By Len Wallick
In our present astrology, we have as our continued background the cardinal T-square. It seems that most of the major planets and many of the minor ones are lately a part of it. One planet we have not heard about lately is Neptune, meaningfully lurking on the outskirts of our collective consciousness, retrograde in very late Aquarius — our focus today after a very brief review.
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Retrograde Uranus, still in Aries until the weekend, accompanies retrograde Jupiter having recently re-entered the third degree of the same sign. Retrograde Pluto, with its superior tenure, is in the fourth degree of Capricorn. Saturn is already in the second degree of Libra with Venus in the fourth degree and Mars in the eighth degree of same.
We have also been served a lot of information about the Sun and Moon this past month, most recently with the two luminaries separating today from their challenging conjunction in Leo. The Sun is still functionally opposed to the Aquarius conjunction of Nessus and Damocles. We have anticipated the impending Mercury retrograde in Virgo with Old Fleet-foot having entered its echo phase earlier this month, on its way to station in ten days. We have heard a lot about all those planets engaged with the dual themes of relationship and “all of us together/all at the same time.”
One might wonder how we have allowed Neptune to have so easily assumed its preferred role, out of the limelight, pulling the strings, the proverbial man behind the curtain. After all, Old Foggy has long been in a tight sextile (60 degrees of separation) to the Galactic Center in Sagittarius. Given that the core of our galaxy serves as the higher octave of the “all of us together” theme in the cardinal T-square as well as its thematic bridge to the aspects of 2012, one would think that would have given this aspect more attention; or rather, conscious attention.
In all the busy-busy of acting to resolve the internal tension of innumerable square aspects, so much of our focus has been devoted towards negotiating our way through one planetary opposition after another. Perhaps it is another part of our mind that has been keeping tabs on the synchronicity of Neptune’s compadre relationship with the Galactic Center: our unconscious mind.
How long has it been since you have compared dreams with another person? Has the discussion of our slumber life tailed off somewhat as compared to last year at about this time? What’s up with that? Is it because we have been busy taking care of business, or is it something else? One might suggest that it is time to extend the relationship theme of our current astrology to opening up and sharing that part of our life again. It might be painful. It may test our ability to trust. But it is your faithful reporter’s intuition that it is a practice long overdue for revival. It may serve to turn a few light bulbs on, illuminating areas too long in the dark.
Neptune has also been in a long, functional conjunction with Chiron, during its short preliminary sojourn in Pisces and its long tenure in Aquarius, now being refreshed for the next seven months. One might submit that Neptune has been the missing, or at least underutilized, link towards putting the pieces together regarding the distress of an unprecedented ecological disaster.
It would do well to at least begin assembling those pieces now that the petroleum volcano has been ostensibly capped. We can start with the fact that Neptune’s tenure in Aquarius did not live up to its advance billing. It was supposed to be a time of empathy, charity and inspiration as the boundaries that separate our individual consciousnesses dissolved to bring on a new age of compassionate, sympathetic understanding.
Instead, it saw the unprecedented rise of obfuscation and the art of the big lie was honed to an ever-sharper edge. The form of lie called spin actually became honored as an art. Individuals found themselves dissolved into greater isolation rather than greater unity. All of this carried over to the Deepwater Horizon disaster: lie after lie after pragmatic lie; how it happened, even when it happened; how much petroleum was erupting; how much dispersant was used; even the various perpetrators’ practiced deception with each other. The lies continue to this day as our own government joins with the multinational corporate amoeba trying to convince us that all of that oil, all of that methane, all of that dispersant has somehow just… disappeared.
Given that Chiron is back in the same sign with the planet named after the mythological god of the oceans, we may hope for a new beginning. That the sea of our common consciousness may rejoin in a holistic bond with the waters of our planet. That there would be new perspective with the great centaur’s return. That the minor planet known as the inconvenient benefic will serve to reveal the inconvenient truths kept out of sight and out of mind.
That hoped-for beginning is where the Moon comes in today, fresh off a conjunction with the Sun in the sign that Sol rules. It is newly-finished with a face-off against the minor planets signifying abuse and the perils of privilege. Refreshed by the reunification of our emotional, unconscious and reflexive child-selves with the responsible, creative and conscious adult mind, the Moon is filled with the assertive expression of Leo.
That’s the Moon that will oppose Neptune today, and before tomorrow, Chiron too. That’s the Moon that will open the flow of a trine to the Galactic Center. It’s a beginning that extends the theme of a New Moon — a fresh cycle starting over. This cycle may finally yield the promise of Neptune in Aquarius, so long deferred, bringing our unconscious minds to flow together, joining with our creative awareness. We can create the new patterns that the cardinal T-square implies — a whole new octave of all of us together, all at the same time.
Offered In Service
Hi Len, yes, the period ahead will be interesting, to say the least. Will let PW know what happens!
Hi Amanda, best I can do re Julia Gillard’s birth details is: 29/09/1961, born in the town of Barry in Wales (UK) – only what’s on Wikipedia. Hope that helps. Cheers, Indrani.
Len,
As always, wonderful writing. Relationships are the operative word in my life these days. Dh and I have changed so much these past few weeks. He is now opening up and saying how he feels; something he was unable to do for most of our marriage. We have become closer physically which in turn has made us feel closer emotionally. For the first time, I feel the connection I began to have with him when we first met is finally blossoming to fruition. We both have changed and as Brendan said it “WOW!”. I am having the relationship I always wanted with DH and he with me. We are having so much connecting and sex and talking and holding and feeling and honesty; it is so amazing. The kids are really happy to see how close he and I have become. They keep remarking on how happy he and I both seem to be which in turn is makign them happier too.
Both of us are also feeling like we want to do more for others as well.
What a wonderful time we live in!
Aword – I’m just glad my dreams are back! I always have the “big” dreams of things, like snake spirits, huge beautiful lightning storms, wonderful, kind of frightening things and since my doggie died this past April, the dreams haven’t been there, or I haven’t remembered them. But as of last Weds. night, they’re BACK! Big tree roots that, when I dig them up, turn into the big snake spirit and unleash themselves from the earth, skaking it off their back, and “swimming”, Loch Ness style, down the highway, off to the next adventure, beautiful big rock canyons that sing real songs when I stand in them, complete choirs of voices in the rocks, wonderful things are all coming back. I disagree with those who think sleep is just downtime, it’s one of the most important things to do.
hey indrani —
thanks for mentioning the Aussie election situation! we’d heard from a reader down-under when Gillard took office & were hoping to check out her chart but had no luck finding enough birth data for her (specifically, a time).
if you or any of your network have access to that info, maybe we can take a look at her chart at some point.
thanks!
amanda
Len – as always your thoughts are much appreciated. Reading yesterday’s and today’s pieces together has brought much to mind for me. As the new moon marks new beginnings, so my life has taken a new start as well. I won’t bore anyone with the details, but “WOW!” should suffice to express my feelings right now. It’s all relationship based too, involving my personal growth on a myriad of levels, and the growth of a collective of two.
Thank you, and keep going!
Len,
Thanks for another beautifully insightful education and acknowledgement.
Connecting the dots….I have been waking from dreams now with each day feeling like a new life, a new beginning, as though during dreamtime we have washed over the old and resurfaced our life, not to forget it, but to remember with clarity and new perspective…..much like the tide refreshes a sandy beach for the footprints of a new day.
(there is) SO much going on; your “slow it down and look at things piece by piece” writing is a godsend if ever there was one.
xo
Linda
Indrani,
Thank you for the connection from Down Under. My goodness, what a shift in pattern! It will be interesting to see how things progress when Uranus retrogrades back into Pisces this weekend and Mercury stations retrograde a week later. It would be interesting to receive perspective from our other Aussie commenters as well. Don, are you there?
Hi Len, I think you’ll find that our unconscious minds have indeed begun to “flow together and join with our creative consciousness”. The bringing to the fore what has remained unconscious takes time, but the seeds have been sown. Here in Australia, we’re about to have a federal election on August 21 – we don’t elect presidents as you do but the party that will govern. In an unprecedented move for this country, we saw a sitting Prime Minister deposed by his Cabinet and in his place, the nation’s first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard – a single, self-confessed ‘aetheist’. The move was made for the benefit of the nation – the deposed PM had begun to veer off unilaterally and sacrifice the policies of the government based on the polls.
What we’ve seen during the election campaign has been a nation firstly recovering from the shock of such unprecedented change, and then shocked again by the strident sexism and misogyny of the opposition party’s campaign (by the way, the opposition party was formerly headed by John Winston Howard – a great friend of your own George W., so, no friend of ours! Howard’s party not only lost in the last election, but Howard himself lost his seat as his own electorate booted him out unceremoniously – only the second time a PM has ever lost his own seat in Australia, and certainly, the first time a PM who had led the nation for 12 years!).
What we are now beginning to see (unconscious becoming conscious) is an electorate which doesn’t care about the sex of the leader, but about their effectiveness. Julia Gillard called an election four weeks after taking power and the first 2 weeks of the campaign were shaky for reasons described above. Last night she was interviewed for an hour by audience members on a programme called Q&A.
It was a remarkable turn of events – she was poised, dignified, showed an excellent grasp of policies and was unapologetic about having deposed the sitting PM (an issue that the political press seemed unable to accept far more than the populace it seems!)
Anyway, what we’re looking for in our politicians is not another ‘conviction politician’ per se, but someone who is efficient and capable and does the job the electorate wants them to do – a job which less and less seems to involve a “Big Daddy” role as opposed to a “get our schools and health care systems woking!” role. Politicians with conviction as opposed to ‘conviction politicians’ or rather, idealogues. We’ve had enough of those.
On a personal level I’m seeing it too – people are wanting to respond to others on a personal level – ie, “cut out the bullshit and show me your heart” (that goes for our politicians too!). we’re done with the sideshow – we all bleed and we’re starting to show it. We agree that we only have one planet to share but we can’t agree on quite how to tackle the massive ecological problems we face, but we’re getting there. It does take courage and it is taking a bit of time but the message is loud and clear – machismo, fakery – that stuff just isn’t washing. Someone has to start – from reading PW, I’ve been consciously making the effort to rise above pettiness and fear in relationships and ‘share’ my feelings with people – in all my ‘relationships’ however fleeting. They have been responding; strangers go away feeling connected to something bigger; new friendships are being forged, old ones being renewed, and an olive branch extended to those who still want to sit on the outer. That’s cool, whenever they’re ready, there’s room at this inn.
(Also) offered in service,
Indrani