Working Through the Unimaginable

"Coming down to earth", "tackling the truth" and "seeing a situation for what it is and not what we wanted it to be", are some of the phrases Bernadette Brady uses in her book, "The Eagle and The Lark" to characterize the meaning of the Solar Eclipse that occurred September 1st. These phrases perfectly describe the election week surprise. 

There are no more potent celestial markers for life changing moments than eclipses. The crossing of the Moon, Sun and Earth's paths in a Solar Eclipse has a powerful effect that resonates through time; not unlike throwing a stone across a body of water and watching it ripple. The repercussions of the meaning of an eclipse continue on. Tuesday the 29th with the New Moon (not an eclipse as only the Sun and Moon are connected) and for the rest of this month we have the opportunity to come to terms with the sudden awakening to a new reality, both in our personal and collective lives. This is true for everybody; even President-elect Trump.

There is always more than one celestial event that synchronizes with such an unpredictable turn of events here on the terrestrial plane; that is to say they occur at the same time. If the eclipse in September, has the veil over our eyes being lifted-it would suggest that we have been seeing through rose-colored glasses. 

The planets Neptune (deception) and Saturn (accountability) have been dancing together all year.  It has been hard to discern fact (Saturn) from fiction (Neptune). What is real?  A fog over our eyes, without knowing there is one, makes it difficult to know who or what to believe. With these two planets distancing themselves from each other, the blindfold is coming off; we have an opportunity to see with new eyes; to see more clearly. We are now aware, for instance, that "fake news" was floating around.

This new awareness will be true both in our collective lives and in our personal one. An astrological interpretation of events can be used as a guidepost to what could/should be happening in our lives. My guess is that there is something in your personal life that has gone through a shift in the past 3 months. The time is right to see through those new pair of glasses; to let go of any outdated picture of reality and see your life and our life together from a different perspective.

The gradual movement of the Moon in her orbit coming closer to earth leading up to the Super Moon, the Full Moon on the 14th of November, would be another contender for a contribution to the perfect storm of influences that converged in this upsetting and surprising Trump victory. Super Moons have an effect on us, as our bodies are 90% water, effect the tides and the Teutonic plates in the earth. Emotions, too, run high-not a time for a reasoned decision. We act on impulse-not consciously understood. Shifts happen. The last year that the Moon was this close to the earth was 1948-the year that Truman beat Dewey-another upsetting victory.

Maybe this is one reason so many people get it so wrong?  From astrologers, (one astrologer's method to predict presidential elections has worked since 1868, but failed this year) to mass media, to newspaper projections (only 3 papers in the country endorsed Trump including the KKK's), to Las Vegas book makers, to social media to pollsters and pundits (by some accounts to Trump himself); the whole world was shocked. It felt like suddenly being caught stark naked in the middle of Main Street, and not knowing what to do or where to go.

Studying the cycles of the planets, or using astrology, can make a contribution towards a new perspective. Astrologers are good at playing "connect the dots"; the planets are the dots. When a big event occurs, we look to see where the planets are as it is happening and if/where they are repeating a pattern from the past and in the future. 

Mars changed signs and went into 0 degrees of Aquarius in the middle of the night as Trump was gaining the upper hand. Zero degrees of Aquarius is extremely significant as it is the degree of the next Jupiter/Saturn conjunction December 21, 2020. This date marks the beginning of next major cultural, economic, social and  political epoch, as recorded by these Jupiter/Saturn conjunctions. It will be a watershed moment. We are at the end of a 20 year cycle that began May 28, 2000, the month that the tech bubble burst, and faith in any sustained material security collapsed.

These Grand Conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn, having been in earth signs since 1802, the beginning of the Industrial Age, are now moving into air signs (Aquarius 0 degrees). We are moving from wealth creation, land settlements, territorial disputes and value being concentrated in material form, into the air signs. Here our value will be centered in technological development, social progress, intellectual development and new concepts coming into human consciousness (there was a taste of the air modality in 1980-1). The last time these every 200 year Grand Conjunctions occurred in air signs was 1186, then from 1226 to 1345 and in 1405. Looking back to see the list of human achievement across the globe then will give us clues as to what the next 200 years will be like.  

So Trump's presidency is not a beginning, it is the beginning of the end. The urgency to redistribute wealth (Aquarius) has reached such a crisis, that the voters in the mid-west, who have not benefited from the technological expansion the east and west coast citizens have, had the courage to vote for such an outwardly repugnant person to be President. We are in no less a shifting pattern than we were when we went into the Industrial Age, when we moved from being an agrarian nation to being a manufacturing one. There was much civic turmoil then too. 

The American people are represented by the Moon in the natal chart for the USA, which is in Aquarius; the sign of the reformer, the maverick, the outsider, the rebel (Obama is one). Trump who owed nothing to the establishment is such a person. The American people see him and they him; his unorthodox approach, unscripted rallies, his lack of political backing are appealing to all of us. (The Super Moon probably influenced enough of us to make a difference too).  In order for us to live according to our founding values, we have to become more of a just society. The concentration of wealth has to be re assigned, more tolerance has to be in evidence.

The mid-westerners voted for change- they saw clearly that if the system has to be fixed that it is best to find a leader who is not of the system. Trump with Uranus the planet of the maverick, reformer and rebel conjunct his Sun, neither Republican nor Democratic is the one to do it, contrary though it may seem to be. His election is necessary for us to wake up to our founding fathers ideals and the US's spiritual destiny, as the election result occurred with Mars moving into 0 degrees Aquarius, thus foreshadowing the next Jupiter/Saturn conjunction.  

There are no more leaders; each of us has to follow our own inner daemon. We are in the Aquarian Age-or the dawning of it anyway.  Aquarius is about equality, about being able to relate to all kinds of people, the brotherhood of man, social justice, tolerance, where everyone does his/her part and all contribute their uniqueness equally. Lincoln was an Aquarian he asked all the men who ran against him to join his cabinet.  He wanted to hear their point of view on matters. If we have a whole block of the US not joining the party-that will not work.  Those people "fed up" with the establishment let us know it this election cycle. They want a seat at the table.  And we have to make room for them.

Meanwhile working through the unimaginable with 59 million other people seems quite comforting.

If Not Trump, What?

We’ll probably need a new national story. Up until now, 

America’s story has been some version of the rags-to-riches story, 

the lone individual who rises from the bottom through pluck and work. 

But that story isn’t working for people anymore, 

especially for people who think the system is rigged.

I don’t know what the new national story will be, 

but maybe it will be less individualistic and more redemptive. 

Maybe it will be a story about communities that heal 

those who suffer from addiction, broken homes, trauma, 

prison and loss, a story of those who triumph over the 

isolation, social instability and dislocation so common today.

David Brooks wrote these words on the op ed page of the

New York Times April 29th, 2016

I only guess that no one has told David Brooks 

that the US is having an identity crisis. 

It happens to anyone with Pluto (the Transformer) 

passing opposite your Sun (your Identity).  

We are also having a crisis (Pluto) in faith and trust

 (Jupiter) as transiting Pluto is opposite a retrograde 

progressed Jupiter- which Trump has strangely tuned into. 

In many ways Trump signifies an opponent 

who is making us confront ourselves as to our identity, 

to force us to decide who we are as a nation. 

Is it only the 1% who get the goods??

This identity crisis (Pluto always involves a crisis) 

has been true these last few years in the 5:10 PM 

July 4th 1776 set in Philadelphia.  

(By the way has anyone told Trump that 

"Making America Great Again" will be impossible 

as long has the USA has 5 planets in apparent 

retrograde motion? It is time to withdraw, reflect, 

refine our vision, refocus, reevaluate our past 

actions as to what has been achieved and 

realign present and future actions to clearly 

defined intentions.  We have to ask ourselves 

who we are as a nation and what are we creating?

 This is an identity crisis.

Each moment in time is unique and unlike any other. 

Why does a successful restaurant or corporation fail, 

after closing, reorganizing and reopening a second time? 

It has a new and  different birth moment.  

In order to get a picture of what the USA is going through 

we can also use another interesting moment 

in time-that is Washington's First Inauguration 

on the steps of Federal Hall on Broadway and Wall, 

NYC, on April 30, 1789 precisely at noon. 

(David R. Roell, that prolific bookseller, writer 

and fascinating astrologer, who passed away 

suddenly in the summer of 2014, was a proponent 

of this chart to help explain some of America's 

idiosyncrasies). Can this birth moment help us 

explain some of this identity crisis we are going 

through; and help us to arrive at a new story, 

as Brooks suggests we need?

The rising sign for this chart is Leo the lion, the sign of kings, dignitaries, heroes and the courageous; the planet of the Reformer and the Maverick and the Awakener, Uranus is also in the first house, further defining how we engage with the world.. Considering we were born by revolting (Uranus) from the king (Leo) and mother country this seems apt. It also suggests an inherent individualistic or independent streak running through this country-the mentality that we can do it alone and do not need anybody.  Which is just what Brooks is saying we need to reorient away from.

(A good example of our inherent  sudden reforming ability is in the election of Obama as President. The planet Venus (values and what we are attracted to)) entered the sign of Aquarius (brotherhood and community) and came opposite that Maverick Uranus, eight years ago. Our ability to elect an outsider, a black man, showed the world, (not unlike Washington's ragged Continental Army defeating the British, the greatest fighting force in the world),  that the USA is quite capable of suddenly upsetting the status quo and "turning the world upside down". 

Another very strong and noticeable planet is situated across the horizon from rising sign Leo; Pluto in Aquarius in the 7th house of partners and open enemies. Pluto becomes the lens through which we see our enemies, it describes them. Pluto is the planet of revenge, power struggles, and what is hidden in the underworld. As Uranus symbolizes us as being revolutionaries,  Pluto indicates that we see our open enemies (enemies that we can see-our secret enemies are seen in another part of the chart) as dark, powerful and out to do us harm. We would also tend to project onto anyone who asserts them self against us, as all the unconscious and repressed evil in the world, and that we bear no responsibility for the situation.  It is all THEM!!!

This placement and Pluto's meaning would indicate that our partners or open enemies are emissaries of the underground; they force us to confront unconscious compulsions that are lurking beneath the surface. A good example here (as well as the Trump candidacy mentioned above) is of course the 9/11 attacks-we just made them the enemy without reflecting on what part we played in getting the pilots so crazed as to fly jets into 2 skyscrapers.)

So what of this new story and our ability to become less individualistic and more redemptive, as Brooks suggests? We need to look at the placement of planets Jupiter and the Moon is Cancer lurking behind the scenes in our 12th house of secret enemies.  Here is our secret undoing-the issues and people that can cause us the greatest anguish and suffering. These two planets are very caring and nourishing by nature, but their placement in this position in the Washington First Inaugural birth moment indicates that our caring and nurturing and mothering qualities (Cancer), we as a nation, have repressed or hidden from view.

This is further emphasized by the planet Mars which is very strong in its own sign, highly placed in a day chart and acts much too aggressively as a result. This Mars forms a square (friction, tension, stress) to those beautiful Cancer planets.  We angrily fight (Mars) this innate covert characteristic of our identity-to have empathy, compassion and sensitivity (Cancer) to the unseen suffering. . We want to keep our potential to be redemptive-to heal the sick, addicted and those suffering from trauma or broken homes or those in prison. We are fighting to keep these victimized or violated  people quietly ignored. (Slavery?)

But that will not be forever as planets Pluto, the Transformer and Uranus, the Awakener, are on the Moon (our feelings) in this chart and coming soon to Jupiter (help and aid and redemption). These are the same two planets that oppose one another in the birth moment as discussed above..So the USA will always be sensitive to the connections they make in the sky. and They have been making 7 connections to each other since 2010. 

We have seen evidence of these transformations recently as President Obama visited a federal prison, the the first sitting president to do so; and with the talk of attempts to change drug laws and deal differently with our huge incarcerated population.  Other evidence is both Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders campaigns to equalize the off balanced scale of have and have nots.  They talk of reallocating  the excessive amounts of money used on the military (after all we have not been physically attacked on the Continental USA in 200 years) to healing suffering human beings, tackle issues in the environment and educating and inspiring the young disadvantaged. 

A new story is slowly being written thanks to the current planetary activity which is striking notes to the planetary placements in our birth moment that help us see how much farther this "unfinished sympathy has to go. Chaos, where we are now, is a stage of the evolutionary process and comes before order and stability prevail. Faith in the innate ability of these Unites States to radically reform and correct itself is warranted, even when things "seem" so scary..

StandStill Week

Late last August (30th) in the New York Times magazine, there was a "First Words" piece with the title "Standstill". In it the author, Sam Anderson, explores the two ancient Greek concepts of time; Chronos which is" the vast, inhuman, infinite stretch of time" (in other words the years, months, hours, etc.); and Kairos which is defined as a decisive moment- where "magic" happens and some event becomes charged with meaning. Kairos is god's time as it transcends Chronos with its calendars. This Kairos time event suddenly changes the whole picture; and is often remembered complete with emotional component many years later.  
 
Anderson goes on and helps us understand that we live with both concepts of time, but we crave and are addicted to Kairos-those magic moments when something happens which is so potent and so charged that we sense and can make sense out of the ordinary and humdrum. Living in perplexing times such as we do, these peak moments when Kairos intervenes helps us to make sense of at least a moment-if  understanding the whole era seems to daunting.

Standstill is defined in Websters as "a state in which all activity and motion is stopped".  Anderson wrote about learning to discern the "moments" whether it be in a political campaign, in an acceptance speech, a blunder on TV or in social media, where someone is "having a moment".  But who gets to decide whether this moment or that one has the Kairos quality of everything being at stake?  When does a significant moment (Kairos) just dissipate into Chronos time that grinding, monotonous, unglamorous time? Interesting questions without answers.

As astrologers or planetary cycles scientists we understand time (Chronos) by watching the planets cycling around the Sun.  Some planet orbits around the Sun are inside the Earth's and some are outside. Mercury orbits inside the Earth's and Mars orbits outside ours.  This week and for the next few weeks and months these two planets are doing a dance as observed from Earth which gives rise to the title of this blog and the New York Times article.

Mars the reddish planet began its retrograde pattern on the 17th, when from earth's perspective he came to a standstill, staying in one degree of the zodiac for the entire month. Usually Mars takes 3 weeks to go 15 degrees; in this part of the cycle it will take him 8 1/2 months to travel those same 15 degrees, appearing to go back and forth over the same area 3 times. That in itself is really all you need to know.  You may make decisions and plans on how to navigate and manifest your vision, only to have to change your direction, not once or twice but perhaps 3 times.  So advice--GO SLOWLY. 

Mars will appear in the east at sundown on the 22nd of May, rising as the Sun sets.  This is the 1/2 way mark. He is as bright in the sky as he gets and is at his closest pass to the Earth. (Please do not think Mars will look anything like a Full Moon). Around this time Mars slips back into Scorpio and we must get a handle on the true motives and passions that are driving us.  It might be gut wrenching work; some dirt and old baggage wants to come out and be exposed to the light. Scorpio demands intensity. You may find yourself going backwards, or returning to some work you have done before, or to someone you been with before.  It does not necessarily mean that that situation will continue on into the future.  It is not all unlikely that at the end of this Mars retrograde cycle June 28th-but final closing August 22nd when new territory is reached- that you will completely change your direction, goals and visions for the future.

At the same time Mercury is also at a standstill this week starting his retrograde cycle on Thursday the 28th.  He will take a long time to go 10 degrees, going back and forth over the same area of Taurus and moving more slowly that usual.  Taurus has to do with what has value to us-what we are worth what anything is worth to us, capital costs, hidden costs, and secret matters around money and property,or artistic valuations.
Expect these issues to come forth in your world and the world around you.

One more thing of great interest is that the Mercury station (standstill) at 23 Taurus this week is opposite the Mars station (standstill) on June 28th at 23 Scorpio.  That means that what is occurring this week (especially as regards finances) is and will be connecting again at the end of June. Whether you use your own resources or someone else's be sure you read the small print and have the whole picture.  Mercury can be a trickster especially in his retrograde phase, which lasts until May 22nd again.

Lastly, through this whole period of Mercury and Mars standstill and retrograde, when the planets themselves are behaving differently than the normal (both in direction and speed,) you might be more sensitive to experiencing those out of the normal personal Kairos moments, when the magic happens and the beauty of life is undeniable.