Always For Love

Light Bridge for Leo and Leo Rising

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There’s a word I don’t like to use and a concept you don’t really need, and that is ‘spiritual’. I don’t like to use the word because I think spiritual is normal. It’s a way of living where people matter more than things, where you forgive because it makes life easier, and where being real is the most meaningful thing you can do.

Then every now and again I notice how much the world needs this idea. Any chart with strong Leo is the incarnation of this concept, and in the unlikely event you missed the point up until now, you’re about to be treated to a full-strength introduction. Your ‘self’ and your ‘higher self’ are getting married. Your soul and its soul are having a reunion. You are past the point of needing any kind of spiritual theory, and stepping into a life where all that exists is the reality.

I know this is a lot to promise, though I think that spiritual isn’t that big of a deal. It may be for anyone who is obsessed with greed, rage, anxiety or the past. I am sure that a few Leos turn up in the Police Blotter or work in investment banks, but the chances are if you’re evolved enough to care about your astrology, you have a concept of yourself as being more than these things.

Meanwhile, I would remind everyone that we live in a closet theocracy. The American Way has become contaminated by a crude religiosity, and before that a kind of pseudo puritanism that you may have long ago figured out is ridiculous. Or for my one or two Leo readers who are ministers of Southern Baptist congregations, you’ve figured out how to make hay out of it. And if you were such a minister, under your current astrology you might turn your sermons into standup comedy, make appeals for revolution or invent a whole new concept of God that’s actually useful to people.

The astrology of these developments is pretty easy to explain. In astrology there’s this thing called the 9th house, and it’s about spirituality, religion and what the New Age refers to as the ‘higher self’. You have Aries in this house, and where Aries happens to be in a chart is one place where we naturally find a sense of who we are. Aries here is about a direct connection to a spiritual source rather than needing to go through an intermediary, such as the pope. You are the pope — of your own life.

Neither do you need anyone making rules and telling you what to believe about yourself. I would hazard a safe guess that you’re more than okay with figuring it out, or making it up as you go along.

Now, some planets are arriving in Aries. Jupiter is the first of them, and this is a whole bunch of cosmic juice that is providing both wisdom and a sense of perspective on who you are and how you relate to the world. Next is Uranus, which is revolution in a can. A large can, in fact, without the lid on. For our entire culture this is going to provide a shock to our old self-concepts and the urge to create something new, but where you have this placement there is a ‘spiritual’ revolution involved. You become a prophet of self-awareness; of seeing the world differently, and thus having it be different; and of actual independence in your beliefs — and not just your religious beliefs.

This is the kind of astrology that could get a Ph.D. candidate to change their dissertation topic in the middle of writing the old one; if you’re a corporate lawyer you could become a civil rights lawyer; if you’re a history teacher you could find yourself using a book by Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky. There will be a few of you who get restless and go exploring the world — this would be an excellent time, if you’ve wanted to do that forever.

In short, this is about a revolution in your relationship to yourself, your ideas, the world and whatever you might think of as God. In shorter, we could sum this up in one word: existence. That is a thing many people around you have trouble with. You know, the ones with no sense of humor. One nice thing about this astrology is that it’s going to magnetize people to you who are having a similar experience of life. You will be able to tell who they are because they’re able to laugh at themselves — one of the easy to spot signs that a person is free.

And Now, Let’s Get Deep

One of the most pervasive questions of human existence is the length of life. The fact that we live each day not knowing how long we will live, and go to bed each night not knowing whether we will wake up, is something that puts all of us on equal terms. You could say it’s death itself that does that, but I would propose that in practical terms it’s really the length of life.

How someone address this question tells us a lot about who they are and what their philosophy of life is. The matter is directly related to the meaning and purpose one draws from, and ascribes to, existence.

Let’s say you knew you were going to live fifty more years. Would you live differently than you do today? Let’s say you knew you were going to live one more year. What about then? Really think about this, in terms of your purpose for living, and how you express that purpose every day. Would your purpose change? Would you think about it more carefully? If you have responded by saying that your purpose would indeed change, and that you would live closer to who you are, I suggest you go about making those changes now. It’s not that you’re not going to live a long time. Take care of your heart and stay off the corn syrup and aspartame, and you just might make it to 120.

For some, the notion of mortality brings them closer to life. Others think that it’s depressing, and for others it’s presence is like a stalker. I would hazard a guess that you have a healthy relationship to the cycles of existence and nonexistence, of birth, death and rebirth. I would guess that you cultivate some conscious awareness of the many mysteries that surround these themes. This awareness, embraced consciously, tends to help people live a little closer to the edge and value the time they have.

For a number of reasons, it seems your awareness is about to increase, and something about your relationship to existence is shifting in the process. One clue to this is Chiron ingressing Pisces, your 8th house or solar house. The 8th addresses themes of deep surrender, one’s true erotic nature, and death/transformation. Having Pisces on this angle of your chart suggests you have natural depth — another indicator that Leo is naturally spiritual, that when you read things in books you are discovering a lot of what you already know.

Pisces describes the cycle between existence and nonexistence, the relationship between opposites, and the natural cycles and tides of consciousness. Chiron is about focus and where it goes, that can have an all-new feeling, like being made aware of something you hadn’t noticed before. The thing is, you did notice most of it, but Pisces has a way of noticing, forgetting and then remembering what it forgot as if it was a revelation. And the natural cycles of existence have a way of walking with one foot in the fully-aware state and one foot in the dreamtime.

In the awareness of these natural cycles, we have to make friends with a kind of uncertainty that is extremely uncomfortable in the world of ego and in the linear, rational world. Since we all live with the cycles and the uncertainties involved, the thing that changes from person to person is what he or she is willing to allow into awareness. The refusal to allow these concepts into one’s conscious mind can occupy a lot of energy. Yet they can also be the source of profound inspiration and contact with the deeper layers of existence, which can be truly nourishing.

If the world seems like it’s going insane, one thing that it may be going insane with is denial of the deeper questions that have always hankered at humanity and which provide fodder for religions to provide false answers. Since you don’t need those false answers, you typically go right to the direct information, and this whole quality is becoming even more direct for you.

With that, you may notice the denial by which you’re surrounded, which can often masquerade as the concept of ‘mystery’. Sometimes this denial is active; other times it’s passive; sometimes it’s born of ignorance, which is a bit of both. Consider how many people pretend they don’t know that certain kinds of sex lead to making babies. It’s not that these folks, when pressed, would fail a basic biology quiz. It’s that many people act like they have no clue, having unintentional children and living what amounts to unintentional, inadvertent lives.

No matter where you may fall on the spectrum that ranges from out of it to totally with it, you’re in the process of having your awareness both raised and clarified. This may be a subtle shift for you; it may be blatantly obvious. In this reading I will go over the astrology that is pointing to this theme, and cover some of the different possibilities for how you might handle it.

Deeper into the 8th — Chiron and Neptune

In addition to Chiron ingressing your 8th, you also have Neptune making a brief visit there as well. This combination of transits will influence your sense of self, and also your experience of relationships. The 8th is all about what we exchange, and describes the passing of privileges back and forth between people. Chiron in this house adds high focus, and Neptune adds the quality of potential. Whatever was there before, you will have more of it. Or you could view this as sailing a deeper ocean, far off the continental shelf.

The 8th house is one of the most interesting, fearsome and magnetic places in a chart, and it happens that our whole world is wrapped up in the dramas of this house. In fact it is what we think of as ‘the world’ in terms of the obsession with money, resources, sex, jealousy, possession, control and yes, death. The 8th in the oldest astrology text in English is described as the house of death, dowry and the substance of the bride. The root theme is inheritance, of which dowry is a form; it’s also about a commitment involving shared resources; and there are obvious sexual implications here, but the thing about the 8th is that the sex is mingled up with the issue of monetary resources.

We forget that many kinds of sexual partnerships are also business partnerships. These mingled erotic-economic relationships can be complex. Neptune is saying trust and don’t worry. Chiron is saying get it on paper, and understand what you’re agreeing to. I suggest you let Chiron take the reins at this point.

There is something here about clarifying any form of a sex-for-money arrangement. There are lots and lots of these, most of them ‘unconscious’. We hide them by making what we think of as actual prostitution illegal, so that we can always point to someone else who is doing what we say we’re not doing. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with situations where sex and money are both exchanged, though they can start to substitute for one another. But I would say that we need to at least notice what we are doing and why, and start to consider options. As Chiron makes its way across your 8th, you’re likely to want clarity.

The 8th house is a place we crave. It’s compelling. Pisces on this house is one of the better signs to have here. I say that because in your life, what is rightfully a cosmic mystery is actually likely to feel like one. If you look around at all the people who are having domestic violence calls on Saturday night, one way to understand that is an 8th house drama. This emphasizes power over pleasure, and takes anyone who is involved out of touch with the beauty and subtlety of existence. When the 8th becomes the scene of a power struggle, there is a loss of respect for existence, its uncertainties and its rich gifts that would lead to conscious growth as contrasted to enforced changes.

Pisces can also act like a void, but it’s a fertile one, a source of inspiration and for you, a kind of assurance that your relationships can be fulfilling. It’s not that you get to have them all the time, but you know that when you make contact, if it’s honest contact, that something really good is possible.

The 8th has a shadow side; it is also were we look for information about greed, jealousy and other forms of possessiveness — and all the psychology that attends them.

To make what is a long matter, filling many novels and psychology texts, into a simple concept: if one’s relationships are influenced by the fear of death, guilt and attachment (all the same thing) you will have one kind of relationship. If your relationships are influenced by the appreciation of life, love, forgiveness and a value on freedom, you will have another kind of relationship. I would daresay that while many people think you can blend the two viewpoints, that’s not really possible. You have to commit to one or the other: to love and surrender, or to fear and attachment — and Chiron entering Pisces is about doing precisely that.

Chiron works as a focusing lens, especially when it’s blended with a Pisces or Neptune factor — and it’s currently blended with both. This is a little like seeing the invisible. If you could see none of it in the past, you’re being given the gift of seeing a glimpse. If you could see some till now, you will be able to see more. This is a window into relationship dynamics, and what is actually exchanged between you and the various partners in your life.

You may see things that surprise you. For example, if you don’t usually pay attention to relationship dynamics, you may be missing many elements of what really happens beneath the surface of your encounters. Chiron will hold your feet to the fire with the idea that the only real currency in your relationships is the truth, rather than the usual denial and deception that pass for social lubricant. This may be distinctly uncomfortable, but it can be just as exciting. I have no doubt that you are called, on a regular basis, to live in what one author I love calls relationship for truth.

The author, William Pennell Rock, has a suggestion. “Here is a simple test to see where you are in this matter of relating. Write down all the things you have not shared with your partner. Contemplate this list, and there you will see the limits you place on the relationship, the degree of your commitment to the way of the lover.”

If you don’t have a partner, you can consider what has transpired in your past relationships. To what extent have they succeeded or failed on the basis of the truth being known and valued? I suggest you extend this ‘truth test’ exercise to the closest people in your life: friends, parents, siblings. I suggest you consider why you think you have not told these people what you have not told them. And consider the feeling that you have in contemplating the withhold.

Alternately, if you are someone who practices your form of radical honesty, I would invite you to consider your learning curve on that path. Perhaps you were born that way, perhaps you learned; there is a story arc to your process, even if you were the radically honest type of person as a kid. You’ve experienced some ups and downs along the way. What have you learned? What lessons have you applied? To what extent do you hold others to a value of truth? Know the facts of history.

The message of Chiron is not only use your discernment. It is that you can do so. That is your vehicle, your vessel.

Practical Ideas, Work, Well-being

So far I’ve been writing a lot about some deeply existential issues, and the less romantic angles of relationship. There are other significant areas of development in your chart, which involve the Saturn-Pluto alignment that has been moving through Libra (your 3rd house of ideas) and Capricorn (your 6th house of work and well-being). Saturn has a relationship to both Libra and Capricorn.

So for as deep and complex as your Chiron transit is, and as revolutionary as your Jupiter/Uranus transit is, you appear to be in the midst of some highly practical adjustments to your life. Because your astrology in other houses is so high-energy and transformative, I suggest you take this kind of approach to your day-to-day affairs. Let function precede form; let your mundane adjustments be specifically intentioned to handle the larger vision you have for your life.

I’ll give you an example. Pluto moving through Capricorn and your 6th house suggests that you’re making changes in your work environment and the way you structure your time. This will to some degree involve modifying physical space and perhaps investing in equipment. You may be shifting from employment outside your home to working in a home office. As you do this you’ll be making decisions. As you make each decision, make sure that you leave an opening to make the next decision; make your choices expandable, anticipating the next. Buy a bigger, better file cabinet rather than a smaller, cheaper one; if you’re buying disk storage, look into the expandable/modular kind rather than the old fashioned kind. I think you get the idea.

The basis of all these decisions is about who you’re becoming. If you’re a writer today and you want to be a filmmaker, and you know you’re heading that way, and you’re investing in a new computer, make sure you get one powerful enough to handle video. Plan for the best software. Give yourself room to grow and you will indeed grow. Trust your talent. Relatively small decisions and investments made today can lead to big growth down the line.

If you want or need to move your business, consider the direction you’re going and get the most effective (potentially the largest) space you can afford. If you don’t have the kind of business where you take off-the-street clients, but think you might, consider whether you want to put your business in a more visible and accessible location. You face an interesting situation if you’re in a position that you don’t plan to leave. You may find yourself trying to transform your work environment. You may feel a need to take over and be the boss. Be careful with this; one person rarely changes any kind of institution or company on their own, and you’ll be in a lot better shape if you work with your higher-ups and engage their full cooperation.

If you plan to have a job for a while but you’re changing jobs now, consider who you’re becoming and choose new work on that basis. Themes to consider are: international, communications, publishing, personal contact with a diversity of people, group themes, international groups, information management, and in general, new ideas. Everything about your charts is written in concepts like modern, new, evolution, expanding, unusual and freedom. There is, without question, something beneficial, fun and profitable that you can do that has a theme of international. Listen for it; look around; pay attention to who you meet and particularly pay attention if you travel abroad this year. If you don’t have such a trip planned, I suggest you do what you can and create something. The arrangements don’t need to be lavish.

The notion of anticipating who you are going to be will help you focus on who you are becoming. This is a mental yoga that will both facilitate growth and save you frustration. I suggest you apply it to contract negotiations as well.

I would not sign any 10-year contracts. In fact, I would make sure that everything has a 90-day tryout clause, and is renewable in a year or two at maximum. Pay particular attention to the financials. Ask yourself, ‘Is this fair?’ (to you). The chances are you lean toward signing contracts that are fairer to the other party. I suggest you balance that out, which is a thought process and which will involve keeping your future in mind as an active, dynamic and changing thing.

There is, as well, an interesting dynamic that is developing between your mental state and your physical state. You seem to have this need to get your mind, your thoughts and your affairs sorted as an urgent matter of sanity. This is a good idea. The thing you may be noticing is that you can barely keep up with your own changes, so you’re going to need to ease back into this process and remind yourself to be happy with incremental progress. The underlying principle is balance (as suggested by Saturn in Libra, your 3rd house).

Many factors suggest that you’re in a phase where you’re activating your whole brain — the left, the right, the front, the back, the inside and the outside. Think in terms of words, pictures, music, color, black, white, gray, abstract and concrete.

Part of balance is that space between order and chaos. Saturn in your 3rd may be pushing you to get really, really organized, but this can get in the way of the creative process just as much as it can, at times, facilitate it. Again the image is incremental improvement rather than taking over your own life as the organization czar.

If you find that your mental state is sluggish, I suggest you stretch your body, and get something you can take apart and put back together — like an old telephone. A Lego set would work. Anything you can work with a hammer and chisel would be therapeutic.

About Your Bones, and Your Energy Bodies

Health matters for Leo often come back to the heart. This remains true. One’s heart is taken care of two ways, by loving gently and by minding the physical nature of this particular muscle. We have a lot of misconceptions about what is and isn’t good for one’s heart (for years, margarine was believed to be better than butter but this is not true; hydrogenated oils are terrible). And we don’t think of something like soda as having anything to do with one’s heart, but high fructose corn syrup is one of the very worst sources of arterial plaque. I suggest you research this, without getting too hypochondriac. It is much easier to live healthier today than it’s ever been, while the temptations not to do so are everywhere.

For Leo and Leo rising, there is a huge hint that health starts with your bones. Learn about them. Look into osteopathy and chiropractic and see if these are appealing to you. Conventional medical doctors often seem unable to figure out what is wrong with a person, and this often involves the modality. I suggest you avoid surgery if there is any suggestion that you need it, because there is an excellent chance that a non-invasive approach will work better.

What is interesting about both chiropractic and osteopathy is that there is an underlying philosophy to these techniques, whereas conventional medicine tends to be based on philosophical anarchy.

But among the healing modalities that has the most cohesive and interesting philosophy is homeopathy. Chiron’s placement in Pisces strongly favors medical modalities that are spiritual and philosophical in nature. There are lots of these going around and frankly most of them either are not so effective, or the practitioners lack the mastery to have them be effective. I suggest that you read about any healing modality you may think will help you, then do some research as to who is the best practitioner you can go to. Get recommendations, and ask people to tell you their experiences in detail. A recommendation is about more than having a name and a phone number.

In general, when handling matters of health and healing, work with things that are not toxic and require more of your participation, than the things that are toxic and call upon you to be passive. For anyone who has been on antidepressants for a while, there are enough vibrant changes in your chart to suggest that perhaps that modality is no longer necessary. Remember that if you do go off of such medications, there will be a healing process and reorientation from the meds that you will need to give time, focus and energy.

The Role of Sex and Sexual Healing

In the Scorpio report, I offer a perspective on the theme of sexual healing. I suggest you give that a look, though I will offer a perspective for you as well. This subject in part involves the ways in which your relationships have been evolving over recent years. (The basis of the idea for Scorpio more involves home and security themes evolving into erotic themes.)

I touch on this above — particularly where jealousy and dependency intersect the erotic life you share with others. The astrology of this subject comes back to Chiron in the 8th and Pisces, which has many implications for you. When it comes to sexual healing in your life, the theme I see is noticing what is exchanged in sexual experiences. There is always something exchanged, and I don’t just mean bodily fluids. What is exchanged and is indeed multiplied through sexual contact is karma.

The emphasis on what is exchanged is increasing, and I suggest you study your sexual contacts consciously and carefully. Notice how you feel in the hours and days after each sexual exchange. Notice the role of birth control, as well as all discussions and negotiations around potential pregnancy.

Everything that’s been veiled in fog and fantasy needs to be brought to the light of awareness and clarity.

1998-2011: Your Aquarian Journey

Leo is allegedly famous for its ego. I think that’s more of a perception than a reality. It’s the only sign of the 12 ruled by an actual star, which is far larger than all the planets combined. Every other planet used by astrology orbits around the Sun, and is held in place by its gravity. To the best of our knowledge, all the accessible heat, light and energy of the world come from the Sun. Even nuclear energy is derived from elements that came from the Sun. That sounds like a big job. And you know it is.

In your chart, this responsibility to the larger world is (in part) symbolized by your sign being opposed by Aquarius — a sign with wide-ranging implications for groups, associations, communities and the structure of society. When you look out and greet the world, you encounter this complexity. The Leo-Aquarius axis represents the relationship between the individual and the collective; the mind being able to hold its awareness centered so that it can coexist with everyone else.

Ruled by Saturn, co-ruled by Uranus, Aquarius is an energy demanding precision, accountability and real-world focus on both the present moment and the needs of the future. These requirements are challenging enough. For the past decade, you have come face to face with a number of planetary influences from Aquarius, including Chiron and Neptune. These are energies that have the ability to wash away, or peel back, any pretense of ego. Where there is self-interest, it must come in the form of ‘the greatest good for all concerned’.

And when you arrive there, on a planet where the prevailing motive usually is self-interest, you’ve made contact with the love beneath the surface of reality, beneath the competing points of view and all the games based on having winners and losers. When you reach that point, you know we are all in the same basic condition, and this is the necessary prerequisite for love — the kind of humanitarian love that I’m describing here.

The combined action of Neptune and Chiron has had many effects on you, confronting you over and over again with realities much larger than your personal affairs. At times these transits have served to isolate you; to force you to confront your own shadow material; to question your integrity in every relationship; to assess where everyone around you is coming from; and to draw you into an ever-larger world. I daresay this has been an ongoing confrontation, and the days were better when you figured out that is really so. Many days you seemed to be up against invisible obstacles or forces you didn’t understand.

I am describing factors that are melting into the past. A few last pieces of this story remain; one is short-term, the other is long-term. But for the most part, the themes of your chart shift to describe entirely new phases of your life; or you take what you learned during the past 12 years (and principally during the past five years) and go deeper into your existing situations and new ones. I am describing changes in your psychic climate that are a bit subtle to lay out in black and white, which is another way of saying that to feel the shifts you’re about to go through, you would benefit greatly from tuning into the sublime level. On our planet, it’s revolutionary to be anything other than superficial, so you are indeed waging revolution.

As you do this, I want to propose a tool: specificity. To make sure you keep your footing in potentially slippery territory, you will benefit greatly from knowing exactly what you’re talking about, knowing where you are on the map (such as when you’re driving around, or your astrology chart), and to the extent possible, working from specific findings and evidence rather than guessing. Even if you feel that your intuition is strong, you need documentation; you need the clarity that you will get from the process of documenting your ideas and your revelations. They count, and so do you.

Where You’re Taking Your Work

The world is heading for a revolution, and it’s going to influence the work you do. In turn, you may be part of this revolution. I write this fully aware how many people are convinced their work is inconsequential in the bigger scheme of things. If you currently do, you may feel a strong pull to do something else as the next 14 months unfold. I suggest you go with this pull, if you feel its presence beckoning you.

The epicenter of this change is June 2012, which will be one of the most memorable, eventful months in many, many years. Venus is one of the planets most closely associated with your professional life, with your reputation and with your highly evolved sense of responsibility. On June 5, 2012, there is a rare solar event involving Venus, called a transit of the Sun. Like eclipses, these events come in pairs, but with eight years between the transits in a pair; these pairs in turn are spread out with a span of more than 100 years between them. [For more information about Venus transits of the Sun, you can read this article.] In June 2004 there was the corresponding first and in June 2012 we will experience the second. This puts Venus, and thus your career and reputation, into a highly unusual focus.

But the matter is not strictly personal. In the backdrop is a world that is going wild with change. It already is — it’s just that some of us have not figured it out yet. You are positioned in such a way that you can participate in a highly effective and satisfying way. The thing you need to do is alter your perception of yourself such that you can see and feel the wider concept of who you are who would do the participating.

While you’re doing this, I suggest you come back to the idea of how you would conduct yourself if you knew how long you’re going to live, and what assumptions you make in the absence of that information. And I want to suggest that you stay close to why you are acting; what your deepest motive is — which is a process of discovery.

But I will give you a clue. Never for money. Always for love.