“….not knowing is some kind of empowerment
for overcoming the unknown….” ~ Malidoma Some

Just as the midyear lunation began Saturn slipped back into Scorpio and we entered a three month period in which the very real undercurrents and consequences of living in transitionary times return. With both Saturn, Pluto and Neptune unaspected and retrograde the needful feeling for real change will increasingly be reflected back now wherever we look. But we need to be sure of what we are witnessing, its true nature. This is an underpinning globalised influence and, consequently, will be difficult to shake off or avoid, even at the individual level. It may be uncomfortable but it is its emotional value that conceals its meaning here.

Saturn was in the last degrees of Scorpio around the last solstice and this period offers a chance to review the experiences of that time ~  what came up and how well have those lessons been learnt? Did a certain Sagittarian idealism, a relief at having finally upped anchor and escaped the undertow, lead you into forgetfulness? If you encountered hard lessons at that time it will be possible now to learn more fully from them, to examine them for what they taught you, what you missed and the emotional mark they left, and it will be worth it!

Scorpio’s dynamics represent the presence of deeper and more resilient truths, as indicated by the fixed nature of this water sign. They endure, but, the deal is that endurance is won at the cost of immersion in Scorpio’s deep waters. There is a certain detachment associated with Scorpio, however, there is also an emotional charge at work behind this ~ the intensity associated with Scorpio indicates as much. This part of the zodiac has the strong air of initiation attached to it.

Initiation in this sense means immersion in the unknown, beyond the certainties of present life. But, Scorpio also connects with ancestry through death and inheritence, a desire to both purify and consolidate the connection. Saturn presides over both these functions and that connection is given body here, renewed.

Scorpio also renews at deep inner levels, through encounters with the shadow. Entering into immersion precludes re-emergence with the chance of an improved relationship to those shunned and rejected aspects of our psyche. The ancient symbol of the Phoenix, which belongs to Scorpio and applies particularly to the late degrees, carries this sense of re-emergence, one in which immersion in the fires of experience is symbolically seen to be the vital path by which the truth ‘may become’ truly embodied within our selves. This is also the necessary precursor to entering and capitalising on Sagittarius gifts.

The paths of initiation belonging to indigenous culture, honed and established through endless generations are symbolised here. The youth who has not had the formalised benefit of this experience risks embodying a Peter Pan relationship with their shadow, as well as with the shadow aspects of their culture. It is a relationship in which the ego remains demonstrably immature. Many a fool who thought themselves wise has set off into the world and been led astray by this petty tyrant and swallowed up by the manifold presence of the unacknowledged shadow through experiences that expose the naivety at work.

Saturns time in Sagittarius may carry this valence, but, there can be great beauty in the creative power belonging to the ninth sign of the zodiac. Beauty in the form of cultural expression, its arts, music and dance is the necessary corrollary to the sheer force of Scorpio’s modern ruler Mars. If the soul is tempered enough to learn to dance with the weapon, rather than simply wielding its power through force, its edge can be used in service to the higher good, in defense of the community, of beauty and the sacred soul of life.

As the Phoenix teaches We return to our essense in order that it may be reborn, reconstituted and revitalised. In this sense, as fundamentally radical as its process and lessons may be, the Phoenix is a powerfully positive symbol. It is no small wonder that Pluto and Mars are Scorpio’s designated rulers, their symbolic values, both positive and negative, are in no short measure united in the Phoenix. For all its mythological nature the Phoenix coincides with a compelling re-establishment of reality through its own fierce and compelling process; with Saturn present this promises a doubly intense dose of experiences that facilitate it.

Traditionally, Saturn presides over the threshold between this life and the next and, as Cronos, Saturn is life’s timekeeper, symbolically holding the scythe that determines the length of life’s mortal coil. However, Saturn’s three month return to the late degrees of Scorpio is also a spiritual matter ~ with re-emergence in mind we might think of the OOB experience gained by those who return from death. The religious nature of that experience is gained first hand and reveals its truths to the individual. As Kabir once said, in a very Saturnian manner, ” if you have not lived through something, it is not true“.

Cultural mores surrounding spirituality are intensified here, their more fundamental disfunctions exposed and the rigidity of their traditions seen through. Spirit and emotion, their relationship and how they feed each other, must be owned and put under the x-ray of our own deeper knowing, in fact Saturn makes these issues so real as to be unavoidable. Fundamentalist zealousness can be blind to its own effects, but, at its most sublime spiritual passion can be a transcendental experience. However, Saturn closes the loop on transcendance as an escape route. This is more about the deconstructive side of a re-constitutional process. Alchemical Saturn is entropic and Pluto is the archetypal alchemist. Their retrograde state internalises this influence and hightens its emotional charge.

In Scorpio emotional connections with subsconscious drives are crystalised and constellated through Saturn’s presence. The ‘control’ and ‘limitation’ Saturn is traditionally associated with may not be as mundane and objective as we are given to understand here. The water signs all have a spiritual core and, beyond any polarised evaluation of Saturn as a malefic, in the realms of human experience Saturn’s unconditional dynamic is to manifest opportunity in concrete terms; as the radical gift giver it is our own controls and limitations that are brought into question in the process of accepting these gifts. And this applies both spiritually and ethically.

At a personal level we might have to overcome our fears, dissolve emotional blocks or disregard the inner programming of cultural and social mores in order to receive those gifts. To do so is to become more fully our ‘true’ selves, to more fully ground our spirit. Saturn is disciplinarian in this, both as enforcer and as empowerer of a more developed sense of self and self-discipline. We gain perspective.

Emotional intelligence is fostered through this experience, but, this is distinct from a mental, brain centered form of intelligence ~ it belongs to the lower energy centres, those below the heart. Although the balance that the heart brings to the brain is thought of as intrinsic to healing and becoming whole, the heart is also the threshold over which, or rather through which, the mental faculties must cross in order to access the full import and gain the benefit of the body’s intelligence. This the ‘body mind’, where emotional intelligence is most deeply rooted. There is a certain converse relationship between emotional intelligence and ego drives and the heart, in this sense, regulates and empowers their integration. Wholeness and inner balance is its gift. Regular grounding, feet on the earth, can help clear the heart’s EM field and the subtle body to facilitate this.

Ego drives belong to the mental faculties which would otherwise rule the roost and, until subjugated, the ego acts as a dictatorial ‘little self’. Scorpio says we have to descend in order to rise up, again. The ego has received a lot of bad press through this, which may well be an indicator of cultural maturity as much as individual, or lack of it. Culture that lacks the thread of knowledge and practice provided by formalised initiation tend to ignore the consequences, collapsing the experience in upon the individual within a non-supportive environment. Communities lose a great deal of their co-herence as a result. Most parents are afforded the opportunity to witness the emergence of this inner power within the child and know full well what kind of struggles come with it. But, as suggested above, that ‘rulership’ must be transformed, the effect of being initiated into the deeper truths. This is the stuff of rights of passage, transitions through puberty, and becoming a person of ‘value’ to the community.

A youthful culture that has not learned this lesson will also manifest this as a disconnect from its own primary parent, the Earth. ‘We’ are at that point of initiation where the connection is critical, the voice of Nature needing to be heard over and above that of the petty tyrant. The gut feelings and powerful intuitions we experience around the multivalent global issues enroaching upon our well-being reflect this back to us and need to be listened to, are one of its voices within us. Learning how to follow them means that the attitude of ‘thinking it knows better’ belonging to this ‘little self’ must encounter death, in the shape not only of the unknown but of the ‘unknowable’ ~ the price paid for not doing so is a compensatory externalisation of death. Psychopathy amongst leaders is a real issue here but it is a matured, empowered and realistic People that will overcome these petty tyrants. We have the enhanced opportunity to work on that empowerment during this time.

For each of us this experience is different and one thing that the Saturn archetype can supply us with is the encounter with what it really means to be ourselves, incarnate. This planet and its own archetype are considered the ‘hard task master’, the manifester of truthful realities through the crystalisation of the conditions necessary to their existance, so that they may be encountered. How we meet them reveals our own truth. It is a point that cannot be overtaxed.

The overall tone of this shift in planetary influence is an intensification of experience itself, so that it becomes unavoidable, and the dynamics of the ‘solstice’ lunation bring this home.

Between this solstice and equinox this globalised quality is going to be ever present as an underlying feeling tone. There are no hard aspects present in the mid-year new Moon chart so the foregoing may understandably read as hyberbolic. At the outset of the initial lunation within this period, which began with Sun and Moon meeting in the 26th degree of tropical Gemini on June 16th, this aspect of our times may appear subtle yet increasingly present; there is a lot of noise being made and yet the world keeps spinning. However, the image of the boiling frog points up the dangers.

The otherwise undisclosed workings of those involved in globalised power games are manifestly present now and that subtlety will almost certainly fall away towards the end of this lunation. The heat will be turned up. The acceleration of this energy will become increasingly palpable so that by the midpoint of the lunation its signature has emerged fully enough for it to be tangible, and by the end of the lunation it is visible in the outer worlds, concretised.

As we approach the July new Moon Venus will be squaring Saturn while both Mars and Mercury will synchronously oppose Pluto. The pressure effect this produces will pop at some point and most likely  it will be loud, vociferous and demonstrative, and focused on forces that undermine our personal freedoms directly.

The lunation also opened with Mars within one degree of the Sun and Moon, and given the strong and willfull nature of this energy pulsing through the people the desire to make ourselves heard will be a strong signature throughout. It may be unfocused and disorganised to begin with, but, its focus will sharpen.

Full Moon raises the stakes. Whether you find your creative voice and want to broadcast it worldwide, aided and abetted through Venus meeting with Jupiter in Leo at full Moon, or feel the pressure cooker of global politics forcing the issues across the airwaves, the challenge will be to sort out the signal from the noise. Remember to also listen, find your still point, a place of calmness, check in with your gut feelings and engage both your brain and your heart before opening your mouth!

Jupiter’s fire trine with Uranus is also embedded within this lunation, becoming exact around full Moon. This can feed a fiery maverick sense of all or nothing into the mix. At worst there is a certain disjointed sense of reality at work behind this, a cognitive dissonance in which the world we most desire in our hearts to see become reality increasingly jars against our experience of the world we live in. We may well find insights arriving unexpectedly through this that fuel our optimism, but, the real and present danger is that we are caught dreaming, following blind faith into our future.

Everything has its day, but, as far as surfing the blisswaves is concerned, while any respite is a welcome breather at the beginning, these days ain’t amongst them. The new age funk out, believing in divine providence rather than sustained hands-on creative effort to reconfigure the human world and our global footprint, is sure to be present when the Moon Jupiter and Venus join hands in Leo around solstice – but, it will be short lived and surfing the blisswaves won’t save the day. That Jupiter Uranus trine, for all its potential revelations, is a part and parcel of the growing and unpredictable undercurrent through this lunation.

As far as unpredictability goes, it is not only a feeling as there are very real and potentially challenging events on the near horizon which this Moon is preparing us for. No-one should be under any illusion about this, as the genocide of the Pacific testifies, the problem being that even if we can see them coming how these challenges will unfold won’t be revealed until we get there. In the case of Fukushima and the nuclear threat they don’t even get that far, but, this too will change. Necessarily, we might feel that we face forces that appear to leave us little choice. It will pay however to keep an open mind, alert for new solutions to old problems.

Another of those events, which Saturn and Pluto’s emphasis on mastery and control lends an ominous edge to, is of course Jade Helm. I’ll be posting a special reading on this and its related global rollouts after full Moon.

The Sun, Mars and Mercury also square the lunar nodes in that order within the mid-year lunation. So, what we will and intend, the energy we bring to it and the awareness we bring to the feedback it produces matter greatly beyond this present time. The ancestral connection is needed to bring this focus to mistakes of the past that continue to shape our collective future. Have we got what it takes to change our collective human ways? No-one knows, except that the lessons and memories bequeathed to us from those who have been here before must be reconciled with the message we are leaving for future generations in our attempt to find out. There is big healing involved in cleaning up the past as it lives through the present.

Shortly after solstice Chiron stations retrograde further internalising the healing available to us through this time. Only the Moon forms hard aspects with Chiron now, an opposition from Virgo and square from Sagittarius, so this is a signal to attend to our personal healing through trusting the higher wisdom of the body and soul. Collectively this indicates a shared feeling of having reached the point where the world’s wounds and our own are intrinsically bound up in each other. Perhaps this is what it will take for us to say ‘enough is enough’ and collectively act upon it. Signs are we will meet that point anyway, if we have’nt already.

The Sun opposes Pluto and the Moon squares Mars, Pluto and the Sun through 6th to 8th July and, one day later, the Moon meets Uranus and Mars trines retrograde Neptune. These are strong aspects when seen together, a sign that the turbulence at large in the world will be surfacing through an array of offensives and tactical maneuvers. This is false flag territory. As precursor to the opening of the next lunation this sets the scene ~ Saturns influence will show its most challenging side as Venus approaches the cusp of Virgo, squaring Saturn at that time. Venus will conjunct the fixed star Regulus. On the cusp of Virgo, Regulus itself is associated with both military leadership and healing, and winning the hearts of the military may be the key element in turning the tide on those who would control us through fear and force.

It also signals the importance of installing our own heart in the command centre. When Moon, Mercury and Mars oppose Pluto from tropical Cancer on the 15th July the game will be up. It promises to be a very unpredictable time ~ Sun square Uranus two days before may provide the pre-emptive strike that makes all the difference, but, who cares to predict what that may mean…..

….we may be at the brink, but, there is only one way to go ~ the right way. Utilising the energies and experiences of this time to decide what that truly means to you is the name of the game.