In the contact sport known as life, we have arrived at the first quarter of the lunar cycle. It’s been one week since the New Moon conjunct Vesta opposite Pluto, on the solstice. In other words, the event, aspecting the Aries Point, that sent the shockwaves through our collective emotional world and bumped quite a few people off the cosmic physical plane; and which has jolted so many of us to new levels of awareness, particularly emotional awareness.
The combination of energies I described in Friday’s lead article, which includes the planets I’ve mentioned above plus Venus and Mars, is about standing at the existential nexus of love, surrender, sacrifice, death and aliveness. If you feel like this is a get real moment, it is. If you are feeling like you have no idea what to do: ask yourself politely to get real, and be clear about what it’s time to do.
This is the place of focus and decision, of truth and dedication, so persistently avoided with the use of so many games, so much emphasis on the trivial, all the chatter, denial and dizziness: the place where we get to become aware, no matter how sleepy or tired or tried by the trials of life, aware that we are actually alive. That awareness inherently demands commitment: of both attention and decision.
We are at the first quarter phase of the Moon. It was precise at about 7 am New York time. The first quarter is the midpoint of the new and full phases; it’s a point of high energy, momentum, and it’s also a turning point or an evaluation point. At this phase, the Moon is now in an air sign, Libra — the easier signs for the Moon, actually – therefore it is trine Nessus in mid-Aquarius; trine Mercury in Gemini; and in about trine the triple conjunction in Aquarius. Mercury as well will trine off of the triple conjunction, ringing like a clear bell, opening a tap into that energy.
These are great days to be mindful what you think, and how you think it, and to be aware of what motivates you to do so. A lot of information is about to come in. Be as mindful as you can be. Once again: this is no ordinary time, but we’ll only notice if we stay in the moment.
PS, for fans of Michael Jackson, a reader sent in this article that reads like pretty darned good jornsoism (um, I meant journalism). It’s from The Daily Mail — a paper that, while it has conservative leanings and is something of a scandal sheet, is what I would consider carefully enough edited to consider.
We had better get used to this kind of story — it’s going to be going on for quite a while. PPS, a new birth time is going around for Jackson, purportedly from an astrologer he did extensive work with, who can now release the data. The time is 7:33 pm.I will post details in a future blog. Cam has also pulled together something from the archives about Nessus for later today — Nessus being the most prominent minor planet in the chart for Michael’s final exit.
Eric wrote “But if blacks still love him; which they seem to; so be it.” I remember my similar reaction to the Bible story of the prodigal son as being a total lack of understanding as to why the father would, not only take the long lost son back, but make a big celebration about it. It’s all about (tribal) feelings I’m sure, rather than common sense. A sense of relief for the “parent”.
Anyway, the awareness of what is the “best” way to look, behave and where to have a home begins to develop at a painfully early age. Take it from a person with Saturn in Aries, any assurance that you are “good enough the way your are” won’t penetrate very far into a youngster’s consciousness. Seeing is believing and one grows up striving to become one of the “best”. However, after a while, it is possible, hopefully probable, to step back from the pressure to be like everyone (who is anyone) and notice the great among us who have followed their own program. Apparently that awareness, or the opportunity to apply it, comes at varying ages for everyone. Probably transits and progressions to a birth chart could give clues to the timing, but until it does, those childhood impressions, even if unconscious, will continue to set the standard for an individual who has deemed himself (herself) not acceptable as is.
Belle, he had about 17 plastic surgeries from what I have read. I don’t trust what any doctor says about him; I don’t trust what they say about me. There is no doubt that the sequence of surgeries were designed to eliminate negro features, and that he looked progressively more feminine until the process started to cave in. And no, I don’t even pretend to begin to understand him, only particular elements of his experience; though I would say to anyone who is about to spend their life before an audience, don’t let your audience define you. This is extremely tricky, since many of the most famous people and effective communicators tend to take the audience and put it on like a mask.
I think that MJ’s struggle over his image was deeply invested in his relationship with how he saw himself and how he perceived himself as being seen; and I think this issue extends to the most average non-famous person’s Facebook page as well. In a sense under our postmodern regime we are all to some extent public figures managing a public image, and from there, it’s easy to slip into being a creation of your ‘audience’. Many, many, many of us in the most ordinary social environments struggle with what we think that others expect us to be; and trying to live up to that.
I can tell you that you need to be very, very strong to avoid that happening. It’s not about being confident who you are, necessarily – it’s about being relentlessly curious, and to a real extent, shameless. Perhaps it takes one to know one, but I detect a profound struggle with shame under MJ that I don’t think he was free enough to withstand. I would propose that anyone who has consciously entered a relationship with their gender identity or their racial identity understands this shame; which is connected to our moorings of identity within society.
ding into grossly simplistic and sneering cheap shots at someone whose psyche you pretend to understand.
I don’t think there’s any fear of you being mistaken for someone other a Sicilian at this point.
Oops! I’m sorry–did that come across as intolerant and prejudicial? It must be going around.
“this gets undermined only by MJ’s intense desire to transition into a white woman. But if blacks still love him; which they seem to; so be it. I have avoided it because he didn’t seem to want to be black. If I spent a lifetime pretending not to be Sicilian, I would not expect the Colombo family to give me a 21 gun salute.”
Hm. You know, sometimes you write the most insightful, well-informed, sensitive and thoughtful analyses of people, culture, and the forces that shape both. And I’ve seen you openly share your grief over the loss of a loved one, or the passing of a public figure, without descen43\
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from Germaine Geer –
‘Like Orpheus, Michael Jackson was destroyed by his fans’
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/26/michael-jackson-death-in-la
But I remember reading that he told Diana Ross that he wanted to look like her – and then he began the odd transition. I didn’t get the impression he wanted to be white – just beautiful, and Diana Ross was his ideal beauty.
Yes – this gets undermined only by MJ’s intense desire to transition into a white woman. But if blacks still love him; which they seem to; so be it. I have avoided it because he didn’t seem to want to be black. If I spent a lifetime pretending not to be Sicilian, I would not expect the Colombo family to give me a 21 gun salute.
Something to think about that only occurred to me last night as I happened to tune in to the BET Awards and was very white of me to overlook; the impact that Michael Jackson had on the African American community. Like a lot of issues, my black friends had vastly different reactions to MJ’s death that I am going to touch on in a piece I am writing, but that is something I haven’t seen really spoken about here or anywhere else–he was a beacon of hope and opportunity as well as an aspirational figure for many young black people at a time when there were few…. just my three cents in the aftermath.