Sisyphus, Saturn, Neptune: Love Life...What?

 Sisyphus - by Franz von Stuck

In the two days that Sisyphus has been on station prior to going retrograde, Black Moon (societal) Lilith has entered Aries.

Oh, great – just what we needed…life getting even and ever more personal! (Not!)

So now what?

Today’s platter of celestial goodies (and yes, I use that term advisedly…) includes two items. The first is the anticipated Sisyphus shift into retrograde motion, a feat it will accomplish at 7:58am (UT/+0) with Sisyphus.

That Sisyphus does this at 6 Sagittarius adds a lively little note of ‘being part of the group.’ Considering how individually driven Sisyphus tends to be, this can have several meanings. One, it could mean we retreat (retrograde into ourselves) because we’re so all about ourselves and life isn’t humoring our whim. Two, it could mean we put our own aims on whole in favor of joining in or pitching in because the group we help and the world we build is ultimately that which supports and benefits us – giving us a place to be.

Right away this has some obvious implications: what all the violence in Libya, with the giant earthquake in Japan, there is a need to put our ‘personal lives’ on hold and to tackle reparations. That Sisyphus has such an evil reputation (he is one of two favorite Greek myth ‘sinners’) with his story touching on death inflicted speaks to dealing not just with mortality, but actual physical death.

Then we throw in the idea of Sisyphus as a rich kid grown up to be a big brat. And Sisyphus as a really smart human being. This implies a degree of ‘knowingness’ which in Sagittarius is heightened to a point that we should not be surprised to learn now what was ‘known’ which was simply disregarded for some arrogant reason.

As for whatever task is now at hand, that may be gargantuan. It may also seem ‘unending.’ Neither is necessarily true, but what those feelings mean to us – that’s a personal truth which is well now dealt with.

This idea of confronting an uncomfortable reality is heighted by the other dish of the day: Saturn sesquisquare Neptune at 9:56pm (UT/+0).

So what the fern is a sesquisquare?

Well, before we get there, let me just say that I’m really not delighted by terms like sesquisquare and sesquiquintile, quadranovile and quinqueundecile (don’t ask…). Way back when I got a diagnosis from a doctor which was one of these mouthfuls and I told him I simply couldn’t have that. 

Why? he asked, rather surprised.

My answer: Because I can’t have anything I can’t pronounce.

I continue to feel that way…about medicine, medication and yes, astrological aspects. In that realm, a sesquisquare is however, one of the lesser demons: it’s a 135 degree aspect which carries what we might call a ‘matriculating creative’ harmonic.

(And yes, I did ultimately learn how to pronounce the medical term.)

As for the harmonic, don’t gag…I shall explain. All harmonics are a matter of what “sign distance” is implied. To use the fancy-dancy term, it’s part of the derivation (‘derived from’) theorem.

Each sign being 30 degrees, and the implied idea that wherever we start is the “subject” of the astrological sentence, 135 degrees is 4 signs (4 x 30 = 120) plus 15 degrees.

And if you were working that equation from 0 degrees (Aries) of the zodiac, that would take us to 15 Leo. The Leo part is what gives us the creative hint and the 15 “Leo” is one of the four zodiacal ‘cross-quarter’ points, all of which speak to moving from one phase to the next.

  

  The zodiac's four cross-quarter points

Think of it as getting past your own sticking point and you should be good. There’s what we think things ‘should’ be and what they are or actually can become.

To put it more simply, this is a ‘get over yourself’ moment – we need to move beyond our emotional attachment and accept the reality, from which can be grown something good. No, things aren’t as we want them to be right now. Maybe we have to give something up. (As a matter of fact, this Saturn/Neptune connection implies just that.) But what are you going to do? We cannot turn the clock back. Things are what they are.

In this moment, some people will want to blame. Some will need to let go of what was and this may be very challenging or hard to do. Some will be ‘taken down’ by the very fact they haven’t dealt with the reality of what works and what doesn’t work. Or even their own presumed concept of invulnerability.

This is a moment of maturation (Saturn) with regards to what we think life or our world should be. Or what we really thought it was. Or should have been. This is not a death of an ideal, but of an illusion. And with Sisyphus on station, this is not likely to be a genteel experience.

Those who move on, life offers opportunities. But those opportunities can only be realized and benefited from to the extent that we balance hopes and positive objectives against a reality of how life really works. About what humanity is, about who people really are (and aren’t) and how when we buy into the compromise, we shouldn’t be shocked that we are in time compromised by our choice.

So much of what is going on in this world is about having bought into expectations. Yes, there are true horrors. But at some level we really do need to understand that things we think of as ‘terrible’ are also part of life.

That’s a really tough mental balancing act, if also a baseline truth. If you have trouble with it, the issue is not ‘it’ – it’s your inability to accept or process the greater scope of life. And while that may well be understandable, it’s not useful – and to the extent that you don’t require yourself to move on to a greater scope of consciousness it’s not the world you hurt, it’s yourself.

Black Moon (societal) Lilith and Uranus at zero Aries here clearly echoes the idea that life and our world is changing. So we need to grieve the sadness of the moment without getting lost in that moment.

Easier said than done, yes. There’s a price to be paid for what we do and don’t do, what we embrace and marginalize in this world, in this life, in our own minds and hearts. Sisyphus symbolizes our ability to do better than we may ‘want’ to – it’s about getting out of our own zone of control and that headlong desire to ‘make things okay.’ And Uranus in Aries asks us to change – or tells us we will be changed.

A photograph of Saturn shadowed by its own rings with one

of its many moons giving a good perspective on

Saturn's truly enormous size.

photo credit: NASA/JPL

With Saturn in opposition to Jupiter, lore teaches us to apply thought. Saturn being the sesquisquaring party to Neptune at 29 Aquarius, in Libra and retrograde - that suggests the whole of this time is about changing what/how we do things and recalibrating our world and life aims.

Again, if we won’t do it – if we won’t change, we will be changed.

So! In that light, let us take note: this isn’t the end of anything, no. But it could be a beginning of much.

That choice is up to each one of us – and all of us together.

Uranus, Hidalgo, Nemesis: Parameters and Prerogatives

 The Wheel of Fortune

by Edward Burne-Jones (1863)

As this blog posts on March 11, Bali is on station and going retrograde. Our vision of what things should be (Bali as paradise) is under review. And yet, we probably believe in it all more strongly – as we often do when such idyllic concepts are believed in. Reality can disappoint us – the dream, the image, the fantasy of what things could (or should?) be never does.

Remember Alfred Hitchcock, the movie director? He knew this on an intrinsic level. It’s part of what makes his movies so tense, so artistic, so eerily suggestive. Our minds are far, far more capable of scaring or enchanting us than reality will ever be. So while we gain something irreplaceable when we go on vacation to somewhere beautiful or have experience some wonderful event, the place or the moment is what it is. The real elation comes from our emotional reaction…the how we ‘spin’ things in our emotional mind.

That’s Bali.

But as this ‘emotional exalting’ mechanism is at its ‘station balancing point,’ Uranus is pressing forward to the very last, nth degree of Pisces…wringing the last drop of emotionality out of the old cycle, the old way, the old life before exploding into the new Aries world which is as full of potential as it may be full of helplessness. Or innocence. Or courage.

Aries is the sign of the infant. Infants do what they do because they have no pre-conception of good or bad.

And this is the energy the Uranus clock is striking, tapping, accessing and liberating as it hits 0 (degrees) Aries 0 (minutes) at 53 minutes after midnight on March 12, 2011 (UT/+0).

But before that ‘breakthrough’ moment arrives – before the door opens on the colorful land of Oz, first comes the tornado which rips us out of a world which as Dorothy’s Kansas was in the famous story – wasn’t working for her.

I once dated a guy from Kansas. We met at work – at a magazine publishing company, to be exact. Upon learning where he was from, I glibly made the obligatory Wizard of Oz joke: oh! I thought Kansas was all black and white. 

We were both in our 20’s, so he evidently wasn’t as yet dead-tired of such, so I merely got a dignified sniff and somewhat lofty correction: actually…it’s mostly sepia tones. 

Years later I drove through Kansas – much of which is beautiful. And he’s right – a lot of it is sepia toned.

So your life may be dull. Or as people in the Middle East and elsewhere have been making so very plain, it may simply not be tolerable any more.

Even if you’re completely comfortable with and in your world, this is going to be a time when things don’t feel entirely ‘solid’ or secure. They may be fine…or they may be about to melt in your hands like ice in a tin bucket sitting on black asphalt on a hot summer day.

You don’t know yet…and you aren’t going to know yet for a while; though the Uranus clock with strike zero Aries o’clock within the next twenty-four hours, Neptune is sitting at the intensely societal, social and systemic degree of 29 Aquarius. Neptune moved into 29 Aquarius back on March 5th and will not slip-slide its big blue self into Pisces until April 4th. And until that happens, many a proverbial ball will be in the air. Or you may think that all is well – that your bullet has been dodged. Or that the status quo will hold. Or that there will be nothing new to contend with.

Or, or, or…

We just don’t know. And that’s the point: we’re in a period when one of our biggest bundles to grapple with is how to carry on without knowing.

We live in a very ‘what is it?’ world. We really like to nail things down. We like to think we know what will work.

Right now, we don’t. And if astrology’s metaphysical lessons mean anything, the more you try to ‘hold on’ or ‘nail down’ or define things, the less they are going to conform to your expectations.

 

Neptune Rule #1: 

Allow yourself not to know.

  

 .

  

Neptune Theory #1:

The thing you think ‘must be’

probably isn’t. The thing you think

least likely will probably prove true.

.

In this moment, as this blog posts there is also a point of Nemesis to contend with. Considering that Nemesis is a cosmic ‘warning’ which says just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should (and that there are consequences for many a thing you think won’t have any down side)…

Nemesis went retrograde in late January – about the time that people in the Middle East rose up in protest against their government, about the time that there was a distinct and disturbing uptick of violence in Mexico, about the time of the Arizona shooting which left six people dead, about the time natural confluences were wreaking havoc in Australia….

Nemesis went retrograde in early Libra, making its turn to retrograde a shift from ‘how can I do/get something done?’ to ‘how can anything get done?’ From all of us focusing on what others (Libra) were doing wrong, we began to think more in terms of how any of us can get what we need done considering what others are doing.

Do they know…can’t they see how what they’re doing isn’t, doesn’t, can’t work? Why do they think everyone else is there to exist at their beck and personal-financial-emotional-theoretical call?

Now, as Nemesis retrogrades back into Virgo, those questions become more systemic, more ‘realism’ oriented. From being more or less about ‘how can they THINK that?’ (think being a Libra/air sign conceptual world), now the question will be more about how we can do that. Or how others can do that to us. Or how they think we can do anything if our basic needs aren’t being met.

And yet, with Pluto in Capricorn, this also reminds us that this is a long-term (decade and a half) period which is all about becoming pragmatic. It’s about scaling back…focusing on what necessity really is.

That will now be what a lot of debate is really about.

It is also to remember that we are also in a Hidalgo station period. Hidalgo will go retrograde about sixteen hours after Uranus goes retrograde, suggesting that a lot of the push, the urgency, the pressure and stress(ed) points of this next day or so will best be dealt with more or less nobly.

 Das Paradies

by Jan Bruegel (c. 1620)

And yet there is that little danger here…that some will take the Hidalgo ‘nobility’ concept and turn it into ‘elitism.’ The same ‘class/caste’ system which populations are rebelling rather literally against in the Middle East have come to be more of a financial class/caste system – and (yea verily) a raison d’etre for many in many other parts of the world.

So….?

Hopefully you will take it on credit that there’s a reason why I would now ask you to gaze into the magical historical crystal ball….and to think about  how through the decades, centuries and millennia, when the divide between rich and poor gets too immense it always comes to a crunching, crashing end.

And one of the big problems in this epic opera is how those who are secure literally have no idea of what its like to do without. It’s not malicious – it just is. Marie Antoinette had no idea of how poor the poor among her French citizens were and for that (and a couple of other things) they cut her head off. On a little less drastic scale, I’ve had many a conversation with perfectly nice, sensible, well-educated, caring people here in LA who amaze me with how little they know about what life is for those who must do without. Try to talk to them about life on that scale and they get not vaguely uncomfortable, but really truly seriously uncomfortable.

And that’s probably what’s really most offensive in the split of fiscal classes. It’s not just what those who Have have and what those who Don’t Have don’t have – it’s that those who Have don’t even what to KNOW what those who Don’t Have go through in trying to survive.

  Morning Fantasy 

by Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1904)

That’s enough to drive a person crazy. Or incite hate. Or get people with nothing into a real frenzy of you don’t know what it’s like? Well let me just burn your house down and reduce you to where I live so you can SEE and FEEL what it’s like! 

It will not take much ignoring to create the friction now. And I do mean friction (as in, lighting a fuse), not fiction – the thing I can ignore, should I wish to.

Privilege is an odd thing. I think one of the greatest privileges I have had in my own life is to spend time scratching by, counting pennies. And since where I came from was just financially solvent enough yet surely emotionally deprived enough to teach me that people really matter those two things have coalesced into a readiness to experience pain. Those who have never felt it are scared of it. Those who have been through a lot of pain – in the end – often realize how pain can be incredibly educational. It not only teaches you that you can survive, but that in the end, survival depends not just on the Self - but on those around us, and whether they're willing to deal with their Self.

Think I’m just getting into some sort of mushy moral proselytizing here? Surprise – I’m not! This is actually part of the grand amalgamation of the processes going on. We're all being made to feel more. Those who are used to it shrug more, grumble a bit and move on. Those who have been able to have a 'nice' life will find events more shocking.

In the end, this becomes a vast and global method of beginning to level the playing field or simply break it into two. That's pure Aquarian Age stuff - as we've been talking about in other posts. Bottom line, pretty much precisely to the degree and in areas of life where we think we have it ‘good’ where we are more than likely going to take our tumble.

But that’s the way of Uranus entering Aries - and yet another blog. Tomorrow’s, as a matter of fact…so not to worry...none of us have all that long to wait!

  

Neptune: The Non-Look of the Thing

In the annals of things one shouldn’t say in a given manner, the title of today’s blog probably ranks high. After all, the ‘non-look’ of a thing is rather like saying ‘confused precision’ or ‘demonic goodness’…or one of my fave John Lennon lines of all time about someone getting gradually injured. (That comes from a great Lennon poem called ‘Arimenta Ditch’…which I may have spelled wrong, yes.)

Yet when you talk about Neptune, to say something has a non-look is actually vaguely apt. Neptune is the there/not-there precept which in positive mode represents elation and inspiration, and which in negative mode is delusion, lack of coherence – even deception (of self or others, Neptune doesn’t care!).

And why would all this be? Well to look at this in the science-astronomy light, that could be taken in two ways. For one, Neptune is the last ‘true planet’ out there as you move away from the Sun in our solar system.

Or at least it has been. If you’re up on your science news you know that there was some burbling going around a couple of weeks ago about some giant thing the size (even bigger) than Jupiter lurking out there…. waaaaayyyyy out there in the distant Kuiper Belt region, like maybe beyond Sedna-land.

(And trust me…that’s far. We aren’t going there for a quart of milk, not ever!)

But even if this ‘new giant planet’ thing is an actuality, Neptune still is what it is because Neptune still does what Neptune does – which is to say that it controls a huge swatch of space (including objects in that district) via something called ‘magnetic resonance.’ And among those objects ‘controlled’ by Neptune are Ixion (emotional entitlement), Pluto (emotional transformation) and Orcus (emotional experience of consequence).

Obviously Neptune represents Things Emotional. More precisely, it symbolizes (or is said to 'rule') those moments and experiences where we experience feelings which result from something we’ve done or committed to (Orcus being the former, and Pluto the latter as outcome ruler of Scorpio)....or which drive us to do something which in turn will create emotionally transformative (Pluto) or corrective (Ixion) moments.

And all this happens…why? Well, speaking from the philosophic base of it all, this all results from Neptune as the theoretical time/space marker (e.g., hands on the cosmic clock sort of marker) of things which we can get into on faith…or things which we end up disappointed by.

To put it another way, Neptune produces what you don’t believe can happen, and will often prove to you that the fantasy is far more appealing than the reality, which has ‘you asked for it – you got it!’ dollops of glitchy disappointment (Ixion), consequences (Orcus) and giant emotional challenges (Pluto).

Hopefully you've got all that, as (not to be too infinitely and finitely vague about this here) we’re all in for a seriously imprecise dose of Neptune over these next few weeks. You know – sort of like Things Uranus (change) has been in the air for the past few months?

With Neptune, the ‘operative’ rule is to allow yourself not to know. When Neptune is thus ‘an active imperative,’ you don’t know what will happen and you should try not to drive yourself nuts wanting to know what will happen.

Go with the flow! Practice your Neptuuuuunne….mantra! Allow yourself and your life and your everything to be in flux. Do, be and participate, but don’t try and nail anything down. Aim for the optimal but don’t focus on the reward – and don’t be surprised if goals, schedules, needs, priorities – all that stuff – changes here and there because of this and that.

In other words, be in the moment. Just do the Nike thing and do it. 

Neptune favors altruism. Neptune favors humility, modesty and being surprised at how much you’re appreciated, not the reveling in the limelight.

And yet (here we get into the Neptunian deep water)…Neptune is often – in the chart – and emblem of fame.

Why?

Because fame isn’t anything you control. You can’t bottle it (boy, would I be rich or what…!) ….you can’t even define, control or point to it. Fame is just….there. It’s just a nebulous something out there which is. Notoriously, when you revel in it (focus on it) it disappears…or it eats you alive. About the only thing you can do (successful) is ignore it.

That would be the humility part, capiche?

Charts of the famous often have Neptune in the 10th house – a house often associated with achievement. But such people are fascinated by what they do – not the fame itself. Charts of the rich often have Neptune in the 2nd – the house of resources. These are people who aren’t in it for the money (shocking, right?) but who are trying to do something of value. 

Are you beginning to get the Neptune factor? Neptune is often referred to as the ‘negator of ego’ because when you focus on something, that something is not what Neptune delivers…leading us to Neptune Slogan Number Two: where Neptune is concerned, the thing you want most is likely to fall through while the thing you think least likely will prove to be the truth. 

And this implies yet another important idea – namely that allowing yourself not to know is entirely, even dismally different than not wanting to know! The latter, in Neptunian terms, would seem to be the quintessential invitation to disaster – whether you achieve that aim through avoidance (which is very Neptunian, as avoidance’s cousin evasion)…or through intoxication, inebriation or out-and-out addiction (all three of which are related to the Neptunian concept of abandonment, which can be of a thing, a person, your morals or your mind!)…

…it would even seem highly Neptunian to want just to believe everything will be fine. While optimism is a fine, good and positive thing, there is some need in life to be realistic. And with Neptune, that seems to be part of the ticket: moderation and balance. 

So to go a bit Italian-idiomatic parlance here, what’sa my point? You know I have one – and no, it’s not just on my pencil (yes, I still use pencils).

My point is that come March 5th at 7:45 in the evening (UT/+0) Neptune will move into 29 Aquarius – the final degree of Aquarius, and allegedly where Aquarius should be most intense or at ‘critical mass.’

Except..uh…this is Neptune. Is anything Neptune ever felt to be critical?

Why heck yes! Neptune is not only the unknown and the vague and the ill-define, is it the definitely wonderful and the absolutely sorrowful.

And there is that Neptune association with the verb “to dissolve” to be duly contemplated as well.

A rainbow over Bristol, UK. Rainbows are a quintessentially Neptunian thing - they're there, but you can't touch them. Even try to approach them and you run the risk of having them vanish entirely, leaving you with your dream and the disappointment of its having apparently 'vanished.' The kinds of hopes we assign to rainbows...those are Neptunian dreams which may come to us if we chase after them, may happen to us where we are by just going about our business. And then again, if we get what we dream of, it may not make us all that happy while something we never dreamed possible, probable or even desirable, may make us happiest in the end. The lesson? That we do not know all...that we should allow ourselves not to know.

photo credit: Klafubra 

Society, economics, systems, acceptance, energy, things technological, corporations (not commerce – corporate entities), groups, societies, friendships, ideals and hopes, tyrants and elitists, anarchists and uniters…all such things are really, truly, highly Aquarian.

So as Neptune hits 29 Aquarius, we will propose that a good many of these things on this list will shift into maximal plus, minus or ‘disappeared’ mode. 

Or…they will appear and like some giant toxic boil, swell up and force us to deal with some sort of ick.

Now these things can be very real. Neptune as ‘outcome’ ruler of Pisces points to very real losses – sometimes of a loved one or a much-loved relationship (with someone or some thing). Neptune and Pisces are associated with such things as pensions, annuities, oil and pharmaceuticals…which given that Pisces is a water sign and water signs always imply ‘things fiscal’ could be extended to become a discussion of health plans – insurance and otherwise, though a plan to get healthy is more likely to be Pisces’ polarity sign of Virgo.

Speaking of polarities however, since 29 Aquarius is the polarity of 29 Leo which brings in the whole ‘fixed star Regulus vibe,’ there would seem to be an underlying what you want and what it takes to make that a functional reality which involves NOT “punishing” the other guy (or the Aquarian society or the ‘system’) if your dream appears to go ‘poof!’ now.

Two things to note: one, dreams which disappear now may not actually disappear for all time. Neptune – remember? Two, something which was an unrealistic dream all along may need to have a little encounter with reality now.

In the end what this period may stress for us is that there really is no nirvana. Good times are good times and lovely to look forward to and cherish, but there appears to be nothing more deadly in the human spirit than the thought that we shouldn’t have any responsibilities.

I know – it sounds good. But when you look at the actuarial tables (for instance), people actually seem to thrive on work – a lot of people don’t live well once retired, monetarily or in people terms. Wealth seems to play reasonably well for those who earn it but not so well for those who are born into it unless something along the way becomes their ‘personal imperative.’

Don’t like it? I can’t help that! The idea of responsibility, which is the astrological Saturn. Saturn’s list is daunting: dedication, responsibility, limits, rules, structure, fears, cost, pragmatism, reality, slow-and-lasting growth, durability…and time. 

And that last one is the kicker (all puns intended!) Take our responsibilities away and by astrological definition, we’re out of time.

Saturn partners with knowing/knowledge-based Jupiter rather as guardians of the inner solar system (Jupiter seems to be particularly good at that) but also in the idea that these two planets we can actually see as we stand outside at night here on Earth…these are about things we can ‘see to do’ or make of ourselves.

 Symbolic ruler of Capricorn achievements, the reality of the

Aquarian society we live in and our need to function in this

world, Saturn's present retrograde-in-Libra motion is asking all

of us who we are in this world and what we are going to make

of ourselves, our world and our times.

photo credit: NASA/JPL

Saturn has a whole other relationship with Neptune as that thing which teaches us boundaries and to try …not without fear of failing, but without fears of being a failure. 

If we can for these next few weeks hold onto this idea of experiencing but not pinning our own ‘judgment’ of self on what happens, we will probably be a whole lot better off for it. Against this, we may also find some boundaries melting away. That as Neptune has been pressing to the end of Aquarius while Mercury is in Pisces (Neptune's sign of rulership) and we've seen several public figures start dancing distinctly outside the lines of mental sensibility - even stability? That's very Neptune, and we shouldn't be surprised to see more of the same. Even the unreasonable extents to which such things can go. Neptune-Mercury is a traditional astrological marker of 'delusion' or 'the lie' as often as it marks extreme creativity - the problem is telling which is which!

And for those who are dubious about astrology, let's be clear here (this being a good moment to try for clarity!): planets don't "do" anything. Neptune isn't going to give you a call on the cell or tweet you with morning doings. But as planets move through space they do distort the space they move through. It creates a 'ripple' defined by distance, angle and planetary characteristics. Astrology is the study of using positions of planets to "clock" when effects reach Earth. Much as the Moon tugs on Earth's oceans to create tides, so planetary movements help us track the tides of influence in a global life on Earth which is after all, contiguous with the rest of the E=mc2'd universe.  

Neptune enters Pisces on April 4th (a whole other Neptunian saga!) and we won’t know what we don’t know – like as not – until then!

Can you wait?

What’s your option?

Maybe for the moment we should just enjoy the pluses and figure on a few ‘that’s life!’ minus moments?

Maybe so. And maybe…just maybe that’s what we’re meant to learn and should take with us – moving forward – out of this time.

Everything happens for a reason, right?