April's 8 Taurus Solar Eclipse (Pt. 1: The Map and Basics)

 Eclipse map for the 8 Taurus Solar Eclipse of April 29, 2014
(generated by Solar Fire software/v.8 - recolored for posting purposes)

Above is the solar eclipse map for the April 2014 solar eclipse at 8 Taurus. It's a particularly interesting map as this eclipse path at its western (longitudinal) end stripes through western Russia, with the east end (marking the end of the eclipse path) being off the coast of New Guinea, effectively embracing some of our world's most heartfelt points of human contention...which is to say our contention with being human...in current play.

But it's not just what's going on there - which is to say, not just about what 'those' people are doing or experiencing. The astrological solar eclipse isn't just about what we do or don't do this month or even this year.

It's about everything which could be going on in each one of us which could cause us to do or not do things...which cause us to react to things as we do.

As solar eclipses rolls through we all witness things going on and feel things in our core and - in astrological terms - we react to what we feel in terms of where the eclipse is located not in some other chart, but in ours. In an ever-shifting pattern eclipses range from top to bottom in and around our world, giving us metaphysical images which are as much about where we will 'draw' from in reflecting on our own lives as anything else.

And yes - sometimes each one of us ends up on stage.

When that is for you would be read from your individual chart (alas, some things cannot be done through a blog...) but there are some general effects, the most important of which is that eclipses effects start several months prior to any given solar eclipse (of which we get at least two a year here on Earth).

And after the eclipse, effects evolve over a period of around three years.

Lore also says eclipses are seldom 'about' what they appear to be in the moment whether events are painful or delightful or anything else - they are about what this moment will cause/force/inspire us to fall back on because whatever that thing is, it's harder to do (or be) than what we have 'settled' for in the moment.

(For the record, I totally agree here. I also think this concept is exactly what makes solar eclipse periods so hard to deal with. We always think it's about something which is so very much not the eventual revelation.)

Apparently life as life applies to Earth doesn't like to settle when it comes to human beings...a concept which suggests that as a race we're precious. (Or rather precious, which is how we act from time to time, yes.)

The length of time it takes for any of us to move out of, or let go of whatever notion we have come into this time thinking (or clinging to) varies. However there is one more universal, that being the idea that about 6-8 months prior to the end of eclipse effects (which would be around the end of 2016/beginning of 2017) something which could not have happened...or mattered...will appear.

And that means that while this April 2014 eclipse certainly has its own essence, things which happen now may also have to do with the "twist" which develops as part of a different eclipse - that of November 2011 with the Sun and Moon at 2 Sagittarius. So...particularly if something started (or you initiated some major change) during late 2011, take a look at your chart to see if you have any planet, dwarf planet, node or axis point positioned between...

- 27 Scorpio and 7 Sagittarius (the conjunction)
- 27 Taurus and 7 Gemini (the opposition)
- 27 Aquarius and 7 Pisces (the departing square)
- 27 Leo and 7 Virgo (the approaching square)

If you do, its particularly apt to feel an emotional 'cross current' in your life at this time. Whatever happens now is being brought out by evolving (or new) circumstances, yes. But either on its own or when combined with whatever is discovered by pausing to understand what in you is causing turmoil...some part of that is likely to become part of your motivation to go on from here with more finely honed aims and priorities. 

Whether or not the 2011 eclipse was focal, today's positives and negatives pertain first and most of all to questions of personal growth - which makes perfect sense when we consider the whole of life's process. If, as entities in this world and of this life we won't 'do' or change or let go, life tends to come at us from other angles before moving on. Maybe we'll change, maybe we'll resist again and again.

When that happens life moves on, finding a more receptive funnel for its energetics. Life provides undifferentiated energy to which we apply the conscious sensibility we exist as in, and as an entity of this world.

Our choices...good or bad, productive or destructive are what they are just as there is no good or bad in the eclipse process except at our most human and mortal level.

You know, when eclipses time the end of things we love and cherish.

Sometimes it's just time. We have to let go.

That's just the way life is.

Whether any eclipse factor (solar or lunar) takes the form of a person, event, idea, situation or anything else is unique to each one of us.

And we can count on a good deal of it flowing at some level for this moment from the realms pictured above in the map, manifesting in person thusly simply because energy flows through and is human life, history and planetary as well as universal existence.
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2013’s Scorpio Solar Eclipse

 Partial solar eclipse in space taken by the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

(photo credit, NASA, February 2012)

One of the things which running an astrology blog will teach you is that people are very into anything which we might call ‘anticipation’…which with Things Astrological very often translates into the fine-toothed leap between 'satisfaction of desire' and ‘threat.’

And yes, this is about me being about as real with you as I can be. You may think it’s callous, but astrologers know that if we say any of these three words…

Scorpio – 8th house – Nodes

…that we’re going to get listened to. Give a lecture on one of these subjects and you'll have lines around the corner and down the block.

Why? Because even astrologers are fascinated by the many forms of allure which have that delicious Scorpio ‘dangerous’ quality to them...that very special thing which prompted a guy I know to say ‘I like women who are a bit crazy. Crazy is a bit dangerous - and I like that.’ 

Granted, he has a bit more of that yen than most of us, but we all have a bit of it in our makeup.

After all, life is full of shiny surfaces. So much of life is about whether we will or won't respond to something which presses our buttons...which triggers our instincts while also turning off our mind.

Did you think the zodiac was any different? It absolutely isn't. One of the 'shiniest surfaces' around is the zodiacal gleam which so tempts people to just read the sign, read the planetary attribute and be thee on your way!

Well, actually...you can do that. You can actually do that and have it be true and accurate.That depends on you. More specifically, it depends on how willing you are to hold yourself to being thoughtful in the face of the 'hidden sides' of each and every sign...each and every object...each and every facet.

Our potentials are limitless. Therefore we are not to be limited in either the good or ill any given thing can teach us. Or the good and rancid we can experience through any given attribute.

That we know it's really possible for something to 'hurt so good' is proof that our experiences can flux. That we can simultaneously hold ourselves in positive and negative regard.

That's Scorpio.

If the zodiac was clarified in a 'truth in advertising' sort of way, Scorpio (and your 8th house) would have to be labeled ‘RADIOACTIVE.’

But wait...! If Scorpio (and the 8th) was labeled RADIOACTIVE, no one would willingly get into, get to or deal with that stuff.

Make no mistake…Scorpio is radioactive. It’s everything about human experience which could possibly twist and corrupt us. It’s everything which can melt the very flesh off our psychic bones.

And once we're burned clean, then Scorpio can recreate us…empowering our rebirth to Self as a Phoenix rising from our soul's own ashes in utter glory and living self-empowerment.

But first comes the dismantling, the bringing everything about our life which is toxic and damaging bubbling and boiling out, overwhelming us with the stench and fumes of our vulnerabilities and biases, the stickiness of our fears, the acid of our anger, the wrenching of our angst, and the painful echoing of tears uncried and those long-suppressed, unholy wails.

Scorpio is radioactive. But if you knew that, if you understood what the Scorpio arena is really like, you’d never go there. We’d all be alive on this planet avoiding each other for fear of our Selves. Not for all the power, money or orgasms would anyone buy into the kind of torture Scorpio can deliver.

No, not even for the ecstasy which might lie beyond.

 Image based on a star map of constellation Scorpio by Torsten Bronger.

And yet…the Scorpio process is one we all need to endure. As 8th sign of the zodiac, Scorpio embodies all which purifies our unrealistic lack of understanding of what it takes to be who we are. Beyond Scorpio lies the four signs of worldly accomplishment and maturity where, in disrobing our ego, in becoming willing to be nakedly who we are, we get to become who we’re supposed to be in a real and worldly sense. 

So nature tempts us with our own most basic cravings...which means that in our most human nature, it’s that very nature which tempts us. And so we walk in that door. We ignore the big sign...if we even notice it at all.

With some people the Scorpio and 8th house part of this tends to be actually dangerous. But that generally has to do with really ill-placed rulers of the 8th – or Scorpio, for that matter.

I know someone whose Cancerian 8th house is ruled by a Scorpio Moon placed at their 12th house cusp. Not only is this Moon conjunct Mars (ruler of Scorpio) but also conjunct Ixion, a combination that promises that until this person learns to walk past their fears, they will have painful periodic episodes which amount to 'sticking it to myself.' And that pattern will either continue until this person either executes the perfect self destructive act (validating the desire not to feel) or learns that Scorpionic (emotionally driven) issues are not about being led by one's emotions but by choosing to manage them.

Scorpio is a choice. It's about who or what we choose to invest in...and what stirs that choice, what causes us to crave, desire, long for something...? THAT gets to the heart of Scorpio as the concept we all love to hate…and hate, but so love.

In other words, the enticement and excitement - the sense of 'danger’ is not about them. It's about us. Its about something...some need to feel ourselves feeling which causes us to choose.

Read that last sentence carefully. If you do, you will understand why so much which is based on choices made in passion, lust, desire, excitement...why they so often go so far astray.

Before I go on, here’s a link to the salient article on Ixion:

- link to -

Ixion: Our Conflict of Self

…and remember – Ixion is in all of our charts. We all have some way in which we ‘Ixion’ ourselves, where we repeat and repeat the same mistake or format until we realize that we want something which works.

Moreover, if you were born between November 1967 and November 1996, you were born with Ixion in Scorpio, which means you will tend to experience your Ixion issues through intensely evocative Scorpionic venues, the details of which are etched in your personal natal chart.

There’s some Sherlock Holmes quote which applies here…I don’t remember it exactly, but he says something like ‘when we take away all the answers which aren’t true, what remains – however unlikely – is actually the truth.’

Our human challenge is that with Scorpio we always seem to think ‘they’ have our answer. Or that they are our answer. Or that they’ll help us feel better. Or feel how we yearn to feel.

And that’s not how it works. This sign of passion, this sign of intimacy which requires us to let go, be vulnerable and become naked to others...it’s where we tend to want control. Where we would so much prefer that others become/be vulnerable in our presence rather than going through the angst, the anxiety, the feeling vulnerable when we let our guard down in front of them.

The feeling of ‘danger’ where Scorpio is concerned, when we feel ‘they’re’ dangerous…that’s our instinct telling us that they may be dangerous TO US. To our ability to risk, to the reality of who we are.

The feeling of being in danger of feeling our own feelings on the other hand – that’s Scorpio in its utmost potency. That’s where Scorpio seeks to lead us through our own fears to where we realize that our humanity is innately vulnerable and that to have someone…anyone…with whom we can be vulnerable, with whom we can be helpless…is the most worthwhile thing we can find in this world, this life.

And how that doesn’t take getting nude in any sense. Naked? Yes. But nude? No.

The scariest thing in life isn’t what others think of us…it’s what we think of ourselves. What we fear in our Self can eat us from within.

Scorpio is not about precisely about feeling desire. Or passion in the flesh. It’s about anything or anyone which can evoke our deepest, most personal feelings…feelings which evoke a passionate response. And when we get there, then we have to think through Mars and Pluto as the rulers of Scorpio. Mars’ primary sign of rulership is Aries – the sign in which Mars energetics are all about being who we are and discovering more about who we are through what we do.

Pluto is the outcome ruler. So if you jump off a cliff without a parachute, Pluto will teach you that that’s a deadly bad lesson. And yes, it is likely to be a very hard lesson – one which makes a lot of impact on you.

The balance between Mars and Pluto reflects the necessity to understand that choices (Mars) have consequences (Pluto) and that we are most in danger when we make the choice without considering that consequence. Or, considering how Mars is so very much about the ‘self’ when in Aries’ oppositional sign of Libra, how to choose on the basis of what ‘they’ (Libra) want (Mars) is by definition an abdication of self, in which case Plutonic forces become ranged in such a way as to totally negate and smash you.

With thanks to astrologer Rob Hand, who I quote here: “Use the energy wisely, lest it use you unwisely.”

Scorpio decisions (and) decisions in Scorpio situations are best made coolly. When in doubt, rely on facts and not emotions. Untruths and manipulations do very badly in Scorpio situations as they tend to stir up karma – that energy which comes back to thwack you not from the direction you put it out from, but most often the direction you were thinking you would protect.

Karma is definitely the universe’s way of yelling “SUCKER, YOU’RE SO BUSTED!!!”

(Ugh.)

What we cannot do in a Scorpio trial is sell our Self out. And that tells us why the top three “dangerous” drives are money, sex and power.

Is the light bulb beginning to glow yet?

Mind you…understanding all this (which I obviously do) doesn’t make life a snap. I understand the premise pretty well...and yet that doesn't make my walking through my fears any easier than walking through yours would be for you.

I just understand the necessity to do it. If Scorpio is about opening ourselves to our own vulnerabilities (which it is) and its an interactive sign (which it is) then however it happens, when the radioactivity begins to click, click, click then we're bound to get scared.

Trust me...I do it to. I've scared myself more than several times by taking off my brightly polished social mask so as to admit my scary truths.

And sometimes I was liked just as much for doing it. Once or twice someone has been there to witness my 'coming clean' about my life and they have liked me just as much - even more for revealing my human fears.

"I'm sure you get scared," a neighbor told me one night early in my detox when I was thoroughly weirded out. He'd spent about a half hour acting out the scenes of a book he's working on writing (much to my delight) after which we sat down to talk about our lives. "You've been through some really bizarre stuff. But when you get scared, I want you to remember who you are in the present and that your friends love you for who you are. We think you're a star."

He's kidding of course - I'm no star. Except maybe to him, I guess.

No, it isn’t easy for any of us. It isn’t any easier for me than you. I've tried to run away - just like I bet you have.

Where Scorpio is concerned, we try to preserve the status quo. But can we control it - or someone else? One of the best examples I can offer here comes from a magical moment when I heard someone say ‘I refuse to bid you good-bye. I’m going to stand here, and I hope you will keep to what you agreed to.’

That's an important Scorpio lesson - how the freedom to stay and be vulnerable is at least as important as the freedom to go…or run away. Or hide. Or deny. Or ignore.

It's all in how you phrase it, in how you present it...in the emotions you extend under Scorpio. Whatever your Scorpio thing is, the reality of it is that you would like to be welcomed in spite of it.

But there are some times when people want to you to be vulnerable and then refuse to return in kind. They're not ready to be equals – not with you, but with their own emotional nature. Sometimes its not enough to make the emotional Scorpio connection which is the initial bridge.

After that comes the walking over our own emotional gulfs. And some of us can't look down and can't walk straight ahead on faith.

It isn't about you. It's about their faith in their Self.

I've even seen this happen with a person who has read the RADIOACTIVE sign. They know what Scorpio is. But for whatever reason, they think they can solve their Scorpio in isolation. They haven't yet realized that Scorpio is a dualistic AND interactive sign yet, particularly in the sense that we never solve our Scorpio issues by ourselves…and how by definition we can never solve them by taking the ‘comfy’ way out.

Not to mention how there’s always a set of steps to even our side of the process.

The 11 Scorpio Solar Eclipse of November 3, 2013

(Aries Wheel, Location Not Specific)

 

The very best Scorpio relationships – defining this as a partnership or an intimate (i.e., sexual) relationship, or any relationship where you invest yourself, be that at a financial or friendship level – they all have to be two-way. That’s the Scorpio thing. It has to be mutual – and naturally so, there can’t be eternal compromises. If she doesn’t like toast crusts, the romantic in him may say ‘I’ll take the crusts’ but if he isn’t actually a lover of crusts and screw the middle of the bread, eventually that will result in trouble.

This is where romance…or the romantic notion…becomes the reality of life and life’s realities.

Except in Scorpio, those are always emotional realities. So many of us compromise our emotionality and security for something we call emotional security which is really giving up on ourselves.

When we will opt for the compromise of our inner emotional power for the appearance of power which might seem to validate us, we’re always skating on thin ice. That's what's so odd about Scorpio...the greater the urge, the allure, the passion, the thinner the ice. ‘Fixed’ as an astrological modality, Scorpio is the water sign which represents where we are either nurtured to emotional health, back to emotional health or where we destroy ourselves through some corrosive manipulating of the term ‘safe.’ In the world of Scorpio, not facing our feelings or refusing to face them isn’t safe – it’s toxic. When psychologists say ‘the power of the secret lies in keeping it secret’ that’s what they’re talking about.

And though we may run from the person who makes us feel, or who – because we emotionally connect with them is someone we know could end up exposing us to our own feelings…that’s not safety.

That’s death in the guise of avoidance. And yes, Scorpio is the sign of conception, birth and death.

It's also the sign of all those things which scare us half past living death - particularly in relationships.

Why relationships? Because that's where we see how Scorpio really functions as its through relationships that we confront the greatest need to tolerate our own deep emotionality and our willingness to interact with someone capable of evoking our truth of emotionality.

And it doesn't even have to be an intimate relationship to get to us intimately. Far from it - some sexual relationships are terribly shallow. Or based on a virtual agreement to ignore each other's need to hide.

Some friendships and business relationships, on the other hand, can be closer than close. 

That has been what I think has driven the rise in readership here at the blog over the past couple of months. It shows up in a graph bloggers see when they log. So I know…every time a solar eclipse looms, you and your friends and people half way around the world from you start checking the blog.

And the moment the eclipse is over…you think that the threat, the urgency, the depth of the feeling is all over.

Well, you’re wrong. The two months leading into this period are merely the start of the process. They were merely about getting your attention, about your hopefully coming to grips with what needs focus in your life.

Where you have dug into the emotional issues or the things which caused feelings to swell up like some bad emotional reaction to a cosmic bee sting, you have just embarked on a long journey through realizing that while life needs to have structure and rules, it also needs to be compassionately interactive. Those who comfort you may not be who you can comfort. Those who can witness your pain may not be those whose pain you can witness.

And those who make life easiest for you may be your worst enemy. Or not. Where they urge you to be dispassionate, they are saying ‘don’t feel yourself’ and that is the road to behaviors narcissistic...even sociopathic.

There’s a lot of it going around, you know. The sign of how high the human stakes have gotten in this time of such technological genius is the very dehumanization we are all seeing throughout society, whether in relationships or business.

Life isn’t supposed to be all happy. It isn’t supposed to be all easy. There is a difference between being allowed to work through your stuff (or do your work) and being supportive. That difference is all about motivation – another spiffy Scorpio word.

Because Saturn is involved in this eclipse (the eclipse is at 11 Scorpio and Saturn will be at 13 Scorpio) we know there is some ‘paring away’ to be done and that forward growth is going to be slow.

And it should be slow, in order to be able to ‘build in’ supports which don’t just sound good, but which will work. That ‘work’ thing is important here. The eclipse having Mercury conjunct the North Node (both obviously in Scorpio) points to to Mars as that ‘choice’ ruler of all things Scorpio. And Mars is in Virgo and in opposition to a Pisces Chiron in retrograde.

It’s a time for taking on how deeply afraid we are of ourselves. (Or our Self.) To not do that is to run a long term risk (or a risk of something which will last a long time) which stems from not having done what you think you ‘don’t know how to do’ in the emotional realm (that’s the Chiron part) which in every likelihood will surface through some Mars in Virgo facet: the in ability to do something…or get it done.

The eclipse itself occurs at 11 Scorpio, a degree which tends to manifest by our being ‘married’ to some status quo or assumption of validity that we miss something vitally important – you know, that Scorpio factor which can just kill us.

Or at least the situation.

Or the relationship.

Or our career or job or whatever else we’ve decided to blindly tie ourselves to or be blind in tying ourselves to.

And Saturn? Saturn is sitting at 13 Scorpio, a degree which one book describes as a solitary existence which treats with us not gently at all, an existence where we either feel isolated or are isolated.

And yet, in this position, in this isolation there exists a potency of feeling which the Sabian Symbol TELEPHONE LINEMEN AT WORK INSTALLING NEW CONNECTIONS plainly speaks to.

The effect of the eclipse will tend to manifest as (Saturn) work or commitments which interrupt communications, the effort we put into making new connections in life…and as outlined in the keynote for this degree (“the need to establish new channels of communication”) references as a need to go outside of the established, our norm…even our understanding. By definition, Scorpionic growth isn’t easy or easily undertaken. Once you’re there, it may be perfectly easy, but getting yourself into the process can be gag-worthy.

I’d also like to be clear here, at least in how this astrologer interprets this reference: when I said ‘channeling’ to someone not long ago, they took that to be ‘working with existent energy’ which is not what I tend to think this is about at all – especially not as presented here in the form of Saturn, Saturn being the planet at the edge of ‘unaided human sight.’ To channel in the Saturn sense means channeling from beyond Saturn – which plainly means from beyond the known, the established, the regulated, the defined.

Because this is Saturn – our emblem of structures, time, career and achievements – I would also say this matters most particularly in our working lives, and doubly so if you’re anyone who works with energy, energetics or any of life’s structures…that reaching all the way from construction workers, architects and engineers through to farmers, shippers to spiritualists, doctors, mediums, shamans, chiropractors, dentists, parents, teachers and anyone in the government or military around the world.

Did I leave anyone out? (Probably not…but it’s polite to ask.)

Furthermore, acting as link (or blockade) between the Sun/Moon of the eclipse and Saturn we have a coagulation of the following points at 12 Scorpio: Sabine, Sisyphus, Deucalion and Amphitrite. Not to put too fine a point on this, these points can act as either the link OR the blockade…or both.

12 Scorpio is a defensive sort of degree known for attracting energetics to be defended against (which seems logical, right? If you’re all about defending, you’ll attract something to defend against…naturally!) Lore has it that this degree evokes feelings of compassion offset by indignation of the sort we might refer to as ‘I’ll give in when you give me a good enough reason to give in, and not a moment sooner!’

The medium all this is being poured into at the moment is a ‘having captured’ (Sabian) quality which has a bit (!!!) of snarkiness (Sisyphus) to it, which is like as not about an inability to get one’s own head high enough above the emotional high tide level(Deucalion/Amphitrite) to get proper perspective and bearings.

All of this we are likely to BOTH use to blockade others while resolutely going about our business.

Except…well, except for two things. The first is that Scorpio isn’t about the ‘other guy,’ remember? It’s about how life sets up situations so that we interact with others and thus our emotionality is evoked…which is why that the people who don’t ruffle you are often the least constructive people in your life.

I believe I put this to someone rather recently by saying ‘that’s not feeling good, that’s being numb.’

It’s not quite that extreme for most of us, but it certainly is for some. Absence of feeling is not ‘feeling good,’ it’s not feeling – and that I can assure you, having had a young life which so destroyed me emotionally that I simply shut down in my late teens, not to re-emerge as a full-fledged feeling (nervous, vulnerable if loving) person until decades later.

In the process, I pretty much lost my entire middle life. Truthfully, that’s one of the big reasons I sit and type this blog day after day after day. If I can help one person… hopefully you… to not turn away from your feelings and all the difficulty of feeling them…if I can help you through to where you can have the life which was beaten, raped and abused out of me for the whole of my young life, then what I will have gone through will not have been for naught.

I don’t want you to have the life I have. My life – whether you respect me, love me or hate me – in a sense, it’s pretty bleak. People are as off-put by my the intellectualism I retreated into during those decades of no emotions as they are of the stunted, rather overly young emotions I mostly show when I meet someone who for some reason I can afford to feel in the presence of.

My wish for you is that you find the courage to go all the scary places not in this world, but in your heart, your soul, your head and your spirit.

Which brings us to the other reason why this eclipse isn’t likely to formulate as a successful blockade against those who cause us to feel. The answer is already right there in that last sentence: it’s because what we’re talking about is a solar eclipse. Eclipses explode our myths and wipe away our defenses.

So in essence, the more it hurts…the tougher this period is, the more opportunity you have to break through to your more essential being. You just have to not go with the easy stuff…you have to go towards that which hurts the most.

And if it’s someone you’re in relationship with, may you have a better time getting them to talk to you than I’ve had. 

But it’s more than that, as we probably can best see in the following diagram I constructed after sitting and staring at the chart of this eclipse in preparation for writing this (yes, rather lengthy) post.

From the eclipse to Uranus is a 6th harmonic derivation. We obviously know we have to do something. It’s quivering our insides. The South Node in Taurus represents our longing to have things be easier, but the South Node is the road to personal dissipation, so let’s not go there.

Besides, the celestial promise (aka the ‘cause-effect’ of universal function) is that if we will do our North Node stuff, we will automatically have all the South Node stuff we could want.

Pluto in Capricorn is something of the ‘other side’ of the Scorpio coin from Mars in Virgo as Pluto is (as we’ve discussed) the ‘outcome’ ruler of Scorpio. Here poised in at 9 Capricorn, the question would seem to be between the pursuit of wisdom (which fits Scorpio’s positive side) against the pursuit of material gain (the ‘money’ reference in that Scorpio list we’ve talked about). That Pluto is at 9 Capricorn should probably be taken very seriously here, as lore tells us that efforts to opt for material gain end up in disaster…or being a disaster.

The (Plutonic) requirement is that we cultivate patience and humility…which pretty much seems to answer the Sabine-Sisyphus-Deucalion-Amphtrite at 12 Scorpio thing.

Snark not, my friends. Try to get past your hurts to where you are your most human and humane Self – to others no less than to yourself. Own your vulnerabilities as you so want others to own theirs. Beware of focusing on materialism, money and power.

You can try that route, but to use a phrase favored by a friend back in Pittsburgh, PA, it won’t go well.

Juno at 9 Aquarius is in square to the eclipse and semi-sextile Pluto and Chiron, displaying the discomfort most of us feel right now and how we must prevail in some public sense despite that discomfort.

After that comes a list of fixed stars – the real reason I found this diagram so intriguing. Aldebaran, Alhena, Diadem and Antares (and Facies, right next to Pluto) all lend an extraordinary background…an emotional backdrop to everything we’re experience composed of questions of integrity (Aldebaran), our worldly Purpose as currently tested against our personal sense of Purpose (Alhena)…that which we want to hold high and aspire to as well as be inspired by (Diadem) and the ability to lead and be the leader who leads by example even when we don’t have all the answers (Antares)…we look around and say ‘no one else can manage it – why is anyone expecting me to?’

The answer there is simple: because you’re you.

And if everyone would get over thinking it is about someone else needing to be better, if we could all just come out from behind our masks – be they shiny and android like, doused with tears, stern and unfeeling, frightened and fettered…if we could come out from behind that mask long enough to see it’s our mask and therefore about us…

…then, just maybe we’d be poised to face our own vulnerabilities and out of that grow a better understanding of others…and how to have a better life and better world.

And let’s get back to where I started with this chat…this is NOT the end of the eclipse process. We are just entering in to another just-shy-of-three-months of rapid evolution and continued shifting values.

That Ceres is entering Libra scant hours prior to the eclipse is both a signal that it’s time to make a (new) plan. Considering that entering Libra means Ceres will be passing into, over and through the rather magical ‘through-the-looking-glass’ zone occupied by M87 (Messier 87), this plan is probably going to be skewed in a new direction. Or be as a result of coming to see something from a new perspective.

Since I happen to be the astrologer here, I’ll also note that three months takes us to February 3, 2014, which will be a few days after Venus goes direct (which yes, means it’s going to go retrograde) at 13 Capricorn…a degree which is conjunct Pluto’s position here at the date of the eclipse.

So it ain’t over yet. The eclipse of November 3, 2014 at 11 Scorpio will begin at 12:47:26 in the afternoon (UT/+0) and will continue for 1.67 minutes. It is an annular/total eclipse, which means that it will be total for those directly in the eclipse path, and partial (an annular eclipse) for the rest of us.

Those of us with planets, nodes, dwarf planets, axis points or other important astrological tra-la anywhere between 6 and 16 Scorpio are going to feel a vital nuclear melting at the core. This is the remaking of Self through inexplicably difficult, soul wrenching situations which cannot be escaped from partly because they're native to one's Self and partly because (as anyone in this position knows) such issues have been ignored long enough.

It's time to face the music, radioactive though it may be.

Those with placements (as above) between 6 and 16 Taurus will feel confronted by factors beyond their control.

Those with placements between 6 and 16 Aquarius and/or Leo will be having to deal with life factors totally off the line of what they had hoped to be dealing with but which cannot be ignored.

 The path of the November 3rd solar eclipse as rendered by Solar Fire's solar map module. The red line is that of totality.

In the sky...a couple of minutes, and then all will be over. But astrologically, the fat lady (as they say) hasn't sung yet. Scorpio's essence is operatic to be sure, and the diva's name is Dame Karma.

One hopes the song she sings for you isn’t a sad one.
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Eclipse Effects Begin

The August 1, 2008 Solar Eclipse as photographed by NASA

Beyond being the most spectacular astronomical event we the People of Earth get to see with our unaided eyes is how solar eclipses mark a moment of vast metaphysical potential.

What we have to gain through this process is huge…even though achieving those gains often forces us to let something go.

Why that would be is simply human nature. We humans are masters of self-compromise. Though we know who we are, what we’re capable of and that person we “should be” (in spite of our foibles, weaknesses and all) deep inside, we do tend to ‘make do.’ We compromise. Society, life, people, economics…there are a variety of reasons why we tend to cut ourselves short.

Some of them even advocate doing just that. We get thousands of messages thrown at us from when we’re small to when we’re old which urge us to do the ‘approved’ thing and to ‘carry on’ some tradition.

Yet we’re not always born to do that. On the purely metaphysical level we are born to be who we are simply created to be. So fortunately or unfortunately for us, the universe has ‘ways’ of pushing us to be that person. And if it takes stripping away whatever it is we’re using to temporize or compromise with – or our excuses or defenses or whatever – that’s what life is going to do.

And the astrological ‘timing device’ which most often clocks this process is the solar eclipse. Yes, there are transits and transits come and go. But that’s the point. If your planets are all clustered (numerically) at one end of the zero-through-thirty degree scale it’s possible to go as much as a decade without encountering a major Pluto ‘get your head out of your…’ transit. Or a squishy smack-down with Neptune’s abilities to disappoint and amaze us because we’ve been believing something which was utter bunk. Or some discovery or disruption which signifies that singular energy which is Uranus.

But we get two ‘solar eclipse’ seasons every year. Those eclipse numbers (the degrees at which eclipses take place) cycle over and over again throughout our life on a 19 year (Metonic) cycle...moving ever, ever so slowly with each successive 19-year turn, representing  (theoretically speaking) the time we need to learn our lessons and thereafter make good on our potential.

Even the eclipse which doesn’t aspect your chart within orb or planet, node or axis is going to be reflected in the life being lived all around you – and thus in your life.

Solar eclipses are an affect of the Sun, and in astrology, the Sun equals life. So in keeping with solar eclipses as nature’s most dramatic display, they’re also the most metaphysically active in our world.

You know, our lives and our sense of life.

It’s also worth considering how eclipse ‘seasons’ (that period of time which as a whole is under the auspices of an impending solar eclipse) are so prevalent in our lives. On the average, we experience two solar eclipses every year – though there are years when we get two solar eclipses during one eclipse season (with a lunar eclipse sandwiched in-between). But it’s the time factor which seems so striking here, as each eclipse season begins with a two-month (8 week) ‘break down’ season which precedes the solar eclipse.

That means we’re spending approximately four months a year – a third of each calendar year – under solar eclipse effects.

And you thought life was supposed to be about a process which is peaceful and calm? Apparently not!

But maybe the most evocative – and illuminating factor with this ongoing solar eclipse cycling is how as transits, solar eclipses evolve over a full period of 36 months (3 years).

And during that time, other eclipses occur.

Through the centuries, astrologers have noticed two interesting (if somewhat peculiar) patterns about how the eclipse transit matures. The first involves that ‘break down’ period which precedes the eclipse. Events which occur during this time are what we tend to remember about that eclipse period, and yes, there is a ‘dotted line’ between those events and the eclipse theme. But to really understand the native process we have to remember that solar eclipses are all about taking away that thing which is preventing us from being the person we are created to be. So while the ‘created to be’ symbolism will be denoted by where the solar eclipse hits in your chart, what or how you’re compromising your ability to BE that person may seem totally unrelated.

The symbolism of the solar eclipse has the Moon (everyday life and our feelings about that life) aligning to ‘block out’ the Sun – which is why whatever we’ve been doing to compromise our Self will get ‘blocked’ or ‘blacked out’ (taken away or eliminated) as life moves to ‘reveal’ to us the need to be or become that special person we were created to be - as symbolized by the solar corona.

The second factor in the solar eclipse pattern is the one far less talked about, even if it’s as important as the first. This second factor has to do with the overall purpose of the eclipse.

Before the eclipse happens, that thing which we are doing which is temporizing, compromising or even avoiding that part of our life which we know (deep down) we should be dealing with but which we’ve put aside in favor of things which are easier, more acceptable (to others, certainly) or whatever else… that ‘thing’ starts to feel very ‘intense’ and often problematic. We tend to project the problem onto others because goodness knows, we’re happy with our temporizing, our blockading our own growth, our “acceptable” (or “accepted”) pattern of personal compromise.

But the problem isn’t ‘them’…the issue is that we are not living a life which is authentically in keeping with who and what we are and we need to deal with being or becoming.

Not surprisingly, there are a lot of relationship and job problems which crop up during eclipse lead-in periods. Financial issues will pop up, health issues will arise. And some of these can be utterly devastating – certainly on the level of our very mortal day-to-day established concept…our built-up ‘habit’ as to how we live our life.

But solar eclipses don’t take anything we really need away from us. That would be counter-productive to life’s process. So no matter what we think our life is “supposed to be” (and how we’re “supposed” to go about living that life) the eclipse takes away whatever we’re temporizing with in order to force us to use those tools or attributes we’ve been ignoring (or covering up).

As we go through life…as eclipse cycles pile up…slowly we begin to recognize who and what we’re really supposed to be. So the eclipse break-down rolls through and another layer of our mask is peeled away and depending what has been hit in our chart we shudder at our utter nakedness before our Self.

But then we start to move through the processing of the eclipse and the coping with what we need to do now that ‘that’ has been taken away. This period lasts a good two-to-and-a-half years, at which point something happens. And that shift, that opening of a new phase of development, that’s the most interesting part of any solar eclipse. Whatever happens then could not have happened (or “gotten to us”) if we hadn’t gone through having some portion of our temporizing or blockading mask stripped away.

Thus is revealed the ultimate “purpose” of that eclipse.

Nineteen years after any major eclipse, life will revisit the issue of whether we have grown. I describe this to my clients as the difference between going around in circles and climbing a helix. If we got the message and learned our lesson the first time around, then life hands us an opportunity to move on and take what we’ve learned to a new and higher level. That may be a little inconvenient, to be sure (who said life was convenient?) …but it will tend to not be as utterly painful or disastrous.

Truth is, it could be rather wonderful…but only if we’ve really learned whatever lesson is associated with the aspected symbolism in our chart.

You know, the what we need to be in life because that’s who we really are underneath all the conditioning and compromise.

But meanwhile, other eclipses have been rolling through, bringing us to the point in our program where we have to discuss a few celestial mechanics. Eclipses are a function of Sun, Moon, Earth and the intersections of the Moon’s path around the Earth (our personal life and inner psyche) and Earth’s path around the Sun – the ecliptic or ‘path of life.’

Where those two ‘paths’ intersect are two points known as the Lunar Nodes.

The symbols of the Lunar Nodes. The emblem which opens at the bottom is the North

Node, representing something which takes a great effort to do and which we probably

don't really want to have to be dealing with. The node with the opening at the top is

the South Node: the thing we find easy to do and which we are all about wanting to

do instead of our North Node work. Many a large life problem can be tracked to our

reluctance to do whatever it is our North Node is asking us to do  - and those

problems are often 'set off' (triggered) by solar eclipses.  

In essence, a solar eclipse is a New Moon (just like we get every month) but because this New Moon happens within fifteen degrees of the Lunar Nodes, what is indicated is a lining up of Earth, Moon and Sun such that we end up having the eclipse.

Because the nodes represent this idea of ‘intersection’ they represent how our life intersects with those around us…and with the world we live in. And that’s why eclipse effects tend to affect everything and anything – relationships, jobs, health, money, family - which has to do with how we go about ‘intersecting’ and ‘operating’ in this world.

The idea which is important here is the fact that the lunar nodes cycle backwards through the zodiac, a directive of motion which I have likened to “bringing things home to us” a couple of times. (A couple of times at least, I’m guessing.)

What that means in the timing of eclipses is that the yearly eclipse seasons also cycle backwards…which gets into that 3-year thing we were talking about.

For ease of discussion’s sake, here’s a chart of the past few year’s worth of eclipses…

 
To orient you, the solar eclipses are in yellow (noted by degree), lunar eclipses are in blue (ditto) and the colored bars around them indicate the break down periods which precede each eclipse, color coded by the zodiacal element in which the eclipse will occur. Green is earth, indicating a ‘structural’ element of life, the teal color is water, indicating an emotional element of life (or our orientation towards emotionality), blue is air, indicating the ‘idea’ of something as we have been working with it and the orange is fire, representing the method or ‘vision’ we have for our lives.

One other note for accuracy’s sake…we had two mid-year solar eclipses in 2011. Obviously the early August solar eclipse at 9 Cancer would have begun its break down period in the latter part of June, as the first solar eclipse (at 11 Gemini) and the 24 Sagittarius lunar eclipse were rolling through.

Lets just with the fact that charts are useful, but not perfect.

Anyway…a you will notice, the solar eclipse sequence (in yellow) has been slowly rolling back through our calendar months. And that brings us to the magic question of ‘which eclipse is now nearing its end?’

The answer to that question is: the January 2011 solar eclipse at 13 Capricorn is now coming to it’s ‘fruition’ point as we are moving into the break down period preceding the November 2013 solar eclipse which will take place at 11 Scorpio.

This being where the 3-year eclipse timing gets a little spongy, new structures (earth/Capricorn) are now coming into being. So is it about six months prior to January 2014 we should be thinking about as the ‘finalizing’ point of the January 2011 eclipse? Or should we be thinking about six months prior to the November 2013 eclipse since eclipses – even though they operate in independent cycles (known as “Saros cycles”) are also part of the ongoing and eternal unfurling of time and manifestation?

Answer: both. So to put this in more or less calendar terms, six months prior to this November’s eclipse (which would be early, early May 2013) a shift occurred. This shift would have been particularly notable in the lives of anyone whose chart “answers” to 13 Capricorn… which is to say, anyone with a planet/dwarf planet (even Plutino), node or axis point between 8 and 18 of Capricorn, Libra, Aries or Cancer, between 11 and 15 degrees of Sagittarius, Aquarius, Gemini or Leo.

Using this photograph of a relief in Egypt's Temple of Luxor which Hedwig Storch took

in 2009 purely as an illustration, the Sabian Symbol for 13 Capricorn is as follows: AN ANCIENT

BA-RELIEF CARVED IN GRANITE REMAINS A WITNESS TO A LONG-FORGOTTEN CULTURE

which astrologer-philosopher keynoted as "The will to unearth, in our culture as well as in

any culture, what has permanent value , and to let go of non-essentials" which in a greater

scope of thinking asks us to consider the importance of being who we are in a world which

is all too easy to get over-involved in, or molded and seduced by. 

We all will get some effect in our lives. But those whose charts include objects at those degrees? You know who you are and the whack you felt back in late 2010 is now evolving into a whole new thing you wouldn’t have gotten into had that not happened.

How well (or badly) have you coped with that process?

Well, lets just say that if your chart also answers to 11 Scorpio, chances are you either need some modification on your ‘coping strategy’ OR you’re now being given the opportunity to rebuild “that thing” in a new and more genuine (to you) manner.

What degrees are affected by 11 Scorpio, orb-wise? This list includes 6 through 16 of the fixed signs (Scorpio, Taurus, Leo and Aquarius) as well as 9 through 13 degrees of the semi-sextile and inconjuncted signs: Libra, Sagittarius, Gemini and Aries.

The more items/objects in your chart which are affected (cumulatively) by these two eclipses point at where on what we might think of as the human sliding scale of personal earthquakes your life effects will be…and will have been.

Oh yes – and IF your Sun, Moon or natal Lunar Nodes are involved in either list by degree, double that quotient.

If you’re only affected by one eclipse, fine. If you’re effected by both eclipses, get ready for a roller coaster ride.

With that said, we DO have the option of utilizing the eclipse voluntarily. Like all other astrological transits, eclipses operate as something akin to a 100% pie graph.

When any transit comes along, especially if you can spot is as something difficult, your using the energy in a directed manner ‘eats up’ whatever portion of the pie, leaving less of that energy to come back and bite you. Famed astrologer (and all round nice guy) Robert Hand put this best: use the energy wisely, lest it use you unwisely.

Six months prior to the “official” end of the January 2011 solar eclipse cycle rolled through at the start of August, 2013. Did you realize something important was shifting? Did you feel yourself growing or beginning to ‘reopen’ yourself to possibilities with regards to whatever ‘broke down’ in that November-December 2010 period?

With all that in mind, we turn to the two degrees of the solar eclipses involved in this discussion. The first is 13 Capricorn, a degree known to manifest through strength of character and the willingness to take on the difficult challenge…which yes, may be with regards to others but which intrinsically – and especially when we speak of 13 Capricorn as being the degree of a solar eclipse has to do with being challenged to be that Self that you are, and to do so in such a way which ‘owns’ your Self on a true and valid level of integrity while not walling everyone else out.

Not the easiest thing to do, that.

Bringing 11 Scorpio into the mix by solar eclipse brings out questions of childhood and cultural experience and “conditioning” – those ‘messages’ we get which we either accept or reject. And yes, sometimes we reject the message and become the messengers – which is to say, in spite of all our dislike of someone who acted a given way or who foisted their agenda on us, we may tend to do that to others. (Being human just isn’t ever easy!) There’s a tendency noted with 11 Scorpio to get SO involved in minutia that qualities of the ‘bigger picture’ get ignored…and this is also one of those Scorpio degrees which raises those Scorpio issues of jealousy and possessiveness which are really about some fear of loss, abandonment or marginalization.

Called 'Hofball in Wien,' this 1900 painting by Wilhelm Gause (which is housed in Austria's

State Museum at Vienna) suggests one of the many ways to think of the Sabian Symbol

for 11 Scorpio, which reads as follows: AN OFFICIAL EMBASSY BALL. Again drawing from

Dane Rhudyar's writing in 'An Astrological Mandala' we are given the keynote about this

degree as 'Group-consciousness, as it flowers at the highest level in cultural interchanges

between representatives of the elite of the ruling class.' The thing which seems important

here, especially in light of the tying together of these two eclipse symbols is our potential

- as individuals - to be some sort of 'elite representative' of something in our own life, and

how important that is to develop without losing sight of the fact that we learn in order to invest

our learning in a world which rewards us for our efforts to be the better and even best person we

can be, and how in doing that, we shift our sense of 'where I belong' to the company of others

who are "elites" in their own right by virtue of having done their work, and the rewards

we thus achieve through building our world in conjunction with those willing to invest effort in

their humanity and human potential, not merely in the pretense of appearances.

Put the two together and it would seem that this is an important time to work towards ‘owning’ our Self while not blocking others out in spite of the fact that situations – be they centered in career ambitions or relationships or financial security – are not about the job or the career or the money or that one person you may be so close to.

They’re about us. The Sun is the Sun in our life for us and in the life of someone else as they go about being who they are.

What this may open up – especially for those who have access to the charts of other people – are opportunities to share and discuss how we’ve felt about things which have happened to us…and how we feel about what’s going on right now. Scorpio has a strange way of getting us to make ‘presumptions’ about someone else, be it the good or the bad in them or about their life path.

Great alliances can now be forged. But we have to choose to forge them without losing our Self...and without losing what we've learned through whatever happened back in 2010 which forced us to reassess or relearn how to deal with our sense of structure (or how to structure our lives) which happened in the wake of the January 2011 eclipse.

Call it a sharing of pies…which means it may go nicely with ice cream, or maybe just a nice cup of coffee or tea. You know...to go with sharing our lives with others, be that through conversation, emotional (Scorpio) commitment, personal example or chosen deed - all of which are daring in that they ask us to risk what we are afraid of most in the search for inner security and ultimate contentment and satisfaction.
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Neptune Station-Retrogrades in Pisces

In this photo taken by Voyager 2, Neptune and one of its moons, Triton, are seen together.

Though it may seem like tritin (the smaller crescent) is beyond Neptune, actually it's

closer - which just shows you how much larger Neptune is than this most curious of planetary moons.

Unlike every other known moon in our solar system, Triton doesn't orbit its parent planet in the

direction if the planet's rotation. Why Triton orbits in the opposite direction is as yet unknown, but

more than a couple of people have voiced a question as to whether this could be connected to

Neptune's massive magnetic resonance, a force so large it controls a substantial swatch of

space beyond the planet's orbit, evidently all the way around the Sun.  

(photo credit: NASA-JPL, August 1989)

For the past couple of years, Neptune’s station has been happening a week or two (sometimes three) after the year’s first set of eclipses. It’s almost like life putting us through the pressure cooker or crucible process of the eclipses so as to break down all the tough personal callus we tend to build up so that Neptune can finish the process by ‘dissolving away’ that which separates us from a more insightful reality so we can see our inner potential.

And yes, sometimes that which is blocking us from being able to fulfill our greater potential.

Life absolutely requires us to have a sense of boundaries and separation. That’s one of the most important functions of ego, that thing which defines the “I/me” of life so we know where we end and the next person begins. And yet, if there’s too much of that ‘ego wall,’ we can’t relate. We’ll have no compassion. Or – worse than that – we’ll totally negate the value of anyone else’s life apart from our own.

Astrologically often most associated with Saturn as the physical ‘structure,’ the psychological ‘limit’ or the emotional ‘wall’ between us and anything else about life, this ‘boundary’ can be seen as being two sided: Saturn provides the structural “wall” of self-identity and Neptune represents the amorphous ‘all’ which at some level we all long to be part of. Or to merge with. Or to be swaddled by.

The relationship between Saturn and Neptune in a person’s chart at some level defines their comfort and relationship with reality. How both planets are presented tells us where (by house) and the medium (by sign) they will experience life. A bit counter-intuitively, Saturn tends to define our ‘comfort’ level with life where Neptune pictures our relationship to and with the world around us.

But it’s never ‘this here’ and ‘that there’; these two precepts are always in continuous interaction, just as we all go through life reflecting on the world around us and having our thoughts on people, life and the world in some sort of mental format which is itself – at some level – ‘imaginary.’ Neptune is that precept which allows us to not focus so hard on life around us that we can’t feel ourselves being (or feel what we feel about being part of this world) even as Saturn represents those precepts which keep us grounded in a reality-oriented realistic pattern of functionality.

When any planet goes retrograde, it’s station (and the days surrounding that station) displays an increasing ‘pressure’ in our lives. So now, as Neptune goes retrograde on June 7th at 8:27 in the morning (UT/+0 time), we are likely to get past our ‘pre-definitions’ to some truth of experience.

That may be in the moment. That may be from the past. That may involve a vision of the future. It could be eternal. It could be neither of this time, space nor realm of reality.

Neptune’s keywords vary between the extremes of emotional experience: idealism and illusion, inspiration and despair, faith and abandonment. Wherever we see Neptune in the chart whether by transit or natally, that’s where we know we will experience all sorts of highs and lows which in the end teach us to not pin our hopes on one thing or the other, but to experience life as it is – to accept life as it unfolds in every moment.

You know…in reality – that Saturn thing.

Eclipse cycles move slowly back through the calendar; a couple of years ago they were happening in June…then it was May and June. Right now it’s April and May. Meanwhile, Neptune’s stations have been moving forward through the calendar: a few years ago, Neptune was going retrograde during May. Last year it was June 4th. This year it’s June 7th.

Where did they “cross”? That would have been in 2011, when there was the solar eclipse on June 1st (at 11 Gemini and conjunct Aldebaran) with Neptune going retrograde on June 3rd (at 0 Pisces).

Considering 19 years is the length of a Metonic (solar eclipse) cycle, this suggest that from 2011 until 2030 we are going through both a Gemini/Pisces learning cycle (dealing with the realities of our mentality, perhaps?) AND a period during which Neptune’s relationship to our yearly eclipses will be important – not to mention the idea that Neptune, it’s transits through our chart and maybe most particularly its stations are going to carry some message about ‘eclipsing’ that which we have been.

Or maybe that’s about being what we can become. Or think we can become. Or think we are. Or don’t believe we are – whether that’s true or not.

And while the eclipses have been moving backwards through the calendar and Neptune’s mid-year station/retrograde date has been moving forward (i.e., getting later and later in the year). In fact…

The above diagram is color-coded light-to-dark to show which event comes

first (lightest blue) and which comes last (teal)

 

…if we look at the dates, 2010 was the last year when Saturn (hard reality and facts) shifted into worldly gear prior to the power of inspiration versus dissolution (Neptune) being internalized – which sounds like hard lessons being learned from events which then bring about shifts of personal consciousness or awareness.

Up until 2010, the mid-year solar eclipse also fell after all this, which would seem to say that life events brought about internal realizations which set the stage for letting go of the old and getting on with evolving ourselves and our world.

As of 2011, the order has become solar eclipse – Neptune going retrograde – Saturn going direct. That differs from the former pattern in that it is through the vanishing or alternation of something which has outlived its function in our lives (the solar eclipse) causing us to understand something about ourselves (Neptune going retrograde) which then frees us to capitalize on our efforts – or begin to make efforts with which we build our way into the future (Saturn doing direct).

Just as a concept, some of us are probably more adept with dealing with one format or the other. Plus let’s remember: this was also when Uranus started back into the wildly wooly if wonderful world of getting us to change ourselves as people by entering Aries.

And yes, Neptune entered its home sign of Pisces, deepened the emotional waters (can you spell a-b-y-s-s?) while churning up a bunch of storms.

(You know, just to see how sea sick we could get in our own lives.) 

All and all, those particular years (2010-2011) probably manifested as a period when slowly but surely, ‘tables began to turn.’ For us, against us, under us, over our heads…it all depends on who we are and how we cope with the changing times.

Speaking of change, now we come to the 2013 edition of Neptune’s retrograde station. In going retrograde, that quintessentially Neptunian ‘could it be…’ moves from the outside to the inside. So instead of looking at the world for possibilities, we will tend to look for inner inspiration and to our inner potentials for our answers.

There are worse things, certainly.

Against this there will be a clearer view of all ‘Things External’…which given Neptune’s habit for making things look prettier than they are mans that over the next few months we’re liking to find things differ some from whatever we had been thinking they were.

Some people experience Neptune’s yearly retrograde periods as a time of heightened inner confidence, as if the ‘internalization’ of Neptunian energy is like some sort of spiritual anesthetic. (Neptune-Pisces do rule drugs, you know.) And that can be good if you have something really tough to go through. It’s just that…well, all the things they tell you not to do when you’re high on anything sort of apply under Neptune retrograde.

Though it does depend (she said, imagining apace) on whether Neptune is natal in your natal chart. It does seem that those who are born with any planet in retrograde seem a bit more “immune” to it’s transiting retrograde periods. People with any of the personal planets (Mercury, Venus and Mars) retrograde in their natal charts nearly always report that though mildly annoying, retrogrades of those planets don’t throw those sectors of life into a complete tizzy. (Exceptions seem to occur when the planet in question goes retrograde in the birth sign.)

So why not with major planets, say I…! (Yes, I so say.) It’s a new postulation. (Feel free to comment yea or nay according to your experience of same.)

Getting to the brass tacks here, Neptune is going retrograde on June 7th at 5 Pisces, a degree known for situations which test our sense of balance and which no matter how difficult, ultimately prove useful.

The glyph for Pisces represents the two fish swimming in opposite

directions connected by an immutable, golden cord 

But that’s not all. 5 Pisces is also the current position of a star known astronomically as Alpha Cygnus (and astrologically as Deneb). Known for its strong will and a clarity of insight which comes from afar (references to channeling and shamanism are often seen with Deneb), this heightens the effects of this Neptune station, making them inordinately powerful, if not on a mundane level.

Oh – and lest we forget, this is a first decanate degree of Pisces, a sign all about facing ‘our fears of being frightened’ specifically as that pertains to our Self and how we think we may not live up to our own greatest hopes for ourselves.

And yes, others. Pisces tends to be highly problematic when we project our longings on others; the tendency to want to be ‘saved’ is very high with Pisces because it is the sign of ‘universal compassion.’ But that’s not how the sign of the fish tends to work. Pisces works best when we extend compassion and accept others and thus allow ourselves to be accepted, cared about and cherished in return. The fantasy that someone or something can ‘fulfill’ you is particularly problematic in the Piscean realm unless you understand that your fulfillment comes from who you are and the standards to which you hold yourself in all you do and are.

Being one of Pisces’ first ten degrees (degrees 0 through 9), 5 Pisces is also a personal degree: it’s about us – our feelings, our physicality, what we do and accept as ours to do. And since royal star Fomalhaut is right next door to 5 Pisces (at 4 Pisces) this Neptune station will also put a lot of energy into the concept that our dreams only come true when those dreams are neither corrupt, corrupting nor corrupted.

But wait – there’s more!

Dare I say…GRAND TRINE ?

Yes, this station has Neptune as part of a grand trine. And while any grand trine in water is going to put an emphasis on feelings, this one has all three prime objects at 5 degrees of their respective signs.

You just don’t see that very often!

Simply line up Venus-Saturn-Neptune and you get a question about the ‘stabilities of values’ or ‘long term worth’ (or values) which may or may not be accurate, or be being questioned (that last being the Neptune part). This could even be the moment when something you had thought of value, or some sort of financial (Venus-Saturn) status quo shifts.

And no, this doesn’t have to be for the worse. But it could be, let’s be honest.

Saturn retrograde in Scorpio lends a distinctly interactive quality to this energetic. So whether the issue is money, sex, inheritances, loans, partnerships personal or business, buying or selling, signing financial agreements of whatever sort, the prime instruction given by Saturn is to know what you’re doing and to not over-extend yourself, whether that’s financially, emotionally, sexually, or any other which-way.

Venus in Cancer is often a matter having to do with family, your place of residence, real estate or housing or national/cultural traditions. Atropos here speaks to a ‘cut-off,’ which means this could be something you are currently cut off from, or which you are moving towards cutting yourself off from.

Neptune (and Deneb) are within sextile’s reach of Facies, which suggests that there are many ways to see the situation and many factors which need to be taken into account.

Pluto is conjunct Facies, so the ‘Facies factors’ may be difficult to wrangle with. Beyond that, Pluto is also in opposition to Venus and Atropos, speaking to a change of circumstance which – according to the grand trine – is in progress.

Then we come to fixed star Alhena. Alhena is the star and signature of our Purpose. Positioned in Cancer (an emotional water sign), Alhena speaks very eloquently to that so many people refer to as our passion. Finding what fits you not because you were told to like it, not because it’s traditional but rather because it’s integral to your nature and true to your innermost interests is Alhena’s drive. With this star conjunct Mercury, there’s a lot of deep feeling and thought going into what’s important to us now, whether we’re on track with ourselves or not.

Although…with Alhena in trine to Neptune and Saturn, we would hope that you are living a life which fits you well and truly. Otherwise this grand trine may signal a time of trial.

With Pluto in opposition to Venus, Atropos, Alhena and Mercury as a conglomerate, there are many challenges to be met now, many of which will ask that we weigh out our (Saturn/Neptune) priorities.

You know, those priorities which have become obvious over the past couple of years?

The cloud tops of Planet Neptune as photographed by Voyager 2. Rather amazingly,

this huge planet - which is around 3.8 times the size of Earth - makes a full rotation

in just over 16 hours.  (photo credit: NASA/JPL, August 1989)

Like all celestial stations, Neptune’s turn to retrograde is given a couple of days ‘allowance’ to either side. So we should figure that this station begins on June 7th (maybe even on the 6th) and ends on June 9th…or maybe the 10th. During this time, sensitivity of many types can be expected to be heightened. It’s a fine time for get togethers provided nothing too, too serious is on the line. If you’ve been having some sort of problem with someone – or if there’s something you need to tell them, this might be a good time to arrange a space for a talk. Just remember, Neptune/Mercury contacts can signify deception or falsifying – which would be one of the reasons to be careful about contracts or business dealings over these days. But if there has been a problem, or if there is something touchy or problematic to talk about, the natural openness which comes with Neptune’s station may be just the time to have a heart-to-heart. Providing you can say what you have to say with some degree of compassion, you should be received with all due humanity.

This doesn’t mean there may not be disappointment. Even a few tears. But tears are part of being human too. Knowing you matter to someone else is hugely important to us.

It’s part of our Neptune lesson…because it helps us deepen our experience of being being touched.

Emotions, whatever they are, however they manifest are forms of vulnerability. And when someone shows you their vulnerabilities and you choose to treat them with compassion instead of rejecting them for their weakness or destroying them with the knowledge of their vulnerabilities, your acceptance of them heals and strengthens the resilience of your soul, ultimately liberating you at a uniquely Neptunian level from those ego fears of judgment which are the weakest side of Saturn’s structural limitations.

May you station yourself in peace.
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