Today is Thursday, Nov. 17, 2011. The Moon is in Leo all day, the sign of Self, in harmony with lots of fire sign activity in Sagittarius. With all the centaur action in the sky lately, chances are you’ve been facing parts of yourself you might not have been well acquainted with until now. Or perhaps you knew those parts, but had not been compelled to work with them very deeply. And now we’re in the last days leading up to the last square between a Scorpio Sun and Neptune in Aquarius in our lifetimes.
This is a tricky, difficult-to-feel aspect, one that may mess with your sense of self — and it’s part of the collective bog we’re in. You’re going to need to keep checking the details of whatever you’re involved in over the next several days, and it may be best to stop just short of idealism, or of simply depending on your beliefs. This can be disorienting, but it need not derail you.
If you notice what feels like a loss of your sense of self, be wary of overcompensating through an over-exertion of will, identity or ego. That just isn’t going to work best right now; better to tread water and process what you’re learning than to swim upstream.
Adding to the stakes is the conjunction of the Sun with the asteroid Ophelia, which is square Neptune within fractions of a degree Sunday. This configuration is about paranoid reactions to emotional insecurity projected onto others. That is, someone starts feeling insecure, then they immediately assume that someone is going to betray them. There is a general caution on all fear of betrayal, especially if it’s based on suspicion and feelings. With so much fear being stirred up these days – both mundane and existential — it’s crucial to not let it run away with you.
Any tottering back and forth between the mental and the emotional you’re experiencing relates to Mercury holding its square to Ceres in Pisces. Remember, Mercury is slowing down, preparing to station retrograde one week from today. You’ll want to get any technological, financial or communication-related ducks in a row before we get any closer to the Mercury storm phase (the three or so days on either side of its station).
Mercury is powerful now, and with Venus, it’s also sextile Vesta and Nessus in Aquarius. This is saying, “work the psychology of the situation,” especially the group psychology. Mercury and Venus are taking whatever they’ve brought to our attention and helped us feel while conjunct Pholus and the Great Attractor, and are bringing it to a place where we can apply our devotion and inner creative flame (Vesta) to healing it.
The thing is, in Aquarius, it’s necessary to study the whole situation, not just your part in it, or what affects you. We have a lot of group situations to observe. Nessus in the configuration reminds us that whatever has come up for us this week with the Pholus/GA configuration in Sagittarius gets informed by an awareness of its cyclical nature. This cycle may be running within our own lifetime, between lifetimes or between generations. Combined with Vesta’s devotional aspect, this may be where Nessus’ theme of ‘the buck stops here’ comes in with some strength. In the news, on the collective level, we see this with the Penn State sex scandal, as well as with the actions of Occupy Wall Street. This is a time of personal responsibility — voluntary or mandatory, you choose.
This energy has a direct conduit from collective to personal: The Leo Moon makes simultaneous aspects to Mercury and Venus in Sagittarius, and Vesta and Nessus in Aquarius. Whatever we’re working through and feeling right now collectively is finding its expression today on the level of personality. While the Moon is briefly in this configuration, the flow of energy is a bit of a closed-circuit — another reason why treading water rather than swimming upstream may get you further today.
Pushing doesn’t really work in a closed circuit. What works is a shift in perspective. Sagittarius calls for the introduction of a higher principle into any equation that deals with personality. It’s saying bring the solution from a different level. What does that mean to you? And if your usual answer to that question has you running in circles, can you pause long enough to float a little higher to see from a new vantage point?
Once the Sun complete its square to Neptune, it goes void of course through the Sagittarius ingress early next week. That’s likely to come with a sense of relief – and then the Sun squares Chiron, sparking up a new adventure. For now, keep an eye on your insecurities, your reactions to others’ insecurities, and the psychology of the groups you’re involved with.
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I think it goes without saying that my last is a Sun square Neptune observation – most fruitfully delineated as the need to recognise that whole selfhood is a dynamic rather than static eventuality/manifestation. The movement will soon be from fixity to mutability, from ego to surrender.
Adding to the stakes is the conjunction of the Sun with the asteroid Ophelia, which is square Neptune within fractions of a degree Sunday. This configuration is about paranoid reactions to emotional insecurity projected onto others. That is, someone starts feeling insecure, then they immediately assume that someone is going to betray them. There is a general caution on all fear of betrayal, especially if it’s based on suspicion and feelings. With so much fear being stirred up these days – both mundane and existential — it’s crucial to not let it run away with you.
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I LOVE this… but let us indeed ‘work the psychology’ of the situation when thinking of Mercury/Venus sextile Nessus/Vesta.
Bringing Vesta’s flame of healing is a rich notion and I’d like to add to it here with slight reference to my post of some days back, where I made reference to oppositions in relationship to projections and linked this to the false dichotomies we often get into on the mental (Mercurial) level that violate the psychobiology of the ‘fleshy’ brain..
I’d mentioned then that self AND other is a healthy way to proceed, where self OR other replicates the false dichotomy and renders the problem on the mental level insoluble – because essentially shuttling backward and forward between emotional/mental responses to an existential stimulus – locking one in.
This is where we can note some interesting supplementary points.
For me, Mars still opposing Chiron, gives a clue about another interpretative aspect of the sextile to Nessus/Vesta from Mercury/Venus…
This gives a clue not only to the problem but also a workable resolution that chimes in with what the neuropsychology (brain circuits) would define as ‘healing’.
Indeed, Mars opp Chiron seems to speak of how the life force can be *wasted* – harm in place of healthfulness being the result of life force misdirected.
This is the flip side of Vesta (which is creeping up slowly on Nessus). Vesta conjunct Nessus may well speak of the root psychic rupture (or injury) at the precise emotional moment of trauma, subsequently transmuting into a living wound via self-sacrifice – A pattern thus being set in motion wherein the injury is *sublimated* (God bless Sigmund) into a behavioral pattern of self-emptying.
‘I receive the love, comfort and protection I need because I pathologically give the love, comfort and protection the other needs – who is more important than me – and thus I protect myself by proxy and retain the belief that my sacrifice will procure a reciprocation to heal my wound’. Not so!
The cycle of continually making oneself vulnerable psychically will perpetuate NOT in the form of Chiron as the one wounded one who subsequently may bring healing (the best of Chiron) but rather as the one who perpetuates his own wound in the very nature of his giving – rather than giving OF himself he gives ALL of himself and so there is nothing left – (the worst of Chiron) – dereliction..
This worst of Chiron possibility is spoken of precisely within the opposition to Mars – the life force is utterly cast away (energetic suicide).
So the healing potential of Vesta at this astrological juncture will come from tending one’s own wound and surrendering the old battle – the ancient wound, wherein I give all of me away for the other so that they may live and I by proxy *live in hope* of the other tending my wound in return.
I am rather reminded here of Oscar Wilde’s “The Nightingale and the Rose”.
As with that beautiful and heart rending tale we see that giving one’s very lifeblood to salvage bliss for the other does not produce the dreamed of ending.
The paranoia and projections that may ensue for people in the coming days can only prevail and continue to be our companions if we fail to heal the false split of self/other.
I AM the other and my service at this time has to be in honor of my own life force – stop sacrificing yourself for others and tend your own wound in its own right. NOW is the time to heal this ancient legacy once and for all. Now is the time to put yourself and your energies at the centre of your life and your conscious intentions. Feed yourself, nurture yourself, tend to your sacred life force and no longer let it be trampled under foot by those to whom you have habitually given ALL of you.
Chiron says “Physician heal thyself”…
Think I’m gonna hang on to yesterday’s earthy Mars trine Jupiter energy for as long as possible. The power of Sun square Neptune is divided into water, water, air, fire energy and with the absence of earth in those signs and planets, I will need something to stand on. What was it that Taurus Moon suggested? Stay grounded and watch your step. Hold firm on your values. Must try to remember that!
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“With so much fear being stirred up these days – both mundane and existential — it’s crucial to not let it run away with you.”
I was given a tool and have been working with it for sometime so that now it is becoming an automatice response. When that edgy fear shows up or an out of the ordinary negative projection rises from an occasion, I hear the sound:
“SSSHHHHHHHH”
I heard it a couple of times last night as I was drifting off to sleep. Seems the astrology supports those nasty little demonic thoughts popping up. I quickly put them to rest because I didn’t give “them” time to sink in.
I truly believe that we are in high acceleration mode. We can choose what we pay attention to. We can choose to delegate or steer our energy in the direction we desire. That’s my story and I am sticking to it. 🙂
Oops, that is to say “Moon in Leo? Right!”. Please forgive the typo and accept my thanks for your cogent connections to that Lunar position. Makes me look at the Moon in a wole different way.
Moon in Leo, right?
‘It’s saying bring the solution from a different level.’ This is what I went to bed with last night and woke up with this morning. Just wonderful! Thank you so very much. I’ll set off early for work, into the chilly (but sunny) streets of Rome, crippled today by an all out public transport strike and demonstrations, with walking shoes on my feet and the words of your blog warming my soul. xxx