Something to Share on Mabon

Today I found this a very worthwhile read: SouLar Bliss – Autumn Equinox Recipes, Remedies and Rituals.  Here is a sample:

The arrival of the Autumn Equinox on Saturday, September 22nd, opens up a new season in our lives and within the Earth. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Equinox welcomes the newness of Autumn and the birth of Libra season. We witness the continued beautiful metamorphosis of nature shedding its summer layers and walking into its Fall. Our ancestors used this time to give thanks for the abundance from the year and gather the resources they needed to prepare for the darker and colder months This shedding process we witness in nature is a powerful keynote for us to listen to. A call to action to bring more awareness into the different layers of our lives and our communities. What will we choose to sustain? What will we choose to shed?

This is a ripe moment to uncover the patterns that make up our foundation and breath new light into them. Another opportunity to recalibrate and reflect back to ourselves what we are grateful for, what needs to shift and where we need to grow. Here we can find new compasses or fix old ones, with an intention to specify and affirm the direction we want our lives to move in. We can choose to act in ways that either accept or disrupt self depricating programming, either sourced from us or from the oppressive factors around us that beg to silence us.

Astrological Update

Haven't shared one of these in a while but I was especially struck by this one...

Astrobarry: Chiron Wants to Speak

Chiron, in conjunction with Jupiter and Neptune in Aquarius, speaks:

Our social institutions are wounded. Wherever we go, we see people in need… and we see institutions whose official spokespeople, cloaked in the safe velvet of bureaucratic red-tape, look outward at those in need with little or no emotional connection. They are not people, but numbers in columns. Those not personally affected (this week at least) rock comfortably in their padded desk chairs, dictating crafted statements for their secretaries to type up, essentially opening their hands for the continuance of more corporate loophole tax dollars, at the same time slicing apart public services ("down with socialism!"), essentially snubbing their noses at the collective pain crying out in their faces. "Can't you do something? Can't you please help us?"

Where is the baseline, heartfelt, in-your-body compassion for all this suffering?

[...]

Alongside Jupiter and Neptune, Chiron symbolizes mercy. Can we grant ourselves the mercy we wish others to hold for us? Are we willing to say, loudly and proudly, we are doing the best we can… and because the larger forces do seem stacked us against us, to some degree, that our best, frightfully, doesn't seem to be quite good enough right now? That we need mercy from above, from next to us, from the pits of our stomachs and out through our heart chakras, before we start yelling at another stranger?

Astrological Update! Venus in retrograde

How comfortably can our existing relationships contain our recently surging need to serve our own desires first?

This question cannot be answered through quiet contemplation. We often encounter desire in an instant, not having previously known this was what we wanted until presented with it. Even if we already do secretly possess awareness of a certain inner hunger, we can't reliably know how our other half will respond to our expressing and/or going after it.

How well we're able to pleasurably chase an impulse, without feeling boxed in or put upon by those we share our life with (or by our ideas about them), is necessarily an experiential lesson. We don't know until we test it out…until we courageously pursue that which, in a single split-second, suddenly sparks our 'feels so right!' instincts, not being too sure exactly where such an action will carry us but rather excited to discover what'll happen next.

In case you haven't noticed, we are presently in the midst of just such a lesson:

Will you comply with your intuitive impulses, ready to clutch any opportunity before giving it the chance to pass you by... though such acts may fundamentally impact an important relationship, when you aren't able or willing to defend your behavior ('it just feels so right!') and/or the other person isn't able or willing to understand it? (And will you later regret your hastiness?)

Or will you resist these self-centered yearnings ('…for what in the world could be worse than being seen as self-centered?') out of respect for somebody else, sacrificing what might prove to be a passing fancy (or, then again, might not) to preserve things just as they are? (And will you grow to resent this person, as you're left to wonder, into perpetuity, what might've been?)

Read the whole forecast, from the always incomparable Barry!

Astrobarry's Forecast for the Year

It's that time again! Now for my favourite astrologer...

Without a doubt, over the coming year, you will confront the need to integrate two seemingly incompatible calls to action, thanks to this Saturn-Uranus opposition. You must hold responsibly tight at one end of the spectrum, to secure an enduring grasp on that which legitimately requires it (Saturn), while simultaneously rattling and rocking at the other end, to breathe revolutionary new life into the stale sector that desperately needs it (Uranus). Maddening to distinguish which is which, and how much of each? Hell, yes.

The vexing question—how to balance it all?!?—remains in effect a while longer. The Saturn-Uranus opposition continues into 2010… shifting signs (Virgo/Pisces to Libra/Aries), moving into double squares with Pluto in Capricorn, and only further intensifying these macro-dilemmas by bringing in this third Pluto issue to consider and integrate: whichever zone of life is due for deep psychological purging and transfiguring.

Your year is not all comprised of dicey balancing acts and trial-by-fire tests, however. As of today (Mon Jan 5), big-man-on-campus Jupiter will be in the heady, humanistic sign of Aquarius… eventually leading into a heart-opening, idealism-inspiring conjunction between Jupiter, Neptune and Chiron, within 5-degree orb by April and lasting through December. In the midst of both personal and collective transformation, coming at an increasingly vigorous pace and with increasingly extensive reach, you'll also welcome unparalleled opportunities to connect with your companions and comrades. Somehow, we all ended up sharing life at this especially climactic moment in history together. We're all in this same boat.

Jupiter in Aquarius (which you'll hear more about quite soon) widens our view of how each node in the network, cog in the machine, or individual within the group necessarily impacts each other… helping us to think more holistically (if not a bit less selfishly) about ways we can unite our efforts for a greater collective benefit. Joined with Neptune, Jupiter will heighten our idealism, bestowing bounteous amounts of blissful togetherness upon those who act for the good of all.

Chiron's presence, meanwhile, just reminds us that, within this idealistic worldview, it is perfectly okay—encouraged, even—to reclaim and proudly showcase those parts of ourselves we consider most damaged, flawed or fucked-up. That's the big joke: We're all fucked up. The less we resist that fact, the more willingly we flaunt our fuck-ups … and you'd be surprised how beautiful these so-called 'flaws' often appear through other people's eyes.

Jupiter and Neptune in union are a faith-fostering, dream-inspiring duo whose visions of a compassionate utopia provide a potent counteragent to the ongoing difficulties portended by Saturn, Uranus and Pluto. Thank goodness for them, right? At times throughout '09, you might even temporarily forget just how monumental (and, yes, monumentally trying) this period of history really is.

You could become happily swept up in a wave of optimism, making it easy to neglect the many delicate details you're charged with attending to, even as the backdrop of rational reality rapidly morphs before your very eyes. You could be distracted by short-sighted headlines that scream, 'It's not really as bad as we thought it was!' as if to lull you back into zombiefied consumption.

And the worst of potential Jupiter-Neptune delusions? At the peak of your open-hearted compassionateness, you could mistakenly assume others are on the same page you are… that they are as open-hearted and compassionate as you, and actually care about their impact on your life… that altruism is ultimately a universal human drive, instinctively spurring the haves to lend support to the have-nots, out of heartfelt concern.

Read in full!

Astrological Update

Once again from Astrobarry, my favorite astrological forecaster.

As of tomorrow (Wed Nov 26), Pluto is back in Capricorn to stay. To review, Capricorn is a sign of structure and authority, symbolizing that which we build and sustain over time as part of our strategy to realize the goals we set. Only, when left to concretize and harden too crustily over time, such structures become way too inflexible, punitive or unfairly weighted to benefit one group at the expense of others. Enter Pluto, destructive and transformative force, to dig up the rotting foundation boards upon which our central authoritative systems are resting. Over the coming decade-and-a-half, Pluto will force us to glare straight into the face of all the inequities, the sweat labor, the exploitation and violence that fueled these massive accumulations of wealth and power among a select few.

At the same time, Saturn and Uranus continue their opposition, first exact on Election Day and remaining within orb another three years. As we've already seen, the Saturn-Uranus opposition pits pragmatic conservatism against radical freedom… a dialogue that we all share responsibility for keeping in balance, lest one side dominate and crush the other's legitimate voice.

But these astro-events don't exist in a bubble... and as 2008 feeds into 2009, we'll begin to see the convergence of (1) Pluto-in-Capricorn's intensifying pressure on governments and financial institutions to purge their shadowy dark sides and (2) the Saturn-opposing-Uranus need to incorporate revolutionary change into our traditional way of life, without going so far as to topple whatever tentative stability we're able to maintain.
[...]
As I see it, the events of 2010 onward will be a direct response to how adequately we can include genuinely progressive innovations into the existing social contract, with an eye toward giving the people more personal benefits education! health care! a clean environment!) from the manners of governance… rather than, say, continuing to rob money and labor from the average worker to pay for top executives' luxury goods.

Civilized society is, at its base, an agreement—each citizen provides his piece, and the governing bodies provide something in return. And at any point, one party can dissolve the agreement if its needs aren't being met by the terms. The less amount of real people-power change we actually put into practice over the next year or two, the more devastating the consequences to the centralized authority, once the people vent their hostile fed-up-ness.

Read it all, there's lots more.

Astrobarry Takes on the Elections

I have already written about the odd synchronicity of Saturn and Uranus's opposition reaching its first exact peak on Election Day (Tue Nov 4). But this is the merely the first peak among five, spanning a period of influence that extends through the middle of 2011.

In other words, we are still at the beginning of this massive cultural readjustment—and this week's election results will hardly 'resolve' anything. On the contrary, they'll be merely kicking off the impending spectacle… one that's bound to happen regardless of who's elected.

We see further astrological evidence that our collective desires for a quick and fair resolution to the past zillion months of campaigning, to our economic woes and military limbo, aren't likely to be fulfilled any time soon. Venus's current position in Sagittarius would otherwise tempt us toward embracing the notion that 'we are finally getting somewhere'… leaving the seemingly needless mounds of specifying detail and consideration by the wayside, in order to jump ahead to what really matters: hopping on board with whatever results are collectively selected, and getting to the business of rebuilding the country's self-image.

Yet, alas, this Venus in Sagittarius—enthusiastic, passionate about pursuing its philosophic ideals, impatient with the fine print and red tape—is blocked on both sides by dual squares to Saturn and Uranus, essentially preventing her from securing the easy path to justice she craves.

On the one hand, the Venus-Saturn square inhibits the Sagittarian knack for 'getting straight to the point' (whatever that is) by heightening the need for precise considerations of the rules, limits, technicalities and other facts. After all, believing in the importance of something does not free us from the practical realities governing it. On the other hand, meanwhile, the Venus-Uranus square can further incite the contrariness that Sagittarius may experience when it feels events are moving nowhere fast, inspiring some folks to act out without thinking beyond a moment's desire for some action (anything!) that'll bust the perceived standstill. You can imagine, however, the inherent problems with obeying the Uranian urge to upset at all costs… especially so, when pitting it against the Saturnian call to obey the protocol of boundaries.

Venus's present position as T-square apex to these two opposing planetary heavyweights, then, also serves to make the Saturn-Uranus opposition instantly personal to us all. Striking the right balance (as I previously described it) between tightening up (Saturn) and breaking out (Uranus) in different areas in each of our lives is hardly as simple an exercise as Venus in Sagittarius might hope. No matter how swiftly and slickly we might wish to iron out the proverbial wrinkles in this or that arena, we are met with a delicate mix of items to hold firm on and items to let go of… while understanding which is which, without favoring one category too excessively over the other, is a task that takes both time and concentration.

Read it all!

Happy Samhain!

To all of my readers whether you know what Samhain is or not! :)

As part of my own personal ritual tonight, I did two tarot readings, one general and one very specific. Both came up with results saying Obama is going to win. Not only win, but win through a true expression of people voting on what really matters, on what we consider sacred and important. Additionally, these energies appear to carry over, I got a lot of hits about regenerative energy, rebirth, prosperity, birthing, beginnings... Given what we already know about the next four years I'm thinking that the message is even through the turbulence if we stay true to ourselves, pay attention to the details and the big picture, and take care of each other... We're going to come out ok. Even better than before.

Alright then. Bring it on!

Astrobarry Takes on Obama

...Obama is neither our worst fear nor our greatest hope. He's merely a man. But if we were to examine the astrology behind Obama's uncanny ability to appear as what we collectively most yearn for or bristle at, we wouldn't have to look very far before finding one huge obvious clue—his Leo Sun squares Neptune.

The Leo Sun itself isn't exactly a surprise. This is a quintessential rock-star placement, the Sun in its ruling sign a big shining light of personality standing front-and-center, sharing its brilliance with the world. Bill Clinton, our last Leo Sun president, certainly has a similarly noteworthy charisma to him (so much so that, as we all know, it actually gets him into much trouble). And George W. Bush has a Leo rising, giving him enough superficial likeability to get himself elected on the voter belief he'd be a more fun guy to knock back a beer with than stodgy ol' Al Gore.

But when the Leo Sun squares Neptune, however, that purest light of ego-self (Sun) is interfered with by a mystifying cloud of fog we can only partially see through (Neptune)… leaving us to fill in specific blanks with what we wish to see, or what we wish not to see. Individuals born with a Sun-Neptune square often possess a hard-to-read quality, their sense of self somewhat obscured by context—who they're with, what they're trying to get across, how they're feeling that day. Neptune, after all, seeks to dissolve ego boundaries, causing it to become less clear where another person actually ends… and where our own investments in who we imagine them to be (the good or the bad) begins.
[...]
Obama's Sun-Neptune square, of course, also has its ramifications for our trying to get a good handle on what he really believes. In Obama's chart, Neptune falls in the 9th house, the domain of our personal ethical and religious beliefs… and judged on the Sun square, it does seem that ambiguous or inconsistent stances on such 9th-house issues have the potential to unsettle Obama's sense of leadership. The Reverend Wright controversy, in which Obama drew criticism for tacitly endorsing his clergyman's 'angry Black man' politics through silent witness, is a perfect example of this. The Neptunian connectedness Obama felt from participating in Wright's church undermined his ability to clearly express his own personal views as distinct from others'. This won't be the last time we're offered a perplexing glimpse at Obama's ever-shifting moral compass—not because he's a bad guy, but because he's an idealist who legitimately wants to bring everyone together. Alas, some differences are real, substantive and unbridgeable.

Read the entire piece!

Stars Update

Mars is out of retrograde

But Mercury is now in it.

Fortunately this is not the end of the world, and in fact may be, in my estimation, rather productive, coming away from the Mars retrograde drama.

Time to shift gears for a moment

So I generally reserve these sorts of posts for my livejournal, but really, I just had to share the news from my favorite astrology blog.

We astro-forecasters are issuing a high drama alert, effective immediately and lasting through the middle of December.

We advise you to be prepared for epic gestures at every turn, as those recently accelerating urges to put it all out there, to tell 'em what you really think, to draw a line in the sand and dare 'em to cross at last hit their apex… and we just can't hold back anymore.

...

Welcome to the next four years of earthly existence, people. They're tremendous, transformational, even potentially triumphant… and, let's be honest, turbulent as all hell. You think the 21st century has been zany so far? You ain't seen nothin' yet! And forget about crawling back into your pre-Y2K cave and reminiscing about 'those simple times'. There is literally no going back.

...

As if that weren't enough, the striking virility of this shift is further strengthened by the fact it's a movement into Capricorn, a cardinal sign… thus creating a square between both Jupiter and Pluto and the Aries point (or 0 degrees Aries), the single most supercharged degree of the zodiac circle. And within the next two to three years, transiting Uranus will leave Pisces and head straight for that Aries point—ultimately to form a colossally important square to Pluto (within orb from about 2009 to 2017), the defining astro-aspect of our times, slating this upcoming era to be as radically redefining and potentially turbulent as the 1960s. Yes, it's that huge.

I find this especially interesting for a number of reasons, one being a resurging interest in the 1960's in commercial sectors. The other is that I have been predicting a radical counter-culture type revolution stemming from my generation since I was in high school. So much has changed so quickly, I don't see the people I grew up with staying silent forever about the mess that is our current culture, both social and political. If it is time for the new counter culture, I welcome it, and am very excited to participate.