Chuang Tzu dreamt he was a butterfly, but, on awakening he could not tell if he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he is a man……
The coming year of the Water Dragon sees a wise power building within the waters of spirit at work behind the world – we have this time up until the end of January when the Chinese New Year arrives to take a pause in anticipation and to gather our personal power. This is a valuable moment to stop and listen. Roughly up until the end of the current lunation, the celestial weather directly supports our inner and world work in this way – a subtle amplification within the dialogue between ourselves and the Earth. In the coming months the dynamics of this dialogue will change so it is also a valuable time of preparation. The consolidating, developmental and altruistic work we do now lays essential sacred ground for entering the Dragon Path. So, lets take a look at the celestial influences arising now that support this dialogue…..
After traversing Scorpio and Sagittarius, through weeks of depth work and internal re-alignment with our inner Sun, the spiral path we weave around our home star has brought our focus once more to Earth with Sun now in Capricorn. Scorpio’s deep healing waters offered us access into the heart of our selves, connecting with the soul core, our spiritual center, and helped us clear the blockages and accretions that have been preventing a clear and vital flow of energy, feeling and awareness to and from our roots. Sagittarius’ cosmological illumination of our inner realms brought the potential to activate the dreaming body, birthing the Sunchild, bringing meaning and direction to the flow of energies within and helping us see how we can focus these along paths of manifestation with purpose in the times ahead. We now have the opportunity of capitalising on our clear and activated dreaming and are ready to step into grounding our creativity in new forms with the support of the mutable earth energies of Capricorn.
From this time of the year, our dreaming can become married with purpose in order to birth new forms that change our reality. This is a spiritual practice that stems from the heart as the generative creative center within the womb of creation. From the perspective of astrological cosmology an alchemy of manifestation is at work, for both hemispheres of our Earth. In aligning our personal energetics with Earths’s we can strengthen the flow of information within our dreaming between all of us. This flows in naturally from the Sagittarian influence, as Jupiter in Taurus is amplifying the earth energies through this time, and begins to become activated in the physical – when we work with these energies cardinal earth will help initiate transforming our aspirations into realities that are in alignment with our home planet.
This Solstice template, however, is carrying an increased potency this time around that has brought an enhanced element of indeterminacy into our forward looking. There is speculation within the cosmological community that this is partly down to the ongoing effects of the close alignment of Earth and Sun within the galactic plane with the center of our galaxy, and partly down to the unusual energetic qualities of the space/time matrix that our solar system is now entering, bringing transformation to the planets and our Sun, physically and energetically – all of which are now pushing the boundaries of reality to change. There are, however, other perhaps more esoteric factors at work as well – we can expect a potent release of energy in the time ahead that is a consequence of the breakdown of integrity within the earth plane, a shaking loose of boundaries, an experience that is beyond the scope of determinacy, and this is essentialy where the enhanced element of indeterminacy is arising from.
At present and over the next few weeks we are under the subtle but increasing influence of a bow wave of energy that precedes this reality shift, so to speak. If you have been gifted with the abilities and developed the skills to sense well beyond the physical you may notice this undercurrent in energetic form – that is to say complex vibratory patterning arising from vortices of catalystic change that appear and disappear without warning. These may appear as random events that challenge us or impulses to act in ways we are not accustomed to. Energetically it is advisable to do no more than observe at this point. Awareness needs to remain anchored in the heart center, our major center of intelligence and feeling where we interface with the source field. So, keeping focused on personal work, but, staying awake to the world. Earth will show us how this shift is integrating, even as it happens at a subtle level, but we have strong assistance now from Venus in Aquarius in working with the unexpected……
Have you noticed how the Earth field is also developing a ‘present’ time focus ripe with potentials that reach far beyond the known – human consciousness is not only becoming freed up to conjoin with instantaneous effect within the earth plane, our access to the source field is opening up bigtime. This is reflected in the growing resurgence of working with ‘free-energy’, a powerful and inspiring leitmotiv for our coming times.
Although readers here will almost certainly be well aware of the spiritual health of humanity in relation to our home planet, amongst the wider populace we are also seeing increasing openess about our role in life as guardians and preservers of Life. Spirit helps us connect and expand dimensionally. But, this means that our work in this role will now feed directly into this change. This is key. And, we are not the first to arrive at this point. The cycles of time have seen our ancestors approach and cross these thresholds of diffusion and multi-dimensionality before. Its worth considering that what has failed the ancestors in the past, when they have failed, will fail us now if we go forward without heeding their messages from the past, so it serves us well to honour and pay strong attention to our ancestral connections – it is not a given that we will avoid error; they have much to teach us that will help us avoid repeating the same mistakes. In fact, this is a hugely important time for ancestral healing and, in effect, our world work has become a vehicle for this.
There is assistance at hand – the world around us is waking up with almost daily revelations about the hidden past of our ancestors; their voices are becoming stronger in ways we may resonate strongly with now as re-awakening memories of former lives within very different communities. It is surely no coincidence now that our human heritage is rising from the Earth. They too are asking us to question and change how we have organised our lives, through the predominant culture, as well as how we have used our power. And we know that there is much more to come….
It is beyond doubt that the ‘status quo’ is a human fabrication that serves to organise. It may be that this ‘fixation’ has arisen as a response to our dissociation with Nature – we have been predominantly seeing it exponentially manifest control and subjugation of nature (and that includes human nature) within our current time-line over a 12.6k year period. But, this too is changing now. With virtually every archeological revelation our timeline is changing. And this is a great gift to us from the ancestors. The shift needs a radical ‘opening out’ of reality, as this will naturally change our values. So many false notions of power have become projected into money in our culture, but, we now can see clearly that this is nothing but a con.
Revelations of the extent of financial corruption and deception are escalating, showing that this process is already accelerating. But, these too are a part of the process of adjustment that is freeing us up from the narrow confines of a single time-line. At this time we can most clearly see this in polarisation between the roles of ‘destroyers’ and ‘preservers’. But, this will develop a multi-dimensionality of its own as diffusion spreads in the coming year and frees up the energies within the matrix. The Solstice template and lunation this year shows us being strongly assisted now in embodying, some would say reclaiming, our multi-dimensionality.
The Solstice influence is with us over the coming three months and we can begin reading into its astrological matrix by looking to Venus, whose entry into Aquarius is helping our archetypal heart energies to grow wings, the wings of Aquarian freedom. Venus is central in this reading. We know that breaking free of the gravitational field of ‘fear’ is happening when we feel light within and work with the empowerment that our courage gives us and Venus is in the Uranian influence as a field of electrifying creativity that ignites a fire within our hearts. In the Solstice template Venus stands at the midpoint of a T square formed with Jupiter and Saturn in opposition – her role is pivotal as her heart focus becomes the point of resolution through which their energies manifest. So, what are Jupiter and Saturn telling us of those energies?
Being the only planet retrograde at Solstice, Jupiter anchors our sense of the bigger picture inwardly, aiding us in giving it body and meaning on the earth plane, amplifying our senses and sensuality and helping us to listen to our earth – when worked with positively this will bring a feeling of inner enrichment and well-being in the world. As Teilhard de Chardin said, “there is an almost sensual longing for communication with others who have a larger vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendships between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality almost impossible to describe”….feeling that connection expanding and finding form is one of Jupiter Saturn and Venus’ main gifts now.
Shortly after the New Moon in Capricorn Jupiter stations and turns direct, so activating all the degrees of Taurus over the coming six months. This offers us a sustained time for feeling and sharing this inspiration, the sensual experience of meaningfulness. In the first degree of Taurus at solstice Jupiter speaks of re-establishing the dharma path, as expressed through the roles we embody. Saturn in late Libra gives the form and balance to this self focus with a fullness of purpose that lifts it out of the realms of selfishness – the impetus to give form to our higher selves in reality, here and now. With this aim Jupiter and Saturn are connecting us with the essential form of the greater whole, the extended community of spirit – if we hold the two energies in balance they work in perfect harmony, but, the key is in allowing this to center in the heart and being receptive.
This is fundamental to bringing mind, body and spirit together, and, through this we are strongly assisted in working the multi-dimensional nature of our earth experience in a positive way. And, not only is articulate ensoulment present within this, when we open to our multi-dimensional nature the living thread of the dreaming that connects us with our ancestors vibrates and re-sounds within our own dreamings. This is given extra torque by Jupiter’s angle to the Moon’s nodes. Within hours of Jupiter going direct the Moon passes over Venus’ solstice degree and grounds the T square, helping us further ground its potency and energy values within the influences of the Capricorm lunation. This means we can become free to ground our ancestral connections within our dreamings and share them in communion with the wider spiritual community here on the earth plane – a great opportunity for some deeply connected spirit-world work free of time line restrictions.
When the mutliple strands of our dreamings become interwoven and resonant across time we can also confidently take full responsibility for our role as ‘the ancestors of the future’. This is absolutely fundamental to our collective work. There is also much speculation around the multi-stranded nature of our DNA that is becoming a fascination for many now. Some are now seeing this as a cosmological development of our genetic coding, an awakening of our dormant potentials through reclamation of its multi-strand nature. The speculation seems to be that with this natural embodiment of our inter-dimensional nature we can realise our total connectedness across all time and space, all dimensions, all universes…..
Multi-strand DNA gives us the building blocks, the organising constructive memory and hardware to facilitate this shift in connectivity – it will happen of its own accord as the matrix frees its energies. However we envisage it, the heart is the locus and anchor point for this process. We would do well to allow nature to take its course here, but, remaining balanced is essential as reality will shift in ways we cannot imagine as this happens. In this is an emergent creative potential that aids us in meeting with the unknown in equilibrium. In other words, our multi-dimensional potential cannot be realised until we have learned how to be in balance within our selves, which is the pre-requisite for generating compassion as an active agency within Life, and it is Compassion as a power that will give us the keys that set us free. This, hopefully, puts Saturn, Venus and Jupiter’s great gifts in unity, into perspective…..the spiritual alchemy of the solstice….
Being in the Aquarian stream of consciousness Venus is also sextile to Uranus in the solstice imprint. Uranus is now direct in the first degree of Aries – this raises the truly transformative potential that can now unfold in firing new forms of consciousness within the earth matrix. Venus Sabian symbol of ‘the unexpected thunderstorm’ gives us the flavour……we must learn how to navigate this energetic terrain and work with the inner essense that animates us when ‘creating the path is the path’.
Mercury, the spirit of articulate self knowledge, also stands at a mid-point in the Solstice template, between Mars and Neptune. Unaspected directly, Mercury’s sensitivity to the connective flow of intelligence present within ‘the field’ subtly and adroitly gives us access to Mars and Neptunes influences. Mars in mid Virgo at solstice calls us to energise our connectivity, through the guidance of the divine feminine in the fixed earth of Virgo.
Neptune in the last degrees of Aquarius has the Sabian symbol of ‘the Butterfly emerging from the chrysalis’ – the cells within the transforming pupa within the chrysalis that bring forth this new elevated (winged) form are themselves called ‘imaginals’! Mars motivating powers activate the imaginal energies – Neptune breaks down the barriers for their emergence. We can, with Mercury’s assistance, expect the subtle nature of our emergent processes on earth to feed our dreams through this solstice imprint. The more consciousness we give to them, the more they will activate our growth. And we can expect accurate and effective divination to help us listen in now as well. So, consult the Oracle as we need to be wise about how we travel the course we are setting out on! Time has taken on a different quality now and, like our weather, the dynamics of change are filled with unpredictability…….
Once again Venus increases her central role and stands at further mid-points, between the Sun and Chiron, as well as between Pluto and Neptune within the solstice imprint! Her wings are taking on deeper implications for riding the winds of change……
The Sun entering Capricorn at solstice brings the emphasis back to ‘responsibility’ in our use of power. We have all been hurt at heart by the entropic destructive and delusional forces present within our world – however, Chiron supports us in healing the suffering behind these wounds. Wounds and scars, especially in the non-physical, make us highly sensitive, and can help to raise our consciousness.
With Sun closing on Pluto the plutocrats position at the peak of the pyramids of power can no longer be hidden, and the abuse we have suffered we will no longer allow to wound us – with such raised consciousness this is no longer possible. The key to handling this enhanced sensitivity is again in working with the heart center. Compassion also brings release from the restricting influence of fear and ‘en-courages’ self-empowerment. Time to claim our self-authority and, as Robert Bly poigniantly said, to “walk our limp” with pride. Clarissa Pinkola Estes has done some amazing work with women in helping them literally create a coat of power from the wounds that they as individuals have suffered. This is Chirons wisdom and Pluto makes it revolutionary. A collective wave of self-empowered individuals working with the higher self is an irresistable force.
Venus lifts us and Pluto reveals the extent of the next step. His influence is unflinching and indiscriminate, exposing the realities of power that connects us all, through taking us to deep and fundamental, revolutionary and soul-full levels of awareness…..this is epoch making energy at work within ‘the field’ that will become increasingly visible in the world through the year ahead, especially as Uranus and Pluto begin their exact squares mid-year. This will occur just as Jupiter passes into Gemini, so, now is the time to dream deeply, in communion with the divine in Nature, the ancestors and our spirit allies and let the expansive energies of our dreaming too be the channel for transformative power of liberation, healing and the birthing of our dreams within the world. Solstice has ever been thus, but never the more so now! We can all embody the return of the Sunchild……
We should pay head to the Moon in late Scorpio within the Solstice template, which here indicates that we can expect the feelings we have about our lives to run deep, but, must also keep our whits about us and not let the passion we feel rising after millenia of subjugation to blind us to the balance needed now.
The Moons nodes remind us that we are heading for ‘Aeonic consciousness’ (North Node on the Great Attractor) and highlight how mental balance and clear and unpolluted levels of health are intimately connected (South Node) – this latter aspect will be boosted during the first exact Uranus Pluto square in mid-year when Jupiter conjuncts the South Node in Gemini. The energies will be extremely high and widespread, working at fundamental levels of change at that time, so our work now is crucial. With continuing open and honest revelation of our true history, we will surely feel enraged at the extent to which we have been denied our natural heritage, but, this too can aid us as we can clear our minds of shared and self-replicating wounds, of memories, habits and lies of seperation that have kept us from realising our birth rights and human potential.
Lastly, the adjusting refinements of the current Capricorn lunation……
The New moon at 3º Capricorn sees the Solstice template subtly yet powerfully adjusted, acting like a lense focusing the archetypal inner light into present time, becoming more penetrative and intense. Being close in on Pluto at New Moon, the light of the returning Sun can ignite depth-charges of seismic force, shattering and collapsing darker uses of power and exposing them at the surface, but, this too will first and foremost catalyse a pull towards greater unity within the emerging body politic of our times. There are however indications that it is the ‘quieter’ aspect of the solstice imprint that will prevail over the coming month. The salve that helps us find balance in the world is brought by Jupiter. The great planet carries us through every degree of Venus home sign over the coming months, bringing a bountiful knowing and expansion of heart centered optimism to our individual and collective paths. Retracking over the degrees of the retrograde period through this lunation and the entirety of the solstice period, the expansive influence of Jupiter will re-open and amplify many of the revelations that have come out since the end of August, the onset of Jupiter’s retro period. This could up the anti in the world of finance, politics and international power struggles, but, our run up to the return of the Water Dragon will enable us to gather our personal power in balance to this. Watch out for new and astonishing revelations from the past!
We can now enjoy a lunation of expanding connection and sharing of true wealth – we can give this great depth through pausing now in receptivity – this is valuable fuel for the lunations preceding equinox, especially once Mars goes retrograde in Virgo at the end of January and Neptune re-enters Pisces in early February. Then we are into a zone of inner change and dynamic experiences in which reality will take on very unusual qualities…..the Dragon Paths of Earth are awakening….
…….in following the Dragon Path it is the Way that is walking…….
The Occupy movement has been challenged to answer to the question “What are your demands?” – this article offers a central and fundamental basis for answering this question. If you agree with this central basis please share this article and/or the short video with which it concludes………
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you….and then you win”
Behind these deceptively simple words, attributed to Gandhi, is a body of experience drawn from a life-long struggle to protect the liberty, rights and empowerment of ordinary people through peaceful activism – such root principles can, when denied, catalyse a powerful uprising of the people. For us, in our historic moment, the stakes are no less high, in fact, at root the fundamental nature of the current resurgence of the power and voice of the people carries a profound urgency and realism never before seen on our planet. The truth that can be felt with increasingly concrete tangibility is that it is not only our own, but, the protection of our children’s liberty, rights and empowerment to enjoy and experience Life itself that is at stake.
We have seen many uprisings and revolutions before. Historically, there is a passion at work in such uprisings, an unflinching power that arises from within the hearts and minds of ordinary people. For such power to become unflinching it requires the fuel of an indomitable and over-riding realisation of necessity. It is a passion that invokes and manifests the fundamental courage of individuals who have woken up to and become aware, within the manifest energies of the historical moment, of who they are and why they are here, and who have subsequently realised that the immediate predominant forces and circumstances prevailing within that moment run counter to this embodiment of self-knowledge, self-awareness and self-determination.
In confronting all that alienates us from the self-determination that comes through living by these innate human powers such courage and awareness have the capacity to unite people within a common voice that says ‘Enough’. Such is the measure of the growing realisation become increasingly manifest within our historic moment, on a global scale, and now symbolically carried by the world-wide emergence of the Occupy movement. Although not confined to the western democracies, and the ongoing struggle of the people in the North African and Middle Eastern countries associated with the ‘Arab Spring’ clearly demonstrate the multi-layered and multi-valent nature of this manifest realisation, the essense of this movement points directly to the over-arching rulership of people’s lives by predominant forces whose manifest agenda’s and effects on the liberty, rights and empowerment of the people run counter to and alienate the vast majority of people from their realisation world-wide.
How is it possible to say that this is truly world-wide……if there is one uniting factor that reflects this back to us with shocking and astonishingly pervasive clarity, such that it leaves absolutely no room for doubt, it is the ethically and morally bankrupt exploitation and destruction of our planet’s natural resources and environment. We are all affected by this, every person on Earth, without exception, and regardless the localised contexts within which this reality concretises, the root causes of this urgently visceral fact of Life on our planet are now the common focus of our current historic uprisings and resurgence of the people.
This is not just about us, here and now. The centrality of the Children as a symbol of the future towards which the vast majority now have our attention turned forms the indomitable foundation of this resurgence, again, regardless the localised nature of the movement and its manifest actions. Within this is a great and profound opportunity to reclaim the sane and realistic identity that we share collectively as humans within community, both locally and globally. Intrinsic within this, this is a matter of nothing less than reclaiming our indigenous humanity amd wisdom, and realising its true collective potential as one people united on this Earth in our common nature……
In Gandhi’s lifetime, for the people of the Indian subcontinent the denial of that nature was intimately bound up with release from British Rule. India had been under governance of an occupying power for too long, the people subjected to the laws and rule of the British Crown and Government to the detriment of those basic rights of self determination of, for and by the people. The colonisation of ordinary lives and land by controlling forces whose interests bore no natural relation to those of the indigenous people of India brought about a revolution that won the people their freedom, restoring their identity and independance as a nation. Gandhi’s example goes much further, embracing the co-operative philosophy with manifest effectiveness, but, for us now it is as an example of a revolution led through non-violence and civil action that it stands out. It does so for the ostensibly peaceful imperative through which it was inspired, enacted and pushed through, but, more importantly perhaps, for the fact that Gandhi’s example and legacy has become firmly established in our collective consciousness in its wake, and the full import of that example has never been more pertinent than it is now.
Liberation was achieved, but, history shows us that it is peace itself that remains the real challenge to maintain. And for us the challenge is present on every front…….the Empire seeking impulse has not receded, however, and it is through the ’second wave’ of colonisation, industrial and economic by nature, but, no less political or exploitative in reality, that it has been making deeper its insidious inroads into the cultural, social and environmental fabric of our lives and home planet.
No less for us is the question of occupation by the colonising forces of an alien hegemony the focus of our uprising, in fact, this comes as a natural reaction to the relentless and unrelenting incursion of that second wave, specifically as it manifests unaccountability and usury that runs counter to the health of our planet, our ability to thrive through balanced and fair means and self-determination. The impulse for justice may have historical precedents, but, its global nature has never seen the like of our times, and the Occupy movement, though still young in many senses, has the vast power of a global awareness behind it.
‘Occupy’ has been ignored, laughed at and we are now seeing the first signs of the fight, in direct physical acts of indiscriminate suppressive aggression towards courageous individuals who are now collectively raising the cry ‘Enough!’ and taking it to the streets. It is a crucial moment, once the fight phase begins to manifest. Our collective connectivity, through mass communications, highlights the importance of maintaining the peaceful, non-violent approach to this activism. One image, one iconic moment of deviation from this essential quality and its balanced, realistic power in the face of such aggression, can be broadcast globally and can damage the image, identity and energy that this movement embodies. It is encumbent upon every individual who takes up the cause and carries it forward into action to remember the importance with which this moment is loaded and make a commitment to carry it further through peaceful means into our future, and, the symbol of the Children can serve us now as the unifying, sobering and yet empassioned reminder of this sacred duty. But, it goes much further…..
“What are your demands?” is the rejoinder to the protests – a fundamental challenge is present in responding that will take time to answer coherently and collectively. Yet, it is here that the call of the future can be most constructively and realistically brought to bear in the form of that powerful symbol, The Children. When we put them, the children and the present young and coming generations, at the center and foundation of our demands for justice and self-governance the vision that our mass movement seeks to embody becomes unquestionable. There is no more pertinent reality or reminder of the value and meaning of peace and justice. And there are answers……
There have been ways of governance of the people, by the people, for the people that have given complete respect to this overwhelmingly pertinent reality within the indigenous wisdoms of the human community. I will leave you to ponder this with a video that explains how such a vision can and has been realised, and can work for us now. This is Tim ‘Mac’ Macartney explaining the importance of the ‘Children’s Fire’ and how this can restore the sanity and realism of a human community in its self-governance, both in business, in politics and in our communities……please take the next ten minutes or so to watch and listen – it is a strong, very real example of what happens when an inspired and courageous individual, an Elder, gives voice to truth…….in a way ‘Mac’ is saying ‘keep it simple, keep it real’ – if you are an activist the Children’s Fire may change your outlook or help to build a coherent and solid foundation for answering to the question of ‘demands’; it may inspire you to continue the work off-street with profound effect; and it may bring passionate belief in our human future that is supported by a hope that is deeply realistic and rooted in all our lives……
For more information about the Wheel of Law and the Children’s Fire as it is championed and put into practice through the great example of Embercombe follow the link here and in the sidebar.
The intense planetary activity that is unfolding through the current Scorpio lunation is preparing the ground for ‘reset’ on November 25th when a partial Solar Eclipse at 3º Sagittarius ushers in a new lunation and re-appraisal of our goals for the year ahead. The Sagittarius lunation will bring out a more philosophical tone in which the depth work of the past month will begin to deliver its benefits, its true value become more apparent.
The Scorpio lunation has been strong and revealing, sometimes quite unexpectedly so. As some have reported it feels like the Samhain doorway has been left open, but, it has also been difficult to avoid the visceral impact of world events upon our deeper connections with Life. Where we have been collectively mislead and ‘going wrong’ is well and truly in the public spotlight and, although there is much resistance to change still being shown in the political and social arenas, this has very much been in keeping with the times and the greater processes that are unfolding within them. At heart we are all engaged in collective soul-work, whether we should choose to acknowledge it and go there, or not…….
For those who do make this choice, this is the clear mandate for creating a better future for our home planet, and this is open to us all on an individual level – in fact, our collective future as a species must surely depend upon how we engage with this work in personal terms. Scorpio thoroughness in the scouring and clearing of our hearts and minds supports a deeper appreciation of the soul’s purpose. The following Sagittarian lunation, leading up to the December Solstice, builds upon this with planetary and cosmological focus on a renewal of the soul’s contract with Life. Within the coming lunation a total Lunar Eclipse on December 10th anchors this renewed contract within the field for the next six months.
One crucial step at a time we are laying the foundations for our future and the name of the game, as if we haven’t already realised, is ‘Change’ – as the political and economic rhetoric shows not everyone, it seems, wants to play, or play fairly. Change, however, is taking over, and a tough stance against it will no longer prevail. And, well, as the saying goes, ‘when the going gets tough…….’ – in a planetary climate dominated by Uranus square Pluto that can mean just about anything when it is Change itself that is in charge! Popular movements against the resistance of the old guard could well give way to any number of means of guerilla warfare. This does not have to mean physical confrontation, however. Many engaging with the ongoing financial fall-out are indeed now withdrawing their personal funds from the banks and investing them in, for example, credit unions. Adaptablility will prove the tactical advantage, for now – its the longer term strategies that will count most and the field upon which these battles are fought will continue to spread. It’s been said here before, but, how well prepared we are really matters…..each step counts.
In times of global change, whose far-reaching implications and crucial impact take on global, if not cosmological proportions, the vision embodied within the scope of every one of our personal contracts with Life is also infused, beyond personal choice, with archetypal energy and influence. Alignment with a greater purpose is key and this is one of the defining characteristics of the Sagittarian lunation – it is also an essential strategy. Short-termism, which has been the bane of our cultural outlook, must be replaced with forward looking wisdom. The importance of the Scorpio process of the current outgoing lunation is revealed in this – revelation, acknowledgement and reformation of deeper emotional and psychological awareness funds us with the clarity that allows the new soul perspective to come into view. Through this the hologram of the individual soul, the spirit having a human experience, can experience its own intrinsic resonance within the greater hologram, the bigger picture, and the larger tides and forces of the times, the archetypal undercurrents of the zeitgeist, can be discerned as ‘the flow of the great river within which our spirit is swimming’.
As the I Ching reminded us of in hexagram Wei Chi with the image of the little fox crossing the great river, we must see the process through before we can arrive at the new vision. As the wit and whits of Douglas Adams pointed out to us in ‘Blind Bats with Spaghetti Soup….’, asking the right questions, that is to say, having the right motivation, is crucial to finding greater meaning that is in tune with this vision. And, as Coyotes journey to the shadowlands echoed Orpheus journey to the underworld, our own personal journey is brought to fulfillment when we are able to overcome our impulsive desires and trust to the process. This must spell an end to ego driven consumerism as the basis for our culture. In all cases, whether we are navigating the strong cross-currents of change, allowing the unknown to call us, or taking heed of Death as our advisor, learning intrinsic life lessons, the heroic journey of our personal life quest is empowered with profound and far-reaching illumination when we align our spirits with Nature and her greater cycles, our selves with the wisdom of Life. We can be re-assured, the planetary matrix is supporting us in this…..
In the run-up to the solar eclipse on the 25th the planets are supporting us with a mixture of subtle and strong apsects that will enable us to flow with the great river and arrive at the other shore, whole and forward looking. Mars has recently entered tropical Virgo bringing a boost of energy to our healing and envisioning. Currently opposite both Chiron and Neptune, Mars activates an inclusive clarity and attention to detail that will assist us right through until the end of the coming eclipses field of influence – Mars will remain in Virgo until mid 2012 and this time will include a retrograde period in which we can do a double check on how our plans are unfolding in the first quarter of the year. With this strong focus no stone must be left unturned, no hidden clauses within our soul’s contract allowed to undermine our progress – this is an imperative energy at work which serves us and the ‘greater good’ when we work with it. It may bring small and persistant doubts that cut across our confidence, but, with open communication and honesty we can use this time well for clearing out the detritus of the past (keeping our tails out of the mud!) and opening to the new world of possibilities onto whose shores we are and will be arriving. Each working according to our own ways and means, this is very much about ‘walking our talk’. More on this as the new year unfolds…….
Much closer to home, shortly after the total lunar eclipse on December 10th, Mars, in forward motion, will square the Moons Nodes. Further highlighting the importance of the collective soul path, this T square will bring out the grounded reality of that path as each of us experience it. It could be a particularly important time for dealing with all matters that throw up a contrast between restrictions on our personal liberty and the collective vision we hold for the future, particularly as they relate to the re-ensoulment of our human presence on Earth, the re-enchantment of our lives. The tightening opposition between Saturn in late Libra and Jupiter in early Taurus will bring this to a head not long after the solstice and, funded through beneficial aspects to Chiron and Neptune, this will signal a sea-change for how we deal with any conflicts arising where this contrast prevails. The new moon on December 24th, within orb of Pluto, will signal Jupiter’s forward motion and the solstice energy will be very strongly boosted by this. Once again, the ongoing process has the feel of hightening significance, but, with many beneficial aspects surrounding this years solstice we can look forward to a new year with all the inspiration and passion that our renewed soul’s contract and plans for the year ahead fuel us with. For now though, the better to engage with this process, it is to the Moon’s Nodes and the current transits involving them that our gaze must turn…….
The nodes are currently transiting the mid-degrees of Sagittarius and Gemini, and, at the time of writing, the North Node is in precise alignment with an intergalactic phenomenon known as the Great Attractor. This is an important influence for how we work on the vision that our soul work is centered around. This influence also bridges the current and following lunation right through solstice; it is as if we are being overseen by a far greater mind than our earthbound consciousness allows us to be aware of, a presence that is initiating us into the new paradigm at a subliminal level – so, what is the G A and what does its influence mean?!
In recent times astronomers and cosmologists have discovered that there is a great river of galaxies flowing across the universe. If this sounds like poetic license of on a cosmic scale, think again, this is very real! The source of the directed flow of this river, the Great Attractor, is a mysterious phenomenon of immense proportions and our galaxy, amongst many hundreds, is moving as one, its stars amongst hundreds of billions speeding towards this mystery at a velocity of 600 km/sec. – it truly is an immense river of light particles in which each particle is a star. What we know about this phenomenon is very limited, but, at 250 million light years distance from our galaxy we can be sure that its influence is super-galactic, focused and powerful – contemplating these factors brings the vastness of our cosmos into mind expanding perspective! Here is our first clue….
The Great Attractor’s name reflects the directed way in which this galaxy and its neighbours are uniformly moving towards its center. But, there is also a provocative energy attached to this name and astrologers have speculated on its meaning bringing ideas to the G A that imply irresistability and inevitability. Philip Sedgwick’s site (see sidebar) contains some useful info about the G A and how it can be worked with, or, what to expect once our attention is grabbed by it…..for the G A also has a magnetic quality whose symbolism matches the ‘gravitational’ pull of the physical phenomenon. The G A bends light through gravitational lensing to such an extent that it is possible to see behind it, as if we are given the glimpse of something hidden, beyond the normal range of our senses. Here is a second clue……
The Great Attractor was discovered in the 1970’s but it was not until 1986 that its position was measured and in yr 2000 the G A was found to be at 14º02’ Sagittarius within the geo-centric tropical zodiac. What makes this especially interesting for us now is that the Moons North Node has been transiting the middle degrees of Sagittarius and slowly coming into alignment with the G A over the last few months, an alignment that happens every 18 years or so. However, this is made exquisitely rare this time around as Venus and Mercury, the G A and the North Node will all become conjunct together in alignment on 13th/14th November…
…..although carrying what might remain a powerful but otherwise unnoticed and otherworldly subtlety, the meeting of Venus and Mercury at this cosmic crossroads not only brings to the conjunction an elevated rarity, it carries sublime influence at this time and seeds the souls field with all the potential we carry, that we have earned insight into through our inner work over this lunation. But, there is more – the conjunction and ongoing influence comes in at the beginning of a Mercury retrograde period and so, not only precedes the two eclipses, but, focuses our attention on and infuses it with the G A’s influence, and, remember, eclipses offer us an opportunity to hit the reset button on our lives. With the Great Attractors ability to expand our vision and see beyond what is known to us this can be a time for great envisioning at a soul level……there can be powerful and uncanny effects to this.
We may be taken with compulsive knowing that simply has to be followed, even if we are not able to reason this out, simply because we feel it within our souls. With Mars square to the nodes this could bring a major shift akin to a tipping point or critical mass, that aligns soul energy with archetypal energy on a collective scale – for some this will be the signal of a first wave of manifest co-creative activism, but, its subtley may pass you by if your attention is too distracted by emotional reactions to earthly concerns. What can really serve us best in this time is regular quiet time for centered inward focusing, meditation and clearing of the heavy and gross energies from our energy field – a good balance to this is free-form creative expression, just letting the ‘creative river’ flow through and around us. Both will work best when centered in and infused with deep heart energy. This energy flows from the heart of the mystery manifest in the point of singularity within every point in the manifold matrix of the multiverse, and we can source it within our hearts, our inner balance point.
An astonishing feature of alignment with the G A along its axis is the manifestation of the Einstein Cross. Gravitational lensing produces four images around its center of the hidden light sources behind it - bringing an equal armed cross, a medicine wheel, of the unseen into view. An image of balance and centered manifestation, this is powerful medicine from a deep source. And, there’s yet more…..
There is also an opening up of the archetypal field from within here that can manifest as synchronicities, meaningful co-incidences, in which we find strong correspondences between our outer and inner worlds. This can only be good – for bolstering our confidence in Life and re-enchanting our lives with numinous presence, synchronous reality confirms the living intelligence and loving nature of all Life. The path with a heart that tells us we are on the right track, walking our ‘medicine way’….
Through this special time we can make strong medicine work of all that we do. The spiritual warrior at work, ’……the tough get going’! There is a powerful resonance within this symbol, the Rainbow Warrior, when we work with the G A. The singularity at the heart of the Great Attractor is a mystery and yet……
What we do know about the Great Attractor is primarily down to scientifically measurable effects, most notable amongst which is the way in which it bends light. Its gravitational lensing is far more powerful than any other single source known to us within the physical universe. Interestingly, one might expect there to be a super-massive black hole at its center, but, this is not the case as astrophysicists have established that there is no event horizon associated with the G A. While it is an anomolous mystery, we also know that it radiates and connects across the entire spectrum of energy……
The many awakened souls now bringing their focus to bear upon the global changes we are now collectively involved in can step up a gear through this time and utilise the cosmological forces and influences coming into our solar system and inner cosmos to activate a catalystic wave of transformative co-creative energy into embodiment. The individual soul path we choose can be brought into alignment with this activation, become an expression of it. When the eclipse of the 25th November closes the Scorpio lunation and opens the Sagittarian we can initiate a meaningful path for our selves to follow that is in alignment with the most heartfelt and significant vision that we have within. Collectively, the field will reflect this back to us with the December lunar eclipse and we can increasingly speak our truth with the great power of self authority in the world. When the December solstice arrives we will be ready to walk our talk having set a clear purpose and bring to the light the power of our personal vision for the coming year, born from the heart of creation, the Great Mystery, and watch it grow as the year unfolds……
Our small blue planet, so beloved by, and of such intense interest now both to us and the cosmological community at this time, is asking for us to bring the fearless power of Love home with pragmatic impact. At the meeting at the cross-roads, THIS IS OUR TIME………are you ready……..
……long, long time ago there lived ol’ man Coyote and his wife – they were perfectly happy until, one day, Coyote’s wife became ill and died. Coyote wept and wept and wept, he was besides himself with grief. And it seemed like, in Coyotes world at that time, the whole world was awash with chaos!
Now, Death had been circling around and, seeing how it was with Coyote, Death set his spirit down beside the ol’man and said – ‘its alright Coyote, I can take you to the place that your wife’s gone to, but, there are rules…..’. Coyote was somewhat consoled by this proposition and said, ‘oh man, I will do anything….’, so Death’s spirit said back, ‘well, you must do everything that I tell you, no matter what, right down to the last whisker – godit?!’ and ol’man Coyote was beside himself with longing, so he said, ‘yeh, man, anything, just say it and I’ll do it……’
…….So, that was it and off they set and, and as they were going along, the death spirit made sure Coyote had got it – ‘….everything, mind…’ said Death to Coyote, and ol’Coyote, dragging his tongue in the dirt with grief said ‘….yeh, yeh, just say what you want me to do and I’ll do it’. But, the trouble was, Coyote himself was not sure just what he was following right then, as all he could see was a shadow, but, Coyote longed to be with his wife again and so he followed along behind the shadow and out into the prairie they went……
…the path was long with many strange sights, taking them up the rise of the plain and down the rise of the plain and up again - and, on they went, until Death pointed ahead and said ‘hey, you see there Coyote, hundreds of horses – looks like a big round-up down there’. Squinting his eyes and looking where Death was pointing Coyote said, ‘oh yeh, hundreds of ‘em…’, but, he could see none, ‘…..you’re right, a big round-up!’ So, this is how it was as they were coming nearer to the land of the dead…..and on they went……
….until, Death said, ‘hey, look Coyote, great bunches of serviceberries hanging there…..’, and ol Coyote squinting up his eyes said, ‘oh yeh….’, but, his belly was telling him what his eyes could not, and the spirit, knowing Coyote could see nothing, said, ‘now, lets eat – when you see me reach up, you reach up too, and when I pull down the branch, you pull down the branch…’, and Coyote said, ‘yes, yes, I will do it….’. So, Death reached up, pulled down the branch and, even tho Coyote could not see the berries going into the spirit’s mouth, Coyote did just the same and they both sat there eating……ol’man Coyote watched that spirit’s every move and imitated it. ‘Uhhuh, these are real good serviceberries’ said the spirit – ‘Yeh man,’ said Coyote, ‘good job we found ‘em’,. And thats how it was when they were nearly at the land of the dead, and, when when they’d had their fill, off they set again……
….until, the spirit stopped again and said, ‘Well, we’re about there – look here, theres a great lodge here, and your wife is sitting somewhere in there, but, its so very very long I’d better go in ahead and ask after her’. So, Coyote waited, and eventually Death came back and said, ‘ ok…..they told me where your wife is’, and ol’man Coyote listened intently to everything Death told him. ‘Just here is a door through which we’ll enter the lodge, so, do everything as I tell you, exactly as you see me do it, godit?’ – ‘Uhhuh….’ said Coyote, and so, Death said, ‘I will lift up the door flap, bend down low, and enter…..then, you do exactly the same…’ and so Death entered and Coyote followed him, doing exactly the same things as the Death spirit….
Now, it happened that ol’man Coyote’s wife was sitting right there, near to the entrance, so, the spirit said to Coyote, ‘sit right here, next to your wife’, and they both sat right there. Then the spirit added, ‘your wife will now go and prepare food for us….’, and all this while Coyote could see nothing, except that he was sitting right there in the open prairie with nothing in sight, and yet, he could feel the presence of the shadow next to him…..
So Coyote’s wife prepared the food and Death said, ‘now, lets eat…’, and the shadow reached down and brought hand to mouth and ate. Ol’man Coyote could see only prairie dust, but, there they sat and ate…..Coyote imitated everything, just as his companion had said……until, after a while it seemed Coyote’s wife had put away the food and Death said, ‘you stay put here, I’ve got some people to see’, and out went the spirit……..
Soon enough the spirit returned, saying, ‘things here are different from the way things are in the land of the living. When the dusk comes down here the dawn has come up in your land and when it dawns for us the darkness is growing for you’. So, by this time it had grown dark, and Coyote could hear voices whispering, talking in faint half-tones, all around him. And darkness set in, real dark. Well, oh boy, Coyote saw many fires in a long house, and there they all were, in a very very large lodge where many fires were burning. And, he saw all the various people, looking like shadow forms, but, he could recognise some of them. And, he saw that his wife was sitting by his side…….
You can imagine, but, ol’man Coyote was overjoyed! And, he joyfully greeted many of his old friends who he could see there too! That ol’man Coyote, how happy he was!! Up he lept and up and down the ailse between the fires he marched, going from side to side, stopping to talk with people. All through the night he did this. And, he could see the door through which he and death had entered too…..
….until, at last, the dawn started coming up, and death came to Coyote and said, ‘well, our darkness is falling here, and pretty soon you will not see us, but, you must stay right here. Do not go anywhere, at all. Just stay right here and in the evening you’ll see all the people here again, godit?!’ – so, Coyote said, ‘oh, yes, friend, why would I possibly want to go……’
…so, up came the dawn and Coyote found himself sitting in the midst of the prairie. And he spent the whole day there. Well, phewee! It was hot, and he was dying from the heat, parched and dry, thirsting from the heat all day long. And yet, ol’man Coyote stayed there several days, suffering in the day, but, when the night came, making merry in the great lodge with his wife and friends……
Coyote lost track of the days, but, one day the spirit of Death came up to him and said, ‘tomorrow you will go home, Coyote. And, you will take your wife with you…..’ – ‘oh friend, thats wonderful’ said Coyote, ‘…but, I’m having such a good time here with my wife and all my old friends, I’d like to stay here….’ – ‘uhhuh’, said Death, ‘but, tomorrow is the day you must return and so do as I tell you, remember, and don’t do anything foolish , nothing foolish at all, godit?!’ Ol’man Coyote was shuffling his feet when he said ‘Ok’, so Death went on…’don’t yield to any urges or queer notions now, follow exactly what I tell you.”
Coyote listened as the Death spirit told him…….’there are five mountains, and you will travel for five days. Your wife will be with you, but, you must never ever touch her. At all. No yielding to strange impulses now – talk to her, yes, but never touch her. Only after you have crossed and descended from the fifth mountain may you do whatever you like……’ – and, ol’man Coyote took it all in and said ‘yes, friend’.
So, when the dawn came up again, ol’man Coyote and his wife set off, left that place……
At first it seemed that he was travelling alone, yet, he was dimly aware of his wife’s presence walking along there behind him. And, after the first mountain came up and they had crossed it, Coyote could feel her presence some more – she was definitely there, if only a shadow. On they went, and on crossing the second mountain, they set camp, as they did each night at the foot of each mountain. Coyote would build a little conical lodge with a fire at its center and there they would sit, he on one side of the fire, she on the other. And, each day her form appeared clearer and clearer.
Well, the Death spirit was counting the days since Coyote and his wife had left the land of the dead and, figuring the distance they had travelled, said ‘I hope that ol’ Coyote does everything right, as I told him, and takes his wife through to the world beyond’.
So it was that Coyote and his wife were spending their last night, their fourth in the little conical lodge, and on the morrow she would again assume the character of a living person. Being as it was the last night they were camping Coyote could see his wife very clearly now, as if she were a real person sitting opposite him. He could see her face and body very clearly now, but, he only looked and dared not touch her.
But, suddenly a joyous impulse seized Coyote; the joy of having his wife back again overwhelmed him. He jumped to his feet and rushed over to embrace her! His wife cried out, ‘Stop! Stop! Coyote! Do not touch me! Stop!’ – her warning had no effect. Coyote rushed over to his wife and just as he touched her body, she vanished. She disappeared – returned to the land of the dead, the shadowland.
When the Death spirit learned of Coyote’s folly he became deeply angry. ‘You inveterate doer of this kind of thing!’, Death said, for he knew Coyote all too well, ‘I told you to do everything I told you, not to do anything foolish. You Coyote, were about to establish the practice of returning from death. Only a short time away the human race is coming, but you have spoiled everything and established for them death as it is…….’
Now Coyote wept and wept…..and eventually decided, ‘Tomorrow I shall return to see them again’, and, the following morning he started back for the land of the dead. As he went along he began to recognise the places where he and his spirit friend had passed before. He found the place where the spirit had seen the great round-up of horses and began to do all the things that they had done on their journey to the shadowland. ‘Oh, look at the horses; it looks like a great round-up’ he said…..and, on he went until, he came to the place where the spirit had pointed out all the serviceberries – ‘Oh, such serviceberries, lets pick and eat some of them’, he said……and he went through all the motions of picking and eating berries.
On he went, and, finally, Coyote came to the place where the great long lodge had stood. He said to himself, ‘Now, when I hold up the doorflap and enter, you must do the same’. In fact, he remembered all the little things his friend the Death spirit had said and done. So, when he saw the spot where he had sat before, he went and sat there, and as he sat down said, ‘Now, your wife has brought us food. Let us eat.’ And, he went through the motions of eating again….
….eventually darkness fell, and the full moon rose - Coyote listened for voices, and he looked around for the fires and everything else, but, nothing appreared. Ol’ Coyote sat there in the middle of the prairie, in the dark. He sat there all night, but, the lodge did not appear again, nor did the spirit ever return to him………and so it was with death, when humans came to the world.
“There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.” Douglas Adams
…..er…………..perhaps Douglas is simply stirring the pot, dunking the crouton of absurdity in the soup of creation, after all, hasn’t this all happened many times over, given rise to the complexity and mystery of life, and, oh yes, isn’t this happening all the time?! Questions, questions…..seems Life is made up of them, and perhaps, its this that Douglas is nudging us into realising….with a nod and a wink.
But, then, as another bunch of very English absurdists once suggested “a nods as good as a wink to a blind bat” (Monty Python).
Which seems like perfect sense in a world where most of the (ahem) ‘democratic’ governments look like zoos full of traumatised animals making decisions about the nature of reality on the other side of the bars…..
We are always looking for answers, fixated on them in fact, at the expense of those delicious questions, especially the more tasty ones. (Aah, getting serious are we now – ed.) Yes, ed…..and when we think we’ve found them what happens? Collectively, we are constantly re-inventing the world based on the answers we find, our perceptions interwoven, creating a field of resonance within which ‘concensus realities’ correspond to shared values and world views most common to us. And yet, while we live within varying and even conflicting concensus realities, our personal reality is and remains at heart, unique. Batty…..(perleeze! – ed.)
I like Douglas Adams humour, his healthy sense of the ludicrous anarchy of it all, and the laughable nature of our mental gymnastics that it spotlights, that helps us lighten up in the midst of pondering Life’s deeper questions – as he has famously pointed out on many occasions, its all very well having the answer, and ’42′ is the answer to Everything according to the ‘Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’, but, what use is it if you don’t know what the question was, or the ‘right’ question to ask…..(I sense there’s more – ed.)
……or understand it and why we are asking it, (and how many of us do!) Don’t we spend an inordinate amount of time asking ourselves the ‘wrong’ questions, those pesky ‘other’ ones in which we become sidetracked into a soup of petty distraction, swimming in a viscous slurry of everyday detail and personal concerns that make blinkers of our struggles - and what happens when these coalesce into their own tasteless concensus, born of domestic dramas that spill over into the collective and generate magnetic fields of influence out of which mass tragedies seem to manifest? As if thats all that matters. The ‘Media’ love this kinda instant cuppa-soup….its big business, etc etc etc…..convenience food?
No answers here dear reader (quelle surprise – ed)…..better to live within what Alan Watts called ‘the wisdom of insecurity’ and scoop up another spoonful, just to make sure and adjust the seasoning. And then, eventually, perhaps, we can get down to enjoying the spaghetti soup that is Life, and learn how to transform it into a more delicious Minestrone…….lucky for some, who can?!….
…….but, oh how we love those crunchy bits of baked and fried bread (that we are) – soggy anomolies in the consome of creation…….Stone Soup, anyone……a side dish of distasteful absurdity that is specially prepared by our chefs to meet European standards – indigestion guaranteed…..
Behind the New Moon reading in Song of Orpheus an inner process was revealed through the I Ching – as a support to the previous post, and with a little help from some visionary friends, this article opens up to its esoteric context arising from the ‘Oracle of Change’ as revealed through the hexagrams named Chin and Wei Chi…..
“……in open ground, between heaven and earth, even the Wind is revealed, felt but not seen. Upon open ground fire walks with the wind – the transformation of the one is the dance of the other. Stripping down to essense, fire reveals the gift, honouring the creative dynamic at root. Gradually gathering essence, reconciling opposites yet holding to none, releasing light while remaining everywhere unseen. Difficulty becomes re-configured into wisdom. Take heed, this wisdom is itself transforming, and regulation of the fire is necessary for it to be maintained. Vigilance and readiness, knowing when the timing is right, when the fire is carefully regulated, slowly the essense is gathered, energy increases and wisdom finds its true form.
The wise penetrate with Truth, the foolish disperse with Fear. Being sincere, truthful, and reliable, make your inner vision and your outer circumstances coincide. Emptying your heart of conditioned chatter, to hear their inner voices, the link with the spirits is cultivated. Using this as the intrinsic foundation for sincerety and honesty in connecting with others. Much will become illuminated, but, this is the burning off of impurities – do not let these cause distraction from the purpose. The heart of fire is dark and mysterious…..trusting to the process ensures success. That which is transformed carries its own illumination from within.
In this way, by these means, entering the Great Way, gathering the auspicious, the spirits carry us forward. Releasing transformative energy, cultivating meaning and good fortune, this is the correct time to enter the stream of Life with a purpose. Embarking upon a significant journey, enquiring of the oracle at each crucial stage, the spirits speak, insight grows in abundance and great profit arises in accord with the Way. In this way, by these means, True Earth arises. The faithful cultivate the True Earth.” …..from Chin, hexagram 35, with second line changing.
Earth supports fire and fire impregnates earth with energy. Lightning strikes both arise up from and connect down with Earth. The image is one of stabilised but highly charged and focused energy that has its place. It is an energy that requires careful management. Fire will spread with the wind, and when the wind is symbolic of the pervasive nature of change, this can have both beneficial and detrimental effects.
Within the hexagram Chin is yet another nuclear hexagram , made up of the 2nd, 3rd and 4th lines for the lower trigram, and the 3rd, 4th and 5th lines for the upper trigram – this hexagram is Chien, 39 – Difficulties. Its image is water on the mountain, cutting a gorge bounded by high cliffs. This describes the inner qualities of Chin. Naturally cutting through resistance. Interestingly, when the nuclear trigrams of Chien are also put together we arrive at Wei Chi, the same hexagram produced through the moving line in the second place of Chi. In essense, both inwardly and outwardly, through the triple process of gathering, transformation and inner illumination, the same outcome is arrived at.
“There can be only patient endurance of the opposites which ultimately spring from your own nature. You yourself are a conflict that rages in itself and against itself in order to melt its incompatible substances…..in the fire of suffering and thus create that form which is the goal of life. Everyone goes through this mill, consciously or unconsciously, voluntarily or forcibly. We are crucified between the opposites and delivered up to the torture, until the reconciling third takes shape. Do not doubt the rightness of the two sides within you and let whatever may happen, happen. The apparently unendurable conflict is proof of the rightness of your life. A life without intercontradiction is either only half a life or else a life beyond which is destined only for angels…..” (1)
When C G Jung wrote this letter he was responding to a call from a close and dear friend for helpful guidance. She was experiencing a great inner tension, torn between the demands and heartfelt responsibilities of everyday life and family concerns and the powerful pull of her vocation, her calling, which she equally could not deny. It is a call of the soul that is striving to birth its own reality into the world. The tensions experienced through this struggle have become exacerbated in our times. The soul’s reality is devalued and goes largely unrecognised for its essential nature within our materialistic culture. It is a paradigmatic consequence of polarised objectivity and subjectivity. The consequences have become immense and are at the root of the prevalence of unfeeling and blind destruction that humans have brought upon the world – in the process our culture has engendered a mass dissociation with the over-soul, the Anima Mundi or Earth Soul. And yet, the essential nature of our humanity remains – we have woken up to this reality and, en-masse, the collective immune system of the human soul is fighting back against this disease, and the cancerous agents of destruction that perpetuate it. These are the symptoms of the struggle. The hexagrams, however, also point to a third element, one that arises naturally from within the process. There is no doubt that, within this polarisation, as Jung encourages his friend to accept, is a natural expression of the creative principle itself.
The implications are clear, and echoed in the second hexagram of the reading, Wei Chi – as the planetary matrix at the beginning of the current lunation implied, we have to go through this process, all the more frustrating and difficult if we are drawn to focusing on or rejecting one side of the polarity in favour of the other. Accepting the tension inherent within the opposites allows their mutual seeding to produce the ‘third thing’.
Even attempting to understand or pre-empt this ‘third thing’ can subvert its natural formation. We are called upon to recognise that within us are natural dynamics, archetypal by nature, that express and embody the wisdom that resolves the polarity. The off-spring of this allowing, this willingness to hold the intrinsic creative tension of the opposites, is the transcendant state arriving in natural form - in esoteric terms of Taoist spiritual alchemy this would be described as the spiritual embryo. Like all embryonic life forms it requires careful nurturing through time and benefits from protection, needs containment. It is the light body in form, the inner light that accords with the Tao. Its growing environment at this time is described by the hexagram 64, Wei Chi – ‘Not Yet Settled’…….
“On the edge of change; gather your energy, everything is possible; wait for the right moment.
Not Yet Crossing (settled) describes your situation in terms of being on the verge of an important change. Its symbol is standing on the edge of a river, getting ready to begin an important passage. The way to deal with this is to gather your energy to make this decisive move. Make an offering and you will succeed. You are about to launch a plan, cross the river or overcome an obstacle. The possibilities are great. Be sure your plans are in order and that you have accumulated enough energy to make the crossing without getting stuck. This is pleasing to the spirits. Through it they will give you success, effective power and the capacity to bring the situation to maturity. Don’t be like the small fox that gets almost across the river and then soaks her tail in the mud of the opposite shore. That would leave you with nowhere to go and nothing to do that would help you” (2)
Stephen Karcher’s reading of Wei Chi brings out the importance of being on the verge (Wei) of making the crossing (Chi) – as the precaution against failure we are asked to assess our resources, and, once we have made a confident informed decision to do so, to embark upon the great challenge of crossing to new land, a new state, with full commitment to completion. The danger is that, without this commitment we will sully our efforts and return to a state of complete emptiness once we get to the other side. The message is clear for our times.
It also shows harmony with the times – at Samhain we can make our offerings with deep feeling, knowing that the spirits will support us. Remembering that the ancestors too would have us work on their behalf…..the better able they too will become in supporting us.
In the Scorpio New Moon reading we saw how the need for penetrative and ruthless honesty would help us as we are pulled into the inner journey that this time is calling us to. The pragmatic realisation of compassionate and clear sighted awareness that this process benefits from is funded through the guidance of the spirits – the connection through Samhain is auspicious. And yet, just as Orpheus tale warns us against losing sight of the goal before we have reach the end of our journey, the little fox in Wei Chi shows us that dropping our guard and relaxing within the task too soon will deprive us of all that we seek to gain. What we set in motion now must be followed through.
Once again, the planetary matrix and the spirits of divination show unanimity of purpose……this purpose can be realised and its methods applied in both the macrocosm and the microcosm, as they are in accord. We cannot know the outcome, even the nature of the desired result remains a mystery – while the power of the undertaking is behind our every moment we have it within our capacity, through determined and vigilant self-awareness, to carry this energy forward as it courses through the world, and that is all we can know, until we have reached the other side……
….but, we can have faith, our diligence and care protecting the outcome, and know that nothing is beyond our reach……
“Just as the winged energy of delight
carried you over many chasms early on,
now raise the daringly imagined arch
holding up the astonishing bridges.
Miracle doesn’t lie only in the amazing
living through and defeat of danger;
miracles become miracles in the clear
achievement that is earned.
To work with things is not hubris
when building the association beyond words;
denser and denser the pattern becomes
being carried along is not enough.
Take your well-disciplined strengths
and stretch them between two opposing poles.
Because inside human beings
is where the Divine learns.” (3)
(1) C G Jung : unpublished letter to Frau Fröbe-Kapteyn, August 1945
(2) Stephen Karcher : I Ching, Vega 2002
(3) ‘Just as the Winged Energy of Delight’, Rainer Marie Rilke, 1924; translated by Robert Bly
Many things are converging and flowing together, the wind of change is picking up strength – we are entering within the passage between two worlds, a transition zone of strong unpredictable energies…..three thresholds between the 26th and 31st of October frame the gateway, a new moon, the culmination of a great cosmic cycle and a powerful cross quarter fire festival. And, now the People are mobilising a collective energy is carrying us forward…… the lunation beginning with this Scorpio New Moon opens the way before us. This is a time to reckon with the reality of archetypal powers….it is a journey that takes us into some very deep and dark places, the true smithy of the soul, but this is a place from which we may return with treasures of incalculable value.
The culmination of a great cosmological cycle is a leitmotiv for our times that has inspired many ideals for a better world, the peace of a True Earth, but these ideals rarely materialise without an heroic struggle - our myths tell us truths, there is far more to reality than surface appearance, and reality always bites down hard on the best of those ideals. All that glitters is not Gold. Sun and Moon uniting in Scorpio oppose Jupiter retrograde in Taurus and sextile Pluto in Capricorn. Jupiter is now in exact trine to Pluto. The powerful energies pull on us, within us within the events of the world within our perceptions of reality. Jupiter is in earth as he travels inwards towards the heartlands protogenic womb, and opposite, Sun and Moon in water also seek the lower worlds, the deep subterranian watercourses, the dynamics of the ancestral and archetypal. Even in opposition their movement is complimentary, takes us beneath the surface. Pluto adds weighted pull to both, makes of this an Orphic journey - to find True Earth we must go within and search for the world soul.
Jupiter asks us the most difficult of questions in this, to which we can only answer truthfully – ‘what are my deepest motivations?’ Jupiter is a very culpable planet – while he is capable of bestowing riches, a potentially philanthropic influence, he is also equally capable in shadow form of being the egodriven ‘sugar daddy’, the self indulgent fat cat, blindingly unfaithful and a massive user and abuser. A real Janus. Being opposite the Sun/Moon here his challenge is twofold; to own the shadow we project, and that means we must become aware of where we are projecting our strongest emotions, what and who we are rejecting and ejecting – and to acknowledge our highest ideals, those that we know and sense will stand the test of time. It takes a heroic stance to be truthful and stand by the courage of our own convictions, no matter what.
There is currently a collective focus onto the fat-cats and the wrecking games played by rogue traders, and, with archetypal infection loosening our focus, we are really open to including any others we hold responsible for provoking chaos in the land - the scapegoating strategy will be exposed in this lunation, the culpable may fight back with accusations of equal culpability amongst the people given the slightest chance. Infact it has already begun, for example with defenders of corporatocracy descrying what they see as ’rampant and indiscriminate capitalism bashing’ – however, as one wiley commentator responded, “its not capitalism that is being bashed, its BAD capitalism.” The big message is this – we must all examine our consciences and truthfully accept those ways in which we individually contribute to the rot and rotten system that perpetuates it, and, having done so commit totally to reforming the way we live. This not only goes for the outer world, our most intimate relationships as much as our collective ones, how we relate en-masse is coming ever under scrutiny. Emotionally challenging this may be, but, our honesty is essential if we are to clear out all the rot, and this too is now an echo that is beginning to be heard worldwide! Welcome to planet Scorpio……
Pluto has the upper hand in many ways. It is characteristic with this energy that if resisted the challenge will return and keep on returning until the process is totally realised. Even the remnants of a ‘job’ half done can become amplified until they are dealt with. For the People, especially those of us out on the streets making our voice heard, this means finding new and deeper inner resources….’digging in’ is an appropriate phrase, but this really will be emphasised, especially as winter bites down on the northern hemisphere and youthful exuberance floods the southern. A test of commitment, and here is where that truthfulness brings its greatest value - what we resist persists, until we own up to it in ourselves, and, conversely, what we are drawn to must correspond with our own inner wealth and values, or it will prove fickle and lead us down a path without a heart, until we recognise our true path.
Inner or hidden facts coming to light will carry a strong charge in this lunation, especially those relating to the values we express, the fidelity of our communications and depth of our thinking. Mercury conjunct Venus, also in Scorpio, awaken us to the truth in this. The marrying of heart and mind at the primal level can be very healing both individually and in our most intimate relationships, a passionate boost from our essential vitality that can carry us through tough times and help us deepen our connections – but, to achieve this these will be tested. Appreciation of our roots and recognition of who our real ‘family’ is are highlighted here, reminding us of our sacred obligation towards the future and those who come after us. What gives this the added torque, an imperative energy, is Mars in Leo in exact square to Venus and Mercury. The wilful desire to bring about change can both divide and unite.
While male and female unite in the quest for truth the ‘edge’ within this journey is ever present and we need Mercury’s canny perception to see through the deceptiveness of others and keep a clear mind. We can also be very tribal with these values, headstrong and seperatist if we let the untempered ego, our immature self, take the reins – tribalism often fuels division. And at the same time identifying with our tribe can energise a sense of belonging – one of the most pertinent choices here is about whether we can trust the ‘chiefs’ with our personal wealth, material or immaterial, to protect our personal interests and lead us forward now. The choice of the individual matters a great deal and should be protected through this time at all costs. The leaders will try to persuade us this is their mandate, however, there is no hiding place for any shade of totalitarianism disguised as democracy any more……
The true value of exchange is also examined at the root here and any imbalance, especially where we see giving being superceded by taking, will also become exposed – debts, we may demand, must somehow be repaid, or resolved. This could have obvious international repercussions, but, it also carries a stark warning for those in positions of power in the midst of economic meltdown, if they are expecting the people to follow - truth about the commerce of usury and debt will continue to shape our political affiliations and loyalties. Pluto is very much at work here…..
There is a rebeliousness behind this energy, stemming from Mars sextile with Saturn - we could see a run on the banks becoming more common as people seek to take possession of what is rightfully theirs. This could also be a red flag for collective protest manifesting as fierce determination to protect ones own, especially the very young and vulnerable. Saturn may close the doors of the banks, exert the curfew and enlist Mars in the defence of ‘the realm’, but, social division between the State and the People too will backfire with increasing energy now – however, Saturn is also a realist and we’ll be with him again shortly…..
Mars is also coming into opposition with Neptune and Chiron, at the same time as Venus and Mercury are coming up to square with them – a tightening T square that could expose old wounds brought up by the fact that we continue to waste resources while refusing to heed wisdom and deceptions are perpetually spun about just how out of control the situation really is. This is all very ungrounding if you are taken in by the media generated haze of distraction and the hollow political dogma, but, who really is any more…….we can also use this awareness to individually gain a deep inner sense of self worth, as the real value of our personal gifts are given the reality test too. We can see how the tension is building……
Mercury and Venus are also coming into orb of a trine to Uranus – this is a prevelant aspect, that will build through the first half of this lunation – watch for the 2nd through 4th November when the trine is exact. It has a constant energy flow that fires synapses, so while the door remains open for eureka moments arising from all this sharp scrutiny and deep inner processing we are also prone to being caught off-center by those same unexpected truths becoming illuminated - on 4th November, along with the Mercury+Venus trine to Uranus, Mars opposes the Moon conjunct Neptune and Chiron, a recipe for confusion, reaction and counter-reaction like an instant feedback loop, of light and dark, feeling/unfeeling. No sooner have we gotten something figured, its reality is challenged. This is Uranus the heyokah, playing with Fire.
There is throughout this lunation covert as well as suprisingly open energy at work – Scorpio is very secretive to this effect, presents a polished enigma to beguile, but, the silence and fertile darkness can also hide the subversive movements of our innermost selves, especially those cut off parts of our psyche that we would rather not know about…..significant exposure of insidious betrayals, spying games, black ops, more shadow work, more skeletons springing out of the proverbial closet. It begins to sound like a ghost ride in hell! And we do have All-Hallows approaching…..
Infact, we could just step right out of the nightmare! Uranus effect of explosive transformation can inspire us into equally fierce creative action with a tight quincunx to this New Moon. We could find our Orphic voice and begin to re-enchant the world. And we must not forget that the underlying influence in all this, the archetypal undercurrent, is coming through Uranus square Pluto. For the artist in us who works with creative tension and is compelled to give expression to the zeitgeist this is a fiercely creative aspect. In the square one end or the other will try to dominate, or, to put it another way, both will be at work full-on, but without any co-operation, which of course can lead to a dynamic of change that is beyond the individual….we simply have to go through this, accept that its highest value is for fueling radical and creative transformation, which is the gift of the square. It energises the situation until it is transcended. We are already seeing, on the web as much as on the street, an explosion of creativity – our art can heal as well as transform. The archetypal power of the outer planets in strong aspect is inexorable. We can all feel it, a sense of powerful shifting undercurrents at work, and creative honouring of this divine power is a skillful response, innate and grounding. Our future can be truly magical if we embrace the symbolic nature of reality and make this our foundation.
The shift into co-creativity can perhaps only come through a collective response to the symbolic nature of reality, a movement of great trust that can paradoxically release us into a deeper knowledge of the material world.
Orpheus knew the secret of this and saved the hero Jason from the fateful enchantment of the Sirens that would have drowned the Argonauts, dashed against the very material rocks surrounding the Sirens island - a powerful symbol for us now. Orpheus was the stronger magic, being an oracle and initiate of the Dionisian mysteries and shaman of the wilds. Scorpio’s realm is the place of roots, instinct and animal nature…..navigating the archetypal energies, with our own seeing and spirit guidance our personal quest can keep us clear of the deceptions and steer through rocky passages we may encounter – we can now use them well, and the truth and trust they will instill in us through our deeper connections is a treasure of incalculable value!
The journey has begun and as We have to go through the passage between two worlds, how and with what means we are equipped is key. Back to Mercury and Venus……
….and Saturn! The keeper of the gateway is also in a tight sextile with Mars. Saturn can have a civilising influence upon that strong fiery egotisitcal Mars, can be the rules and orders that martial the will into discipline. Such self discipline is crucial and can be incredibly empowering for us in holding to our vision and collectively bringing wisdom to bear on our wounded and wounding nature as we follow the path inwards…..Saturn is also in closing trine to Neptune and Chiron, by wide orb at the moment, but, we need to get the message Saturn brings here right now. We should be prepared for the long haul, and in the balance is everything we hold most valued – Saturn in Libra enables us to give real shape and form to the most enduring of our values, once we have stripped away the dross and developed true appreciation for Life, and he will offer us a fair run at it over the next year, spending a further long period retrograde before he enters Scorpio early in October 2012.
There is an intimation that War itself could be up in the dock through this time…..we are already seeing the major nations writhing under increasing costs of wars fought beyond their own borders, naturally exacerbated by economic instability. There are increasingly strong possibilities for a further scaling back and withdrawal of troops, but, also a re-examination, in the current climate, of the incredible damage that every single war and violent conflict inflicts upon individual lives….soldiers could refuse to fight, putting the healing of deep emotional wounds and the well-being of people above service to a cause that ultimately only creates more and deeper division, inequality and destruction. The growing movement of the People may shift its targets to the military/industrial complex and call for Peace, and thats peace with a capital P! Saturn semi-sextile Venus and Mercury says if the feelings are deep enough, and a sense of end-times is enough to do it, the People will take the law into their own hands and assert inalienable human rights on this matter, knowing that the most fundamental issues are now going to come out, inevitably……
It seems every culture carries the memories and imprint of previous end-times and we all have some resonance with them. As these times approach a certain hysteria can accompany the re-emergence of those thoughts and memories as we project them into our own times – remember YK2, and look at the madness surrounding Comet Elenin, for example. We get infected by the archetypes and lose our senses, sacrifice our sense of reality to a kind of passionate nihilism. The same can be seen in the way we envisage positive change, becoming overly optimistic and really spaced out with the adrenalin of hope. Uranus can do this to us in blindingly sharp shocks of inspiration that feed our desire to simply be free, and again, without the grounding element we can lose the plot. Witness the ‘New Age’ mentality that continues to fuel ideas of ‘Ascension’, the Second Coming, alien intervention, the ’release’ of Earth from ‘quarantine’ and a return to cosmic community – coming back to the present helps to get earthed. When we ignore the reality of the moment and fixate on the ideal, when we arrive at the appointed time, we get Uranus backlash, the jolt of harsh reality to awaken us from the reverie and delusion. Idealism does not translate well into the flesh without becoming transformed. However, staying earthed in these times is also a harsh reality if you’re starving and on the street……compassion is the pragmatic bringer of hope here. And, there is no question of the reality of life beyond what is already known to us – it is the manner in which we meet it, the preparation of our inner reality, that enables us to survive the encounter with the unknown…..
Pluto always wins and has his way with idealistic utopianism. When collective movements are riding surges of archetypal energy we line ourselves up for repeated realitychecks, lessons in what is real for the moment and what will endure - the future becomes less certain, virtually every day delivering tricksy pop-quizzes, especially under Uranus’ influence. Archetypal infection of Uranus and Pluto energies for change is unavoidable in such times, at worst ruthlessly reckless, critically destructive, at best hyper-discerning and unflinchingly thorough – all potentially transformative. Two paradigm shifting powers skirmishing in the archetypal now. But, the Scorpio field is also where we see most deeply into that realm, so there is also a chance here to get rid of the unwanted detritus of unlivable, dieing and past realities and clear the decks for the new. This is very karmic. It is no accident that Samhain is embedded within the Scorpio field.
The spider’s web of aspects at this New Moon are describing an inner dynamic that is strangely familiar – did anyone get that, that this all feels like something ‘new’ that we’ve known before? Although we might not recognise it as such there is a strong ancestral presence in this – even on the streets and in the concrete jungle, an underlying question is ’can we now become Homo Sapiens’?
In reality we have yet to collectively live up to the latin name for our species Homo Sapiens Sapiens…..doubly wise? Like the Tarot Fool, the gullable hero in us would believe the road leads ‘to some higher purpose’ and that as long as we keep on looking up we will get there. And yet it seems the real path to higher consciousness at first leads through the marshy wasteland of ignorance. Realising with honesty the falacies and delusions of Jovian grandeur is the beginning of the true test of our claim to wisdom, but, like the fool it also seems we have already let them lead us to step off the cliff – and its not as if we didn’t notice the ground suddenly falling away. So, who’s the fool here, who is culpable….both Pluto and Uranus are shockingly impersonal while demanding honesty - we have to get our bearings and get used to the fact that we too are animals, quite inspired, and, become quite mad with it……..however, there is wisdom in the ways of the ancestors. There is also a serene ignorance in the idealism of the fool that ignores the lessons of the past, and yet, as Orpheus tale reminds us literally turning back to what we love most before the journey is complete can have fatal consequences……perhaps it is the innate wisdom of the ancestors within our present that serves us best now…..who and what we truly are at root.
As we enter the realm of primal instinct and animal nature Samhain marks this is a place where the veil between the worlds thins and those energies that are most innate to us come to bear upon our lives…….the karmic residue of the year can be shed, and the spirits rise to bid us do so. There is a sacred ecology at work here, but, for us, with the emergence of a united voice that would shed our collective karmic ties and see a new world come into being, the potency of the spiritual and archetypal presence is intense and deep, beyond the norm this Samhain - interesting times we live in.
Much of what is happening now carries the law of cause and effect, karma, very responsive and strong at this time - and its a deep past dynamic, akin in its causes to the ancient Greek notion of heimarmene, the chain of eternal causation in nature. This is the fate revealed in our birthchart……it, like our soul journey, may have very deep roots, but, they are equally present, latent in the form of our lives. It provides us with the template for our souls journey of transformation. Collectively this is also a reality. Almost anyone with planets or angles in early degrees will be feeling this lunation, almost vortex like as inner and outer converge.
It is a shamanic as well as an individuating process, essential to the transmuting of ‘naive and self serving use of our powers’ into ‘mature balanced service’, to a greater cause, Life – the shaman knows how essential this balance is in Life and continually works to restore it. S/he descends into Pluto’s realms with indomitable faith of spirit. Pluto’s foil in this is Ceres…..the Great Mother is the most fearsome of defenders of her children. The shaman as her ally accepts this as her nature……Her presence will become ever more deeply and openly known to us through this time of transition, and beyond – I have no doubts, She is returning……Ceres is square the Moons Nodes now and will hold the balance of our aspirations and healing, our future and our past converging in this ongoing point of transition, the ever changing present.
She tells us that for the northern hemisphere we are in the inward spiral of our solar cycle, our dreaming body will awaken as we head for the midpoint between Equinox and Solstice, as winter opens her arms around us – as we approach the center pole of the year, the great central Tree of Life, we can follow the trees in their dreaming, journey with their roots into the dreamworld of the inner Earth, the ‘lower world’ – we can climb their roots in the sky realms, their branches, to the stars and the ‘upper-worlds’ – the animals too show us their changing, shape shifting appearance and help us in preparation for the dreaming time. We are gathering our stories too….only, within our times we are weaving them together into a new medicine blanket, a new world myth.
She tells us that in the southern hemisphere the life force is returning with renewed vigour, juiced up with the spirit energies of the dreamtime, giving new form to the world, showing us that beauty does not die when it enters the hidden realms, but, becomes even more precious and beautiful – we can rise into the fullness of light and embrace the sun with the blossoming trees, our animal guides can show us the mysteries of birthing our spirit, of creativity and the practice of wisdom in the everyday world – we can enter the daylight dream-time of the ‘middle-world’ and remember our place in creation, fully embody who we are and why we’ve come here…..the two hemispheres together speak with Ceres wisdom through our soul’s journey and spirit work and we are truly blessed in this.
Nature is the great healer, She always prevails, no matter how deep the change, no matter how challenging it may seem in the midst, and Her example is the one we can most rely upon and realise as our own now – in traversing these challenging times we can be with Her, working with and letting the Earth hold us, speaking with Her and the other members of Our family, Her children – how often do we say that, ‘Nature is Our Family’…….and this is our True Earth…..may we be as fierce as the Great mother in defending Her!!
Blessings be with us all
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
In putting together this reading the I Ching was consulted for an overview and, as ever, came up with a strong mirror for the essential energies and dynamics – the hexagrams arising were 35 Chin, Advance with one changing line, the second, producing 64 Wei Chi, Not Yet Settled….
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
Our economic problems cannot be solved by economic solutions alone. We know that, on the global scale, simply putting things in order is not enough……there must be complete change that reaches down to the roots, change that also rises with fresh vitality from those hidden channels of fundamental sustainence that we call ‘our roots’……the protests emerging around the world against economic and political usury and subjugation are vitalised ‘grass-roots’ movements of the people that carry the full awareness of this need. The People want Change, We want it Now, and We will not stop until it is fully Realised!
The Wall Street protests, that are now seeding parallel movements of the people across the USA and around the globe, are picking up on the continuing collective realisation that, if the plutocrats, corporatocracy, politians and governments won’t engage with this imperative for radical corrective and healing of the pervasive disfunctions of power and its concomitant wounds, the People will.
At this time, the underlying dynamic is one of growing tension. We are seeing an emphasis on peaceful demonstration that is crucial, but, if there is no change, how long will the peace remain? Remember, for example, in the UK we saw mass demonstrations when 1 million people took to the streets protesting against the Iraq War – it was ignored. However, politicians would do well to pay attention and realise that the people do not forget and will not take accumulative rebuttal and denial of their will and perceptions without consequence. The so called ‘Arab Spring’ rumbles on. Soon enough, will it become the ‘Winter of our Discontent’. Ever more our governments resemble the very entities against which they claim to be fighting, as Shakespeare so clearly articulated with biting irony in Richard III…….
When governments ignore the voice of the people, over the years, the tension builds. It is a tension most clearly expressed now, on the one hand between the rigid opposition of the political and financial establishments to any form of change, that falls in line with public perceptions, and on the other hand with the open demonstration of public awareness and will that demands that change must happen. This is a dynamic that is expressing a shared sense of endemic dis-function that we cannot ignore. There are dangers here as well as opportunity…….we would do well to look deeply and unwaveringly into the eyes of danger if we are to continue finding our way to opportunity.
It may seem strange to begin an article on the Wall Street protests with this particular visionary poem, but, its message carries deep resonances within the midst of the great global changes that are now unfolding. W B Yeats poem “The Second Coming” was written in the wake of the Great War of 1914-18. Millions of lives were lost in the that war, an unprecedented scale of human violence within a single conflict in which ordinary people were used as cannon fodder, a sanctioned mass murder that ultimately did nothing but serve the ends of the ruling classes and politicians.The poem is loaded with imagery rising from this wounding of the collective soul, for that is what it unequivicably was, constellating millenia of destructive usury. The reverberations precipitated an awareness of the global nature of the human potential for destruction and usury, that has been growing in consciousness ever since. It was not enough to prevent a Second World War, infact the trauma, the deep psychological wound and its attendant disfunctions grew out of, were compounded in and carried forward through and beyond that time…….we all live in this collective shadow, none are exempt from the responsibility to face it.
The consciousness we lacked one hundred years ago is now, however, increasingly shared collectively. A tipping point has been reached in our collective consciousness; our destructive potential now stares us in the face, we cannot deny it. And yet we find the wound remains and has deepened, reaching into all areas of life. It is seated at a fundamental level, has spawned greed beyond imagination, and there are a small minority who would seek to maintain its death dealing vampirism within our world. Only, now, it and its perpetraitors are in the dock. I do not think that this is what Yeats had in mind when he spoke of ‘conviction’, any more than fundamentalism being pointed out through him saying that ‘the worst are full of passionate intensity’, but, a frisson of certainty is carried beneath the surface of his words which we all recognise. We, the 99%, know that this is, at a fundamental level, behind the focus we have now chosen to act upon. The roots of this protest are deeply ancestral……our passions run deep.
It is surely right to focus on the plutocrats at this time, especially with widening cracks showing in the global economic infra-structure over which they rule. However, if we want to see the change we are calling for truly come about, as true as our perception of abuse and usury is, it surely cannot be restricted to economics alone. And, we know that governments are ‘bought’ by the corporate plutocracy.
As Yeats had it in 1919, in the wake of the Great War, ‘the blood dimmed tide is loosened, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned’; western governments engage in war in the name of ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy’, always seeking to over-ride its destructive and violent nature by claiming the moral high-ground, and, it has ever been so. With the Great War, war itself became funded by mechanisation and became the provenance of industrial expansion. In a world dominated by industry and commerce it is no wonder that war has proliferated, that never a day goes by when there is not war being fought somewhere in the world. Yet, do the governments express the will of the people in this? The industrial complex feeds our culture while destroying our humanity and the world we live in. How culpable are the governments? Obviously their version of the morals and ethics that we are now bringing into question are of a quite different nature to those held by the vast majority.
For our grandparents, the Great War came as a terrible and deeply traumatic shock – a shock out of innocence. Their awareness was very different from our own in many ways. With the advent of global communications we can no longer claim innocence about the presence of war and violence. Equally, we are no longer innocent and unaware of the continued damage done in the name of power as an instrument of oppression, governance against the will of the majority and downright destructive exploitation. It is an energy of conflict, conflict of interests as well as conflict between the dominant human culture and the natural world.Yeats poem addresses this with visceral poetic perception. It is also an energy of dissociation. Have we become the Hawk? We now see the roots of this energy of conflict and dissociation being exposed – but, as well as the import that Yeats words carry for our times they also highlight the morals and ethics behind the question of “who are ‘the best’ and ‘the worst’”? This is a collective question that we must find a personal answer too.
The psychologist and astrologer Liz Green says in citing Jung, ‘if there is something wrong with society, then there is something wrong with the individual, and if there is something wrong with the individual then there is something wrong with me’(1). Many might take issue with this, but, the prerogative is to ask the question, and to not assume ones own immunity to the problem. In our own individuality we may find the answer to the question about ‘best and worst’. We have to be prepared to come clean with ourselves, our lifestyles and our own personal dark side. Any values we may hold may otherwise become distorted, and simply continue to feed the very thing we reject. And here, retaining ones own sense of values in the midst of collective action is key – a collective that is made up of awake and aware individuals who are commited to being the change they want to see has a very different dynamic to one that is responding to collective impulses rising from a herd mentality, below the horizon of personal consciousness, the realm of the shadow.
It is a sign of the intelligence innate to us at this time that two important factors are present within the current public uprisings against the plutocracy. The first is the call to simply gather in peaceful protest, the second, the emerging independance of each new protest, united by a common awareness of the reality experienced in each of our lives. The first, so long as peaceful protest prevails, is a defiant and charged refusal to engage with the destructive energies percieved to be the instrumental modus operandi of the ‘feudal’ power base; the second is a reflection of the strength of innate shared intelligence that each of us is motivated by, through self awareness as a part of the greater whole. One of our greatest safeguards at this time is that the emergent collective movement for global justice is based upon much more than a copycat reflex to unite in opportunistic anarchy – there have been exceptions, as was the case in the recent UK rioting and looting. We do need to learn from this.
While the outpouring of public unrest seen in those lootings may well share a common root with the current demonstrations, they manifested a totally different dynamic to the Wall Street protests. The key danger that we saw in the UK looting was exemplified in its cynical and yet indiscriminate destruction of individual business – many small businesses, the labours of individuals serving the community, built through hard work and determination, were destroyed. There was no intelligence in this – this was a collective act of individuals overcome with the very lack of conviction that Yeats talks of – the insidious wound of a sick society, a society lacking the cohesive glue of conviction towards upholding our collective well-being. For Yeats this was the picture of a broken dream belonging to the human spirit. For us, this is the picture of a community eating itself through ignorance and lack of fundamental sustainance. Justice flew out of the window as each shop window was smashed. Even if there is any sense of justice to be drawn from the UK insurrection, it will only become manifest once that lack is fully addressed and made the central tennet of a collective healing in which we are All involved, with awareness, honesty and insistance upon, central amongst other things, the complete redistribution of power amongst individuals, communities and nations. For this to happen, and this is perhaps also at the common root, economic inequalities must be transformed……democracy and economics within the living politic of the people embodying the equal sharing of power. Many economists argue that the ‘free-market’ offers equal opportunity to all, as if this enshrines the sharing of power, reality says otherwise. The lack of social cohesion is exacerbated by the absence of responsibility demonstrated by those who operate within the ethos of free-trade and nowhere is this more visible now than in the defered responsibility of the financial institutions in the wake of the 2008 market crash.
In the Wall Street protests we see intelligence awareness of this lack and the accompanying need for fundamental change becoming the incontravertable expression of a shared truth amongst humanity – we want our inalienable rights returned to us, to be free of serfdom, such that those responsible are held to account – we see over and again the flag of ‘Democracy’ being raised. “Democracy implies that (humans) must take the responsibility for choosing (their) rulers and representatives, and for the maintenance of (their) own ‘rights’ against the possible and probable encroachments of the government which (they have) sanctioned to act for (them) in public matters.” [Ezra Pound, "ABC of Economics," 1933] Democracy must equal and be equal within Truth.
It has been said that ‘the Truth shall set you free’, however, it is the passion with which it is carried forward and sustained that will ensure the democratic freedom we all seek now……but, raw passion by itself is not enough. ’Intelligent activism’ is the obvious means, and, however it manifests it must, but must, be based upon and always have Peace at its core. The uncompromising ‘plutocratic power bases’ against which the protests are aimed are entrenched so deeply within a vampiristic hegemony of usury within our world that the chips may seem stacked against this imperative. If we see no change, in time, the alternative is an unthinkable escalation in the ‘blood-dimmed tide’ and a following confrontational clampdown that will require more than ‘mere anarchy’ to overcome……..our passion too must be intelligent and aware, and all the more charged with certainty for it. This speaks to the raising of our collective consciousness, not as an ideal, but, as a pragmatic manifestation of the will of the people.
If the raising of our collective consciousness to an higher level of realisation is to become manifest we must be able to bear witness to our own home truths, reaching down to the very roots of power within each of our lives – Yeats might well be right in implying that, whether secular or spiritual, nothing short of ‘Revelation’ will carry us through.
Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand; A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
Yeats ‘vast image’ emerges from the Spirit of the Earth, and here too, the prophetic vision carries the trauma of the global turmoil and destructive fury of the Great War to a new level of meaning for us. For us, as we are all too well aware, while the human war has never ceased the concomitant war on Nature has become the crucial expression of the fundamental nature of the wound. Would a ‘second coming’ be peaceful anyway in our current world? The rampant fundamentalism and dogma of terror belongs to a world at war with itself.Yet, no matter which form War takes, how innured have we become against its furies and psychoses as a result. How horrified would Yeats be, what rhetoric of the visionary poetic spirit would do justice to the wound. But, it were never the more so that the roots of conflict out of which his vision arose hold sway….and his vision holds true.
Amongst the culture of war’s greatest perpetrators, and present to a sickening level, cultural integration of the reality of war is also now reduced to a virtual fantasy, literally – this is, in plain speak, culturally endorsed conditioning. It serves the western hegemony well. We all know the devious misrepresentation of reality that the Media disseminates, and how it innoculates us against the visceral impact while feeding our emotional bodies with fear and disquiet – but, especially amongst the young, the game is being played at a much more damaging level. Online war games, for example, provide conflict as ‘entertainment’ and, unless we are unfortunate enough to be caught within the violence and conflict in the ‘real world’, this symptom of collective illness remains a virtual reality, projected into fantasies that lack the visceral lessons of War itself. We give ourselves the message, the reality of our condition, while keeping the reality of its effects at arms length – it is a form of denial, but, as with all the neurotic dynamics of denial, it does nevertheless have very real effects. For any child for whom this neurosis is the norm, who knows no better, we now are also called to hold ourselves responsible for their future, and this goes far beyond war and its concomitant traumas alone. Earth is reflecting the trauma of violence and destruction back to us in every moment…through our culture of consumerism and personal profit we have been and continue to engage in destroying Life with an equal lack of conviction towards our collective well-being. Again, is this a true reflection of the public will, our ethics and most heartfelt desires? If we are to be truthfull, ‘Wall Street’ is an expression of this collective realisation too and, we hold the plutocrats responsible for wanton destruction of our environment as much as we do the indiscriminate erosion of our freedoms. When will the corporatocracy be held to account for their environmental impact – when will their pact with government be broken? Let us remind ourselves of the relationship, as played out through two infamous events that betrayed the ineffective and superficial lip-service which our governments pay towards this responsibility……
The Copenhagen Environmental Summit of 2009 produced a document that simply put stated that ‘action should be taken to keep (global) temperature increases to below 2ºC’ – there are no provisions for limiting CO2 production. Period. That was all. The document is not legally binding. It was ‘taken note of’, but not adopted by any of the participating countries, every one a UN member State.
Now, remember September 2008, the Global Stock Market Crash – almost immediately international differences were forgotten, within days world leaders had rallied and achieved a sense of unanimity, and the call that went out was to ‘save the banks’……..
Since then the perpetrators of the crash as well as the culpable governments have gotten off scot-free – until now.
Obviously, the defence of capital (the new god) is of much greater concern than the bio-sphere to our governments. Money, and its reward of power, is more important than Nature. A true rebalancing of our relationship with Nature is no small thing, could easily be put on a par with a ‘Second Coming’ – but, surely, unless our Earth says otherwise, we cannot reverse our culture – it has to evolve as well, beyond the mechanistic age. It could be said that behind this is the notion that science will provide the solution to the results of our environmental vandalism. For this to be the case, again, a thorough transformation of the ethical and moral use of Science must come about. Science in itself is benign, but, the power with which it invests the corporatocracy, governments and ‘sanctioned’ violence of warfare is immense – and it funds the subjugation of our freedoms as much as it facilitates them. The internet and communications systems we now enjoy are crucially empowering to us.
And yet, regardless the fact of how much Big Pharma contributes to the global market, the drug market is flooded with pharmaceuticals that are designed to treat the symptoms and continue to bypass the root causes of our illnesses, are often withdrawn having been found to be ‘dangerous’ to humans and the whole industry, for that is what it is, is driven by blind irresponsible economic profit – the Hippocratic Oath? Forget it!
And, regardless of the fact that many significant contributions in cutting edge scientific advances are made in service to the ‘military/industrial complex’, we usually don’t get the benefits at the public level until some years after their application within the war/space ‘programme’, if at all, and well beyond the point at which they have become integrated within the power base.
It could be argued from this standpoint that the free-trade market ethos, its enshrinement of ‘freedom’, as applied within its cultural, political and economic context, is the very thing that has been and is destroying our bio-sphere. The message is obvious. We should first be seeking to dismantle such a destructive system. Perhaps Natural Law is irreversably doing this for us, but, at what cost if, after the dust has settled, we only seek to find a new form for the same old problem? As said, our economic problems cannot be solved through economics alone…….Yeats desert vision is all too familiar, haunted by the harpies and carrion birds of our culture. The creeping spectre of genetic modification and the image of a savage humanity that he envisaged, its ‘gaze blank and pitiless as the sun’, are one and the same.
The darkness drops again but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
And, if the plutocrats were to remain untouched into which nightmare would we be rocked….we should be under no illusions…..
….it is early days yet, the protests we are seeing now are a foretaste, the opening salvos of a conflict in which ultimately we are either all victors or all losers……there will be no compromises. The choice is obvious, only the heartless and truly insane and will see it otherwise……Yeats vision was the stark unflinching call of a poetic heart that was fully capable of embracing visceral beauty, and, in the wake of so much destruction and insanity perhaps for him the moment of choice had taken on an ominous import in this respect – he was addressing both the wound and its effect upon our ability to rebuild the world out of the wreckage of human carnage, power crazed confrontation and usury…..is it any different for us now?
I do not wish to end on a note of pessimism; the signs are that We the People are increasingly rallying to the call for Change, and this can only be good. Pragmatism says we must change, that this must happen across all scales, from the individual outwards, and that we must be prepared to go to any lengths and use any means to achieve this, but, only so long as those means do not go counter to the spirit of Equality, Justice, Co-operation and awakening Peace at the heart of our human affairs. It is the Peace of being at one with Life, with our Earth, with each other and our truths that we have thirsted for over so many millenia…….each of us have this within us, at the most fundamental level of the goodness that is the truth of our human heart and destiny – now is our time to bring the Truth to bear. Be of good heart……each of us is capable of realising that destiny and each small step we take towards it builds the change that we want to see, that we are.
Don’t be daunted by the scale of the task, it speaks volumes, and nothing but all out peaceful persistance will prevail. We hold responsibility to set the example by keeping the peace, to not be goaded into confrontation. We are abundant with resources great and small – remember collective silences? supporting small scale local producers? mini strikes? flash occupations? community currencies? barter or swap? remember giving plastic packaging back to the supermarkets? remember LETS? community co-operatives? remember random acts of kindness? etc etc – think of all the small as well as great means by which we can undermine the plutocratic hegemony while the public movement of the People continues, everything and everyone counts…….from the small to the great, we build the power of change.
The first New Moon after the Equinox arrives just as the Earth is clothed equally in day and night. The light is rapidly sinking in the North and energetically rising in the South. Everything is in motion; the geese are beginning to fly, the wind rising on the mountain speaks of transformation, and on Earth we watch as the Moon comes into alignment with the Sun in the sign of justice, balance, relationships and ‘the other’. Looking out upon the world we can see the energy rising through the lens of the cosmos in tune with the times.
At the crossing point in time and the seasons it is time to take stock. The polarities of light and darkness, growth and decay, are in dynamic equilibrium all around us. In the wider context the times offer us opportunity, as, in bringing attention to the pivotal point around which division swings, we can also choose to work towards bringing an end to all that keeps us divided. The New Moon amplifies the energy, brings it to a needs/must status - we can perhaps sense a tension rising, the balance point is loaded with potential, flashpoint uncertainty…..releasing the tension, with vision and foresight, is a great challenge. Being caught up in the energy of change, having the ability and courage to persist in the midst of immense challenges, let alone look to the future, will push us to the limits of our resourcefulness. Perhaps this will be the crucial fact of our coming experiences that will decide for us how we persist, the nature of the vision we are able to manifest in visceral reality. But, before we consider the implications on the ground, first, it would be wise to get in tune with nature.
Earth Mother speaks to us both through the falling fruits, coming to ripeness, leaves flying in the wind, and the emerging shoots, vigorous with promise, bursting buds, tender in their blossoming – death and birth dancing together in our One World…..
…….from the northern perspective She asks us to awaken our sense of Value as we appraise the harvested fruits of our labours and identify those most fertile with seeds, those that will carry us through the dark time and those that will bring energy and sustainence that will help us stay healthy and bring the warm glow of the dream-time to our wintering hearts – these are the precious seeds of our imagination and inner vision…..
……from the southern perspective our values can help us identify the new growth, the sprouting life force taking shape, caring for those that need protection, that need feeding and planting out, the healthiness of the seeds that have sprouted within our dreamings, to which we will give most attention in the coming growing time as they unfold their stories, testing themselves out in the world.
If we were to look into the cosmobiological world, the dominant impulse, seismic and volcanic, the global climate and solar activity tell us we are in the Southern half of the cycle – Earth is awakening, pushing the physical boundaries as the life force increases with pulses from the source - the Sun becoming newly activated and seeding the magneto-sphere is driving the weather and charging Earth’s nervous system. The hemispheres hold the balance…….all is dancing together, to the tune of Change…..this dance, however, has the accelerating rhythm of a dance going wild……
In both our gathering and our sowing ‘Care’ and ‘Vigilance’ are our watch-words as we encounter the unpredictable weather of the autumn and spring. In the human world, where we predominantly base our decisions on factors independant of nature, we are at a forward looking moment of choices - and the times have a flavour that says our future remains in the balance, undecided - we can go either way. So, looking to our resources, the better to make informed decisions, has a crucial edge of destiny about it at this time.
Just four days after equinox a New Moon in Libra brings a re-defining influence to the energetic shift in the seasons. The decisions we take now will be carried forward over the next month through the lens of the Libran Moon. What we decide now will also carry us through to the Solstice – it is a propitious time!
If we were to look into the human world, the dominant weather, our politics and economic climate would tell us that we are in the Northern half of the cycle – and, perhaps our evaluation would have us throwing out most of ‘the harvest’ – so much of it has become rotten to the core, its life force corrupted. War strips us of the very means with which we can stop the rot……increasingly we can see, the people are awake and know that only through waging war on War itself and the divisive infra-structures that support it can we bring justice to bear. We will see how Mars and Pluto are at work in this.
There is an air of rising realism, at odds with the illusions spun to keep our collective power yoked. Uranus is making strong connections here too, not least of all with Mars. The blinkers are off, and soon enough, at each emergent trigger point, the restraints will come off too - Wall Street is the latest in an increasing pattern of unpredictable flashpoint demonstration of the public will and anger. This is bringing the whole question of resources to the frontline of action……it is not through violence that the voice of the people will be heard, this will fuel only more deeply entrenched division. Intelligent use of resources is supported through awareness and open distribution, communication and fostering integrity – anger is natural when these are denied. Uranus gives us access to the higher mind, Mars brings a crucial sense of realism that will not be denied.
Our emphasis here is on the higher vibration. A powerful upswelling of Earth changes is very much a part of this process…….at this New Moon Venus, ahead of the Sun and Moon in Libra, gains an uplifting energy from Jupiter retrograde in Taurus. Venus rules both Libra and Taurus, but, here she transits within the constellation of the Crow - in keeping to the higher manifestation look out for deceptions and scornful trickery around resources. Be aware of false promises. Sacred Law will guide us. We must be prepared to defend ourselves against usery.
Our inner resources gain great strength when we connect with Jupiter’s inner expansion of wisdom, of elevated awareness, and this in turn can bring a deeper meaning to Venus’ heart centered infusion of love into our relationships. She is on her way to meet with Saturn soon after New Moon - this will help us ground the Earth centered values she is bringing. Saturnian maturity will help us fully incarnate those values and seed our vision for the future……so much rests upon us manifesting this through our collective power as an agent for change.
In the Equinox template Sun began entering into opposition with Uranus in Aries opening the collective mind with a drive for originality and freedom. Over the coming months we can utlise this energy in breaking the mould of habitual thought through opening to insights and realisations about our collective potential. Mars in Leo trines Uranus and sextiles the Sun bringing original creative power to all that we seek to embody – and, at equinox, Mars was also conjunct the Moon. Collectively, we the people are becoming fired up, finding voice.
Mars will continue to feed this doubly fiery energy into our creative endeavours for change as at New Moon he moves into exact quincunx to Pluto in Capricorn. Here is the push for realism. Systemic change within our Earth field will begin to reach down to the roots and the signs are already there…….they hardly need re-iterating. How we work with these combined influences is key. Watch the financial turmoil increase, but, don’t get sucked into the inevitable ‘spin’ that it will generate……the mesmerising culture of consumerism is dieing, and despite the insidious inroads it has made into our psyches, its influence is increasingly waning on how we connect with our own deepest personal values, gifts and power. We know these have a better purpose….take care of them and be patiently alert. We would do well to be patient, as an elder would be, and hold back superficial and reactionary judgement by keeping the bigger picture in mind. There is much work to be done within the initiation zone. A shot of Heron medicine will also serve us well here…..
We need to be able to spot the moment when we are called to manifest the flashing energy of Uranus, as it happens, and really feel the power surging from source - we can experience ecstatic joy in our creativity, if we are open to it. The more we quiet our minds and reside in our hearts, the more this will be available to work with and we can grasp ‘the flash of opportunity’ beneath the surface, no matter how clouded the waters become with sudden change. Neptune can symbolise this clouding, but, Mars, Uranus and Pluto will have none of it!
A healing vision for our planet is at work behind this – staying with the higher vibration, Chiron brings the healing waters of Pisces into our New Moon, deep waters that cleanse our world of the wounds of the past, and Neptune in Aquarius, still in partnership with Chiron, brings the connectivity of higher consciousness into the healing process. This is available for our emergence, beyond the competitive mindset, into one of co-operation. Neptune atomises the energy and spreads it through each of us, as fractals of the whole containing the hologram of wholeness. This influence is present at Equinox and holds.
At equinox, making this all the more powerful and underpinning our creative responses to bring a thorough and realistic clearing, Chiron’s and Neptune’s combined energies have become amplified with Pluto’s unstoppable alchemy of transformation – a great push for total change in how we express our collective power as an achievable goal that heals our collective mind. Again, they feed back to Mars.
The signs suggest that we are ready to work hard to realise this visionary process, embodying the shamanic paradigm, through our own spiritual alchemy – the Sun recieves this transformative impulse through sextile with Mars and the Moon feeding into the equinox template. Pluto sextile Neptune and Chiron combine in a yod to feed their impulse through Mars and the Moon. When such deeply transformative potential impulses the energised emotional body of the people revolutionary power can course through us – we need to ground this power and let it flow. We can ground it with holistic creativity when we let it flow through our hearts. It will fund us with courage. With courage we begin to grow in confidence and the energised emotional body in turn expands our connections – we get a picture of ourselves within humanity expressing the interrelated polyrythmic nature of the dance. It’s polyrythms tell us it is multi-dimensional, working at many levels in unison. Entering the shamanic state in full consciousness of integration within the matrix of Life initiates us into the shamanic paradigm – if we are truly to become co-creative we must be able to go there. We will come back to this in a moment…..
Courage inspires and helps us raise our consciousness. Sun sextile Mars and Moon at equinox form a second yod back to Chiron and Neptune that manifests a feedback loop for our healing vision – at first we will feel it, then through the New Moon matrix we will learn how to manifest it. Mercury is also at work here and can augment Chiron and Neptune’s influence in ways that will help us raise our consciousness, working with shamanic awareness and dexterity as a part of this process. Intentionally working in this way, now is a good time to utilise the potential here - trust as you do that you will be connecting with others in natural co-operation. Spiritual symbiosis. Tending to our own soul path enables us to work together without having to even think about it, but, doing so together strengthens the energy – 10 Billion Beats is a prime example and the energy of the drumming will continue to reverberate through our individual work for many months.
We would do well to begin thinking of ourselves as a global community, a village with a strong heart – I would recommend choosing this time to make earth healing rituals, building an earth shrine or altar, as the symbolic heart of the global village and feeding it with inspirational beauty as gifts and offerings to the spirits. Both spring and autumn fund us with immense richness and beauty so our offerings can really speak to the spirits; ask them for guidance and personal healing that will aid you in the coming months….this will pay great dividends, for us all. These sacred focii will serve us in the coming months too; a golden bees wax candle dedicated to the earth-heart and lit in a central place will bring a strong sense of beauty to our home. Remembering all who struggle to find food and shelter can strengthen our bonds and help us maintain a balanced perspective. There is great support in this from the planetary matrix. But, we are also a part of a much larger community……
Mercury in Virgo at Equinox quincunx Neptune – at New Moon, Mercury catches up with the Sun in Libra and this becomes a tight quincunx to Chiron from Mercury conjunct Sun and Moon. The complex dance plays out in quick-time with Mercury’s advance through this period – it is a window of potent opportunity for entraining with Galactic energy – equinoxial Mercury squares the Galactic center. Sun is fueling our Earth changes, recieving the electric impulses of new energy from the Galactic Center. Watch the uptick in solar activity seeding the Earth matrix. At Equinox the visionary charge of healing energy coming through Mercury’s quincunx with Chiron and Neptune seeds the template with intelligent creativity that compliments the Sun Uranus opposition at New Moon. Uranus opposition with the Sun tightens to exact as the New Moon comes into manifestation. Altogether, with Pluto also coming into a square with the New Moon, this potential can be released with ongoing intensity through the next three months. We can really make our otherworldly connections count now. Sacred Law founded in the heart will teach us how.
Saturn in Libra sextiled the North Node of the Moon in Sagittarius at Equinox – natural balance in accordance with Sacred Law is the basis of our soul journey. Collectively, we can bring a powerful understanding of our responsibility towards the future through grounding our role as guardians of the Earth Garden, a role, we know, enshrining and embodying Sacred Law. Cosmobiological awareness is the way to bring it into consciousness. With Jupiter in trine with Venus at Equinox the goddess energies can help us in turning with the tide, pulling us closer together, uniting us with Her great heart.
At New Moon Venus approaches conjunction with Saturn and sextile with the North Node. Our journey into wisdom as an expression of Sacred Law within the heart. With diligence towards our inner wealth and we can forge the diamond body of indestructible compassion through time……the cosmobiological heart of the Earth Mother coming alive within, helping us to manifest a better world into being, and from this our journey towards Solstice will unfold……but, this is a gradual process, one that needs a steady foundation, that flows with the shifting balance of the seasons.
While care and vigilance are the key words as we enter the new seasonal zone, the Libran Moon is upping the stakes. The driver here is ‘the Unexpected’, powerful influences manifesting through events that exacerbate breakdown and push growth in change to new levels – overall, with this Moon cycle a rising groundswell of transfigurative potential is emergent. The planetary configuration shows a hightened possibility that world events will become cumulative, pushing the agenda for transformation. This is a great test for humanity. We are also, it seems, entering into a zone that speaks of ‘instant Karma’.
This will signal a change in focus, an intensifying of awareness. What is wise within us must now come to the fore. It is a good time to strengthen our bonds with each other, to make our connections truthfull and grounded. For all the apparent complexities at work, this is an inspirational matrix of energy, with centeredness, eldership and realism at its heart. The planetary matrix is calling for serious assessment of what will serve each of us best – a pragmatic stock-take of our personal resources will help us ground and stay earthed, both individually and collectively. Alignment with the seasons brings balance and meaning to all our endeavours.
Awareness is a resource of great power. We need to be watchfull and look out for each other. Rising tension between the power of nature and the force for containment asks us to get real. There will be a tendency for those resisting change and ‘keeping their heads in the sand’ to have their personal agendas sidelined, and this applies as much to the political arena and economics as it does to individuals who hold power within those fields. The dogmatism of the older generations must give way to the embodiment of the Elder, even as it emerges amongst the young. And emerge it will, with our care, vigilance and realism. For all the opportunistic rioting and looting that systemic breakdown catalyses, beneath and behind it is a disquiet that ‘knows’ - the challenge of initiation is to connect with this knowing. This is an important time as the way will open for those whose fore-sight and broader vision is based on Natural Law and innate wisdom to step up to the plate.
The first lunation of the new equinox season will help us decide where we stand within the midst of accelerating change……
As intense as the winds of change may become, the as yet untapped resources of humanity are given planetary support so that we can now considerably increase our capacity to meet them with equanimity. We know that we have a great resource within. Together, each of us holding to the center and expanding our heart energies can generate a protective field of fully conscious and fierce compassion – the mountain is our symbol……but, we must let ourselves go into the dance and let its power flow through us for this to happen….the mountains too will have their dance….
We have reached the crossing point. Beyond is the pull of a vision that can ingite our collective soul; paradoxically, gaining access to it through manifesting it……it will take time, but, time itself is changing. When we are able to realise our role as Guardians of the Earth garden, our inner radiance will pervade the earth plane and experiencing time will become ever present access to the whole…..
Hold to the center. Owlmirror advocates giving voice and form to visionary potential as it comes through, but, it takes more than one voice to encompass the whole, so, have courage and let your voice be heard. This vision, for all its cosmobiological implications, is simply a choice within our humanity…….
The catabolic release of energy that the entropic half of the dance will manifest, as the old balance of power is naturally dismantled, will also fund us with an anabolic empowerment to bring our creative powers into new forms. The vision can be realised. But, it is intrinsic to its realisation that we be discerning and careful not to polarise, to split humanity further. Honouring difference heals division. Healing means making whole. Embracing the whole, light and dark, is the real challenge for our unity. Earth’s equinox seen through the lens of the Libran Moon.
And, it should be said, that regardless of the apparent grandiose nature of such a vision, there is little room for idealism here, we are working with what is, as is, in new ways. Many who feel that the completion of the Mayan Calendar signals our entry into a new consciousness may find that the challenges continue to arise as they have done over the millenia, as they did for our fore-bears. And, as our ancestors knew, the present holds the key to healing all time. They too made mistakes – can we learn? Everything is happening with a purpose, only, be careful of apocalyptic prophecy, as well as the idea of a day of revelation – for all the portents, they also carry the overtones of the old paradigm that is dieing off…….if the cosmobiological vision holds any weight, emergence from material fundamentalism into gnosis within the living multiverse tell us that fear and denial do not belong to our future….the indigenous prophecies are very down to earth and pragmatic in this respect.
Small steps make a great journey possible, each step at their own time, as the moment requires……our resources are great, our technology ancient and evolving, bringing us to spiritual communion within the animate multiverse – sentient cosmobiological realisation.
The technological skills we have built up can, if we choose, support this, but, science is not everything and this too is on the verge of great change – the fusion of science with compassionate living born within indigenous Earth wisdom promises much. Would any scientist dare embrace the shamanic vision without it…..a rhetorical question. The electric universe connects us all in the Now.
Even though we may be reaching for the stars Earth is the Life giver through whom we can truly come to know them and, despite the youthful rebelliousness with which science also disregards this fact, once we recognise how deep Her love for us is we may also just discover that she holds our deepest memories within her heart. The Earth Garden is the living memory of our stellar origins. Youthful energy becomes mature through the challenges within the initiatic rites. For all the challenges we face on Earth now, this is a golden moment in our evolution….
If at this time we were to view ourselves as a global village we would see that half of the village is being guided by Earth to begin bringing the nurturing of our dreaming bodies to the fore, while the other half is being guided by Earth to begin feeding our creative energies into manifestation through our physical plane. When our creative energies flow from the heart, as artisans of the sacred, we know that these two halves are not seperate, that we never entirely cease from either outer or inner focus working together in manifestation – the two are aspects of one movement, forever in active balance. The times are most propitious now, however, for us to capitalise on all the work we each have done and collectively begun to realise, so that we can also increase our working as one village, with awareness, in ways that manifest this as a single and unified process. The collective spiritual alchemy of humanity is the vehicle through which cosmobiological unity with Earth can be realised. While gradual development along this path is the given theme for this Equinox…….how we can achieve and maintain our sustained development and navigate the path through initiation depends very much on our ability to ride the winds of change.
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The symbols in this post have come from several readings. The astrological symbolism for the New Moon and Equinox are sourced in the tropical zodiac, the signs, the planetary positions and the Sabian Symbols attached to these, as well as the energy that connects them as expressed through aspects. For the Equinox the I Ching was cast using three different translations for interpretation, Stephen Karcher’s of 2002, Thomas Cleary’s of 1986 and Richard Wilhelm’s of 1950 – the image arising was hexagram 53 Chien, Gradual Progress with two moving lines, 2 & 5, giving rise to hexagram 18 Ku, Corruption/Renovation. Amazingly, the relationship between these two hexagrams exactly mirror the equinoxial shift. A further reading for the cosmobiological aspects of the article was made using a method of Cowrie Shell divination originating in West Africa – this method has been transposed into a new form, incorporating and integrating western indigenous techniques, and will be one of the forms of divination Owlmirror will be writing about over the coming year. Further material was sourced through spirit journeying and ancestral divination, both of which will also be brought into our exploration of divination practices and techniques through the year ahead.
Well, a year has passed since we gathered to create a synchronous wave of vibration around our home planet and the 10 Billion Beats call is going out once more to pick up the beat and drum! Last year on the 16th of September Carlisle Bergquist and the 10BBs crew rallied us to participate in a sonorous global shift for realising heart centered healing through our drums – 16th through 17th September 2011 is our date for renewing the wave - follow this link to get the full details.
Drumming is ‘energy work’, working with the power of vibration and rhythm – we can change the state of things, as well as our consciousness, through this medium, and what we can achieve now is unprecedented. We are greater in numbers and the message that 10BBs is supporting is growing and spreading. We can see the same message emerging globally in many different ways, so be creative! Every energy wave that we create now increasingly carries the power for transformation.
When we pay attention to something it changes – we can change its state, its structure and its energetic expression – but, this is very old knowledge now being explored through new science and metaphysics. Our times are primed for a big shift however, the current conditions on earth are unique, and these are conditions that accelerate change. We have entered an exponential trend that is pulling our awareness into transformation. Our awareness is growing. Collectively we are entering a new phase of our human development and history. It is a time for global co-operation in bringing the changes we most desire to our life-ways and relationship with our home planet. With this in mind 10BBs looks all the more important this time around. Global Drumming is a way of energetically paying attention to our fundamental energetic Earth matrix….just chew this over for a moment……
How each of us work with the drumming will be as unique as our selves, but, we are in the midst of a field change that our drumming will feed no matter how we work – so, pick up your drum, bring out your creativity and take to your feet, or let your spirit ride your drum’s dancing hooves. Whatever your delictation let it come from the heart……this way we will all bring genuine healing into this world. We do not have to have the ‘right ideas’ for this to happen, its not about ideas or thinking, its about being true to ourselves, authentic, genuine. From this place of personal power we can work within context, should we choose. We don’t have to look far to find a context that is relevant to us as individuals.
We are working within a field of growing mutability; old (………) structures are challenged, the world is becoming more fluid, and, if we have a mind to we can let our turbulent times teach us. We can clearly see that much of the challenge is for us to change how we consciously work with energy and power. This means revising how much our transactions define our relationships. We know that we will have to change our consumer ways – in fact, we have already become addicted to blind consumption, our lives literally being devoured by this rogue culture we and our ancestors have created. Over and above our everyday consumption of power and the debt of pollution that this creates, our relationship with nature rests upon this – providing we are not following the scientific fundamentalism that says science will provide the solution. There is another way – human nature and Nature moving into unity requires a deeper understanding of who we are and where we have come from than simply replacing one consumer model with another. When we can re-member what gives us life we can learn about our interrelationships – this way we all evolve as we learn, consciously, spiritually and physically. Everything is connected. Imagine then what happens when the global drumming includes the re-membering – it feeds those changes in our relationship with all that gives us life and, if we really want to get to this place, we must come from the heart. The heart is the place of our deepest memories……the seat of our indigenous soul.
When we bring energy to that place we create a re-volution within ourselves, and for there to be any genuine revolution it must start within – otherwise we tend to lapse back into the old patterning and amnesia. This is our opportunity to break the pattern……..
Our re-volutions here are evolutionary, gathering momentum that is bringing change through infusing our indigenous souls with new energy – and drumming is a powerful vehicle for this, pulsing energy into our earth matrix as well as our hearts. It is also dimensional, an immense opportunity to send prayers to the spirit worlds, to express our passion and commitment, and to ask for help. In our drumming we encourage the fire at the heart of our global community into life, and drumming brings the energy of our own center fire alive within our own heart - try stopping your body from moving in the thrall of an insatiable rhythm. When we work from this center we are in balance and connect. So, 10 Billion Beats is very much a part of this, creating an uprising of sap in the world tree; it is a re-surgence of our humanity.
Can we be audacious and claim our vision here and now?! Some would say yes, others that we’re not ready, others that we do not share the same vision……I would say no one person is wrong. What matters most is when a significant number are right, that is to say feel right within themselves, right in the sense of being genuine. So, if you have a vision why not claim it and feed it into the drumming?! Talking of visions……
I took a look at the stars for this years event…….what came through is a journey. We start at the heart of our Solar system, and from the Sun travel out towards the stars. With each planet as a way marker, a personage, this journey has a different feel to it – see what you can find en-route – here is the sequence……
….given that 10BBs is happening on the same days as last year…..
….the Sun has returned to 25º Virgo; bringing the ethos of ‘service to humankind’ into our drive for thoroughness in carrying tasks through to fulfillment – the accomplished healer.
Moon is at 23º Taurus; natural processes are refined through our creative abilities, embodying our innate genius and gifts – the inspired artist.
Mercury is at 15º Virgo; balance achieved through consciously consolidating the inclusive healing values of ‘leaving no stone left unturned’ – the truth speaker.
Venus is at 4º Libra; spiritual communion with kindred spirits around the center fire of compassion as we enter untrodden pathways – the sacred fire-keeper.
Mars is at 30º Cancer; the challenge of release from the constrictions of traditions while carrying forward their highest values and expressions – the mentor.
Jupiter is at 10º Taurus; willingness to see both sides so that we can bring an altruistic expansion of healing to those in the dark and understanding to all – the seer.
Saturn is at 18º Libra; awareness of consequences as we take the risks necessary to realise our deepest convictions and bring transformation, embodying a shared purpose that transcends ego-driven gains – keeper of natural law.
Chiron is at 2º Pisces; gathering the medicines and knowledge needed for survival and protection – the keeper of sacred lore.
Uranus is at 3º Aries; the agent of change through which the innate power of the whole initiates enlightened transformation – the avatar.
Pluto is at 5º Capricorn; sustained use of physical and emotional energies in the spirit of purification, solidarity and unity of purpose – the spiritual warrior as alchemist.
Neptune is at 29º Aquarius; accepting initiation and joining in sacred company within the realms of higher consciousness – the initiated elder.
A company of 11, the number of mastery and movement to the higher level – a pathway initiating a journey from the heart of the solar system outwards into the greater community of the cosmos…..here the signs, Sabian symbols and planetary signatures are given roles that embody their energies at the time of the drumming. I have used the final phase of the drumming for the timing as this will complete the energy signature of the wave. The narrative must be supplied by each of us, according to how we relate to each of the planets. This is nearer to the oracular style of divination, but, it is certainly not the usual method of reading a chart. Take some time to follow and explore this planetary path and notice how their roles and sequencing resonates within. The return journey helps image the incoming energies as they enter our solar system’s spiral path from the galactic realms.
It is enough in itself, but, then, the planets have a voice of their own. So, here are the most prominent aspects between the planets, continuing the approach. As we look at the aspects we’ll stay with these roles and expand upon the dynamics they are emphasising through relationship……
Sun opposes Ceres – the earth mother is at 24º Pisces emphasising our Dharma as the path to realising oneness with the Earth. With the Sun in opposition she asks us to balance our self healing with our role as healers. Here is a mandate for our personal work as well as the role that each of our individual drum-beats can carry…..
The Sun is also involved in a yod – Sun sextile Mars, both quincunx Neptune. When mentoring and healing are brought together in energising relationship here they find expression through the initiated elder. Ceres role will aid Sun in this and bring the healing capacity within mentoring to a higher level, more fitting to the Elder’s role – it may be that the time is coming, with Neptune turning direct and heading for Pisces, that the energy we initiate now will help us restore the valued role of the Elder. This in itself a sign that inspiriting and transformational changes are at work, and there are many stepping up to this particular plate in our world right now……..
A second yod is formed by Mars sextile Venus, both in quincunx to Chiron. When the energies of the sacred fire keeper and the mentor activate each other they find expression in the keeper of sacred lore. Venus is bringing the unifying consciousness of the goddess, the fires of awareness that are at the heart of all things, into energised relationship with the guide to maturity – she enables this guidance to marry our innate gifts with the divine feminine creative power and here we re-claim our rites and rights as guardians of sacred lore. Our future may depend upon our ability to bring balanced male and female energies into these roles, they protect and preserve our future, and from these we can build its foundation within community……and, a little side note on Mars as mentor – here is the person who has seen lifes battles and knows how to heal them: with Venus carrying the eternal flame his mentoring becomes illuminated from within, he compliments Pluto’s role in forging the heart of the sacred warrior….Chiron’s healing abilities are directed at the heart, the seat of wisdom and the soul……
Venus role comes to the fore again in opposition to Uranus. The elightened energy and otherworldliness of the avatar finds direct corresondence with the spark of life, the central fire tended by the sacred fire-keeper – the opposition is a conduit of fire from the source, embodied here at two extremes, a symbol of kundalini as awakening cosmic energy uniting root and crown. When the electric nature of the universal energy of creation is realised all becomes connected, we realise our interconnectedness and goddess consciousness becomes manifest…..we are on the verge of this breakthrough, everything is pointing towards it…….
….it is held in balance within our world by our ability to work with the role of spiritual warrior as alchemist – Pluto squares both Venus and Uranus. This is helpful in understanding the energies that this role is challenged to work with. Fire is essential to the alchemical process, both for burning off the impurities and heating the elixir. The balance is exemplified in the current upsurging of passion for change that clears old regimes and lies within the human realm and within the activated energy field of the earth – with Pluto at the balance point we know this is a process that will completely re-structure our relationship with ‘power’, both human and natural. Our world work depends upon the balanced regulation of the fires, timing and modulation of intensity will determine whether the fire we work with has predominantly creative or destructive effects……..Pluto’s alchemy is our transformation into the sacred warrior…..cleansed ofour destructive ways, carrying the sacred fire in our hearts
There is an interesting correspondence between this drumming event and the last – in both instances the Moon is trining the Sun. In the first, last year, the Moon was approaching fullness – this time it is in its third quarter. We have moved on from the youthfull phase and are ready to birth – at a soul level this is speaking of embodying our innate spirit and fulfilling our soul path. As co-creators we can bring healing into our world and participate in evolution – our individual souls purpose rings with power through this and the vision we hold shifts with it. It helps to think of our purpose as mutable – when we came into life our personal story, our soul seed sung from the spirit world, gave us the songline which would help us orientate along our life path. We know when we are deviating from that path, feeling it at a soul level, but, as we follow we also learn how to navigate. As we grow in maturity (which is different from aging!) we can develop our path and become creative with it – in this there is a balance between fate and destiny. Collectively, we must turn to Saturn to help us understand how this dynamic is present with us in the drumming.
Firstly Saturn is conjunct Juno – she is at 17º Libra. Juno is the healer of relationships, but, she also takes past actions and deeds very much into account. At this degree of Libra this role is expanded through remembering crises from the past that can inform the corrective wisdom of the future. In this wisdom we can re-build our relationships and this is especially important to creating a fair and just society. With Saturn she is saying ‘be aware of your mistakes in the beginning’, an ancient and pithy Chinese saying that is associated with wise rulership. It requires risks to change, to be creative and to head into uncharted territory, and with Saturn sextile the North Node this becomes the leit-motive for our collective soul journey. Our challenge is openess and honesty where there has been deception, especially where this damages our relationships. Think about this in terms of governance, use of power, ecology and social diversity…the message comes home. But, we can achieve this…..
As if to emphasise the matter Mercury squares the North Node – only with complete and open knowledge we can bring balance and a solid foundation to our collective journey – our honesty supports our integrity. In waning trine to Jupiter Mercury, our conscious awareness, has become charged with deeper insight and his challenge to us is to carry this forward. Embodying this is our starting point.
At the outset of this years drumming the Moon is conjunct Jupiter. By the end of the drumming she will have progressed into exact trine with the Sun. Between these two points in time she will form a yod with Saturn/Juno and the North Node. In mundane astrology the Moon is the people – the healing vision that Saturn and Juno are re-enforcing the North Node with, our path to a collective destiny, can become manifest and we can energise it at the very heart of our drumming. At 18º Sagittarius the North Node has an uncanny relationship with Jupiter – Jupiter rules this sign so this is a powerful confirmation for our soul journey. The 18th degree also speaks of expansion into the ‘super-physical’ realms, beyond matter, dimensional and galactic by nature, but, the emphasis here also falls upon safe practice as we do so. Again, balance, within dynamic relationship, is key. Saturn and Juno fund this with their unified wisdom. To freeing ourselves from poisonous habituation and enter the unknown, we must be wise to our past mis-demeanors as well as responsible for our journey – there are no passengers here……..
There are many strong people in the world but no-one is more powerful than a person in possession of self-knowledge. Although our course is still as yet unknown, each of us has a vision to contribute, of who we are and of where we could go. We have not yet achieved a level of unity in consciousness in which our evolutionary potential can be realised collectively – we are still learning, but, our learning is an exponential feedback loop that is fostering the awareness necessary. How we change will now also become increasingly energised by change itself. As we transform we achieve integrity, in both senses of the word, and realise in ever more tangible ways that we are all a part of one organism. To me, the roles that the planets have revealed in this special moment suggest that we are fully capable of following the initiatic path to completion. It is a path through which we can find and embody our roles as sacred warriors, each with our own unique experience and gifts to offer the world. That we are able to do so, as a collective, depends very much on clearing the wound we have created, of poisons of our own making, both environmentally, collectively and individually - this means living responsibly, and making our every action count. More than this, it relies, with all its implications, on the fully conscious realisation that we are capable of changing our world, and ourselves. The sacred warrior is the archetype of one who has realised the transformative power behind their life experiences and transformed themselves through initiatic immersion in their sacred flames – one who has forged a new spiritual body .
In the times of our ancestors, specifically here in the ‘western world’, where the path of maturation and the initiatic rites of passage were once a part of our active and pervasive traditions deeply embedded at the heart of our cultures, they are now embedded within secular everyday experience. They are largely de-sacralised and therefore made impotent and incomplete. At the same time, the wisdoms of the mystery schools, the mystery of becoming empowered through initiation into the living knowledge, has become overlayered with and buried beneath our everyday world experiences. We experience and have built a culture based upon an exile from spirit. Our culture itself tries to assuage the hunger that our souls feel through this. A paradoxical malaise, and polarisation of consciousness has grown out of this, and yet, although we may not live within the consciously realised circle of their cultural matrix, the living energies of our initiatic path live on within – they speak to us in our dreams, with the language of our spirit dreaming, through our creativity, in life’s cycles. It is natural that they do so – we are nature too and these are natural energies and cycles. We are still seeking to bring them out, to re-member them and give them new form. Realising our own role of sacred warrior enables this – it is natural for us to connect with spirit in the heart…..to let spirit sing through us, songs that carry innate memories, vibrant even now with life force and vital to our well being, but also a part of the larger evolutionary process……..but, hey!….there’s nothing like a good rhythm section to bring a song alive…….
……..every beat of our drums at 10 Billion Beats is a pulse that drives the soul vessel of humanity forward on our journey towards claiming our true gifts, as sacred warrior guardians of the Earth Garden - as initiates within the community of the cosmos. What a year we have had – what a future we can now drum up! Listen. Earth is heaven……..how we experience heaven is in our own hands. Lets drum!!
The coming year of the Water Dragon sees a wise power building within the waters of spirit at work behind the world – we have this time up until the end of January when the Chinese New Year arrives to take a pause in anticipation and to gather our personal power. This is a valuable moment to stop and listen. Roughly up until the end of the current lunation, the celestial weather directly supports our inner and world work in this way – a subtle amplification within the dialogue between ourselves and the Earth. In the coming months the dynamics of this dialogue will change so it is also a valuable time of preparation. The consolidating, developmental and altruistic work we do now lays essential sacred ground for entering the Dragon Path. So, lets take a look at the celestial influences arising now that support this dialogue…..
Have you noticed how the Earth field is also developing a ‘present’ time focus ripe with potentials that reach far beyond the known – human consciousness is not only becoming freed up to conjoin with instantaneous effect within the earth plane, our access to the source field is opening up bigtime. This is reflected in the growing resurgence of working with ‘free-energy’, a powerful and inspiring leitmotiv for our coming times.
Being the only planet retrograde at Solstice, Jupiter anchors our sense of the bigger picture inwardly, aiding us in giving it body and meaning on the earth plane, amplifying our senses and sensuality and helping us to listen to our earth – when worked with positively this will bring a feeling of inner enrichment and well-being in the world. As Teilhard de Chardin said, “there is an almost sensual longing for communication with others who have a larger vision. The immense fulfillment of the friendships between those engaged in furthering the evolution of consciousness has a quality almost impossible to describe”….feeling that connection expanding and finding form is one of Jupiter Saturn and Venus’ main gifts now.
Neptune in the last degrees of Aquarius has the Sabian symbol of ‘the Butterfly emerging from the chrysalis’ – the cells within the transforming pupa within the chrysalis that bring forth this new elevated (winged) form are themselves called ‘imaginals’! Mars motivating powers activate the imaginal energies – Neptune breaks down the barriers for their emergence. We can, with Mercury’s assistance, expect the subtle nature of our emergent processes on earth to feed our dreams through this solstice imprint. The more consciousness we give to them, the more they will activate our growth. And we can expect accurate and effective divination to help us listen in now as well. So, consult the Oracle as we need to be wise about how we travel the course we are setting out on! Time has taken on a different quality now and, like our weather, the dynamics of change are filled with unpredictability…….
We can now enjoy a lunation of expanding connection and sharing of true wealth – we can give this great depth through pausing now in receptivity – this is valuable fuel for the lunations preceding equinox, especially once Mars goes retrograde in Virgo at the end of January and Neptune re-enters Pisces in early February. Then we are into a zone of inner change and dynamic experiences in which reality will take on very unusual qualities…..the Dragon Paths of Earth are awakening….
We have seen many uprisings and revolutions before. Historically, there is a passion at work in such uprisings, an unflinching power that arises from within the hearts and minds of ordinary people. For such power to become unflinching it requires the fuel of an indomitable and over-riding realisation of necessity. It is a passion that invokes and manifests the fundamental courage of individuals who have woken up to and become aware, within the manifest energies of the historical moment, of who they are and why they are here, and who have subsequently realised that the immediate predominant forces and circumstances prevailing within that moment run counter to this embodiment of self-knowledge, self-awareness and self-determination.
‘Occupy’ has been ignored, laughed at and we are now seeing the first signs of the fight, in direct physical acts of indiscriminate suppressive aggression towards courageous individuals who are now collectively raising the cry ‘Enough!’ and taking it to the streets. It is a crucial moment, once the fight phase begins to manifest. Our collective connectivity, through mass communications, highlights the importance of maintaining the peaceful, non-violent approach to this activism. One image, one iconic moment of deviation from this essential quality and its balanced, realistic power in the face of such aggression, can be broadcast globally and can damage the image, identity and energy that this movement embodies. It is encumbent upon every individual who takes up the cause and carries it forward into action to remember the importance with which this moment is loaded and make a commitment to carry it further through peaceful means into our future, and, the symbol of the Children can serve us now as the unifying, sobering and yet empassioned reminder of this sacred duty. But, it goes much further…..
The Scorpio lunation has been strong and revealing, sometimes quite unexpectedly so. As some have reported it feels like the Samhain doorway has been left open, but, it has also been difficult to avoid the visceral impact of world events upon our deeper connections with Life. Where we have been collectively mislead and ‘going wrong’ is well and truly in the public spotlight and, although there is much resistance to change still being shown in the political and social arenas, this has very much been in keeping with the times and the greater processes that are unfolding within them. At heart we are all engaged in collective soul-work, whether we should choose to acknowledge it and go there, or not…….
In the run-up to the solar eclipse on the 25th the planets are supporting us with a mixture of subtle and strong apsects that will enable us to flow with the great river and arrive at the other shore, whole and forward looking. Mars has recently entered tropical Virgo bringing a boost of energy to our healing and envisioning. Currently opposite both Chiron and Neptune, Mars activates an inclusive clarity and attention to detail that will assist us right through until the end of the coming eclipses field of influence – Mars will remain in Virgo until mid 2012 and this time will include a retrograde period in which we can do a double check on how our plans are unfolding in the first quarter of the year. With this strong focus no stone must be left unturned, no hidden clauses within our soul’s contract allowed to undermine our progress – this is an imperative energy at work which serves us and the ‘greater good’ when we work with it. It may bring small and persistant doubts that cut across our confidence, but, with open communication and honesty we can use this time well for clearing out the detritus of the past (keeping our tails out of the mud!) and opening to the new world of possibilities onto whose shores we are and will be arriving. Each working according to our own ways and means, this is very much about ‘walking our talk’. More on this as the new year unfolds…….
The Great Attractor’s name reflects the directed way in which this galaxy and its neighbours are uniformly moving towards its center. But, there is also a provocative energy attached to this name and astrologers have speculated on its meaning bringing ideas to the G A that imply irresistability and inevitability. Philip Sedgwick’s site (see sidebar) contains some useful info about the G A and how it can be worked with, or, what to expect once our attention is grabbed by it…..for the G A also has a magnetic quality whose symbolism matches the ‘gravitational’ pull of the physical phenomenon. The G A bends light through gravitational lensing to such an extent that it is possible to see behind it, as if we are given the glimpse of something hidden, beyond the normal range of our senses. Here is a second clue……
The many awakened souls now bringing their focus to bear upon the global changes we are now collectively involved in can step up a gear through this time and utilise the cosmological forces and influences coming into our solar system and inner cosmos to activate a catalystic wave of transformative co-creative energy into embodiment. The individual soul path we choose can be brought into alignment with this activation, become an expression of it. When the eclipse of the 25th November closes the Scorpio lunation and opens the Sagittarian we can initiate a meaningful path for our selves to follow that is in alignment with the most heartfelt and significant vision that we have within. Collectively, the field will reflect this back to us with the December lunar eclipse and we can increasingly speak our truth with the great power of self authority in the world. When the December solstice arrives we will be ready to walk our talk having set a clear purpose and bring to the light the power of our personal vision for the coming year, born from the heart of creation, the Great Mystery, and watch it grow as the year unfolds……
Now, Death had been circling around and, seeing how it was with Coyote, Death set his spirit down beside the ol’man and said – ‘its alright Coyote, I can take you to the place that your wife’s gone to, but, there are rules…..’. Coyote was somewhat consoled by this proposition and said, ‘oh man, I will do anything….’, so Death’s spirit said back, ‘well, you must do everything that I tell you, no matter what, right down to the last whisker – godit?!’ and ol’man Coyote was beside himself with longing, so he said, ‘yeh, man, anything, just say it and I’ll do it……’
So, when the dawn came up again, ol’man Coyote and his wife set off, left that place……
Now Coyote wept and wept…..and eventually decided, ‘Tomorrow I shall return to see them again’, and, the following morning he started back for the land of the dead. As he went along he began to recognise the places where he and his spirit friend had passed before. He found the place where the spirit had seen the great round-up of horses and began to do all the things that they had done on their journey to the shadowland. ‘Oh, look at the horses; it looks like a great round-up’ he said…..and, on he went until, he came to the place where the spirit had pointed out all the serviceberries – ‘Oh, such serviceberries, lets pick and eat some of them’, he said……and he went through all the motions of picking and eating berries.
We are always looking for answers, fixated on them in fact, at the expense of those delicious questions, especially the more tasty ones. (Aah, getting serious are we now – ed.) Yes, ed…..and when we think we’ve found them what happens? Collectively, we are constantly re-inventing the world based on the answers we find, our perceptions interwoven, creating a field of resonance within which ‘concensus realities’ correspond to shared values and world views most common to us. And yet, while we live within varying and even conflicting concensus realities, our personal reality is and remains at heart, unique. Batty…..(perleeze! – ed.)
……or understand it and why we are asking it, (and how many of us do!) Don’t we spend an inordinate amount of time asking ourselves the ‘wrong’ questions, those pesky ‘other’ ones in which we become sidetracked into a soup of petty distraction, swimming in a viscous slurry of everyday detail and personal concerns that make blinkers of our struggles - and what happens when these coalesce into their own tasteless concensus, born of domestic dramas that spill over into the collective and generate magnetic fields of influence out of which mass tragedies seem to manifest? As if thats all that matters. The ‘Media’ love this kinda instant cuppa-soup….its big business, etc etc etc…..convenience food?
No answers here dear reader (quelle surprise – ed)…..better to live within what Alan Watts called ‘the wisdom of insecurity’ and scoop up another spoonful, just to make sure and adjust the seasoning. And then, eventually, perhaps, we can get down to enjoying the spaghetti soup that is Life, and learn how to transform it into a more delicious Minestrone…….lucky for some, who can?!….
When C G Jung wrote this letter he was responding to a call from a close and dear friend for helpful guidance. She was experiencing a great inner tension, torn between the demands and heartfelt responsibilities of everyday life and family concerns and the powerful pull of her vocation, her calling, which she equally could not deny. It is a call of the soul that is striving to birth its own reality into the world. The tensions experienced through this struggle have become exacerbated in our times. The soul’s reality is devalued and goes largely unrecognised for its essential nature within our materialistic culture. It is a paradigmatic consequence of polarised objectivity and subjectivity. The consequences have become immense and are at the root of the prevalence of unfeeling and blind destruction that humans have brought upon the world – in the process our culture has engendered a mass dissociation with the over-soul, the Anima Mundi or Earth Soul. And yet, the essential nature of our humanity remains – we have woken up to this reality and, en-masse, the collective immune system of the human soul is fighting back against this disease, and the cancerous agents of destruction that perpetuate it. These are the symptoms of the struggle. The hexagrams, however, also point to a third element, one that arises naturally from within the process. There is no doubt that, within this polarisation, as Jung encourages his friend to accept, is a natural expression of the creative principle itself.
“Just as the winged energy of delight
The culmination of a great cosmological cycle is a leitmotiv for our times that has inspired many ideals for a better world, the peace of a True Earth, but these ideals rarely materialise without an heroic struggle - our myths tell us truths, there is far more to reality than surface appearance, and reality always bites down hard on the best of those ideals. All that glitters is not Gold. Sun and Moon uniting in Scorpio oppose Jupiter retrograde in Taurus and sextile Pluto in Capricorn. Jupiter is now in exact trine to Pluto. The powerful energies pull on us, within us within the events of the world within our perceptions of reality. Jupiter is in earth as he travels inwards towards the heartlands protogenic womb, and opposite, Sun and Moon in water also seek the lower worlds, the deep subterranian watercourses, the dynamics of the ancestral and archetypal. Even in opposition their movement is complimentary, takes us beneath the surface. Pluto adds weighted pull to both, makes of this an Orphic journey - to find True Earth we must go within and search for the world soul.
Inner or hidden facts coming to light will carry a strong charge in this lunation, especially those relating to the values we express, the fidelity of our communications and depth of our thinking. Mercury conjunct Venus, also in Scorpio, awaken us to the truth in this. The marrying of heart and mind at the primal level can be very healing both individually and in our most intimate relationships, a passionate boost from our essential vitality that can carry us through tough times and help us deepen our connections – but, to achieve this these will be tested. Appreciation of our roots and recognition of who our real ‘family’ is are highlighted here, reminding us of our sacred obligation towards the future and those who come after us. What gives this the added torque, an imperative energy, is Mars in Leo in exact square to Venus and Mercury. The wilful desire to bring about change can both divide and unite.
There is throughout this lunation covert as well as suprisingly open energy at work – Scorpio is very secretive to this effect, presents a polished enigma to beguile, but, the silence and fertile darkness can also hide the subversive movements of our innermost selves, especially those cut off parts of our psyche that we would rather not know about…..significant exposure of insidious betrayals, spying games, black ops, more shadow work, more skeletons springing out of the proverbial closet. It begins to sound like a ghost ride in hell! And we do have All-Hallows approaching…..
It seems every culture carries the memories and imprint of previous end-times and we all have some resonance with them. As these times approach a certain hysteria can accompany the re-emergence of those thoughts and memories as we project them into our own times – remember YK2, and look at the madness surrounding Comet Elenin, for example. We get infected by the archetypes and lose our senses, sacrifice our sense of reality to a kind of passionate nihilism. The same can be seen in the way we envisage positive change, becoming overly optimistic and really spaced out with the adrenalin of hope. Uranus can do this to us in blindingly sharp shocks of inspiration that feed our desire to simply be free, and again, without the grounding element we can lose the plot. Witness the ‘New Age’ mentality that continues to fuel ideas of ‘Ascension’, the Second Coming, alien intervention, the ’release’ of Earth from ‘quarantine’ and a return to cosmic community – coming back to the present helps to get earthed. When we ignore the reality of the moment and fixate on the ideal, when we arrive at the appointed time, we get Uranus backlash, the jolt of harsh reality to awaken us from the reverie and delusion. Idealism does not translate well into the flesh without becoming transformed. However, staying earthed in these times is also a harsh reality if you’re starving and on the street……compassion is the pragmatic bringer of hope here. And, there is no question of the reality of life beyond what is already known to us – it is the manner in which we meet it, the preparation of our inner reality, that enables us to survive the encounter with the unknown…..
In reality we have yet to collectively live up to the latin name for our species Homo Sapiens Sapiens…..doubly wise? Like the Tarot Fool, the gullable hero in us would believe the road leads ‘to some higher purpose’ and that as long as we keep on looking up we will get there. And yet it seems the real path to higher consciousness at first leads through the marshy wasteland of ignorance. Realising with honesty the falacies and delusions of Jovian grandeur is the beginning of the true test of our claim to wisdom, but, like the fool it also seems we have already let them lead us to step off the cliff – and its not as if we didn’t notice the ground suddenly falling away. So, who’s the fool here, who is culpable….both Pluto and Uranus are shockingly impersonal while demanding honesty - we have to get our bearings and get used to the fact that we too are animals, quite inspired, and, become quite mad with it……..however, there is wisdom in the ways of the ancestors. There is also a serene ignorance in the idealism of the fool that ignores the lessons of the past, and yet, as Orpheus tale reminds us literally turning back to what we love most before the journey is complete can have fatal consequences……perhaps it is the innate wisdom of the ancestors within our present that serves us best now…..who and what we truly are at root.
Nature is the great healer, She always prevails, no matter how deep the change, no matter how challenging it may seem in the midst, and Her example is the one we can most rely upon and realise as our own now – in traversing these challenging times we can be with Her, working with and letting the Earth hold us, speaking with Her and the other members of Our family, Her children – how often do we say that, ‘Nature is Our Family’…….and this is our True Earth…..may we be as fierce as the Great mother in defending Her!!
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
For our grandparents, the Great War came as a terrible and deeply traumatic shock – a shock out of innocence. Their awareness was very different from our own in many ways. With the advent of global communications we can no longer claim innocence about the presence of war and violence. Equally, we are no longer innocent and unaware of the continued damage done in the name of power as an instrument of oppression, governance against the will of the majority and downright destructive exploitation. It is an energy of conflict, conflict of interests as well as conflict between the dominant human culture and the natural world.Yeats poem addresses this with visceral poetic perception. It is also an energy of dissociation. Have we become the Hawk? We now see the roots of this energy of conflict and dissociation being exposed – but, as well as the import that Yeats words carry for our times they also highlight the morals and ethics behind the question of “who are ‘the best’ and ‘the worst’”? This is a collective question that we must find a personal answer too.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
The darkness drops again but now I know
Earth Mother speaks to us both through the falling fruits, coming to ripeness, leaves flying in the wind, and the emerging shoots, vigorous with promise, bursting buds, tender in their blossoming – death and birth dancing together in our One World…..
There is an air of rising realism, at odds with the illusions spun to keep our collective power yoked. Uranus is making strong connections here too, not least of all with Mars. The blinkers are off, and soon enough, at each emergent trigger point, the restraints will come off too - Wall Street is the latest in an increasing pattern of unpredictable flashpoint demonstration of the public will and anger. This is bringing the whole question of resources to the frontline of action……it is not through violence that the voice of the people will be heard, this will fuel only more deeply entrenched division. Intelligent use of resources is supported through awareness and open distribution, communication and fostering integrity – anger is natural when these are denied. Uranus gives us access to the higher mind, Mars brings a crucial sense of realism that will not be denied. 
We need to be able to spot the moment when we are called to manifest the flashing energy of Uranus, as it happens, and really feel the power surging from source - we can experience ecstatic joy in our creativity, if we are open to it. The more we quiet our minds and reside in our hearts, the more this will be available to work with and we can grasp ‘the flash of opportunity’ beneath the surface, no matter how clouded the waters become with sudden change. Neptune can symbolise this clouding, but, Mars, Uranus and Pluto will have none of it!
Saturn in Libra sextiled the North Node of the Moon in Sagittarius at Equinox – natural balance in accordance with Sacred Law is the basis of our soul journey. Collectively, we can bring a powerful understanding of our responsibility towards the future through grounding our role as guardians of the Earth Garden, a role, we know, enshrining and embodying Sacred Law. Cosmobiological awareness is the way to bring it into consciousness. With Jupiter in trine with Venus at Equinox the goddess energies can help us in turning with the tide, pulling us closer together, uniting us with Her great heart.
The first lunation of the new equinox season will help us decide where we stand within the midst of accelerating change……
Small steps make a great journey possible, each step at their own time, as the moment requires……our resources are great, our technology ancient and evolving, bringing us to spiritual communion within the animate multiverse – sentient cosmobiological realisation.
When we pay attention to something it changes – we can change its state, its structure and its energetic expression – but, this is very old knowledge now being explored through new science and metaphysics. Our times are primed for a big shift however, the current conditions on earth are unique, and these are conditions that accelerate change. We have entered an exponential trend that is pulling our awareness into transformation. Our awareness is growing. Collectively we are entering a new phase of our human development and history. It is a time for global co-operation in bringing the changes we most desire to our life-ways and relationship with our home planet. With this in mind 10BBs looks all the more important this time around. Global Drumming is a way of energetically paying attention to our fundamental energetic Earth matrix….just chew this over for a moment……
….the Sun has returned to 25º Virgo; bringing the ethos of ‘service to humankind’ into our drive for thoroughness in carrying tasks through to fulfillment – the accomplished healer.
Venus role comes to the fore again in opposition to Uranus. The elightened energy and otherworldliness of the avatar finds direct corresondence with the spark of life, the central fire tended by the sacred fire-keeper – the opposition is a conduit of fire from the source, embodied here at two extremes, a symbol of kundalini as awakening cosmic energy uniting root and crown. When the electric nature of the universal energy of creation is realised all becomes connected, we realise our interconnectedness and goddess consciousness becomes manifest…..we are on the verge of this breakthrough, everything is pointing towards it…….
There are many strong people in the world but no-one is more powerful than a person in possession of self-knowledge. Although our course is still as yet unknown, each of us has a vision to contribute, of who we are and of where we could go. We have not yet achieved a level of unity in consciousness in which our evolutionary potential can be realised collectively – we are still learning, but, our learning is an exponential feedback loop that is fostering the awareness necessary. How we change will now also become increasingly energised by change itself. As we transform we achieve integrity, in both senses of the word, and realise in ever more tangible ways that we are all a part of one organism. To me, the roles that the planets have revealed in this special moment suggest that we are fully capable of following the initiatic path to completion. It is a path through which we can find and embody our roles as sacred warriors, each with our own unique experience and gifts to offer the world. That we are able to do so, as a collective, depends very much on clearing the wound we have created, of poisons of our own making, both environmentally, collectively and individually - this means living responsibly, and making our every action count. More than this, it relies, with all its implications, on the fully conscious realisation that we are capable of changing our world, and ourselves. The sacred warrior is the archetype of one who has realised the transformative power behind their life experiences and transformed themselves through initiatic immersion in their sacred flames – one who has forged a new spiritual body .
"owlmirror" is dedicated to the living wisdom of indigenous culture worldwide
