The Soul's Curriculum

Parting the Clouds and Seeing Clearly

2011-08-01T13:38:00.019-06:00

This is how I would die into the love I have for You:

As pieces of cloud dissolve in sunlight.

– Rumi.

Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.

– A Course in Miracles

As the Sun moves strongly through the heart of Leo, the Lion, it will approach a powerful opposition to Neptune towards the middle of this month. Neptune is the sign of dissolution of the ego, and also the planet of the dissolving of all of our most cherished illusions. As it returns back to Aquarius for its final sojourn in this sign this century, we begin with this month the last run of a process of deconditioning and releasing of cherished illusions that has been taking place since 1996. This then is a month of disillusionment, of the dissolving of clouds, of the light of the Sun shining through, the potential for profound illumination.

As such it can be a difficult time. To the extent that we insist on holding on to any projections, to that extent will we lose the understanding of Love and Love’s intentions for us to grow into our Soul’s True Nature. Love is the calling-bell sounding in this month, as Venus sounds the bell of the heart-chakra from Leo, and of the heart itself, the very organ, vitalizing us and offering to us a powerful remembrance of who we truly are.

Surrendering Projections

Remember the deepest evolutionary intentions these next few years are for total structural transformation, and for personal empowerment and liberation, shown by Pluto and Uranus continuing to square all the way through to 2015. To participate in this consciously, it is absolutely necessary to let die all that is dying, and this does include our most cherished illusions. Ceres retrograding back into Pisces and squaring the Lunar Nodes means we are asked to look at the grief we have around this, around our lost innocence. Whatever grief has been collectively or individually avoided must be addressed and recognized. It is the avoidance of this grief that keeps us wanting to believe lies and disinformation and to hold on to cherished illusions and projections.

As Neptune quincunxes Juno in Libra, which squares the Lunar Nodes, there is especially an invitation to deal with the dynamics of projection as they show up in relationships, and any crisis in relationships should be viewed as an invitation to analyze the dynamics closely and carefully, to retrace the steps that led to this projection, and to name the projections. In most cases relationship crisis is resulting from some form of codependency, or misplaced loyalty, or repressed anger, all Juno themes. With Juno entering a conjunction to Saturn this month, this can be a real maturation time in committed relationships, a sobering time as well that can feel constraining at times. Of course with Neptune in the mix, there can be a desire to escape this and maintain the projections – but doing so constellates greater and greater patterns of crisis.

An excellent outpicturing of the collapse of projections and the crisis of codependency, is the “debt crisis” coming to a head tomorrow. This occurs as the United States continues to bumble through its Saturn Return (sad, as most of the Middle East countries – starting with Iran two years ago, Egypt, Tunisia, Syria this year – are showing us the liberatory possibilities of Saturn Returns these days.) Here again we have profound disillusionment, lies, confusion – all Neptune – afflicting and creating a crisis in the two-party “system” of the United States. The partners continue to project all over each other while their misplaced loyalties to the rich and powerful persist. This crisis exists to draw attention and analysis to the relational dynamics and the extremes of the government, but that is unlikely to be pursued except in the usual cynical ways, instead with the there is a disproportionate focus on the financial/security meanings of the crisis (Jupiter in Taurus ruling the skip-ahead North Node) and the relationship dynamics stay unconscious. So you can see how all of this crisis is a wake-up call, and this is the thing to be mindful of when parallel issues constellate in our personal lives.

All of this is the larger context in which Mercury retrogrades tomorrow, August 2^nd. As usual, Mercury retrograde is an opportunity to go within and to develop the intuition and improve our relationship with the right brain. The left brain is frustrated and confused this month, and must return to understand again the lessons of the heart and of the fiery Sun. The retrograde from Virgo shows that it is about correcting false information that has been taken in due to the projections. The linear brain is returning to a basic sense of purpose and love and when it meets the Sun in its retrograde, it will begin to be recharged. It returns all the way to the heart of the Summer season, where it meets the Moon, Emotional Reality, on August 27^th, as it turns forward and retraces its steps.

Letting Go of False Innocence

The theme of the month then is this dismantling of inaccurate perceptions, releasing cherished illusions and grieving them, allowing the Persephone in us to be abducted into the Underworld and begin her sojourn into night, releasing us into a clearer, more objective understanding of Life itself. As the clouds dissolve into the light that they are, illumination becomes possible: quite searingly! Remember the theme of Pluto in Capricorn (2008-2023) – nothing will ever be the same, internal security is the only security – so it is necessary to release all the naivete over the coming months, prior to Neptune’s entry into Pisces in 2012 with all the escapism and projection and millenarian/rapture fantasies it will bring.

Holding on to a wished-for innocence is transmogrifying in the worst way; as James Baldwin said it turns us into monsters, and we will likely see that unfold in the collective in some ways this month. Our Soul Work of course being to go the other way: to release that developmental stage and to withdraw the projections and wishes that someone “out there” can rescue us. This then empowers us to experience the Ultimate Truth of Unity that is beneath all of the dynamics of change that are reworking our world at this time, that Truth being the only place that can provide the sturdy roots that Jupiter in Taurus, ruler of the North Node at this time, is supporting us to develop.

Egypt's Revolution in Cosmic Context

2011-02-13T08:57:00.021-07:00

The people of Egypt have been on the frontlines of Pluto in Capricorn these past few weeks. Pluto in Capricorn is all about deep structural change in the way the world is organized -- this is a 15-year period that occurs every 250 years, whose last two iterations took place at the time of the American Revolution and the Protestant Reformation. Events like the successful protests in Tunisia and Egypt, the aborted but highly visible protests in Iran in 2009, the near-collapse and continued limping along of the economy, are powerful seed-stirrings of our current iteration of the Pluto-in-Capricorn transformative arc, 2008-2023. Per the old Chinese saying, we live in interesting times!

Egypt's Saturn Return

On a more local level, Egypt's own chart -- the chart of the Republic declared June 18, 1953, 11:30 pm GMT in Cairo -- is experiencing its second Saturn Return. Saturn's return is a time when deep patterning and conditioning reconstellate, as well as the burdensome restrictions and consequences of these, and one is called to remember and recommit to destiny and the deep purpose of one's life. It is a rite of passage and a maturation. The old ones say that it must feel like dying and one must not be certain of survival for the transit to have its full effect. When worked with transformatively, major survival and fear-based patterns of the personality die and a more mature being comes forward with a deeper dedication to the life purpose.

The Republic is described through its chart as a center of learning and communication (Sun, nodal rulers, and chart ruler in 3rd house) and of training, deep learning, the passing on of trades and old lineages (Moon, Saturn, Neptune in 6th house), as indeed is the country's role in its region.
Egypt's life purpose is described through its chart as one of leadership in group action and service (North Node in Aquarius in the 10th) and healership (Chiron conjunct Midheaven). An Oversoul is described which can get caught up in its own dramatic internal "family dynamics" (South Node in Leo in 4th house; see for example the assault on Coptics a few weeks prior to the protests), but is called to take a more detached and impersonal stance in the world, and to become a strong model of what is possible in terms of group action (North Node in the 10th, Aquarius). In this way, the country continues to be a regional or global center of learning, but what is taught -- and how -- is transformed.

Powerfully, on January 25, the day of the first mass protest and the day that is now declared by the people as the Day of Anger, Day of Uprising, Day of Youth, and other names -- the Sun was exactly conjunct the North Node of the chart -- a profound statement of shining the light on the country's deep destiny. It is easy to see how recent events have involved a powerful embodiment of the call to lead and serve as a model of how group action can work.

The Sun on the Node, the conjunction of Sun and Mars in the sky, a replication of a natal Egyptian aspect, and the movement of Jupiter into the Aries Point (0 degrees Aries, a cruical point generally but one also emphasized in multiple Arab League charts, including the chart of the Arab League itself), describe the triggering of the mass actions in Tahrir Square.

The Energy of the 60s in the Arab World

More broadly, the unprecedented events in Tunisia and Egypt signal the next act in an ongoing cycle of Uranus and Pluto, which will likely be the most visible aspect pattern globally from now until 2015. We now hear news of people stirring in Damascus, Algiers, San'a, throughout the Arab world. The determination and excitement for transformation and democracy are palpable to people living in these places. And indeed, this energy is very exciting -- it is the same energy we saw dramatically acted out in the 1960s in Europe and the USA.

In the mid-1960s, Uranus and Pluto were together in the sky -- an astrological conjunction -- and released a tremendous upswell of transformative, revolutionary, paradigm-altering energy. As a conjunction, this energy had an instinctive, urgent quality -- it was time to do something! This energy went in all sorts of directions, opening new or revitalized forms of music, spirituality, philosophy, sexuality, putting an emphasis on human rights and freedom around the world. As Uranus continued past Pluto, the emphasis on all of these new possibilities began to wane, the world became somewhat less captivated by them.

Yet now, beginning last year and continuing until 2015, Uranus and Pluto are meeting again, this time in the 90-degree aspect, a First Quarter Square. This means that the instinctual, all-directions, somewhat unconscious energy of the 1960s, all those seed possibilities that were sprouting then, certain ones of these now take a concrete form in the world, a more directed and focused approach. Not surprisingly given the emphasis of the Aries Point in the Cardinal formations of these years and in the natal charts of many of the Crescent states, this area of the world appears to be a primary arena where the energy of the 1960s is coming into its own at last.

As this occurs macrocosmically, in the microcosm of each person the "people" are stirring to life as well. The importance of freeing ourselves from repressive internal regimes becomes more pressing these next few years as Pluto and Uranus square off. There is an accelerated quality of change in each person and collective for which the events in the Arab world are both harbinger and trigger (consider the effects to the world's "structure" -- Pluto in Capricorn -- as this region, center of the energy supply under the current paradigm -- attempts to transform; consider also how threatening this will be to the status quo). The Egyptian people are an inspiring example of the courage we are all capable of, seeking change and transformation, being willing to put one's own life as one has known it at stake, recognizing that precious little is more valuable than freedom. For the theme of Uranus/Pluto, running from now until 2015, is freeing ourselves -- from within and without. The central location of the Cairo protests aptly names this transformational aspect: Tahrir Square -- the Square of Liberation.

Pan Lives! And Capricorn Transforms

2010-12-22T00:48:00.030-07:00

People with the Capricorn or the 10th house emphasized in your chart (Sun, Moon, Ascendant, or other major configurations) have much to celebrate this solstice! And indeed for the remainder of Pluto's transit of Capricorn, lasting until 2023. The opportunity of this period is the rehabilitation and the revitalization of the archetype Capricornus, the most conditioned of all the zodiac signs. With the recent conjunction of the North Node of the Moon and Pluto in Capricorn, and the solstic eclipse, this period is well and truly launched.

The once-in-a-lifetime potential here is a deep rework and transformation, a pulling up by the roots whatever is rotten in Capricorn. And this is a sign in which much has been distorted and devolved, a sign that has suffered during the Age of Pisces more than almost any other. For Capricornus was the mer-goat, originally associated with Pan and with pleasure, prior to what it has become for us today.

Pan was the Greek nature god, who was associated with the mountains, the wild, forests, fields, music, and sexuality. He carried and played a simple flute and was renowned for his virility and sexual energy, as the companion of the highly-sexed nymphs. As a nature spirit, he predated the emergence of the Olympian gods, although his story was subsequently retold with him as the child of Zeus and a human. Pan's energy was lusty and erotic, earthy and natural. With a satyr-like apperance as half-goat and half-human, including the horns of the goat, he was prone to seductions, carrying on, and causing trouble, or panic, a word derived from his name. He could turn himself into a Pan-swarm, disrupt existing orders, and in general was a mischief-maker. At the same time, he was known as a wise prophet, who shared among other gifts the secret of prophecy with Apollo.

In one of the most striking stories of the Greek gods, however, Pan was said to have "died" in the early 1st century. A legend arose among sailors and caught on throughout Greece and the ancient world that Pan had died. Not coincidentally, this was around the same time that Paul of Tarsus began to consolidate the early Christian church. As the Age of Pisces began, the collective unconscious had begun to turn away from Pan's embodied, sexual, natural energy towards a dualistic view of higher spirit and lower flesh. The body and its urges and desires became a source of guilt -- something to be disciplined, controlled, and transcended.

As Pan died, so too did one of the great Pan-like festivals, the Saturnalia. A winter solstice festival celebrated in the Roman Empire, it involved much merry-making, gift-giving, home decoration, masters serving slaves, partying, and letting loose. It was a celebration creating light and warmth and joy at the darkest time of the year, and celebrating the oncoming lengthening of days. Yet as the Age of Pisces entered, the Saturnalia and its celebratory energy was gradually tamed and harnessed into the narrative holiday of Christmas.

Pan and Capricorn

The Capricornus archetype was intimately related to both Pan and the Saturnalia. The Saturnalia was a festival for Saturn, the ruler of Capricorn, and it took place at winter solstice, when the Sun enters the sign of Capricorn. The symbol of Capricorn is the mer-goat, the upper body of a goat and the lower body a great fish-tail, one of the forms Pan took when he had created some trouble and needed to swim away quickly. We can feel the wet, juicy, earthy-muddy flavor of this archetype at its heart through this powerful symbol, which was also held to represent great wisdom, through descending into the depths of the deepest waters and ascending to the heights of the highest mountains. In Capricornus was a potent combination of pleasure and prophecy, of descent and ascent, of flesh and spirit.

Not so the Capricorn we have inherited after 2000 years of Piscean Age conditioning. The Capricorn most of us come to know early in our astrological learning is staid, professional, controlling, power-oriented, responsible, serious, administrative, guilt-ridden, and governed by a work-ethic and a need for appropriateness. Split off, killed off with Pan, has been the playful, lustful, earth-and-water-wise sea goat. And indeed, this energy was even demonized, as the goat became associated with the devil and demonic forces, as pleasure and desire became subject to discipline and punishment increasingly through the Age.

Yet Pan still lives in the archetype of Capricornus. We can confidently assert that the legend of Pan's death was a lie, one of the earliest of the Age. Deep in the Capricorn psyche there is a powerful, pulsing, lustful, pleasure-oriented, creative, and erotic passion. It is a natural earth-based energy that most of us have learned through conditioning to attempt to control and regulate away (for we all have Capricorn somewhere in our charts).

Finding the Pan in the Pan-demonium

Now, with Pluto in Capricorn, a huge rework, a death and rebirth, is possible for this archetype. This is possible at the large-scale level, and indeed during these periods throughout history there has been a shaking of the "foundations" and "administrative centers" of the world, much as our current economy and empire are shaking (creating Pan-ic; or consider also the Pan-demonium arising over Wikileaks opening the Pan-dora's Box of diplomatic secrets...)

The macrocosm will relfect the microcosmic ways we address this potential transformation. The questions are: how does the spirit/body split live in my own life? Where do I live according to conditioning about what is appropriate? Where does irrational guilt about natural pleasures and desires constrain my life? Especially for those with Capricorn emphasized through the Sun, Moon, Ascendant, or other prominent configurations, this is a time for profound and life-altering healing. It is a time for claiming one's prophetic, lusty, earthful power, for restoring the flow of eros and letting crumble away the encrustations of guilt and conditioning that overlay this. Earth-based ritual and healing is especially potent during this time, for Capricorn is the most deeply shamanic, even typhonic, of the signs, ascending and descending through the many worlds.

As we undergo the topsy-turvy shifts of structures that have defined the past 250 years, and indeed the past 2000, the world needs the medicine of Capricorn, and for Capricorns everywhere to claim their deepest nature. Once more, the world needs Pan, and he is stirring. Can you feel him?

The Eighth Saturn Return of the United States

2010-11-22T07:15:00.019-07:00

Over the next nine months, Saturn returns to its natal position in the United States' chart, with the exact aspect occurring on December 2, 2010; March 20, 2011; and August 21, 2011.

The return of Saturn involves a revisitation of the key karmic dynamics in a chart. It is a time of facing one's fate and finding one's destiny. It is a pivotal opportunity for completing incomplete initiations, and for this reason it is a challenging time. Saturn rules the spine and the skeletal system. We are asked to structure ourselves, not according to the conditioning around us, but rather from our own spine, our own sketelal framework. As with any initiation, some emerge from a Saturn Return strengthened, matured, and able to stand taller in the world from an inner confidence of having in some sense "passed the test". Some never emerge. And in modern times with little help from initiated elders, some emerge from the Saturn Return with their fragile egos more defended and compensated than ever, requiring life to continue to generate continued circumstances designed to somehow get through to them. Unfortunately, with the exception of the 1865 Saturn Return, involving the end of the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation, this latter has applied to every Saturn Return undergone by the United States chart.

The Father Complex

For the United States, the return of Saturn is especially significant because it highlights what is arguably the central dynamic of the USA chart. This dynamic begins with an intense father complex. The chart shows that the individual's identity will be restricted in some way by the father (Saturn square Sun), creating a crisis in which action is required (First Quarter Square). It makes sense then, that the "birth" of the United States was its Declaration of Independence from the abusive "father" in the form of the British Empire.

However, the problem with this solution is that the individual is left to go it alone in terms of structuring a self, which is also the function of Saturn. While the aspect is suggestive of great independence and strength, it also suggests a potentially deep insecurity that is the result of never receiving the social vestiture from the Father, if severance from the Father is not followed by some form of meaningful initiation.

Absent this initiation, the chart describes an intense pain around the masculine resulting from the Father severance (Chiron in Aries opposing Saturn and squaring the Sun) which is then acted out through an idealization of aggression and power, a kind of narcissistic compensation for intense fears of being weak or ineffectual (Mars, dispositor of Chiron, square to Neptune). Yet even as the nation acts out and shows off its power, there is simultaneously a very private yearning for a Father (Pallas, "Daddy's Little Girl", conjunct the Moon).

These dynamics are very visible to an observer of US history. The longing for a Father plays out in multiple elections, and it is especially notable that the Presidents in office at the time of Saturn Returns have evidenced the father hunger well: Jefferson (the "founding father" who wrote the Declaration), Jackson (the "bad father"), Lincoln (the "good father"), Cleveland (about whom there was intense ambivalence, on-again, off-again, served two non-consecutive terms), Harding ("the negligent father"), Truman ("the unquestionable father"), and Reagan ("the saving father"). The public frequently becomes angry when there is expectation of rescue by the father and the father fails -- as was very much the trance around President Obama. At these points, there is a huge desire to take down the father. At the same time, the compensatory displays of power by the nation are also very evident, right down to the specifics of wars for oil (Neptune rules oil, Mars war).

An Identity Crisis

With this level of acting out, it is very easy for the pain of this dynamic to be hidden and overlooked (Chiron in the private fourth house). Yet the pain is without a doubt the critical element to embrace and encounter to complete the initiation process that began with independence, and completion of this is essential for the nation to move through its very basic identity crisis.

The importance of this is highlighted by the most prominent configuration in the chart: the T-Square involving the opposition of Saturn and Chiron, each squaring the Sun. The simplest description of a T-Square with the Sun at the pivot point is an in-built identity crisis. It describes a situation in which the Oversoul's consciousness seeks to integrate the opposed archetypes (Saturn and Chiron) into its identity (Sun). This is an especially critical action for this chart as the Sun is its "implementer of destiny" (Sun rules Leo North Node).

Unfortunately, too often an opposition involves the tendency to identify with one side of a polarity, and to disidentify with the other. In the case of the United States, the tendency has been to over-identify with Saturn in Libra in the 10th house, and to under-identify with Chiron in Aries in the 4th house.

The "global policeman for democracy" is a perfect description of Saturn in Libra in the 10th. Saturn is "in charge" and has power. It wants "fairness" -- its own version of fairness -- and is a heavyweight. It is interested in boundaries and keeping everything in its place (including those pesky immigrants). The United States historically and presently has no difficulty in relating to itself in this way, and embodying this part of the polarity, indeed it is over-embodied.

Yet the fourth house Chiron asks us to recognize the deep pain the United States holds in its emotional body. It is a deep pain about one's own power and right to exist, as well as about a sense of belonging (remembering that this is in fact a nation of immigrants who did not "belong"). And it is a pain that the government, leadership, and most of the populace remain unconscious to, resulting in its being carried by the tribes (4th house) of the Native Americans, and the minorities and immigrants (all of whom are told in various ways, "you do not belong"), while the country consciously identifies only with its ever-compensating strongman image.

Alchemizing the Medicine

Yet the reluctance to embrace Chiron amounts to the reluctance to embrace our own destiny. While Chiron is the Sacred Wound, it is also the Sacred Medicine. Chiron the centaur was the Wounded Healer, an old, old archetype describing the transformation of suffering into wisdom. The medicine we have for the world, and our real leadership role that is described in the 10th house Saturn, cannot be alchemized without this necessary trip to the private 4th house Chirotic pain, and the willingness to hold and integrate that part of our experience as well.

In practical terms, what would such a journey look like? Most definitively, it involves integrating the Native Peoples and the minorities and immigrants in our country. Which means we will all have to look at and feel the pain that is currently carried by only a few. Healing will not come from the center or the center-stage, the legislatures and the "leaders" -- those are 10th house concerns and at this time the leaders we select will continue to be the uninitiated men and women who can only re-enact the drama of the insecure masculine. Healing rather will come from the edges, the shadow, and the shadow carriers, the ones who have born the projections and the wounds for a long, long time. In simple terms, this Saturn Return and all those before it ask us to connect with the deep grief and anguish that is at the foundation of this country's self-identity, and yet which we so rigorously deny. The chart suggests there is not another way to resolve the identity crisis described above which keeps us ensnared in the drama of the father complex.

At the personal level, as each member of the country participates in this Oversoul, this Saturn Return is a time to feel into one's own wounds around the family, around the sense of belonging, around one's personal power. And of course, as Pluto and the North Node continue their conjunction in the sign of Capricorn, with Ceres a little further out, it's a great time to deal with any of those Daddy issues in one's own life.

Oh World, I Cannot Hold Thee Close Enough -- Venus, Mars, and Eros Together in the Sky

2010-09-12T22:20:00.021-06:00

In recent days at sunset, long before the darkness arrives, through the pinks and oranges and blues of the evening sky, Venus shines into view. She is fast approaching the brightest she ever becomes.

Venus is currently in the middle of a very visible 9-month dance with Mars, in which they meet three times in the sky. Their first two meetings take place in the evening sky: first in the sign of Libra, partnership, late last month; and next on October 3rd in the sign of Scorpio, sexuality and regeneration. Then they each slowly take the journey into the Underworld, disappearing from view (because of their proximity to the Sun), and re-emerge in the morning skies early next year, joining one final time in the sign of Taurus, comfort, on May 23rd.

Venus and Mars are the ultimate cosmic lovers. Their passion for one another is legendary. In any individual they represent the masculine, yang, active principle and the feminine, yin, receptive principle. They are highly personal, individual planets. They show up in life in our passions, our creativity, our relationships, our pleasures, our zest for life. In what we seek out and what we attract.

This year, so much has been taking place further out in the solar system, between the heavyweights Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto. Transformation, change, intensity, at every level. Certainly this seems to be the focus of the daily news. It has also been the focus of most astrologers, myself included. It is very real, and it is affecting every one of us.

And yet . . . there Venus is shining more brightly than ever, seductively drawing any upward-turned eye. Few can ignore her; any skyward glance is compelled to linger on her beauty. Soon she will even move more and more slowly before standing still in the sky for two days. Venus wants our attention! Our hearts, our loving, wants our attention!

While we are in the middle of tremendous change and transformation shown by the outer planet aspects, the inner planets have a message for us that shining very brightly. And the message from this special 9-month period is: The Heart is the Way Through. As we participate in the big changes underway in the world and in each of us, as we weather the ups and downs of the Uranus storms and the Pluto overwhelms, Venus and Mars shine brightly in the sky to remind us of the needs of our personal, embodied selves to experience love and creativity.

Even more remarkably and rarely, as Venus and Mars do their dance of love, they are joined by the asteroid Eros in the same place in the sky. Eros was the love-child of Venus and Mars. Eros is love, energy, creativity. It is an incredibly powerful time to follow our passions: to get into the body and dance, paint, play a sport, make love, to live, and to live in the most personal way possible. As Rumi writes, "Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love." These are personal, intimate energies, ones that we can feel deep in our hearts and at a cellular level in our bodies. Each of us will manifest them in our own ways, some in relationships, some in the mystic marriage of masculine and feminine inside. Yet the message for all of us is this: it is a time for love, creation, and passion. Follow your bliss, your bliss will lead you through. The nighttime sky puts all the world events into perspective: its loudest, brightest message right now is to love.

And heart-based living in our times promises beautiful new births during this time. The last time this conjunction series occurred in these three signs was in 1978-1979, years of remarkable developments in balance (Libra) around sexual and gender issues: the first national gay march was held; for the first time women equalled (slightly exceeded) men in college enrollment; the Equal Rights Amendment came the closest it ever would to passage; and Judy Chicago first exhibited The Dinner Party, a huge work of art in which women took their "place at the table" in history and mythology.

Consider the sexual symbolism of the nighttime meeting in Libra and Scorpio, a mystic marriage and its consummation -- and then the sensual, fertile symbolism of next year's "morning after" in earthy Taurus, ruler of the fertility cults and child-bearing Venus. As well, it is a 9-month series of conjunctions, the time a child takes to grow from conception to birth, and then of course there is also the presence of Eros, love-child of the god and goddess. If we truly open our hearts, so many love-children can be born into the world right now: relationships, friendships, creative projects, new connections with the land and the earth, and indeed children themselves. And the sky tells us that these love-children are the ways our bodies, our most personal selves, will be renewed to make the transition to the next age with us.

So each time there is news of fresh disaster, in one's own life or in the world; each time there is news of another political imbroglio, in one's own life or in the world; each time some huge transformation racks us; we are called to open our hearts, more and more widely, to feel our passion for this world, this time, this planet. It is a great time to remember the words of Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Oh world, I cannot hold thee close enough!
Thy winds, thy wide gray skies!
thy mists that roll and rise!
Thy woods, this autumn day, that ache and sag
And all but cry with color! That gaunt crag
To crush! To lift the lean of that black bluff!
World, world, I cannot get thee close enough!

Long have I known a glory in it all,
But never knew I this;
Here such a passion is
As stretcheth me apart. Lord, I do fear
Thou’st made the world too beautiful this year.

Breaking Trance: The Gulf Oil Spill and Pluto in Capricorn

2010-06-27T14:19:00.012-06:00

Neptune shows us the flavor of collective trance, what the masses fall in love with, and what they "believe" in. It shows where and in what the people place their faith. Neptune in Capricorn (sign of banks, markets, and business among other associations), from the early 80s to the mid 90s, saw the world fall in love with money again. The market, and especially big business and transnational capital, would save us -- Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher deregulated everything so it could be so. Affluence was chic; the Big Money and Big Oil stars of Dallas and Dynasty, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, and a little later Frasier and the Friends in their expensive urban lofts, replaced the grittier, franker, working class television (collective imagination) of the 70s.

The World Trade Organization, the church of the Neptune-in-Capricorn religion, was officially created just before this period ended. And the nations of the world chose to trust this church and its high priests -- the bankers, the CEOs and corporate boards, the deregulators -- with the stewardship of our world and its resources. In the United States, the people placed a blind faith in these powers and willingly turned over our resources and authority to these redeemers, in the form of credit agreements, unsustainable mortgages, and law after law, ruling after ruling, favoring corporate interests and giving the captains of industry carte blanche to do as they desired.

The trance has been thick: few who questioned the inherent value of the market, or banking, or bankers have been taken seriously by the mainstream since this trance commenced . . . that is, until Pluto hit Capricorn in 2008 and suddenly all the rotten roots and rotten deals and rotten people are being exposed.

This is the way Neptune and Pluto work in the Piscean Age of projections and saviors: 1) During a Neptune transit a collective trance constellates. The nature of the trance is revealed through the sign of Neptune, and is strongest during that time. 2) The trance typically endures even after Neptune leaves the sign where it was initiated, and lasts until 3) Pluto eventually moves through the same sign and the reality and shadow that the trance has covered over and denied erupts into consciousness.

With Pluto now in Capricorn, we are being delivered crises and disasters that reveal the power dynamics, and particularly the manipulations and deceits that the "high priests" of the Capricorn religion have indulged themselves in. There is an outrage, Main Street vs. Wall Street, which expresses itself in many ways. It is a kind of sanctuary trauma; the people we trusted the most have betrayed us. And for decades in the fog of the Neptune-in-Capricorn fantasy, we empowered them to do so and collectively averted our eyes whenever their bad behaviors came briefly into public view.

Now, as the hierophants of the market are revealed to be less-than-holy and wholly self-interested, we see dynamics typical of any family system undergoing the same stress. Some of the children want to rebel (Uranus in Aries) and take the "bad guys" down, typically accepting little responsibility for how they themselves created and empowered those bad guys -- essentially they just want to fight and to make someone wrong; while other children remain loyal (Saturn in Libra) and attempt to "bail out" the parents, to keep the family going strong without having it fall apart.

Yet falling apart is precisely the evolutionary intention. Pluto in Capricorn seeks to transform the system! And during last year, this year, and next year, as bailouts and stop-gap measures continue with Saturn in the mix, crises escalate. An excellent example of the rotten roots being exposed, and the consequences displayed, is the Gulf Oil Spill, which happened as Ceres, archetype of the Traumatized Earth Mother, conjoined with Pluto in Capricorn. As the ocean continues to darken, more and more revelations of irresponsibility and ruthlessness are revealed on the part of the corporate leaders the people empowered. This is nothing less than a call for transformation, yet the call is not yet audible to most, who busy themselves with the complexed Saturnian attempt to keep it all under control, or the complexed Uranian project of designating a bad guy “out there” (BP in this case) whom they may righteously condemn. It seems the call must become louder.

Think of a new world on one end of the phone. In the world of form, a stock market crisis. Can you hear me now? A banking crisis. Can you hear me now? An environmental crisis. Can you hear me now?

The call that is trying to get through is a call to our own consciousness, yours and mine individually. Where and how do I participate in the “markets or money or some authority will save me” trance? What can I do to break this trance in me?

More broadly, the central Piscean Age questions also apply: In my life, where and how do I empower those who harm me? To whom do I give my power? Where and how do I set up my world in terms of victims and perpetrators and redeemers? What can I do to unsubscribe from the drama triangle of “Victim / Rescuer / Persecutor”, regardless of which role I cast myself in? How can I release my projections of these roles onto others, and own the parts of self they represent?

These are difficult questions. Many would prefer to ask only BP the difficult questions, and leave ourselves unquestioned. Yet this is tantamount to ignoring the call altogether, and ignoring the suffering of life on this planet as it manifests in this latest catastrophe. The evolution in consciousness requires that we, ourselves, transform. It is not taking place “out there” somewhere. The belief that it is out there, that the world is full of perpetrators and victims and rescuers -- that’s the Piscean Age trance. And as long as it is believed, humanity will continue to enact new Neptunian dramas with new saviors, new illusions, new inevitable disappointments, and new consequences and suffering for the people and the earth.

The ecocide in the Gulf need not be for nothing. Some of us can recognize in it the call to awaken to a new world, one that Arundhati Roy writes of: “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.” But to allow her to breathe, we must see how our own hands are closing in around her neck, and LET GO. We must expose the rotten roots in our own lives beneath our own trances, and step outside them, outside ourselves as we have known ourselves.

Let us join Dr. Masaru Emoto in prayer:

“To the water, whales, dolphins, pelicans, fishes, shellfishes, planktons, corals, algae and all creatures in our Gulf of Mexico: I apologize. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you.”

Uranus Enters Aries: We're Not in Kansas Anymore

2010-05-28T07:32:00.010-06:00

Last night in Santa Fe, as Uranus moved from the last degree of Pisces into the first degree of Aries for the first time in 84 years, a skystorm churned and poured. Inside a class I taught at the same time, a dramatic and bolt-from-the-blue phone call came to a student -- whose phones are usually off -- and changed the entire direction of our class. We followed this process where it led and took a break a few minutes later, walking outdoors to discover a double rainbow forming just in front of the College, as if an arch or gateway we were now invited to walk through.

The sky is the domain of Uranus, and the sky brings storms and also rainbows. The sky covenant expressed in these events of the first few moments of Uranus in Aries seems clear: storms that lead to a surprising and transformational opportunity, opening the gateway to a new life. These first few moments reveal the fractal pattern of the next seven years, as Uranus moves through the first sign of the zodiac.

Uranus shakes things up. It is the great deconditioner, the great deprogrammer. As it begins an entirely new 84-year cycle, it is time for a cosmic reboot. Uranus invites us to give up our personal identity, our personal history, all that we use to define and structure ourselves. In Aries, the infant sign of zodiac, the Uranus energy is incredibly potent and dynamic. It is liberation; beginner's mind; or as Jeff Green says, it is "freedom from the known". Uranus in Aries is about making a fresh start, about the arrival of a new world and a new self.

But as Dorothy can tell us, it often takes a violent storm or two to blast away the monochromatic world and make way for the magical. Uranus rules storms of all kinds -- from 2003-2010, while it was in Pisces, a water sign, we experienced the tsunami, Katrina, and the most hurricanes and tropical storms ever recorded -- and as it approached Aries, a fire sign, we have become aware of the rumblings of volcanoes.

Uranus also rules the "storms" that take us in life: new ideas, breakups, breakdowns, conflicts, sudden changes and interruptions. The unconscious response to these storms is frequently to batten down the hatches and protect the black-and-white reality as best we can. Yet as we know, Dorothy's relatives and neighbours who successfully "weathered the storm", who hid in the cellars and battened down the hatches, missed out entirely on the new world Dorothy knew. One of them even died trying to survive and hold onto things just the way she wanted them.

The critical lesson we learn from Dorothy is: let the storm take you. Let the black-and-white world break apart so that the magical world of color can break through. This is our Uranus lesson in these times, individually wherever Aries is located in your chart, and collectively across the board.

Like last night's storm, the physical, emotional, and spiritual storms of Uranus in Aries ultimately clear the air of static and enable us to see the full spectrum of light. Individually and collectively, the coming storms are ultimately a gateway . . . to a richer experience of consciousness, somewhere over the rainbow.

The Saturn/Pluto Square of 2009-2010

2009-11-15T21:16:00.004-07:00

This is the third in a series of articles about five major outer planet aspects described in the sky over 2008-2011. This article and the remaining two will be shorter than the earlier installments, since I have posted audio recordings of a talk given at Southwestern College on these aspects which you may link to here.

Nevertheless, today is a special day, since it is the first of three exact square (90-degree) aspects between Saturn and Pluto occurring over the next few months.

The Saturn attractor pattern in consciousness is concerned with structuring and holding form, while the Pluto attractor pattern operates to transmute and evolve form. In the collective, the 0, 90, and 180 degree aspects between these two tend to manifest as Saturnian efforts to hold on, hold on, hold on, which require nothing less than a Plutonian volcanic explosion forcing the destruction of outmoded forms. The energies of this relationship are powerful and difficult to work with creatively. Often, following the Plutonian transformation, rather than structuring and giving new form to what evolves from it, the old Saturnian pattern claws its way back to ascendancy, holding on even more tightly, requiring an even more powerful Plutonian event in the next iteration to accomplish the evolutionary impulse.

As always, the point of this blog is to help you discern how this particular convergence of attractor patterns occurs in your own life, such that you can observe and intentionally co-create with it. However, a brief look at collective events is instructive to get a feel for the aspect.

In the collective, the current Saturn/Pluto cycle is closely connected to the rise of terrorism, and particularly to the rise of terrorism against the United States.

The 0-degree aspect, associated with beginnings often multiple and divergent, took place in 1982-83, at which time the first attacks against the U.S. embassies by mideast terrorists began.
The waxing 90-degree aspect, associated with the consolidation of the form of action for the cycle, took place in 1993, the first World Trade Center attack.
The 180-degree aspect, associated with the fullest expression of the form of the cycle (the equivalent of full moon), took place in 2001, the second World Trade Center attack.
The waning 90-degree aspect, associated with reflection on the meaning of the cycle, is taking place now.

The waning square is the moment in a cycle that Dane Rudhyar called, "The Crisis of Consciousness" -- when there is an integration of what has gone before, and an extraction of meaning from it. Sometimes this involves another significant event, other times not -- in large part according to the level of consciousness with which the aspect is being engaged.

This square is in effect since around September of this year until about the end of 2010, and has three occurrences of the exact 90-degree relationship: Today (November 15); January 31, 2010; and August 21, 2010. The exact dates of aspects are often interesting to mine for headlines, and today has not disappointed.

Scanning the headlines and talk shows, we find something of an uproar has bubbled up about the possibility of Guantanamo Bay captives associated with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center being tried in or near New York City. After relative quiet on this topic since the presidential election, in multiple media especially the Sunday shows, Giuliani and others are suggesting that the decision to try the terrorists as criminals represents a misunderstanding of terrorism as a crime versus what they see as an appropriate recognition of terrorism as war. This could be conceived as Saturn (authority's) answer to the question, "what has been the meaning of all of this?": from Saturn's perspective, it is a war between what is right and just (Saturn in Libra) and what is dark and destructive of society (Pluto in Capricorn). Pluto's (terrorists') answer back, in whatever form we may see it, probably agrees that it is a war, but that it is a matter effectively transforming (Pluto in Capricorn) a repressive imbalanced order (Saturn in Libra).

Yet the invitation of the 3rd Quarter Square, to discern meeting and to integrate what has gone before, is impossible when we are identified with either attractor pattern exclusively. And precisely the 'form' that the cycle has taken thus far -- in this case, 'war' -- usually must collapse in order to understand its meaning. It is either given up, or through events is in some way brought down so that a deeper understanding of the whole cycle, and an integration of its lessons, can occur.

The remaining two dates of this aspect, and all of the time between, will be interesting to watch collectively.

At the personal level, the invitation of this aspect pattern is to consider where transformations and evolutions are pressing against old Saturnian forms, and to discover how to creatively transform these, as against precipitating explosions through trying to stay "in control." It is also a time to be aware of one's own shadow, the dark places. As in a 3rd quarter moon, during a 3rd quarter aspect, the picture is balanced between light and shadow -- both must be reflected on and understood. The willingness to own the shadow, and thereby to transform, not so much through action as through observation, is the heart of this aspect. It is also a powerful time to reflect on the entire cycle as it has manifested in one's own life since the early 80s and what it has meant for one's own evolution. As always, working with the aspect consciously in one's own life is the key to collective transformations -- and this aspect, so poorly managed collectively in the past, warrants special attention.

Again, more is available on this aspect and others this year on audio by clicking to therecordings page of my website.

May conscious participation support our evolution.

The 2009 Triple Conjunction: Jupiter/ Chiron/ Neptune in Aquarius

2009-09-06T19:30:00.009-06:00

This is the second in a series of articles about five major outer planet aspects described in the sky over 2008-2011.

Imagine waters of gentle dissolution being poured out over the consciousness of the world beginning in 1998. The washing in and out of a tide that clears from the world that which no longer suits it as we enter the next age (Neptune in Aquarius). The healing takes a deeper turn in 2008, contacting some painful wounds (Chiron) and possibly causing some burning along the way as these are recognized and alchemized to medicine. The experience amplifies and becomes larger in 2009 (Jupiter), as wave after wave washes ashore, with the intention of dissolution and transformation of particularly deep wounds. This is the evolutionary potential of the conjunction of Neptune, Chiron, and Jupiter in Aquarius.

As a triple conjunction, this aspect works in the way of the ocean: throughout 2009, the tide comes in and goes out, comes in and goes out, multiple times, as each of the planets involved goes forward and backwards, forward and backwards in the sky, meeting one another and bringing the three together at different points. For this reason, and because of the ephemeral and spiritual nature of the planets involved, this is the most difficult aspect of the 'big five' to map in concrete terms. It describes a kind of washing and healing of consciousness that is difficult to put one's finger on (Neptune). It describes a potentially expansive time where very high and transcendent hopes (Neptune, Jupiter) occur alongside very deep and painful wounds (Chiron, Jupiter). Melancholy, a hunger for escape, a feeling of heaviness, inflated hopes and optimism, depression, disillusionment, are the difficult patterns in consciousness that come to the fore at this time. In 2009, we are aware of all of these, and we watch the tides of each wash in, and out, slowly, blurrily, one leaving as another is arriving, with a fluidity very unlike the abrupt and obvious polarizations of Saturn and Uranus discussed in another article. With these three planets, we are working with issues of mood moreso than concrete events (with a possible exception discussed at the end of this article).

The relationship between the people of the United States and US President Barack Obama is a good case in point to understand the workings of the Triple Conjunction. The country's Moon is located in the sign of Aquarius, and in fact is located in the mid-20s, the zone of Aquarius where these three planets are washing in and around throughout the conjunction. What this tells us is that the collective psyche, or emotional body, of the USA is especially affected by this conjunction: this is an introspective year, a time of feeling the pain (Chiron), looking for hope and something transcendent (Neptune), sometimes feeling optimistic, sometimes disappointed.

Though both are concerned with healing, Neptune and Chiron are very different attractor patterns in consciousness. Neptune represents an attractor pattern that is oriented towards oneness and healing through dissolving separateness. Chiron represents the attractor pattern or archetype of the "wounded healer", whose wounds remain in some form rather than be fully healed, yet become the source of new medicine. The interaction of these two is tricky. The Neptune (oceanic) pattern influences consciousness to pursue transcendence, while the Chiron (centaur) pattern encourages consciousness to hang out in the pain and know it and its medicine.

Conjunctions combine forces. When consciously aligned with, the attractor patterns reinforce one another's positive potentialities: Neptune's hopefulness and unity consciousness lights the way for Chiron to make and share its medicine, creating more hope and unity, creating more medicine, and so on. When unconsciously identified with or resisted, the attractor patterns reinforce one another's negative potentialities: here Chiron wallows in the pain-body and Neptune seeks escape or rescue, leading to more pain, leading to more escapism, and so on.

Both of these potentialities have manifested in the US relationship to Barack Obama. As Chiron and Neptune began their conjunction in 2008, with his South Node (karmic past) conjunct to them and to the US Moon, Obama entered the national scene effortlessly working these dynamics: he was Neptune's representative of hope whose campaign articulated a number of Neptune themes: idealism, unity/oneness, faith and belief, universality. Initially there was also a frequent acknowledgment of the reality of Chirotic wounds: in particular, the legacy of torture and harm inflicted on others, a kind of maiming of other beings. The need to recognize these, feel them, and make medicine from them was clear.

However, as various wounds appeared to worsen in the months leading up to the election, there was a slow drift towards Chirotic preoccupation with the wounds and "how bad it is." This precipitated the Neptunian shift from hope to redemption, wanting a savior and projecting that he can "rescue us from ourselves". The growing strength of the Neptune attractor pattern began to glamorize and idealize Obama, as a way of medicating away the Chiron pain-body fixation.

Conjunctions of outer planets have tremendous motivational power; whether they are consciously or unconsciously experienced, they are working together and therefore increasing one another's strength. Then in January, following the election yet prior to the inauguration, Jupiter -- essentially an expander and amplifier pattern -- also entered Aquarius. This was a particularly resonant moment in these affairs since it was Obama's personal Jupiter Return -- a charismatic moment in any life. Jupiter in Aquarius also meant that the Jupiter attractor pattern also began to influence the Neptune and Chiron conjunction (though not directly) and so expectations soared through the roof that this man could answer all our prayers: an inflated projection that could only lead to disillusionment at some point.

That sentiment washed in towards May and June, when Jupiter began to slow down in the sky and then turned retrograde. Obama, who had received positive feedback from most quarters during the "first 100 days" began to disappoint people on the right and left. The reasons varied, but the theme of disappointment and disillusionment began to emerge across the spectrum; polls reflected significant slides. The national 'mood' had changed and the Chiron wounds that were papered over with Neptunian hope became more pronounced; the pain-body made its inevitable comeback.

This experience, which continues to play itself out now, is an invaluable demonstration of the nature of an attractor pattern. These patterns transcend conventional causality; once the unconscious pattern was active, its course was predetermined: Obama had to disappoint. It could not be otherwise, unless the collective woke up from the trance of inflation/ disillusionment.

The attractor pattern of Chiron/Neptune/Jupiter is active for the remainder of the year and the opportunity is to work with it consciously. Conscious work with this aspect personally and collectively involves withdrawing projections, releasing any attachments to victim/ perpetrator/ rescuer dynamics, and tolerating pain (including the pain of one's political agenda being frustrated, whatever that agenda may be. Obama's South Node on the USA Moon is a classic signature of someone who frustrates the expectation of the people -- on the right or left -- to simply nurture and validate them as they are. His Sun on the North Node in the 9th house rather suggests he is here to shine a light on the Soul destiny of this country, and to call it back to its highest values and its dignified place in world affairs).

The opportunity of this aspect, for the US particularly but also for each person, is to encounter the pain-body and to alchemize one's medicine for the world (Chiron), while recognizing that the healed state is already present (Neptune). This allows an expansion (Jupiter) of consciousness.

Before closing, one other characteristic of this aspect deserves mention, and that is the wild card of the planet Uranus (who else!) being linked to this aspect. Until April of next year, the planet Uranus is in Pisces, meaning that Uranus and Neptune are in what is known as "mutual reception" -- each is living in the "home sign" of the other. This situation began in 2003 and is associated with the multiple "ocean surprises" of the past few years: the 2004 Tsunami, the 2006 Hurricane Katrina, and the generally intensified hurricane/tropical storm activity of the past five years (2005 "blowing away" all known records in the words of the press). Seen in this light, Uranian energy (already stressed from Pluto and Saturn) adding to the Triple Conjunction suggests a strong possibility that a "Great Healing Wave" may quite literally come from the sea to actualize the aspect's evolutionary potentials.

Note: As mentioned in the Saturn/Uranus article, Obama is both a Neptune and a Uranus figure. A neat summary of this is found in the title of his book: The Audacity (Uranus) of Hope (Neptune).

The Saturn/Uranus Opposition of 2008-2010

2009-09-05T14:47:00.008-06:00

This is the first in a series of articles about the five major outer planet aspect patterns at play in consciousness over the next few years.

The Saturn/Uranus opposition is the first of the major aspects to activate, having begun in the Summer of 2008 and continuing into Summer of 2010. An opposition is a time of polarization -- a moment when one planet is across the sky from another; as such, a differentiation between the two planetary forces is possible that makes the differences between them strikingly clear. This is the evolutionary intention. At the same time, it also suggests conflict and struggle, as each end of the polarity defines itself through its difference with the other.

Saturn and Uranus have history. From the beginnings of astrology millenia ago until a little over two centuries ago, Saturn was the "outer limit" of the solar system. As such, it is the archetype of form, of time, of limit, of discipline. Then in 1781, all of that changed. Uranus burst into view, and completely upset the Saturnian order. Saturn was revealed as a pretender to the throne, as Uranus opened the gates beyond the "outer limit" and showed that so much more was possible beyond Saturn's arbitrarily-defined boundaries.

Saturn then represents an attractor pattern in consciousness that is about definition, limitation, structure, hierarchy; while Uranus represents an attractor pattern that is about revolution, change, interruption, equality. The opposition of Saturn and Uranus is the opposition of conservatism and liberalism, of past and future. Such an opposition has the effect of drawing the distinction between these very strikingly, so that choices become clear.

Let's look at how this aspect between these powerful attractor patterns has already manifested since Saturn and Uranus began their dance in 2008. While the opposition is in effect throughout Summer '08 - Summer '10, there are 5 dates during the 2008-2010 period that the opposition becomes exact.

The first date of the exact opposition was November 4, 2008: Election Day. The election of 2008 is one of the easiest ways to understand the effect of this opposition. Regardless of political opinion, this election was widely recognized as one contrasting the past (Saturn/McCain) against the future (Uranus/Obama). For the first time in several election cycles, there were marked differences between the candidates: the McCain (and Hillary Clinton) camp emphasized the candidate's responsibility, experience, and service -- all Saturn, and particularly Saturn in Virgo qualities. The Obama camp appealed to idealism, for "change we can believe in," and made extensive use of the internet and technology -- all Uranus, and particularly Uranus in Pisces qualities. Through the opposition, the differences between these became particularly clear. Both sides felt they had much to lose if they did not win. This is the effect of an opposition: to make completely clear the differences between the two archetypes, to place them in stark relief.

One of the most important issues in the election was the question of healthcare. The opposition occurs in 2008-09 in the signs of Virgo/Pisces -- the signs of the zodiac associated with medicine and healing. Uranus, the radical, is located in the sign of Pisces: universality, no one turned away. Saturn, the conservative, is located in the sign of Virgo: specificity, details, penny wise but sometimes pound foolish. The point is to recognize that the healthcare debate mirrors well the state of the Saturn/Uranus opposition, and its evolution is a way of tracking how this protracted battle of the titans continues.

In fact, the second exact opposition occurred on February 4 of this year, an important date with consequences for healthcare reform. Saturn had started moving backwards (retrograde) in the sky in January in order to come back for a rematch with Uranus, and just as it was arriving, on February 3rd, Tom Daschle, Obama's choice for Health and Human Services, and author of the book Critical: What We Can Do About the Healthcare Crisis, withdrew from the nomination process. This was a classic Saturn in Virgo moment, as Daschle's resignation was a consequence of his failure to follow the rules (Saturn loves rules) when it came to recordkeeping and taxes (classic Virgo). In this situation, the Saturn attractor pattern was able to pull collective consciousness into identification with it, resulting in the replacement of Daschle, an active proponent of single-payer plans, with Sebelius, whose chief healthcare experience was as insurance commissioner (establishment and safety-oriented Saturn in Virgo again).

The next Saturn/Uranus exact opposition occurs in just over a week, on September 14, 2009, and healthcare is likely to be in the spotlight again as Congress resumes session this week and Obama delivers a major speech on Wednesday. The healthcare town halls that took place across the summer were a dramatic enactment of this Saturn/Uranus aspect. Despite the minor victory in the rematch in February, the traditionalist Saturn attractor pattern in collective consciousness still feels humiliated by its loss in the election and is desperate to regain its sense of control, which it believes is necessary. This desperation has led to a variety of ugly spectacles and outraged attacks on those who are emblematic of the Uranus pattern (Obama). Those affiliated with the Uranus pattern may nevertheless have cause for hope in this current encounter since this time it is Uranus who has retrograded to come back and see Saturn for this rematch.

Again, however, the evolutionary logic of the opposition is to highlight the choice and the differences between these two attractor patterns. As such, these displays and occasional apparent Saturnian 'victories' play a meaningful role as they make evident and plain the structures in consciousness (and government viz Pluto in Capricorn) that the upcoming aspects involving all the outer planets are here to dismantle.

The work in an opposition is to understand exactly what forms (Saturn) are arrayed against change (Uranus). As such, this aspect has been the perfect start to the transformative series of aspects we are studying here. As well, it is interesting to note that these two planets are the joint rulers of Aquarius, the Age into which we are moving. Saturn was the ruler in the 'old' days, and Uranus is the ruler in the 'new.'

The Saturn/Uranus opposition is 'in effect' for nearly another year. There will be two more exact oppositions, on April 26, 2010 and July 26, 2010; these will occur in the signs of Aries and Libra and will be a part of the T-Square to be discussed in another article. Throughout this period, as these two planets continue to "see-saw" back and forth in the sky before moving on, we are likely to experience a continued "see-saw" in the collective between holding onto current forms and letting them go to enter a "freedom from the known" -- Uranus in its highest expression.

Collaboration with this aspect at the personal level involves a similar action: allow life to point out the control-oriented and change-resistant attractor patterns that exist in oneself; and to clarify these in the light of attractor patterns connected to a desire for change, overhaul, and leaps into the unknown. The Saturn patterns in need of healing get very clear in the light of a Uranian commitment to change. The simple action of becoming aware of these Saturn patterns inside oneself enables an ability to discern which pattern is in the highest interest and to align oneself accordingly. This is the personal and the collective opportunity at this time.

Notes for astrologers:

1. An additional point of reference of McCain/Saturn and Obama/Uranus is discovered through the North Nodes of their charts. McCain's North Node is in Saturn-ruled Capricorn, whereas Obama's North Node is on the Leo/Aquarius axis and conjunct Uranus.

Five Aspects That Are Changing the World

2009-09-05T13:56:00.013-06:00

In recently-held classes and workshops, it has become evident that there is a great hunger to understand the astrological context of changes underway in the world right now. The next five articles in this blog will attempt to delineate each of the five major aspect patterns that are influencing current times.

In brief those aspects and their basic archetypal signatures are:

Saturn/Uranus Opposition: The status quo and change fully polarize, to clarify exactly what needs to be deconstructed and released.

Jupiter/Chiron/Neptune Conjunction: A great wave of healing washes through consciousness.

Saturn/Pluto Waning Square: The meaning of oppressions and resistances (terror and "the war on terror") begins to be discerned.

Uranus/Pluto Waxing Square: The transformative Aquarian impulse, which entered chaotically through the 60s, takes form.

Saturn/Uranus/Pluto T-Square: An unpredictable transformation is catalyzed, through primitive or advanced means according to the state of consciousness.

The next few articles here will be a deeper dive into each of these aspects -- looking at the archetypes, or attractor patterns, at play in each, the evolutionary intentions, how they are manifesting currently, and how they may continue to emerge across the next few years.

May this be of service.

Astrology and Consciousness

2009-09-01T13:05:00.020-06:00

People approach astrology from a variety of levels of consciousness. These levels of consciousness dictate how astrological correspondences are interpreted. At the lowest levels, astrological correlations are used to limit life and contract consciousness. "You mustn't go outside on the day of the eclipse." "You shouldn't pursue that, it is not a good aspect with the Moon." "Marrying that person is fortunate, but marrying that person is unfortunate." "That Saturn placement is the worst one." This approach to astrology sets up a universe of forces of good and evil that operate outside of human beings, who are both separated from yet subject to the whims of these forces; an unsafe universe in which one must manipulate time and space in order to survive, not be harmed, and get what one wants.

This is the heart of most so-called electional astrology (to time events) and many of the fatalistic astrology traditions that have a great deal of weight around most of the world. Whereas the interesting question around events might be, "What patterns in consciousness does this time appear to participate in?", the question instead is, "Which time will get me what I want?" with the implication that I know what is best for me to want. As such, astrology is used to contract consciousness or at the very least to validate invented limitations.

Sun-Sign and many psychologically-oriented astrologies can run a similar course. Here astrological correspondences are used to build up and fortify the ego. "I am a Leo" justifies pride. "My Venus is in Scorpio" means that one has to be mysterious. The net result of many of these approaches is an even more entrenched identification as the ego now has "backup" -- in the form of the solar system -- to prove its arbitrary definitions of itself, its separateness and its uniqueness.

In the case of psychological astrology, however, the possibility exists that "I am a Leo" can be experienced as an expansive statement, one which broadens the view of self and opens one to a greater possibility of who one is beyond the ego. "Leo" represents an attractor pattern of consciousness that is more powerful than the limited identification of consciousness with the small-s self. Recognizing this attractor pattern and how it manifests through form (including human beings) can be a consciousness-expanding action, as the attractor pattern is recognized as the unmanifest origin of many kinds of experiences not apparently linked in the world of conventional 'cause and effect'. In this moment, the action of recognizing and naming the archetype expands, rather than contracts, consciousness, and sets the stage for the transcendence of conventional causality. The illusion of separation is broken, as "I am a Leo" recognizes a connectedness between this apparently separate self and many other selves, stories, times, and experiences.

As a person develops an awareness of an astrological attractor pattern, life is recontextualized in the light of this recognition, and it will never be the same again. Situations, reactions, emotions, that were difficult to grasp through conventional explanations, suddenly make sense; and these events become the opportunity through which to watch the archetypes or attractor patterns manifest through the person: to notice the care with words of Mercury in Libra; the warrior-courage of Mars in Aries; the sexual curiosity of Gemini on the 8th house. Consciousness expands to see a range of connections impossible to understand through conventional causality.

What is true of the psychological astrologies also holds for the evolutionary approaches. At one point in the evolution of consciousness, it can be context-expanding to learn about past lives. It expands consciousness to comprehend these levels of existence, transcending the limited identification with this current lifetime's ego, personality, problems, and "I". In a situation where we feel trapped, confused, and highly identified or disidentified with certain aspects of form, a past-life reading of the chart with the intention of greater understanding is a liberation. A larger context is provided and what was experienced as a problem to be solved now occurs as a manifestation of a larger attractor pattern, of which the current "problem" is a part. We move out of the realm of simple A->B causality into a recognition of a larger pattern at work. This can be very powerful.

Over time, however, the astrological mirror of past lives becomes one more place where one can become trapped and ensnared. Enlightenment does not come from recognizing past lives. The initial liberation of past life recognition can become too easily one more vanity of the ego and its identity project. Now the ego "has" a "Soul" that it can talk about and identify as.

At some point, there is a recognition of consciousness beyond that mirrored in the solar system. A person is ready to go beyond even the level of Archetypal and Soul identification, to know the Self beyond any limited self or particular soul, no matter the number of lifetimes remembered. This possibility is highlighted as we peer further and further beyond the solar system, into the Kuiper Belt, the Milky Way, neighborhood galaxies, and onwards. The scale of these places is enormous, as we peer deeper and deeper into space to realize that the goings-on in this solar system are miniscule.

For the ego, this may be distressing; yet for consciousness, it is liberating. At some moment, for any person, there can be a discovery of total context, a recognition of one-ness and unity of All That Is. This cosmic or universal level of consciousness is a gift that is bestowed and although a semi-sequential description (psychological, soulful, archetypal, galactic) has been provided here, there are no rungs and there is no ladder. Astrology like every other path can only approach, yet not cause the leap to, this state.

In the state of universal consciousness, there is a transcendence of space and time. Astrology as we know it, the story of these particular planets and these particular stars, becomes only one more aspect of Self, of which there are infinite aspects with no separations. In this Cosmic Consciousness, it is possible to attend to the solar system consciousness, but it is not necessary. This solar system and its dance becomes one more story being told in a universe full of stories, one more image in a genuinely endless and eternal kaleidoscope of possibilities, of which all are already realized and already existent.

The Outer Planet Curriculum

2009-08-29T12:10:00.014-06:00

The Far Out Planets -- Uranus, Neptune and Pluto -- came into view starting in 1781, beginning with Uranus. For thousands of years, the planet Saturn had represented the "limit" of the solar system; then Uranus appeared and everything changed (a very Uranus event). Since the sighting of these planets, we are also seeing an entirely new set of objects even further out known as the Kuiper Belt, and much much much more. Yet we are still learning how to integrate and work consciously with the archetypes, or attractor patterns of consciousness, that Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto represent.

The approaching aspects between these planets and Saturn over the next two years strongly suggests we are entering a deeper phase of the Outer Planet Curriculum in consciousness. So it is time to develop a greater understanding of these attractor patterns and how they manifest in the world.

The key consideration with the outer planets is that they represent transpersonal forces. They are heavy hitters, attractor patterns with great power. This will make more sense when they are viewed in the context of the overall groupings of the solar system:

The Essential Lights: Sun (essence) and Moon (personality)
The Personal Planets: Mercury (reason), Venus (feeling), Mars (will)
The Structural Planets: Jupiter (expansion), Saturn (contraction)
The Transpersonal Planets: Uranus (higher reason), Neptune (higher feeling), Pluto (higher will)

We ordain the ego through the Lights, express it through the Personal Planets, and structure it through the Structural Planets. Yet through the Transpersonal Planets, we transcend the ego. These "ambassadors of the galaxy," as Dane Rudhyar called them, ask us to move beyond the old limit of the ego and the personality, to experience greater fields of consciousness.

Typically we may try to "take a stand" in relation to these attractor patterns. In some circumstances we may attempt to resist them, hardening the ego's would-be walls, with the result that greater and greater "crisis" is usually constellated, until the pattern has its way with us, sometimes severely damaging the ego structure that has resisted it.

In other circumstances, we may identify with the archetype -- attempting to internalize it, not recognizing that the ego cannot possibly "contain" such powerful attractor patterns, and ultimately ends up hijacked or eclipsed by their power. This is what has sometimes been called "possession."

Yet the opportunity when these patterns constellate, in a person or an individual, is to collaborate and co-create with them. In this way, we realize their evolutionary potential without requiring crisis and overwhelm along the way.

To facilitate the dance with the far out planets, a few days ago, I led an experiential workshop, "Far Out! Traveling Safely with Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto" at the Southwestern College Transformation and Healing Conference on Consciousness in the Age of Aquarius. In the workshop, we explored and experienced the archetypes of the three Far Out Planets -- using words, images, music, and movement. To deeply "get" an attractor pattern, it works to access it through multiple modes of perception.

So, two modes are offered here to get to know these collaborators in the evolution of consciousness. As you connect through these, I invite you to the action of attunement: truly to get the gestalt of the pattern, to know your dance partner in the years ahead. Notice circumstances for yourself or others where you may resist the evolutionary impulse of the pattern, or where you may become too deeply identified with it. And use this familiarity to begin to find ways to co-create and collaborate with the pattern when it is active. As you do this, you wake up to a fuller range of consciousness, remembering that "you" are not separate from the pattern in any case, that you inter-are with the pattern, and "you" have the opportunity to co-create with it, to align with its highest intention and assist that intention in its manifestation.

The series of aspects that I have discussed in earlier posts among these planets promises an evolution; yet the 'how' of that evolution awaits the degree of creativity and willingness to recognize the ego as a vehicle rather than the finality of who we are. To the extent that we do not do this, we co-create crisis. This is the ongoing dance between fate and free will that is exercised each day, in varying degrees of consciousness, by each of us.

So, on to the dance partners to begin to relate to more actively:

1. Verbally, you can click this link to access a PDF of the slides used in the presentation. These give an overview and a feel for each of the archetypes involved.

2. Musically, the following three videos are Gustav Holst's orchestral pieces, "Uranus, the Magician" and "Neptune, the Mystic", respectively, and then Colin Matthew's "Pluto, the Awakener". This music is particularly well-synchronized to the timing of the workshop and of this week in general -- because Gustav Holst's Sun and Moon are exactly conjunct the current North Node of the moon, and its ruler Saturn, respectively. Gustav is here to help us recognize this moment's destiny.

Uranus:

Neptune:

Pluto (this video is for the music, not the images, which you will notice are "out of resonance" with the energy of the music):

Iran's First Saturn Return: A Hidden Seed of the Aquarian Age Sprouts

2009-07-04T06:46:00.015-06:00

The light action recently taken by the people of Iran is profoundly moving for many reasons. In the cradle of civilization, we have been witness to a courageous struggle for freedom and consciousness that echoes and prefigures global transformations underway. Saturn and Uranus, keynote planets of the emerging Aquarian Age, currently in a sky dance that affects us all, showed up in a major way in Iran. In a cosmic sense, as well as in a genealogical one, Nous sommes tous Iraniens -- We are all Iranians.

Iran's Natal Chart in Brief

Iran as it now exists came into being through a religious "revolution" and the chart is that of an Oversoul that is extremely familiar with transformation and upheaval (South Node in 8th house, Sun Opposite Pluto) in a religio-spiritual context (South Node in Pisces). This Oversoul is proud and highly self-consciously aware of its interface with the world (Leo Rising); it cannot imagine itself in a subordinate role to any other power, to the extent that it will choose isolation before perceived domination (Black Moon Rising). In fact, the myth of the Black Moon, the Lilith myth, is instructive in understanding Iran's relationship to others: Lilith was Adam's first wife, but she demanded equality rather than submit to him; when he refused, she chose exile rather than submission. As a result, across time she became the distant screen for a number of dark and exotic projections, much as Iran is the screen for these now.

In previous experiences, the Republic's Oversoul has also developed great spiritual and intuitional gifts (Grand Trine in Fire Signs/Houses) likely attained through suffering and spiritual dedication (South Node in Pisces). These gifts suggest an abiding awareness of Spirit that can be a resource in fulfilling the evolutionary intentions of this incarnation. However, there is a tendency toward over-reliance on these gifts (5th house Neptune ruling South Node), which results in a difficulty with relating outside of highly subjective contexts, and a mob tendency (Neptune) to organize oneself according to fiery orthodoxies or "my truth" (Aries Sun in 9th house) with little relationship to others or to the physical plane (weak Air/Earth).

The evolutionary intention expressed in the chart is, in fact, to take action on the physical plane (North Node in Virgo). The call is to define something solid and enduring (North Node in 2nd House) through understanding (Mercury, ruler of North Node) one's experiences of suffering and transformation (8th house). The opportunity if this is accomplished is for the Republic to steadily and solidly (North Node in Virgo, 2nd house) define its place in the global community as a bringer of healing and comfort (Chiron in Taurus conjunct Midheaven), to act as the Wounded Healter who has seen all manner of crisis and been driven by this to find the medicine of calm to bring to the world.

Up to this point in its history, the Republic appears to have taken the route more familiar to this Oversoul: defining itself primarily through what it is against (8th house) -- Israel, the USA, and westernization -- and through its spiritual orientation (Pisces), rather than processing its own experience and inquiring into what it is "for" -- its values (2nd house) and the nature of its service to the world (Virgo). This choice has resulted in a frequently brash and fiery stance towards the parts of the world that have been declared as evil or enemy (Neptune in Sagittarius, ruler of South Node, activating fiery trine with Sun in Aries and Lilith, Ascendant in Leo), and has virtually guaranteed ongoing crisis and enmity with these parts of the world.

Understanding Current Events

The Republic is currently completing a two-year "coming of age" period which can prepare it to assume its larger responsibilities for this lifetime (Saturn Return). During this period around age 29, the limitations of replicating previous incarnations become painfully apparent so that this lifetime's commitments can proceed. The Republic is thus now being confronted with the limitations of the old strategies of being secretive, controlling, over-spiritualized, and dramatic (South Node in Pisces in 8th house with Mars and Mercury, South Node ruler in 5th house trine Sun in Aries and Black Moon Rising). This coming of age process focuses attention away from external "enemies" (8th house emphasis) back to internal issues of self, values, and purpose (Saturn transiting 1st and 2nd houses, emerging conjunction with North Node). It is also a time when the people, and particularly the women, feel their oppression more acutely (natal T-Square of Venus, Moon, and Saturn, activated by Saturn Return).

Since confrontation with and from the outside is already a part of the familiar pattern, the action trigger for this coming of age had to come from deep within the country's collective unconscious (4th house), wherein resides an emancipatory urge (Uranus). For this Oversoul, the advent of maturity and the emancipatory urge work together creatively (natal Saturn quintile Uranus), and coming to terms with the emancipatory urge is central to achieving the evolutionary intention of defining a solid and stable sense of self based on real experience (North Node in 2nd house).

It is as if a secret seed of the Aquarian Age lay dormant in the Republic, so seemingly Piscean Age in its obvious architectures. The emancipatory urge in Iran first peeked into public view during the student riots of 1999 (Uranus first transited above the natal horizon), and now in mid-June it connected to a particularly powerful and hidden growth network (transiting Uranus conjunct the tight conjunction of Mars and Mercury, rulers of the Sun and North Node, in grand trine to natal Jupiter in the 12th and Uranus in the 4th). This is a highly emotional and soulful pattern that has been activated (watery signs and houses), and though it does not require visibility it is likely to continue to receive it (Uranus continuing over the 9th and 10th houses). The recession of the pattern from view towards the end of June (as Uranus slowed prior to retrograde) and the successful regathering of apparent control by the government to contain and repress this urge (as transiting Saturn re-entered opposition orb with Uranus, and Uranus turned retrograde) suggests only that it has become temporarily hidden once again rather than been extinguished.

The emancipatory urge is not the same as the revolutionary urge (Sun opposite Pluto, South Node plus Mars in 8th house) that is so familiar, and at this point, unhelpful for this Oversoul. The revolutionary urge is focused on the overthrow of the system, while the emancipatory urge is focused on the freedom of the individual. Coming to terms with the urge for emancipation and freedom, because these Aquarian Age ideals are at the core of the most private self of the Republic, is necessary for the intentions of building a stable self (North Node in Virgo in 2nd house), and fulfilling the destiny of acting as a healer in the world.

Looking Towards the Future

The emancipatory urge is far from satisfied. The entire period of 2008-2011 is the Progressed Crescent Lunation of the Republic, and so corresponds to an ongoing back-and-forth from the old to the new -- two steps forward, one step back. As such, Iran is one of the places in the world to watch, since it exemplifies and obviously embodies the tensions between old and new that all of us are living through (the upcoming Saturn/Pluto/Uranus T-Square).

There are multiple aspects to Iran's chart which suggest continued activity and the continuous reactivation of the hidden Aquarian Age seed-network. This area in the chart continues to be emphasized through this month, including the July 10 anniversary of the 1999 student riots when the Moon peeks up over the horizon just as Uranus did 10 years ago. But by far the most interesting dates in upcoming years with respect to the chart dynamics described above occur in March and December 2010. In mid-March, the emancipatory urge (Uranus) makes its second direct pass through the growth point (Mars/Mercury) and this time it is triply reinforced (Sun, Moon, and Mercury in New Moon conjunction). This entire moon cycle (March 15 - April 14) will be a time when the evolutionary intentions of June, having been rethought during the retrograde, can be brought further into the world.

Then in November 2010, the emancipatory urge connects one more time to the growth point, and on December 3-9, appears to stop exactly on that point in the chart for three days (Uranus retrograde, station, and direct on Mars/Mercury). This is a powerful consolidation and a remarkable release of energy into the world, and is further intensified by the presence of an expansive urge (transiting Jupiter conjunct transiting Uranus and natal Moon/Mercury; Jupiter also being natally the third leg of the "hidden" trine).

A year later, the Republic progresses to First Quarter Lunation (at 14 degrees Leo) on December 31, 2011 -- the day before we enter 2012. This progression corresponds to the moment when a plant that has been struggling underground to push itself to the surface (during Crescent), breaks through and now takes its essential form that it will use for the remainder of its growth through the cycle. Most of the preceding year (2011) Solar Arc Pluto conjuncts Uranus, indicating that as the Crescent phase completes, whatever blocks emancipation must go. The Sabian symbol for 14 Leo reads, "A Human Soul Seeking Opportunities for Outward Manifestation." Dane Rudhyar suggests the keynote of this degree is "the yearning for self-actualization," stating that it brings a "transcendental clue to the technique of living: Let the soul speak out! Allow the power of the true tone of your being to manifest itself smoothly, easily, unobstructed -- or expect a variety of consequences." This message seems tailor-made for the leadership and the people of Iran, as they move with the rest of us through the tensions of Saturn and Uranus in their ongoing opposition in the sky, reflecting to us the ongoing struggle to resolve the paradox of freedom and limitation: how to give the Soul its full voice in the manifest world of form.

Notes for astrologers:

1) The most-used birthcharts for the Islamic Republic are the Khomeini Return Chart (February 1, 1979) and the Declaration of the Republic (April 1, 1979). My experience with collective entities such as organizations and countries is that they come into being through speech acts and pronouncements by a group of individuals expressing their intention to join as an Oversoul, rather than events which appear to do this "in effect" (key struggles, plans) or the establishment of infrastructures that are organized afterwards (constitutions, governments, first presidents). This explains, for example, the usefulness of the Sibley chart constructed for the USA for the Declaration of Independence, and the India/Pakistan charts at the time of Partition. Therefore, I use the chart for the Declaration of the Republic, April 1, 1979, at 3:00pm in Tehran.

2) Progressions and solar arcs of relevance during the June protests (less than 1 degree of orb):

Progressed Sun conjunct Midheaven -- essence/true nature enters the public/global stage
Solar Arc Uranus conjunct Neptune -- emancipatory urge connects to the "masses"
Solar Arc Chiron conjunct Moon -- the wound and the call to healing felt by the "people"
Solar Arc Ascendant conjunct North Node -- destiny becomes visible

New Moon on June 22, 2009 -- Prelude to Changes of 2009-2011

2009-06-21T05:11:00.003-06:00

Tomorrow's New Moon at 2 degrees Cancer (Monday, June 22, 2009, 1:35pm Mountain Time) is a remarkable moment. Events taking place that day and the next two or three days are likely to cycle through as major themes and action points in the evolution of consciousness more widely and energetically beginning in the fall for the next two years.

The New Moon's position is remarkable because of its relationship to a series of astrological aspects between Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto, unfolding beginning in Fall 2009 and continuing throughout 2010-2011.

In November 2009 a square will form between Saturn (archetype of form trying to stay form) and Pluto (archetype of Soul trying to transform form) -- they work at cross purposes so to effect the requirement of transformation usually Pluto has to blow something up that Saturn is attached to. Quadrature aspects of Saturn and Pluto were present at: beginning of WW1, 1929 Crash, beginning of WW2, both WTC attacks, to name a few. The aspect continues across the first half of 2010.

Also starting in early 2010, Uranus (archetype of revolution, overhaul in thinking, emancipation, sudden change) joins the fray and starts aspecting Pluto from Aries for their first big relationship since the the 60s, whose revolutionary counterculture was a reflection of the Pluto/Uranus relationship. Saturn also stays in the act, continuing to try to keep things as they are, yet Uranus and Pluto keep exploding things, one way or the other.

This is all remarkable enough, yet it happens in the degrees of the zodiac which start the seasons -- the so-called "Cardinal Points" -- so there is a real suggestion of change. The warm-up for this could be said to have been in late September, when Saturn (status quo) vs. Uranus (revolution, overhaul) first started dancing, and the market officially fell, just as Pluto (Soul trying to transform form) was entering Capricorn (governments, banks). On Election Day last year, the Saturn (status quo /McCain) vs. Uranus (would-be revolution/Obama) opposition became exact. Uranus always wins these encounters with Saturn absent other factors.

However, the needed transformation in consciousness is far from accomplished and predictably, Saturn lately reflects to us the desire of the collective to more or less do things the same way. As an example, the banking crisis which is really about the need for a transformation (Pluto) in how finance and government operate (Capricorn), receives instead an attempt to keep a broken system running (Saturn in Virgo). Rather than respond to the crisis in a radical way (Uranus), the government responds by trying to make it all better as is and not cause too much upset -- when we are entering a time when out-of-the-box and radical approaches that may be upsetting (Uranus) are going to be required to make it through the needed changes to another level of consciousness (Pluto). In general the failure to respond to a Plutonian crisis in a transformative way generates more crises until one arises which cannot be denied; and the failure to consciously actualize Uranian radicalism when it is warmed up results in sudden and unexpected events designed to shake up calcified thinking and structuring loops (Saturn).

The relationship of the Monday New Moon (1:35 pm Mountain Time) is that when Pluto, Uranus, and Saturn dance the next two years, they essentially form a T with one another around three of the four Cardinal Points (Aries, Libra, Capricorn) in the zodiac. The location of this New Moon at the fourth Cardinal Point (Cancer) is the "evolutionary pointer" implied by the "T"; it is the point that completes the Cardinal Cross and in some sense shows the way to make use of the tensions for growth and development. So whatever is going on Monday and Tuesday -- in the news and in one's personal life -- will inform us of upcoming themes and events of the next two years, and especially will offer clues as to needed direction and focus when the major aspects start to activate especially in early 2010.

This is an excellent New Moon period (Monday pm -Wednesday, but especially Monday afternoon) to begin new endeavors oriented towards spiritual growth and evolution, since anything started at this time will be intimately related to the major shifts starting in November. Endeavours such as a meditation or spiritual practice, or offering growth-oriented services to others. The Sabian symbology for this 2nd degree of Cancer reinforces this: "A Man on a Magic Carpet Hovers Over a Large Area of Land." Dane Rudhyar's development of this symbol states that this refers to "the ability to expand one's consciousness by stabilizing one's point of view at a higher level" -- the keynote being "elevation." New actions launched this week also benefit from the closest point of the ongoing Jupiter/ Neptune/ Chiron conjunction in Aquarius, all about healing for the Aquarian Age. And, the asteroid Vesta, the hearth and inextinguishable flame, conjuncts the New Moon, adding to the healing energy.

Finally, for those who do embark on a new effort with this New Moon, watch your dreams on Thursday night. The Moon will be in septile to the sun early Friday morning, a moment to get more information about the specialness and destiny of the New Moon endeavor, and at the same time the Moon will be opposed to the Jupiter/ Neptune/ Chiron conjunction in Aquarius. This suggests a moment of recognition regarding how what you are doing is related to the world's evolution, the specialness of your project in that way.

The Saturn, Uranus, and Pluto dance of 2008-2011 could be seen as an evolutionary preparation and pruning, radicalization, for the consciousness shift expected by many cultures and cosmologies in 2012. As such, it will receive more attention in this column in the coming weeks.