Dear Friend and Reader:
We are under a new influence — Mars in Taurus. This lasts through August 20, when we begin the mini-era of Mars in Gemini, which includes Mars retrograde and its long square to Neptune. This is for another article — and I covered it in a recent edition of Planet Waves TV.
Mars in Taurus is the placement of burning desire. It is the reminder of physicality and its hungers. It may be extremely disorienting under disembodied, full digital conditions; it may serve as a point of orientation.
Let’s consider the parts of the equation.
Aries is pure concept, and potentially, motivation. Taurus gives a concept sufficient density for tangible expression, and relative stability. Aries is the fleeting idea. Taurus is the sketch or the model — something you can keep, and develop.
With Mars, the ruler of Aries, now moving through Taurus, concept and motivation infuse physical matter. It is possible to get a result by changing the shape of physical existence; and there is also the potential frustration of placing a dynamic and movable idea like Mars in a much denser medium like Taurus.
This is happening while several other conditions are present in the neighborhood of Aries and Taurus. Those include Chiron and Eris in Aries, and Uranus, Albion and Sedna in Taurus.
In great contrast, Eris in Aries is a disruptive force, present since the late 1920s, that is creating turmoil within the idea of being; mostly, it’s about the effect of full digital and electrical conditions — on consciousness.
Chiron and Eris in Aries
Slow-moving Chiron and Eris in Aries are influencing self-concept, or the idea of self. This is shown by the obsession with ‘identity’ in our time. Chiron in Aries, present since 2018, strives to bring some order and organization to self-concept.
In great contrast, Eris in Aries is a disruptive force, present since the late 1920s, that is creating turmoil within the idea of being; mostly, it’s about the effect of full digital and electrical conditions — on consciousness. Eris in Aries describes the disembodied, multiple-personality, anything-goes quality of the past century. This is tribal existence, which does not brook individuality.
Chiron is doing what it can to help us weave or re-establish cohesion of self in the midst of these conditions. It is all about the establishment of an individual point of view. But Chiron is a more complex and multidimensional idea of being than (for example) Mars. It is more suited to address the chaos of Eris in a holographic way.
Mars can be reduced to the formula EAT + HAMBURGER. Chiron cannot. Yet Chiron can be the influence to understand yourself, to seek the cause of pain, to help others, and to bring some sense of cohesion into your existence even under chaotic conditions. This is why Chiron is such an important influence in the realm of teaching and of healing practice, which are closely related. Both are about cohesion.
Apropos of all that, the sensation of Chiron is more sublime — though it’s also about the need for awareness at the outset and throughout a healing process. This is the price of Chiron: total vigilance and the maturity that it requires.
Cohesion and Conspiracy
However, there is a challenge. Where there is chaos, a cohesive narrative can seem conspiratorial. Something that actually makes sense can seem senseless, offensive or dangerous when perceived through the filter of turmoil.
Under current conditions, EAT + HAMBURGER may seem to make much more ’sense’ than ’seek to understand the cause of pain’. At least you can sense physical desire physically, and it comes with instructions for what to do (GO TO WENDY’S. PLACE ORDER.)
Or simply, ATTACK SOMEONE. We see a lot of this as the supposed “answer” to the pain of disembodiment, both on and off the internet. The worse the disembodiment, the more attack we are likely to see — until a spiritual solution catches on.
Apropos of all that, the sensation of Chiron is more sublime — though it’s also about the need for awareness at the outset and throughout a healing process. This is the price of Chiron: total vigilance and the maturity that it requires. Chiron requires an organizational system to contain what is learned. It is not merely ‘in the moment’. The discoveries of Chiron can be successfully passed to another person.
Here in our sibling society, one must be ‘ready’ for that. Chiron might come with the sensation of the whole past surfacing for review at once: all the pain and struggle and unresolved material. Chiron can feel like a threat to those who over-use denial as a way of getting through the day and through their lives. It may feel like it’s slicing through the bubble of that denial, breaching the container.
Do you vibrate faster, or slower, to attain stability under Uranus in Taurus? That makes a useful and ongoing experiment. Whatever the influence that may be in it, Taurus still wants to sit by the lake and contemplate the reflection on the water.
Uranus in mid-Taurus
Second, physical matter itself is under the influence of slow-moving Uranus in Taurus, which started in 2018. That which is supposed to be dependably structured (Taurus) is now electrified (by Uranus). This shifts the density level where stability is accessible.
Do you vibrate faster, or slower, to attain stability under Uranus in Taurus? That makes a useful and ongoing experiment. Whatever the influence that may be in it, Taurus still wants to sit by the lake and contemplate the reflection on the water.
Stability may not be accessible to certain individuals or in certain places and times. Uranus (uranium) can be fissionable, and it does not take a lot of the stuff to get a chain reaction going. That is one source of the feeling of everything about to unravel, explode or destroy itself — a perfect accompaniment to our end-times mentality.
Living with Pluto in Capricorn self-destructing all of society’s most stable institutions (since 2008, or even back to the Saturn-Pluto opposition of 2001) has left us with the expectation that things will fall apart. That is not exactly encouragement to build something new, or to trust any process of rebuilding.
Sedna is transitioning into Gemini beginning in the summer of 2023, part of the sweeping changes that will again overtake society in early 2023. One of its themes is how we respond, as a species, to climate change.
Sedna in Late Taurus
There are two other influences in Taurus: slow-movers Albion (1992 QB1) and Sedna. Because they refer to such deep and sensitive subject matter, these do not lend themselves to easy analysis, though it’s simplest to say that they offer contact with physical and emotional experience. Let’s consider Sedna first.
Sedna’s orbit of about 11,400 years is far slower than Eris (558 years) or Pluto (248 years). So it is a deep influence, and its strange orbit suggests that a planet caught in Earth’s gravity from another star.
Sedna, rarely discussed by astrology, transitioned into Taurus in the summer of 1966 through 1968 and has been there since. It is now in the last degree of Taurus, which means that it is more prominent than usual. It was named for the Inuit goddess of the sea and marine animals.
Sedna is transitioning into Gemini beginning in the summer of 2023, part of the sweeping changes that will again overtake society in early 2023. One of its themes is how we respond, as a species, to climate change.
Melanie Reinhart sums up Sedna as: keep your heart open in hell. We shall see how that manifests as an influence in Gemini, when our neighbors and local community become more important than ever.
Albion describes the sane approach to treating the sexual mistrust, injury and family legacy that stands in the way of growth. This is usually glued into place by shame and guilt, and the embarrassment that surrounds nearly any sexual conversation.
Albion in Taurus: The Conversation We Need to Have
Albion, formerly 1992 QB1, is now in mid-Taurus. It was discovered 30 years ago this summer — the first planet beyond Pluto to be found orbiting our Sun.
Albion is the gentle lure of transformation, as opposed to the “grow or die” approach of Pluto. It pertains to the process of sexual healing that is necessary for any true spiritual development. Said another way, what we usually think of as “spirituality” excludes sexuality. This can include some of the most intimate situations of our lives. It is Albion that reminds us of this false division, approaching the matter of healing from an emotional perspective rather than mental.
Albion describes the sane approach to treating the sexual mistrust, injury and family legacy that stands in the way of growth. This is usually glued into place by shame and guilt, and the embarrassment that surrounds nearly any sexual conversation.
Those authorities who have weighed down sexuality with moral and political issues were very clever. They successfully oriented people on death as the ultimate power, and derailed people from true inner awareness.
We will be getting a tour of all of these influences in Taurus between now and Aug. 20 — all of it preparation for Mars retrograde in Gemini later in the year. For more on that, please see the newest Planet Waves TV.
Faithfully,
