Sari writes below:
There was a processional wobble last week (19th march) a birth pang on our path to the 2012, and these days we are truly under pressure. Retrograde Venus hopefully will encourage us females to take responsibility for our competitiveness and ruthless drive to be top dog. If we are really going into a golden age, we can’t be blaming men all the time. When it comes to addiction, a painful heart can be masked by substances, but its only when we shine the clear light of the rational onto our problems can we begin to give love one more chance.
Thanks for this reminder, Sari.
We’re in the last hours of the Aries New Moon, which of course throws the spotlight onto Venus retrograde. The Moon, as it’s now in the extreme waning phase by just two degrees, makes new a series of conjunctions over the next few days, and we can fee these.
The planets are currently clustered to one side of the solar system (one quarter, actually) and this has always felt to me like a moment when experience is especially concentrated. This has been going on for months, as the planets grouped first in Aquarius, then Pisces and now in Aries. The cluster is starting to fan out a little bit (spread mostly through three signs), but still the Moon goes past all of these planets in about one week; then it squares them; then it opposes them; then it squares them again; and so on.
(Of note, today’s New Moon is square Pluto in early Capricorn.)
So this is a ride. It’s superconcentrated time. And this feeling is increased as the Sun reaches the cardinal points, which it’s just done and which is still unfolding.
Sun-Venus in Aries is about how we relate to this strange concentric experience of seeking self in self and self in other; and of seeing other in self. Ego structure can be really a strange thing to study; it’s often a question of how perception perceives, and that means how it perceives itself in relationship to other. Part of where I know we get into trouble is having not claimed ourselves, our existence, as independent from other.
I would also relate that there are theories of personality that explain how and why the male and female ego structure are significantly different entities, and conceive of existence differently. We can train ourselves to see from other viewpoints, but we don’t often see the one we have — and gender roles are so accepted as at least being different that we don’t often see the many ways that this difference influences our cosmology.
Were we to actually experience gender as a diverse experience within ourselves, that is, actually and consciously, it would feel a lot looser than the current rules make it out to be. Venus retrograde in Aries is one meaningful version of an alternate reality; it’s a way to seek something within ourselves that we tend to project outward. I would sketch it out a little like this — for men (particularly heterosexual, but not only), we have an opportunity to seek this elusive, beyond-beautiful thing we see as Woman as existing within ourselves; and some of the contradictions we project onto Woman as also being inner experiences as well. For Woman, she has an opportunity to be a self without having to orient into relationship with Man as a prerequisite.
This is a veiled subject in many ways, this notion of seeking the validity of self in other, thoughВ think it may be one of the most all-encompassing factors of human existence at the moment. If we don’t look, this makes it very difficult to see who we are, and if we do look, we get many opportunities to see the choices we have about how to relate to one another.
Brother Sun and Sister Moon coming together represent a greater joining; a merging of the two major elements of personality; that which expresses and that which reflects.
A few thoughts on this waning phase. Keep an eye on that pressure. Personally I’m sitting here deciding what less I can do for everyone.
I think the seeking of the “other” also has a lot to do with that whole drive to reproduce. We seek that other to make another being but in seeking, we attach all sorts of emotional and psychological “finding self in other” with it that we may or may not really need. Just as planets in opposition tend to pull on one another while transferring stuff on the other, we do this in relationships.
Musicman, love that instrumental analogy because it IS genderless and it so well expresses that the instrument can be a solo AND a partner AND a part of a collective or group while still being the instrument that it is. It doesn’t need to change what it is to do all three things; it only changes how it works with other instruments.
Maya, I read a really good book called “The Right and Left Brain” by R. Joseph that talks about that very thing; being conscious or unconscious in any relationship. The author posited that most people live their entire lives subconsciously; their subconscious talks to other people’s subconsciouses and they never understand why they are so messed up. When they DO become conscious, they begin to see what the late Robert A Wilson called their metaprogrammer, that overmind that thinks about thinking. They see every relationship consciously and work with people and themselves from that standpoint. As R.A.W once said, once that kind of conscious living starts, it is almost impossible to revert back to unconscious living because it is like a person that lived in a dark room all her life until one day the light comes on for a few seconds. Even though the light may go back off, the person never forgets what they saw in the flash of light and lives differently from that point on. (I sure miss R.A.W. and his insights!) Both these authors helped me see and live consciously and for that I am grateful.
The only down side I can see in conscious living is the loneliness that can come because once you live consciously, you are not in the majority and dealing with people can be very frustrating, like trying to walk in thickening cement. My older brother used to say that most people are unconscious “sheep” that are easily led. I found him to be wrong about that because even the so-called “sheep” can sense people that are conscious and they seem to either attach to them like hungry leeches, wanting to be “taught” or they resent the conscious living ones and do their best to undermine them.
Note: I hate the term “sheep” because it implies that the unconscious are somehow inferior to conscious living people; they are not inferior they are just on their own path of living and will become conscious if or when they are supposed to. When unconscious people cause problems for me, I have to think there must be a reason they came into my life, they serve a good purpose and are as sacred in themselves as anyone is. Unfortunately my brother didn’t see it that way. He showed me that even conscious people can mess up so it doesn’t pay to get arrogant.
Regarding the people in the article, I believe that this kind of scenario is going to become more common as is the one where grown children reside with their parents even after marriage because of the economic advantages of that. I have seen grown siblings and their significant others living together in one apartment or house to save money. We will end up being more collective and the short-lived “nuclear family” experiment may fall to the wayside for economic reasons.
The nuclear family ideology happened because, as Stephanie Coontz said in one of her books, the WWII machine cranked out so many goods but there weren’t enough buyers with war-ravaged Europe and Japan and they needed a mobile work force so the idea of young couples moving away and focusing on just themselves and their children was pushed via the media. This was a great way to sell more household goods, cars, and homes. People were told, via media articles, public service announcements and in TV sitcoms that social security would take care of their aging parents so they could be free to concentrate on their own kids and move away. This was seen as a “new life” for them, a prosperous life. This was when the old “keeping up with the Jones family” line was promoted and the “buy this washer or these dishes and you can be like the Cleavers or the Donna Reed family” ideology was inferred. The more sustainable way of living of the Depression era was forgotten and it was every-man-for-himself. It is no longer sustainable so we have to move to something better; communal living such as what this family in the article is doing makes better sense for the planet not to mention the children.
along the same lines as PH, one of the things I’ve been getting lately is that you have 2 ways to go in a situation, especially relating to others: you can approach it consciously or unconsciously. While you might make the exact same choice when you’re acting consciously, it carries a VERY different energy than the unconscious choice. Not a news flash, I know, but I guess my point is that when I approach relationship with other as a mirror to know myself, and when I lean on validation to get more grounded in my ability to do it for myself, it becomes an avenue for growth rather than for stagnation and the avoidance of self actualization. It sort of relies on the concept of scaffolding that teachers use. For me, it’s been the most effective and direct route I’ve ever found. Same choice, different intention, different results. YMMV.
There are 2 levels (at least….if not 64) to this…..
Imagine you are an orchestral instrument……Violin…..Viola….Cello…..or Bass…
Your existence as an instrument only makes sense in the context of your completion of the music…ie your relationship to all of the other instruments is completely inter-dependant……
One amazing orchestral version of “Under Pressure” and we all are in excelsis….
The other level is your own history of performance with different Orchestras and Groups…..
A great Quartet gig the other night….but a difficult Solo Improvisation with that motherf****r of a Baritone Saxophone.
One is interpersonal….the other is your history…..it is the cross talk that can do damage….
And you notice that this analogy is gender free…….!!
As a physical male….I genuinely love my feminine energy balancing out the masculine bits…..particularly in the music/ ephemeral world……and also in the physical ….!!
This a a great day to feel it all…….as my Reggae friends would put it……
“Man fer juss feeeell it up one time…….!”
With love and thanks…………!!
PH