Solar Eclipse Map: Years 2001-2020

 NASA's solar eclipse path map (2001-2010)

Eclipses are interesting beasts. Cycling from one pole of our planet to the other, they spiral around and around our globe, describing a path which in the greater metaphysical perspective we well might see as a helix - or maybe you'd rather think of it as a spiral.

Either concept works...

The spiral stairs of Austria's Admont Abbey as photographed by Jorge Royal (September 2009)

...it’s just how eclipses work - and how from the astrological perspective eclipses clocks various levels of growth, whether that's personal or corporate or national or familial - or anything else.

It's about growth - which is to say, how each thing grows unto its self as reflected astrologically in the chart. Each separate eclipse, singularly and as part of far a longer series of eclipses (each separated by 19 years) lets us know where we are - not with the world, but in terms of being more or less closely aligned with the inner human Self (speaking here to a person's natal chart) that they really are.

So when an eclipse shows up, will we learn something and ‘ascend’ another level? Or will we hold onto or work to preserve some status quo and either "leave ourselves behind" or end up going around in circles? From cycle to cycle (as eclipses repeat) the theory is that we get challenged by ‘like-themed’ situations, dynamics or people...and when that happens we learn whether it’s “just THAT again,” or whether we’ve learned how to be the person we really are on the inside - that person who, while they may well compromise with others, doesn’t compromise when it comes to living at a quality level for who they are as a human being.

That’s the eclipse ‘test’ and the source of whatever ‘breaks down’ at this time - which will of course be followed (as the eclipse flows through) by a 'shift' from 'break down' to adapting and making something positive of all which happens. There is a spectacularly 'nebulous' quality which seems to accompany eclipse periods - and with this April's eclipse being an annular eclipse (one where the dark disc of the Moon doesn't quite cover the disc of the Sun) we've all been living with-and-through several weeks now of strange feelings and feeling strange - however that has manifested.

An annular solar eclipse

(photo credit: Hannibal Poenaru, September 2006)

Eclipses have a funny way of feeling ‘fated’...and in a sense they are, considering we’re each fated by birth to live the life that we end up living.

But what we do along the way? What we focus on, why we invest ourselves in Thing A rather than Option B and whether those choices (and all that goes into them, obviously) are apt - those are the things eclipses are known for wrapping our brains around, reluctant (no, make that often...) though they may sometimes be to take some challenge on.

On the average, Earth experiences two solar and two lunar eclipses every year, though eclipse ‘seasons’ with two eclipse of one type are certainly not unknown: July/August 2009 hosted a two lunar/one solar eclipse passage while June/July 2011 saw us through one lunar and two solar eclipses.

The astrology of solar eclipses tells us that any solar eclipse has an effect, but that those solar eclipse which aspect something specific in your chart are far more potent in a manner which is inexorable, but seldom obvious. By ‘breaking down’ some situation or relationship or effort in your life, the eclipse forces you to ‘fall back’ on something which is important to you, but probably not being fully (or accurately) expressed or included in your life.

And that...slowly but surely...becomes more important in your life because of the eclipse - though whatever is “affected” and what you end up doing may bear no apparent bearing on each other.

You are eclipsing who you were in becoming more of who you should be.

And then....? Well, the way eclipse processes work, because you’ve been ‘eclipsed’ and have thus been “motivated” (read: pushed, shoved, inspired, cornered, dropped, jettisoned) into ‘eclipsing’ who you were being, at around six months shy of the end of the 36-month eclipse ‘life span’ something happens.

That something is something you could not have done or experienced or known even to take advantage of had you not grown past who you were a couple of years ago.

A few pieces of astro-math here for the curious: the three year (36 month) eclipse cycle is six times six months - six months being the final ‘development’ point in the eclipse process (give or take the fact we’ll run into this eclipse nineteen years from now). That ‘sectioning’ of the transit time suggests a cycle which is divided by six - which in zodiacal and astrological terms would be the (360 degree) circle divided into six parts: a Grand Sextile.

 

Old-time astrological texts refer to grand sextiles (which can alternatively be seen as an interlocking of two grand trines) as the ‘connecting of heaven and earth’ - or that we humans call “fate” - hence the connecting of eclipses to things “fated.”

However...astrologically? Because each branch of the six-sided Grand Sextile is exactly that (a sixty degree sextile) and since sexiles represent opportunities we have to take consciously utilize, a Grand Sextile is - in the eclipse sense most particularly - a series of six 'six month' or "sextile" units of time which have to be 'linked together' in order to get to the 'outcome' (our greatest growth of Self)...and that doesn't begin to finalize until we're on that last "link" - the six months prior to what we might cheerfully call an eclipse's 'expiration date.'

Of course once we are that Self and have done all the work to re-balance our inner attributes through any given eclipse (adding in those which follow)...then we get the benefits of being that more integrated, mortally vitalized person.

Solar eclipses have a reputation for loss, which on one had is entirely well-founded in that they tend to strip away things we like, but which have in the greatest perspective of life outlived their usefulness. If you think of the image of the solar eclipse...

Total Eclipse of the Sun as seen from Hao in French Polynesia

(photo credit: Denys, July 2010) 

...it’s also rather apparent that in order to see the unique and special ‘enlightenment factor’ of this moment (represented by the Sun’s corona) the “ambient light of daily life”...has to be blocked out. And what is blocking it out? The Moon - our image of emotionality, values, feelings, nurturance, memory, culture, family, mortality...all that.

So solar eclipse periods tend to be very emotional. Should they be? Probably yes, as our emotions and feeling those emotions (or dealing with them) are part of our very human process.

But in the end...in the end the point is some special quality of consciousness, something unique to us which is at the same time, universal in its meaning. Throughout your life, once activated that point and its position in your natal chart will become a fact or factor you’ll remember and feel yourself remembering as every nineteen years subsequent eclipses re-trigger that degree, too. What happens then...how you feel and what you do...all that is some part of your process - the test we talked about - the most essential part of which is purely about your growth process with/within your Self. If you ‘got it’ the last time around, this time around you will probably get to capitalize on that experience, making your ‘front end’ of any current passage seem more or less easy.

Just remember: your ‘eclipse points’ (and there may be one or many of them) remain active - they’re part of how you were made. So you may excel in one area of your life (which you probably “recognize” as being the ‘echo’ of something you’ve met up with/learned about in the past)...but since that eclipse point is yours for life, even as you’re excelling, something else will be formulating in the mist which approaches the same point from your natal chart in some new and different way.

(Congratulations! Aren’t you excited?)

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For Astrology Students: the best ‘general’ pointer I can offer on how to know where some trying aspect from 19 years ago is going to burst out like some bad case of metaphysical hives is to say look at the current solar return.

Step one: Look for the house where the eclipse is happening. Think through it's meaning, then look for the planet ruling the sign on the cusp of that house. Is that planet well placed and well aspected (aka "in good condition)? If yes, effects will trend more easily towards the positive. If no, effects will be particularly testing and if left unattended, tend to manifest as problems, upsets and/or slowdowns.

Step two: Look for where the natal point would fall in the solar chart. Think through it's meaning, then look for the planet ruling the sign on the house cusp. If that planet is well placed and well aspected (aka "in good condition), effects will trend more easily towards the positive. If no, effects will be particularly testing and if left unattended, tend to manifest as inhibitions, 'blockages' or blockades of some sort.

Step three: Synthesize the meanings of those houses, adding in any hard (conjunction, square, oppositional) aspects to the solar position.

Step four: Consider the delineation in contrast (or as part of) the whole of the solar chart being presented. If it’s not in theme, you’re looking at an “interruption.” If it is in theme, chances are good that the eclipse in part contributes to an ‘evolution’ of lessons learned the last time around and that will also reflect the houses as noted above. Beyond that, something new and long(er) term is likely to develop.

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This nineteen-year (“Metonic”) eclipse cycle is something worth astro-clocking from critical events in anyone’s early life. That ‘source’...that ‘first time around’ will set a ‘trend’ in a person’s life - just as many things in childhood do.

The corollary of course is that we can’t be ‘learning’ from some ‘first time’ until the ‘second’ time arrives.

....So there you are excelling at/on/as this thing you’ve already learned about. And as you’re feeling all fine and fettled about that, something else - something new and unexpected - arises.

Life goes on. There’s always more to learn.

And because this is an eclipse (a global event), as you’re doing whatever you’re doing, you are also likely to be seeing other people going through their ‘eclipse stuff’ - which is where we tend to project (eclipses are famous for it) and think they have no clue and we’re so hugely clued.

Generally that’s wrong. But you know...people are going to think what they’re going to think as that’s human nature.

Not to worry. If this eclipse has their number on it, they’ll be dealing with their own slice of humble pie, don’t you worry about it. That you might notice them...? Well, that’s that old ‘like attracts like’ (aka “water seeks its own level”) thing, a factor which at eclipse time can act as a weird sort of magnet drawing you into seeing other people in a strange new ‘light.’ So some will confuse, startle or even delight you even as others just as plainly seem to be struggling with their eclipse process - just about to the same extent that you’re struggling with yours.

And sometimes both those things can occur in the very same person - whether that’s you or not you.

What we put out comes back to us....sometimes in the form of witnessing others, or in being witnessed by them. Even in experiencing them as a mirror on our life or times. And though you may like (or not like) this fact, over the thousands of years of years that astrology has existed all the notes and treatises come down to one fact - namely that everything which goes on now is part of your eclipse experience, and therefore some sort of life experience asking to be liberated, experienced and dealt with.

It’s all part of a single universal, highly personal process. What means so much to us means something to others and that ‘something’ may be entirely different if equally valid in their life.

We exist to learn about our lives and we do that through things we meet up with and people we interact with in this world. All things solar systemic apply to all people one eclipse, one planet and many, many human individuals at a time. That even by the most conservative of calculations charts simply can’t repeat but once every 26,000 years is quite enough to give us individuality while simultaneously tying us to the eons.

Every time an eclipse repeats, the path that it follows tracking across our planet Earth varies slightly. It pushes “forward” just slightly, seeming to image life’s effort to get us to move on, grow and evolve as an individual. Also worth noting is that any planet in your personal chart which is ‘hit’ by an eclipse will become a life-long ‘timer’ of sort. Matters pertaining to that point, planet, dwarf planet, axis, node (etc.) will be known - at least by you - to be those you end up ‘dealing’ with over time.

Maybe you’ll master them. (At least some of them.) Or maybe you’ll be mastered by the situations, relationships or efforts they provoke, involve or lead you to becoming involved with. With solar eclipses being the world-wide phenomenon they are, our “eclipse event” will tend to involve others or be something someone else will take note of, though that doesn’t mean eclipses are necessarily ‘societal.’ They can be - eclipses on specific sensitive points of a national or corporate chart could well indicate the beginning of some long (or long-ish) term change in operation or direction. But most eclipse effects are personal and merely end up being noticed by those nearest to us - or with whom we work, live or play.

Solar Eclipse Paths: 2001-2020

(enlargement/the Americas)

(image credit: NASA)

Solar Eclipse Paths: 2001-2020

(enlargement/Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia)

(image credit: NASA)

I'm posting this map to the blog so it will be here for you to think about. Eclipse paths indicate world swaths and longitudinal sections which will experience the eclipse intensely and often an area of the world others ‘look to’ or ‘look at,’ depending on what’s going on.

But the effect - how we take anything and what we do about it? That’s on our plate - each one of our plates. Even when an eclipse hits you full force, how you respond to it is still up to you.

And that in part is how we learn about our world and ourselves through and sometimes because of - even in spite of others.

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Chiron Direct at 9 Pisces

The Education of Achilles by Eugène Ferdinand Victor Delacroix (1800's)

How should we want to react to that which is all about what we feel least equipped to cope with?

…And never mind that, how will we react to that which is all about what we feel least certain about?

Such are the quandaries presented by any moment one could conceive of as ‘Chirotic’ – or having to do with concept embodied by Chiron the centaur, healer and fallen student. It’s a tough role to think of filling on any level…and yet we each have a Chiron, and for these past months Chiron has been in retrograde, emerging (or maybe burrowing) from/through our lives as a series of burning, aching challenges….the many moments in which you know you must do without knowing how to do. Or when you must do while knowing you must do the needed thing – which isn’t the wanted thing – and the trials we each go through when we’re tested by our ability to bear our own disappointment.

It’s the realization that life is what life is…and it’s neither all bad nor all good – but it certainly isn’t what we imagined it to be, and life always, always seems to have some way of tripping us up with exactly that we would have wished to never have to deal with.

Or do.

Moreover, when it comes to the ‘need’ versus ‘want’ thing – who really can say which is which? Is that judgment just for now, or will we believe something entirely differently tomorrow?

Not one of us will now be sure. And that’s part of the Chirotic Effect as well.

Still, not knowing what ‘good’ in one’s life really is without going through the actual (and possibly breath-taking experience) of it is very Pisces. So while Chiron always represents that we cannot understand the full truth of without living it, Pisces asks us to think all things good until proven otherwise WITHOUT getting too Pollyanna, too rose colored glasses, too blissed, too determined never to feel the chill of our own soul reacting to the innate loneliness of individuality.

And as in the end the mythic centaur dies through acting in a haste which caused him to throw away all the discipline which would have told him how to deal with his own impulses…so at Chirotic times we are forced to learn through some ‘death’ of an idea, an effort, a hope – whatever – through such things are we brought to learn about why there is truth in simple truths.

You know…like we are who we are. When Apollo, god of enlightenment, honesty, music and medicine (i.e., many modes of healing) chooses Chiron as his student, Apollo surely saw the centaur’s ability to be blind to the very insight (enlightenment) which could save him. Thus in the relationship of Apollo and Chiron we have pictured the difference between the completely open and brilliant truth of it all – including us…including those Chirotic adventures we call our life.

We know we have the ability to be enlightened. Within us each and all is a knowing…a sense of the greater Whole we are inextricably part of and in alternating cycles (as Chiron the asteroid) moves on its curious path through our solar system, we either work to bring that energetic – that ‘knowing’ into reality or at least into OUR reality….or we live in a questing, searching mode – the reaching for being more.

Why this would be really only makes sense when we remember that Chiron’s orbit does one very peculiar thing which is perhaps easiest seen in this JPL database diagram:

 image courtesy of JPL's Small Body Database Browser

Basically, Chiron is ‘bridges’ the gap between Saturn and Uranus – which in theoretical terms is sort of like saying between ‘the known and that which takes fate-luck-timing-whatever-you-want-to-call-it.’ Uranus is not any unknown, remember…it’s that thing, that ‘push’ that revelation which fractures our continuity just enough to keep us growing. It’s that energetic which lies between what we can’t predict and that we rejoice in discovering.

So…what? Well, if we believe that What Is (all Existence) is, at some level, an endless series of macro-to-micro (or micro-to-macro) parallels of instance and manifestation as that singular thing called Time unfolds…then we look at the JPL image and see that the orbit – the “wheel” or “process” Chiron describes starts just shy of Uranus and ends just inside the orbit of Saturn.

Saturn

time, reality, achievement, loss, responsibility, dedication, structure, support, severance, social/societal respect, durability, earning, effort, consequences, limit, slow growth

Uranus

breakthroughs-break downs-breakage-breaks with tradition/standard/structure, discovery, rebellion, anarchy, insight, brilliance, escape-escapist-escapism, energy, freedom, integration, individuality, unity, alienation, innovation

Chiron ‘bridges’ this gap between the Uranian world of theory and Saturnine solidity. And if we remember that the veils of that which metaphysics refers to as ‘unknowable’ (Neptune) is the next planet after Uranus, then it makes sense that Uranus represents our ability to ‘break,’ ‘break down’ or ‘particle-ize’ all those things astrology typifies as ”Saturn solidity” – especially as we get ever more speculative and willing to take on the ‘unknown’ (to us) in our thinking or experiencing of life. 

Or…seen in the other direction, Uranus’ connection to Aquarian/11th house ‘unity’ (at any level) is a counter-balance: the taking of the unknown, the amorphous, the ‘broken down’ or ‘broken apart’ and seeing in that the Uranian ‘brilliance’ which leads to unity and the unleashing of extraordinary power.

OUR power.

And that’s the thing to understand about Chiron. Chiron represents a power in our lives which we are capable of tapping into, utilizing – even embodying and standing for as a whole. But to get there, we have to go through challenging times with our Self – and at the moment, that challenge to bridge the reality and the speculation or faith or hope or longing or desire to be protected by…all that is being focused through 9 Pisces.

And 9 Pisces is not the least daunting of all degrees – which should tell us that during these days ahead (call it November 17th through November 21) in particular we should not be surprised to feel unusually tested as we try and think about what to make of ourselves…our life…and whether it’s possible to be who we really are.

Or even…well, should we just leave well enough alone? Is it worth all that hassle? Do we really need to be that person we know we are, deep inside?

That would seem to be at least one tine of the Chirotic fork we poke…or are poked with.

And yet…with that comes a sense of resolution and replenishment as we recognize that our challenges are ours for a reason. In being ours, surely they are fit and shaped by our Existence as part of Time Manifest, right?

So our challenges are ours for a reason. It isn’t willy nilly. It isn’t chance.

  From the world of..."We Know She Must Have a Crib Sheet"...

this is a screen shot (and a fuzzy one at that - why, I do not know) of part of a pretty extensive Excel file

I've created showing planets, comets, dwarf planets, asteroids (and anything else out there) in a

line-by-line order according to orbital distance from the Sun. That means that every object/planet/asteroid

gets two lines...its innermost point (the perihelion) and the outermost point of orbit (the aphelion).

By having such a spread sheet, we are able to see 'what orbits with what' and assemble an

entirely separate (and evocative) perspective on how "mythic" images are interwoven on an astronomical

level...which should, one would think reflect in the microcosmic manifestations of All we each call

our Life. Above is a small segment of said worksheet detailing the section including Saturn and

Uranus. (Saturn's inner orbital 'band' is off-screen at the top). That Chiron's 'orbital band width'

(the breadth of its energetic is inter-threaded with where Pholus 'comes to us' (the good and bad

of self concern), at Saturn's outer reach (how the good or bad of self concern affects our accomplishments

and what we are able to get ourselves to accomplish in life, be that in a personal or worldly sense)

plus the inner orbital points of Nessus (poisonous issues revisited), Pelion (huge undertakings), Typhon

(primal instinct/drives) and Uranus (change) would seem to say that Chiron's stations are times when we

wrestle with our ability and/or willingness to get past  self-limitation...provided

we aren't so blinded by "survival fears' that we are unable to even know how we limit ourselves.  

  

Looking up the Sabian Symbol, it would seem to echo this thought: AN AVIATOR PURSUES HIS JOURNEY, FLYING THROUGH GROUND-OBSCURING CLOUDS. And given Astrologer Marc Edmund Jones’ added keynote…‘man’s ability to develop powers and skills which by transcending natural limitations allow him to operate in mental-spiritual realm’…the sheer harmony and parallel of this idea with Chiron’s function would seem to say many of us – in particular those whose charts would directly answer to 9 Pisces – will now encounter opportunities.

Or at least the notion that the creating of an opportunity (or success) is possible.

And yet…probably all will not come to fruition just yet, even if you make your most sterling effort.

Why not?

Answer: Uranus and Saturn – as stated above. Chiron energetics…at some level…connect some of the functionalities of Uranus and Saturn, as attributes and in cyclic timing.

Chiron will go direct on November 19th at 12:06 in the afternoon (UT/+0). Uranus will be going direct on December 17th.

Uranus is (by far!) the bigger object here. And astrologically we would say any planet denotes basic traits or individual personal attributes where objects like Chiron represent ‘factors,’ efforts or choices made along the way.

As for where that ‘along the way’ is headed at the moment, again thinking in terms of the JPL diagram (above) Chiron is currently on its outbound path – which is to say, it’s moving towards Uranus. And that implies that we are in the process of taking things apart so that they can then change.

Perhaps radically.

Not that all that changing will happen quickly. Chiron doesn’t reach its aphelion – the point farthest from the Sun, which is also Chiron’s closest approach to Uranus – until the year 2021. Until then, we get to achieve our greater…and perhaps greatest understandings of and enlightenments about our own ‘Apollo’ traits by ‘taking things apart’ and clarifying our understanding of them.

Given that Uranus' orbit ranges from being 20.083 AU from the Sun (at its farthest) to

18.375 AU from the Sun at its closest...which means that Chiron's 18.846 AU aphelion

(Chiron's farthest point from the Sun) falls right in the 'thick' of Uranus' orbit.

(image courtesy of JPL's Small Body Databank Browser)

  

Surely once we reach our Uranian stage, those of us who have done our Chirotic work will find ourselves reforged and reformulated as our more 'potentiated' Self.

But until we get there, we take our cues from that which surrounds us for the ‘phase’ or stage of the process we’re in at the moment. Considering this station takes place with Neptune having just gone direct and just after a Full Moon in Taurus, one would suspect our sense of satisfaction is being throught through. Considering that as Chiron goes direct Venus enters the shadow of its upcoming retrograde, one would also expect many of us to be thinking along the lines of ‘less risk, more focus on what’s important’…even though we may not yet know what that really means.

And then there’s the ambient throb of life. The last few degrees in Scorpio are all about how power gets used – and why one would use it.

Which really points to the crux of the entire matter: the idea that there’s something we need to deal with, and that’s about who we are.

Or if we’re even capable of being who we really are.

Or for that matter, willing to be our honest Self.
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Jupiter Stationary-Retrogrades

Solar system image courtesy of JPL (November 2013)

Here we’re all barely in the wake of the solar eclipse a few days ago...all still trying to figure things out...when, as of November 7th at 5:04 in the morning (in the UT/+0 zone) Jupiter goes retrograde.

Did we ask it to? No. Are we in the mood for it? Maybe not. But Jupiter is going retrograde anyway. And that means (whether we like it or not) that as of now - or to be extremely persnickety about this, as of when Jupiter moved into 'station' mode - which would have been yesterday (November 5th) at about the time Venus slid into Capricorn....

...As of then (or tomorrow, depending on how much of a purist you want to be here), we have run the full course of expanding our understanding, our scope of activity, our ‘gaining of ground’ in our life as a whole.

At least for the moment - and on the outside, that is. Planets (or anything else) going retrograde indicates a shift of scope or effect, not that the principle is going dormant or anything like that.

Heaven forbid. Humans, our lives, the Existence we exist in…there’s no time ‘off’ in any of it. We continue…it continues. And as that happens, throughout the year and throughout the years there is a steady but insistent shift which pulls us back and forth between external development and internal sorting through, reordering, integrating and paring away of ‘old parts’ (of life). Jupiter is the energetic which in flowing through our lives prompts us to push beyond what we know today and to learn how to apply that we learned yesterday. Jupiter’s premise teaches there is much to learn and how learning is just a phase in what it indeed a lengthy walk which only ultimately leads to comprehension and the ability to harness power slowly, easily and ethically.

A cucumber sprouts. Like it or not, we're all - in our own way - cucumbers.

(photo credit: SaKuRa, October 2006)

The first part of Jupiter so often seems easy. The second part? Like much of the ‘follow through’ implied by life, we humans don’t seem to like the follow through part very much, if that’s the part of any given process which leads to true empowerment.

Having power means very little until you learn how to use it…is a Jupiterian idea. And it’s true as well: power lies not in the possession, but in utilization. The attempt to control things – which we are all in the thick of yet another round of learning about through that we have to (Scorpio) deal with in life – is not about building, but about maintaining as guiding is control in its active and constructive mode.

So Jupiter is now going retrograde at 20 Cancer, a degree we discussed a bit here…

- link to -

Jupiter at 20 Cancer

…and which is imaged by both the Sabian ‘price of success’ reference to cultural rewards but a set of lore threads which speaks to not just enslavement, but a need to be secured by that we are ‘enslaved’ by, be it our image, our job, the social circles we run in, our lifestyle – whatever.

Yet in going direct at 20 Cancer in this time, Jupiter is also ‘highlighting’ fixed star Castor – one of the two stars we think of as the Gemini twins. And Gemini, as you probably know by now, is all about the willingness to make a choice and follow it through. There may – under Gemini – be many choices all of which get made which all succeed so long as they all are followed through on. And since this lead us in one direction to multi-tasking and in another to priorities, where we end up with this ‘multi-part’ offering is the twin prongs of Gemini challenge.

With Jupiter going station/retrograde atop Castor, it is more than likely that we all have many ‘things’ we are attending to and we need to have priorities in dealing with them. At the same time, we also need to see them through. Whether you’re getting ready for the holidays, dealing with family, building a company or career or anything else, it’s one thing to simply say ‘I don’t have time for this’ and another thing to say ‘this isn’t easy, so I’m not going to deal with it’ or ‘I’m going to bail or take the easy way out.’

At the moment, Pholus and Ixion are across the zodiac from Gemini – specifically in opposition with Rigel, the star of the teacher, the teacher/student relationship and the student as teacher (‘grower’) of the Self which is in the process of learning more or better. This means that we are going to hear a lot about the teacher/student relationship – some for good, and some not so very much about good.

- link to-

Pholus: A Little Nasty

- link to-

Ixion: Our Conflict of Self

But this isn’t just about ‘formal’ classrooms, considering that life itself is the greatest learning process of all. Ixion and Pholus are two of the more obvious symbols having to do with ‘thinking about or for our Self’…which we would like to think is about being independent, but which far more often has to do with self-involvement or the being involved with ego and the price we pay for being so Self-oriented at various points in time and life.

THAT's more of what this station would seem to be about. The real-time choices will be there. We will have them, we will take them, we will recognize we will have to deal with ‘these’ choices for a while, even if we think (or know) they’re wrong.

Oppositions mean facing ugly or trying dynamics. So that Pholus and Ixion are not only in opposition to Rigel, Gemini’s primary totem star of learning but also in an inconjunct to Jupiter’s station.

Pholus/Ixion’s in an 8th sign (8th harmonic) derivation to Jupiter tells us that learning the hard way and needing to learn (the hard way) that life is not always about what we like is part of this period. Looking at this from the alternate perspective, Jupiter’s 6th derivation (6th harmonic relationship) to Pholus/Ixion tells us that this is also a time when we come to be aware of...or maybe even come to entirely comprehend that we have chosen certain things in life to make our lives difficult - even painful. 

And yet, that neither lessens our potential nor takes away the need to fulfill that potential to the best of our ability.

  

Okay…let’s just say that it’s easy to say ‘this is how it has to be’ and a whole lot harder to figure out whether we’re seriously short-changing someone by taking that declarative stance. And here is how that would seem to work: Cancer is the first of the water signs and thus the primal water sign. It’s about learning what emotions are, what they mean and how to handle them on all those very basic levels.

Note: I said NOTHING about this being simple. Why? Because it isn’t. If you think dealing with human emotions is simple, you aren’t dealing with them – period.

Cancerian emotionalism starts out as being purely about us. Cancer is the first of the water signs and therefore alludes to how we were first ‘patterned’ or molded my the emotions and emotional habits we encountered in early childhood. At that point we literally emulate what is going around us – maybe by copying it, and maybe by cooperating with it…and maybe both.

But now…and every time that Jupiter swings through this Castor-Pollux (20 to 23 Cancer) area of the zodiac we get to review whether that works and/or get better perspective(s) on how we learned to be someone then…and how that may or may not work for us now in our more adult life.

(Note: since Jupiter has an orbital period of just under 12 years, using an 11.5 estimate is pretty much the cycle on which Jupiter moves through this area of the zodiac. So where were you 11.5 years ago?)

Is it time to 'grow up' with regards to something? Or maybe things are happening which in their own peculiar and very special sort of way (yes, that was me being snarky) go to show us that said ‘early phase’ of life is over and how we really need a new plan for growth and a new way of relating to people as the current one is either not getting us where we want to be…or it’s only attracting the sort of people we really don’t want to have orbiting us quite so very closely.

With the Sun moving across the Scorpio cross-quarter points as Jupiter turns to retrograde on the 7th, the whole of Jupiter’s November 5th – 9th station window is about getting us to see that life is not only about what we build or what we get or get access to, it’s how we affect things. This is the sort of combination guaranteed to give us flashes of insight on how the surface world is indeed run by money and appearances…but while all that is happening, the truer connective – the energetic we all manifest as and through – is blind to everything but that which influences that connective.

You know, that ongoing conversation about Scorpio power, specifically that which is unlocked when we get past the exoskeleton to where we all are unformulated, to where more often than not, we not only don’t have backbones, we have no idea cartilage – never mind real bones – even exist.

The Scorpio-Cancer connection can teach us that even fear is a positive. If we think of fear as that thing which goads us to be aware and to use our time wisely, then we understand fear as a motivation.

The real question is whether those fears are about something real…or something we have imagined because we were taught to perceive it like that at some time in the past.

Jupiter’s turn to retrograde also occurs just a few days shy of Mercury’s station/direct (on November 10th) and Neptune’s station/direct (on November 13th). Those stations have their own integral meanings to be sure, but especially since both stations are occurring at 2 degrees of respective signs…and in part because both Mercury and Jupiter are in water signs, there is reason to think of this as a triad…or a wafting sort of overarching harmonic which will evidence through feelings and emotional gestures, decisions and…

…unfortunately…

…ineptitudes, willful delusions and plain old every day garden variety excuses.

But make no mistake here: when we see Neptune and Mercury lining up in any sense we have to think there is some illusion involved. That can be just fine, fabu and frolicsome as in ‘we’re going to Disneyland – put reality on hold!’ …or it can be the bold faced lie you tell someone – or (maybe even worse) your Self.

We’re also likely to see a lot of the squirmy stuff right now…the ‘oh, I don’t want to spoil their day.’ Or the ‘they’re already having a hard time…I shouldn’t make it harder’ stuff.

Wherever possible, canning the noblesse oblige is probably the best bet. Not the easy bet, but the more effective one. In essence, this moment is all about deciding how to move forward replete with all the ‘which’ and ‘when’ and ‘why’ questions. So while someone may not LIKE the truth you need to hand them, they’re better off dealing with the hand that bites.

Not that the hand necessarily bites them, but the news it may be passing along…? That may bite.

Given Venus’ shift into Capricorn just as Jupiter is moving to ‘open the station window’ (as it were…which is an interesting thing to think about watching from out there in space)…there are many of us who are going to be very aware of risk/loss possibilities and how to effectively get through what may be some tough sledding ahead. The Venus/Capricorn ingress will have ushered in some ‘cooling’ influences and though there is an aura of realism settling on us all, that does not (and will not) necessarily translate into stability for each and every one of us. And since about the time Jupiter goes retrograde, Venus moving through the midpoint between Neptune and Mercury gives us good reason to suspect that at least a few of us will admit (at least to ourselves) that the masterminding of our own personality and psyche is OUR job…not anyone else’s. I know there are some in society who think their ‘job’ is to not think and to be led, but that seems illogical.

(Yes, I hang out with Vulcans and inter-galactic guru types in my off hours.)

Put simply, if you aren’t willing to own you, you aren’t likely to develop much about who you are. So if you put your (under-developed) life into the hands of, or under the direction of someone else, given the 100% rule “LIKE ATTRACTS LIKE” who they fern are they? Wouldn’t that be the blind being led by those with highly advanced mental glaucoma?

Whether we are willing to see this truth or any other truth depends on how well we deal with our Jupiter (the natal one in our individual chart) and where 20 Cancer falls in that chart. It also gets down to a funny part of astrological theory I will impart before closing out for the day.

We all know the order of the solar system, more or less. And for those who have struggled with the order of the planets, my sympathies. Me too. For whatever reason, I had a very hard time knowing where Venus was for the longest time.

(Yes, I did finally commit the proper list to memory.)

The thing to remember here is that the ‘human world’ – the direct part of it – is symbolized by the Sun (our life) being the center of our life with the whole of ‘our existence’ flowing out from there. But since Saturn is the planet farthest from Earth which is visible with the unaided human eye, metaphysically that’s as far ‘out’ there as we can built – to the point where we work (Saturn) to earn (Saturn) those worldly (Saturn) achievements which give us a durable (Saturn) and lasting (Saturn) structure to stand on or operate with/through in life.

The last three of those “Saturns” by the by, could also be listed as “Saturn and/or Capricorn.”

But as soon as we build this Sun, Mercury, Venus, (Earth)Moon, Mars, Asteroid Belt, Jupiter, Saturn  pattern as the natural manner in which to see our life and the natural progression we think of life as being build on/as…then we can turn it around, you know.

Oh yes…we can indeed!

Before I get you to stand on your mental head for a moment, let’s just look at hat list in its more ‘attributable’ form:

• Sun (life)
• Mercury (thought)
• Venus (cost/reward)
• (Earth)Moon (feelings)
• Mars (motivation/action)
• AsteroidBelt (life factors)
• Jupiter (comprehension/mastery)
• Saturn (reward/achievement)

We exist (Sun) and therefore we do. We learn to consider (Mercury) what we’re doing so that we can do the parts we either like doing or need to do as they need doing (please note the genuinely natural split of rationales in the Mercurial cause!).

Then we realize that how (and how well) we do things governs – at least in part – the response or reward (Venus) we get for doing them. And that in turn generates our feelings and our emotional responses.

Voila…we have now reached the (Earth-Moon) Cancer stage of the process: the indoctrination of our character with what feels good, what feels bad and what allows us to opt out of feelings altogether – all of which can be good or bad, depending.

That is then followed by our efforts to escape (flight), defend (fight) ignore (deny) or make things into what they should be – all of which are the typical Mars responses. I’m now energized about this. What should I do about it – anything?

Considering Mars is the sole ruler of “I Am” Aries and the Scorpio ‘how and where I interact with others,’ this is the level at which the recent solar eclipse has – in part been operating to show us how what we choose to get into or not get into ‘is’ or ‘isn’t’ a developmental force in our lives, making it abundantly clear to us which parts of our life are functional and growth-oriented, and which aren’t.

The tendency will be to put all the effort into what’s going right, but that would be a mistake, since it will define us as someone who will arrive at our ‘understanding’ and Jupiterian ‘comprehension’ state…the state at which we want to move into mastery of things…in an unbalanced condition.

At that point we will either have to turn around and go BACK to the Mars stage and catch up with ourselves or we will – as many do – go on through our lives hounded by the internal knowledge that we are impaired either on the ‘human’ part of our being or on the ‘being’ part which has everything to do with doing something with our humanity, our time and the fact that we exist.

But this list – as suggested – can be seen the other way around: Saturn-Jupiter-Asteroid Belt-Mars-(Earth)Moon-Venus-Mercury-Sun. In essence, when we look at life metaphysically, we are all ‘pinging’ off Saturn. (Which helpfully has a whole bunch of moons and all those rings for us to aim at.) But at this level the question becomes akin to what was once known as the ‘Descent of the Spheres’ where the macrocosm becomes the microcosm.

And that really is what we’re describing here. When we start with the Sun we’re starting at the ‘individuality’ end of things: we are going from the microcosm of the one, the you, to All Which Is…or at least all that is in your personal world (Saturn).

But when we start with Saturn, we are looking at what your personal world is, and what it can provide for you to build on, and with. And all those premises about relationships to “planetary traits” begin to hit home when we look at things in this sort of large-to-small sort of manner. The Saturn which symbolizes time and responsibility in “regular” life, under this perspective comes to be our tendency or willingness to choose that one method of going after our (Saturn) goals which will – inevitably – reflect our own attitudes towards (in this case) responsibility.

Thus the person who cannot handle responsibility tends to pick – regardless of their own ability to recognize their issues with responsibility – other people or places to work where the hierarchy, bosses, product or whatever will also fail to embrace the full scope of Saturnine responsibility.

This will go on down through the ‘decent’ through planetary rungs…which at this point would tend to say something is in ‘flux’ with regards to ‘Things Jupiter.’

It’s impossible of course, to know where you are with your own Jupiter issues. But if things are tough right now as you think about ‘how things can move forward from here’…IF you have any sense that you are in the wrong place or dealing with the wrong people or not doing things in the order you need to do them in order to be YOU – that entirely unique individual that you are…then the next (oh, about) four months of Jupiter being in retrograde is a good time to clean up your act, starting with your most primal and primary relationships with others. This is not about the specifics of the ‘who’…this is about why you respond to one person one way and another person another way.

Our answers always like in our past in this regard. That’s simply how it works as human beings. Some things are valid for a time but terrible and detrimental if we hold onto them as habits – particularly emotional or emotionally-driven habits – for too long a time. So this isn’t about recrimination…this is about enhancing our ability to be free in our own lives. This is about the understanding that when we try to bully through life, the person we’re bullying – and being bullied by (more often than not) is our Self.

Self-sacrifice is only okay when it’s a gift consciously given. Yet even then, we must make sure that the reason we are making that sacrifice is worthy of our inhibition.

That can be a very complicated question indeed, a quest which is only wrong when we refuse to care enough to understand.

When we refuse to learn or comprehend the fullness of the implications of our choices all becomes very dark indeed in spite of whatever 'bright spots' we choose to focus on. Inevitably they become too small or too lacking in illumination for who we really are, as the light which needs to be shined on that life...our life...comes from understanding that no matter how great the burden, there is a reason to carry it and a reason to carry through on it, for even the worst beginnings can be made to serve a better purpose.

That's something I happen to know about. So I'll suggest it's worth thinking through. That which we feel 'cursed' by is often the very energetic we need to confront, for in the confronting and in the managing of that confrontation comes the truest harnessing of Self - and thus the key which allows us to unlock our truest power and become that human most beautiful.

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Uranus Station-Retrogrades in Aries

Andrew Jackson's Right Eye from a United States $20 bill

(photo credit: RawheaD Rex, December 2008)

If Swedish astronomers ruled the earth, apparently planet Uranus would be known as Neptune.

Seriously.

When William Herschel discovered the-planet-which-would-be-Uranus back in March of 1781, he did what any loyal Brit would do: he notified the Astronomer Royal, one Nevil Maskelyne.

At the time, Herschel wasn’t even sure this object he had ‘discovered’ was a planet – he evidently referred to it as a ‘comet’ until an astronomer from an entirely different quadrant of the globe (Russia) did the math and – at least on paper – proved that this blueish-green object wandering around out there beyond Saturn did indeed orbit the Sun.

And yes, it fit the definition of the day to qualify for planet-hood.

It took a few years, but Herschel was eventually convinced that he had indeed done a wonderful thing – he had carved a niche in history for himself as the discoverer of a whole new…and as has came to be known…highly unusual world.

In honor of this accomplishment, Nevil Maskelyne asked Herschel if he would ‘do the astronomical world a favor’ and name his find – to which Herschel obliged by naming it after Britain’s current king, King George III.

The name didn’t stick. Evidently it struck folks outside of Britain as a bit too idiosyncratic. Or maybe aristocratic.

So other astronomers threw their planetary naming hats in the ring. One John Lalande suggested this find be named after its finder. But calling the planet ‘Herschel’ also didn’t stick. Apparently everybody outside of Britain kept saying ‘Who???’ 

It was at this point that Swede Erik Prosperin stepped up, suggesting that the new planet be called Neptune. It could even be combined with some variation on King George to celebrate some Royal Navy victories which came about in the course of fighting those feisty, pesky New World would-be Americans during the Revolutionary War.

After all, Neptune is the god of the sea, right?

Yes, but the war was ultimately lost. So out went ideas like Neptune George III and up stepped German astronomer Johann Bode who, after pausing to check and make sure that Anders Lexell (the Russian) had indeed done the orbital math correctly (lest it not bode well for Bode to stand up for an out of position planet), came out with a rather sterling and inventively logical suggestion, one which draws on the long-established hierarchy of Greek myth.

Bode’s premise was that as the mythic Saturn (Kronos) was the father of Jupiter (aka Zeus), so this new planet should embody that which Saturn came from. Thus he put forth the idea of using Ouranos, the Greek sky god, taking us back to more primordial times.

In the Greek beginning there was the sky… Ouranos… and Gaia, the earth. From them have come Saturn (the fact of hard reality) and Jupiter (the idea of all which may yet be or become).

With a little astronomical tinkering, we thus arrive at Uranus.

And about Herschel…not to worry. Though the astronomers (the factual group) went with some theoretical naming methodology, astrologers (the allegedly theoretical group) memorialized the guy who actually discovered the planet by coming up with a glyph to represent Uranus which is a Herschel “H” atop a circle/globe representing a planetary world.

 As the Uranus glyph has evolved, the 'H' for Herschel has

become more stylizes - at least in the world of astrological

fonts. But it's still there!

Funny how these things work, isn’t it? I actually got involved in this fracas when a couple of years ago planet hunter sublime Mike Brown was taking public votes for what to name a newly discovered moon orbiting dwarf planet Orcus.

It was absolutely an exercise in futility, but I wrote a long and impassioned email to Mike Brown asking that the astronomical community consider breaking with its long-held tradition of using symbols of difficulty as moon names for objects named for difficult premises.

No, I didn’t ask him to name the moon Candy Floss or anything so banal, but I threw our a handful of options.

And I was summarily bypassed – which to me only proves that metaphysical theory which says we learn what we need to learn when we need to learn it. Despite best efforts and Mike Brown’s subsequent public statement that he has no problem with astrologers or astrology as good astrologers (note the qualification, please!) know their stuff, do their research and don’t act on whim.

So Orcus’s moon got named Vanth (an unpleasant little Etruscan spirit assigned to shepherding souls off into the underworld) and the world got a public statement by one of its honcho astronomers that astrologers aren’t all full of hooey.

I took the compliment as intended and went my way, ne’er to darken Mike Brown’s email ‘in’ box until there came the day when I needed to ask about the rate at which the center of our Milky Way Galaxy (a black hole which is currently at 27 Sagittarius) moves for my 2012 book on travels through the land of the Maya, Travel Gossip. (Here’s a LINK to where you can pick up an eBook copy of same.) And yes, Mike-the-Gemini was very helpful.

Now that you know more about how planets get named than you had planned to ever know, back to Uranus.

But don’t think all that was not Uranian. Uranus is all about the unusual. The thing you never knew before. The surprise. The shock, the breakthrough, the discovery, the leap of faith, the flight of mental fancy. And when Uranus goes retrograde at 12 Aries on July 17th at 5:21 in the evening UT/+0 time, its likely that life will be showing us all just what we didn’t expect. Big or little, delightful or horrifying, Uranian stations always offer something unexpected.

That’s just the way Uranus rolls. And it does roll, you know. While other planets spin like tops, twirling along their orbits around the sun, Uranus rolls. All the other planets are relatively upright; Uranus is on its side. With an orbital period of just over 84 years Uranus spends just over forty years with one pole aimed at the Sun and the other forty-plus years with the other pole aimed at the Sun.

And yet…according to scientists (those astronomical types and their cousins the astrophysicists) Uranus’ equator – that part of the planet which is never aimed directly at the Sun – is still the warmest place.

Uranus and its rings (photo credit: NASA, JPL)

Of course, warm is relative. Uranus is a big thing – it’s about 63 times the size of Earth. And it’s quick. While Earth (which is tiny in comparison) manages one full revolution in 24 hours, it takes Uranus only 17 hours or so to spin itself around.

Somehow that makes me think of Uranus as the solar system’s Roto-Rooter device. Apparently life around this part of the galaxy periodically gets constipated and Uranus has to shake things loose.

Anyway…back to that temperature thing. According to NASA (who knows if anyone knows) the average temperature on Uranus is around 59 Kelvin – which to us Earth types is minus 350 Fahrenheit. So if you decide to visit Uranus, take warm socks.

Take ALL your warm socks. And some serious mittens.

The next factoid is astrological. Seeing as we give any planetary station a (minimum) 2-days before, 2-days after ‘station allowance,’ that means that while the Uranian ‘turning point’ is on July 17th, the ‘Uranus station’ starts on July 15th (maybe even the 14th) and extends through the 19th…maybe even the 20th.

And dwarf planet Eris is going retrograde on the 19th.

Plus Mercury is going retrograde on July 20th.

And let’s not forget that ongoing Jupiter-Saturn-Neptune grand trine in water. The ‘core’ period of that configuration ends on July 17th, just in time for Uranus’ station.

All this with Mars in Cancer. Mars will not have yet even entered the orb of opposition to Pluto in Capricorn, but as we talked about in the ‘we’re in for a crabby time!’ Mars in Cancer post, there’s a vibe which is going to be pretty pervasive for the entire six weeks or so that Mars is transiting the first of the water signs.

- link to post -

Mars in Cancer

It’s so going to ‘stir up’ the Jupiter side of things. And the emotional side of things. And the money and family and the general life-or-death side of things.

All things.

Into all this comes change-provoking, dynamite-like Uranus?

Gee. If I could, I would take a quick bus to another solar system for a week or two. (Or three.) But if I did that I’d miss out on all the doings here.

And life here on Earth is nothing if not in constant need of keeping up with. With Uranus going retrograde at 12 Aries, life is bringing us to where we have to make peace with ourselves about who we are…and aren’t. Some of this will be in spite of what others want, or despite our own misgivings. There are times when we have to fail one thing in order to succeed in another, and with Uranus taking station in the zodiacal company of Medusa, Nemesis and Orpheus, embracing our fears and abilities in all their naked primacy seems inevitable.

Being true to our capabilities is often a very far cry from what’s convenient. Or comfortable. The dual t-square presented at this station (with Uranus at the ‘t’ of both configurations) is a pretty sure sign that we need to stand (and stand up) for the necessary, not the popular.

And that’s not likely to be all that popular with us. But evidently talk (Vega) isn’t going to get us to any sort of lasting state of (Sphinx/Bali) happiness. Nor is not (Industria) tackling the (Facies/Pluto) intricacies of dug in situations going to help. We want to be who we know we can be…and yet so much and so many voices and warnings and challenges are standing in our way.

Besides, to really be as potent and powerful as we can be, to own our potential and not just go with sufficiency is strange. As Marianne Williamson said so well, it’s not the idea of being weak which scares most of us – it’s recognizing how powerful we really are.

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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

- Marianne Williamson

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Power scares a lot of people. The idea of wielding power and being powerful sounds great. But with great power comes the greater responsibility to control what we do with that power, a test which is about our internal sense of entitlement - and whether we're a good judge of that...or even capable of holding ourselves to those limits we know in our hearts we truly believe in. Some of the scariest people to ever walk this earth are those who aren't scared of power at all simply because they lack sufficient conscience to care whether they do hold themselves to those limits.

And because we are scared of what we might do if given that 'absolute power which corrupts absolutely' we are afraid of that power which resides in each of our souls. It isn't about 'them'...it's about our willingness to take on the responsibility to govern ourselves. To many of us, that’s scary. And yet...how many of us think of having children as a total blessing? Isn't the responsibility for a helpless young life unable to stand on its own the greatest responsibility of all?

Medusa in this Uranus mix virtually guarantees we will all be meeting up with some sort of truth about ourselves that we’ve (Nemesis) always known but not wanted to (Medusa) face.

However these days…and those which have gone before…and those which are soon to come play out for you, the real question is whether you will break through your own resistance or not.

Retrogrades symbolize times when the work is done on the ‘inside.’ They’re when – in this case – we will do our changing on the inside, whether that’s voluntary on our part or driven by (in response to) external circumstances. Those of us who can use the next five months to work through or free ourselves from those invalid assumptions and the difference between the hope we aim for and the dream we think will magically ‘become’ reality will ultimately gain ground towards that which we (Alhena) purposefully strive.

Well, as long as that aim reflects our genuine Self, that is. And if it doesn’t, you’ll know as the uproar around you will increase. The debates and general sense of fracas will become overwhelming.

And yet…that could also be your challenge. So many of us give up and run away (another Uranus symptom) when the going gets tough.

So what’s the difference? How are we to know we’re headed in the wrong direction as opposed to simply meeting up with ‘normal’ challenges or interference thrown at us by those who may be less willing to challenge themselves and live up to their potential?

That is a very big problem, you know…the metaphysical rule known as ‘like attracts like’ is a 100% sort of thing. And when we’re not living at our potential level – or even striving to be what we have the capacity or capability of becoming as opposed to what we are willing to settle for because it’ll suit someone else’s fancy (or image or dream) – at that point in our lives we tend to get hooked into other people who are living at that less-than-sterling level in their lives.

And as we’ve all heard, misery loves company…which in the world of ‘like attracts like’ becomes a tendency for people to puddle together based on their weaknesses as opposed to their strengths. And when one person says ‘Gosh this puddle is muddy! I need to find me some fresher waters to swim in!’ everyone who isn’t ready to strive or let go of their own fears will generally try their hardest to keep you from excelling and moving on.

We see this all the time in relationships: one partner wants to grow and change and the other likes things just the way they are. Business, intimate or platonic, relationships need to have room for people to grow. They need to support our growth, not hinder it. Uranus in Aries is in the sign of Self – Aries. And this passage, whether internal or experienced as something happening ‘to’ you is often most destabilizing because you don’t want to change, because you’re afraid of shaking ‘the’ status quo or your personal sense of the status quo.

But let’s remember…you were born to be who you were born to be. That’s the Alhena part of one of the two t-squares presented at this station. Positioned at 9 Cancer, Alhena is all about learning to be grateful for the graces and talents we each have and our ability to make something of our life, no matter what that becomes. Modified by Mercury being at 13 Cancer with a little Sirius ‘brilliance’ added on top, this t-square asks us whether we are willing to have a reason for working as hard as we do to become ‘someone in this world’ beyond the obvious.

Our humanity, not our things, define us. And with Nemesis-Orpheus positioned with Uranus and Medusa at the ‘t’ of this station’s double ‘t’ square, it is to be guessed that a lot of people…a LOT of people…are going to be going through things which will lead them to realize that in the end it isn’t our image but our reality which fills us with happy motivation or stress, regrets and a feeling of instability and loss.

Orpheus in the Inferno by Mihail Ştefănescu (c 1870)

Loss itself is a two-sided thing. There is of course, the loss of a person. Or a 'thing' (or things). But our experience of that loss is the destabilization of our sense of status quo. Our security about who we are in this life and what we're doing in this world.

You know, the Aries part of our life.

Having the ability or the talent is one thing. Learning to use it is another thing. Realizing that our gifts are only gifts when they’re given to those whose lives we can enhance…and that it is for that action, that choice, that ability that we are rewarded in the most worldly and ‘life’ sense…that’s an ultimate sort of recognition, one which takes place inside us, and which at some point either changes the trajectory of what we’re aiming at in life – or doesn’t.

This is not a stable moment. It may be exciting, it may be a headache, it may be tragic, it may be motivational, delightful, confounding or anything else.

In the end it’s meant to open us to that we have not experienced yet. It’s meant to break through our hard shell so that we can feel that part of ourselves we haven’t yet allowed to come forth and become our ticket to new experiences.

Uranus doesn’t represent the subtle. At it’s most gentle end, this is the energy we know as ‘flexibility.’ But as anyone who has been made to tolerate a period of not knowing understands, that’s a trial of its own.

At it’s most volatile, Uranus represents sudden eruptions and breakages. A great earthquake which wasn’t in motion a second ago and which is destroying my status quo in the next is a Uranian event. The Uranus part for Earth is the shifting of Earth’s crust…that thing science refers to as plate tectonics. But in my life, that moment can be devastating. Or it can merely provide me with a wakeup call, a reminder that I’m not in charge of this world, life is.

Ultimately, all events which occur around any Uranus station pertain to this idea. We tend to get complacent. People are fond of thinking they’re in charge of this world and ‘masters of all they survey.’

Then life comes along and shows us that there is far, far more to life than we had suspected. An earthquake can hit. An economy can fracture. A marriage can end. We can get hit by a train. Our home might get burglarized. We might have a child. And that child may grow up to be a genius despite our thinking they were nobody.

Or they might turn out to be a mass murderer.

Everything ‘out there’ which orbits beyond Saturn is by definition ‘beyond human limits.’ We talk a deal about everything beyond Neptune (our solar system’s last full-sized planet) being that which we hadn’t experienced before, or suspected.

But between Neptune and Saturn…there orbits Uranus, which at some level represents exactly that – the ‘break’ between what we fully understand (Saturn and everything within the orbit of Saturn) and that which we can never fully predict or know until ‘the effect of it’ (the ripples caused by objects moving through space) comes past Neptune heading for that Saturn boundary where it enters our reality.

Along the way, such ‘unknowns’ pass through the realm of Uranus. And in doing that, they pass through a ring energized by a planet which operates in a manner entirely different from any other planet in our solar system.

Uranian effects are about a liberation of perspective. And for that to happen, sometimes the crust – be it of our earth or our thinking – has to be broken through.

This 2013 Uranus station-retrograde is part of a greater collection of processes. But it is vital on its own, representing a moment when what the Maya called wheels within wheels click into place to change us – maybe a lot, or maybe just a little. Changes don’t have to be massive in size. Great trees grow from small acorns. Huge discoveries have come from a minute, spur-of-the-moment thought.

With every moment we are given a Uranian opportunity for change.

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