Jupiter, Drakonia and the shadow of Neptune: A Reality which Plays with our Feelings

 The Sombrero Galaxy in infrared

photo credit: NASA/JPL - Spitzer Telescope Team

 

As the 8th became the 9th, Jupiter exited the shadow of its 2010 retrograde cycle. Maybe you felt it. Maybe something you had been trying to do last year finally got wrapped up with a nice, neat little bow.

Or maybe you just stopped trying.

Known as sole ruler of fiery Sagittarius and first/initiating ruler of Pisces, Jupiter symbolizes everything about life which makes us know (Jupiter) that there’s tons out there to experience (Sag)…to feel we’re in touch with (Pisces)…to learn about (Sag)…and to be part of (Pisces).

But the 2010 version of this vision – that’s over with now. As maybe you’ve noticed, life has moved on!

So that’s all we have to say at the moment about Jupiter. Well, except that it’s still in early Aries…which puts the focus on who we are and what we’re doing or being in this world. And yes, there’s also how at this particular moment, Jupiter is wafting along through space in astrological (not spatial!) conjunction with Lust (the concept of intensity of focus) and Mnemosyne (reflection as the best teacher).

That implies we are all focused on what we’re going to become. Or – alternately – what’s going to become of us. Maybe even what we can make of ourselves in this world.

It’s rather like that old phrase: ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’

 A nursery of new stars

photo credit: NASA/JPL - Caltech

Then there’s the next thing…how as of February 10th at 2:28 in the morning (UT/+0), Drakonia goes retrograde at 17 Libra. By anyone’s estimation, 17 Libra is a second decan (emotional) degree of an airy, ‘the ideal of it all’ driven conceptual sign. Libra is highly, seriously poetic - poetry being the very essence of the idea expressed emotionally. But it’s not all that tangible. We think of it as being all about ‘relationships’ when it’s really more about the quality of relating – as in, ‘can we relate?’

The whole notion that relationships are ‘just one thing’ is about as nonsensical as saying we should match to each other merely based on Sun signs. If your Sun is your basic perspective and personal ‘tool box’ fine – that’s a vital and important aspect of who you are. But that's only part of who you are. The Sun doesn't symbolize your values - that’s Venus. It’s not your emotionality! That’s the Moon. It’s not how you communicate – that would be the Mercury department. And it sure isn’t about whether you put the cap back on the toothpaste tube unless you’re a Sun sign Virgo, in which case you’re likely to have a bit of the Toothpaste Nazi in you or simply never care what happens to the toothpaste altogether. (Yes, there are sloppy Virgos! Shocking, I know!)

Anyway…if you want to pick your ‘true love’ based only on your Sun then I want to see your chart because I’d like to know exactly why you think someone else’s values, feelings, sense of humor and ability to communicate, be all Saturn reliable and responsible….why you think that doesn’t count! 

So back to this 17 Libra thing…this is one of those Libra degrees where the two ‘sides’ of Libra are more pronounced or more apparent. You know, like the two sides of the coin – or in this case, of the scale. It’s a degree where Libra presents with great wit and facile eloquence…but to what end?

That’s what one needs to always ask, as this degree can manifest as caring or cutting, interested or quarrelsome, informative or snarky.

And when you add in Drakonia, it’s hard not to think that whatever side of this sugar-vs.-snark line things fall down on, it might not be real. Or realistic!

Making this all double-triple confusionating is that this may not be anyone else playing you! You could be just maybe, perhaps, sorta (kinda) fooling yourself! On the other hand, maybe the biggest (and certainly overarching) concept to consider here is that the third thing happening today is that Neptune is entering the ‘shadow’ of its 2011/2012 cycle.

Probably the best way to understand what this means is to consider what we were talking about in terms of Jupiter. Last year, life was about what it was about at that point. All the parameters and details of what you were doing and what the world was doing…we recognize (Jupiter = knowing, understanding, comprehending) now that all that is over. Done. Finis!

We’re in a whole new cycle of learning about life and what life can become. There’s a difference between where you are now and where you were then.

That’s a ‘planetary cycle’ of a yearly type!

So now Neptune is starting it’s new cycle. With all planets which go retrograde (Sun and Moon don’t, though granted, the Sun is actually a star and the Moon is Earth’s satellite)….these cycles aren’t set flush, end to end. Some have days or weeks between the end of one and the start of another. Time off, call it. Or a free for all in planetary affect terms!

 Planet Neptune - photo credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

If you work with transits, you know this idea from having seen transits – most often by Jupiter and/or Saturn – which are one-time transits, as opposed to three (or with Pluto and sometimes Neptune, five-time) transits.

The farther from the Sun a planet is, the longer its orbital cycle. The longer that orbital cycle, the fewer degrees that planet transits in any given year, and thus the more likely it is that it will go direct-retrograde-direct (or even direct, retrograde, direct, retrograde, direct) over any given point before moving on!

With Neptune, we don’t get any ‘free time.’ Actually…we get anything but! The last Neptune cycle doesn’t actually end until February 25th (happy birthday George Harrison…) of this year. But meanwhile, the new Neptune cycle has begun. This next cycle will take us to February 27, 2012.

That these Neptune cycles are overlapping suggests – among other things – that the great human desire to glue everything down and say ‘Okay! That’s taken care of!’ isn’t much in the offing. The lesson of the moment, for all that we may want to “know” what’s happening, is that we can’t…or that we at least aren’t likely to.

That ‘knowing’ thing? That’s the Jupiter part. So part of our Jupiter lesson going forward is that whatever we try to be or become, we can’t know how that’s going to turn out for us – we just have to try.

Or….seeing as we are dealing with both Jupiter and Neptune, which taken together equal rulership of Pisces, maybe the point is that we should accept. Accept ourselves for who we are and proceed from that basis, accept that we won’t know what every little thing is going to be or become and do a little bit every day to try and reach our goals…to let go of the idea that we know what things “should be.”

 Constellation Pisces

produced using Stellarium software

With Jupiter in early degrees (see it above...just past Pisces?), Drakonia in second decanate (middle) degrees and Neptune in the latter degrees of Aquarius, we have a spectrum laid out for us.

Maybe that’s just the point. We can do what we do wanting or looking for some effect or response, but when we do, Neptune defeats us. In all things Neptune, the thing you are most sure of is likely to prove untrue while that you think least likely most often proves out.

And that, my friends, would seem to be a perverse little lesson on how not you, not me, no nobody runs this world. ‘What Is’ is far bigger and more complex than anything we can conceive of. Our egos demand and crave that centralized sense of centralized, viable importance, but when you look at the universe, how big or important are we – really?

And given that, who is really getting played and isn’t the biggest and most consistent form of being or getting played that which comes as a response to having a mortal ego?

So do what you can, but don’t figure that’s all you can do. Know who you are, but figure on learning more as you go along. It’s probably a bad idea to figure you know what ‘should’ be as none of us really have the capacity to know.

Is it us against the world? Us against our world? Or maybe it’s the human race living on its world, gazing out at the stars realizing…

…Realizing what? Playing who?

Maybe it's all about our feelings...and our inborn, human need to feel.

A Century Plus of Sedna

  Through the Centuries

by Anastasiya Markovich

Maybe it’s because Sedna was just on station. Maybe I'm feeling historical. Or in the mood to put my software through its paces.

Whatever the reason, as I noodled around looking at Sedna's movements through the signs, it occurred to me that there's a pattern.

Und zo, I share this pattern with you.

Food for thought, call it.

Now before we launch into this wee discussion, let's remember: Sedna is a real, live Dwarf Planet. It’s not some wandering sofa-sized rock. It's not even some meandering house-sized rock. We're talking a Dwarf Planet - something on an astronomical par with Pluto.

And yes - I know - we’re used to thinking of Pluto as 'real' thing to be considered. Sedna? Not so much! But Sedna is an astrological force to be reckoned with.

Another point on Pluto...we're used to Pluto as being way out there…(you can't see, but I'm waving my hand...no - a little farther! No...a little farther still!)

Yet the truth is...compared with Sedna, Pluto is that kid with the really loud boom box who hangs on the corner a block or two away. Not far enough, granted. But pretty far away.

To put this in astronomical terms: at it’s farthest from the Sun, Pluto is 49 AU’s away. One “AU” (astronomical unit) is equal to the distance from Sun to Earth. So when Pluto is as far away from the Sun as it ever gets, it’s 49 AU’s away.

(And still, we can hear that blinkin' boom box...sheesh!)

FYI, it also takes Pluto 248 years to go once around the  Sun.

Again, putting on our comparison hats, Sedna is not merely a block or two away - Sedna is ‘over the river and through the woods’ far away! Never mind that 49 AU Pluto far point...Sedna? At it's far point?

At it's farthest point from the Sun, Sedna is 975.56 AU away.

That’s FAR. If it weren't in our solar system you would swear Sedna belonged to the solar system next door!

Sedna is so far away that it takes yon Dwarf Planet 11,809 years to go once around the Sun - which among other things means it's a seriously long wait between Sedna holiday seasons!

Listen...let's be real about this. Even at it’s closest, Sedna is still 76.156 AU from the Sun! Go outside - or to a window. Look out at the Sun. Think what life would be like if that Sun was basically 76.156 times smaller.

That's cold.

Last item here...the difference between those two measurements? The 975.56 AU and the 76.156 AU? If the Sun is the center of our solar system and a planet (dwarf planet, asteroid - whatever) has that big a 'far/near' (known as aphelion/perihelion in astro-talk) difference? That means a planet(oid) has a really-o, truly-o oblong-eggish orbit.

Et voila - Sedna does!

 Sedna's orbit is in red...the rest of the solar system is that

little group of circles up at the very top. And yet,

Sedna is still part of our solar system!

diagram credit: NASA/JPL

So them would be that thar bucket 'o' basics when it comes to DP Sedna.

And so saying....on to the astrology.

Currently at 21 Taurus, Sedna moved into Taurus’ third decanate rather recently – in 2009, to be exact.

Let’s recall….2009 was a great year of fiscal dirth. Economies around the world had fallen into potholes. People were feeling self protective, put out. They were trying to figure out how to retain their lifestyle - or just escape truly confining situations they hadn't thought they were buying into when they bought into them.

Those of you who know The Sedna Story may already be hearing the similarity. Do I hear an 'ooooh, yeah....' or two out there?

Getting back to the somewhat more scholarly part (I did say 'somewhat'), as planets/objects pass through third decanate positions, their effects are externalized. As far as we're concerned, I mean. Life ‘delivers the message’ unto us. So in this case, 'Sedna experiences' will come through world events. Or people we know. Or social/societal forces. Or (yes) economic doings.

The point is that when we talk third decanate, we are not in control - at least not personally. We are on the fielding end of a pitch coming at us.

And yet…it’s not personal. The effects may be personal, but third decanate things are not being done to us in the 'personal' sense as pertains to karmic growth.

That's a big divider. Yes, someone may do you wrong. But in the cosmic/karmic sense, life is trying to provoke or evoke some reaction. You may need to grow. You may need to learn better. You may need to get the fern up and off your duff. You may just need to feel - and feel yourself feeling so you feel your own position in things and realize you maybe have a voice! Or that there's a stand which is worth taking in some matter!

To this already sticky mix, we then stir in the cup of Taurus. Taurus always adds a measure of security, self worth and resource contemplations...and Taurus tests are always about our ability to create that which provides us with security, which enhances our self worth or which utilizes our resources (financial or ability-wise) to best effect.

To ever better effect, actually. When you hear accomplished people talk about there's always more to do - I'm just getting started! what they're talking about is this Taurean thing.

(For the record, this can also arise out of our personal chart 2nd houses, but let's not get distracted...)

So back to the myth. The myth of Sedna is all about the desire to be taken care of versus our ability to do great things when we're empowered. It's about want versus need. It's about not expecting (key word!) the world to be as we want it to be or to provide for us.

Sedna is about the struggle we go through wanting to have all the rights and freedoms to be adults and yet our yearnings to be nurtured and provided for.

Okay...it's about being spoiled versus self-reliant.

It's about immaturity versus becoming a real and self-responsible adult.

Sedna is about taking ourselves in hand. It's about not putting off developing our innermost selves and turmoil we create in our lives by being flotsam instead of someone with the hand on the tiller of our life.

At the moment - and moving forward for a few years yet (until 2024) we are going to go through a time when life is testing us in this regard. The whole 'Sedna thing' is going to be coming at us through work, our world, our friends-family-significant others...you name it, life will provide it.

Like...if your dog looks up and barks and you hear 'Sedna,' don't be surprised, okay? And don't say I didn't tell you!

This may still seem a little vague. Okay, then let's hop back almost two decades to when Sedna reached Taurus’ second (emotional) decanate in 1990.

Ah yes…the wild and materialistic 90’s! The world was our oyster – or at least that’s what we thought. But maybe well we should have, as any second decan is where a sign manifests emotionally. So given that the Taurus 'concept' remains, here it manifests through our emotions and emotionality. So we were so in the mood  to feel wealthy, to feel worthy! To feel talented and able to do anything we wanted to do!

And no, we never thought about the bill which would someday come due! It was very all about us and what we wanted! Some wanted to have all the power and be doers and makers, power mongers and shakers! Some of us just wanted to be provided for - do for me, be for me, give me, give me, give me!

Sedna was in Taurus' second decan. Get it?

Zooming back through the years, we find Sedna first entering Taurus (and thus Taurus' first earthy decan) in 1969. History buffs and those who lived through this time will probably nod and say ‘I'm getting it!’ as I say how those years between 1969 and 1989 were just chock full of Sedna in Taurus’ first what-can-I-do-to-be-secure-and-comfy-in-my-life?

The accent here is on the first person personal. Any first decan point is either physical (as in my body or what I do) or it's just 'all about me.' And yet the object of the game would be Taurean. So the object of the game would be in...the gain. 

Wal Mart was founded in October 1969. I know - for some, this just says the whole thing.

But let's not leave it there...Around the world these years saw enormous shifts in professionalism. Many professions went corporate. One of the biggest themes was, in fact, how many professions which had been 'mom and pop' or thought of as 'service professions' went all corporate and incorporated. There was an upsurge in the legal world and maybe most telling in today's world - this was when health care went corporate.

Taurus being about ‘worth,’ it's really easy for people to go for the phrase 'being worth' as an expression of financial status. But if you remember that old saying money can't buy you happiness...therein lies how well we so often fool ourselves.

That 'worth' thing? That's supposed to be our feelings of self worth. If you have self worth, it doesn't matter if you're rich or poor - you're secure in your value as a person. And if you don't have self worth? Then all the money in the world isn't going to make you happy.

It's actually rather interesting that this would be the time when health care corporatized (so to speak)...it would seem to fit the misfit Taurean first decan vibe to a 't'.

So why did we do it?

Aha! This is where we realize the truth of Sedna's passages as a test. The question should have been not how much are we worth, but what are we worth to ourselves? And the health care thing really exposes this perfectly. After all, after we wade through all the defenses of health care for profit and how R(esearch) and D(evelopment) for new drugs costs money...

...Who puts a price on human life?

Remember….Sedna is the stubborn, spoiled child who develops herself and finds her true power only once catastrophe overtakes her.

So sit with this a moment. It all tends to add up with everywhere Sedna is being where we are tested: will we get all stubborn and act spoiled and create problems for ourselves which surface as we ‘go overboard’?

This really all makes so much more sense if you’ve read The Sedna Story. So in case you haven’t, here's the LINK to the full article on Sedna.

But do come back, y’all! (Yes, I'm moving to Beverly Hills and becoming a hillbilly...)

Just as a matter of observation, as the number of years Sedna spends in each decan gets longer and longer, we realize we're into the 'oblong' portion of Sedna's orbit.

And does that tell us something else?

Inner planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars, Earth - they all have pretty regular orbits. So do most of the asteroids which are part of Ye Olde Giant Asteroid Belt which sits between Mars and Jupiter (which also has a reasonably regular orbit).

But we do know of a few objects which have rather eggy orbits - besides Sedna I mean. One is Chiron. There's the whole comet class. And as a matter of fact, Pluto has a somewhat eggish orbit. As does its (ugh!) fellow Plutino, Ixion.

Thinking a moment about this 'egg-shaped' thing...does this not suggest these are attributes which by orbital shape imply 'extremes' of human polarity?

Could be, right?

And yet...there does seem to be a 'boomerang' effect with all such objects. The obsessive and controlling efforts of Pluto so often backfire, leaving us alone or bereft or undermined by our own obsessions. Chiron requires that we own our own frailties and that we not just talk the talk, but walk the walk, lest our unwillingness to do so become our downfall.

An interesting contemplation, to be sure...

So getting back to that 'long' portion of Sedna's orbit thing....it begins showing up as we take a next step back in Sedna time - that being when Sedna would have been in Aries' 3rd decanate.

Which began when? In 1941. Hello? World War 2, anyone?

And yes, that passage ended as 1968 became 1969.

Aries is the sign of physicality and courage. Known as the warrior, the general theme is that of the warrior who does what is needed not for glory, but to protect others.

Strangely enough, that was the cry of everyone on every side during WWII. And yet everyone looked at everyone else at the time and thought them....what, deluded? Self righteously self absorbed?

Rather so, one suspects.

Being that this is a third decanate Sedna period weren't talking about here however, the impetus, the ‘lesson,’ the “ill” would be being delivered through external means. You know - that 'other guy'?

And oh boy, what a ruckus this period described. Granting that I'm looking at this from a US perspective (being an American makes that likely...) the litany of events which littered this period is all about 'what's wrong with this world?' First came WWII. Then came Korea. There there was a whole period of Cold Warring and  endless worrying about ‘nukes,’ not to mention looking for communists under every seat cushion.

Then came Civil Rights, Vietnam, sexual freedom, protests, a notable mass murderer or two and riots - all as medicine and science blossomed like nobody's business. John F Kennedy said let's go to the Moon inside of ten years and by gum, people responded.

All of these things - if you think about them - had external provocations. Civil Rights? Definitely. All sorts of  'oppressions' (or convictions that one was being oppressed) resulted in reaction - some positive, some not so much.

At the same time there were huge upsurges of cancer and heart disease along with the blossoming of a new killer: HIV/AIDS - which if you think about it played the race card, the sex card, the medical and killer card all at once!

How terrible and terribly efficient cosmic forces can really be.

Does this mean that we could have acted differently with a different result? Probably not. Yet that does not imply fate...any more than a rose bush is 'fated' to produce buds which may well in time, blossom.

The concept of 'Fate' as something which eliminates free will works when you talk about everything born is fated to die. It doesn't work when you try to define what we become between those two points.

All we can say is that we are born to try different things. And it seems that if experimentation is stifled in one place, it pops up in another. There are periods in which we are destined to grow. Spring comes, the seed sprouts.

But is that 'Fate'? Or just how things work?

Unbeknownst to us, the universe is unfolding as it should.

Anyway...during Sedna's passage through Aries 3rd decan there were a lot of provocations, and people responded in kind. The question was who are we? Who do we get to be or become?

Moving back from there, the prior period was Sedna in Aries' (emotional) 2nd decanate, which began in 1910, ending in 1940/1941.

Aries in emotional mode is all about what can I make of myself? or what do I think of myself? or am I going to survive? Around the world this was a period of nation and family/family heritage building - the emotional desire to 'identify' was huge. People really felt they could do what needed doing if they set their minds to it - there was a lot of personal conviction going around.

Against that, there were periods of intense helplessness. WWI was one such period. The recession/depression and terrible droughts and food shortages which hopscotched around the world in the mid/late 1920's was another version of same.

Yet at the same time, this is also a period of increasing self-concern and concern for others because otherwise, who the heck are we as human beings?

So on one hand there was an increased effort to care for those who were affected by disasters. There were also efforts to begin eliminating ‘classes’ and ‘castes’ - and in the US, women got the vote (gender equality).

Yet at the same time, you can abolish the name 'caste' but still have a class effect. Tycoons and rich folk do it all the time and there was a big upsurge of same during this period. People wanted to feel valid and validated, no matter what that took or what shape the package came in.

Aries: I Am

Aries' Second decanate: I feel I Am. How do I feel I Am? How am I feeling about who I feel I Am?

And for those who think this sounds a lot like Popeye the Sailor, you're right on track! Popeye put in his first spinach-eating appearance on January 17, 1929.

(Too bad spinach doesn't cure everything...!)

Okay...so that's enough for us to begin to see a smidge of an ootch of a pattern, no? Let's give it a try...

When Sedna passes through the first decan of a sign, people strive to capitalize on that sign's dynamics. During the late 1800's when Sedna was in early Aries, people worked to make something of their Self. They simply focused on survival. Life was basic. When Sedna got to the first decan of Taurus at the end of the 1960's, people began investing in comfort – their personal comfort. Their sense of value and worth.

It's a real yin/yang sort of thing - the striving would seem to be evident when Sedna was in a yang sign (Aries) and the 'reaping' (having, building on) more evident when Sedna was/is passing through a yin sign - Taurus.

And yes, we seem to rise and fall depending on our tendency to ‘go overboard,’ which is very much part of The Sedna Story. In said tale, the ‘dependent Sedna’ keeps insisting that things be provided to her. And yet by the end we have an ‘independent Sedna’ - the figure of Sedna as the provider.

So perhaps the real issue here is either how there is a natural human tendency to proceed with something of an  ‘All or Nothing Mindset’...or that Sedna describes the natural pattern of yin and yang in sort of an 'incarnate' way both at a global and personal level.

Another observation: Sedna entered Aries in 1868. That means that Sedna was just finishing its transit of Pisces during the American Civil War: a war all about inquietudes personal, moral, ethical, humanistic and economic. (Take your pick - they all apply!)

So what?

Okay...I'll see your 'so what' and raise you a Jupiter having just passed through the end of Pisces, entering Aries barely weeks ago. Right now, Uranus is in the very degrees of Pisces Sedna was in during the American Civil War.

If planetary cycles ‘echo’ worldly passages at "various levels," then maybe current Middle East events are a haunting echo tragic times long passed?

It’s interesting to think about. And painful, yes.

Once Sedna moves into Gemini come 2024/2025 there will be a focus on mentality. That includes education (of course!) but it also is every inch and every ounce about what we do or can do or refuse to do with our minds.

Gemini is also about communication.

And choice. 

And transportation - not only of ourselves by every means from foot traffic to space craft - but of our ideas.

Gemini being a yang sign, we can expect the world to shift more into the 'get out there and make it happen' sort of mode we saw back in the 1800's into the early/mid 1900's about that time. 'Do' will once again be more important than 'have.' And 'think!' will become the overwhelming, underlying concept of everything and all which happens. 

Guaranteed, some will avoid thinking at all costs! And some will do nothing but.

In the meantime...and maybe as a forerunner to that, here's one last idea....

Yes, there is one other side of this whole conversation.

You had to know this was coming, right?
That's about our charts. Your chart.
And how we are each and every one of us a product
of our time...which in astrological terms means the reflection of our charts.
In true Sedna style, there are those who will cling,
who will argue, who will resist, and who will point to their Sedna and say 'See? I can't help being who I am!'
That's sort of what Sedna said too.
See where it got her?

So...what is your personal Sedna about?
Have you met up with or passed
your Sedna test yet?