Venus in Gemini / Jupiter Square Nodes

Venus by Simon Vouet (1590-1649, oil on canvas)

As opposed to Taurus, a sign all about the useful against the ill of our values, sense of personal (individual) security and all motivations which arise from such notions, Gemini is our individual experience of mentality, replete with whatever will teach us to use, tolerate, moderate, organize or prioritize in the interest of achieving our goals. Taurus - being a ‘yin’ sign by nature tends to manifest as our holding onto what we have and the desire to grab hold of whatever we think we need which is entirely different than Gemini, a yang (pro-active, generally curious) sign all about our human mentality at work - which of course begins with our thinking, but since thinking is what gets us to do anything...that’s the Gemini way: get the thought or idea...develop it...then try it out.

That’s the Gemini/Sagittarius polarity. Gemini is where we get the idea and work it through and plan things out...Sagittarius is where we learn what works, what doesn’t work, why things work or don’t work and from that - both information on how to improve our tact, effort or thrust along with information on the world around us.

All signs have polarities. Going around the wheel of the zodiac they alternate: Aries is yang, Taurus is yin, Gemini is yang...(etc.) - and that holds no matter where the sign falls in your chart, despite the fact that horoscope hemispheres have their ‘yin/yang’ quality as well.

(To those of you who are students of astrology, yes - I know this can give you a headache when you first encounter it, but trust me - bear these simple facts in mind when you’re delineating charts and you’ll bless your lucky asteroid.)(Providing you have one, that is.)

So then we get to Venus, the energetic which signifies the turning of cause into effect. Venus will be entering Gemini on June 23rd at 12:35 p.m. (UT/+0) and remain in Gemini until the early afternoon hours (UT/+0) of July 18th.

Just as a notion, Venus in Gemini speaks to all we go through in order to achieve our best results - which yes, sometimes includes thinking through our failures, failings and all those simple mistakes which we might say under the heading ‘no harm, no foul.’

Often a sign of connecting (or recognizing, or thinking through) how and why cause becomes effect, Venus in Gemini is often associated with financial transactions as well as discussion economic, relational or of the relationship type...and by this last (‘relationship type’) we would mean either the relationship of some cause to some effect in your life, or the value(s) expressed in or felt about relationships you may be involved in - or may want to be involved in.

Or maybe not. (There is always that option, surely...)

Priorities will seem to matter more during this passage - even to the point that it may become a subject of Gemini-like conversation, debate, confrontation or decision.

Is “it” (substitute your subject for the word “it” as needed)...Is “it” worth my time? The effort? Is it worth whatever might need to be (re)organized, changed, sacrificed, implemented or built...is “it” worth it?  Should I prioritize this...or that?

Do I even care which - and if I do, what makes one thing [Venus] worth more in my [Gemini] mind or thinking?

Because we know this particular Venus/Gemini ingress is occurring under Mercury retrograde, a fact which may manifest as wanting to hold back on saying something or making a choice or making some change until the information you for some reason need until Mercury goes direct (on July 1st) - or at least until we reach June 29th, that being when the two-days-prior/two-days-after ‘station allowance’ for Mercury’s station will begin.

Moreover, it would be typical of this not-unfriendly-if-not-excessively- (personally) -outgoing Mercury/Venus combination to say that  until July 1st most of our considering and thinking through things...in the truest sense will be personal (which is not precisely an invitation to talk to yourself, but that might work, too.) (It might even be profitable.)

Yet let’s be real: no one lives in any vacuum. So we should expect that with Mercury still in retrograde, until July 1st life will be filled with all those quirks and interruptions which prevent us from operating on our ‘schedule.’

And that could be frustrating even where we ultimately learn that those interruptions or corrections or recalculations...or that reformulating of our plan was part of a greater process which works not just in this next while, but as something of a new ‘tool’ in our tool bag - something which we will use time and again as time goes by.

Unfortunately, none of us can know in advance if that annoying, awful situation will prompt us...or of something someone says will trigger some sort of internal, brilliant epiphany.

You don’t know, it just could happen - not that acting in haste would seem advised, as hasty, as eager, as loudly as some may demand that decisions get made and plans get pushed into motion.

All that means listening versus not listening, the valuing of our own thoughts against those of others is the first place we’ll start - a concept pictured rather adeptly by Venus being conjunct Sisyphus, Phaethon and Juno upon entering Gemini. Juno is about ‘management’ - hence the organizational and priorities theme, though Juno is also about ‘tending the hearth,’ ‘guarding the home’ and since this is Juno in Gemini, minding and managing what we say so that it [Venus] functions properly.

As for Juno itself, as Venus enters Gemini Juno stands in a square to Neptune indicating some matters which are at the ‘highly optimistic’ or ‘holding to the ideal’ end of the spectrum while at the other stands the experience of haplessness, insecurity and possible (perhaps probable?) confusion. The more positive outlook here comes through allowing ourselves to be sensitive first to our Self and whatever internal questioning we’re going through (this being under Mercury retrograde) with that notion of ‘being sensitive’ being slowly but surely extended to others as/once Mercury goes direct.

One other note on this Neptune square: because Neptune will be in opposition to Pallas [logical perspective/perspectives based on dispassionate thought], Atropos [endings] and Apollo [truth, enlightenment] as Venus enters Gemini with Gemini’s ruler (Mercury) still symbolically representing ‘inward insight’ because of the retrograde...in each of our lives something has gone wrong, gotten off track or out of hand or even escaped us.

And yes, about now we know exactly what happened - not that we can change it.

Will we [Neptune in Pisces] accept some loss, some mistake, some end with inner grace - and if we don’t, why won’t we do that? What in us (or in our history or ego structure) causes us to react as we do? 

Once Mercury goes direct, the pace of conversation and the present-tense value of what’s being said will surely pick up. But more on the ‘short-run’ side of things, where is another configuration...Jupiter squaring the Lunar Nodes...which is going to be coming into focus all week, coming to exactitude on Friday, June 27th (UT/+0).

The great basic keyword for Jupiter being ‘expansion’ (be it of our experiences, feelings,  knowledge, waistline, debt or anything else), when ‘squared’ against [Lunar Nodes] all the ‘intersecting’ we do with others and our world comes up for questioning. How far is too far? Why shouldn’t I do what I want to do if I can do what I want to do?

Strengths and weaknesses are likely to be shown up as the days go along, with the fact that this Jupiter/Node relationship (all puns intended) will culminate at the moment of the June New Moon (at 5 Cancer). Because this square is occurring at 25 degrees of cardinal signs (Jupiter is in Cancer and the Nodes are in Libra/Aries) we can also expect a lot of energy will be being expended ‘out there’ and by others.

And yes, by our Self. Instinct will tend to lead us towards a focus on Self, personal preferences and basic (traditional) orientations with regards to land, agriculture, family, real estate and any of a plethora of matters surrounding culture/nationality past, present and future.

(No, I don’t know how many are in a plethora, but it’s more than a handful, that’s for sure.)

As for that Self Focus concept, because Jupiter is sitting at the apex of the t-square (at the ‘t,’ if you will) that’s not likely to work. Why not?

Simply put, that answer would be because t-squares aren’t “solved” by putting anything in purely personal terms. T-squares ask us to see the bigger picture. They ask us to go beyond our cause or that thing so desired by our ego to where the idea itself is universal.

Where we don’t do that, or where something we have already participated in has fallen short of that ‘greater group’ nodal standard, problems - or at least unwanted details - now arise.

Considering that this happens at the moment of a New Moon, one would suspect this week will be filled with various sorts of ‘pushes’ (and pushiness) arising from the desire to get things done.

And some things will get done.

Other things will merely serve to show us where things have been undone...or where we are undone....or where we have yet not done that which will open a path into the future.

Any time the Nodes are involved in any configuration we should expect the unexpected. After all, the Nodes represent where we ‘intersect’ people and the world around us, which means input sources are virtually unlimited. So when we combine that with ‘expansive’ Jupiter....?

For happy and sad, for productive or destructive, this Jupiter-square-Nodes connection speaks to a lot of energy. Positive use requires directed focus - which may be a challenge particularly in any group [Nodal] situation/interaction seeing as much which goes on now has roots in the days around/after June 8th as the Nodes and Jupiter came into orb of each other.

And of course June 8th is just after Mercury went retrograde on June 7th - which would seem to make lovely metaphysical sense as Jupiter perfects its Nodal square at the beginning of our ‘next month’ New Moon cycle which leads directly to Mercury’s station and our ‘emerging’ from our mental time-cocoon of retrograde reflection.

* * * * * * * * * *

A short personal note...

Thank you all for bearing with me. These last several months have been hugely stressful in ways I can’t yet even begin to describe and I am grateful for your supportive comments, your emails and donations.

They are all appreciated more than you know. Things are still no-kidding difficult: physical limitations and financial problems are what they are until they heal - and as we all sadly know, dealing with the loss of anyone (never mind multiple people) takes time.

And that flood? Well, suffice it to say I have a whole new reaction to waking up in the middle of the night wanting a drink of water, all of which starts with the fact that said water shouldn't be on the floor.It also shouldn't be coming out from under a wall or be brick-colored.

And drinking water definitely shouldn't twitch.

Frankly, my life has been dizzying since last October - and of late it's been honestly half-past panic attack. So I’m really touched by your support.

And yes, I care about you and your life as well. But then, you know that...I keep coming back to write, which is my other way of saying 'thanks so very, very much.'

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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: The Pluto Station

 

The Morning by Philipp Otto Runge (1808, oil on canvas)

This morning started out like any other morning: I opened my eyes, stared at the clock and (reluctantly) figured it was time to get out of bed.

Nothing amazing there, I’m sure. We all have that moment almost every day.

I went by the computer to turn that on, I made coffee, I brushed my teeth, I made the bed…and with that first blessed cup of coffee in hand, I went to the computer (now all nicely warmed up and waiting for me), I checked my email.

Out poured hostility. No, not about me personally...but certainly me in the sense that I have my own opinions.

There is something about having your own opinions which offends some people, y’know? And there’s something even more annoying (to them, evidently) if you aren’t swayed by their impassioned arguments.

Such was the case this morning.

Then I remembered: today is Pluto’s date-of-station. And then it occurred to me that yes, the Moon is in Taurus, in opposition to Saturn in Scorpio (by sign, at at some points by degree). And Scorpio is Pluto’s home sign, right?

Evidently some of us will use this couple of days of ‘Plutonic’ opposition of Taurus-to-Scorpio to understand. Some of us will feel this opposition as the setting off of emotions which may or may not have anything to do with the matter at hand.

The thing that strikes me as the most important in all of this is how some people are reacting to this energetic by ‘demanding’ that people take sides. Or that you come onto their side. Or that you love what they love and hate what they hate.

What happened to just getting along? Why is it so terrible that some people like what you don’t like? Or that they don’t agree with you about something?

We all want our world to get along. Maybe we should start by getting working to get along with others – which in the final analysis is all about getting along with ourselves. The Moon in Taurus effect wants ‘satisfaction’ but does that satisfaction have to involve everyone thinking the way you do? If so, why?

The inability to allow differences of opinion is a primal Taurus quality. We often think of it as Scorpio, since Scorpio is the sign under which the precept of ‘control’ falls. But very often (not always, but often) that need or desire to ‘control’ comes from our lack of satisfaction if we don’t have control. Or our insecurity. Or or lack of satisfaction with that Self which we think should be able to ‘win’ every argument or discussion, lest we be ‘wrong.’

Saturn’s passage through Scorpio is (among other things) a two-and-a-half year cosmic college class which will bring us lessons on control or the lack of it. Those who don’t want control will be required to deal with their own ‘stuff’ and those who feel uncomfortable without control will meet up with testing (and perhaps testy) situations which challenge the ability to recognize that we don’t control others, only ourselves.

And of course there’s the famous corollary to that: we don’t get very far when we beat someone over the head while yelling ‘Love me, g-d it, love me!’

The Moon will exit Taurus by mid-weekend. Pluto will have begun its retrograde and from now until mid-September we will be figuring out where we need to change ourselves in order to live effectively in this world. Some of that is day-to-day stuff.

But it all comes from somewhere, right? And what’s more basic than our comfort and confidence with ourselves?

As I wrote to a client yesterday in an email:
  
‘…only the truly strong can afford to show their vulnerabilities. Why? Because only a truly strong and confident person would know they can live through whatever happens if they do show their humanity, their kindness, their ability to make a mistake and the fact that they don’t know everything and aren’t in “in charge” mode all the time….People who need to back others down all the time are not looked at by many as strong…the calm and the easy, implacable presence which comes from just knowing your stuff and DON’T have to prove anything (not to anyone) is the true sign of power.’

We were talking about business. But the same concepts apply in everyday life. And the flip side of this is that those who really are strong not only can show their vulnerabilities, but have them.

We cannot look at someone else as having all the answers or all the problems. We’re here to support each other as we go through life succeeding in some things and tripping and falling into gopher holes of our mentality and makeup at other times.

We’re here to learn to laugh together. We’re here to get along with ourselves and to learn to get along with others, however different we are.

Pluto power struggles occur often enough – and entirely often at Pluto stations. We think they’re about other people when more often than not, the energies they raise are truly about us. I hope my friends who are having a hostile morning get past whatever ill feeling is bothering them. We think differently, we like different things, we follow different paths through this life. I’m not telling them to do things my way and I’m baffled that they seem so intent on getting me to do things their way.

I’m going to work on trying to see it as a sign that they like me. But honestly? I think ‘like’ should come with a kindly frosting. When people think like each other or love each other, using that as an excuse to treat someone else as your personal punching bag because you think they won’t ‘leave’ isn’t about them – it’s about some dark (and Scorpionic) energy inside you.

I wish them well. I wish me well. I wish us all well!

May we all soon come to reside in a sunnier place in our thinking souls. And if you haven't yet read about the Pluto station, where this post ends, that post begins.

Inlakech. 
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Our Personal Stars (Me and My Regulus)

 This is a picture taken in 1970 from the window of my dorm room at

Swiss boarding school. The lake is Lake Geneva (aka Lac
Leman) and the rainbow ends in the town of Evian (yes, the

one from whence comes the water) at the foot of the French Alps.

From time to time people ask me if I spend a lot of time working with my own chart. You must know everything in advance…is one comment I hear now and again. Then there’s my (least) favorite: how come if you’re such a hot-shot astrologer your life isn’t perfect?

That’s a bit like asking a meteorologist why predicting the hurricane doesn’t keep them dry (and keep their hair from getting mussed up) when they walk out in one.

Knowledge is power. But as the old saying goes, you can’t fool Mother Nature! There are simply passages we all have to go through which aren’t so fun.

When we’re little, parents soothe us and say ‘don’t worry honey, they’re just growing pains.’ When we get big, we’re supposed to just suck it up.

Quite honestly, I’m not so good at sucking it up. For me, being an astrologer is in fact sort of boggling: I know the metaphysical concept but it still hurts. It’s still frustrating. Life is still a bit of a bitch.

(Okay, let’s be real…sometimes more than a bit!)

We all have our ways of coping with such things. Me, I’m a cry-er. My friends know that I have a few basic mottos, one of which is ‘when in doubt, cry.’ My natal chart has six (out of ten) ‘standard’ planets in water and a Saturn-conjunct-Moon skating personally thin ice in Scorpio. So crying works for me. I get it out, I express myself (sometimes loudly) and what happens after that happens.

Fortunately I’m drip dry and color fast. (Unfortunately I’m not wrinkle free, but that’s a different and sort of Saturn-Venus issue.)

Anyway…the point of this blog post is really that I did find myself thinking about my natal chart the other night. And suddenly it hit me.

What hit me? My Regulus factor hit me.

Before we go any further, here’s a clip from my chart:

Of note in this snippet is the idea that my Regulus is at 29 Leo, exactly conjunct Kleopatra, one degree off Pallas at 28 Leo…and one degree off Deucalion at 0 Regulus.

29 Leo is a degree which is about ‘the order of things’ in life. Obviously as twenty-nine degrees of any sign it has an urgent (some would say compulsive quality). In Leo, it points to the Self in the sense of what we think of our Self and what we do with that Self.

Kleopatra was a very smart woman. With all due respect to Elizabeth Taylor (who starred in the film), evidently the Kleopatra of ancient Egypt was not stunningly beautiful, but boy – she was smart! She was known to speak many languages and her capacity to ‘enchant’ men came through her mind.

She had a penchant for knowing what guests (male or female) liked or were interested in and aimed to make sure to surprise each person in little ways sure to delight.

Hers was a means of enchanting many…through connecting with them on a very individual and human level.

The asteroid Kleopatra is a main belt asteroid which as asteroids go, has a pretty ‘standard’ sort of orbital cycle length (4.68 years) and which runs pretty much to the center of the asteroid pack. We would thus have to think that Kleopatra is about understanding the main thrust of any situation, any question or any idea…drawing an even greater understanding through seeing the individual and how they do or don’t sync up with said ‘core’ concept.

Meanwhile, Pallas (aka Pallas Athena) is ‘dispassionate intellectual knowledge.’

While there are those who would probably like to say 

that the helmet worn by Athena is all about her being

 either very 'hard headed' or 'soft skulled,' the Greek

 representation is far more likely a reference to the type of 

logical, unemotional thought process which in being associated

with Athena comes from her having sprung - full grown - from

the brow of Jupiter/Zeus...In other words, Athena is that which is 'born' of

our 'mastery of understanding,' which makes our 'Athena capacity' 

all about our ability to resist emotional urgings in the finding

of our truth - and hence, what we utilize as a basis for

 proceeding through life and making something OF our lives.

All of this in a chart with six planets in water? No wonder so many people say ‘go figure’ when I go directly from being Athena-like to a delicate…almost fragile and childlike imp. On the other, this is probably a part of the core description which manifests as my being a writer…and hence, able to write about astrology with what we might call dispassionate feeling for the subject – and for its application in people’s lives.

Then we go back to that 29 Leo thing. 29 Leo is a degree which is highly concerned with relationship. Yet it also carries a message of duality. For many this will be expressed as the personal life (marriage and family) against the professional life, though there is an opinion voiced that this degree – in particular – specifies two marriages.

Yes, I’ve been married, though I’m not married currently.

And lest you think otherwise, I recognize that this Pallas-Kleopatra-Regulus complex can amount to showy brilliance. Or someone who is a show-off (whether they're brilliant or not). Remembering that the story of Kleopatra ends in her killing herself over love lost, there's a definite 'I'm to smart for my own good' sort of theme which may indicate something close to an 'unregulated' form of mental capacity.

Do I own any of that? Absolutely. I'm not sure if I am a classic sort of 'show off' but I've definitely gotten myself into pickles with others.

And even with myself. There is a point at which a busy brain becomes not a gift but a burden. I'm the first one to hold up my hand in that department. I understand how I became this way...I had a pretty variable childhood which kept me on my toes trying to avoid errant adults. (Hint: we call that "abuse.") I also had a parent that I wanted to please very much who made getting good grades the apparent price for love.

Until I got there. I was all set to graduate first in my class when that demand proved to be all talk and no love.

It was Kleopatra time.

I've also been too smart for various men who simply wanted a woman to be a 'yes' girl. I've actually been close to one man (as a friend) who wanted me to listen to him...but then didn't want me to remember what he said.

Like I said, Kleopatra time. There's a whole bunch of ways that life can be a pain in the asp.  

Then we get to Deucalion. The Greek Deucalion story is one you’d rather easily liken to that of the Biblical Noah. But there’s a difference. Being Greek myth and therefore about the us-versus-us trials we experience through the choices and challenges of life (rather than about mortal relationship with Divinity), the Deucalion story amounts to a question of how to find the moral path and whether we will find a moral and ethical path through life.

Then we bring in the KBO part. Since Deucalion is a Kuiper Belt Object and all KBOs orbit beyond the Neptunian gateway of ‘real/unreal’ (aka ‘known-versus-unknown’) this makes Deucalion a point which when active or activated indicates circumstances which evoke or provoke situations which test what we know…and our ability to learn.

Most of the time when we talk about KBOs we talk about either dwarf planets like Sedna and Eris or Plutinos like Pluto, Ixion or Orcus. (There are five or six Plutinos out there with no names on them, too I can’t wait for the international congress on such to name them!)

But Deucalion is a whole other kind of KBO. Known as a ‘Cubewano’ (a delightful sort of name which makes me think of an exotic sandwich) Deucalion may orbit beyond Neptune, but unlike Pluto, Ixion, Orcus and Huya, Deucalion is not subject to Neptune’s rather vast magnetic resonance control. Those Plutino orbits are governed by Neptune.

Therefore we know that the metaphysical effects of said objects (yes, including Pluto) is an affect which has a very distinct Neptune quality. Hence the transformative – delight or agonizing – effects we associate with Pluto, for instance.

But Deucalion? With Deucalion, none of that applies. So though we may be provoked or issues may be evoked by Deucalion transits or transits to Deucalion in our chart, they are not involve the sort of ‘emotional awareness / awareness of our emotionality’ that anything Neptunian or tied to Neptune does.

In other words, Deucalion is a thought provoking point, not an emotion provoking point.

So anyway…there my Deucalion is at 0 Virgo: a combination which tells us that despite all my watery emotionalism, I have a pragmatic and rational basis for deciding right from wrong.

Considering Deucalion is going to be in Virgo for a lot of people (it didn’t move into Libra until September 15, 1979) and how not all of them are pragmatic, rational, moral or ethical (alas), what makes the difference for me?

Three things: Pallas (which is an uber-logic point), Kleopatra being so closely conjunct Pallas…and Regulus, that famous not-so-fixed fixed star which promises success providing we do NOT allow ourselves the luxury of vengeance or revenge.

Okay…now we have to stage pretty well set for the GRAND REALIZATION I had while washing the dishes.

 A reverse-view shot of the Pantages Theater in Hollywood,

 California, one of the true architectural art-deco masterpieces

 around...not to mention a wonderful place to enjoy a theatrical

 performance. (photo credit: Christian Dionne, August 2009)

(True to six planets in water, I tend to realize most things when doing things like washing dishes, taking a shower or walking in the rain, of which there is far too little here in Southern California.)

And what was that realization? It was all about Regulus having moved from 29 Leo into 0 Virgo as of November 2011.

November 2011 was when havoc broke out in my life. (Again.) But it’s where it broke out and how it broke out and my instincts about it having broken out which got me where my Regulus-conjunct-Deucalion lives.

My problem erupted in the area of my health care – which is very obviously Virgo. And when those problems broke out, they were not only 'about' my health (which is bad enough) but right up the Virgo alley in that they had to do with the moral and ethical standards with which I was treated.

This proves that whoever we are, however strong or weak we are, how life will find a way to test our weak spots. If I'm going to be offended with people, the easiest way to get to me is to lie to me. Or to do something which is immoral, unethical or downright shoddy in nature.

Those are all Virgo qualities. And they get me.

One person in particular really offended me. And when it came right down to it, the humanity of the situation is what lastingly affects me. Yes, there was an obvious lack of quality, a compromise of ethics, standards and priorities.

But I'm a six planets in water person. So the fact that I didn't even get apologized to? That fries my catfish!

(I’m a Pisces, I can say that.)

I've heard all the excuses and "explanations" ...they don't hold a cup of dirty water with me.

But since all this fracas came to a head when a manuscript draft I had written about PTSD got in the mix...? That to me is the metaphysical clue.

Why? Because in that manuscript I had vented some rather snarly (read: snarky) opinions about the medical community. By implication, since that vitriol was - on my part - in part a reaction to ill-treatment, that constitutes revenge.

As it happens (and since it's of metaphysical interest here) the primary person I was offended with has  Deucalion in Virgo at a degree known for effects to the physical body - which fits the medical/health care surroundings. The degree is 20 Virgo, and anyone with  Deucalion at 20 Virgo is going to confront the need to 'find the moral path' between being overly defensive and dealing with things openly and honestly.

So the real question is...who went over to the dark side of their Deucalion first? Whoever did threw the cause-effect out of balance.

Deucalion is tough. It's far tougher than we would tend to think it would be, seeing as it's not connected to Neptune.

To that I'd say one thing: Eris isn't connected to Neptune and when dwarf planet Eris (i.e., Eris Discord) effects surface, we are by definition unsettled.

But yes, with Eris we have a chance to be renewed. And to expand into new 'territory' in our life.

Deucalion is trickier, as Deucalion is all about what happens when we hold ourselves to standards and when we fail standards. In Virgo (August 1953 - September 1979), Deucalion has to do with what we do and how we do it. Being that Virgo is an earth(y) sign, there's a tangible difference between the good we can do and the neglect of standards which in the end undermines us.

Getting back to the reason for this blog, which is about how my life changed when Regulus moved from 29 Leo into 0 Virgo, conjuncting my Deucalion.

The question of what to do about the medical hassle has gotten plenty of votes from friends and professionals alike. There have been many votes for "sue." But then...I do live in America. You ain’t nobody if you haven’t got a lawsuit in progress in the US!

But every time I get to that contemplation, I’ve rebelled against the quality of vengeance therein. And it wasn’t until I thought about Regulus conjuncting my Deucalion that I realized why that question would be/become so important to me.

And why - on the metaphysical plain - the situation had arisen when Regulus did conjunct my Deucalion.

But given how metaphysics works, I knew that realization should also give me a path forward. Yes, Regulus conjuncting Deucalion is bound to stir up such situations like my medical hassle. And because Regulus is going to be lingering at 0 Virgo for quite some time, I can expect periodic episodes which echo same.

(Oh joy, oh rapture...NOT!)

But how I respond? That's on me.That’s about MY Deucalion, MY Regulus and whether MY Kleopatra will cause me to reach for the basket with the asp...or whether I will just be...well, brilliant.

Let's remember...Kleopatra didn't get in trouble until she fell in love. (Or lust, depending on how you see the story.) That's a clarified metaphysical instruction to keep my logical Pallas wits on tap - even when my heartstrings feel the tug.

 Cleopatra by John William Waterhouse (1888)

2012 has given me a lot of new, a lot of perspective on the old and huge support from people I never dreamed existed before. But it’s also been one of the most painful years of my life. Yet I accept that growth isn’t always easy. Sometimes, in fact, growth is agonizing.

But when my realization dawned, when I recognized the symbolism of this metaphysical Regulus-Deucalion shift, something in me changed. 

And that’s what my life is about – and therefore, by implication, yours is too.

Hence, why I share. Since that day, the ‘tension of engagement’ between myself and those who I might have had trouble with has begun to drop away. That people close to me have begun looking at their own lives in a more constructive, self-determinative way suggests that our energies are so interlocked that any one of us can affect the next.

It’s not about ‘thinking good thoughts’ as some say. Denial is not a cure. Denial compounds tension just as vulnerability and willingness to try spreads the ability to build anew.

We each inspire others when we allow ourselves to be honest enough to inspire ourselves.

I have no idea if the medical community is even capable of issuing an apology. Maybe not. But if so, I would tend to think that part of the humanity has gone out of medicine.

And that's not a good thing.

Deucalion being transited by Regulus at 0 Virgo in my chart says I value manners and the manner in which things get done. Protocol and a willingness to do one’s best in meeting the proper standards is going to mean something to me probably until Regulus moves on to 1 Virgo in November 2083…by which time I expect to be watching from the other side. (Don’t put it past me!)

Understanding how these subtle shifts represent a ‘moving on’ in life is important. Maybe Regulus’ shift into Virgo didn’t mean as much to you. But maybe it did. Maybe your Sun is at 0 Virgo. Or your Moon. Or Psyche. Or Athena. Or Byblis. Or…

Or maybe you just have a free-floating feeling that more is being asked of you…in which case the question really becomes whether you will hold to your more selfish or better self. Regulus as a symbol of ‘success when revenge is avoided’ is a brilliant (star-like) crystallization of the idea that our harder, harsher, more selfish and bitterly vicious natures are never a plus. Whether you don’t want to decide or you don’t want to act, whether you don’t want to be bothered or you can’t be bothered to think, in the end it’s your relationship with your Self which is undermined or through awareness, enhanced.

I can’t fix that for you…but you can. And because you can, because you may need an example to use as a crowbar to help you pry your own situation apart, that's why I've told you this story.

And I wish you well with your efforts...as I wish you well - in every regard - with your life.

Sedna Goes Retrograde / a Personal Note on Suicide

 Winter fog in the valley of the Upa River in

East Bohemia (photo credit: Karelj, Jan 2007)

 ;

We've all heard the stories. Someone will kill themselves and someone else says they were just trying to get back at so-and-so.

That never made sense to me.

Yes, I understand the wanting to inflict pain on whoever 'so-and-so' is. They want that person to feel pain, to understand the depth of their pain and to not ever, ever forget it.

But why take your own life? Committing suicide as a gesture of vengeance has always struck me as illogical. By its nature, vengeance desires that moment of gloating and saying *'See? I TOLD you so!'*

And suicide can never provide that.

Then it struck me. Such suicides aren't vengeance - they're disappointment. They're the ultimate gesture of futility when someone becomes overwhelmed by the painful realization that they're never going to be able to get that 'other' person to understand how much their priorities and choices really mean. It isn't about hatred, it's about realizing that you've invested your love, your belief in someone who doesn't understand their own value. Someone who doesn't understand how valuable they are and the value of their actions.

In other words, what 'being important' to someone else can truly mean.

How many of us treat others so cavalierly, thinking only of our pleasures, our convenience, our priorities...we think it a strength and pleasure to pursue our path, totally negating how our callous disregard for how important we really are will affect someone else.

Where we fail is in valuing the appearance of our Self we fail our greater potential.

And what a fatal flaw that is. 
l

Dwarf planet Sedna will go retrograde at 12:31 p.m. (UT/+0) this Friday, August 24th at 23 Taurus. That means its station will have just begun early on August 22nd and extend through the 26th. After that, Sedna will be retrograde until February 5, 2013, when it will go direct literally only minutes prior to Ceres doing likewise.

That makes this whole August-February period a time about (Ceres) planning, pruning, and nurturing - of self, of our ability to make plans, of those plans we've made which we're now working to bring to fruitful fruition. Though often taken as a symbol of the riches of the harvest Ceres actually symbolizes everything that it takes get a small seed from the palm of your hand to that harvest. Ceres represents all that planning, the effort, the watchfulness, the care which is required to raise the plant to crop, the child to adulthood, the nation to economic health and prosperous peace.

Ceres is the idea taking root and coming to fruition, a relationship which once well met can yet encounter terrible storms and periods of drought.

Which makes it rather poignant in combination with Sedna, a symbol of all that happens in our life to reveal to us what isn't working because we're 'clinging' to some preconceived notion.

All this brings us to Taurus. As a sign, Taurus asks that we make something better of ourselves with every passing day so that at the end of all things we achieve a level of satisfaction with the human we've grown to be. Like all signs Taurus grows, evolves and matures degree by degree from the simple and personal to the more encompassing and - hopefully - connective, productive and ultimately satisfying.

That seems particularly in sync with Sedna's station retrograde. As the sign which sets all the groundwork for whatever power we will gain in life, it is through all things Taurus and in terms of our Taurean values and sense of security, pride, self-respect and worth which fosters worthiness...it is through the testing and risking of those parts of our Self, through the successes and ego blows, the intimacy of love and supercharged tussles of anger...it is through just such gratifications and disappointments that we mature and ultimately grow to be satisfied.

With Taurus, it's all easy when its just about us and our 'me and mine.' 

Indeed, the tests only start when we realize that others need us. Or value us. The more inconvenient the moment, the emotions involved, the need, the greater the test - and potential for growth.

For those who believe that those with the greater ability are tested mightily, we should take it seriously when life's responsibilities and human needs call out to us.

For only then do we emerge from our cocoon of personal regard into the true Taurean light of having to confront our own capacity and self worth in the light of what we could do against what we're doing.

That part isn't so easy, no. And with Sedna at 23 Taurus and Algol at 26 Taurus, it's surely easier to be entitled to whatever it is you think so important.

Sedna moves incredibly slowly. One orbit around our Sun takes Sedna over eleven thousand years. So Sedna transits and Sedna's clockwork functions take a very long time to function and come to fruition. Considering the story, things can get very stormy along the way. We can feel abandoned or situations may leave us uncared for and on our own. Sedna is all which makes us want the nice things and all the fear which tries to resist those life forces which want us to let go of what we want for ourselves in favor of giving of our potential.

As over the next few years Sedna closes in on Algol's position, the selfish, the entitled, the greedy and the willfully blind will surely exile many a needy soul.

Some of them will die.

But on the other side of this coin, those who will let go, who will accept their own ability without all the social, societal or dictated trappings...those who decide they will deal with others from a basis of what they respect on a human level and not as a matter of preference or appearance - those people will advance.

And on the basis of their willingness, many of us will benefit.

Again, there are no quick fixes here. Astrologically, the long periods of strain or peace in our lives and world can be timed to how long it take Sedna to pass through the orb to any given degree.

But that is an opportunity. And as we become willing to 'take the plunge' and do what we are capable of instead of what we'd like to come easily, so our opportunities become advances in our lives.

If you'd like to read more about Sedna as a symbol, check the feature article list on the sidebar here on the blog. But the part of the myth which seems plainly important here, as Sedna turns away from Algol yet again is the request, the urging, the understanding deep down inside that we need to let go and try. Sedna speaks to our 'comfort zone,' Taurus speaks to personal creature comforts and Algol is the embodied symbol of the responding energetic. So whatever that involves, will you confront your Self with what you need to do or the person you really should be...or are you simply afraid or unwilling to risk anything, be it as simple as a moment of your time?

Since we know this Sedna cycle leads to a point where Sedna and Ceres sync, and that they will do so in a semi-sextile with Sedna in Taurus and Ceres in Gemini it doesn't matter where we go now, life is going to lead us to some uncomfortable positions.

Like other objects which cycle through the Kuiper Belt, Sedna represents those moments, situations, events and qualities which, through evoking our innermost sense of human vulnerability and the need to be vulnerable teach us how there's more to being a person than we thought.

However much we know...there's always more to learn.

About suicide, it is a truly terrible reality. And no, this doesn't mean that this is a moment when we should expect mass suicidality. Far from it, actually. Sedna's turn to retrograde, especially at 23 Taurus is an opportunity. Given that 23 Taurus is a degree which by (3rd decanate) definition is about input from others and our world, if your chart is aspected by this station things will happen to shake you out of some sort of (Sedna) complacency, some (Sedna) tendency to cling to the familiar and what you want instead of what would ultimately empower you.

Sometimes it's what you learn to do. Sometimes Sedna is about learning that you can do it.

By degree, this station focuses where the reliable and fallible meet. Where we may well experience the surprising difference between just those qualities in our life...or in our soul.

No matter what happens, there will always be some who will always refuse to risk or look past what's convenient and comfortable to their reality. Or how they affect others.

We call that selfish. And the very kind of maturing moments which get us to stop thinking in terms of 'me' and get us to think about what we are capable of which will cause us to respect who we are...that's Sedna.

As for those who will not see and will not let go, such people may not commit suicide - but in a sense they're already dead. Which is also sad.

Sad also is how such people often know full well that they're condemning someone else to own the futility which results from their refusing to care.

Suicide is sometimes said to be an incredibly selfish act. Maybe in considering that we understand why such people polarize each other.

After all, like does...and always will attract like.

Here's to doing something better with our consciousness - and our lives.

l;