activism, astrology, Earth healing, Goddess, Moons, Venus retrograde

Venus and the New Moon

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What if I were to tell you that things were never going to get back to ‘normal’. You’d probably say “damn right”, and “we don’t mean them to either”, no?

Or this. That the lockdown was going to have lasting effect, will change our lives for ever, and that we may never return to the same degree of freedoms we had before 2020 began. Less appealing, that one?

How about if I said that your liberty is no longer your choice? I imagine you’d either call BS, say something to the effect of “over my dead body” or at the least feel a sharp pang of the discomfort that being in enforced ‘lockdown’ has made familiar over the last two months or more, no? No fear of, or dread at the prospect?



I mean, how many would simply go along with the third of these scenarios, willingly, even though we know that they are all on the collective radar right now.

Well, here’s the deal….in one part of the zodiac we have a triad of planets that are busy holding us hostage to making all three of the above a reality, one way or another, while another group of heavenly bodies half way across the heavens are saying “nope’, ‘ain’t going to be like that”, and between them is a third group who are setting both groups to either “put up or shut up”, and will use both force and coercion, agitation and deception, to that end, and are playing both devil’s advocate and divine provocateurs in the process.

This new Moon in Gemini has spawned all kinds of bright and shiny forecasts for the next month and the encouragement that they bring is going to help a great many people cope with the current prospects, at least for a moment.

But, tomorrow is another day, and unless you want it to be just like the one that has gone before, which is almost the normative experience now and possibly the best ‘option’ for far too many, the real and most urgent answer to all those planetary inputs is this :

“Get on your feet and stand up for your rights. Period. ‘Cos that is what is at stake here, friends and folks.”

We are not talking human rights here either – they can be changed, any time, by those who hold the power of State, legislation and economic control.

No, these are what in common law are called “God given rights” – inviolable, indigenous to you as a natural born human and the stronger of the two, by far, if you are ready and able to stand up for them and exercise them.

Thing is, not pushing those who have suffered horribly at ‘the hands of the virus’ aside, the people who have probably been least affected by the conditions surrounding the Covid19 pandemic are those for whom solitude and the opportunity and space this gives to explore that fertile inner space is in fact ‘the norm’, and a desirable norm at that; the artists, the creative and curious, the meditative, thinkers, imaginers and the lovers of nature – they at least are going to have a good chance at making something useful out of this situation, in spite of it all, no?

You’ve seen the memes…..artist before, artist during, artist after….showing the same image.

Yes, even the meme is a pastiche on reality, which should be obvious but tickles the mind curiously with an undisclosed truth, which can also be felt and sensed.

Those endowed with the mindset and approach to our current circumstances that will benefit the most are fortunate, if this is indeed the case, but the Gemini lunation pulls focus on this, brings it under the spotlight of our personal lives, and in so doing draws attention to the wider issues at stake and asks the question – beyond all that, WHAT IS BEING BIRTHED in this moment, in this time?

How well prepared are you to answer this question, what are your inner resources, can you turn a dream into reality, the dream you have always known was living inside you, waiting to be given its chance.

Well, this is it. In spite of everything.

Venus retrograde, with Mercury enspiriting her step, say this is where to pay attention, and what to tap into, that birthing energy of something more desirable than anything that has led to this ridiculous impasse, and any passivity with which its oppressive restrictions are being met.

Sure. But this is way deeper than is obvious from simply getting heart centred and kushti with the vision of “a more beautiful world you know is possible”.

This is not the time for romantic idealism, but for radical, anomalous, and lastingly conceived birthing, and ‘action’.

Venus in these circumstances is, actually, fucking kick-ass!

Venus is inconjunct the heavy triad of Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto centred around Cardinal earth, an aspect that makes Her energies and values, and influence on our actions, dissociated from but indirectly connected with this authoritarian trio and their orthodoxies of control and magnanimous disruption.

Its not that she ignores, doesn’t see or hear their shenanigans, how can She not? No.

Regardless, She goes deep into her own inner world and pulls up a new resource, taps into a deep vein and retrogrades through her own inner transformation and as She does so indicates the process that this new energised creative focus must take for us too.

To be focused on being unconditioned in our expression, is an essential, but, to move from the mysterious and profoundly dreaming night time universality of the Evening Star, her more romantic guise you might say, into the dream grounding sensual beauty making guardian of reality that the Morning Star brings into our skies and world over the next 10 months – that is the key to unlocking these times She offers.

That is where She’s at.

She is the undaunted amazonian warrior spirited self leader we all need to embody.

She is the fearless protector of the planet Earth.

She exists in us all, the indigenous memory and realisation of which has, in all reality, been burned, dogmatised, programmed from the core of our knowing and being by a murderous intent whose time is now up.

Except, that memory cannot be extinguished. it lives on.

It is up to each of us how we respond, but, make no mistake – there is not a person alive who can’t, who does not have the necessary spark.

Unusual times require unusual responses, and, as some wise fool once said, the world does not suffer from too much imagination, but, too little.

These are gritty times, make no mistake – this is not an illusion, and you know it. It is a challenge, The Challenge.

Mars and Neptune are converging in Pisces, squaring the Geminian resurgence.

Use the energy of Mars to roll that grit, thats stuck in the craw of your deepest knowing, into a pearl of exquisite and shimmering beauty and untold value, that illuminates the spiritual realm within the zodiac that Jupiter and Neptune preside over with the inextinguishable phosphorescence of your imagination come alive.

There is a dream waiting to be acknowledged in there, in your heart, and you know it full well.

Take this opportunity, while the planets support us, to give it the chance at reality it deserves.

There is a world crowning into existence at this moment.

Get with this beat, pick up this pulse and RAISE A COUNTER CULTURE that will eclipse the ‘paradigm of control’ that the triad of heavy hitters in Capricorn/Aquarius would see prevail.

‘They’ have their part to play in all this, for sure, grist to the mill of millennia, and shapers of the future that has now become our pressing present reality for too long, without a doubt, but the question here is, whose future and who decides?

The answer is in your hands and mine.

Blessed be!

………………………

April 10th Venus enters shadow zone at 5°21’ Gemini
May 13th 17.45 UTC Venus stations rx at 21°50’
May 22nd – 8.42 UTC Mercury Venus cj 20°12’ square Neptune
May 22nd – 17.37 UTC Sun Moon cj at 2°05’
June 3rd 17.45 UTC Venus transit Sun at 13°36’
June 5th Penumbral lunar eclipse at 15°34’ Sagittarius
June 21st Total solar eclipse at 0°21’ Cancer
June 25th Venus stations direct at 5°21’ Gemini
July 28th Venus leaves shadow zone at 21°50’ Gemini

Ancestral Medicine, astrology, Earth healing, fixed stars, Root Medicine of the Stars, Venus

A Message from the Stars

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Goddesses of the sky (1)

I want to tell you a story thats happening now. It is unfolding in the sky and under the Earth. Its sheroes are the Goddesses of deep earth wisdom.

Our story begins on the eve of Orion’s advent. Since ancient times this day, which now coincides with May 11th in our modern calendar, was used by the ancients and ancestral star seers to mark time and terrestrial events, through significant risings such as that of Orion’s constellation and of Orion’s Dog Star Sirius.

But Orion is not alone here. The great hunter is looking directly towards the head of the Bull belonging to the constellation of Taurus, and beyond that, above the Bull’s horns, lies the constellation of Persius, slayer of Medussa, as the myth would have it.

As Orion sets at dusk on this day, Venus, poised to turn retrograde on the 13th, is now visible in the falling night sky shining from the very tip of the northern most horn of the Bull.

Venus, who currently travels in the guise of Aphrodite Urania, the Evening Star, daughter of Gaia, is still very bright in the evening sky, but as she turns and begins travelling back to meet the Sun, her face will darken and very quickly become a bright crescent before being swallowed up in the Sun’s rays.

In transiting between Earth and Sun she arrives at her closest point to our planet and  from here enters the underworld on the way to being reborn as the Morning Star, Aphrodite Pandemos. In this guise she will journey as daughter of Dione, another name of the great Earth Goddess. Her journey through this solar gateway into the chthonic realm begins exactly on the Bull’s forehead – but, there is more still.

While all this is happening Mercury, the planet of messages and transactions between the worlds, is passing through the constellation of Taurus, running close by the Pleiades star cluster at the heart of the Bull, to emerge from between the horns of Taurus before his ingress to one of his home signs, Gemini. As he does so he meets with asteroid Eurydike and SDO Sedna, and together they will fall into alignment with Algol the brightest star in the Persius constellation.

Mercury will move on but Euridike and Sedna will remain in exact alignment with Algol on the day of Venus transit of the Sun and entry into the underworld. Algol is the star of Medussa. The goddesses are joining forces.

Mercury is alerting us to the common ground shared by these powerful women, and a deeply significant message that the Goddess is bringing in Her return journey. First let’s revisit Medussa because her story is of the greatest significance here.

Medussa, is a great seer who has become totally distorted into a terrifying gorgon. The very myth of Persius is an explicit portrayal of the appropriation of ancient feminine wisdom, of the Earth goddess and her sisters. It clearly portrays the violent methodology which the new masculine sky gods wielded, that was responsible for suppressing and destroying so much of the ancient legacy that, in truth, belongs to us all.

Such was the indigenous legacy of the great living lineages of priestesses and initiatrix, carrying and protecting chthonic wisdom. As is so often the case, the symbology has not only suffered at the hands of the masculine gods, it has been used to violate the Goddess.

But, Medussa was a seer in this tradition.

Many traditions of seership emphasise the importance of being able to hold a high degree of clarity and focus in the midst of distraction, and extreme conditions, not unlike our own, and have built excercises into the training that follows initiation that help develop this faculty. It is almost as if we are now entering the heart of that training. To do so willingly is the invitation.

Algol is associated with Medussa and placed in the hands of Persius in his constellation. But, we have been given the end result of a story that makes Persius look the hero, and it is the vilification of Medussa that enabled him to rise to this false status.

Medussa was the priestess raped by Poseidon/Neptune in Minerva/Athena’s temple. And yet it was She and not the gods who was held responsible for this violation by Athena – Athena, the motherless child of Zeus. For her ‘crime’ Medussa was given her serpent hair and deadly reputation, all in return for a violation of the sacred precincts, in which she was not the perpetrator, but, its victim. But, this too is the propagandised version, designed to justify the misogynist agenda.

In fact Medussa was an initiatrix in the spiritual path of the cthonic earth Goddess, a divine mortal possessed of extreme Beauty, Power and Grace. 

The snake maned priestess decapitated by Perseus has little resemblance to this vision of the fully empowered divinity in woman; her symbols turned against her, she has been demonised to the point of dissociation from her roots.

Until our time this has been the political purpose served by the myth, a suitable repository for the ‘unacceptable’ face of initiated and empowered woman; a mirror of that which men have been conditioned to demote and despise, She is also the image of the defiled yet all powerful Earth feared of men in their separatist madness.

The curse of petrification she carries is rather a testament to the immense power her eyes radiate. It is the symbol of initiation into the very Earth herself, overturned.

She has incredibly potent vision, yes, but, it is the snakes that signify her source of power. It is the power of creation that flows within the earth realms, the lightingbolt that condenses light into plasma, that illuminates the neural pathways of the unconditioned pleroma.

Snakes are its living symbol and medicine animal. Petrification is the opposite of its effect rather than its corrollary, but it turns the symbol of initiation into the Earth mysteries into an instrument of fear, rather than empowerment of the soul.

The truth is far from that which we have been indoctrinated into believing by the myth. In the light of this knowledge, Persius looks more of a coward and fool than a hero. His name comes from the Greek pérthein, “to waste, ravage, sack, destroy”, and literally means ‘sacker of cities’. He is venerated as a hero for slaying monsters, but had been blinded, programmed by his own thirsts and needs, to the very nature of the encounter he was offered through Medussa and the opportunity it gifted to him.

The gift of Medussa is seership, of connection with the creative power of Earth herself,  of her inner cycles and the endless spiral of life, the very powers that keep us vitally connected with and embedded within the cosmos beyond this world.

In the human frame this power can be sourced at the deeper centres, but, its voice is most clearly heard through our subtler senses, through our intuitive insight, and its wisdom equally accessed through gut feeling as the higher vibrational layers of our energy body.

Some call this primal, but, while it is certainly intense, it could just as easily be called sublime, trancendant even. It lives in ancient sites, waiting to be connected with. It runs throughout the Earth, a living river of many streams beneath our feet. It connects us with the stars, a truth known to many of the seeing traditions.

In slaying the Medussa Perseus was obeying the rational dictates of his goddess Athena, the myth overlaying symbolism onto the historical transference of primary feminine power and wisdom to the more secular and masculinised figure of the goddess born fully armed from Zeus forehead.

Athena kept Medussa’s head as the protective boss of her shield, ironically signifying that her sacred law was to be regarded as beyond question; she brought martial means to maintaining law. She was wise, still, but her gaze was very much on the world of men.

However, the antidote to this weapon of fear which Medussa’s gaze had become, can be found exactly facing the constellation of Perseus in the constellation of Ophiuchus, rising in the eastern night sky as Venus sets in the west in this time.

Ophiuchus the serpent bearer holds the snake in both hands and applies its primary healing powers to the mortal world. Indeed, it is said Ophiuchus, or Asclepius as he is also identified, was the greatest of healers, so much so that he angered the gods with his ability to restore life to the dead and, ultimately, paid for his abilities with exile to the star realms.

Ironically, in the end it was Athena who made the crucial difference here as she bestowed two phials of the Medussa’s blood into Asclepius possession, one from Medussa’s left side which gave the power to mete out death, the other from her right side which gave the power of to overcome death. The healer chose to use the latter and in so doing tipped the balance.

But, it is in this balance across the opposing sides of the ecliptic that we find the goddess and the primal creative wisdom represented in our times. Indicative of healing the Geminian division between the right and left brain it is Venus message to us that our encounter with the Medussa can allow this balance to be restored. Medussa’s head is the embodied consiousness of that primal wisdom which has been initiated into a deep understanding of all that creates, heals and destroys within the natural flow of life, the Earth Goddess wisdom – we must restore it to the body of our world and, trusting her guidance, follow the pathways it opens to us. 

Both these constellations point to the balance of extremes, not in duality, but as a living power to be grasped in both hands.

There is a trace of this in our dowsing of the earth powers and subterranean water courses. We have the power to connect with these powers built into our human frame, the senses we need to do so are indigenous to us. But, this is a special time, in which the powers of the Earth mother, her wisdom and its message for us offer a corrective and healing for the world, and for us, Her children. 

With  care and practice, prayer and veneration where it is due, we can restore these powers to our lineage and our connection with the Earth, her soul and spirit.

The Medussa’s head and its primary state of fully awakened unconditioned consciousness is not to be feared, but, re-united with our own creative energy – in doing so the restorative healing it can unleash in our world is unlimited.

Sedna’s own story, a reflection of Medussa’s in many ways, joins forces with Medussa and with Eurydice, who was ‘bitten’ by the snake and, as the myth would have it, consigned to the underworld. We can now see that this too is an appropriated story, hidden in its core the very image of the initiates journey. This will pass on to Mercury, a message for us now. Venus will bring that message home at this turning of the tides.

Mercury will meet with Venus on the 21st May on the horn of the Bull, just as the Sun passes by the Pleiades. One day later the Moon joins the Sun in the heart of the Bull. On 4th June Venus transits the Sun between the Bull’s horns. One day later a penumbral eclipse of the Moon ushers in a new relationship to the Goddess from the constellation of Ophiucus and the sign of Sagittarius. It is time for our lives to embody a new and ancient story.

Undoubtedly, Medussa, Venus and all the representatives of the divine Earth now challenge Us to respond. Only fear and conditioning stand in the way of doing so. But, we know what is asked of us to overcome these obstacles. And the gifts we stand to gain are our own, once stolen, now ready to be restored.

Blessed Be!

the Chauvet goddess and bulls head

activism, Ancestral Medicine, culture, Politics, retrograde planets, Root Medicine of the Stars

20-20 part 3

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53067843_2290267451024197_5855279836045508608_o

The highest need of re-emergence, when it is time, is to do so within a landscape of realisations which by virtue of their own true nature demand to be grounded in life. This is not a landscape that is pre-packaged and predetermined for us to be accepted without question, or which bears no respect for life. This can no longer happen – that particular genie is well and truly out of the bottle. These are realisations born of our own inner experiences, the ability we have to be self reflective and aware of our own innate conscious reality. They confirm and are confirmed by the world.

It is possible to become enamoured of that inner world, to fall under its glamour too. The way in which our own truths are accepted within the world, the degree of respect they generate, and the degree to which they appear anomalous in the world but are able to find an integral place within it are all part of the intrinsic composting process which gives rise to healthy cultures and societies. We all participate in this.

Some, however will resist, buck against the process, against some of its products and creations, and get well and truly locked into their prevailing mind-set, becoming deeply entrenched in beliefs that they subsequently become convinced they can’t live without. These may well be the foot-soldiers of any NWO that might attempt to establish itself. All the options which they might consider their sacred cows have already been patented.

This is the root of a pernicious bifurcation, is very real, and very tangible. It is also a recipe not only for cognitive dissonance but for chronic polarisation, which is a dis-ease itself and, the degree to which such polarity is allowed to manifest outwardly is very much a part of the current battle. Our own inner explorations are an essential part of maintaining immunity to this disease.

It is an ongoing battle in these times.

You can see it in the most mundane sense in the war thats been raging on political fronts, in conflicts between PC police, censorship and freedom of speech, for example. Social media is one of its major battle fronts, but, at a much more sinister level, it is our minds and bodies which are really on the front line. Being sucked into the virtual vortex is a real danger.

There is undoubtedly a spiritual as well as a mental war going on here and eclipses on the new Gemini Sagittarius nodal axis will bring its tensions, points of conflict and disparity to the fore as we try to extricate ourselves from the worst aspects of the past and navigate towards the future. This too is a part of the clarification process that is underway, and even though it appears to be anathema to a raising of consciousness or inner upgrading, it is a necessarily truthful part of the process.

 

Many people are aware of the need to change the narrative, to find a new story so to speak. It is an impulse that been with us a long time.

The first wave of this phenomenon in the current era has been building quietly now for more than half a century, ever since the Uranus Pluto conjunction in Virgo its underlying effect has been undeniably present.

The second wave began to come in during the eighties, notably through Neptunian and Uranian influences and technologies activating Sagittarius and Capricorn, essentially grounding non-physical realities within our midst.

The third wave is now coming in to land, fuelled by the entire planetary matrix. We are on the cusp of something both anomalous to the present paradigm and deeply relevant to us as humans, and in the process are activating our electrical nature and energy bodies.

This is a part of the vision, the strange attractor pulling us forwards. It is a far cry from fear of a pandemic, which is being used to do little more than suppress and dumb us down, and attempts to blind us to our own greatness. We should pay heed. The north node’s new emphasis on intelligent perception, meaningful cohesion, connection and communication is where this must first be translated into ‘a story that has legs’.

In opening up the imagistic inner realms, the nodal axis emphasises the undervalued immaterial aspects of ourselves which themselves carry a high degree of immunity to the various forms of pandemic infection that afflict contemporary life. The artistic spirit knows this, and we are all imbued with imagination – just as the ancestors who inspired Jean-Michel Geneste’s words in Chauvet cave were. We are them, and they us.

The dreamers and those who are able to truly ground their connection with the ‘dreamtime’ will be seen to be a new and vital source of power, and empowerment. This is the power that holds the line with all who have come before and will come after us. Our creativity is the sap that flows through this lineage, these roots and feeds the branches through to their tips and the fruit that grows from them. Its a vision that knows its own freedom, carries its own seeds – its time is with us, and we can sense it growing in strength.

The inner qualities highlighted here are a reflection of our personal ability to direct our own energy through consciousness.

It is certain that we will emerge from these times different as a people. They present us with is a golden opportunity, to change our relationship with the past, and to reorient ourselves towards the future. Both past and future change when we do so, and this is the gift of working with the nodal axis.

In Gemini and Sagittarius consciousness and awareness become truly creative powers. They are ours to use in restoring good relations with life and, more importantly, in finally letting the voice of our souls sing. We are gifted with the most remarkable place in which to do so.

Be of good heart, and keep your eyes on the goal.

Blessed Be!

Link to part 1

Link to part 2

Saturn stations retrograde 11th May, 1°57′ Aquarius
Mercury enters Gemini 12th May
Mars enters Pisces May 13th
Venus stations retrograde 13th May, 21°50′ Gemini
Jupiter stations retrograde 15th May,  27°14′ Capricorn

Penumbral lunar eclipse June 5th, 15°34′ Sagittarius
Total solar eclipse June 21st, 0°21′ Cancer
Penumbral lunar eclipse July 5th, 13°38′ Capricorn
Penumbral lunar eclipse November 30th, 8°38′ Gemini
Total solar eclipse December, 23°08′ Sagittarius

Ancestral Medicine, astrology, Gemini Sagittarius Axis, Politics, retrograde planets, Root Medicine of the Stars

20-20 part 2

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Leopard woman's cave

The new nodal phase, through Gemini/Sagittarius, will last until the end of 2021, by which time Jupiter will have become domiciled in Pisces, and Mars will have travelled through 80% of the zodiac, all the way round to Sagittarius.

But then there’s Saturn again, the double domicile planet through these times, which means Saturnian qualities are informing the process of change to a very high degree,  and don’t we know it.

By mid 2021 Saturn will have become embedded in the radical if not dangerous looking square with Uranus, between fixed Air and fixed Earth, that is also bubbling up now.

This is a zeitgeist affair, another battle of wills, but fought at a collective level, and it tends to rest more on how technology and material resources are controlled and used, as well as their relationship to each other, which can be both aggressively conditioning and progressive, liberating. This could be a time for advanced technology to emerge from the wings – to what end, we might ask. What damage will have been amassed, during Venus retrograde in particular, that is beyond repair and how will this justify radical action, especially economic action?

However this plays out, it should be obvious in the here and now, Saturn is key in all this.

Saturn is strong having been domicile for the last two and a half years in Capricorn and continuing domicile in Aquarius until 2023. We are all required to work with the Saturn effect, to learn from it and develop our selves in the process, and that begins with its retrograde on May 11th 2020.

While for the remainder of the year Saturn covers old ground, backtracking into Capricorn, it is obvious that we are not out of the woods yet, by any means.

In terms of our current situation, if Saturn in Aquarius has been synonymous with ‘social distancing’ and ‘lockdown’, a change in the quality and focus being brought to those conditions is yet available and is in fact much more ‘in our own hands’ than we might believe.

When Saturn stations retrograde it intensifies, like all the planets, but Saturn is already pretty intense and that can turn situations – whether ‘for the better or not’ is exactly what Saturn challenges us to decide.

Things are seeking to get ‘real’ here, very real, to be more fully ‘in their own truth’, so to speak, and this applies especially to how and what we perceive. The constrictive conditions we have been experiencing and the apparent necessity they arise from all now come under much harder scrutiny. But, it is in our compass to find meaning in our own liberation under these restrictions.

Many have turned to the virtual world to increase the dialogue around these issues – now we are encouraged to bring the inner dialogue to the fore as a part of this external networking. This is visible but the nodal emphasis asks for a diagnostic assessment of the health of this dialogue – does it rest on lived experience, and what hinders it? It is certainly being challenged, directed, censored and manipulated. The awareness we bring to this is crucial.

The prevalent war on information and communication, its online battle ground, especially in terms of social media, weapons of censorship and manipulation of intel, will see intensification and, potentially, will manifest through harder restrictions being imposed on the one hand and transformative development simultaneously taking place within its wider domains on the other.

In a way, “lockdown” has yet to deliver its full ‘potential’.

Breakaway platforms are developing for information sharing, insights into the technology of censorship, its controlling bodies and entities, and how to circumvent them are increasing rapidly. A consequence of this, which is absolutely key, is a tangible elevation of awareness and conscious participation in sharing what this awareness reveals.

This may be the unsung tech revolution we had not fully anticipated. Not so much an evolution of the hardware, but of the users mentality and consciousness as an inventive resource in its own right, and as an instrument of cohesion.

It also enables deeper understanding to be developed collectively and collaboratively. And even though there is resistance to this evolutionary impulse, through censorship and propagandisation, through falsification and manipulation of data, the momentum of this impulse is gathering.

Superfluities fall away, illusions begin to either congeal and dry up or evaporate under such scrutiny and our task in the immediate future, for Saturn is ever the task master, is to apply ourselves to this role, to apply it to our selves, to our own lives, as well as the world and events in which we find ourselves.

While it is a process available to all, not all will treat of it in the same way.

Even when we are truly willing to engage with the zeitgeist, many are still pulled into partiality and a need to ‘identify’ in the process. If we can resist partiality however, our inner faculties undergo a purification which, if taken to the higher level, increases the range of perception we are capable of. This is not simply objective thinking and perception, if such is truly possible, it is grounded observation. Grounding into reality in this way can be powerful.

But, we are still playing with fire. This too is a preamble on the themes belonging to the new nodal axis and the celestial matrix through this year. The technologies of the power base have been shifting the front line quite deliberately into the mental and spiritual realms for some time.

 

We should be mindful now of the time frame here; in truth, even if we do not see a radical shift out of the current circumstances before year’s end, the work we do in the meantime will be of the highest value and meaning when we come to cross the threshold of solstice and enter 2021.

Essentially, we have seven months to ensure that we are not going to back peddle ourselves into a culdesac and subsequently start building a future that no-one wants, no one with a natural born soul that is.

Neither is this going to involve a return, of any kind, to the ‘norm’. It can’t be.

2020 is a truly threshold year. It involves exposure of dysfunctional elements in our current paradigm and offers the opportunity to not only set about correcting them, but to transcend the limitations that stopped us from doing so, limitations that have attempted to cripple our innate and true human genius for so long. In a very real sense I think this is also what Jean-Michel Geneste is speaking to.

Thats a huge prospect, but a very real one, and I think we all sense it. It also has very real consequences ‘on the ground’.

The south node in Sagittarius speaks to this as well.

Even if the old structures that hold the dominant paradigm together are recommissioned, major flaws inherent to the old paradigm have already been irrevocably exposed and it will take an unusual degree of force to retain the old paradigmatic narrative beyond this time.

We can clearly see some of the elements that would apply that force now being manoeuvred into place. Even if many of them are using Covid19 as a Trojan Horse, which, despite all other truths pertaining to it, it undoubtedly is, it is far from inevitable that those elements and forces will prevail, and that is really what this shift is all about.

We should also watch out for Mars retrograde in Aries through the last four months of the year and how this dynamic plays into and feeds this transition – there could be tremendous build up of energy through this time and its release will need clear heads to make sure it is used wisely when it comes.

This will also bring this paradigmatic tussle to a boil as Mars squares Saturn throughout its own retrograde period, domicile in Aries.

Jupiter’s retrograde will also feed the fire, bringing the focus back into power base Capricorn. When Saturn retrogrades back into Capricorn and rejoins with Pluto and Jupiter, the unfinished business of the first half of this year is going to boil up and present itself for deeper analysis. It will almost certainly try to reassert itself materially as well. The rhetoric could get very hot, and the restrictions with it.

I would expect a second wave of the virus, in some form or another, at this time. We should be mindful of the correlates surrounding the viral outbreak, the secondary issues and opportunistic interventions which unfold under its umbrella of justification. October through November looks to be the most intense period in this respect with retrograde Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto, once more in close conjunction, all turning direct again.

To give it a time stamp, the Mars Saturn square will be kicking in from the end of July  2020 and sustains, by sign, through until spring 2012. This is useful to know, but, the square will ultimately play out through the fixed signs of Taurus (Mars) and Aquarius (Saturn) and with Uranus in the mix in Taurus it is difficult to predict what outcomes it may represent at that time.

It does represent a battle of wills, between the individual and the State, between individualism and societal control, the ‘small person’ with fire in their belly and the institutionalised forces of containment. But we’ll return to that aspect in more detail as it grows in strength and review developments in the process. At this stage we can only speculate; the landscape is shifting and nothing is truly clear cut.

While coming out of what is effectively the semi-coma of ‘lockdown’ is inevitable and happening, in some shape or form, there in fact is ‘the rub’.

It is a question of who determines the shape and form that re-emergence takes. The coming months are very focused in this respect and the Mars Saturn square is a battle of wills which suggest that as year end approaches it is not only elections and ‘political’ power that will inform what comes after.

Link to part 3

Link to part 1

Saturn stations retrograde 11th May, 1°57′ Aquarius
Mercury enters Gemini 12th May
Mars enters Pisces May 13th
Venus stations retrograde 13th May, 21°50′ Gemini
Jupiter stations retrograde 15th May,  27°14′ Capricorn

Penumbral lunar eclipse June 5th, 15°34′ Sagittarius
Total solar eclipse June 21st, 0°21′ Cancer
Penumbral lunar eclipse July 5th, 13°38′ Capricorn
Penumbral lunar eclipse November 30th, 8°38′ Gemini
Total solar eclipse December, 23°08′ Sagittarius

Ancestral Medicine, astrology, Planetary Mind, retrograde planets, Root Medicine of the Stars, The Lunar Nodes

20-20

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monrise

“…..we have been blessed with an unexpected gift as a result of our constrained confinement. 

It is a time for the emergence of a new spiritual quality, which is a more interior time. This inner time, which is specific to our species, invites sharing and otherness among all. Imagination and poetry find their place in the luxury of this “regained time.”

“The seat of the soul is where the inner world and the outer world meet,” writes Novalis. In this crisis of the outer world questioning so many parameters, including some of the most profound ones affecting our human condition and the awareness we have of ourselves, shall we regain a soul?”

Jean-Michel Geneste – March 2020,

who wrote the above in response to Chauvet Cave, the 35 thousand year old paintings which the ancestors left there and the inspiration these bring to our times.

…

I came across this quote shortly after finishing the penultimate draft of this post. It echoes themes which found their way into the writing, even though I had not set off to write about them – this was in fact supposed to be a brief report on the current lunations; it turned into something else, out of necessity as, working with the full Scorpio Moon, I was pulled ever more deeply into the inner realms of our current situation, much of which points directly towards what Jean-Michel Geneste speaks of so eloquently. As a result, the article before you has now been separated into three parts, each of a more digestible size, of which this is the first. It attempts to translate something of this shift, this re-emergence, sourced in the celestial and imaginative realms, in terms of the present context. In spirit with its core theme, it begins with a deceptively immaterial yet imminently potent recent astrological event…..


A shift in signs of the Moon’s nodal axis on May 5th now sees the north node transiting Gemini, the south node now in Sagittarius. This subtle change in the zodiacal region in which the Moon’s orbit crosses the Sun’s apparent path in the sky may not be headline news, certainly in these times, but it is far from insignificant.

Eclipses in June, July and December 2020 which represent turning points, points of resolve and the actions that follow, will not only be qualitatively different under this nodal pull, but what works for us in the coming months will rest on our being truly cognisant of what ‘needs’ to happen and commit to acting on this intel, a direct reflection of the nodal axis’ new focus.

This represents a development in thinking rather than emotion based decision making.  We have had a year and a half of exploring the relationship between expressions of worldly power and the emotional body’s integrity. Now, analysis and perception become especially important. But, so does our relationship with the immaterial worlds.

When working with the nodes we bring immaterial senses into play, senses that inform the soul, facilitate communication between the seen and unseen aspects of life. The relationship between power and emotion seen through the lens of cardinal earth and water highlights the strengths and weaknesses of these senses within these realms.

Now, we are drawn into the mutable elements of fire and air to explore more deeply the ways in which our soul translates experience and communicates between the dense and subtle realms via the lens of Gemini and Sagittarius.

Understanding and our relationship to information and knowledge via the agency of awareness,  intelligent sentience and resonance have a greater bearing on how we experience the world with this axial shift.

This in turn informs our overview, and our philosophical outlook shifts in accordance. We can live life differently according to these communications and understandings, this awareness.

This shift is characteristic of the emergent realm of enhanced coherence, and in this realm the world is illuminated as a conscious living entity. This is the world we come back to when we find our own inner light illuminating and integrated with consciousness. It is all one light, in fact.

It can be deeply divine to experience, but, it can also be humble and practical.

When eclipses in the signs of Gemini and Sagittarius occur, they bring opportunities for clarifying our minds and changing the way we think about things, for putting clear thinking into action and for bringing meaningful actions to bear where they are most needed.

We can utilise eclipses as opportunities to discard the redundant and propagate our potential; in the midst of current circumstances this offers some hope, but, ‘the buck stops here’ and self-responsibility is also being very strongly highlighted in these times, as will become apparent.

 

The first of those coming eclipses will be a penumbral lunar eclipse in Sagittarius on June 5th which opens the doorway to the next 2 years of eclipse cycles on the Gemini/Sagittarius axis.

This initial eclipse is by nature quite peripheral but it carries the sting of being a full Moon exactly square Mars in Pisces. And Mars in Pisces talks to one of the underlying themes of these times, namely the spiritual damage caused by intellectual and philosophical warfare and its tangible consequences. The emphasis here is on regulating the energies of mental and spiritual health, which falls in line with the nodal shift very clearly. Being mindful of burnout and emotional exhaustion is highlighted. Not getting caught up in the undertow of emotional tidal waves, or being infected by a pandemic of repurposed facts, information and beliefs.

This is a conflict that very much undermines peoples ability to know ‘truth’, and the erosion of cohesion with and connection to ‘source‘, factors which affect us both collectively and individually.

The second and third, a total solar eclipse on June 21st and the following penumbral eclipse on July 5th, by sign are both  still activating the Capricorn Cancer axis, and they will be the last to do so for a decade, so working with them centres on cleaning up essential business and detritus from the last ten years, and especially the last six months. That in itself is a major undertaking.

False philosophies must be identified. The mechanisms of generating consensus and manipulating thought and understanding made more deeply aware to us. This is a massively important process for our future.

Importantly for now though, working with these midyear eclipses will enable the Gemini/Sagittarius blueprint to be more clearly utilised and built upon, especially when we get to the end of the year when we’ll see another penumbral lunar eclipse, this time  in Gemini, and a following total solar eclipse in Sagittarius.

The immediate planetary matrix, however, sheds more light on this revision and ‘clean up’ operation and points the way to what’s coming later in the year.

In the second half of the current lunation three planets turn retrograde and, pulling the gravity of the full Moon further into the personal sphere, initiate this process by turning it inward and intensifying it.

If consciously worked with Saturn stationing retrograde on the 11th May, Venus stationing retrograde on the 13th, and Jupiter stationing retrograde on the May 15th, will not only encourage the internal changes necessary to take full advantage of the Gemini/Sagittarius axis via the nodes and eclipses towards the end of the year, but will lay the ground for the new Saturn Jupiter cycle which is initiated on the December solstice in the first degree of Aquarius, a truly momentous watershed.

Venus retrograde in Gemini stimulates the mental sphere and potentiates the nodal theme further, especially as Venus transits Uranus north node around the 13th degree of Gemini in the process. I would suggest contemplating your own values through the retrograde period in terms of how they inform the way you perceive the world, the higher values you apply to it. This is not simply about your opinions, beliefs and actions; these are reflexive in themselves – this is more about becoming aware of the processes which produce those reflexes, what informs them. It is also about evolving this inner faculty for perception and awareness in the process.

Venus can apply to many material values in this context, but, look to the more subtle inner forms that her energy highlights. These are the forms of intelligence that take on natural form, the mind of Nature. Get into natural places and listen, let Her speak to you.

Become aware of your relationship to beauty in the world, what it means, where you find its highest vibration, how that feels. Become aware of what threatens these manifestations of the ‘beautiful’. Is what you perceive to be beautiful carrying meaning that is inviolable? Notice what is at work within yourself as you experience these enquiries, an aesthetic appreciation of the world. How does the receptive nature of perception inform your inner world?

This latter aspect is important in balancing out the aggressive and assertive forms of perception and understanding which are so virulently at work in the world at this time. There is restorative value in this – it encourages emergence of the voice of the soul.

We’ll come to Saturn and Jupiter, especially Saturn, in part 2, but, as the year progresses all the remaining planets also enter retrograde periods, and this will aid us in bringing our inner world fully into conscious activation.

Link to part 2

Saturn stations retrograde 11th May, 1°57′ Aquarius
Mercury enters Gemini 12th May
Mars enters Pisces May 13th
Venus stations retrograde 13th May, 21°50′ Gemini
Jupiter stations retrograde 15th May,  27°14′ Capricorn

Penumbral lunar eclipse June 5th, 15°34′ Sagittarius
Total solar eclipse June 21st, 0°21′ Cancer
Penumbral lunar eclipse July 5th, 13°38′ Capricorn
Penumbral lunar eclipse November 30th, 8°38′ Gemini
Total solar eclipse December, 23°08′ Sagittarius

astrology, lunations, Moons, planetary change, Root Medicine of the Stars, The outer planets

Grace

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Forest

One of Uranus most unifying qualities as an astrological entity is its ability to point out to us our unknowing, and that we are united in our ignorance  – Uranus’ gift is the space this recognition creates within us for intuition to enter, for anomaly to alter our reality and thinking, and Uranus operates at a collective level of the higher mind.

Being gifted with this infusion of uncertainty can activate creative energy that is essential if we are to transcend our fears – it allows our actions to cut a wake in the ocean of grace, which is also available to us, ever-present.

In fact Uranus can open our eyes ‘in the moment’ to the presence of this ocean, of which we might otherwise be ostensibly unaware in our everyday lives. Uranus has been called ‘the Awakener’.

Its a matter of the inner nature of our being, whether we are already swimming in that ocean or not. And to ‘cut a wake’ is one of the primary meanings of being ‘awake’, to be present with the consequence of our actions, of our lives in fact.

At 6° Taurus, where Uranus is at the time of writing, we find the Sabian symbol of ‘The Woman of Samaria at the Ancient Well’. The woman is imbued with grace, as a consequence of her life and how she has lived, and the openness of her heart to the inspiration of love which that grace embodies.

It is an old symbol, predating biblical references, with its roots in the importance of initiation to the well-being of the village, an intitiatic symbol whose key significance is that old ways of knowing and attachment to the established institutions of the past must be transcended for the creative spirit to be received in the heart.

Uranus imbues that creative spirit, manifests the power, the impulse for it to ‘render old patterns obsolete’. As the Sabians tell us, the Woman of Samaria “in her openness to love’s urgings, had already repudiated any narrow subservience to the old order” – this is a message which has found its time, and we know it.

Lonsdale takes it further and interprets the Chandra symbol for this degree thus :

“A Large Ruby Inscribed With A Prayer.

A beautiful dream that comes true. Conceiving in your heart that a fresh life current is here to be met in the physical. Being magnetized to the spot where the New Earth arises. You feel deeply drawn to give yourself over completely to what the new life-wave asks. Sensing acutely that this is all that counts, and suffering for all of those who are shut off from the bounty. Knowing how hard it is to feel dejected and forsaken, and never forgetting the ache, the longing, the distances, and what it takes to earnestly clasp new life and realise you belong to the heavenly kingdom in the Earth and will never again be out in the cold.”

On 23rd April at 2:24am UTC the New Moon opened the new lunar cycle at 3°24′ of Taurus, exactly 3° from Uranus at 6°24′ of Taurus.

We can take these meditations into our hearts now, and be ready to re-dream this world alive with grace and beauty. These reflect the essential nature of our being, the origin of innate power.

The New Moon cycle will be a most interesting one, for sure. A season of retrogrades will follow soon in which all the planets will be affected. We will have to dig deep during that time, but it will serve us well, as we are mining for truth and the empowerment it brings, another of Uranus indefatigable gifts.

Only, the power to be redeemed is our own.

This lunar cycle represents an opportunity to clear the decks in preparation – take it.

Blessed Be!

Ancestral Medicine, astrology, Capricorn Cancer axis, Eclispes, lunations, planetary change

Lunar Eclipse of the Wolf Moon

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Lunar Eclipse/FM 10/01/20 19:18 UTC

Lets put a little perspective on things. The Saturn and Pluto conjunction is being touted as the headline news, and it is a real doozy for sure, a true indicator of the forces of constriction and purgation at work within the collective layers of the mundane world. But, it is in the nature of a crash viewed in slow motion.

We have had months of the Saturn Pluto convergence, they first came into orb a year ago and their combined effects have been applying since Saturn began his slow march through Capricorn two years ago. Pluto has occupied a narrow band of degrees between 18 and 23 Capricorn through all this time…..

Look around and see what is happening now that is a version of the same disruption and restriction from a year, two years ago and more, to get the picture. Notice where things are intensifying.

…….and so it comes around now that the actual conjunction of these two ‘respect demanding’ planets is a mark in time, ‘a point not of impact but import’, which is signified not by collision but by ‘alignment’ – remember that.

This really is not meant to be experienced as a moment of temporal neurosis. However, if anyone wants to make punctual use of it, the exact conjunction of Saturn and Pluto is at it most intense in a five minute window between 16:55 and 17:00 UTC on January 12th, but that is rather missing the point.

Yes, there may be, and it is a ‘maybe’, events which coincide with this particular alignment ‘on the dot’, and its not as if there are not enough events that would already qualify for identification with this as an astrological ‘collision’ happening in the world right now. But, we should know by now that, while our emotional bodies are undoubtedly being impacted, we are not in reality here to be distracted by the ensuing drama to the extent that we let it cloud our assessment of what is happening – that is a great danger in a volatile world situation where rash judgements can reek havoc, even at the personal level, and much remains ‘unseen’.

What we don’t want to happen is to perpetuate disfunction, rely on that which does not work or is ineffective, make plans based solely on crisis thinking or, perhaps most importantly in the current situation, underestimate the obstacles being faced and the power and resources of those who rely on those obstacles being there, for whatever reason.

In a very real sense this is what Saturn and Pluto are advocating; that we use what they are revealing to purge the system and draw a line against the machinations of our detractors.

Number one rule of ‘engagement’ here is to remain as clear headed and perceptive as possible.

Yes, do what the moment calls for, but keep the longer term goals in view, and that is where the lunar eclipse comes in.

This is a weakened domicile full Moon in some senses; it has its esoteric aspects, yes, but these are inextricably interwoven with the exoteric manifestations it mirrors – rather than a full on blast in the face of the vicarious powers lined up against the people, this is a reminder, as Jupiter now on the Moon’s south node makes very clear, of the fact that we have been here before and are fighting a battle that has become perpetuated over a very long time by a many headed power hungry hegemony whose destructive workings in the world we now face more clearly than ever.

More to the point the ‘weakened’ aspect of this full Moon is reflecting the shadow which ‘suppression and usury’ has cast upon the spirit of humanity, and this planet, as well as humanity’s complicity in the workings of those who are responsible for that suppression.



Within the context of the big conjunction, this eclipsed full Moon and the solar eclipse which preceded it define the actual temporal gateway. It is a gateway which not only calls our finest qualities to be brought forth as we pass beneath its lintel, but tells us to ‘mind our heads’ and requires the balance of unflinching self honesty and grounded realism that keeps our feet firmly on the ground as we tread over its threshold.

While the rebellious freedom seeking spirit in humanity spits out the socio/cultural/economic bait and poisoned idealism it has been fed, that has led to the hiatus it now experiences, it now also realises and for the sake of our own healing must admit that it has been coerced and, when the sanctioned violence of war and physical oppression has been invoked, force fed that same bait in lethal doses.

If Saturn and Pluto are turning the screw on anything, it is the fact that there is nowhere to hide from this reality on this planet – which raises the obvious, if not over obvious, clarion that “we are all in this together”…….

..…if there is a thread of hope offered by this it is also mirrored in the lunar disc, in the portion of its luminous glow which refuses, by dint of fate and celestial mechanics if nothing else, to be overshadowed and dimmed. Identify with that, as the shadow too will pass and the true light of love for this Earth and unswerving willingness to be a protector of this magical blue orb, which the full Moon in Cancer can be for us, will prevail.

The full Moon and eclipses makes sense of the Saturn Pluto conjunction in a way that is unique to our times – in the mundane sense it tells us that what is now being revealed cannot be forgotten, we cannot afford to. We cannot un-see what we have seen, or unknown what we now know – in fact, we bear witness in order to make correct use of our knowledge, or at the very least endeavour to learn how to.

It is in the nature of eclipses that we do so with the longer term view in mind, at the core of and guiding our acts and endeavours. There is more to this than simply being better, correcting our ways though.

The Moon in Cancer opposes Sun, Mercury, Saturn, Pluto and, importantly, Ceres in Capricorn. Strong convergences characterise the moment. Mars hot undercurrents push from beneath. Jupiter amplifies the purging and remembering process via the Moon’s south node and with Ceres so inextricably involved, being the Earth-Mother personified, the memory of Her demise and how this came to be is writ large on this, the final eclipse across the Capricorn Cancer axis for a decade.

Herstory is diligently and ineluctably rebalancing history.

If prayers be made, make them deep and lasting, as deep as the passion with which Ceres fought her corner on behalf of her daughter, entrapped in the underworld, and stood up to Hades. Make them as lasting as the cycle of the seasons which Ceres hard line negotiations won. Our very fecundity and vitality rest on this. It is a mythological story for our times, in many ways. It is up to each of us what we put into those prayers, but, collectively we petition the divine Mother in doing so.

Moon in Cancer speaks of the waters of life that nourish the community, that are protected and run deep within the earth. Give thanks with offerings made to the springs and aquifers, to the spirits of the waters that are nearest to and provide for your home, for the life and sustenance they bring and wondrous nature of our own aqueous being they provide.



Mercury will be sending the message ahead when he wings his way into Aquarius on the 16th, but, here signifies the guile and wits we must have about us while manuevering among the gods and rulers, those who would assume upon their station.

That message is what we are compiling now, through our acts in the world and our magical workings, a message not to be writ in stone, but that will become airborne, as moisture to the skies, carried on the airwaves and through electrical connectivity. We are gathering charge.

As the full Moon escapes the Earth’s shadow the ruler of Aquarius, Uranus, takes up direct motion once more and completes the picture with all planets now moving in direct motion in the skies.

Uranus will figure greatly in the close of this lunar cycle squaring the dark Moon on Jan 24th at new Moon. Mars will square Venus and Neptune at the same time. But, first things first.

We are getting intimations of a change with this coming cycle, away from a fatalistic and heavy atmosphere and into a more cerebral if intelligent emphasis on our approach to living.

This is not to diverge from our focus on Earth but to bring a higher level of understanding and connectivity to our lives, the better to find our true symbiotic nature and relationship. But, we will come back to that in time….we will

Blessed be!

beautiful image : Joyce Kiapen….

…..in celebration of the Wolf Moon

astrology, Earth healing, Elements, mundane astrology, planetary change, Root Medicine of the Stars

Heads Up – Mars Enters Sagittarius

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…..Mars has entered Sagittarius and is sailing the rocky waters of the Scorpio constellation with a sting in his tail.

The underlying tetchy mood you may encounter over the next few days, if not weeks, is a reflection of the fact that Mars is flying beneath the radar of all the planets save Uranus, Chiron and Neptune and, in the process, is creating ripples and undercurrents that have the potential to rock all our boats.

This is a hot energy that is applying to the field as a whole and is affecting the collective overview of life. It is more than adequately reflected back to us in the image of the raging fires that are burning in nature which are impinging on human habitations – a powerful symbol of the collective human infrastructure being threatened by the flames that engulf our foundations within nature.

Take some time to reflect upon this symbol and it will throw into a sharper perspective the relationship we have with the elemental world, its powers and our ability to interact with them.

Humanity is under pressure, and this is equally reflected back to us in the now almost exact conjunction between Saturn and Pluto a sign and a half from Mars. Mars is tightening the angle.

If you encounter this in the form of pressure, take notice first, then apply a little kindness, to yourself and others….its going to pass.

If you must put your head above the parapet make sure its for good reason, and get your timing right.

Be careful, in fact, in all your dealings as we approach the exact conjunction of Saturn and Pluto on the 12th; this is not a time for false moves or rash decisions.

Mars will form semi-squares with the Capricornian stellium through this time so avoid reactions and the blame game too, otherwise you will only be throwing fuel on the fire….

….a great deal of the incendiary mayhem at large is the result of subterfuge and deliberate mismanagement of resources, but, this will out in time – for now, take Mars prompts as a heads up and adjust your inner fire appropriately.

What will come later is going to be feeding those fires further so the directive here is to get familiar with how they feel and what is necessary to regulate their emotional charge. Properly directed that charge will have the capacity to work positively for us; left to its own devices it shows its destructive nature to full effect and determines the course of events.

We can be wise to this, practical in a Capricornian way, accepting that change must come, that it may require rebuilding from the ground up, but, that it can be done with a much deeper understanding than  we have become accustomed to using – this is the opportunity to shine brightly in the face of difficult circumstances. Even if it means reconfiguring who we are collectively and on a personal level.

Light a candle for your prayers, yes, but accompany it with sweet medicine and waters of the spirit to heal and soothe.

This is, however, by virtue of exactly the same ingredients, a very good time to burn off the crap adhering to old and worn out views on Life, philosophies that no longer cut the mustard in the light of everyday living, and to use the emotive drives that arise through each day as reminders that life can be lived to the full, so long as you don’t take the slaps and cuffs too personally…..

…this is also a time in which high voltage healing can be given in the personal realms; regulate that energy and it will work wonders. Take care and….

Blessed Be!

Ancestral Medicine, astrology, Eclispes, lunations, planetary change, Root Medicine of the Stars

Seasons of the Eclipse

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The December lunation opens with Sun and Moon in alignment on the ecliptic, within four degrees of the Moon’s south node.

Opening with a solar eclipse, this powerful and busy lunation will see Venus, Mars and Mercury change signs, sees Uranus station direct midway through the lunation, and contains the twin to the opening solar eclipse, a lunar eclipse at full Moon – all this on top of the most talked of planetary conjunction of 2020, Saturn conjunct Pluto just two days after full Moon; more on the latter as we approach mid-lunation.

In fact, there’s a lot to take in here, so we’ll come back to review the key moments as the lunation progresses.

With the dark Moon eclipsing the Sun and coming into conjunction with Jupiter as it does so, when everything is taken into account the impression here might be that everything is being brought to a pitch, that massive change is imminent and that for this to happen, something’s got to give…..but while we are in the midst of this cosmic readjustment process, for that is truly what it is, we are very far from being helplessly at its mercy.

This is not all about what is happening ‘out there’. So much of the transformative energy that is at work within the world now works across any apparent divide between inner and outer worlds – the effects are deep, the releasing old memories into life to find new  meaning for example, forgotten ways resurfacing to find new forms of expression and understanding, and a release of energy from the sacred realms that has been locked up behind false notions and suppressed by regimes of spiritual ‘control  and dogma’ for millennia.

In reality, reality is adjusting out of the ‘reign of the false’ and one of the main effects of this is the restoration of a unified experience of life in which there is no divide between inner and outer, unless ‘we ourselves’ make it so. Some insist upon retaining this construct, one of the consequences being an over-reliance on ‘technology’. A restoration of the ‘integral’ nature of perception however and our ability to restructure it at will could be taken as a corrective to what has become an over-literallised notion, that ‘we create our own reality’.

An alchemical power is being released from within the matrix, that encodes the transmutative processes at work between ‘energetic and material’ states, an ancient knowledge, of a kind that is very far from being confined to the ‘Earth realms’. This is to describe one of the elements of the Saturn Pluto equation at work now, clarifying under the influence of the eclipses.

But, we came here precisely to witness this resurgence and to be present in as powerful a way as we individually can to participating in its unfoldment.

By working with the energetics of the matrix at this time, as supercharged as they may be, we have an opportunity to integrate more fully with what is potentially a massive dose of radical change within the world.

We have to ask ourselves, is the perspective of the bigger picture speaking directly to our personal self; this can be overwhelming, and many are still suffering the miasma of cultural indoctrination, social and political correctness et al which obscures and prevents this experience from becoming consciously embodied.

In the world, among the human politic, this brings the reminder that the enormity of it all ‘is’ no barrier to the powerful difference a small number of people, or just one individual can make, and there are plenty of examples of this reality being brought to bear at this time.

But ‘size’ is not the issue here, as, on the scale of things that runs from the sub-atomic to the super-galactic for example, humans stand at the centre point – small shifts at the fulcrum, balance point, can have a big impact.

In plain-speak what these times are telling us is that “while we are, each of us, a tiny and seemingly insignificant speck in the vastness of ‘all that is’, it is our ‘role’ and the qualities we bring to fulfilling it that matter”.

What this lunation can help us with in particular is to get a clearer view of what that role is and, more pertinently at the off-set, what needs to happen for us to fulfil it more completely.

First, and this applies to all, we could simply commit to stepping more deeply into the role of ‘change maker’. This is not, as the ‘new-age’ version might have it, about ‘creating our own reality’, so much as being able to participate more deeply in reality creating itself, in other words aligning ourselves with Nature’s way.

Secondly, if the events of the world around you make you doubt just how effective you can be, use this perspective to define more clearly what ‘is’ actually within your reach, and focus on that.

But, use this lunation to gain the wider perspective and to place your actions within the larger context as well…..this is all a part of the gift of these times, for everyone now living within the ‘ongoing’, should we be willing to accept it, or have eyes to see it.

So, having internal clarity is paramount.


For this clarity to come into play some things will have to be checked on and if necessary changed within ourselves, to access the necessary inner balance point; if we can fully accept that our part in change is just that, a part, but without losing sight of the potency and effectiveness we individually have, it is then this balance point that brings us, like Sun and Moon on the ecliptic, into alignment. Its being on and in Life’s ‘sweet spot’ and knowing how to flow and adjust with it.



At the outset of this lunation in particular, it is that which is ‘getting in the way’ of this inner change that is being brought to our attention and reflected in the world and, as the lunation gets under way at the solar eclipse/new Moon the opportunity arises to bring deeper than normal levels of personal awareness to these ‘facts of life’ at work within our own lives.

This is the south node effect, which shows us the residue of past actions, the, if you like, ‘karmic imprint’ which we yet labour under, and which consequentially affects our personal trajectory and behaviour on our journey through this lifetime. This may well be ancestral, we may well be here to make the deeper adjustment to the ancestral line and engage with ancestral healing.

At the same time, in keeping with the south node, it is also that which we have innate to our being, that we have brought with us as ‘powers’, knowing and skilful means into this life which is being brought to our attention here. We can in fact be very complacent about theses innate gifts, take them fore granted, and thus miss their true potential and the immense fuel they provide to us in reaching for our soul’s purpose and direction. Eliminating the blind spots to these gifts is a part of the purging process at work in this.

We have an opportunity to see ourselves in a new light here.

To take it, we must be prepared to not only accept our flaws and strive for self awareness beyond our current state, to accept unconscious aspects of ourselves as ‘ourselves’, each of us must be prepared to more fully own our power and commit to using it wisely in the world, ie acting responsibly with and upon it. The two go together.

What is blinding us here is personal not just embedded unconsciousness, it is personal bias, and what we are being blinded to is the damage our unconscious actions cause ‘when they are not in accord with the times’.

Being in accord with the times is a developed art, one that can be nurtured, and divination is one of the most powerful practices to hand for this, but which rests very much on our inner equilibrium and self knowledge.

Yes, given the state of things this current calling represents a ‘damage limitation scenario’, but it is also an expansion of awareness that is rippling through the entire matrix. The entire solar system is ripe with change and its reverberations are at work right through to the galactic core.

On a planetary scale the alignments at this solar/lunar eclipse season are shifting the centre of rotation of our solar system to an extreme and the changes we see are not merely local but are reflected across a wide bandwidth of scale and depth within our local interplanetary space. In such conditions certain ‘life rules’ and natural laws come into play.

We may well have created a great deal of the shit we are currently experiencing in the world, but, the message here is that when our ‘personal will’ ignores the collective terrain we are travelling through collisions will happen, the shit will continue to hit the fan,  and we simply cannot allow for that to happen any more. Period.

“The buck stops here.”

This could well be the theme of this lunation, and it might be enough to simply allow this to sink in and let it become integrated into our entire being, but, ‘being in sync with life’ is much more the underlying theme here, where the real ‘power’ lies. It is the power for harmonious living.

We will see the tides turning over the course of this lunar cycle, the qualities of the times shift with them and, before ending this brief synopsis of the lunation’s onset it is worth taking a look at the quarters, to make better use of their energetics in relation to our own charts and personal energetic matrix.



First quarter on January 3rd sees Mars enter Sagittarius and Mercury, having entered Capricorn, conjunct Jupiter.

Full Moon on January 10th sees Saturn closing to within 10 minutes of arc with Pluto, and Mercury transiting the Sun on the lunar eclipse. Jupiter will be transiting the Moon’s south node.

Bringing an unpredictably novel twist to the moment Uranus also comes out of retrograde motion, meaning all the planetary bodies will be in direct motion, all of which funnels through that powerful Saturn/Pluto conjunction. Uranus needs to be paid special attention now with this change to direct motion – be prepared to change direction, take opportunities as they arise, but being open to anomaly without shutting down or going into cognitive dissonance is of the highest importance.

The effects of Uranus within the Taurean field are profound enough, but this is a time when they are bring highlighted, in the run-up to the Saturn/Jupiter cycle which begins in November 2020 in particular. How we see and value the material and natural world is an obvious change that is underway, but this is not simply the product of becoming aware; it is about coming into alignment with and allowing an evolutionary change within consciousness to take hold of us.

The ‘old world’ and its ‘trappings and entrapments’ are dissolving away, their hold on us diminishing, and what is emerging in the process is both old, very old, and new, very new.

I have written about some of these effects in the two ‘Uranus in Taurus’ posts you will find in the listings here, but, I have held back from publishing part three, where these latter changes are looked into more specifically, as the changes anticipated are happening much more quickly and with stronger effect than expected – part 3 will now appear in the first quarter of the new calendar year, once Uranus has cleared its retrograde shadow.

By last quarter on 17th January Venus will have entered Pisces, the sign of her exaltation, and Mercury will have crossed into Aquarius and the message of these times will have come more clearly into perspective.

There will be an unusual twist in the tail of this lunation for sure, but, as we head past this watershed moment in time the purposefulness which we need to bring to of our personal journey will have been made much clearer, and that role may well bring more than we have been accustomed to expecting of ourselves into play…..

….the next lunation opens in the first decan of Aquarius on January 24th 2020 and puts the work and changes made during this lunation to the test – its Sabian symbol tells us that “A COUNCIL OF ANCESTORS IS SEEN IMPLEMENTING THE EFFORTS OF A YOUNG LEADER.”

The question now is, “where in the circle do you stand?”

Blessed Be!


image : Carson Ellis

astrology, divination, lunations, Magic, Moons, mundane astrology

The Light of Inner Fires

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A Gemini full Moon sets off a flurry of mental activity as we approach solstice and the turning of the year.

It is worth getting the remainder of this lunation into perspective to make the most of this full Moon period.

With our own thinking habits and behavioural patterns very much in mind the lunation’s waning quarters support clearing the way for fresh ideas and an updated if not upgraded approach to practical ways of living.

Old philosophies that have become unsupportive of being true to our lives in the world must go, and we all know this – the world is brimming with reflections of this reality.

Within our own lives, as Venus is transiting conjunct both Saturn and Pluto, and pushing the point by waning inconjunct to the Moon, the area of our charts associated with Capricorn and any planets between 16 and 24 degrees in that sign will need to be looked at. This will show us the area in which the application of this necessity is most likely to become a radical and most practical issue.

As the lunation winds down, it is well to get super real about our circumstances and embrace the, now unavoidable, practical steps that need to be made to rectify issues and circumstances that are no longer tenable.

Magically, this is a good period to attend to personal energetic healing, clarifying the mind, and getting clear in relation to our boundaries in particular. We may feel called to embody the radical, but, be mindful of what you set in motion, how it affects others and be prepared to take full responsibility. In fact, wait and keep to your centre for the while; there are other matters to attend to first.

The Jupiter Chiron square between Capricorn and Aries is likely to inflame the memories and wounds that we have suffered in those areas of our lives where we have been letting others impinge too much, and have let them dampen or even steal our fire, to our own detriment. Lay the ground now to renew that fire – we can use the solstice as an opportunity to ritualise the actual renewal of the flame.

The positive spin here is that, as the lunation winds down, the planetary aspects to the transiting Moon will gradually push forward the issues we are facing of their own accord and, while this may be uncomfortable or ‘cringe worthy’, it will enable the new, more pragmatic way of thinking to emerge.

For a while it may seem like the shit is flying but root down now and hold to what you, personally, know is right – the time for sharing is coming, but, we need to be in our integrity to really make that sharing count against what’s coming.

For now, have compassion with yourself and get in the flow of things, and extend this as far as you can without overreaching – this is not a time to overcompensate or bust a gut trying.

I recommend this Moon and the remaining lunation especially for cartomancy and bibliomantic practices – the bright energy available with this Moon can have lasting as well as warming effects. Work with the focus very much on the longer term and what it requires of us now, thinking in terms of adjustments needing to be made towards meeting future needs and to living by a new and workable philosophy.

These futures can be examined in more detail on the new Moon, which aligns closely with the lunar nodal axis – this will be a solar eclipse, a feast for the eyes to be sure, with Sun, Moon and Jupiter coming into orb of the lunar south node….more on that soon.

Blessed be!

Living Astrology and Divination

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