Why did the Goddess invent grief? What is its purpose?
Most of us think about this powerful energy, if at all, only in terms of the specific things that trigger it for us. And how to avoid them. But the skies this month are asking us to consider grief in a different way.
“Illusions give such color to the world,” wrote F. Scott Fitzgerald to a friend, “that you don’t care whether things are true or false as long as they partake of the magical glory.”
This is a beautiful description of Neptune, the planet that dominates the skies this month. Neptune bewitches us with either transcendent imagination or self-delusion, depending on how well we know ourselves.
How appropriate it is that, just as Neptune (pretense) conjoins Chiron (wounds) for their last hit on America's Moon in Aquarius, it’s election time in the USA.
Negative Neptune manifests as addiction, self-delusion and the passive acceptance of unhealthy situations, which the shrinks have delicately termed enabling. I propose that we all take a pledge not to enable this November.
Specifically, I mean that we disabuse ourselves of the fantasy that the Democrats will or can save us from the Republicans. Generally, I mean that we stop pretending that the grotesque games played by the two major parties reflect anything real.
The Cardinal Climax is giving us a breather as we move into October, offering us a chance to stand back and take stock.
Uranus and Jupiter have retrograded into Pisces, easing off the fiery intensity of the Aries Point. Saturn is moving forward in Libra, past the relentless exactitudes of its square to Pluto and opposition to Uranus. Pluto is still (again) hanging out at the first couple degrees of Capricorn, biding its time.
The weather is changing, the Wheel of the Year is turning. We’re heading into an eventful Equinox.
Among the planetary cycles clicking into new patterns all at once in mid-to-late September (discussed in detail in the 4th lecture of my 2012 series; see box at right): Pluto, star of the Cardinal Crossroads, makes a station on Monday the 13th. Five days later the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction is exact for the second time. The Equinox itself is on 9/22-23, with the Full Moon peaking a few hours later.
People like to talk about their problems. This may seem contrary, even pathological; but I think it stems from something organic. Because we want to solve our problems, we focus on them. Just as Nature created itches to motivate scratches, She instilled in our minds a tendency to obsess about what we think is wrong so that we’d apply effort to get it right
Have you noticed that every time you think the culture wars couldn’t possibly get any wackier, they get wackier?
Saturn, the planet that is supposed to keep us sane and grounded, is under stress. For the past two years it has been slapped around by Uranus and Pluto, and it's now opposed by Jupiter (exact on May 22nd and Aug 16th, 2010, and on March 28th, 2011). Jupiter represents our beliefs, and Saturn is our reality structures. The battle between them is particularly obvious in the USA, whose group soul is entering its Saturn Return (described in Soul-Sick Nation, chapter 12).
The WikiLeaks story hit the headlines under one of the most powerful Full Moons of the year, July 25th (see second lecture in the 2012 series box, at right). Mars, the planet of war, was conjunct Saturn, a combination associated with the army. Saturn was within hours of making its last exact opposition to Uranus -- a contest that had been going on for two years.
I guess we found out who won that round.
As the month of August begins, the Saturn-Uranus opposition has just peaked for the final time, after two years of spinning us dizzy. Mars is conjunct Saturn and opposed by Jupiter, which is conjunct Uranus; and they are all squaring Pluto (dismantling) in Capricorn (nation states; the economy). Into this fraught setting the New Moon will arrive on August 9th.
Sometimes feeling overwhelmed is a good sign. Under skies like these, to feel overwhelmed means we’re not shut down. Personally and globally, late July and early August should raise urgent questions in all of us. The Full Moon on 7/25th and the New Moon on August 9th (see the lecture series announcement in the right-hand column) are bookends to an explosive two weeks.