Yesterday Eric proclaimed this week’s astrology (which includes Mercury exiting shadow phase and the Sun ingressing Virgo, both tomorrow) to be officially “boring.” I didn’t want to rock the boat, so I thought I’d see what message I might get for Planet Waves’ readers if I pulled a card from the Sustain Yourself deck of oracle cards by James Wanless.
The card that came up was “Face to Face,” which comes with the subtitle “Love.” It’s a pretty foundational concept — that we need to give and receive love to live sustainably — yet it seemed a bit generic initially. The astrology suggests otherwise.
First, consider that the asteroid Psyche ingresses Libra today. Libra was home to last week’s Mars-Saturn conjunction, an event that had many people pushing or stretching their own boundaries and those of their relationships in an effort seek balance. If that process was rocky, you may still be feeling unsure of the balance that was struck.
Now along comes Psyche into the sign of relationships; Psyche represents the sense of a deep, soul-level wound we carry that may seem like it cannot be healed.
These tend to be the very things we least want to reveal to our relationship partners, whether romantic or platonic. We get ashamed very easily of the parts of our selves and our psyches that we think are ‘broken’. Now consider the Face to Face card. Its collage is made up of three sets of couples’ faces close together and/or looking at each other, plus two individual songbirds in mid-warble. In its keywords, Wanless emphasizes that “Life is relationship” — we need to relate, engage and empathize, eye to eye and heart to heart, communicating to communicate.
What psychic wounds do you have that relate specifically to who you are in relationships? Do you feel as though your relationships are always doomed because of this thing about yourself you fear cannot be ‘fixed’? Or did all of last week’s stretching and balancing leave you with a larger, stronger sense of relationship space in which you might explore what you have not yet dared to explore with a healing goal? If so, you have a sense of what to do next, and that diving in, face to face and heart to heart, comes next.
This does not run counter to Eric’s advice from yesterday, which was to focus on finishing a specific project and to focus on discovering a specific thing about yourself as a way to feel good about yourself. Rather, the Face to Face card is a reminder that your focus on finishing and discovery need not be done in isolation. In fact, if your focus on self-discovery takes you anywhere near places within yourself that you fear cannot be healed, the opposite is crucial.
Try speaking these discoveries out loud, to a partner, friend or select community. Ask one or more of these people to assist you as you finish your project, and offer the same to them. Life coach Barbara Sher is fond of saying, “Isolation is the dream killer.” If you dream of finishing the project, or understanding yourself, or putting a psychic wound of some sort into perspective so you can work on it, don’t think you have to sequester yourself. Focus is not the same as isolation.
Remember, the Sun is making its ingress to Virgo Wednesday, and before it does so, it is conjunct the hypothetical point Transpluto in late Leo (this is where Eric got the ‘focus’ theme). Both Transpluto and Virgo can come with a tendency toward self-criticism. Self-criticism is its worst when we allow ourselves to be isolated in our thoughts. Usually when we express self-critical thoughts to another, we give the other person a chance to help us see another perspective, to question our beliefs about ourselves. Any monsters of self-doubt lurking under the bed get shrunk down to dust-bunny size.
Mercury, in leaving its last shadow phase after its last retrograde for almost three months, is giving the Sun the ‘all clear’ to enter Virgo, which Mercury rules. Among Virgo’s more positive qualities is a true calling to and love of service. As you finish your project and focus on that nugget of self-discovery, leaving you feeling better about yourself, remember to extend the feeling, face to face, with another. A little self-love goes a long way when you share it with a friend, intimate partner or community. In return, you may put whatever the asteroid Psyche represents into better balance.
Thank you Amanda 🙂 for the info of Psyche in Libra is better that the Virgin or the asteroid remained for several months and I look forward to its retro phase in Scorpio
You are just beautiful P. Sophia. You prove that the symbolic meanings of the planets (and all other symbols for that manner) transcend personal interpretation, to community interpretation, and beyond to country and global and universal interpretation. Often we can only relate to the personal but once that has been absorbed, it is a tonic for the soul to be able to go beyond that. I thank you for connecting the dots, and a most special thanks to your Gemini Venus!
Len and Jude ~ you whose opinions and writing I admire so much ~ have blessed me with your recognition of what is there for all to see and that which I only delivered to the doorstep. Jude’s example of “a truth so difficult to trust” and Len’s observation yesterday that “There is even an intriguing indication that the Divine Feminine may manifest more plainly” express the sweet relationship you both have with the ethers guiding our growth.
Amanda, I second Len’s comment and appreciate your gift of the draw!
Eric, as Len quoted, says about the “bendings” of the nodes that it “gives the event the feeling of an eclipse, or a point of no return”. With that in mind, the Sun entering Virgo after the eclipse in May it is a totally left and right brain observation that P. Sophia’s connection of the Rape configuration among the planetary bodies now applies not just to the women of America, but to all whose receptive and giving natures have been abused by those whose agressive natures have gotten out of balance. First in line would be the Planet Earth.
Thanks too to aword who provided the specific story that brought the focus of Rape to light for any readers who wisely shun television. Thanks to asteroids Psyche and Hebe at 0 Libra who are connecting us to the political, as is Asclepius the healer at 0 Cancer and Ophelia at 0 Capricorn. I would only add the other symbol of Kore’s father, the Uranian Point Zeus, who trines Jupiter from 13+ Libra today. There is a series of exerpts from a book by Kathie Carlson called “Death & Return in the Myth of Demeter and Persephone” that sheds light on how the father of Persephone “allowed” the Rape of his daughter, neither protesting or openly agreeing to her abduction, which speaks of the changes in the societies at that time and which still exist as Todd Aiken’s crude remarks attest to. Here is the link to those exerpts, of which there are 5 I believe, so if this brings you in between somewhere, go to the bottom of the page to connect to all of them.
be
http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/rrpersephone5.html
…And this is not to negate be’s and/or the current nation’s rape discussion under microscope. I believe it is quite literally related to Goddess–correlating to our complete disrespect and raping of ‘Mother’ Earth.
Be, (All),
Thank for the information and your insight into the discussion. I was struck by the details because I noticed you mentioned Ceres’ placement on chart is the same as my Natal, Venus +20 Gemini.
This got me to thinking of the very impressionable corresponding Transit of Venus we all experienced in May as associated to Mother Earth (Ceres). I believe the transit happened in Gem at similar degree. Also i read yesterday in Len’s blog comments this aspect is again somehow related and reflected in the aspect of alinement coming up tomorrow. This started me on a discovery…
Please, I offer here a link, and an exert relating to Ceres, the Archetype, Mother / Rescuer -detailed below:
Perhaps we can draw that we are symbolized ‘Kore’, and now indeed is our time and direction- In role in placing us in balance to protect our ‘wilt’, ‘dying’, mourning Mother Earth?
http://thirdeyecoven.ning.com/m/group/discussion?id=6480723%3ATopic%3A87838
“For centuries in Ancient Rome the ultimate vision of a mother was seen through the face of Ceres. She is most commonly thought of as Grain Goddess; a solely agricultural deity and patroness of those who work the land. This is far too simple a role for such an important Goddess as Ceres. To followers of her mysteries she was the caregiver of the Earth and all who lived upon it. In many ways she was seen as the Earth itself.
Kore, Ceres’ daughter, brought the Goddess much joy and while Ceres could hold her child in her arms all was right on Earth. Crops grew, animals multiplied, and flowers colored the land in splendor. But then Kore was taken into the Underworld by Pluton (Hades). Ceres’joy turned into terrible sorrow. Her heart broke without her little girl and the Earth began to wilt and die. As the Goddess mourned, so too did the Earth. Fruit rotted on the vine, flowers turned black with death, and nothing would grow. The land was barren and empty like Great Mother Ceres’ heart.”
so glad to hear this is resonating, and special thanks to be koehler for the added astrology! i think you may be right about this one, in terms of the national conversation becoming more keen-eyed as it looks at rape.
be: Thank you. You are a profoundly great astrologer. You take my breath away with your discovery and how you express it.
Amanda: Thank you. From this perch it appears as though you and your oracle deck are in rhythm with the ambient synchronicity of things. i especially treasure your image how the timing of Mercury emerging from its echo (or “shadow”) phase symbolically gives the Sun an “all clear” signal – that is a primo piece of prognostication. Your quote from Barbara Sher is also well taken. Thank you so very much, Amanda, for every one of your well-chosen and exquisitely crafted words today.
Yes, yes and YES, be — this is the first time the whole nation has grabbed a “gaffe” on rape and shaken it hard to see what’s in it … and after HOW many of them, egregious though they were. Genuine progress!
And thank you, Amanda, for both the piece and the card: very sweet graphic! Time is the great teacher and what it’s taught me over the long haul is the sooner I accepted myself, warts and all, the sooner I was found acceptable by everyone else; a truth so difficult to trust when we’re focused on what we have judged against, so quick to transform everything once we let it go.
Thank you Amanda, and thank you Be for a running start to my day.
For any reader not familiar with the news story, ye olde’ lie that rape victims don’t get pregnant has re-surfaced in current American Myth:
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/democrats-tie-akin-legitimate-rape-comments-romney-ryan-140845923.html
“Democrats are trying to tie Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan to GOP Rep. Todd Akin’s claim that victims of “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant, accusing Republicans of trying to drag women back to “the Dark Ages.””
Perhaps this is off-topic in some ways, but when you say Transpluto can mean self-criticism, which when expressed, can help see another persective and question our beliefs about self, I decided to kick it up a notch and look at the American psyche as expressed by one Republican candidate from Missouri yesterday (or maybe the day before). It’s only a tiny segment of the American psyche, surely not shared with any of PW’s readers, but indicative of something suppressed within the whole of it, which is longing to be exposed and transformed.
Understanding the meaning of Rape, primarily of women but also on occasion of men, has evaded being exposed to light long enough to ever be understood by all of society. Remembering one of the most famous myths about Rape, that of Ceres’ daughter, Kore (Core), who later became known as Persephone, seemed a likely place to start looking for clues as to why this topic has become so glaringly political.
Today Persephone the asteroid is at 13+ Virgo, symbolized by the Sabian Symbol of An Aristocratic Family Tree (keynote: A deep reliance upon the ancestral roots of individual character) suggesting an “in-grained” behaviour pattern passed down through generations of related souls. Oddly coincidental, Persephone’s (Kore’s) father, Jupiter (Zeus) happens to be at 13+ Gemini today, representing not only a square but a duality of thought in the challenge to understanding what is Rape. There is also transiting Karma at 13+ Leo which in a sextile to Jupiter seems to signify that the time is ripe for getter a better feeling about the meaning of Rape. As Ceres-Persephone are representative of the cycle of vegative growth, it connects to the sign of Virgo as well as to the cycle of life and death represented by Pluto and Hades.
Venus at 13+ Cancer today is conjunct the U.S. Sun and in a supportive sextile to Persephone at 13+ Virgo, and Venus is tied to the “Face to Face” subtitle of Love. In Cancer she has access to the “stage” of Family and Mother for showing this support. At the moment, the ruler of Cancer, the Moon, is in Libra moving into a conjunction with Astraea (I will never leave you) and a trine to Kore’s Mother Ceres at 20+ Gemini.
As there is no astral body named Kore/Core I checked on the location of asteroid Cora today and she is at 29+ Leo and conjunct Isis-Transpluto at 29 Leo and the Sun at 28 Leo 56. On a broad level as well as a deep level, I believe we are witnessing and even participating in a focusing of the U.S. psyche’s attempt to transform and therefore heal itself in the matter of Rape. Astrology is a matter of as above so below, and Amanda has responded to that message with this message. Thanks for providing this space for us again PlanetWaves.
be
be
Reading this, Amanda, I am getting a clue about the mystery of my Virgo moon. And yes, I need to ask for help from my community to complete a lot of projects, inner and outer. I’ve been isolating myself. thank you.
You are so completely accurate in describing perfectly the inner landscape of the present moment. Thank you dear Amanda, it is a pleasure to share our journey together. You are appreciated.
“A little self-love goes a long way when you share it with a friend, intimate partner or community”. Yes. Such a lovely piece. Thank you, Amanda.