The Sun is now in Taurus, and overnight tonight (early Tuesday morning EDT) there will be an eclipse of the Sun. With the Moon, Mercury, the Sun, Juno (and the deep, distant and intriguing planet Sedna) all in Taurus, we have an invitation to connect with physical reality.
Take note — physical reality is going away, or rather collective consciousness is moving away from it — and it’s happening fast. Our cyberian adventure, our digital dream, is taking over consciousness with a rising tide of pixels and megabytes. Nearly everything contemporary humans experience is processed in binary code. In a word, that is alienating. Our brains work differently, and though they may be a form of an electrical instrument, they are also sentient and made of living cells.
We spend much of our days staring at glowing rectangles, which are now pocket sized and are often used while walking, driving and sitting in a room with others. There are a few holdouts, but not many. Many people are one shade away from the direct brain implant. I guess I am not one to talk too loudly, surrounded as I am by digital equipment, terabytes of data and about a mile of cable, projecting my soul into the Internet like the RKO tower — though I come from the perspective of seeking to understand the difference.
It is true that to some extent, every layer of what we experience on Earth has the element of dream or of maya. Yet different aspects of the dream have different qualities. We live on the cosmic physical plane, where it is necessary to be grounded in physical experience, awareness of our surroundings and the other beings who surround us.
Like many people, I am disturbed by the population of humans who communicate nearly entirely by text message, and who are intimidated by the possibility of a conversation, or by eye contact, even in the most intimate situations. Our glorious Taurus moment is an invitation to make contact, to feel, to tune into your senses. To do that, it may be necessary to sidestep the illusion of control that the technological sphere offers — for example, the ability to delete or unfriend someone and then pretend they don’t exist.
Over the weekend, Juno ingressed Taurus. Both of these astrological factors are notorious for their obsession with attachment and jealousy, though at the moment, Juno is in a conjunction with a rarely spoken-of outer planet, called 1992 QB1 (it has not been given a name). My exploration of this body focuses on its transformative power, specifically on the theme of unselfconscious attachment.
Instead of a the usual attachment, jealousy and control, the charts describe a transformational experience of what to do about these things. There seems to be some proof that the most toxic elements of the marriage paradigm can indeed be transformed and released. Relationships can have experiences of jealousy but do not need to be based upon jealousy per se. The jealousy itself, however, is like a veil that conceals something much more profound, much more alive — compersion.
I will be getting into that theme in a special edition of Planet Waves FM that I plan to publish Monday night, a few hours ahead of the eclipse. See you there.
Wandering,
That is poetry! I wish I could hear you sing and play that song! My daughters love the lyrics already and they are the young (early 20’s) Pluto in Scorpio kids who are changing sexuality, gender, and how they share resources. While they hang on their devices, they don’t text and they do spend real face-to-face time with people. So there’s hope.
Thanks for sharing that!
Some things you can count on. The Moon is one of them. For this Taurus Moon native, I switched gears into grounding in my home, clearing clutter, hanging pictures, checking the Feng Shui of certain things I wanted to do, and was noticing how little time I spend any more doing such mundane and thoroughly soul-filling things. Thank you, Eric, as ever, for offering analysis that goes deep and stirs up such fruitful, rich material. (Still marveling at the profundities of the Sagittarius Mars Effect reading for this year, by the way. Wow.)
Phyllis
~video killed the radio star~
Eric…great pic of “grandmother land”. Is that anywhere
Near Lake Champlaine, and is the reference Native American?
My daughter Chelseas grandmothers mother actually grew up
In a chanti in that area! I have been on a spiritual journey over
The past five years and have attended a few pow wows in the area.
Unfortunately have been obstructed from getting all the geneology for a possible
Link to connect her to her roots, and possibly governmental native american
rights…Im still researching!
Sipala~Sakehitiwin
Patricia
“The hungry ghosts of Consumerville
shop ’til the drop, can’t stop
filling the land with trash
all for the sake of cash
while the jealous gods of the 1%
let trickle down their resentment
and condemnation
electric alienation
You can look but you can’t touch
in the hungry ghost heaven
of American dreamtime
a playground for disembodied minds
In the land of hungry ghost men
hooked by the TV eye”
From my song American Dreamtime
I spent 4 years trying to compose songs with a computer, but it went so slowly because of the dissipated focus in the computer land. I actually spent more time as an audio engineer and video editor than I did practicing my music skills as I tried to be everything I could be with the software in my laptop. Parts of this song came to me while I was in that trance, but none of the songs I made in the computer made it to a stage, all I had were recordings. It took a couple of years of being a house-less wanderer and the loss of my bedroom studio to call me back to the simplicity of a guitar and a voice as the gateway for songs instead of a computer with a galaxy of sounds to distract the unwary. Even before the computer I crashed my music with a looping machine. No longer did I practice the basics of musical craft, just pluck a note and let the machines do the rest.
Once I started back on the guitar and voice it only took me a year to arrange 13 original songs from the archive of electric sketches I left in the computer. It took me 4 years just to generate the rough sketches with the computer. Now my voice and guitar skills are stronger than ever because I’m not dissipating into endless options. Saturn on the south node can be a drag, but it can also be a blessing to a chart with a Gemini Moon: setting some limits on my artistic practice sets free my skills to be a transmitter for medicine music.
I’m glad my electric time is confined to the library now. I only have time to write a little, send some messages, check schedules and the rest of my day is in the world, face to face with humans, plants, critters and the ubiquitous machines. Heh…life on Earth was the thing I was so desperately seeking with the computer, but it doesn’t work. That’s why I called it a hungry ghost trance.
Thank-you for this very important post, Eric, & to the insightful comments also. Thanks for the Thomas Berry link, SaraVictoria – I’ll be sharing it with others.
I’m a retired substitute teacher in a small village, & I remember the students during recess & breaks, sitting side by side on the hallway benches, all staring at their phones – but not talking with each other. Most, & not just these young people, seem utterly disconnected from both one another & the natural world. In this rural area, surrounded by so much natural beauty, the only outdoor activities that seem to interest the teenagers, besides bush parties, are excursions to shoot beavers for sport. I’ve noticed more & more that
very many people, including couples, just don’t talk face to face. I see that as part of the Big Disconnect from Life itself.
Ask almost any kid here, “what do you want to do when you grow up?” & the majority of answers will be about designing video games, building computer systems, or making a pile of money in the financial trades. Work that is physical or that requires empathy & caring doesn’t seem to interest them. There is a chill & a brittleness in so many hearts & minds. We (collectively) desperately need to change if we’re to save ourselves, our planetary home, & the Earth systems which make our lives possible.
“The subject with which we are concerned is the spirituality of the earth. By this I do not mean a spirituality that is directed toward an appreciation of the earth. I speak of the earth as subject, not as object. I am concerned with the maternal principle out of which we were born and whence we derive all that we are and all that we have. In our totality we are born of the earth. We are earthlings. The earth is our origin, our nourishment, our support, our guide. Our spirituality itself is earth-derived. If there is no spirituality in the earth, then there is no spirituality in ourselves. The human and the earth are totally implicated each in the other.” ~ Thomas Berry
http://spiritualecology.org/article/spirituality-earth#.U15mqsaQVdc.twitter
It is a strange world. Had breakfast at friends’ house; one is notorious for always head down face in iPhone. Another friend joined us because she “wanted company” and upon arrival proceeded to also put head down in iPhone. The bits and pieces of interaction were all individual responses to electronic media, not to each other or anyone else. I’ve had the conversation and there are those who intentionally, consciously choose to use the device in order to have nothing to do with the physical world. I don’t find it surprising that these are often also people who have issues with substances such as alcohol. (one Taurean, one Aquarian, girlfriends, jealousy issues. I’ll have to have a look at the charts for Juno).
As for me, Juno’s straight up and on the MC/Hera/Pallas opp Jupiter/NN/Neptune. Your podcase and tomorrow’s eclipse will be enlightening.
Important observations, Eric, and I share your assessment 100%.
Eric,
Eckhart describes a scenario in which the beast that we create eats us OR we experience this shift in consciousness in which we learn to experience eachother as fellow humans and nature as a key aspect of ourselves. I am so happy to keep up with this conversation; I’ll keep an eye out for future posts. Thank you so much.
mm.
Cheers to physical reality!! I had a wonderfully physically real weekend, & even found a way to bridge the emotional, psychic-level work I do with more physical, tissue-level energetic releases. I know that doesn’t sound all that earthy, but for a watery 12th house Sun girl, it’s pretty damn grounded. 😉
The wormhole of this eclipse season had wrung me out, but at this point I feel like I’m coming through it lighter, clearer, & unburdened by a great deal of shit I didn’t need so much as I had thought I did.
I don’t think this is about the specific case of the one who does good; it’s the overall shift in reality that I think we need to contemplate. It’s true that specific cases may provide a kind of beacon or catalytic action; they may contribute to a tipping point. But it’s the whole ecosystem about which I am commenting now, and how it influences brain function and the mentality of our approach to society and to intimacy.
Yes, Barbara Hand Clow is very interesting about how we are having to deal with the shift into ”cyberspace”, which she compares to the Industrial Revolution.
But there are also people who do wonderful things with it, for the good of humanity, such as the amazing Sugata Mitra:
http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education
Wonderful photos, Eric!
“Take note — physical reality is going away, or rather collective consciousness is moving away from it — and it’s happening fast. Our cyberian adventure, our digital dream, is taking over consciousness with a rising tide of pixels and megabytes. ”
Indeed! ^^^
I am at el aeropuerto (BOS)… and I am seeing examples of everywhere I look: from the new “digital projection” of a life-sized hologram-like TSA agent detailing security procedures, to the billboard above my head reading “if we want to avoid surgery, can we swallow a robot?” showing a CU of a woman’s lips (of course) about to ingest a capsule full of metallic components… to the young boy behind me who is currently squashing his “smart” phone against his head to listen to music. Transhumanism anyone? … we’re soaking in it!
I am one of the so-called hold-out for having “smart” technology, and I always “opt out” whenever I can… (and yet I sit here with my laptop, so who am I to throw stones?)
Viva la physical reality! And bienvienido a Taurus! 🙂
(and as always, thank you Eric for your continued dedication to the cause)
Hey Eric — just listened to Eckhart Tolle on the subject of consciousness in the digital age, the topic was information vs. wisdom, in a talk given to Google audience. Let me know if you’ve not heard and I’ll send it to you. Such a perfect topic for the day(s) as many of us spend way too much time with our heads in electronics — I know for me that I email and email and email things to people that I’d never actually speak to them as my way of dealing with the anxiety of searching for work (on the electronics). Fascinating and alarming.
mm.