Transmission Transition: Mercury backs into Aquarius

 'Visual Echo Experiment' by Chul Hyun Ahn (2005, photo image of grouping BmoreArt, October 2005)

As a reminder…Mercury will retrograde back into Aquarius on February 13^th at 3:13 in the a.m. (UT/+0 time).

With Mercury’s station-direct still a ways ahead on February 28^th and Mercury not returning to Pisces until March 17^th, that means we have a substantial amount of Mercury in Aquarius ahead...some of which will be under retrograde producing a reflexive 'thinking about thoughts' vibe - even a 'why do I think this way?' questioning before the February 28th 'going direct' station which will mark a natural shift of focus back to more external factors.

And what we think about them, yes - of course. This is Aquarius we're talking about, after all. And as we say this it probably bears remembering how this time around Mercury first accessed Aquarius on the 11^th of January, not reaching Pisces until January 31st.

Not that I'm discarding the Venus retrograde qualities of that time, but Mercury's January shift into Aquarius really was when (judging from my own life and the emails which cascaded in) things got rough for many of us.

All that - cyclically - is still in play, with the Aquarian essence still being the (air sign) ‘idea’ of something which 'works,' which is 'honed' by our mind, which generates acceptance or the kind of excellence which sets us apart and thus creates acceptance in the form of success. Some may have converted or coerced the 'size' of the Aquarian playing field...we have everything from the Olympics to individual projects and product-fielding at stake now. Aquarius has a natural affinity for commerce (economics, income or just plain money) in the same way that digital everything and 'digital viewing' (of every kind) generates an affinity in the individual: it's the systemic power which counts.

But as always, when it comes to Aquarius we do have challenges. To what degree do we separate ourselves (or what we're doing) from what's "out there" in the big Aquarian world in order to become separate or different from others in the cause of being an individual?

Aquarius asks that we maintain our 'group viability' at the same time that we excel individually. When we do it right, balancing ourselves on that 'electrifying' edge where we understand what works across the board - that's the genius Aquarian insight.

And yes, it's achieved individually. The Aquarian 'it' (whatever your 'it' may be) simply won't come to ultimate fruition in isolation. Aquarius is about a broad functionality which translates either to broad scale thinking or something very specific which has broad scale application or appeal - and that means with ourselves as much as to anyone else.

That Mercury ‘began’ this transit of Aquarius back in January speaks to repercussions and taking 'next steps' now. Dynamics may be exactly the same, but maybe you've at least sorted through other things in the meantime. This is one of those ‘repeating signal’ patterns all about flux in the process of formulation which operates sort of like a wave.

In other words, we can be pushing for something or get  ‘pushed around’ in life or by life. Witness the diagram…

 
Yes, you've seen the diagram before. But had you thought of it before now as a long-term process you were going to go through (whether you volunteered or not) which would push you to consider your own estimation of Aquarian success -- apart from all else, in your own life?

Success or failure in the Aquarian realm is often determined by our willingness or ability to see things from either a narrow or broad perspective. 

It is not right or wrong which counts here but rather our ability and willingness to see what works or doesn't work and the ability or willingness to flex, adapt, fix or replace some things (while rejecting that which truly doesn't work) without disrupting the functionality of the whole which counts.

From now until the Sun’s ingress of Pisces (which will occur on February 18^th at 6:01 p.m. UT/+0 time) we have the Sun and Mercury in Aquarius with Mercury retrograde: that’s a lot of information, processing and considering. The degree numbers being all third decan, matters aren’t personal though opinions well may be. Finding out what people want or think and where things are ‘coming from’ pays off constructively where discovering where you are right or wrong is informative by way of telling you who you can work with and how your methods of dealing with others may need to change or take a different tact.
 
Then the Sun moves into Pisces, which gives us the same side-by-side sign aspect…the same sort of ‘friction’ or ‘irritation’ felt under Mercury-against-Venus, except now life isn’t about our reactions to what we’re getting from something or what we have or don’t have to work with (or any other Venusian version of internalized, retrograde challenge). No, now the ‘heat’ or ‘rough patch’ reflects how realistic we are or aren’t…or what we can bear feeling about whatever life is confronting us with as our life…our situation…our reality and how that may or may not be so different from our dreams.

One way or another, we’re disillusioned by feeling what reality can’t be…while being emboldened by the understanding that life isn’t supposed to be 'dreamy.'

Which really begs the question why we thought otherwise, no?
.
.
.

Astrologer’s Notebook: Trees, Times, Cycles

Eucalyptus Chapmaniana - two of which until just this morning

stood outside my window. Now there's just one. It looks lonely.

photo credit: Patche99z (Mar 2009)

I was woken up today by a cluster!%# of chainsaws igniting outside my window. Undoubtedly short on sleep this was not a great start.

At first I just lay there. But finally the noise would not be denied; I went to my window and looked outside to find that a whole gang of stubby workmen were cutting down trees.

I got upset. Those trees are my friends. They offer shade in a climate which can be brutally toasty and I don’t like living in a/c. When I open the window and even a bare bit of breeze stirs, the rustling leaves are nature’s music. More than once I have put a hand against those trees to help me balance as I got a pebble out of my shoe or sandal.

Those trees have even been safe harbor for the crickets I’ve learned how to take outside in a cup. Even on the rainiest nights, when puddles had become pools and the lawn was no place for something with teeny tiny legs, those trees have provided me with a place to put the crickets and the crickets with a place to hide out.

Locating my cell phone, I put in a call to the manager, not as surprised as she was to hear me start to cry.

Apparently the son who has inherited the building from his father thinks we need less trees, more…space (read: concrete). I’ve been patient, I’ve been supportive, I’ve even liked many of the workmen who have over the past 8 months interrupted peace on an unscheduled (as far as I knew) basis while work around here has gone along. It’s a big improvement that now there is both cold and hot water in all the units instead of some getting all of one and others getting mostly all of another.

But the trees? Like I say, trees are my friends. It’s not that I’m a ‘tree hugger,’ its that I grew up safe with my pets and safe with what was outdoors and not so safe with human beings. A tree…I learned long ago that a tree is a thing which will always be there for you to lean against. For you to sit under. For you to just look at.

Except if you cut them down.

The Maya had (and maybe still have) a wonderful thought that the trees are our cousins. They mean that in the life sense…however they knew, the Mayans seem to have understood the precept we call E=mc2’d really well.

We exist, we’re alive; the trees exist, they're alive. That makes us cousins.

Somewhere once long ago I read something about this…how if you’re ever in need, you can go to a tree. In their long slow pulsing of life there is reassurance and a calming effect which helps us to endure.

Except if you cut them down.

Lying back down on my bed, there was nothing to do but allow my desperate feelings of being human and mortal and doomed to certain kinds of helplessness escape. It took a while…the sobs were truly sorrowful and heartfelt and pitifully resigned. All the things I have loved and lost, that I have feared and been unable to do anything about…it all came spilling through my feelings, through my tears, through the heated breath of my scarcely muffled cries.

And in my continuing effort to try and explain all – not just to you, but to myself – I realized this was one of those moments which just prove that cycles work in a cyclic nature. Just under twelve years ago – one Jupiter cycle back – I was trying to reconcile myself to being disabled. I was beginning a journey through my past (Jupiter = understanding) which would ultimately allow me to break out of the emotional prison I had lived in for so very long because I was too afraid to feel. Because I didn’t know how to feel everything which had so overwhelmed me for so very, very long.

 Planet Jupiter

photo credit: NASA/JPL - Caltech

I still don’t know how to deal with it all. But I have learned there’s nothing else to do but try.

Roughly fourteen years ago – half a Saturn cycle ago – I was dealing with the death of my father. Now, just now, I’m realizing how for all that I feared him and adored him, I also truly, truly loved him.

And how much...how horribly I miss him, testiness and all.

 Saturn as photographed by Cassini

photo credit: NASA/JPL - Caltech

My natural mother died about nine months ago now. Facing her legacy is likely to be much harder and I’m not even tempted to push. First my father…then maybe I can begin solving the question of where my sister ‘went’ when she died when I was still so very young.

Apparently it’s time.

Over these next weeks and several months you’ll hear me talk a lot about solar eclipses and such. That post on Uranus/Black Moon Lilith...(LINK)...of a couple of days ago? The sudden breakage and social/societal aspects are apparent. To me, as an individual, my building management is my 'greater societal power.' Everything has levels.

But to thinks...we’re only just in the ‘breakdown’ period of the Gemini eclipse to take place on June the 1st.

(Big sigh....)

Gemini…thought. Yes, my thoughts – like everyone’s thoughts, our idea of life and this world…those mental barriers are definitely giving way. When I write this blog I try to put thoughts out there in a collected and unbiased way so that everyone can use them and yet…and yet what may not seem as apparent is how in my life they’re just as muddled, just as hard to get through.

Over these past days, entire flocks of tornados ravaged a swath of the eastern United States. Many – if not most of us - will not see tornados bearing down on us like something out of The Wizard of Oz.

But the effect of life catching us up and tossing us about like straws in a time storm…that we will surely experience.

 Margaret Hamilton as the Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939

film version of L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard Of Oz." What's odd is

that I hunted this image down for an entirely different reason just

yesterday - and now it seems so unexpectedly apt. The two sides
of anything is part of what we are always meant to recognize, I guess.

copyright: Turner Entertainment (source/Wikipedia)

The eclipse which will follow the June 1st Gemini eclipse is a July solar eclipse in Cancer. And all these issues about family and life having come to its inevitable end and my home…those are all typical Cancer things to be sure.

---

While I was typing this, I got a phone call. When everything began to come crashing down this morning I called the physical therapy lab where I’m doing rehab and canceled my appointment for this afternoon.

No, I didn’t want to go outside. I didn’t want to confront the bleak reality out there – my world having been changed as if on a whim, with no regard to life or feelings or the little bit of security some of us have in times of overhanging, overwhelming stress. I’m not living in Japan or Libya, but in the past just-year-plus I've been through being flat out threatened...I’ve lost what I had come to think was my best friendship of all time. Then my primal early abuser – my mother – died. I’ve had incredibly tough financial moments (the ‘where’s the food bank?’ kind)...and I've been in a car accident, after which came not just the physical pain and struggle, but a truly, truly horrible experience with the insurance company (theirs) which apparently still thinks accepting liability for an accident doesn’t necessarily come with handling all manner of damage created by the accident.

Through it all, I’ve done my best to cope, and be there for others – including everyone here in blog-land. It’s all we can do…be here for each other.

Like trees are here for us.

We all need a little stability…a little upstanding-ness. And if there isn’t someone strong to lean on…let there at least be a tree.

So the phone rang. The voice on the other end was the truly kind soul who mans the front desk. He had gotten my message and more than that, he had heard my pain. Is there anything we can do to help? 

I told him it was ‘just’ something here at the complex. 

Oh…I’m sorry. If you need anything, we’re here, okay? It’s not silly. We all go through things. I wanted you to know we’re here for you if you need us. 

Maybe it’s time to learn to lean on people? I’m not sure. Do we, can we trust those whose initial action seem so hurtful and insensitive?

Whatever’s going on in my life, it’s an adjustment. I know – I get that. I’m feeling…eclipsed – yes, that too.

I still just wish this all didn’t have to come with the taking of a natural life. If I can learn not to kill crickets, then surely we can learn that a tree is more precious that another slab of concrete, no?

And if one life - any given life - doesn't have value, what does that say about the rest of life - including us? Human ego may say we're 'better' than what else exists on our planet, but in the greater realm of the universe, is that true? And if it isn't true, what is the cost of cladding ourselves in a cloak of self-important denial?

Today I know that part of that cost...one form of that cost is having life present us with what we are least able to handle in any given moment. My life has been filled with a sense of lack of safety, emotional security, feeling I belong somewhere and that there's somewhere to belong.

A tree was felled. With it went a 'wooden fence' with which I apparently tried to ward off the world by denying what my life has long been all about.

That's what eclipses do. So...be ready - not that it matters. When we are cut down, so we do fall.

The big trick is figuring how to...or finding the strength to want to...get back up. It's called growth. Growth doesn't come without challenge. It's why we call them 'growing pains'?

But there are times when I'm sure we all ask...how grow can I go?

In Tune with Polyhymnia, a Reflection

 'View of Toledo' by El Greco (1596-1600)

  

As this post goes up on March 6th, Polyhymnia goes direct at 14 Cancer. Given how Cancer is a water sign and thus all about life’s feeling moments and emotional bents and one of Polyhymnia’s great themes is that of ‘reflection’ (or reflecting), this is me doing a little astro-reflecting…and sharing my reflections on Things Astrological with you.

One of the things which interests me about astrology is a concept the ancient Mayans put well with their phrase ‘wheels within wheels.’ That most often being a reference to their multi-place calendar system and the sacred Tzolkin ‘count of days,’ what it comes to suggest to me as an astrologer is how and why different lives are so different – as reflected in the machinations of emanation.

Or to put it may be a bit more simply, the solar system in all its glorious workings. A good astrologer can ‘tell time’ in your life because as Einstein put it so nicely, E=mc2’d. In other words, we’re all energy. You, me, your dog Fido, the doorknob and Pluto – we are all essentially made of the same stuff.

This actually brings up a really good question: if we’re all energy, how is it that we think we’re separate people or different things? (You know, you not being me, neither one of us being Fido and Fido being neither the doorknob or Pluto…unless he’s a Disney dog named Pluto!)

But that wasn’t really the place I was going here. Where I was going was with regards to the long and short signs (zodiac signs, that is) of orbits.

You’ve probably heard me refer to Pluto as having a very ‘eccentric’ orbit. And while I’d like to say that means Pluto wears a funny had and tells odd jokes at holiday dinners (which may be true in some other universe, but not this one), what I’m really referring to here is the fact that Pluto’s orbit around the Sun is not round like the hula hoop, but rather egg shaped – very much so, as it happens.

Et voila…! A pictorial rendition of Pluto’s orbit:

See? Mucho egg shaped.

What this means in an operative sense (astrologically) is that since the zodiac is a ‘belt’ which surrounds Earth with a nice evenness attributed to the 360 degrees of a circle being divided by twelve sign parts, that means that as Pluto travels along its 248.09 year-long orbit around the Sun, as we live here on Earth that would have Pluto “lingering” longer in certain signs that others.

Being someone with way too much curiosity to keep confined inside one head, one day I took it upon myself to track down how long Pluto had been in successive signs – not for the last hundred years, no. Not even for the last complete orbit of Pluto!

Naw – too simple.

No, what I did (really…don’t ask) is track down the basic time periods/durations for Pluto’s passage through the signs for the whole of the now-ending Age of Pisces.

And having done that, I put it in a table.

If you’re wondering, the two numbers in red are the longest and shortest Pluto transits I found.

But besides being a sterling example of just how geekish I can actually be (and no, I don’t own any pocket protectors, but I do wear glasses!), what this really tells us is the difference between Pluto passages if, say, you’re born in 1800 as opposed to if you’re born in 1970 and in each case live to the age of 70 years old.

Here’s what it looks like…

Born in 1800:

Movements of Pluto through 'standardized' chart

wheel for a person born in January 1800

Born in 1970:

Movements of Pluto through 'standardized' chart

wheel for a person born in January 1970

This is the same chart wheel being used for both examples. It's no one in particular - it's just "a chart" which ends up showing us that for the person born in 1970, Pluto will end up moving through more signs because of where it is (given its very rather highly egg-shaped orbit) when you were born.

Now...remembering that each one of those houses of the horoscope represents a 'department of life,' let's look at that same chart, same date, same born in 1970 scenario - but this time let's have the person born in the morning as opposed to the evening.

,,,

Movements of Pluto through 'standardized' chart

wheel for a person born in January 1970

The 'morning' person experiences Pluto moving through houses 9, 10, 11, 12, 1 and 2. The 'night' person's life is colored by Pluto moving through houses 12, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

And though I've only pictured one chart for the 1800-born person, they only have Pluto moving through four houses during their 70-year lifespan, not five.

So would you say the person born in 1970 is experiencing more...? Or that the person born in 1800 is born in a time which gives them a deeper experience in fewer areas?

It's sort of the quality versus quantity discussion - and truthfully, you could argue quality or quantity on either side!

Now! Let's come back into real time. Let’s think about  someone born in the 1920’s who lives to be 90….and there are plenty of such people happily among us!

When they were born, Pluto was in Cancer. As they reached 90 (or are reaching 90) in 2010 (and/or beyond) Pluto has reached Capricorn.

Capricorn is the opposition sign to Cancer, right

(Answer: yes it is.)

Given Pluto’s full orbit is 248.09 years long, we would assume no one would live (currently) to be old enough to experience Pluto opposition Pluto, considering that half of 248.09 is 124.45 (years). And to my knowledge, nobody’s lived to be 124.45 years old. I could be wrong, but…

However! Due to Pluto’s eccentric orbit, there are a whole bunch of people who are actually living to see  Pluto oppositions - aka transiting Pluto opposition natal Pluto. And that is due to the fact that Pluto is currently in the ‘quick’ part of its orbit.

So what’s the key word for Pluto? Yes, there’s the triad slogan of create, deny, destroy. But the overall keyword is…?

Cammon! Lemme hear it!

Yes!!! TRANSFORMATION!!!

And what do we hear often from people who are now in their 90’s? They talk about the incredible pace at which the world has …CHANGED. 

You know, how their lives have been transformed by life at a really rapid pace.

What’s interesting is that if you arm yourself with a really good social history book (I happen to us Timetables of History) what you find is that every time Pluto gets to Leo (which is when people born under Pluto in Cancer would be hitting their adult stride) things in society start changing at pretty much a lickety-split rate.

Interesting, right?

So that’s one of ‘time’s wheels.’ Astrologically (using signs) we can see a relative ‘speeding up’ and ‘slowing down’ of a particular functionality we know as Pluto’s – emotionally transformational circumstances. 

Now, I’m not here to argue or describe anything close to why those ‘motion effects’ which Pluto’s orbital movement through space sends out as tiny shifts and ripples which reach us and translate into the plethora of emotional transformations we go through. Heck no! Look how long it took science to catch up with the assertion made by early astrologers back in ancient Babylon that there was a connection between the Moon and the tides!

Oh yes – by the way…next time you hear someone talk about astronomers of biblical times, I suggest a chuckle. Why? Because there weren’t any! Astronomy (the science) didn’t come into being until Greek/Hellenistic times, that being when science as a concept separated from religion, metaphysics and philosophy.

Interesting how they're coming back together again, isn't it?

Anyway…back to this wheels in wheels thing. Here’s a chart – a cut-down of one of my big worksheets.

(What, you think I keep all these planetary notes and numbers in my head? Dream on!)

(Nice thought though….sigh…)

In this chart, what I’d really like to point out are the columns labeled ‘Aphelion’ and ‘Perihelion.’ The first is the farthest a celestial body is from our Sun and the other is the closest that celestial body comes to our Sun. And to put it concisely and yet generally (a feat in itself) the greater the difference between these numerical values, the more egg-shaped the orbit is. So Chiron is very eggy. Comet Swiff-Tuttle is so eggy as to almost be its own omelet. And Sedna breaks the eggshell mold in the egg-shaped orbit department!

But even if we’re talking Mercury or Saturn, there is a variation in how fast planets move through signs. And there is – as we saw above in the Pluto chart – a ‘regularized’ area of the zodiac where each planet moves quickly and each planet moves slowly.

Given that each planet represents an attribute and ‘department’ of mortal life, that gives us a ‘pacing’ at which those attributes speed up and slow down as a matter of development.

Saturn for instance, has a total orbital period of 29.457 years. Divide that by 12 (signs) and you get 2.45 year as the average length Saturn spends in a sign. Saturn first ‘touched’ Libra territory at the end of October 2009, went retrograde then re-entered and committed to its transit of Libra in July 2010.

But Saturn doesn’t even begin to leave Libra for Scorpio until October 2012. And once in Scorpio come October 2012, it then rushes on, beginning to dabble its toes in Sagittarius in December 2014, with rolling on into Capricorn taking place in December 2017 and the Saturn/Aquarius ingress taking place in March 2020.

Do the math yourself and though the differences are not huge when we talk Saturn, we see to be in the ‘quick’ portion of Saturn’s orbit, equaling rapid developments and quick rise and falls in leadership – and probably in our opinion of leadership.

So Saturn and Pluto seem to be in the quick portion of their orbital cycles. How about Eris? A full Eris cycle takes 557 years, giving is an ‘average’ one-sign “theoretical duration” of 46.416 years. Eris began to transit of Aries in 1925 and it’s not only still in Aries, but will stay in Aries begins dabbling discordant toes in Taurus come 2048 – which is over a 120 years no matter how you toast it.

(And no matter whether your toast lands butter side down if you drop it, too!)

Eris in Aries is the discord of self. We’re in a long period when human beings are experiencing and acting discordantly. Since we’re talking about a period of time which began back in the 1920’s that fits perfectly with our discussion of Pluto; Eris has been signaling discordant times and Pluto has been signaling a lot of emotional transformation in life and emotionally transformative times.

Then let’s add Neptune. Neptune’s 164.79 year-long orbit divided by 12 (signs) giving us a 13.73 ‘one-sign-average.’ About to change signs (into Pisces from Aquarius), Neptune committed to its transit of Aquarius at the end of 1998 and is going to move into Pisces in 2011 and from there into Aries in 2026.

That gives us about 12.25 years in Aquarius (roughly) and a smidge under 15 years in its home sign of Pisces. We are evidently moving from the quick to a ‘slower’ section of Neptune’s orbit as we speak.

What does that mean? A whole lot of things. It means there will be more confusion and nebulous circumstances – those things which require us to allow ourselves not to know (the great Neptune slogan!) It also suggests that in spite of all, we may be moving into a very inspirational period of time. And yes, a time when inspiration means a lot to us.

More on Neptune (in specific) later. There’s plenty of time to chat about the celestial big blue.

But maybe from all of this you’re beginning to see some of what I grok (as they say in science fiction)? There are – as they ancient Mayans said – wheels within wheels.

Yes, the planets will repeat their own cycles over the long run. But how they overlap each other…? That is the uniqueness of time, what astrology is really good at sorting out...

...and really a pretty interesting concept to marvel at.

Welcome to my world, right? And to think, I used to be a wiz kid at accounting. From the finitely precise to the infinitely operative.

Anyway...so we all of us do grow! Fascinating stuff, eh?

/

Personal Tantalization with Pluto on Point

 

 An compounded image of nebula/supernova remnant W49B. 

photo credit: the blue is by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the red and green is courtesy of Palomar Observatory, further X-ray imagery is couresty of NASA/CXC/SSC/J. Keohane et al...and the team of Caltech/SSC/J. Rho and T.Jarrett contributed infrared data. Too cool, right?

Rise and shine! Asteroid Tantalus moves into Aries on January 2nd at 9:16pm (UT/+0).

Does that mean we’ll all get up and go around being fascinating?

A fun thought, but....probably no! Life doesn’t work like that – particularly since the Tantalus them is less about being tantalizing to others than it is about temptation. It’s more about the ‘I COULD do that…SHOULD I?” sort of thing.

And when we put that vibe in Aries form, we get a question of what should I make of myself? I could be this. I could do that. What should I do – or allow myself to do. Or for that matter, what should I allow myself not to do?

Not about twelve hours after this shift, something else even more subtle occurs too: as of January 3 at 9:04am (UT/+0) Pluto touches base with the space and frequency at which it went into retrograde last April.

And no, that's not the end of that - which is the point!

When a transit happens once in a planet's cycle around the Sun, that's a moment, an event, a recognition, a 'singular something.' But when planets go back and forth over given degrees because of retrograde, that set of "degree harmonics" are getting a bit of a work-over - with particular emphasis on the degree where the retrograde starts (the station/retrograde), and that at which it turns again to go direct (the station/direct degree).

Put more simply, a one-time transit is an "event," against which we have the standard 3-time (forward, backward, forward-and-done) retrograde cycle, which we would otherwise probably see as a personal 'process.' Call it 'situational or personal evolution,' if you will.

But then we get to the outer planets, TNOs and the like. Given that these objects are so far from the Sun, their orbits take a really, really long time - which in Earth terms means they move very slowly. The result? The result is that it's not unusual at all for Pluto to describe a five-time retrograde cycle that instead of lasting 8 or 9 months ends up lasting 16 or 18 months.

And one more thing to know when we get into this land of planetary slooooow mooooootion, that being how since any way you cut it, 16 or 18 months will get you passing some yearly birthday (and just maybe two), the effect that a major passage like this Pluto meander through early Capricorn is going to have will change with every birthday.

In your life, I mean. How this works is a solar return (birthday chart) function, which is a subject for another day and totally individual.

But that taken into account, such is why you should figure on an 'inexorable' shift taking place in life (yours and/or that around you) any time you hear a five-time transit is under way.

Such as now. The evolutionary metamorphosis Pluto signaled the beginnings of last April will end with the dawning of November, 2011. And in this process, this would be a moment when we're 'touching base' on how well that is or isn't going.

With Tantalus moving into Aries, yes.

And with a Solar Eclipse about to take place?

Uh....yes. Got the point?

Just don’t expect this to like hit you like any light bulb. It’s not going to be like some blessed moment when you finally get home after a long, exhausting day and shut the front door, locking all the hassles out.

And that may be good, that may be bad. I'm not sure Pluto ending a cycle at the moment of an eclipse is all that wonderful either.

What is suggested by this combination of factors is that the new year’s calendar business starts up on calendric schedule because everyone has some idea of where they stand. And what they want - courtesy of Tantalus, which can be a rather conniving sort of dynamic!

So Tantalus/Aries plus Pluto/Capricorn plus an impending Solar Eclipse. What does that mean?

Well, tell you the truth, the list here could be rather near endless. But one thing which may happen right away in the moments before the eclipse involves self forgiveness. You know, sort of like with a puppy where you scold them and they look so very contrite. But then the warning ends and as said puppy turns to leave you can just see by how the degree of jauntiness picks up with every step that they’ve forgiven themselves pretty  quick?

That may be us. With Tantalus having moved out of Pisces to enter Aries, there’s an emotional quotient which, particularly in underscoring Pluto as a greater transformational symbol of the emotional type, suggests we realize a few things about what we did or didn’t do right – particularly over the last six months or so.

Does that mean we’ll do better? With Tantalus now in Aries, moving forward we are likely to be tempted to continue doing or being something we know we shouldn’t be (or be doing). And with a solar eclipse on our doorstep, for some this is absolutely the moment when will dawn the realization that our actions (or lack of same) have designed all that we are now faced with dealing with.

In the end, that’s the real lesson. What we do or don’t do and how we do/don’t do things is really what ends up designing the ‘present moment’ we then must contend with. And that is what mitigates the Tantalus Effect: the being tempted. Often times it’s not the thing you want to do which is the problem – it’s what you’re not doing with your time and resources which causes all the problem.

Considering how fast Tantalus moves (it completes an entire orbit of the Sun in about 1.4 years) that means that in a little over a month….give or take…this Aries phase is over. And this isn't any 'grand moment' which is going to burst on any of us like sunshine breaking through the clouds after many days of sodden, heavy rain.

But it is a shift of dynamics. And considering that we're about to have a Solar Eclipse, this many a life this isn't a subtle moment.

Yet even if it is - even if you're someone who isn't being  hugely effected by the Solar Eclipse which occurs this Tuesday - it's still worth knowing about these shifts as a sort of 'footnote' on life.

The theme for the next little while, whether you're affected by the eclipse or not, is about what are you going to make of yourself. It's simply a new celestial day - and that's not just true because Sun came up!

No, it's a new celestial day because we get to take a new tact. Because we should be looking to take a new tact. And maybe that's on old problems, but new is new, right?

Pluto/North Node: Society Signs

Diagram of the Pluto/North Node

conjunction of November 27, 2010

6:36am (UT/+0)

In the United States, the Friday after Thanksgiving has come to be known as "Black Friday," a day when shoppers newly fortified by a day of rest and much food descend upon malls, shopping with a vengeance. (Or at least storekeepers hope.)

Originally the name of a stock market crash which occurred in 1869, in modern times 'Black Friday' has come to be about a different bottom line, one where SO much shopping gets done (over the weekend following Thanksgiving, now including 'Cyber Monday' online sales)....that this is when retailers traditionally "go into the black" for the year.

In other words, it's when they finally get out of the 'red' (debt) and begin clearing profits for the year.

Anyway...that's the tradition. You know - in your basic 'pretty good' year. But this year has been anything but - and not just in the United States, but in many places around the world.

And we're not just talking retail - we're talking about this having been a hard year for Earth (and its inhabitants) in general. So when we say that the US goes shopping this weekend as we contemplate Pluto conjuncting the North Node, that's not a specific issue. It's more of a bell-weather. And it's not just about money - it's about how we feel about our life. How life, as a whole, is reacting to the pressures being put upon it.

We all together now on that? This is not about shopping or consumerism except as that is one form of human expression of obligation, wish fulfillment, escapism and/or the ever popular concept of the holidays as the time to 'give the gift' but have it be something useful.

No, I'm not sure how many people are delighted with strictly utilitarian gifts. But sometimes, when life is hard, to have what you need actually is a delight. Yes, even if it's socks, weatherstripping, a new shower head or a vacuum.

(And don't get me started on how much vacuums cost. Never was I ever so happy as when the carpet was removed from my house, taking with it the need to have one. We all have things which just irk us. The price of vacuums is on my list. Petty? Maybe. Honest? Definitely.)

That said, what about this Pluto/North Node conjunction which as we have now noted, is happening late on the USA's biggest shopping day?

 Kyoto's Nishiki market

photo credit: Kazutaka Nakano (March 2009)

The North Node is what we should do. And the simplistic reaction to North Node dictates when astrologer mentions them to client? NO! UGH! BLECH! I've ever seen people get up and walk out of the room when confronted with North Node 'musts.' 

But here's the lore: if we will 'do' our North Node thing, then we can have all the South Node we want. And everybody likes the South Node part of the deal.

So let's start there, with the South Node positioned in a degree of 'garbled messages' which tend to be so unclear that we ignore them. This is a metaphysical signal for 'being isolated in my own thoughts and feelings' which doesn't help matters - whether it's a family budget, a national agenda or a company looking at its own bottom line regardless of the general market or societal trends.

Meanwhile, the North Node and Pluto are both in a degree which is about 'curiosity which can get you into trouble.'

Known vastly and over-simplistically as 'transformation,' Pluto is above all the experience of emotionality...and thus emotional transformations. Pluto symbolizes 'the result of the choice' and the experiences which go along from realizing what has 'come of' what you choose to do, or not do.

Coupled with the North Node, we might think this could be a moment when we go to do whatever we're doing and curiosity draws us in and fascinates us to a degree we do what we had promised ourselves (or others!) not to do. And with two Black Holes bracketing this 4 Capricorn position, the fascination and 'alternative reality' quality associated with Black Holes may do exactly that in many cases.

However...this entire dynamic could have a diametrically opposite effect. Pluto's 'transformative' qualities, often known as create, deny or destroy and which in a natal chart often signify a quality which manifests as an obsession and drive at many, many levels...that may well here represent the changing of habits.

One way we would decide - astrologically - whether this is so, or what this might mean would be to look at the ruler of Capricorn, the sign the North Node and Pluto are in. The ruler of Capricorn being Saturn, we see Saturn here positioned at 14 Libra, the 'mask' and whether we live behind it, or come out from behind it.

With Capricorn being 'the goal' and the 'upheld tradition,' we have to wonder if this combination is about changing (Pluto) the way we deal with the traditions and celebrations we share with others (Libra) and as a society (Nodes) in a very real (Saturn) way.

 United States Federal Reserve Chart

(set for noon as a governmental agency)

With a Quasar (brilliance) just ahead of Saturn and a Black Hole (alternative reality) just behind Saturn and Edisonia (the 'bright idea') in opposition to Saturn...this is if nothing else, a rethinking of what we do and why we do it.

And this may mean a change of attitude on the part of all - whether that means shoppers using cash instead of credit cards. Debt and the pressure/debates which come of same (and which are infamously known for wreaking havoc in marriages) is Pluto. It is the emotional consequence of a (Mars) choice made in a given moment.

That Mars is in Sagittarius' 3rd decanate at this moment guarantees a lot of advertising and going back to our 'Black Friday/Cyber Monday' shopping model, a genuine desire to have things be as they "always have been" on everyone's part - whether you're the merchant trying to promote sales, the buyer wanting to 'have it all' or the anti-commercial person who would like to just go back to a time when holidays were about quiet times of family or contemplation or gratitude...or however anyone thinks of them.

Then there is also a bit of 'indicator history' to contemplate here. The world-wide economic fracas which led to such anguish in 2008 happened as Pluto moved over the MC of the US Federal Reserve's noon (governmental functionality) chart.

With the great heat of the American presidential campaign (replete with name calling and mud slinging) having ignited during March/April 2008, President Obama actually took office as Pluto completed its transit of the Federal Reserve Sun. This is a mark of a previous 'round of thinking' which would have begun one Pluto orbit ago.

Pluto's orbit being 248 years long, that would put the initiation of this 'theoretical' round (theoretical since the Fed wasn't yet in existence) as being in 1761. As it happens, 1761 was the year when George III became King of England - just in time to deal with the American revolution (lucky him!).

 King George III of England in

coronation robes

painting by Allan Ramsay

In the process, the English (and general political situation) also managed to annoy an already vastly over-extended French monarchy - one then headed up by Louis XVI - into entering the war on the side of the (American) colonies. And that exacerbated France's own problems to the degree that it ignited the French Revolution, bringing about the execution of Louis XVI and his wife-of-political mandate, Marie Antoinette.

Link to article on Marie Antoinette.

In short, cycles repeat.

As noted by astrologer Ray Merriman, the US Federal Reserve opened it's doors for business earlier in the day on December 23, 1913. And that chart, I've written about elsewhere (link). But as a US governmental entity we set any applicable chart to noon - under the theory that the government is the 10th house (the uppermost house in any chart) as the Sun is at its zenith at noon and as citizens of any country, we look 'up' to the government as top dog power in our nation.

(No jokes here, please. Several names went through my head too, but we're not going to wax frivolous. At least not at the moment!)

Okay...so when you set the chart to noon, what you come up with a wheel (above) which shows 29 degrees on all four axis points: what the Fed does is critical to the country - and arguably, the world. Cycles repeat and financial controls-markets-reserve banks do not exist in isolation.

Staying with the Fed's governmental chart, the current  conjunction is taking place as Pluto is moving away from the Sun (indicating a great change/upheaval already having taken place and now in motion) heading towards 7 Capricorn, where it will encounter Ceres.

Ceres alone is a symbol of what you have worked for and earned, so you harvest. Ceres success depends on not just wanting the results, but being willing to do all the hard work such as that farmers do in raising their crops.

Link to an article which describes the nature of Ceres in more detail.

In this Federal Reserve chart, Ceres is pictured as being opposition Charybdis, meaning there has to be a constant willingness to keep after various problems. Those problems - again, as described by this chart - are about debt. But not just debt as a concept - debt more specifically as a matter of home-family-real estate and desires.

Considering the interconnected nature of world economics, this clearly denotes the 'consumer culture' as a whole. A 'dominating whole.' If this was only a matter of 'consumerism' (Charybdis ruled by the Fed's governmental 8th house Scorpio Moon), then regulation of interest would be the one key. But Charybdis is an asteroid. Ceres is a dwarf planet.

 Dwarf Planet Ceres

photo credit: Hubble - ACS/HRC

Guess which one is more important? Or to put it another way, which needs to be our greater priority?

Yes, that which we understand is necessary needs to empower the consistency of effort. This cannot be about passion or beliefs or fear - that's anti-Ceres and plainly Charybdis in negative form.

Like as not, this whole discussion comes down to a couple of questions: will we make sacrifices now or later? What does 'sacrifice mean to us? What do sacrifices made in the past which have allowed us to get where we are today - what do they mean to us?

Who are we and what do we really value? What is the difference between what we want (Pluto) and what we should want, or should want ourselves to want (Pluto/North Node)? Where do we talk the talk but totally not walk the (Pluto/North Node) walk, hiding behind our (Saturn) mask of what should be changed and done (Pluto/North Node) but which we're just as happy to leave up to others (Libra) to take on the (Saturn) hard work and the (Saturn) challenges of doing?

Pluto will arrive at 7 Capricorn - the Fed's Ceres - in spring 2011. What we are going through now is a 'lead up' to that. Given how hard it is for societies and nations to change, we all know what 'should' happen, but which won't happen until the proverbial shoe falls.

Or kicks us in some providential part.

March/April 2011 has Pluto going station/retrograde right atop the Federal Reserve Ceres. That transit ends in January 2012, describing 2011 as a year of serious change.

So you can either fiddle and dance now, or pay the piper then. And maybe you'll do some of both. How much is probably up to you, and starts now.

It will be definitely interesting to hear reports of how retailers do over this long holiday weekend. It will tell us much about ourselves...what we're dealing with and what we're choosing to ignore now, and face later.

Stay tuned!