Today is Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011. The Moon is in Aries all day, lending a bit of impetuous fire to our emotions. In the course of the day it briefly joins with Eris and Black Moon Lilith for a couple of brief conjunctions that may amplify any sense of your shadow feminine side being shunned or cast aside. Here is the question — to what extent do you identify with the ‘outcast’? Does it feel familiar? What would you do without that identity to fall back on? If you had a choice, would you have something different?
Meanwhile, the Taurus Full Moon is approaching. This happens on Thursday, one of several opposition aspects this week that is reminding us to be aware what is our material, and what belongs to others. Another opposition was Mars-Neptune (that was exact Monday, but is still in effect). Then when Mars enters Virgo Friday, it opposes Chiron.
Mars-Chiron, the first big event that happens when Mars enters Virgo, is the full expression of warrior energy. One thing our society does is churn out warriors, be they soldiers, cops, political operatives, emergency room staff or corporate operatives. At the same time, political correctness gone too far in denaturing men. And even the backlash to PC has gone too far, back to the extreme of detached stoicism or unapologetic aggression that we have long associated with maleness.
Across Virgo and Pisces, however, Mars-Chiron speaks of the elusive concept of the ‘spiritual warrior’. That’s the man or woman on the quest for wholeness, who devotes him- or herself to healing and service. It’s a concept in tune with the changing times, and the revolutionary astrology constantly simmering in the background. Have you ever fully devoted yourself to justice? Have you offered yourself fiercely to the service of something larger than yourself? Many have not, instead committing great time and energy to causes that were not altogether in line with their values.
With Mars opposite Chiron, the fog clears and you can see your goals — and go for them. Consider that potential adversaries just may end up being your allies or partners in healing, so treat them well. That is not to say ‘be fake’, but rather remember basic empathy and reach for common ground. If we dream of world peace and a society that’s in harmony, the implication is that we would be getting along with the people we don’t currently like or agree with. Who else do we need to get along with?
Mars entering Virgo is the first bell ringing on Mars retrograde, which happens in Virgo between Jan. 23 and April 13. Mars will spend nine months in one sign, most of it making a big loop in the sky as the Earth passes between it and the Sun. It finally leaves Virgo and enters Libra on July 3. We will have gotten used to this transit long before it’s finally over.
This is a long-term event, with many themes related to how we treat ourselves psychologically. There is something here about attending to the details without getting lost in them; also something about obsessive self-criticism and what we are going to do with it. We’ll revisit those themes again when Mars goes retrograde. For now, tuck them away, maybe journal on them a bit, and let them percolate.
A bit more immediately, the Scorpio Sun is making a trine to Ceres, from Scorpio to Pisces. Sun-Ceres in the water signs suggests you keep in contact with your emotional flow, reaching for deeper authenticity than usual. Remember that most of how we get by in our society is to ourselves cut off from any emotion at all, and we have plenty of help doing so. Consider how the food you eat makes you feel. Does it suppress your emotions or help you make contact with your body? Does food make you sleepy or alert? What foods put you in contact with what emotions?
What would feed your dreams? That’s the thing to nourish yourself with now. Do you feed your dreams with ‘comfort food’ or do you feed them with something actually nourishing? With a Scorpio Sun trine Ceres, the image is feeding your erotic dreams. Sex is about pleasure, contact and — in the language of Scorpio — transformation. Your sexual dreams and desires are not idle wishes but rather a correspondence with the deepest part of your psyche; a direct form of nourishment.
One last thought on the Chiron-Pisces wavelength. Jupiter, the ruling planet of Pisces, is in Taurus right now. These days it’s going over the degree where Chiron was discovered back in 1977 — that would be 3+ Taurus. This is like an honorary conjunction between Chiron and Jupiter. The relationship between these two planets is one of applying knowledge. Jupiter has a lot of theoretical knowledge, and Chiron is all about putting things to practical use. One way to feed your dreams is to treat them as practical matters that have a life of their own and want to be supported. You can do that in the most pragmatic ways.
Looking for insights on how this week’s astrology affects your personal Sun and rising signs? Try out Planet Waves Light, our streamlined horoscope service. For deeper cultural context and astrological investigation, the premium Planet Waves subscription includes the same horoscopes, plus extensively-researched articles on Fridays.
I am going to aim high and hope for a new word; one that is absent from the ways, the means, the premise of warring all together. No need to protect, no need to suffer; as the illusion is seen it is instantly transformed just by seeing it.
I picked a Louise Hay card today: “I always have a choice. I choose to believe that it is easy to change a thought or pattern.”
Frodo was a bit of a seeker, was he not? He sought to end Sauron, end the Ring itself, and sometimes it seemed that he would end himself as well to truly rid the menace.
And so on: he sought the right path into Mordor, he sought to be strong and courageous, he sought to protect the Shire, and he sought to protect his friends.
Lots of seeking there.
I am partial to “spiritual defender” or “spiritual protector” myself. Frodo protected everyone from the power of Sauron and the One Ring. How about those for better, not war-like terms?
as yoda says, in response to luke saying he’s looking for a great warrior:
“wars not make men great.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtfejKs_mI4
😉
Ah, but Madame Zerosity, the root ‘war’ is the problem. How about ‘pazzior’ as an alternative. A Pazzior Manifesto would begin something like :
“Definition: Paz. Not just ‘peace’ but called back into English as the palindrome of ‘zap.’
“Definition: Paz()zaP is the moment of deepest integrity with and celebration of the Opponent in its multiform splendor.
“Definition: Pazzior. A peace practitioner of the Paz()zaP moment.
“Not a prayer, not a wish, not an entreaty, not a spiritual practice. A Pazzior performs a walkabout yoga, an active serenity that goes to the heart of the Opponent. ”
You’re welcome,
Mysti
Maybe it’s time to reclaim the other definition of warrior, that is “one who is engaged aggressively or energetically in an activity, cause, or conflict.”
Pat Paquette (http://realastrologers.com/) has posted a two part guest article by by Ruth Hadikin entitled “Scorpio-Taurus, the Sacred Path of the Spiritual Warrior.”
JannKinz
Amanda, to answer your question, sure: Cernunnos.
so, is there out there another term to denote the Frodo-type figure, that lacks the “war” connotation but is not completely denatured of assertiveness, action-taking, sense of mission, strength and focus that we’re looking for? is that the only archetype we have for these qualities we’re trying to describe?
Frodo Baggins is a spiritual warrior. He is not merely an energizer. He is on a mission larger than himself, and he risks his life to make it happen.
He uses many arts of war, including survival, as his main tools. In fact there is a war going on, but he is a special operative who does not have an aggressive or combat mission but rather a subversive mission.
The names “spiritual warrior” or “peaceful warrior” have confused me since I first heard their usage. I think I want to go with a new description: “Spiritual Energizer” because I am not needing to hear more about warriors. Wouldn’t that fit? It does for me. Energized by Mars. When I love something, I am energized. Love carries a higher vibration than warring. That is not a criticism, it is an observation.
I hear myself and others use terms that may not quite convey the premise or energy of our thoughts. I cannot tell you how many times the archaic saying, “Rule of thumb” comes from people’s lips. [Rule of thumb comes from another time, denoting the size of one’s cane or rod used to beat your wife.- Hence, nothing bigger than one’s thumb is supposedly allowed, but you can beat your wife to keep her in line.]
My original family gave me lots of opportunities to figure out concepts of speaking out, discouragement, and separating out stuff that belongs elsewhere. Their simple response to anything that was desired was thus: “You don’t want !THAT! do you?”
I cannot remember one adult ever asking me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I learned so early on to not ask for anything.
As an adult it has been a beautiful journey to discover my truest desires. What was once frozen pain, anger, and complete disappointment, have slowly been dissolving through the decades with MY choices. I can actually feel empathy for those who didn’t know better. [parents, grandparents, brothers] I CAN be energized to see a different way.
I appreciate this opportunity, on PW, to hear and explore new ideas in loving myself and others. The seeds that are planted do grow. With each loving thought we do change ourselves and then the fabric of the collective. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and theories. What a gift to have! [and ah, ditto for me on what Mystes said regarding Alexander’s post– more lovely exploration.] -G
Hey Carrie, I was in touch with Burning River via email a few months back and I’d forgotten her proper name last night which I needed to type in so as to pull up her address.
Hope that helps clarify my request last night 😉
Thanks for the feedback and suggestions, especially Alexander, Eric, and SheBear. @Alexander, no oppositions in the traditional group, possibly with some centaurs, but I’d have to do additional homework on that. A small handful of squares and quincuxes, the majority were conjunctions, with some sextiles thrown in, for what it may be worth. My own astro knowledge is rudimentary, but I find the synchronicities fascinating and the writing here to be so superior, that I return daily and subscribe devotedly, even if I post rarely 🙂
carrie —
since your username here links to your blog, it could be she was trying to send you an email through that route.
Oh cool! it did it again… disappearing code act… okay, I give up.
M
Whoa! disappearing code effect!! I wrote: you might want to try this
Hey Carrie, I don’t think she was talking about blog-code. As far as I know, on this site, you can put in a URL (as you have done), but no linkage to an email address. You might want to try just to see if it links up, but I doubt it.
You might just want to add a link to your email in the sidebar of your blog. Did you finagle the Cassandra blog or have someone else do it?
“I tried pulling up your email address just now, to say hi, but I’m having some difficulty doing so.”
How do you do that here in the comments? I would like to list my e-mail here (but only to those who are signed-in posters like myself) but don’t know how.
Hey Burning River, thanks for the hug and I send a warm one back to you. I tried pulling up your email address just now, to say hi, but I’m having some difficulty doing so. Can you try emailing me when you get the chance? Tanx 😉
Alexander, once again you dazzle. I can’t take the necessary time to really ruminate your comment, but am sending it to myself for later consideration.
Amanda writes, quoting Eric: “I think a simple approach at first is an audit of something you think you want, or want to do. Go back to the earliest instance of that being present.”
Amanda responds: hmm… why does this — esp the second part — sound especially challenging to me? does anyone else feel something like a bit of a void or wall when they try to imagine the “first instance” of wanting to do something?
YESYESYES…
RE: your true vocation and ‘first instance’ … You hit a void because, oh brilliant girl (reallyreally, no irony), you *can’t* “remember” something that never was not. Memory is a binary affair, requires an off/on switch. Your ‘desire’ like your existence, once switched on, stays on. What each of us is born to do is exactly, precisely, perfectly equal to what you are.
Fortunately (or not), it is the province of artists to fling themselves so bodily into the well of Now that they can’t ‘remember’ anything.
When you think you’ve got a name for that first longing, believe me when I say that is NOT it. Which is fine, we can make a good life gliding from one approximation to another.
***
**
*
# CaraSusanetta on 08 Nov 2011 at 11:11 am
“What I’m curious about is “tools” for separating our own stuff from that which belongs elsewhere. Having some trouble myself with clarity there…”
————————————–
This is THE question of questions.. Let me say that psychobiology is a huge factor here, ably abetted by the scourge of contemporary individualism (Industrial Revolution onwards). I will explain this first of all and show what the core issues are; before touching on astrology’s toolkit.
Consider the amygdala in the brain. If we consider ‘stuff’ as pain and we recognise impact on the limbic system as producing encoded ‘templates’ that are stored as patterns in the brain we can see why so much ‘stuff’ is automatic and seemingly below the level of consciousness. There is actually only so far that a conscious awareness approach to developing tools can travel in dealing with ‘stuff’ or the templates that get wired in and reinforced.
Individualism takes personal distress and immediately perceives the false dichotomy as self OR other which leads to the whole theory of projection(s). This is a commonplace that is quite natural from an individualistic frame of reference. However, in point of fact, the issue should really be framed as self AND other…
Self OR other prevents resolution of the very projections it identifies in the mechanics of pain displacement. Individualism’s first port of call is a concept of society as an aggregate of individuated selves – which is not really how things are:
‘Neuroscientists have recently realised that even those parts of the brain originally assumed only to be concerned with ‘lower’ functions such as motor control, also have a part to play in our social development. Even the brain itself is intrinsically social… “Indeed, the amygdala has neurons within it that only fire in response to other people’s reactions.”‘ HUMAN GIVENS:A New Approach to Emotional Health and Clear Thinking – Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell; HG Publishing UK, 2003
When we respond to pain a template is not really resolvable via a false dichotomy between self/other. Pain is a social phenomenon with a particular impact upon the human brain. In older tribal realities, when one experienced pain, ALL partook of it – there was a SOCIAL injury. In fact, injury was intrinsically social not intrinsically individual as we have it now.
The consequence of individualism infection is that stuff/pain gets conceived psychically as a ‘thing’, which is a profoundly static conceptuality – something that requires eradication/removal. Whereas, on an energetic level it is a stagnation/stuckness of a blockage to what should be flow – which of course is dynamic and implies a completely different approach to conceiving a toolkit.
Once pain is removed from the arena of the ontological/static and to the energetic/dynamic we see different dimensions of the community injury. Still, brains get templated and stimulated and so things are experienced in a static way because the community dimension of repair is usually absent.
This is where astrology, looking at oppositions in a natal chart, can provide a useful starting point. Examining one’s oppositions is one of the most useful arenas of study in understanding self more broadly than simple psychological theories of projection.
One example of this from evolutionary astrology would be to notice how usually hard aspects would be lumped together (even cafe astrology lumps squares and oppositions together under this heading!) in an unhelpful way.
Specifically, Pluto, which is key to the evolutionary aspect of the birth chart, may aspect the natal moon in opposition or square to produce a result that is similar on a soul level but that will manifest in a completely different way. If a moon square Pluto person gets into a tangle with a moon opposite Pluto person – although both share core issues in common – the effects can be dramatic. The soul *intention* manifests radically differently with each person. They should be able to relate deeply and in some ways can, yet in others they are the ultimate anguish to each other.
So, examine your own oppositions is a key focus, and particularly Pluto oppositions in detail. It is important to look at how your oppositions meet other folk’s squares.
Now, I appreciate that this takes astrological knowledge but I think the effort in exploration is worthwhile. Astrology does not have to fall into the trap of individualism and can help us unpack projections that have been reduced into psychologically-driven individualism. The truth is much broader and requires a more nuanced investigation…
Current life experience totally on target with PW and the planets. Questions are helpful (what would feed my dreams?). Sex is (finally) ramping up to a more fullfilling level (thank goddess). and I’m thinking a pot of some sort of tomato/lamb/veggie soup is calling to be brewed…….and treating esoteric as material is a point I have been working on that has come up several other places recently. Seems potent.
Eric – and you are. Thanks for sharing your artistry.
shebear! big hug: had been missing hearing from you. Happy to hear that all sounds well. xoxoxo
Amanda-
For me. I have to clear the space. What Sarah mentioned about ego fighting like mad for everything it received and was programmed to believe (about everything, including supposedly Who I Am and What I Want To Be When I Grow Up) is also my experience. It will not willingly step aside for me. But it has to, when asked/told.
So in meditation I politely but firmly ask/state (to The Sense of Block): Move aside. I really mean it. I want to know the Truth about this.
Then I ask my spiritual helpers or guides to lead me to/show me the very first time and even deeper–before the first time (because that might be a time when you received an “implant” from someone/somewhere else) this concept arose in me.
Ask, and you Will receive.
.
(and therapy always assists soul work)
Blessings
Loved this article as well. I’ve just finished having a great conversation this afternoon about sexual appetites; how we could all do with getting more real, in a consistent and loving manner, about the importance of honouring and feeding that very neglected and misunderstood appetite.
CaraSusanetta and you need for clarity; I would suggest that practicing meditation on a daily basis is a good grounding discipline to commit to. Once that is established into your life I know you will gain that healthier sense of self you desire, around which the placement healthy boundaries will only serve to honour your unique and separate self.
😉
Look for the obvious. When I was about seven, someone gave me My Book About Me by Dr Seuss. One of the first pages said, “When I grow up, I want to be an_______ ”
and in my youngest kid handwriting is scrawled the word ARTIST.
Thank you. Yes, the questions raised are not only pertinent but stimulating. Your observation of what going too far entails might possibly be the thing that connects all the subject matter together. Thank you also for the idea of supporting dreams in a pragmatic fashion, that’s a gem.
Because in that moment, Amanda, you’re coming up against family conditioning – and with it the potential for pain – as well as starting to invite in the unconscious. So the ego fights like mad to resist it, because that is what it is designed to do, among other things. That’s why therapy is so damn useful at times like these. 🙂
and re: spiritual warriors:
yesterday i spoke with one of our subscribers on the phone who lives near Oakland and had just attended a talk by Marianne Williamson at a local college. it was not an official Occupy event, but there were a number of the Occupied crowd there. i wish i could remember a bit more what she said Williamson talked about (maybe i’ll email her), but i got the sense one of her points was to address the need for dome spiritual clarity & grounding in the Occupy movement there.
apparently Occupy Oakland is the only Occupy encampment that has *not* adopted non-violence as an official part of its platform — they have not gotten enough votes to pass it.
i’d had no idea that was the case, and thought this was a really interesting fact; it could, I think, potentially damage the Occupy movement overall.
so…. the 99% as spiritual warriors? sound feasible on some level?
“I think a simple approach at first is an audit of something you think you want, or want to do. Go back to the earliest instance of that being present.”
hmm… why does this — esp the second part — sound especially challenging to me? does anyone else feel something like a bit of a void or wall when they try to imagine the “first instance” of wanting to do something?
This is a great idea for an article.
I’ve got a day planned for working on the annual — I will mull this over and have a few suggestions later, check back tonight some time.
I think a simple approach at first is an audit of something you think you want, or want to do. Go back to the earliest instance of that being present. Did someone tell you, or did you discover it on your own? Did someone try to discourage you? Can you figure out why?
A lot of this involves studying your family of origin and what they told you about yourself.
Great article, totally on point. What I’m curious about is “tools” for separating our own stuff from that which belongs elsewhere. Having some trouble myself with clarity there…