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astrology, divination, ingress, planetary aspects, Root Medicine of the Stars

Jupiter Ducks The Lintel

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The first decan of Capricorn, being ruled by Jupiter, somewhat smooths the path for the largest known planet of our solar system. Traditionally Jupiter is considered uncomfortable in the cardinal Earth sign – however…..

……although Jupiter will initially unbalance, magnify and grab our attention, especially in those areas of our lives signified by Capricorn in our chart, use this creatively, perhaps as a blessing in disguise if the experience is troubling.

Such matters are being raised now so that we can take advantage, a Jupiterian trait, of the positive potential of this next two months or so.

The negatives are there too but this is a time in which we can see a dynamic balance at work between the positives and negatives, the highs and lows. Keep to your whirling centre and, if nothing else dance, spin and gather momentum.

Then, it’s down to work, will and focused intent – there is magic to be had with Capricornian Jupiter but it requires clear knowledge of its objective and a well developed understanding of its protocols to work that magic well.

The coming period up until the middle of January 2020 is where our best preparation for the coming year can take place. Don’t rush in; take your time, remember to look where you are going, and don’t bang your head-on the way in…..

…..now is not the time for thunder.

As always, with Jupiter aim for the highest good, but be vigilant of your works – remember the story of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice…..

Blessed Be!

astrology, Earth healing, lunations, Root Medicine of the Stars, Sagittarius Gemini axis, Solstices, Transition of the Ages

Redeeming Prometheus

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“In the world unknown
sleeps a voice unspoken;
By thy step alone
can its rest be broken” (1)

So long as we are held within the grip of a compulsion to externalise it, the inner illumination of the divine fire that enters through the imaginal realms may hold more importance than we realise – it was not always so, but, neither need it always be so. Questions arise around the relationship between the unseen and the tangible realms under the light of the June full Moon, and Uranus asks whether we can survive without remembering what instigated the crisis caused through their seperation. The answer, like the seen and unseen worlds, lies sleeping in a ‘world unknown’ and integrating its lessons into our world view is the step we must now take.

We began to radically transform that world view when Uranus south node first entered Sagittarius, 2700 years ago. Where formerly we had been immersed in the oceanic undercurrents of a more archae-emotional realm, it signalled a rise in inspired thinking that penetrated the manifest world with profound insight. But, it was a torch held aloft in a realm that had formerly been perceived fluorescent with spirit and soul, a world fast becoming a shadow land, of increasing contrasts, dividing as between night and day. We had arrived in a place that for millenia had already been moving steadily away from a more deeply rooted experience of the promethean fire.

As the divine spark present within all life receeded from our grasp we began to look for it within the tangible realms. In fact, our journey into the Sagittarian fields of philosophy and knowledge could well have been the natural human response to this process, a shift from the all enfolding ineffable towards the personalised individuated experience of the divine. It was the beginning of our pathological experience of the world and, with the ensuing rise of religion, as a formal extension of this experience in relation to the divine, the power of rational thinking correspondingly became its wilful executor within this world. As ironic as it may seem, the advent of religious experience seeded the rise of logic, rational discourse and phenomenal objectivity and in the process laid the foundations from which secular science would eventually emerge. This was the beginning of our hubris.

Two millenia later the Enlightenment brought this process to its logical conclusion. Saturn and Jupiter, who had once ruled the worldly affairs of heaven as a counter against the human will, had become dethroned, relegated and co-opted into the inner pantheon of humanity, Saturn ruling our world view with the pragmatic logic of cause and effect, and Jupiter, our ever thirsting quest for knowledge. These roles still apply, but, the astrology we practice is changing – it too has stepped up to that threshold. Saturn has turned upon Uranus memory.

LIFE   DEATH   LIFE  –  TRUTH (Ω)

Saturn shows us now that we have reached a place of standstill, stationing on Uranus south node in Sagittarius, a place in which paying our karmic debt is crucial to releasing the promethian impulse from its secularised straightjacket of rationality and scientific progress. This is the age of transition in which we are tasked with responsibility for redeeming our relationship with the divine fire, and use of it, as a positive power within the world. We have applied this vital energy outwardly, filling our world with a material manifestation of its power and, as the Ages shift have come to the point where the accretion of the consequences to our actions, having effectively uncoupled us from its inner source, are now drawing us back into its field of influence, towards the source of that sacred illumination.

Not only our science, but, our minds have led us here, our path poised at the threshold of that ‘world unknown’ – for some, the next step is inconceivable, for others it has already been taken. It is inconceivable to the wholly enslaved mind that its rational master could ever be found deficient, but, we must claim our freedom from knowing and reclaim the sanity of our liberty from reason’s irrational hegemony. Too much of the opiate of rationality and reason can unhinge our minds. To enter the ‘world unknown’ is not to collapse the wave of probability into the particle of the known, but, to ride it, become submersed in it, become it, in all its luminous darkness.

This moment, the heart of this lunation, with Sun and Moon, spirit and soul illuminating the solstice axis, asks for us to let the voice of the sacred fire be our navigator, the unspoken voice that would in-form us and self propagate the inner flame, raising it and us from our own sleep. To burn off the calque that obscures its native tongue, the spirit and soul must unite in transfiguring the body nature and free the material body from its exile. In exile it has become a shell, a husk of accretions that have calcified our imaginal nature – in the spiritual lucidity of the solar disc, and the lunar luminousity of the soul, the light of our inner eye is released from the limitations they impose.

“Throw away the lights, the definitions,
And say of what you see in the dark

That it is this or that it is that,
But do not use the rotted names.

How should you walk in that space and know
Nothing of the madness of space,

Nothing of its jocular procreations?
Throw the lights away. Nothing must stand

Between you and the shapes you take
When the crust of shape has been destroyed.” (2)

 

Nocturne in Silver ~ Richard Cartwright
Nocturne in Silver ~ Richard Cartwright

 

(1) Percy Bysshe Shelley ~ from Prometheus Unbound

(Ω) The words ‘life death life truth’ were scratched on bone sacrificial tokens found on the northern coast of the Black Sea at Olbia. They were accompanied by Orpheus name and offered in complete faith of the Orphic mysteries as a deliverance from the shores of uncertainty that surrounded the lands of the dead. They have been dated to at least 500bce, having been cast into the waters some 2,700 years ago…..

(2) Wallace Stevens ~ from The Man With The Blue Guitar

Root Medicine of the Stars

In At The Deep End – Saturn in Scorpio

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“….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.

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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.

Root Medicine of the Stars

Beauty Power & Grace

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Between the new Moons of 18th April and 18th May a lunation of oppositions, squares and inconjunct aspects unfolds. On the face of it this looks like a lunation of forced issues and tense face-offs and disagreement, but, at its heart is a liberating freedom expressing great beauty that matches such challenges. Of the inner planets Venus leads the way, travelling now between the stars at the shoulder of the Taurean Bull and those in the midst of the Constellation of Gemini. She begins this lunation poised to vault between the Bull’s horns!

This gives us a very apt symbol to work with and a clear indication of the emotional qualities that will serve us best through this time. At their foundation are realism, courage and commitment, describing the essential grounding for our speech and actions in the world. But, more than this, Venus energy here is brilliant, dynamic and purposefully creative, a fitting response and reminder that we humans possess gifts well beyond those we have begun to explore within the Piscean Age. Venus is in tropical Gemini squaring Neptune and trining the north node ~ she is the frontrunner, leading us into the future!

At the outset Venus shines like a diamond in the western skies just after darkness falls. You will find her at new Moon drawing apart the veil of daylight between the Pleiades and Aldebaran, the stars marking the creative heart and headstrong brow of the Taurean Bull.

Ultimately, Venus is flying with speed towards her meeting with Jupiter early this August, at which time she will swing back into retrograde motion within the skies. She will turn just beyond Asellus Borialis and Asellus Australis at the heart of the constellation of Cancer. In the process she will bring the ineluctable force of womens wisdom to bear on the patriarch of the gods, a sign of the times. These stars formed an ancient solstice gateway associated with the millenia that saw the foundations of contemporary western civilisation being formed. We are all now engaged in this monumental healing process, conscious or not of our part in it.

However, as this lunation unfolds towards full Moon Venus will rise from the flank of the Bull and leap between the tips of its horns, echoing the ancient rites of youth depicted at Knossos during the Age of Aries. These were rites undertaken by women and men alike, reflecting a balance of power not only between genders but between the human and animal realms. But, these rites were depicted on the famous frieze at Knossos amidst a time of transition within this relationship.

Venus is asking us to reach beyond the Piscean and remember innate human attributes much closer to our Earth. As it was for the Cretan youths our qualities of courage, adept skills and timing are tested against the powerful instincts and physical strength of the great Earth animal. And, in keeping with Venus symbolic qualities, it is the dynamic wisdom centred in the powerhouse of  the heart that will lead us with confidence in overcoming the hegemony of the head and rebalancing its analytical dictates. We must become whole within ourselves in this respect, for, in this realm Venus is at home, sovereign amongst the stars whose constellation corresponds with her own sign of rulership. In their ecstatic risk taking saavy it was the power of the Bull itself that the Cretan youths sought relationship  with, and for us the Bull is our Earth. It is our home…..but our healing must reach back further still.

We too can experience an exuberant joy in making such bold and athletic moves, but, much depends upon removing blockages to our leap, sources of fear and oppression. We can see something of this indicated at full Moon through the Moon’s aspect with Pluto. But, we also require aquisition of a certain sure-footedness that can only be developed through experience of working in harmony with that bullish power. Opportunities for gaining such experience are writ large through this lunation and their impulse reaches back to times in which the root wisdom of matriarchal lineages were becoming superceded by the forces of much more martial affiliations and an accompanying spirituality based upon very different heirarchies. The entire relationship between human, nature and divinity shifted, and in that shift we became divided, within and without.

The ancestral legacy resulting from that shift is playing out now, and while we have learned how to extend our minds into the world to compensate, the wounding fears we have suffered as a consequence of our own inner rift need to be fully healed for our leap to be successful. Symbolically, we must join with the ancient Grandmother, whose story came through in the previous lunation, in reweaving the sacred Buffalo robe of Life with this vigorous creative energy. It is no exaggeration to say that our very sanity and future depend upon it.

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The Sun and Moon meet, unaspected, in the 29th and penultimate degree of tropical Aries on April 18th. The Sabian symbol for that degree speaks of finding the song that sings through us, harmonisation of our own voice within the music of the spheres, in its indivisible state. This is an image of healing the divided self, split consciousness by another name. Finding it we will all the more confidently experience the ‘dramatic moment of release’ that enables us to fly. But, while the leap through the bull’s horns can end in celebration and an empowering sense of achievement, it hinges around grabbing the bull by the horns, a ‘now-or-never’ moment’. We have but one chance, that is to say, we have but  one chance left.

Mercury’s sextile from Taurus to Neptune in Pisces at new Moon forms a yod to the Moon’s north node in tropical Libra. There is no time to dream about our future any more ~ the ‘Dream’, if it is to be pursued, must be made reality and this means going beyond the known in a leap that can restore balance and right relationship with Earth. Neither can this simply be a leap of faith ~ time for that, as the previous new Moon and lunation reminded us, has come and gone. ‘What are our innate skills and how well can we lend them to spirit to speak through‘ is the question a newly unfettered Uranus asks of us in response.

Many things appear to be driving us forward here. Now that the Uranus Pluto square is unravelling we are called upon to own our adepthood, especially as we are now faced with the serious consequences of unfinished business that surrounds us, and especially that which arises from the last four years of Uranus and Pluto’s face-off. If there is a symbol of this unravelling it is in Fukushima…..

As the previous lunation contained two eclipses we can expect the whole period between the equinoxes to present clear examples of how those consequences are now playing out in the world. It may seem as though our choices are being determined by forces that are beyond our control, but, perhaps Uranus would have us believe otherwise as the divine maverick is slowly building an empowering trine with Jupiter, direct in tropical Leo, to bring a sense of unpredictable largess to our issues of self-trust. These are global issues and these too are in a rapid process of change.

At new Moon a bullish energy prevails adding to this trine through Mars square from Taurus with Jupiter. The impetus gathering here is pushing us further into concrete action while amplifying that ‘now or never’ feeling.

Jupiter’s developing trine with Uranus is a background feeling, edgy and compelling beneath it all, and will begin to gain momentum, sensed rather than seen at full Moon. Here we can also look out for an encouraging fore-taste of what we might never have imagined we are capable of. At full Moon a T square is formed between Sun, Moon and Jupiter, exact to within minutes of arc. This Scorpio full Moon on May 4th opens our emotional body to deeply grounded creative energy, deepening trust in our connection with Earth, and Jupiter’s place at the fulcrum in connection with Uranus doubles the effect. Such depth in our emotional field is absolutely necessary for healing and restoring connection.

At this time Mercury, newly envigorated after transiting the Sun and coming home to Gemini, will be exactly opposite retrograde Saturn in Jupiter’s home sign, Sagittarius. Don’t let the buggers get you down! However, both Venus and Mars will be out of aspect and there is great opportunity here for bringing natural balance to bear on both our minds and bodies, our genders and our relationships. This is a Moon for each of us to relish in our own unique way, with freedom in speech and act giving voice to the spirit of the moment – a passionately rebellious will to express natural self determination.

Now we see the expressive power of the leap at work, an impulse manifesting a moment in which calling the shots is our own prerogative and our sovereignty is expressed most naturally through our own innate creativity – to be creative in this sense is to be free. More than this it is an expression of truth, choice and personal power, all of which oppose subjugation, control and, ultimately, enslavement ~ can you make the connections here between this impulse and the TPP or TTIP? Globally this impulse is made all the more powerful as the full Moon sextiles retrograde Pluto telling us that, in doing so, significant ground can be gained back from and against the stultifying oppression of the Plutocracy. The high point of this lunation, like the athlete’s somersault over the Bull’s horns, releases much untapped creative energy in answer and has grace, beauty, power and sheer audacity written all over it. If we are to restore a harmonious connection with our Earth we will surely need to be so audacious and do so in the spirit of that leap.

BULLIn the next post we’ll follow Venus path of liberation towards the May new Moon, and an encounter with the divine twins, representatives of the divided mind.

Root Medicine of the Stars

Message from the Dark River

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Fire-root, the one legged protector of shamans, holds the Moon in his hand and sings, his voice, the sound of the bullroarer, spinning stars from the dark belly of his wife, Star-Womb, into the burls and spinning knots of his body and powerful leg. He stands as the great tree around which the Sun swings at solstice, the time when the friction of his root in the firmament creates the sparks of the First Fire, spiralling in a double helix through the plenum as He rekindles its flame.

He is the father of the sun-spirit, the one who makes weather and whose reach extends from pole to pole.

His name is heard from pole to pole, in a thousand forms, each a link word in an eternal chant that echoes across the starry field of the star mother’s belly, reverberating in waves that push and pull, creating time in the mind of her star seeds, opening and closing as ages pulse through eons, cyclic songs given to the medicine women and taught through Luna.

Luna, in his hand but a grandchild, herself an ancient grandmother, turns and rests her head against Mula, the ‘root’ star, and herself swings around the shoulder of Fire-root, reborn. Mula carries the memory of memory, the serpent fire of the mind held deep in matter, connecting with the base chakra, and holds its powerful medicines, protected, in the sting of the Scorpion. Below the serpents coils She dwells and augers the solar seed.

The augeries are told, this will be the time in which ‘renewal itself is renewed’, the tree of stars, the shaman’s thunderbolt, the fire drill of creation, will turn together and stir within the deepest places, within the Dreaming Star Womb;  She says…….’Awaken your dream body, look to your dreams’, for Her star-seeds are the stuff we, and they, are made of……

In the traditions of indigenous peoples world-wide this figure is recognised, the pivotal being around whose axis time spirals, who dwells in the Dark River, the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, and who oversees the birth of the solar year, as our own Sun is reborn crossing this place in the celestial realms. This river is the womb from which stars are birthed, known as ‘Emu Woman’ amongst original peoples of the Australasian continent – She has been carved into the stone, just as She appears in the height of summer in those lands, at the Emu’s egg laying time.

Amongst the same people, He is known as Daramulum. He consorts with Her, as our Sun crosses Her belly above the stars in the sting of the constellation Scorpius, amidst the cloud of stellar dust that forms the Dark River. We are born from, made from, the dust of stars – and, the Waters are born there, just as, at the heart of our Earth, the star fire core creates the indigenous terrestrail waters of the deep aquifers.

The star Mula, known amongst the north African star seers as Shaula, whose name carries the same root meaning of ‘root’ itself, augers the power of the Seer, the one who sees with other eyes. This is the same mula we find in the Muladhara chakra, ‘root-support’ and echoes the pivotal role of the pillar of sacred fire within the human subtle energy body, the Sushumna, spiralled around by the Ida and Pingala.

In the northern traditions he comes down to us via Heimdallr, He who keeps watch for Ragnarök and is known for seeding the divine within the consciousness of humanity – He is also known as Rig, and Vindlér amongst the northern peoples, the praiser and singer, the wind bringer, who is blessed with great foresight and whose breath carries divine knowledge when given form in song and verse.

shamans-staff (2)The Rigveda, whose first verse sings praises of Agni, the fire bringer and solar deity, carries the same etymological root, ‘praise-knowledge’. And, amongst Indian mythologies the ‘one legged’ is known as Ekapada, the one legged goat, the correlation of Capricorn, the bringer of primordial matter, fire, soul and power of the Cosmos, the serpent fire. 

He carries the thunderbolt, the Vajra, the electric root of manifestation and change. He reaches back through time and is echoed in the shaman’s staff, the one legged wand of power, topped with the animal form of the spirit who is the ally of the shaman, known to us from Palaeolithic times.

The augeries of this time call the seers and healers to summon their gift, to journey in spirit to the ninth realm, the highest point upon the world tree, mirrored in its roots through the spinning of fate and destiny, to connect with the powers that bring the highest wisdom to their practice and call up the root power of their own path, to seek wisdom from the source for a new time ahead. Such is the symbolism carried into the iconography of the undying tree crowned with the star, which is also known in the west through the ‘christmas tree’.

The new lunation is begun in harmony with the new solar cycle. Fertile darkness within fertile darkness, this is a time of birthing mystery from within mystery, and seeding the earth plane, the middle world, with a renewed vigour. It requires great discipline and clarity of mind for this undertaking to bear fruit……garner this power now, shed all that does not serve this greater purpose, for, upon the return of the Sun, its power will begin to work in the world. Great things can be accomplished with such guidance…..

It is exemplified in the words of the shamans of the Sierra Nevada who, as the solar cycle neared its turning point, sent this message to the world :

1970586_10152257702507419_1179323869_n“Blessings all, a powerful message has been delivered in Australia during the past 72 hours from the People of the Earth, The Sierra Nevada. (Shamans of Columbia who have never lost their ancient connection to the Earth, and still live in complete harmony with nature and each other.)
Their message in essence is that “now is the time to fully commit to the restoration of our Earth.”

Source : ‘10,000 Amend’, 2014-12-19

Images :

(1) Emu Woman rock engraving, Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, NSW. Image, Barnaby Norris

(2) Shaman’s Staff, Rob Purday

(3) Kogi Mamas, Sierra Nevada

 

Root Medicine of the Stars

Venus In Furs

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venus in furs

Venus in Capricorn brings us face to face with the empowered woman. What is the image that is conjured in those two powerful words? We might imagine a ‘successful’ individual, one who has reached personal pinnacles and challenges our notions of power itself, against the prevailing odds. In Capricorn Venus is emphasising the role of the empowered woman and, if we must ask ‘what are her symbols’, we must go beyond the image of the CEO or stateswoman, as, is this not simply a projection of male values. However, Venus in cardinal earth does not ask, or wait, for an answer; She Knows. And that is Her fundamental Truth. No wonder the corporatocracy is rife with glass ceilings.

In a world and time such as ours the planetary Goddess resonates with much deeper truths, manifests first, asks questions after, if at all ~ She is the living memory of earth, untamed within its crystalised forms, as much present in the wild wind and waters, as the volcanic plumes and rivers of molten rock. If we do encounter her in the mundane, on the hustings and frontlines facing the violators of Nature, whether with megaphone in hand, giving it her all, or feather and drum, holding the memory intact, chances are she is fired up with that ‘knowing’, pushing for change in the face of violation and usury. There is great passion coursing through her veins, pushing the boundaries of the world to grow out of its complacence and apathy. If invoked, She calls up the roots of change itself in her being. And Her faces are many, have endured time and tide.

She can be present in spirit and in body as the Wild Woman, the Huntress, whose powers are timeless, even when distorted, as she has become in the dominatrix and louche seductress. Pluto, who is centred in Capricorn in this time, has much to answer for here, but, he is himself transformed in her presence and, as Ceres, whose asteroid is presently close on the Sun, She drives the hard bargain that draws upon her own pragmatic nature, demanding equality where, otherwise, no deal may be struck. She looks after her own, her children as well as those who look after her, give to her their fealty.

She is, for all her political nous,  a fierce lover in Capricorn. Her power is deep, sensual, charged with earthiness, and demands parity in her lover. She is also the creatrix, ruling over the most fundamental natural laws of manifestation within the Life/ Death/Life cycle. In her most fecund state She can be seen in the most ancient art, caught in an ambiguous embrace with the Bull headed man in Chauvet caves, brought out of the living rock and clay of her own body in countless ‘Venus’ carvings and figures. The shaman knows the deal.

She reminds us here of that which endures like no other, in memory and presence, and holds fast the root of humanity in her being. But, She also holds the protectorship of the animal world as Mother of the Animals, active as the central figure in indigenous knowledge, as She who must be petitioned by the hunter for a good hunt, and, as the bestower of blessings, health and nourishment upon the tribe and community, must be herself respected, fed and shown due care, before She will reciprocate.

Sedna’s story pulls into hard focus the egotism and disrespect shown by the paternal line; her fingers, severed as she fights for her life, become the creatures of the oceanic realms into which she has sunk, over which she subsequently rules. When, on the 5th of December, planetary Venus aspected Neptune by quintile, shortly before entering Capricorn, Sedna’s asteroid was quincunx Venus from Taurus, her sign by rulership. A report emerged on that date that echoes with the tragedy of this story, revealing that Pacific Killer Whales have suffered a 100% mortality rate amongst their off-spring this year on the West Coast of the Americas. This brings a devastating reflection, through the fertility giving apsect of the quintile to Neptune’s oceanic lens and the hard reality checking quincunx to asteroid Sedna, that reveals the underlying story at work in our times. She is speaking directly to us here, of ecocide and its inherent dangers. She will protect her own, her children, but, it is ‘we’ who will pay the price if we do not listen.

This is far from being the first indication of the story behind the disease and disturbance at the heart of the global ‘eco-system’, as it is reflected within the Pacific Ocean. Alongside Starfish ‘dissolving’ in their thousands, mass beachings of Whales, Dolphins and Seals, many dead on arrival at the shore, showing chronic skin wounds and sores, are pointing back towards pollution and irradiation of the oceans. The reality of this is being heavily censored in the mass media channels, but, is not escaping the awareness of independant reportage and monitoring. It is time to stop the carnage, even if it looks too late…..not least as the power of the planetary Goddess will prevail, regardless the disregard She has been shown, and, whether we are here to witness her resurgence, or not.

In contemporary life under the dominant culture Her role has become forgotten, overlooked and distorted. For the most part, amidst the decadence of western hegemonies, where the Capricornian Venus is present, she is demeaned, hoisted upon a pedestal and made an object of masculine fantasy. Amidst the ruinous distortions and photoshopping of western patriarchal ideology Her root power is suppressed, its source exploited as matter, glamourised and manipulated out of meaning and devoid of respectful understanding.

The millenia of the Piscean age have seen war waged upon Her and her lovers, but, she is an archetypal Spirit, and her essense, pushed into subterranean realms of both consciousness and emotional energy, if disconnected from the pursuit and embodiment of power as the misogynists have framed it, is all the more dangerous, unbound beneath the surface. Her power cannot be repressed without consequence. The glass ceilings of the power-broker’s world are a false prison, in constant need of re-assertion in the face of her own irrepressible nature ~ and, in the heart of the city, the citadels of plutocratic rule, even in the most arid of places, She inhabits the understrata of the land, the culture, its human root, holding its memory in seed form, waiting to push open the cracks in concretions of power with her wild and indestructible beauty.

She taps Capricorn’s catalysing motivation for manifestation with a subtle power that can and will absorb all in Her path ~ she is the transmuting power of the earth, rich, fecund and ancient. But, she can wear many faces here too ~ even in the most tender of flowers she is present, ineluctable, fresh and filled with deceptively subversive potential, to grow and spread. She grounds us, stimulates our own roots, smudges our subtle body with odours of Vetiver and Sage-brush, imbued with the stings of Thorn and Rose beneath her white and red robes.

When Venus entered Capricorn, on December 10th, the cracks began to show and she mirrored back to us the erronious nature of her detractors – witness…..

Ice

……on December 10th, just hours after the release of the CIA’s ‘torture report’, Japan introduced a new Secrecy Law making investigative journalism, leakage and whistleblowing of facts surrounding the Fukushima disaster a criminal act carrying heavy penalties of up to10 years incarceration. Simultaneously, reports of lobbying of the US government by the UK company Oxitec for the release of GM mosquitos into the environment began to surface in the alternative media, and, on the same day Spain announced gagging laws which threaten to make public protest illegal and severely limit freedom of speech.

In the USA, Congressional staff staged a walkout on this day in protest of the Garner and Brown cases, highlighting the unaccountability of fatal police actions against unarmed civilians, racial discrimination and the widening gulf between the People and the agencies of State and Law.

Since then we have seen the US Senate move to legislate stripping the Apache nation, the largest landholder amongst Native American tribes, of their ancestral landrights in favour of giving Resolution Copper, an anglo-australian subsidiary of Rio Tinto, access for mining to 2,400 acres of the Tonto National Forest, as well as ceremonial and burial grounds within the Apache reservation. Rio Tinto is responsible for Uranium mining operations in Africa, amongst other global actions which threaten land, people and environment alike, and which also involve foreign investment from countries such as Iran and China.

Also coming to light during this time, the World Health Organisation’s dissemination of an ongoing and historical programme of fertility reducing vaccination throughout Africa, the development of nano-robotic vaccines, proceedures for renouncing citizenship appearing in social networks, figures showing child poverty to be at its highest recorded level in the USA, have been revealed.

All this, and much more, within the space of a week has signalled an intensification in diametrically opposed interests between, on the one hand, the People and, on the other, the ruling powers of government, the legal system and their corporate cohorts…..if it isn’t apparent yet, if the dots have not yet been joined between all these events, we are in the midst of an assualt that, while appearing so diverse as to create an incoherent kaleidoscope of effects, reflects a far from disparate attempt upon the personal and collective freedoms, as well as the very well-being, of us all. Venus in Capricorn tests our values, and the judgements we base upon them.

Venus brings our attention to values that we experience in the arena of the everyday world. Capricorn throws us into the midst of the arena and asks us to fight for what we ‘know’ is right, that reflects those values. We can see the pressure rising within the zone of earthly power and its already manifest forms of initiation within the material world. The connections between such value systems and Nature, the environmental concerns this brings up, as well as imbalances of power inherent within this arena is obvious, the more so with Venus now approaching Pluto in mid-Capricorn. Venus will conjunct Pluto just as Uranus, squaring Pluto, turns direct, right on the solstice. With Mercury, the Sun and Moon joining Venus and Pluto in Capricorn at the turning point in the solar cycle we can expect an uptick in these issues, but, keep your eyes peeled as the season’s festivities get underway – there is a fine line between reality and illusion, and we need to have the eyes of the seer.

shamanVenus has just passed exact sextile with Neptune in Pisces as this goes to press and, if we care to see it, we can see the more sinister effect of this focus coming to light.

The illusion is failing that Fukushima, the ultimate symbol of the payback that reckless disrespect for Life brings, is in any way benign in relation to these events and, with senior scientists from the Japanese nuclear industry now admitting that the situation at and arising from Fukushima is exponentialy worse than Chernobyl, the attempts of the Japanese government to quash the truth is brought into full perspective. But, this effect is not confined to Japan. A greater part of the illusion, outside of criminalising ‘truth’, which the PTB are attempting  to deliver in full swing, is to marginalise such information, reduce it to the level of ‘conspiracy theories’, for example. 100% fatalities amongst creatures directly affected by thousands of tons of irradiated water being released everyday into the Pacific says otherwise. The water cycle alone tells us Fukushima is a global event that cannot be avoided, but, how much of a counter to this reality can we raise? Venus in Capricorn challenges us to ask ourselves, and to re-evaluate and work from our most heart held notions before we answer.

Neptune as a planetary influence is directly associated with widespread dissemination, as well as the propagation of illusion. The negative influence shows through unboundaried viral and epidemic effects. The Ebola illusion is that it is a virus, and, all this while the truth has been plastered, in plain sight, all over the media where the chosen image of Ebola is of a worm-like creature ~ the truth is that Ebola is a parasitic organism, against which vaccines are useless. In the light of the current vaccine programmes you can draw your own conclusions from this.

But Neptunes influence here has a positive counterpart as well, through connection with the worlds of imagination and non-physical realities, bringing energy to the unexpergated Venusian realms of creativity that we can tap into in our art and dreaming. Neptune’s positive corrollary in the mundane world is also visible in fashions and trending, but, with Uranus direct, in a world of global connectivity through Uranian technology,  this can become the field through which the counter-punch is delivered. Censorship of the internet or not, the energy is unleashed.

Under such conditions, perhaps the Orcas have a deeper message to deliver in this respect……if are we party to their infanticide, we are also a party to our own, as a species. Sedna has spoken and the message pulls us into the dreaming powers we are so much in danger of forgetting.

The Whales carry and connect us with something unique in the animal realms, a far reaching and ranging role that reflects a deeper truth native to our planet and beyond, a gift inherited by all Her children. We are all here for a very special reason, which imagination, connection in spirit and creativity make conscious and visible. In the animal medicines the Whales are here to connect us with that positive Neptunian attribute ~ they connect us to the cosmic source, the Dreaming. In this they are the essential part of Earth-Life that is ever-present in the Wild Woman’s kenning, as keepers of inherent knowledge of this connection, as it manifests within both natural and Natural law. It is said that piebald and spotted animals embody a link with the stellar realms ~ and, in the medicines, the Orcas are the fierce protectors of this cosmological connection. They work through the balance of life and death within Life as our planetary connection with the Dreaming.

With the loss of a generation comes serious reflection – augeries can be found in all things, but, if we were to look to the Orcas we would find a clear indication that the link is now seriously endangered. This not only applies as an animal mirror of the medicines within the wheel of Life, but, as a true reflection of what the gagging orders, limits on our movements and freedom of speech seek to prevent coming to light. The mass protests are also an expression of the unrest that rises when the stories held in the Dreaming are themselves censored. We are in the midst of chaos out of which arises their resurgence and re-telling. This has been an ongoing theme over the months on this site, but, the truth is in plain sight as organisations and official bodies responsible for clandestine programmes of eugenics, genocide, ecocide etc etc, clearly no longer consider it a responsibility to be accountable to the People, let alone the truth that our emerging mythos is seeking to enshrine for future generations. But, let us not forget, Orcas are also the Hunters of the Whale nation.

If Sagittarian influences, the realm of the Archer, are expanding consciousness through the Sun and Mercury in this time, Venus journey through Capricorn energises those issues that have already been disclosed that are most crucial for earthly life to continue, and, with the planetary Goddess meeting Pluto, the underworld deity, these issues will undoubtedly manifest their radical nature, equally demanding a deeper appreciation and commitment.

The combined energies of Pluto and Venus bring us face to face with the wild Animal Mother, She who unleashes the fearless energy of the Huntress and governs the creative principles of Life and Death through Nature. These are times for us to bring her energy into our hearts and feel Her own deep truths speaking to and through us.

The need to bring this fierce and unbounded love for Life into our own lives, where death to one world means birth into another, needs no mirror and is inherent within all of us who have been born through her body, but, nevertheless, mirrors we have in abundance when Venus and Pluto meet, and the flip-side of this combination is equally provocative and revealing.

Old woman

When Venus conjoins with Pluto she also sextiles Chiron. Here She can disclose subconscious inner feelings, neurotic wounding and experiences of inadequacy, of the unnatural desire for sado-masocistic interactions as an expression of relationship. In many ways Chiron amplifies the dark side of both Pluto and Venus played out through exploitation and the creation of victim/violator roles in which subjugation reaches damaging and critical levels. These are levels in which psychoses manifest their dynamic, and we might well be seeing this at work in the disfunctional and destructive examples cited above. But, it is precisely in their positive counterpart that they find their nemesis. The Chironic embodiment of animal and human frame in one being is also the realm of the Wild Woman and her pack.

She can be Venus in Furs in both senses, but, regardless the scenario, the choice is ours ~ do we roll over and suffer the degradation, allowing the dominators free rein, or do we let the blood rise and burn with a deep and fierce energy in our hearts. As dramatic as it may sound, in reality the choice, like Orca’s markings, is becoming very black and white for us now, clearly polarised. But, the onus now, in anticipation of the coming season of powerful Moons and the final Pluto Uranus square, is to realise the values represented by both sides of the equation, to hunt down meaning and understanding within their midst, in order to find a path of realism, one that promises a better future. The question is are you moved to take up the Orca’s call, the call of the Wild Woman and Hunter, and, in entering their circle, invoke and bring their medicines into your own life and circle……

It is a choice between being the hunter and the hunted ~ one thing is certain, either way; She is the ancient heart of the world who sees all…..

Top image : Susan Seddon Boulet

Root Medicine of the Stars

Fourth Quarter 2014 ~ Making Big Medicine

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sayamhorse
” Those who are skilled in combat do not become angered, those who are skilled at winning do not become afraid. Thus the Wise win before they fight, while the ignorant fight to win. ”

 — The art of War
孫子 –Sun Tzu

The fourth quarter of 2014 is a time in which the balance between enabling power-to and controlling ‘power-over’ undergoes significant change. As a sustained period it shows strong potential for ‘big medicine’ to come into play on our planet. If the preceding months have facilitated building and gathering our own medicines and taking a deeper look into what is really motivating us, now we are entering more deeply into the time for strengthening our connections, getting organised and, drawing on all resources, to ‘knuckle down’ to the work that really matters. In this extended post we’ll look into the key themes at work through this quarter.

The celestial auguries speak of a ‘surging’ quality to the times, an influence that will serve all forms of activism and corrective action that is focused upon and supports the emergence of a new paradigm from the ashes of the old.

Our actions will be supported by the planetary matrix and the shift in energy, both emotional and psychological, will become increasingly tangible. Events will manifest opportunities for this shift to emerge. Opportunities taken will feed back into the loop to produce a kaleidoscopic cascade of Change. As the saying has it, ‘to get energy you must use energy’ – being pro-active is absolutely key.

Mars entry into Sagittarius has stimulated a wave of pro-active energy within the matrix. Emerging from the in-volving and seriously deep waters of Scorpio the tropical Sagittarian field allows the intrinsic fiery nature of the motivating planet a freer outward range. In fact, the current fire sign trine between Jupiter and Uranus, which will be in effect over much of the coming year, will be transformed into a grand Fire trine by Mars and bring the mid point of the first lunation to a shimmering climax. As this will frame a lunar eclipse of some importance, mark October 8th in particular as a day for making big medicine – it is the first of several within this quarter.

With the first lunation of this quarter opening in Libra and the full Moon being eclipsed in Aries, the importance of this axis for the coming months is emphasised. It tells us that it is now all about standing shoulder to shoulder and opening ourselves to our individual magic, ‘power-to‘, in service of the whole. This is where the strong ties and passion of the previous lunation find their purpose, and, they will be tested as this is not some fanciful Jovian projection of idealogy. Mars is on his way to join Pluto in down to earth Capricorn and, after the gateway of Samhain has opened, together they will undoubtedly shake the roots of the Status Quo.

A Mercury retrograde is embedded in the midst of this quarter and we can expect magically creative disruption to feed into the Mars effect. Couple this with the Moon’s nodes transiting the middle decan of Aries and Libra and the significance of interventions sourced beyond the physical plane, at a soul level, will be ramped up. Mercury crosses over the north node in Libra before and after stationing mid-retrograde….and, Uranus, itself retrograde, is already within 5 degrees of the south node in Aries. The eclipse on October 8th conjuncts Uranus. The transits of this time can be utilised to high effect to manifest the creative potential inherent within disruption ~ the means to do so are decidedly otherworldly.

Not only does the timing of Mars and Pluto’s meeting say there is much support from the ancestors behind this creative disruption, but, it takes place within the second lunation of this quarter, which itself opens with a partial solar eclipse! The opportunity to reset on the physical/emotional level at the first lunar eclipse finds complimentarity in mental and spiritual renewal at the second solar ~ October 23rd/24th marks the second gateway. Working with these eclipses is very tangibly about transforming Fate into Destiny! However, before looking where this is leading, beyond these watersheds, lets explore the underlying opening qualities of this quarter a little further.

native-amercian-horse-2With the Sun entering Libra at September equinox the context is corroboree, co-operation and relating. The quarter also opens with Pluto going direct, coincident with the new Moon one day after equinox, and soon develops momentum through that grand Fire trine between Mars, Jupiter and Uranus. There really is big transformative energy for change afoot and it is coming through our shared trajectory. Feel it in the roots of the world and invoke it. Be bold in its use, be daring in the purpose you bring to it and, acting locally, imagine globally. The matrix will support you in this, but, remember, in this context the trick to dealing with ‘big issues’ that might otherwise seem overwhelming is to simply work with what touches your circle.

Libra connects in balance, in awareness and through recognition of others, the conscious nature of complimentarity. This is the medicine of relationship, and seasonally its own energetic trajectory is shifting from the horizontal plane of spirit made manifest in nature and evolving through the quarter towards movement along the vertical axis of the spirit worlds as they intersect the physical. But, there is also within this medicine of evolving relationship the mirroring through which the microcosm reflects the macrocosm. We are in a prime time for divination, especially with the eclipses preceding Samhain in this quarter, building opening upon opening and allowing a much deeper interaction between the worlds once Samhain arrives.

That depth is essential……we need to re-connect with our Mythos. This too is supported by Mars charge through Sagittarius. Being ‘the change you want to see in the world’ is writ large on his banner. Be aware, such will not go unchallenged, especially through the second half of the quarter following that Mars Pluto conjunction, but, this is where the opportunities offered by the eclipses before hand take on a more radical significance. It is worth briefly summarising these.

The full Moon/total lunar eclipse on October 8th, conjunct Uranus, is close on the Moon’s south node. This occurs just as the Sun transits the Super-galactic Center! So, this presents the ideal time to divine into and meditate with the global Mythos. Make the big underlying picture your focus and keep an ear open to the otherworlds over the 7th, 8th, and 9th October ~ ask for a vision and share it; this presents an opportunity to remember our origins and place in the Dreamtime.

The auguries of the solar eclipse in late October in the first degree of Scorpio, framed by a Mercury retrograde, just as Mars crosses the Galactic Centre and approaches Pluto, sets the tone for the second half of the quarter.  We will really need to wise up, be alert and accept the fact that our mettle will be tested, but, the warrior heart is dedicated to protecting the Elder wisdom of the Creatrix. Holding strong the Circle is key after Samhain. All through this time the square between Pluto and Uranus has been closing, and big questions will be asked of us all to do just that. So,  the 23rd, 24th and 25th of October is a good time to connect with guides and make offerings in preparation.

1380130267_shaman-2An accompanying characteristic of this time is an increasingly collective realisation that we have been in this situation before. We hold those ancestral memories within the marrow of our bones. On the cusp of global meltdown recovering the memories of previous times of cataclysm is inherent to the natural survival instinct, but, the orthodoxy will do everything it can to prevent you from retrieving these realisations.

In the wake of the Mars Pluto conjunction and following the opening of the third lunation a series of squares from Venus, the Sun and Mercury to Neptune will trigger both obscurantism, deceptions and their exposure. The ruling powers of this world know the game is up and will resort to every means of distraction, false-flags and violent suppression to keep the People from the truth. Realising human culpability within these events, retrieving the memories from the deepest layers of the human story and acknowledging the inherited effect they have had upon us over the millenia is vital.

The tactics and strategies of the powers-that-be manifest the shadow inherent in the suppression of our true past, but, such ploys become ineffective once we have recovered the ancestral connection. We need to enter the otherworlds and bring back the soul and spirit attached to those memories. There is great healing and empowerment in this, for us all.

But, the People are remembering – we are constantly reminded by the effects of that shadow, the natural disasters and global destruction at hand, that what we set in motion through this time will echo down through the generations.

It is in remembering who we are, where we came from and why we are here that we will transform our human relations with the rest of nature and with our home planet. Venus entering Sagittarius on November 16th will help us feel more optimistic in the face of hard realities and connect from our heart with this, our human purpose.

We will need the stamina that a strong and shared vision brings, and, this quarter is not only a good time for creating that deeper communion, it is the temporal cauldron in which the mythos and its meaning will become concentrated, distilled and more potent, more latent within our consciousness and actions.

As Saturn approaches the last degrees of Scorpio towards the end of this quarter we should expect a backlash. A more ascerbic demonstration of power and control brought to bear where orthodoxy and entrenched authority is challenged by serious levels of change. This could be very close to home.

By the same token, the planetary matrix is clear ~ the mass of people, the critical mass in these circumstances, can be the source of that degree and quality of change if the latent power enshrined within the People is invoked and made manifest. Orthodoxy seeks to maintain the status quo by limiting that latent power, and that includes not only inculcating conformity, but, suppressing change through excercising ‘power-over’, using force and violence, and through legislation and the legal binding of freedoms and natural rights. Mars meeting Pluto brings these issues to a head, Saturn in the last degrees of Scorpio enforces them, revealing their life and death nature. If that sounds threatening, we have choices yet…..

Nature and our relationship with the natural world is the source of our greatest hope and provides us with the direct route to our origins, our ‘dreaming’. Symbolically and literally Nature manifests the dynamic of change and the origins of that dynamic, sourced through nature, are super-natural. Those origins and that connection are the birth right of every living human. Our choice is between allowing the collective severance of our connections with that power to continue, which means certain annhilitation, and fully restoring this sacred relationship within the circle of Life, which means demonstrating our ability to handle power wisely and honour its source.

The Earth will continue, but, the tree will die if the sap does not rise, if its roots are not fed and it is kept in darkness……

A highly spiritual water trine between Neptune, the Moon and Mercury develops soon after Samhain prolonging favourable conditions to sustain the dreaming, keeping the doors to the otherworlds open. Make this a time of abundant and nourishing offerings to the original beings upon whose shoulders we stand.

sayam horseShortly after Mars conjuncts Pluto, Neptune ends a long retrograde period and Mars squares the Moon’s nodes. We could come face to face with a crisis of faith, and this signals another big test of our ability to keep an ethical core at the heart of our actions. Equally, we could remind ourselves that ‘it is not good, it is not bad ~ we never know the whole story’, but, as Sun Tzu says ‘the Wise win before they fight, and the ignorant fight to win’. It is better to choose the path of the Wise, the path of peace.

Third lunation of the quarter opens in the first degree of Sagittarius on November 22nd. We can join in telling the stories at the heart of our reality through this lunation, feed our roots through our creativity, but, the stories we are living must also be realistic and uncensored if their roots are to be fed ~ Chiron, reflecting this back to us, is also ending a long retrograde period two days after new Moon.

Then, on December 9th Jupiter enters a four month retrograde period from late Leo. Use the remainder of the quarter as a time to embolden and embody the inspiring qualities encountered on the path that is emerging. Jupiters role through this time and well into the coming year will  be to amplify the creative energies we work with, to help our connections with the bigger picture become stronger, and, through the trine with Uranus, to encourage innovation and initiate more meaningful transformations within the world.

Courage in all things is Jupiter’s prerogative in Leo and is in essence at the heart of this quarter. After solstice Jupiter is the handle on a ‘bucket’ configuration formed with all the other planets on the opposing half of the zodiac. Perhaps not surprisingly, the courage needed for getting a handle on our future will be very much in evidence when Saturn changes signs, entering Sagittarius on December 23rd. If it has not already become evident, Saturn will remind us that the future and that of our descendants is our personal responsibility, expressed collectively.

As the year turns Mars comes to oppose Jupiter on the Aquarius Leo axis and Uranus will become the last planet to leave its retrograde motion…..and through all this time the Uranus Pluto square is pushing from beneath and behind, injecting the field with potential for increasingly radical change. The square becomes exact on December 14th, and stays within a degree of orb right through until the beginning of April.

As the year turns we find all the planets in direct motion, something that has not happened since January 2013, and we will want to feel that all the effort we have put in has been worth it, that the cosmos is supporting us through a great shift. Our challenge will be not so much to design or engineer that shift, but, rather to put a strong focus on creating and maintaining the conditions necessary for its manifestation. Keeping strong the circle and feeding the roots of the world tree are our human responsibility. The eclipses and Samhain are key in this. But, the last quarter of 2014 is itself a microcosm of the larger process at work, and, if we fulfill those sacred tasks, we can take from this time an intriguing clue about whats coming. The signs are that, should we make the right moves now, our future will flourish as we embrace the magical realities and deeper communion with Nature, beyond the material, that are our birthrights and living ancestral memory of who we are.

r0918When solstice arrives the 4th quarter will close and a new one open with a new Moon, exactly on the Solstice point…….Its been that kind of year…….we are right on the cusp………

Key Dates :

September 23rd, Equinox ~ Pluto direct at 11 Capricorn
September 24th, New Moon in 1 Libra
October 5th, Mercury retrograde at 2 Scorpio
October 8th, Full Moon/Lunar Eclipse in 15 Aries
October 23/24th New Moon/Solar Eclipse in 0 Scorpio
October 26th, Mercury direct at 16 Libra ~ Mars enters Capricorn
31st October/1st November, Samhain
November 6th, Full Moon in 14 Taurus
November 10th, Mars conjunct Pluto in 11 Capricorn ~ Mercury out of retrograde zone
November 16th, Neptune direct at 4 Pisces
November 19th, Mars square Moon’s nodes at 18 Capricorn
November 22nd, New Moon in 0 Sagittarius
November 24th, Chiron direct at 13 Pisces
December 6th Full Moon in 14 Gemini
December 9th, Jupiter retrograde at 22 Leo
December 14th, Uranus square Pluto exact
December 21st/22nd, Solstice – New Moon in 0 Capricorn
December 22nd, Uranus direct at 12 Aries
December 23rd, Saturn enters Sagittarius

A much shorter version of this post can be found in edition 85 of Sacred Hoop.

Root Medicine of the Stars

Time Come

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meltdown

As a symbol of our times Fukushima represents the most harshly polished and truthful mirror in which is reflected both our species deepest and most damaging folly, greed and blindness, and, the most powerful incentive and opportunity to change our relationship with Power, with Nature and with each other – as this Solstice approaches, with all its portents as a turning point, the pressure is on to make our choices……decisive as they may now be, not much farther down this road, decision becomes a choice that is not only decided for us, but, recedes from human grasp. Dramatic words, yes, but, why hide the truth when its staring you in the face…….

……the astrology offers no less a mirror for those choices with big pressure on Fukushima Daichi starchart as the Sun enters tropical Cancer. This nuclear disaster is Global and, despite the continued media blackout on the extent and truth of its impact, astrological transits to the chart for the event carry a portentious burden and reflect far reaching consequences if they remain unheeded. This Solstice sees a building set of astrological pressure points bringing a potential for release : transiting Mars conjuncting natal Saturn opp transiting Uranus + Moon, transiting Venus square Ascendant & transiting Mercury retro on natal South Node in the Fukushima chart…..

Within the general view for the solstice chart the pressure remains……

…..the ongoing T-square between Uranus, Mars and Pluto is at a tangible level of manifestation with transiting Moon coming into play joining unpredictable outsider Uranus as it approaches last quarter in Aries, and, some of the as yet unexpressed energy from the March manifestation of the T could come out at this point.

Yes, it is always a speculative business making astro predictions, but, what is in this mirror? Does this look like structural collapse, of the cooling pools, the melt through of the three cores from sub-mantle to mantle and karmic tipping point, and if so, we must ask, have we reached the SHTF moment of no return? There is a seismic quality to that potential energy as well……

The actuality of Fukushima on the ground may be unknown, in its fullest extent, and, accordingly, with Uranus in Aries being triggered anything could happen – whatever transpires, there is a call here to keep the people of Japan, the Pacific Coasts and the islands in prayer….in fact, prayers for all our futures…..transversly, this could also be the decisive moment for putting the direction of the People and our planet on a new course.

That course would have to be distinct from the failed paths of the politicians, the oligarchy and plutocrats, seperate from the psychopathy of leaders who no longer represent the people who elected them and upon whose backs they have built their empires, seperate from the corporate empires that now seek to control the controllers – and yes, it hardly needs to be asked, but, why?

Because, even now, in the face of such chaotic disfunction they continue to build their empires. The fact that they do so at a time such as ours shouts out the truth…..the fact that if the same energy being put into agendas of conflict, aggression, manipulation and degradation were put into healing and building a better world we know how positively revolutionary its impact would be…….the fact that Fukushima is undeniable and demands total commitment and yet is met with denial and refusal to take responsibility shouts it in our faces…….we know we are better than this, and it is getting very late in the day….Time Come.

….the stars are also saying, those who fail to match up to our collective needs and the demands of our times must go, must lose their positions of power…….they are holding us in a past that is no longer tenable and has all but seperated us from our better nature. Indigenous traditions tell us we have been through this collective meltdown scenario six times before. How many times must we fail before we learn……traditions also say that there will be no other chances after this one……but, we don’t need stars or traditions to tell us that.

…Mercury transiting retrograde over the Fukushima South Node at Solstice makes this a personal time to enter a sacred contract with the past, specifically the past that Fukushima mirrors back to us. This means acknowledging hard truths that we may not feel personally responsible for, but, which affect us with absolute inevitability. It is time to acknowledge that the past that is attached to the event carries forward the intents and consequences of the nuclear culture and its advocates, which must include all who collude to continue covering up the truth about its impact, its main benefactors, its ruthless and mindless greed. The destruction wrought upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki is a hungry ghost with a global appetite. It speaks through the mouths of those now disinforming about Fukushima, contributing to the perpetuation of the most dangerous industry and form of energy production, and its ultimate product, nuclear weaponry, ever to exist. Mercury holds our awareness on this past…..for a purpose.

Triggers to a south node signal a time to release energy that clogs the flow, that aggregates a residue of unresolved issues, and that, conversely, can aid us in reaching into new ground, uncharted territories, the places free of karmic disfunction in which our souls can grow. That release of energy can be harnessed too within that sacred contract to carry forward only that from the past which furthers beneficial intent, the empowerment to actualise ‘good medicine’. In accord with the times, this Solstice could also become the turning point in which to pledge to end the war, the carnage, the rape of humanity and the lands, the pollution, the mutilation and the exploitation of Nature, to do so as a defender of all that brings Life and Beauty……can you make such a pledge, the stars ask.

Astrology reflects potential, it is not deterministic, although that potential can affect lives unheeded…….it is what we do with the reflection that makes the difference…….

….may this be a time of Solstice Blessings!

Root Medicine of the Stars

Third Quarter 2014

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longshipc-1
Here is a brief forward looking glance at a soul centered astrological theme for the quarter between June Solstice and September Equinox 2014. I have chosen to look only at the sign/element placement of planets with particular reference to the predominance of those in retrograde phase at the beginning of this period. This was purely intuitive, following a similar approach to lunar station astrology. This delivered an unexpected perspective on the initiating energetics at work within the planetary matrix for the three months to equinox…..
          There is a sense of ‘back to the future’ about the coming times, a desire to advance beyond current limitations through forward projection of our soul’s path, this belonging very much to the Moon’s north node. Before such a journey can be undertaken however, it pays to remember the determining factors behind our motivations and resources, this belonging to the Moon’s south node. With this in mind, the quarter up to September Equinox opens with a call to slow down, pay attention to inner balance and reflect particularly upon how our inner and outer worlds, past and future, this world and the next, mirror each other. Where are the discrepancies, and how do we adjust them, what adjustments do they call for in us? The answer is suggested in the fact that the June Solstice sees five major planetary retrogrades in motion simultaneously. This too is just the pre-amble and preparation for what promises to be an exciting and highly active three months!
          Powerful compassion based soul work can be undertaken under this retrograde influence. Neptune and Pluto break down boundaries, while Chiron and Saturn both strengthen them, give us structure and meaning to work with. Mercury helps us to metabolise the process and maintain awareness of our inner processes. Their collective field flows inwards and aids the spirit in adjusting to the demands that the physical world makes upon it. This integrative energy is valuable in tough times. But, its true gift is in the ability to renew and evolve inwardly.
        We can usually tell, from looking at the natal and progressed moon’s nodes in our chart, what area of our lives the ‘experience producing’ challenges that our souls require for growth will be emergent within. This is where we have ‘yet to experience’, the unmapped territory, and in tough times we are all challenged to enter there, fully conscious. The field view, which provides a potential that can affect collective as well as individual soul paths, is particularly highlighted as Jupiter squares the moons nodes at the offset and, later in the quarter, Mars crosses the nodal axis at the north node. There is a strong interface between our collective and personal paths in this time, where we are all heading, but, there is more that those retrogrades can tell us about this.
          On a hunch I took a look at the Sabian symbols for each of the degrees of the retrograde planets. The Sabians tell us that Mercury in Gemini, Saturn in Scorpio, Pluto in Capricorn, and both Neptune and Chiron in Pisces, without exception, point towards the importance of actualising new beginnings, with Chiron calling us to bring this new reality into the public arena. There is an astonishing coherence between the individual Sabian symbols at work here, and this gives a sense of confidence. This suggests acting with commitment, once we have done our checks and balances. We can act upon what we feel most strongly drawn towards that fits with our deepest knowings, regardless the discomfort we may see ahead. This is not about taking the easy path, but, rather about trusting our path, and trusting ourselves to navigate it. To create it, even, because we ‘know’ it is the right one. Learnt from experience, as Chiron teaches, our ‘knowing’ is what will carry us forward now, even, and especially in the face of the unexpected. We must embody the Elder wisdom within. There is no doubt about how important this is on the global scale, but, it all begins under our own feet…….
          Elementally, this potential is initiated through water, air  and earth. The fire is provided by that Mars transit which re-enters opposition to Uranus in Aries and square to Pluto before reaching the north node. This indicates that we should bring the most important and radical lessons we have learned from the last three months in particular and act upon them to transform our way of living, finally releasing ourselves from the outlived patterns and ties of the past with a real commitment. The emphasis will very much be on ‘the viable future’ and living that future as a reality, starting now. With a predominance of water in the planetary elemental matrix that reality is carrying healing and nourishing energy as we live it.
          One week before Lughnasadh Mars will begin travelling through Scorpio, conjuncting Saturn on the way, and, by Equinox will have reached the early degrees of Sagittarius – live that reality with a passion and deep self belief that we can ‘make it so’.
        The midpoint of the quarter is also preceded by a new Moon in early Leo, this time conjunct Jupiter. Jupiter’s entry into Leo on July 16th also marks the end of the Mercury retrograde period, so this will really flag up the second half of the quarter as a time to not only embody our soul’s path fully, but, to shine through our unique individuality and genius, and to join others in doing so. This is a time to ‘see’ and be seen, as an example of how you would like the world to be, acted out in human form. There needs to be an element of acting here, of taking on the role, acting ‘as if’, as a means to realising the goal. The renewal of our human reality will become ‘earthed’. It is a powerful and, arguably, realistic basis for entraining the ‘peaceful revolution’ that is being increasingly talked of now, perhaps the most realistic, if we are to break the mould of the past and avoid our demise. The indigenous traditions tell us of multiple past ‘extinction level’ events…..we have to pay heed this time. It is not enough to rage against those who would use and oppress us – even if we succeed in removing them from the picture we must be strong enough, inspired enough and ‘knowing’ enough to embody that future we most desire.
            As the Sabian symbol for the visionary, mystical planet Neptune says of its degree in Pisces at Solstice, “tomorrow lives through today” – whatever means or roles you find your deepest and most natural passion and wisdoms realised through, we can all now be all those things with confidence………
An edited version of this article can also be found in issue 84 of Sacred Hoop magazine.…..
 
Root Medicine of the Stars

Third Quarter 2013 – the Roots of Global Healing

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kogi-way

The third quarter of 2013 from the mid-year Solstice through to September Equinox is underpinned with the ongoing pressure cooker square between Pluto in earthy power-based Capricorn and Uranus in fiery initiatic Aries. The square brings out the elements of each planet in a binding relationship that forces the dynamic of change. Imagine two rivers flowing towards each other at right angles – under this influence we are now in the midst of their confluence.

A place and time of underlying turbulence, this period also sees the manifestation of a major aspect between the Water signs – a grand trine is triggered over the first two months of this quarter, and, here we find an energy matrix that offers us supportive, deep and meaningful healing to balance the turbulent undercurrents. In this extended post we’ll touch upon the main strategies we can use in bringing ourselves and our work into alignment with these cosmological influences, and for working within the world with a balanced and healing effect of our own.

Lets get a little perspective on that square first. This being the third of seven squares between Pluto and Uranus, applying into 2015, this present time brings us into the heart of these outer planets interaction through this challenging aspect. Within the cycle of seven, the third, like the preceding two, was exact (2013-05-20) on a waxing Moon phase, this time when the Moon was approaching fullness in the second quarter. The following four squares over the next two years or so take place on waning Moon phases. We are still in the formative phase – synthesis is not yet available to us, we are still being heavily pulled by the tidal flow. But, this is also important as the lunations through this time hold much potential for radical shifts, and the Moon, symbolising the People, also rules Cancer…..

The influence of Pluto and Uranus as outer planets is global and impersonal, and, even though we are all feeling the impacts of their effects, the enormity of it all can be overwhelming. With species decline, weather manipulation and the GMO debacle out in the open and being hotly discussed, for example, these influences are also bringing increasingly unified collective energy and awareness into manifestation, so, while the field supports this awareness, it also challenges us to respond with awareness.

Transformation, Pluto also reminds us, begins at root, and, given Pluto’s connection with the unconscious, it would be dangerously naive to think that this will all resolve itself in time without conscious involvement…….mounting evidence of top-down corruption, politically and technologically driven social engineering and the revelation of manipulative ‘false flag’ interventions expose the extent and truth of this. Alongside with this we see that, where state endorsed mass media relentlessly hides or cosmeticises the truth, instantaneous exposure via the internet is growing as a fuel to intervention, which is also very much a Uranian trademark.

Almost anywhere we look in the world now this dynamic is playing out, but, it does so with apparent impunity. The entropic and negentropic, both collapse and growth, destruction and creation, appear to be, if not intimately bound together, blatantly concurrent. Their joint volatility under this influence is enlarging and feeding a vortex of manifestation with an increasingly dynamic polarity of interaction. Where Pluto is essentially process oriented Uranus is interventional. Where the illuminating side of the one has precedent, the shadow side of the other is invoked – and the only realistic way is ‘through’, such is the quality of the square now.

The key is in centering ourselves within the heart of the vortex, its still center. That center is available to and can be found within us all, if we take time to access it, and here is where our personal interventions become immensely valuable to affecting change through working with the positive side of the underlying dynamic. Consequently, through this time in particular, awareness and emotional stability and intelligence are of the greatest importance to us all. Paying attention to these matter, enabling a unification of action and purpose to arise from within our own circle, on a personal level, that will have a beneficial effect on the bigger picture.

While a rising unity is already present here, that which opposes it is also exposed, and this raises tensions, especially where there are already imbalances of power. In the long run we will see outcry and protest increasingly become the individually fueled mass response where these polarities emerge. Turkey’s is the latest example, a perfect illustration – what began through a small number of people seeking to protect a park, a meeting place of human and natural beauty, from impending destruction to make way for a shopping mall, quickly escalated into a national uprising in the face of oppressive political agendas and the unwanted imposition of the vested interests of the few. There is a stunning encapsulation of the current debacle clearly present here – but, being ‘in the midst’, so to speak, it will not end here……

….it may be a truism to say that, until political will reflects the will of the masses, mass unrest is inevitable and protest is necessary. There are many grievances being expressed here, harboured at what are also deep underlying levels. Where these have been unconsciously held, in Pluto’s realms, Uranus influence casts sudden and piercing light upon them and ignites their emotional potential, bringing them into a charged state within collective awareness. There is also an incredible outpouring of creative energy present here, as anyone plugged into social networking will witness. But, if the Uranus/Pluto square is currently pushing the issue without expectation of immediate resolution, the emotional charge that grief and collective protest will invoke may also remain unresolved. This augers a hot and chaotic build up of tension at large, so, Uranus flashpoints will almost certainly invoke Plutonic controlling and clamp-downs, and, increasing political and economic breakdowns and exposure invoke fierce activism, as well as creative innovation, as a counter. True to the dynamic of the square, while there is a feeling of ‘inevitablility’ invoked here, there is in fact no given predictability; the entire field is primed, sensitised and capable of manifesting this dynamic, so, neither is there room for avoidance or denial. This too is reflected in the world at large. But, watch carefully for how this plays out through internet accessability and a growing ‘truth’ game – the divide becoming increasingly apparent between those who ‘hold’ power and those who are ‘reclaiming’ it, in the name of truth.

We can expect a strong flow of feelings and focus on protective energy to dominate the collective mood, especially through the first half of this quarter……emotions and feelings being so central to the water signs, the influence of the grand trine becomes especially important now. As if it isn’t already, Water is going to become a big issue. The fundamental necessity of water to life, its centrality within ecosystems, as well as healing through the blessings of the release it can bring, can be successfully combined here if we focus on emotional and spiritual ecology – we are called to protect our heritage and correct our legacy, certainly themes befitting of the sign of Cancer. The image of the spiritual activist as ‘eco-warrior’, within both external and internal eco-systems, the protective and spiritualised actions of care that we bring to bear, can have profound meaning for us all now and for our children. This is essentially to engage with an ecology of soul and the planetary matrix is conspiring to open a fluid channel for these present energies to flow through at a soul level.

To utilise this dynamic and put it to good use in the world we must first accept that ‘this is how it is’ with us, now. Saturnian realism. There is a turbulent groundswell that affects us all at work in the world, pushing the curve of change, but, essentially so. For both the warrior and the healer alike being well centered is crucial. In centering we find the source point, and access to the field. And ‘the field’ is Neptune’s operative medium. If you are so inclined you can read this as a commitment to work in complete alignment with the spirit worlds, to let this commitment infuse and inform our lives. As energy workers balanced connection with the source field is also the fundamental basis of true healing. In both cases we become the conduit. We need to cleanse and strengthen this connection, and then, ‘let the power flow through us’. The grand trine represents an ongoing influence sourced in the field, occupying the middle ground or interface between the seen and unseen realms, so, this is something we can rely on here and now – the importance of this cannot be emphasised enough. Where we lack the power of personal vision we can benefit the greater scope and guidance of spirit and the source field.

The enormity of the problems our ecological approach encompasses may seem overwhelming and intensifying, but, that is precisely why the symbol of the eco-warrior spirit is being invoked – courage and commitment, as well as emotional intelligence and awareness, are amongst its halmarks. The universality of compassion and the inspiration of spirit make these qualities effective as a collective ecology, pragmatic realism towards deeply grounded truths make it powerfully effective, and these are highlighted through Neptune in Pisces and Saturn in Scorpio respectively – the inner ‘planets’ (the Sun and Moon being included) transiting Cancer bring it all home and within our personal reach.

In the run up to the cross-quarter point of Lughnasadh, and beyond, the grand Water trine will be triggered repeatedly through the personal influences of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter in transit through the sign of the Crab as they key-in to the ongoing trine between Neptune and Saturn. This post goes to ‘publish’ as Mercury opposes Pluto and Venus connects into the grand trine.

With the emphasis on ‘the personal’ connecting with the field through Cancer, our personal connections with the wise council of the ancestral spirits and the nourishing power and protection that they sponsor us through, will give meaningfulness and depth to the guidance we can call upon. Where we have already established strong connections with our own ancestors we can ask them to work with us – where we are unsure of this connection we can turn to Nature, as their presence is strong in the flora and fauna, the earth and waters of our lands. Connect with natural allies, with ‘power places’, to bring the ancestral links alive. Here we also connect with our own spiritual roots.

Working from the root, the counter-balance to plutocratic pressure, destruction and disempowerment is in focusing on the cool deep running waters of our personal medicines, the ‘imaginal’ capacity that we all have, which connects us to the mature, experienced elder wisdom. This is the time to gather in the clans and healing circles, to be in nature, to call in the allies and to open strong channels for the spiritual power of fundamental healing to flow through us. Whether it be in the intimacy of our personal sacred space, within our homes, or in the groups to which we belong, in gatherings of the many, when the root is present and flowing with spiritual sap it feeds the collective through which it flowers and finds outward expression.

This is, initially, a collective movement of energy in time that will find its own natural connections, but, if nothing else, this will be the prime time to call upon the spirits of Water, to give thanks and prayers of gratitude to them for giving us Life. Ask for their help in removing obstacles to transformation, for major collective healing, and for finding creative pathways for the flow of this emergent healing energy. Flow is everything here……trine energy can be wonderful, but, can also over-relax and make us lazy, so, while ‘down-time’ is vital in these times, make this a conscious use of that energy.

Remaining ‘awake and aware’ of what is happening around us also is essential – the simplest of things, its good to at least splash water on your face and arms, but, laughter too is a great healer when its flowing. If you are so blessed to be able to do so, bring play and joy into the mix! Go stand in the rain, in a fountain, a stream, run through the surf, go ‘wild-swimming’, if the spirit so moves you, but, do remember to hit your personal ‘refresh’ button. Take prayers to the rivers and lakes, to the oceans and the humble bowl of water on our altars. An herbal bath at the end of the day will help restore vitality, cleanse out toxins and strengthen our connections with the plant allies. If in doubt consult your local ‘curandera’ or herbalist, listen to the voices of nature. Asking for blessings from ‘Mama Water’, from the plant spirits – and always with deep gratitude – the network is strengthened.

We can be subtle in all this as well, at the same time. I emphasise playfulness here as these times are not in any way envisaging a call to ‘up’ confrontation, but, to invoke and stand within the flow of a greater power. That is an irresistable power in the face of the seemingly immovable object. Scorpio and Pisces emphasise the hidden and the intangible, as does Cancer the importance of inner and outer boundaries, and all operate here within the powerful elemental influence of compassionate pragmatism that Water embodies. Spiritual protection works in the subtle realms. We do not need to wear our power openly……

In many ways this amounts to preperation for working with future eventualities, in the manner of one entering sacred space, as well as, for example in the traditions of the ‘grief ritual’, the personal clarification and cleansing that precedes healing of old wounds.

Water is also the primary element at the heart of healing through grief……so much of our ecological debacle is rooted in the past, in the ongoing effects of un-acknowledge and un-expressed grief. It is also a dynamic that is very much behind the relentless drive of ‘progress’, a double blind that unconsciously seeks solution divorced from the past while towing the un-acknowledged emotional charge of the past behind it.

In Pisces Chiron also continues to oscillate over the first half of the sign, so, the trine from Neptune to Saturn is joined towards and throughout the second half of the quarter by Chiron’s trine to the north node of the Moon. This further emphasises the soul dimensions of the water trine. The wounds of the past and their ongoing lessons are present with us in so much of the destructive energy at work in the world. This is an opportunity to bring elder wisdom to work as an agency of transition that accepts the wounds we have suffered. It does so because the elders know through experience that taking up and expressing the grief behind those wounds fuels collective and corrective soul healing. Reclaiming the power locked up within them empowers us and allows us to move on with vigour and knowledge. Within both the inner and outer ecological issues facing us this will inevitably bring us into an emotionally charged space, one in which release becomes the precursor to transition. While the social, economic, environmental, political and spiritual injustices remain, We must be prepared to grieve.

In many ways the grief process is also about clearing the emotional body of hindrances and blocks, as well as freeing our subtle self into full living – decontaminating our subtle self and unhooking from archetypal patterning will be key to our future. So much of the plutocratic misuse of human power rests upon maintaining the  presence and effectiveness of those contaminants and patterns. It could be, the only thing that can facilitate humanity’s entry into maturity is a mass outpouring, not of violent confrontation, but, of emotional power through grief.  A part of the problem for us is how we facilitate this without it becoming confrontational, and without creating more grief. This takes prescient vision and strong soul-centered leadership – this too brings our personal work into a wider perspective, one in which we can all potentially fulfill that role, and embody the Imaginal’s role. This role was introduced recently at Owlmirror, the sister site to ‘root medicine’ – it is a visionary role that fits and carries a strong call.

When Venus enters Leo towards the end of June the time will be ripe for this calling to gather in power. We must take heart in this, and be willing to witness each others passion and hot tears in the face of usury and oppression as an essential part of the transformation process. This is real, and absolutely necessary if a release into a renewed sensivity for and appreciation of Life is to take the upper hand. But, Venus in Leo also signifies this in outward expression, through an appreciation of beauty and natural resource. Many are already rising to this call….but, we have not yet reached critical mass. July will see the empowered spread of this as an imperative to the masses with Mars and Jupiter conjunct in mid-Cancer, building to full strength just as Venus exits Leo on the July full Moon, 2013-07-22. Expect the rising energy felt then to become more widely present in the outer world as Lughnasadh approaches, as Mars and Jupiter oppose Pluto. This could be a tough test – but, it could also be a time of increasing confidence in People power if we hold fast to our center as we meet it.

Around Lughnasadh and into the second half of this quarter, in the run up to Equinox, the field for empowered individual work will open further, following through from this foundation. Being confident in the meaningfulness of our individual lives can help us move energetically forward. We are being primed for a cultural regeneration based upon healing values. Personal healing and creativity with a practical edge can come to the fore here, highlighted with first Venus then the Sun and Mercury entering Virgo in opposition to Neptune and Chiron in Pisces. The August new Moon on the 6th will further seed a time of expansive change and we are the seeds of that change. This lunation is seeded squaring the Moon’s nodes – everything that we have paid attention to that feeds our souls will find value wanting realisation and this lunation is charged throughout with this energy.

The more we are able, individually, to resonate with the healing and transformational energy available within our own lives, both ‘high’ and ‘deep’, the stronger will become the resonance that this holds collectively. The polarisation of power is a golden opportunity to shift the poles of influence in our world.  Yes, there is a growing awareness of the importance of ‘being the change that we want to see in the world’ emergent now, but, this is no longer a soundbite or new-age mantra. Intrinsic to bringing real and lasting change that is in line with our shared role as guardians of our planetary home, Venus transit into Libra during the August lunation opens our hearts to the inter-relatedness of the collective journey, and sets in motion a resurgent wave of consciousness that the Sun’s entry into Virgo will further highlight as an ecological and healing necessity.

When the Sun and Mercury reach opposition with Neptune and Chiron it will be a time for the reckoning. This may sound ominous, but, that is the whole point of staying ahead of the curve, as well as the raison d’etre behind a long-term view being presented here. As this opposition approaches towards the end of August, Venus will also be opposing Uranus, forming a grand square with Jupiter opposite Pluto. The stress here is going to be on testing out our collective power – you have been alerted! Be ready to hold and sustain a higher vision for your own life, look closely at the intrinsic facts of how this can work and is working, utilise this insight to step beyond habitual and learned behaviour patterns, be ever watchful for opportunities to manifest this vision and, to coin the infamous phrase, ‘don’t let the ‘buggers’ get you down’. Effective tactics can include ‘random acts of kindness’, btw……..be unpredictably beautiful, its powerful medicine!

Jupiter is here also approaching first square with Uranus since their conjunction at the Aries cusp three years ago. The issues that arose from events of that time will be brought back into this arena of global change.  This was a time of Deepwater Horizon, of the Climate Change conference in Cancun, the year of financial bailouts, of environmental disasters through flooding, earthquakes and tsunamis – 2010 was also the year of Biodiversity, of Youth and the European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion……..how many of these issues, and so many other factors, still apply in this time and in what ways……we must ask.

As the September New Moon arrives on the 5th, and as the Pluto Uranus square begins to wane, we can more actively turn our focus towards the future and gathering the practical means for sustaining a realisable vision. The seeding of that future is in our hands, literally. Mars, squaring the Moon’s nodes brings fiery energy to our souls path and the spirit of Fire, that most radical transformative element and bringer of cultural change, can be invoked to fuel the process of transition. This is the emergent halmark of the September lunation, burning off the aggregates that impede our souls path and embracing the great tranformational powers we are capable of in the long run. The full September Moon just days before equinox is preceded by Venus, Saturn and the north node aligning at 9 Scorpio to test out this vision with perspectives seen through the lens of reality. What we mean to our descendants rests upon our ability to realise it. We may not see its flowering just yet, but…..

…..as Equinox approaches, the fruits of our labours through this equally contentious and exciting time will show us how deeply meaningful, as well as essential, our ability to transit from a visionary human capacity into a workable one is for our world. If ‘global transformation of consciousness’ was formerly the vision, planetary healing is now our mandate. This is not so much a vision as an impending reality.

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