is asking about: is he lying? Or was he just lied to?

Neptune conjunct Mercury in the natal chart – in any sign – is a thought process which is ‘ruled’ by whatever sign, house placement and aspects are in play. We don’t know the house, but we know the rulership by Saturn. Manti will have a tendency to idealize and idealistic expectations for himself; how well that works/works out for him would be astrologically told through the house in which the Saturn/North Node fall. But with this Neptune/Mercury configuration trine to the natal Vesta (not the Pluto, just the Vesta) we do know Manti will spend some percentage of his life dealing with internalized ‘expectations’ for himself (fostered by others or societal forces) but that with Pluto opposition Vesta, at some point that mechanism is going to be – or get - altered.

Self determination is the goal here. But what that means is going to be – and to some extent remain - in flux. If and when there comes a day when Manti Te’o makes the same sorts of self-discoveries Princess Diana made, he’ll start working towards his goals for different reasons.

And those reasons will become his fulfillment.

 In a moment of playing weather satellite, NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft

photographed clouds at about 29 degrees north on Planet Neptune

(NASA- JPL August 1989)

Few notes on Jupiter’s current cycle. In going direct at 6 Gemini, Jupiter is obviously activating Aldebaran (at 9 Gemini) but has not yet reached Aldebaran’s position. After going direct on January 30th, Jupiter will slowly begin to pick up solar systemic speed (relative to Earth’s position), and that means it will reach Aldebaran’s celestial position in mid-March of 2013.

We can all look for ‘Edition 2’ of this ‘outing’ of ourselves at that time.

One of the things we may do well to remember is that with Neptune in its ruling sign of Pisces, our current Jupiter-Neptune cycle (the synodic cycle of how these two planets interact with each other as timers of our personal growth) is going to be ‘ruled’ by Neptune, as Neptune is always the ‘outcome’ ruler of Pisces and is currently doing a resident transit of Pisces.

That transit won’t end until 2025, which is the year of Jupiter’s next transit of Gemini.

But getting back to essential dignities, it’s this 2012-2013 Jupiter-in-Gemini and the 2015-2016 Jupiter-in-Virgo transits which are going to have everybody overstepping the(ir) bounds. But if we remember that the whole of Neptune’s transit of Pisces is about creating circumstances which promote those feelings and emotional situations through which we learn the difference between expectations and realities (or maybe the possibilities as opposed to unrealistic impossibilities) maybe we can all accept life with a little more grace…and in that, be kinder to ourselves and others.
 
At the moment, between Saturn, Uranus, Jupiter and Neptune, it would seem that we’re getting something of a lesson about fame – and about how famous people are just as human, just as insecure as we are…and just as frail when it comes to making good choices.

Which leads to the other part of the question: is the fact that being human is to be imperfect any reason not to try our hardest or hold ourselves to standards?

That’s one of those Neptune/Jupiter questions we each have to ask and answer for ourselves. But it surely is part of the cycle. And for us to be finding, witnessing and experiencing our flaws, our vulnerabilities, our mistakes now? That’s entirely apt, as Neptune is at this point moving forward and rolling over royal star Fomalhaut.

Remember Fomalhaut? You know, the star which promises success ONLY if our dreams and efforts aren’t corrupt, corrupted or corruptive?

Link to...

The Royal Stars of Persia (Part Four): Fomalhaut

The Jupiter-Neptune synodic cycle is 12.7 years long and the last conjunction was on December 21, 2009 at 24 Aquarius. As a degree, 24 Aquarius speaks to tragedies we experience (or witness) which are caused by not thinking things through.

Or maybe…since this is Neptune and Jupiter (the co-rulers of Pisces) we’re talking about, could that be because we don’t want to know?

There is a quality of ‘experience is the best teacher’ which goes with 24 Aquarius. But those experiences? They create hurt and harm and trauma and sometimes just more avoidance.

You know…avoidance which is going to deepen and get routed out in the next Jupiter/Neptune cycle.

The date of this last conjunction (December 21, 2009) was also when royal star Regulus was still at 29 Leo – in direct opposition to Jupiter-Neptune at 24 Aquarius. That adds in the lesson of Regulus, a star which says success will happen (or be lasting) ONLY if or where we avoid vengeance or revenge.

Considering Aquarius’ association with the internet (hello? Manti?) and income (anyone for a down-and-dirty economic discussion?) my thoughts point to the sense of perspective…the learning to feel dispassionately which difficult economies and hard moments like that Manti Te’o (or Lance Armstrong, for that matter) are going through.

This Aquarian idea also brings in why we should be keeping Saturn and Uranus (the co-rulers of Aquarius) in mind when we discuss any sort of current Jupiter-Neptune connections.

It all begins making sense. Strange, startling, evocative success. Where Aquarius is universality and humanity, Pisces is the humanness of our human condition: our vulnerability, our sheer mortal fallibility...and our willingness to forgive, accept and grow from what we learn not so much about others, but about ourselves.

If you care, the Jupiter/Neptune cycle prior to the current one began on January 12, 1997 in the late Capricorn. And yes, this does mean that these conjunctions go forward sign by sign by sign. So the next one will begin

Yes, it does. And that means that the next Jupiter-Neptune conjunction will be in Pisces…which would be with both of Pisces’ co-rulers in Pisces.

Think about it.

To accept reality is the Neptunian lesson. Wherever we see Neptune, we experience tests to see whether we can appreciate life’s most essential qualities. There is – and will be - no black and white here. You can make real friends and never meet them, or see someone every week and end up betrayed.

In the big blue world of Jupiter-Neptune, the question isn’t what happens, its whether you have faith enough in yourself to go on, accept the truth and be a bigger and better person for the experience. Neptune denies ego just as dearly as Jupiter teaches us to utilize our ego in the pursuit of ever-greater understanding. What other people think of us is never as important as what we know we feel about ourselves.

And what we’ve learned about why we feel that way, and that our feelings are real, valid and eternal. Being famously happy is not just the only real kind of fame which works, it’s the only kind of fame Neptune honors – and apparently it has to be earned through the effort to grow in appreciating the value of that which pushes us to the edge with ourselves.
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