Dear Friend and Reader:
Over the past few days, we experienced the conclusion of the Jupiter-Chiron conjunction in Aquarius. This has been working out all year; this week’s was the third of three contacts since May, then July. I believe this is one of those aspects that future astrologers are going to look back on, associate directly with the historical developments of our era and wonder: what on Earth was it like to live through that?
Speaking of threes, there are three planets involved at the core of the Aquarius astrology, and a fourth one close by which I will explore next week. The three are Jupiter, Chiron and Neptune. What we experienced over the past few days was the Jupiter-Chiron conjunction; next will be the Jupiter-Neptune conjunction, exact for the first time on the winter solstice (though it came quite close in May).
Jupiter is the fast mover of the lot. It’s been in Aquarius for less than a year, while Chiron has been around for five years and Neptune for 10. Jupiter is therefore visiting and going over and in a sense gathering the experience of these two outer planets (Chiron and Neptune) via Aquarius for so long. I have in the past referred to their eventual conjunction as an Awakening of the first kind; and the meeting is dancing close. To my thinking, this is a review process of many changes that we as individuals have been through, and that our society has been through. Much of this involves the themes of: where do you fit into the larger world that surrounds you? What is the cost of conforming to expectations that you don’t understand? What must we give up in order to be an individual?
Because this setup involves Aquarius, part of the conversation involves the mental realm and what is known as the technosphere: the cloud of technology that surrounds us, the energy and information that move there. In recent years it’s taken on the name, ‘the cloud’, a term used to describe part of Earth’s environment. In a book called Time and the Technosphere, the author suggests that the biosphere, this green-blue living sphere where everyone grows and blossom and squirms around and eats and reproduces, is gradually being encircled in the technosphere.
That is, all the wires and broadcasts and devices and engineered seeds and all of us awash in microwave radiowave 3G 4G bluetooth blueray wifi myfi jai alai, that whole buzzing sphere that it is, is merging with the living realm. We are merging into one another. How do we personally relate to the experience of being immersed in this? I am curious about people’s personal journeys through the technosphere; our own personal intermingling. You can post your thoughts and experiences here.
Do you see yourself as passive in the process, or do you strive to be an active contributor to the collective in some way? On this, more depends than you may imagine, because whether you see yourself as separate or apart, as having an influence or not, suggests the posture of your mind as you move through life.
The last factor involves our relationship to mass deception, as individuals and together. Neptune has been in Aquarius for a decade; we have been lied to quite a lot during the past 10 years, I believe far more than usual. Or perhaps the demand for deception, as a form of prepackaged denial, has grown more enthusiastic. This issue comes into high-resolution focus as Chiron (the focal point) makes its first exact conjunction to Neptune early next year.
Yours & truly,
Aries (March 20-April 19)
Take care not to act out your parents’ dramas in your relationships. Their bonds were more likely based on a sense of ownership rather than friendship or partnership. You have an opportunity this week to discover how meaningful and productive a step in relational philosophy this can be for you. One of the key reasons that our personal lives are so complicated involves this issue. To even begin to take the step of recognizing one another as free people, we need to know ourselves well, and address our own weaknesses. We need to understand our emotional triggers. We need to embrace clarity in our dealings with others. These requirements leave out most of the population, despite the profound benefits of relationships created of awareness and trust rather than entanglements made of fear and expectation.
Taurus (April 19- May 20)
You may experience some wild extremes in your sex drive for the next few days, which would be fine — except for how judgmental we’re taught to be. Despite what you keep hearing, you’ve got nothing to hide. That you may have mixed feelings about being so passionate is not evidence of who you are inherently. It’s about an agenda that takes the most spiritual experience in the world and turns it into something we’re allegedly supposed to feel bad about. I invite you to try an experiment of reversing this equation, beginning with affirming your existence, your desires, your body and your intentions as evidence of only goodness and beauty. Grant yourself the space to be completely honest with yourself. Remember: once you experience a new depth of inner freedom, you won’t want to go back.
Gemini (May 20- June 21)
Remove the ‘fate’ factor from a crucial personal or business situation. You seem willing to let the pieces fall where they may, when vigilance would serve you better. Be attentive to every word spoken and action taken. I’m not suggesting that others have a negative agenda for you; rather, it seems that certain people close to you are in a lot stronger position than you are. They’re likely to be seeking encounters with those who are determined to help themselves, rather than those who are drifting or caught in their sense of victimhood. Notice your motivation as it comes in strong some days and seems to have gone missing on others. Communicate clearly, and listen till you understand. Take conscious and tangible steps toward improving your financial and personal partnerships. Look for common ground and you will find it.
Cancer (June 21- July 22)
Whatever door has swung open the past couple of months is still open, and you have access to more energy and resources than you ever imagined possible. You’re also blessed with a passport to exploration of both ideas and experiences. Most of what you felt judged for in the past will no longer stick to you — so you don’t have to live as if it will. Once you’re clear with yourself, others will feel a need to be clear with you. Embrace your own right to exist as a free person, and a space will open granting you the privilege of acting on that freedom. Meanwhile, I suggest you get out of the habit of trying to predict what others think. If you admit that you really don’t know, that will save you the burden of aspiring not to care.
Leo (July 22- Aug. 23)
Has anybody but me noted the conflict between our society’s obsession with hot romance and its other obsession with marriage? The whole situation seems doomed to turn our relationships into the kind of 18-hole scandals we love so much. Many who feel they want marriage respond by turning up the valve on sex and dating — which is unlikely to work. There are political and business agendas involved that have nothing to do with us. My question for you is: what is your agenda now? What do you need, socially, erotically and spiritually? More to the point, what do you want? If you’re clear with yourself about what you need and want, you’ll be likelier to find it, and less likely to feel bad if you don’t live up to an image of yourself.
Virgo (Aug. 23- Sep. 22)
Everyone has their own idea of fun. You believe in serious fun. That puts you in the queue for occasional serious debauchery; you need both. Yet the thing you would benefit from them having in common is that no matter what you do to amuse yourself, observe yourself doing it. Notice your obsessions, and be generous admitting them to yourself. This will feel good in a way that you’ll appreciate, daring you to align language with intention in a way that offers intellectual pleasure and the emotional pleasure of relief: the fully-absorbed idea that life is easier when you don’t hide. Over the next month or two you are likely to do pearl diving within your own psyche, discovering what else may be down there, and what else you want to reveal.
Libra (Sep. 22 – Oct. 23)
You may have more to offer than your current friends can stand. It’s not their fault; you seem to be bursting with energy and they seem to be holding back a little. You can psychoanalyze why, but it would probably be a waste of time; you have more important things to think about than why friends or partners don’t want to move their energy. For you, your motivations are worth considering, though. One thing that’s clear is that you’re needing to take deeper emotional risks than you have in recent years. And you have come to the limit of one particular self-concept, and seem determined to let that fall away and be replaced by your actual sense of existence. You know, not a persona, but an actual person. The difference can be pleasantly shocking, though it usually requires some reorientation, both emotional and social.
Scorpio (Oct. 23- Nov. 22)
Don’t push yourself to anything like a peak expression of strength or power — I suggest you reserve your energy. Now is the time to work from the interior outward. Think of this moment as the fulcrum, where small changes on a deeply personal level can result in much wider, deeper changes months or years down the seeming line of time. Actually, the observations you make about yourself, and the commitments you make to yourself, have effects immediately. Everyone in your environment is influenced. The small hang-ups you identify and release liberate energy on a much deeper level than anyone is aware. The agreements you make with yourself change your inner orientation and therefore influence every subsequent agreement you make with another person.
Sagittarius (Nov. 22 – Dec. 22)
‘Tis the season to be pushed, pulled and stretched in every possible direction, plus a few you haven’t heard of. Except for: you seem to be calm as a willow. Perhaps you’ve finally learned to let others do all the worrying, or you’ve figured out that faith works better than fear at getting you where you need to be. Here’s the thing to be cautious of: the sense that your emotions are running out of control. There’s something to be said for grounding any state of consciousness that verges on manic into a hot bath or a walk in the woods. You’re releasing so much energy right now that you may have the impulse to let it all go at once. I suggest holding your charge, like a battery. Then learn to let go in gentle bursts of energy that you can come back from, without losing yourself, relaxing into the after-effects.
Capricorn (Dec. 22- Jan. 20)
Each day you awaken deeper into a process of inner growth that finally has a life of its own; a life you can recognize and relate to. There are times when the journey seems to be directly part of your existence, and times when you seem strangely removed from it; which is of course a trick of the mind: you are your life. If there’s a theme behind these developments, it is creating a concept of responsibility that is yours alone, having nothing to do with your parents’ or prior authority figures’ notions of right, wrong or necessary. You’re developing a concept of responsibility that has little to do with what you have signed on for through much of your life. What you are learning is new, and integral to a way of seeing that the world itself is gradually accepting, first as meaningful, then as valid.
Aquarius (Jan. 20- Feb. 19)
Recent days have arrived with a shift in your self-perception, and likely, of your view of the world. It’s as if energy that was building for many months has finally tipped in one direction, which feels curiously like forward. Yet there is a review process involved. Many weeks leading up to the current moment have found you exploring your personal history from one point of view; you reached a culmination, and now it’s time to describe your process going back even further — about 10 years — and consider it from that perspective. This one may be a little more challenging to grasp or express in words or formed concepts. But here is a clue: something within your character has been in the process of dissolving, like soft stone left out in the elements year after year. That is what’s being revealed to you.
Pisces (Feb. 19- March 20)
Make careful moves this week; treat every decision like it matters, because it does. If you’re involved in a career or project that requires visibility or at least depends on your reputation, be mindful that others in key positions of influence can see you vividly now, and some are poised to reach out. This is not the time to be passive. Action starts with awareness, then choosing based on what you notice. You may feel like you’ve been navigating without being able to see the real landscape you’re in. Aspects over the next five or six days will give you a much clearer picture of where you are and how you’re getting to your next destination. Meanwhile, I suggest you take a moment and look at what you’ve accomplished in recent years. Some of what you think amounts to the least really amounts to the very most.