Later today we’ll have some tarot by Sarah Taylor. While we’re waiting, and as the Full Moon approaches, and while the Sun is conjunct 1992 QB1 (it was exact yesterday, still close today) — the first planet ever discovered orbiting our Sun beyond Pluto — I’ve got a few articles from the archives for you and a couple of new thoughts.
We’ve been discussing the patriarchy lately at Planet Waves — seems a bunch of people are figuring out that it exists. (You can read many reader comments in last Tuesday’s subscriber edition about the Varuna-Eris square.) You might say that QB1 represents a ‘non patriarchal’ view of death and transformation. To say non-patriarchal implies questioning the accepted power structure of the reality we exist within.
That means looking at the parallels between what we see in society, what we experience in our relationships, and how our minds are structured. The opposite of patriarchy is not matriarchy; it is coexistence without the need for compulsory action or the imposition of power, the threat of pain or looming punishment. As Alice Miller and others have suggested, our childhoods tend to be so dominated by these threats that we don’t know any other way, and we tend to pass along the injuries rather than reaching for a place of healing within ourselves.
The distinction is not so much left-right as it is inner-outer. When we give up inner guidance, we make ourselves susceptible to outer influences. The idea of justice is subverted by absolute power, in the form of might makes right. There is nobody who doesn’t believe that on some level, but it’s worth deconstructing. Might is merely might; it does not have to be right. Right is something else, such as justice. Imposed morals are different from ethics. Doing something at the point of a gun is different from doing something because it matters to you. Pluto usually feels like ‘change or die’. QB1 usually feels like, ‘it’s time to grow, and I want to’. If an inner struggle arises, it can be addressed without force or compulsion. That usually takes time, willingness and the power of witness, though the result is more likely to be healing rather than more damage.
As does Pluto, with QB1, this comes back to sex, and the terms on which we tend to negotiate it. We often play a game where we think sexual exchange is supposed to be about equality, then on the very next layer down it’s often about domination and submission. Listen to people and notice how much of the thrill of sexuality is about power over others.
Then imagine the missing piece that is trying to fill up. Done consciously, erotic power exchange is a beautiful place to go. It’s feels so good because we get to be honest about our tendencies. When done unconsciously, our relationships get stressed out, they have an involuntary feeling and all of our social politics suffer as a result. Power arrangements are great, as long as we know they exist. Part of what I see gathering around QB1 is the ethos and the experience of transparency around sexuality and power. We can see what exists when we pull back the veil. Power can only have validity in a world where death is more meaningful than the pleasure of existence.
Looking back through the archives, I found what may be the first thing I ever wrote about QB1, in September 2003: “QB1 may have associations with the Phoenix-like process of arising into new incarnations within our current lifetime, which often happens as a result of near-death experiences or with the experience of ‘ego death’.” That was in an article called Worlds Beyond Neptune. In a sense, QB1 is about getting close to the edge such that you can see beyond it.
One of my earliest articles on QB1 (probably the first) is called Her Name is Radha! If you’ll notice, it’s in our 2006 April Fool’s edition. File that under truth told in jest. Radha is a figure from Hindu mythology; no doubt she’s regarded as a vegetarian. The horoscopes that follow are a parody of the Jonathan Cainer horoscope, with a vegetarian theme (he’s a famous veggie; his first book was a vegetarian junk food cookbook). If you’re new to Planet Waves, especially if you’re a Jonathan Cainer fan, don’t miss those horoscopes!
In Small World Stories, the 2008 annual edition of Planet Waves, I covered a number of newly-discovered points, including an introduction to QB1. Use this link to read more about the minor planets.
Here is a recent article from April 2010, on a New Moon conjunct QB1.
I know lots of my readers are thinking about these things. Many of you have dipped into the pages of Book of Blue, which is gathering art, stories and artifacts of communication around these ideas. I’m interested where your mind and feeling body goes when you’re introduced to these ideas. You’re invited to post to the comment area, or write to me personally.
hey Eric–
these words of yours:
“That bridge is a way of accessing the unconscious — a way that is disctinctly different than the often-wrenching changes of Pluto. We are used to the Plutonic equation grow or die. QB1 seems to be more of a gentle lure, an invitation to enter a space, and a situation where one has a mode of assistance to go there. QB1 does not play the game of destroying something in order to recreate it. She is more about going beyond the known and into the unknown as a voluntary experience of saying yes.
“It is significant that QB1 lacks what is in a sense the cultural baggage of a mythological title. She is free of the garb of a morality tale or creation myth. You could say she was, and remains, an anonymous harbinger of the next major era in planetary science and its corresponding development of our model of personality. She guides us, as well, to a new place within ourselves.”
She is spot on for me now. after some time in therapy, I’ve been seeing a paradigm shift coach, and just recently, after finally realizing (to my relief, really) that i was abused in the past, i went to a guided “cutting karmic ties” meditation that was very enlightening (understatement). a key image was of a turkey vulture, whose totem is, among others, the Phoenix. And at each stage in the meditation (working on each chakra), i said “Yes” to cutting through the loads of tribal baggage, lies i tell myself, guilt, etc.
One thing that strikes me also about the “nameless” planet is that, as the thresholder, and perhaps the queen of the shadowlands, it might be appropriate for her to stay nameless. there is great power in the anonymity she holds, if only because of the lack of myth or narrative means no storyline that can often channel power away from the shadows that she represents. she is very powerful stuff.
thanks for bringing QB1 back to our attention, and right now is the perfect time.
best to you,
–J.
Jere, thank you.
Very muchly.
((H))
Ohhh, thank you for this. <3 katy
Shebear, your post was crystal! (Of course, this ‘is’ coming from ‘me’!?!)
Nice to hear ya.
your fellow field tripper,
Jere
Sorry that my previous posting was so…..garbled; worse than usual.
Ugh.
I’m relating to and learning from the inner-outer dynamic a lot these days. I’m moving in newer circles and taking in a array of new experiences and I’m sizing those experiences up inside of me and seeing how they feel and what they mean in my evolution and growth. Something else is working for me, in that I’m starting to relate to those parts of my chart that on the page seem like they’re quiet with no planetary placements in them but in actual fact, they are either serving to illuminate the meaning of the aspects on the opposite side or they are offering balance of some sort.
For the longest time I had just a limited understanding of astrology knowing just that my natal sign was Virgo. Then I became conscious of the fact that Pisces was Virgo’s counterpoint sign and that by learning about it’s energies etc it could help me balance myself out to some degree. I’m starting to apply that same learning to those *quiet* houses in my chart trying to see what I can learn from them as well. Just today, I was smiling again at Oracle’s timing and insight and how today it offered an understanding of Gemini right at the very time I was trying to figure it out in order to to help me find a way to knit my Jupiterian visions (Sadge moon and rising) with my Virgo “grounded-ness” and given a chance to materialize. As the Oracle put it for Gemini “…..at the moment, you are entering the zone of unity, in which the two of you will mysteriously, totally and momentarily merge into one being with full awareness of who you are in totality.” That added understanding of Gemini — it’s being opposite Sagittarius — is helping me fashion a different way to thinking about working with Jupiter and it has made my chart speak to me at a deeper level. Plus, entering into the *zone of unity* might be similar to standing under a moonbeam from our soon to be full moon in Libra. How timely.
Yes, right now I can definitely relate to the ego death phenomenon as well; it’s been happening for a while and seems to be intensifying lately. I wonder if QB1 has any affinities with any astrological signs?
Here is a D.H. Lawrence poem (“Phoenix”):
Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled,
made nothing?
Are you willing to be made nothing?
dipped into oblivion?
If not, you will never really change.
The phoenix renews her youth
only when she is burnt, burnt alive, burnt down
to hot and flocculent ash.
Then the small stirring of a new small bub in the nest
with strands of down like floating ash
shows that she is renewing her youth like the eagle,
immortal bird.
“QB1 may have associations with the Phoenix-like process of arising into new incarnations within our current lifetime, which often happens as a result of near-death experiences or with the experience of ‘ego death’.”
Yes, that’s going on for me right now. Ego death deluxe. The frightening thing that I’ve found with ego death is that, to the ego, it *is* death, and so the experience can be incredibly intense. And I am intellectualising it here, which affords some distance. The full-feeling reality of it is something else entirely.
such a gorgeous photo…. all of dani’s from this series are great, but i especially love this one; don’t recall seeing it before.