As you stop and think today — trying to make a decision, or figuring out where your thoughts differ from those of someone in authority, or perhaps considering how you wield your personal power in your life — consider this: that anyone is capable of anything, including yourself. The next question is, once you’ve accepted that possibility, what do you do with it?
The primary astrology today is Mercury in Aquarius squaring retrograde Saturn in Scorpio (exact at 2:14 am EDT). That’s where the decision-making, stopping to think for yourself, authority issues and questions about your personal power and how you use it all come in. There is a real question in our society, and probably every society, of the extent to which people really do think for themselves.
How many times have you tried to make a decision and figured out that you’re either following some programming inserted into you at some point, or are following the will of other people?
Mercury coming up against Saturn has the sensation of trying to push back against that conditioning, only to find another layer a bit deeper down. It’s therefore necessary to do a careful review of your thought process. If you’re experiencing a dilemma of some kind, is it really a moral issue, or is your mind doing the neurotic dance around trying to please others? Remember — it’s not always obvious when you’re doing this. The whole people-pleasing and family-pleasing and peer pressure group of scenarios often play out on an ‘automatic’ or semi-conscious way. The real question might be: how aware of your motives are you?
Yesterday’s Daily Astrology column noted the trine between the Sun in Pisces and Saturn in Scorpio (exact on Thursday) as being great for having the willingness to work for one’s goals. It’s a supportive aspect, which could be very helpful in navigating the Mercury-Saturn square once you’ve identified the decision you’re trying to make. Sun trine Saturn is also an aspect suggesting integrity and “highly developed moral character” in a person, according to the late Isabel Hickey — but it does not always work this way. It can also denote someone who is extremely clever at deception and at making it look good.
Given the signs involved with the Sun and Saturn (Pisces and Scorpio), this bodes well for your emotional, intuitive and sexual energy. Even with Mercury working through group-consciousness Aquarius, we see a potential for of inner awareness and alignment with Sun-Saturn; the question is what one does with that awareness.
Here’s the hiccup, however: between now and Thursday, when the Sun’s trine to Saturn is exact, the Sun also squares Ixion in Sagittarius. Ixion is a relatively new factor orbiting our Sun, discovered in 2002. It is a plutino, similar to Pluto. When the Sun makes a major aspect to such a new discovery, it’s necessary to watch and listen and see what information emerges.
At Planet Waves one of our delineations of Ixion is “anyone is capable of anything,” with “anything” alluding to unethical behavior, but also to any potential. Ixion is also associated with the question of what someone does when given a second chance.
In myth, Ixion is involved in engendering the Centaurs; in astrology, the centaurs function to raise our awareness around shadow material, old wounds and familial or ancestral baggage, with the express purpose of encountering it so we can work through it and heal it. At the same time, the point of looking at shadowy stuff is to bring in the potential to do more, to be more, to reach closer to one’s true capacities. It’s essential to take a balanced view with any astrological factor, particularly if it has some darker shades.
One such thing is just how willing and able we are to step past the bounds of ethical behavior. Sometimes that means the subtle white lie; sometimes it means sidestepping honesty because we are so deep in denial we can’t see the truth; sometimes it means using what power we have in our relationships to take advantage of another’s weakness, yet justifying it somehow. There are many shades of gray in this realm, and many varieties of white lies we tell ourselves to blur the boundaries and keep thinking of ourselves as ‘one of the good guys’.
And then there is knowing that you have the power to do the right thing. You have the potential to make a choice that works for all parties concerned, or that at least works for you in a way that does minimal harm to others. That, and: if you have a second chance to get something right, how do you plan to use it?
— additional writing: Eric Francis
Why does this article remind me of the IRS… oh because I just completed my tax return. Immersed in the website, the instructions, and the rules, I feel like I am capable of anything. My dark side is activated. Nothing triggers fear and makes good people feel and act like criminals like the IRS. It’s an anti-integrity machine.
Saturn in Scorpio looking over at Chiron in Pisces say get right with finance, including taxes.
Good advice.
Then why do I feel so black-hearted and evil and LIKING IT today!
omg — why isn’t Mercury out of shadow yet??? i’m getting more wrong numbers, hang-ups, fundraising calls and bullshit robocalls in the last 2-3 days, it feels like Mercury Rx.
oy!
Thank you Amanda,
Going through the motions of break-up with my ex-husband of 22 yrs and when I’m in his company, I can feel myself automatically slip back into our usual way of relating – me on edge and defensive, him in suspicious mode – but today, I felt I just had to keep pushing myself past that and see myself as in my dream last night – a free woman twirling in the meadows totally in the brightness of the day(consciousness) yet controlled enough to keep the dance going.
So today, we finally conversed well with each other, not succumbing to those old patterns, but speaking honestly and kindly to each other, making it clear that I was not going to go back to the relationship, but making plans for how we would take care of our home and grown-up children, acknowledging that we were both good people and both sorry things didn’t work out between us. It was so healing and tears are still falling. Very much “making a choice that works for all parties concerned” with “minimal harm”.
Thank you for the ‘spot on’ astrology today. It has been enlightening to say the least.
Namaste
How do I plan to use it? Nessus trine ascendant in Libra from Gemini is close enough to my south node to be ancestral: verbal abuse is the new-ish term for it. 9th house means it’s the verbal abuse that comes from western religion. That’s recognizing what I’m capable of: using words to manipulate and dis, internal thoughts that crouch in fear of the thunder god who stoned my ancestors again and again for being free. I was in my mid 30’s before I could fathom my own part in resurrecting old dramas.
My current set of songs is a second chance. I was a singer~songwriter in the 90’s, but my internal critic shut me down, echoing the verbal abuse of my teenage years. I always felt the victim cause I was a kid when the stepdad came home, but living with him for so many years taught me by example how to be an abuser. In my defensive crouch I flung turds in every direction, unable to feel, just like him. Fortunately I met the teachers who have gradually helped me unravel this. My resistance almost strangled me, but it also kept me alive long enough to find help. My songs start where Pink Floyd leaves us at the end of the Wall, where I spent so much of my life in a self incriminating heap inside my own walls, and shows a way out. The buck stops here. That’s how I intend to use this.