By Len Wallick
Shortly before 8:00 am EDT this morning, Ceres entered Aries where it will occupy the first degree of the zodiac for the next month. You read that correctly. The object designated by the Minor Planet Center (MPC) as Number One — technically, (1) Ceres, because it’s the first minor planet ever discovered — will sit on the Aries Point until Aug. 10, after which it will return to Pisces until next year. That is amazing all by itself. Concurrent circumstances surrounding the ingress are equally astonishing. But none of that beats the evident message we will now proceed to derive: For each and all of us, sharing the one thing we love most with the rest of the world is the one thing we most need to do right now.
Ceres is located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It was the first object discovered in that dispersed donut, hence its singular MPC distinction. The discovery date was January 1, 1801. That’s the first day, of the first month, of the first year of a new century. But it gets better.
Ceres is also the largest object in the asteroid belt. It is the only one large enough to recently be classified as a dwarf planet. It is the only dwarf planet inside the orbit of Saturn. It is almost as if the entire history of our awareness of Ceres through astronomy is leading to this one day. Then there is the myth, and beyond that, the timing.
Ceres was among the divine dozen gods and goddesses that founded the Greco-Roman Pantheon. She was the first to become estranged from it. Associated with traditions and ceremonies well developed long before that legendary alliance, she might even be the oldest deity of western civilization. The core of her defining myth is thus at the core of humanity. That would be how she responded to her greatest pain.
When her daughter, Persephone, was abducted, Ceres stood up to the power by standing firmly in her own. Yet it was ultimately her compassion alone that provided a solution. Negotiating to share what she cherished above all yielded more than our seasonal cycles and their derivative — tropical astrology. It also saved our butts.
Now, as Number One begins a brief visit to Aries, all the characters of its associated myth are becoming one with the astrology. It begins with the Moon. Two seconds (the amount of time it takes for you to say “Mississippi” twice) before the Moon moved into Sagittarius this morning, it formed a water trine from the last arc second of the last arc minute of the last degree of Scorpio to Ceres occupying the same place in Pisces. What a sendoff. Symbolically, this conferred the ultimate and farthest reaching expression of all that is water. The essential, emotional, intuitive, healing and nourishing qualities of the universal solvent were all bestowed like a bottle of champagne on the bow of a ship. Less than four minutes later Ceres crossed the Aries point.
Immediately upon entering Aries, Ceres found itself in a cardinal square with an object in the first degree of Cancer. Not just any object, mind you, a Uranian point called Hades (Uranian points are hypothetical planets beyond Pluto, used by many astrologers). Depending on what definition you favor, Hades is either the name of the place her daughter was abducted to or the alter ego of the kidnapper. That would be Pluto, which is in a wider (but still there) square from cardinal Capricorn. In astrology, a square to the Aries Point represents a very personal and internal tension that all of us are experiencing in our own way all at the same time. Everybody together, all at once, is by definition a public event of one with all, all with one. Got chills? There’s more.
In the third degree of Cancer, literally and symbolically just beneath the surface of Hades, is an asteroid, Persephone. Say wow now. At 11+ chatty Gemini, forming an air trine with responsible Saturn in fair-play Libra is another, Hekate. That’s the goddess who told Ceres what happened. Finally, Apollo, eyewitness to the abduction, is in aspect to its alias, the Sun. All of this is exact to the degree today and it is no accident.
The objects in astrology, their angular relationships and placements are archetypes that mean something in your life. Access to that meaning depends on how you choose to be. If you choose to be aware that you are a part of the same cosmos as those archetypes and accept that, they will be available to you. If you choose to feel separate, they will not. That choice has a consequence. Ceres’ ingress to Aries today is a chance to know what that is.
This morning that first dwarf planet, unseen by science for so long, was topped off and primed by the Moon, an object that all of us can look at, feel and understand. The ingress to Aries shortly thereafter activated the mythology and simultaneously connected all of us through it. Today and for the next month we are all Ceres, each in our own way, all of us together, now.
Something we love and were close to was taken from us. We have the power to get it back, but there are conditions. We must proceed from an awareness that the wound we suffer is not ours separately. We share the injury with the other that inflicted it. We must negotiate and compromise with that entity even if they do not know that. We must share what we love so that healing can be shared as well. If we are not one with each other in love and healing, we will be one alone in the dark with pain.
Ceres takes about four and a half years to go around the Sun. That means it usually moves through signs at a rate of about one degree every four days. For this archetype to slow down, turn around and spend a month in the one degree that symbolizes where we come together is a message. We are now being empowered to save our own butts. Look inside yourself, then look at another; you will know what to do.
Offered In Service
thanks you mystes, will love to consciously transfer when all is good. and blessed (belated) happy day o’birth! was thinking of you then, your sun is my moon. 🙂 ox ~ s
Amanda! not sure how I’ll work this out … but I will. It’s presently low res on my cell and … well, I’ll ask around and see how I go about getting it to you. Bless you, Amanda.
mm
marymack — if you want to email a high-res photo of your painting to me at amanda [at] planetwaves.net i’ll see what i can do about posting it. thank you for your offer to share it!
be, you’re far more the astute astrologer than i am. i’m only just beginning to learn the ropes. always glad to have your contributions!
And for anyone interested – stumbled onto this today, it’s a long read but the author mentions the back pain and birthing process – totally relevant.
http://consciousco-creationalcoaching.blogspot.com/2011/07/love-takes-lead-return-of-feminine.html
Thanks again everyone – for BEing – here, now.
xo
Thank you Burning River! (just realised your name fits my basic astrology – Moon Aries, AC Leo, Sun Pisces!)
Yes, I agree re: Tiger Eye….this part of a description especially lends itself to the discussion here: “Harmony: TIger Eye helps to see both sides of any situation and helps to bridge the gap that causes discord in work and family relationships.” “Creates order out of chaos” “Humility: Associated with the correct use of power, courage and grace, which is using your power to help others and the ability to see clearly and without illusion.”
And more. Definitely feels “good”.
Wonderful, thanks – love yr self-portrait-with-earrings!
aword: link to suggested meaning of the chalcedony quartz crystal cat’s eye-tiger’s eye
http://www.ibequeaththee.com/gemstone_meanings.html
I always use my intuition as I read other people’s thoughts about the “meaning” of anything in nature.
These are interpretations of the colors brown which are significant also:
brown : self-determination, growth and commitment
gold/yellow: unconditional love and appreciation\–Grandmother Twylah Nitsch, Iroquois Nation
Yellow/gold: positive qualities— communtication, optimism, inspritation;;;negative qualities—needing clarification, overcriticalness–Ted Andrews
Take what you like. Leave the rest.
Hug +-+ (pictograph of me with earrings: thanks, mystes)
aword: the stone sounds to me like Mexican Tiger’s Eye.
Not unusual, I am over-the-moon 🙂 thrilled with Len’s take on the transits AND I’m late to this here party 🙁 … but if I may …
I have felt this inability to connect and then suddenly there’s a intuitive painting class and all kinds of stuff moves from within (after gallons of black & brownish paint) and I’m now able to actually create something that I am actually in love with and I’ve gone about searching for the right place to share and … well, hello planet waves!
Turns out Pluto sits on my natal Ceres/NN and god(dess) doesn’t that just feel perfect. Please anyone let me know how I can share my painting with ya’ll … it makes me so incredibly happy as I am here.
mm.
Well!
To mystes, all I can say is Good Grief! Better luck tomorrow night my friend.
To shebear, burning, Carrie and others who are expressing their feelings so well, thank you for doing so. Years go by and we watch what happens in this country and in others and it gets so very discouraging at times. When Pluto went into Capricorn, like many of you, I looked forward to getting rid of the scumbags in government and finance and you name it. But not too long ago it occurred to me that some of the more bizarre elements that have appeared in recent political movements and elections must be part of that Pluto purging process.
Like any abscess that rises to the surface, the toxic material has been buried for some time causing disease and discomfort. It is only by bringing it out into the light and air that we can cure the wound. So now I think of the ‘way-out’ ideas and behavior as part of the cure. The Media, as only they can do, are part of the poison too, but not just that. They are also part of the cure, by exposing the “expressing” they hasten the healing. No, it isn’t a pretty sight. It even hurts to watch and listen or read, but it also forces out hidden aspects of ourselves, maybe hate or fear or just disgust, but all of that needs to be expressed or set free in order for the healing to begin. I so admire surgeons and physicians and even dentists who do this for a living (albeit a really great living) and wonder how they can take it day after day seeing the disease and attempting to cure and heal those who suffer from it.
Now we all are exposed to that kind of bad stuff, locally and globally, but if we can see it for what it is; an ending that leads to a new beginning. Healing comes in many forms and so does disease. How lucky we are to have astrology and astrologers (like Len and Eric, Amanda, Jude and Gary) who can see to the core of what the starry messages are telling us all. We must be healed before we can grow. I believe we are all capable of healing ourselves and others in our own individual ways. You make that plain by the stories you tell of your experiences and situations. As Burning River and Carrie find themselves in the unasked for situation of taking care of their fathers’ affairs, which somehow in someway will be a healing process. . for others as well as themselves and it aids us all. It requires courage and above all, the knowledge that others are going through similar situations where they’ve not been before.
So I say continue to “express” your wounds and witness others who do the same. We help the Universe to help the planet and all us humanbeens grow and move into a higher and lighter place where love abounds for all. Where we are all one.
be
Hey Amanda…..thanks for adding your story! So fascinating, isn’t it ? And I was present in mySelf in the dream (often we are outside watching or such) yet comfortably surrounded by many others who were also participating in the beauty of the frog moment.
Very cool. (and ya, extra cool that the pregnant frog was Male, yes? I don’t quite “get it” but it was an important piece.)
I also wanted to place the type of stone that “turned into a frog”. It was golden brown, like honey. The kind of patterning that feels fluid although it is clearly stone. It was polished; flat – wasn’t amber, not transluscent. And it slipped from my hand with intent, behind the frog planter!
Happy Tuesday to you
xo
you know aword, just a week or two ago gary and i had an exchange about how we often have to kiss (embrace) the frog or hag (shadow) in order for it to transform (rebirth itself) into the prince/princess (beauty/that which we desire). wish i could remember what exactly we were talking about…
🙂
and here you’ve had a dream about a pregnant male frog; handling/receiving and releasing natural beauty; embracing a put-out security guard… and the nausea of your “terrors.” hmmm… i don’t want to intrude on your dream interpretation, b/c it is yours alone. but it strikes me as a *great* dream!
with love….
In this morning’s waking dream, I parked my “home” near a shop of gemstones. The security guard almost made a stink as I had parked overlapping two spaces, but his demeanor changed with mine (meaning, I embraced him so he gained a smile).
I gathered many gems but after doing so and enjoying them, I began to place them back again on the shelves of the store – although no one there seemed to mind had I taken them all with me.
One stone slipped out of my hand and behind a potted plant. The pot was shaped like a green frog (with yellow spots, mind you! lol! how funny the details we see in dreams!) and then from behind the pot came not the gemstone, but a live frog that matched the pot. He came forward and gave surprise and delight to us all – and it was commented that “HE” was pregnant with yet another version of himself.
I still woke with the nausea that has become symbolic of my “terrors”, but the frog gave a new feeling of something else as well – not sure what, but it is Good.
Mystes, your technique gave immediate relief! Thank you! A thousand times, Thanks!
Be, As always I feel so lucky to have your insights!! Yes, I had forgotten the correlation between cleansing and the pain of release. I’ve made a few subtle changes to my diet as well as all the emotional/spiritual stuff and forgotten to consider that perhaps some of what I’m experiencing is ultimately positive….hm…that’s another correlation to our story of the day, isn’t it?
This has been a LOVELY exchange, everyone! Thank you all so much.
Carrie,
Yes, thank you. Find the voice and speak. Speak so as to serve all equally. There is such a thing as the greater good. There is a place where we are one with. To simply be in that place is to act on healing in the most straightforward way. Alas, for human beings at least, the most simple things are not the most easy things. To paraphrase Zorro, this is going to take some work.
::::waving to everyone while still traveling::::
Wow, Len. I finally have a moment to spare while on this trip and I read your wonderfully written (as always) words here. Then I read all the amazing responses. I have missed this place.
It is a great synchronicity that my friend, Rachell, had an epiphany of sorts just when the Ceres -Aries thing happened. In the Gulf of Mexico (yes, we were swimming in it, all the while my mind was thinking of the BP oil spill and remembering all the now-closed BP gas stations all along the Florida highways) my friend said she was fed up. She released all her pent up anger, hurt, frustrations, and rage at being constantly marginalized within the local homeschool groups and now the 4-H club for NOT being Christian. Yep, she decided she is fed up with hiding who she is, with feeling marginalized, with tip-toeing around the local, pushy (her words) demanding Christians who want to EXCLUDE Pagans, Witches, Wiccans and all other non-believers (my friend is an atheist) from the 4-H club like they tried to do to the non-Christians in the inclusive homeschooling group which caused a huge bust up two years ago.
While I listened to her rage, I felt the same feeling of being fed up rising up in me. I felt the anger that has been simmering for a long time because the policies the Right wing folks have (and statistics keep saying they are the minority here) are starving kids, keeping people homeless and making more of them suffer lack of health care, food, homes. I feel the rage in me that says too often, we “aware” folks are so busy focusing on the love and light, we forget that sometimes, the others we are trying to show that love and light to are hardwired in their brains (recent scientific research is now saying this, though it is uncertain if it is due to genetics or upbringing) to be fearful of ANY change, even change that may be GOOD.
As I often tell my husband, sometimes you have to speak in their language to help them GET it. Their language is FEAR. Yep, we light workers seem to be playing right into their hands when we keep trying to do things our way and getting nowhere.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results: Democrats, light-workers, all of us who are “doing the change” need to stop thinking that doing things the right and fair way will work with those who fear the change. It won’t work. All this was going through my mind while she vented.
I feel like we reasonable and progressive light-workers are like the ants in “A Bugs Life” and the right Wing, Republican, pro-robber barons, Christocrats are like the pushy, stealing, bullying, taskmaster grasshoppers; we OUTNUMBER them and we NEED to rise up, find our voice and stand up for the changes and the rational, reasonable, loving world WE envision in that change. I, too am tired of feeling like I have to cater to and preserve “their little feelings” of the Religious right; they certainly don’t cater to ANYONE, don’t care who they harm, who they starve, who they condemn to death, who they make homeless, and make their presence very much felt EVERYWHERE. Like Persephone being raoed, I feel like non-Christocrats are being repeatedly raped, over and over because we refuse to stand up and make them stop. Persephone remained silent, didn’t use her own power and as a result, she, her mother and the whole planet suffer.
My friend had an epiphany, indeed. Seems she has found her voice. Perhaps I have found mine as well.
Be, thank you for the good word to A Word, your perspective always feels *live-on* (as contrasted with ‘dead-on,’ eh?).
As for the SR, um, not so much. It was strange and hideous (complete with vandalism, cancer-the-disease and a suicide), ending with my driving to Austin at midnight to delouse some kids in my old ‘hood (which at least provided a bit of macabre comic relief to an otherwise BiZaRrE day). I am having a do-over tomorrow night at Mother’s Cafe in Austin, in case anybody from Big Wide Web wants to hop to. 8:30 p.m. Then off to the Elephant Room for some basement jazz.
She-Bear13, thank you for your open heart – and all the PW’ers who have become aware of this. I never met this child, but I saw him bouncing through the throngs at Barton Springs on several occasions. It was his parents’ trying to figure out a way to bring him back into focus that had him off at ‘camp’ — and I feel and share their shock. Many adults I know with kids this age are at our wits’ end. We wish them freedom and do our best to instill a sense of accountability to go with it. But too often they snatch the space without earning the clarity that *must* attend it.
SuzyC, it is a massive undertaking, so you have my best wishes.
***
Off I go…
M
suszyc–sounds like you are more than ready! Go for it. Many voices will eventually be heard. Our stories must be told. And in the end, if it is only for the sake of our inner child (or children) that we speak up, then it is the blessing we must give ourselves and them. Always with the goal of healing, for ourselves and those perpetrators who were silently aiding and abetting as well as the sick ones in action.
So she bear, yes–may the fire of aries strengthen the Ceres/Persephone archetypes living in us to action. I am so happy you are taking the global angle right now–because
at this time my personal circumstances are sucking me inward at lightening speed and I must operate from here for now (my 89 year old father–robust specimen of a man-has just been diagnosed with metastatic bone cancer of the spine, and of course, after rejecting all my suggestions for the past several weeks, he and the family have now appointed me as power of attorney for his health care. So this is the new addition to the already full and weighty list of losses and responsibilites facing me this summer.)
Thank you mystes for the daystar, earrings and indigo to violet blue images-All but the earrings had come to me in meditation. I like your addition.:>)
As always–hug, virtually. from my heart.–to all.
I would like to say that the post itself was terrific Len and the subsequent comments that followed. My take on Ceres moving into the first degree of Aries is that without a doubt it signifies a shift to find some form of expressive *action* to channel millennia old frustrations and angers at being taken for bit players on this crazy ride toward self destruction. For me the issue of what Demeter represents, food and nourishment, asks of us what we are going to do about GMO foods infiltrating our food chain and poisoning us, for one example, as well as calling out the people who play the commodities stock market without giving a damn for their fellow human beings on this planet who are absolutely starving. Can we imagine facing our day with NO food to eat? Nothing whatsoever? My ancestors did and my DNA remembers that horror all too well.
The people who control and misuse their power because they’ve lost touch with their human emotions really need to be educated at every level of operation. That these fat cats dine on their lobster or peppered steak dinners drowned with champagne etc, while fellow citizens on the planet, in such places as North Korea for example, are at this moment eating *grass* because there is *no* food for them to eat………??
Personally, taking Green-Star-gazer’s cue as to how we can rewrite our stories, (I so enjoy reading your posts btw) I know it is first and foremost about how I can be honest with myself and acknowledge and *own* that I have within me a very deep well of anger that has to be expressed. For me to find newer methods for it to be released in such a way that my anger gets received and heard to try and affect change. To educate those that are asleep at the wheel is the biggest challenge and, as you so rightly ask: “How could we re-write this story, given our current situation, and have an outcome that is not another denial of the huge spiritual message that is behind this allegory?”
That the fiery spirit of Demeter learns from Persephone’s experience and harnesses her position at this most action oriented degree of the zodiac. Coupling that fire with the polar energies of Libra in opposition to achieve a more balanced expression of heart and mind gives her energy a greater chance to reach the widest audience possible. We have our work cut out for us but the skies on on our side so we’ve nothing to lose but to speak up and act.
Maybe the time has come for me to try writing a more current protest song methinks!
Mystes: To learn of the tragic and untimely death of Ben Yatsu was gut-wrenching to read. My very deepest sympathies go to his family and to you and to your son.
So interesting. So what’s happening with me right now is that I am considering sharing artwork and writing that I did in the process of healing from sexual abuse I suffered as a child and young woman. I also have follow-up writing from a much more recent perspective. The purpose of sharing would be to check out suitability for publication in an artbook. Another purpose of sharing it would be to share a path to healing with others. The prospect of doing this is scary. This material is precious to me as a record of my journey. It involves the ones who perpetrated the injuries peripherally, if not directly. I recently ran across a couple who could handle the technical issues of the art as well as good feedback regarding the inclusion of the writing. Hmmmm…..
First to mystes,
I feel so bad for you and your son and the family of the young man who was killed. It is indeed the worst kind of tragedy. As we have passed the middle of the crab season, I’m probably late in wishing you a happy solar return, but hope it was a good one.
aword,
Hope you are feeling better and mystes’ technique bring relief. As we release the toxic material from our bodies and from the earth, all kinds of disagreeable sensations must be endured, but the promise of a better world through the increasing energy of love will be our reward. Hang in there. And isn’t it exciting to keep finding new ways to express that energy via the new symbols we discover through astrology?
Green star gazer,
How very interesting I find your personal perspective on the players in this play; you have thought it through and this makes them more real for us. Thank you for sharing.
Len, you have activated a story that runs deep in the psyche this time. How enjoyable it has been to hear your readers thoughts and feelings. Keep up the good work.
be
What an amazing array of responses!
First, Word – I know about those ‘headaches’ that feel like you’re trying to give birth to yourself through a pore near the bridge of your nose. The only help I can recommend is to apply pressure to the spot between your soft and hard palate (in the very middle of that span) for about 30 seconds. There’s a nerve that runs from that point that will re-regulate/balance the bloodflow to either side of your brain. It is also good for an oxytocin hit.
Thank you for the sweet attention on Ben Yatsu and his family. It is just a flaming, impossible bitch to lose a kid, worst when it is a perfectly preventable accident. The sorrowing goes through and through his tribe.
Green Star Gazer – AMAZING read on the situation of Persephone. Thank you so much for treading that ground and sharing it with us. My personal mythos encompasses the role of Demeter and the question of Demeter’s strength and weakness has been a constant. But the daughter’s side of it is another story, one I will carefully ponder.
Stormy – somehow I am not surprised. These kinds of synchronicity have been building up and discharging for weeks. I am glad you were present; sometime soon we’ll talk and I’ll pass along the little I know about the Transference of Consciousness process. It may come in handy over the next few months.
Burning River, may the stripping-down process be quick, thorough and leave you with a decent pair of earrings. (You’d be surprised how important those are…). The daystar seems to be shining with particular intensity this summer, so I hope you find all of the deep violet shade within yourself to restore and return.
And Len… (sigh). So many thanks . . .
All comments are so appreciated today.
Thank you. Len please hear what stormilarue has to say about how we respect YOU as an astrologer and writer.
Green Star Gazer, your comment follows another I read on a blog here recently about re-inventing/understanding/living out the myth/archetypes that are strongly influencing us this month. Particulary Persephone as the Shaman and Ceres coming to terms with her own power and/or restraint of the use of her power.
Mystes, grace to you and your son at this time.
Myself–I am re-inventing myself as I lose more than one thing that I have held dear. And that re-created self that is emerging is the one thing that is not negotiable. Persephone lost much and became so much more. Awesome article and bloggers–hug to all.
when i read this, i had just listened to this song, which seemed to sum it up for me considering the intensity of the transformations i’ve been experiencing myself.
http://youtu.be/dc1mriOPmHs
weird sidenote; anyone else notice utoob changing it’s locales to “you to be” ?
my absolute empathy mystes! strangely, yesterday noon i was outside hanging laundry when i heard tires skid and then a serious crash bang, immediately thinking “oh that can’t be good”. it wasn’t – 2 more ‘kids’ (21, 23) tried to escape from a hit and run ending up hitting a wall and passing as well.
i admit my ignorance of the myths, but what i get is that there is a choice in growth or stagnation here. which again reminds me of a random song …
“The stars that shine & the stars that shrink
In the face of stagnation the water runs
Before your eyes
Dazzle
It’s a glittering prize”
and to you Mr. Wallick, please recognize your own worthy and valuable (NOT poor) service, as we are to each also recognize our own. at least that’s my mirror too.
blissings ~
Len,
xo
Be,
Lol fer sure. Good ROTFL would be in order somewhere along this road.
Thought I’d take a look – Natal Hekat shares 16 Cancer with Ceres – 12th house.
Persephone made it to Geminii, but shares 10th house with Hades who stands guard over my MC (trine Pluto, is he not)?
Migrane won’t back off, visual head and lower back – really kicking my ass, to be sure. (And have it with no “apparent” reason.)
Heavy humidity here in SoCal. Must be a Water thing.
xo
Mystes,
I am so sorry, so very sorry for your son and his friend’s family.
Blessings and Prayers to All.
aword, Cynthia, Huffy, be, Star-Gazer and mystes, all:
Thank you for accepting my poor service and carrying on to take it beyond. Please also accept my compassion and respect. You prove that the readers of Planet Waves are among the best and brightest hopes of humanity, never to be underestimated, always a source of inspiration.
Very funny, Be… and I second the ‘hot exhaustion’ motion. It rained here in my little town yesterday. A sudden agglomeration of clouds, lightning strikes in the woods behind my place and a couple of buckets of rain. So fast that it didn’t even show up on the weather reports.
But here’s the thing: the water was HOT. Seriously. Or at least at the deep end of warm. The temps, in the hundred+ range, dropped maybe 10 degrees into the 90s. It was a completely new kind of weather.
***
And as for you, Len. I’ve been waiting for this since, hmmmm, probably since the Eclipse. Didn’t know what I was waiting for until I saw this:
“Something we love and were close to was taken from us. We have the power to get it back, but there are conditions. We must proceed from an awareness that the wound we suffer is not ours separately. We share the injury with the other that inflicted it.”
One of my kid’s friends got hit by a car and killed yesterday. He was 15, a few months younger than my son. It was the middle of the day as he was leaving Zilker Park. This was one of the Super420 gang that constitute my boy’s posse. Unfortunately I don’t have to imagine his parents’ grief.
I am not amused. So between yet another young ‘un kissing SisterMorte, and the Great Mother on the Aries Point, it’s go time.
“We must negotiate and compromise with that entity even if they do not know that. We must share what we love so that healing can be shared as well. If we are not one with each other in love and healing, we will be one alone in the dark with pain.
Hey, I’m game. But my next steps are neither Orphic nor Eleusinian. I’ve made both of those journeys, don’t intend to go again for any more of my children. Enough.
Len, as always your insights and word-smithing skills are a wonder to behold.
I am going to be a bit provocative here and suggest a shadow side to all of this mythological referencing. I say this fully embracing the paradox of polarities as we turn to whatever is coming at us. Since my natal 12th house sun is conjunct Persephone exactly, with a square to Pluto and my Ascendant is a mere 4 degrees away from my sun with Ceres tucked in-between, I have always had a particularly deep connection with these archetypes and their story.
In a “glass-half full/empty” kind of way there are two views of the Ceres/Demeter story… yes, she negotiated that at least half the time would be fruitful. Considering the enormously powerful entity she was up against, that was perhaps as good as could be expected. But being that she is agrarian by nature, and not a natural fighter (kick-ass Athena or Diana could have given her a hand), she also perhaps lacked the skills (or weapons) to do any better. Or perhaps, being of the earth itself, she understood that tough bargains require sacrifice. We often forget this sacrifice piece as we focus on the ass saving. How many Americans watching the budget debate news still feel that the “other side” is not sacrificing enough while “our” side has already capitulated enough, I wonder? With our country so evenly divided and harshly polarized, we are in a moment like Ceres must have faced, are we not? Loose it all or make do with half of what we really want…. such a tough dilemma.
With the myth we forget that Persephone was the pawn in all of this. Depending on which version you embrace she was either abducted or raped and abducted. Either way, the sexual conquest aspect of this story cannot be ignored. This whole damn story happens because the goddesses are under-powered and too sexy/tempting, respectively, to deal with the powerful Lord of the Underworld. (how familiar this is beginning to sound!)
Some see this as a victimization some see this as a Dharmic journey. What is true is that for half the year, the raped maiden has to live with her abductor/abuser. How do we feel about that? Again, for the glass is half full tribe, we rejoice because our collective asses can get a tan-line. But what about Persephone herself? How does she feel in all of this? What does that part of ourselves feel that has had to endure this unspeakable deprivation and captivity with the One who embodies everything that she is not?
What Persephone has done with all of this is to go way, way deep inside herself and find ways to endure. Ways to survive, against terrible odds. She has gone so deeply inside herself that she occupies a new, spiritual place. A place of quiet solitude where she communes and is One with Source having entered the Death-realms. She becomes a Shaman in a way. She matures.
And she loses her innocence. She loses her ability to trust others, her own Mother in particular, who had to bargain for her life and only secure a partial victory. So, for Persephone, she has lost much, but she retains her Selfhood though it is now transformed by the sacrifice. Her story is much like the mythic Christ who sacrifices himself for the salvation of others, yet it rarely gets the same airtime here in our modern culture.
What Persephone has also gained is that she is now the one who walks between the realms of the living and the Dead. She becomes Shamanic. And as such, do we trust her anymore? She is the Queen Consort of the Death Lord himself… there HAS to be some power there! Yet we, as a culture, with our fear of death and the death realms do not give her any acknowledgment of this new hard-earned power. We turn her back into a sweet innocent when she returns to the land of the living. Why do we do this, I wonder? I suggest it is because we don’t know how to accept our own powerful inner Dark Feminine. She is a mighty mystery residing in all our hearts and we have not a clue how to even recognize her, so we assume she must be the same innocent she was when she was first abducted. We miss the whole point of her journey in doing this. We fail to grow up ourselves.
I love what you’ve pointed out that is happening in the stars now. With Ceres entering Aries it is easy to re-imagine that she might be learning how to find some of her own inner fire once more. Perhaps, with this new infusion of the Aries point energy, combined with the new Soros cycle, She in us might find a way to re-invent herself. We could each engage in some radical re-imagining and write a whole new mythology for ourselves regarding these characters. We desperately need to understand what this deepening process is. We need to honour the sacrifices everyone has made in this story, and we need to especially honor the depth of the resourcefulness of Persephone as she has been transformed by this process. We are not living with the patterns of the past needing to re-enact themselves any more. How could we re-write this story, given our current situation, and have an outcome that is not another denial of the huge spiritual message that is behind this allegory?
Saving our butts. . is that why they are called ass-teroids? Len, I’m sorry, it’s just that I’m utterly exhausted and just can’t take this heat, otherwise I wouldn’t be so grossly dross. Like Ceres, I feel like I’ve been to Hell and back, but no Eleusinian Mysteries so far. However, it is very mysterious how the whole Ceres’ myth is taking on the cardinal/Aries points at this time, on this very day especially.
I have a hunch that we will be sharing our nourishment in the very near future, what with the U.S. Sibly Solar Return chart having the Moon in Virgo (9+), while, in the summer solstice chart, the Moon is located almost exactly opposite at 10+ Pisces and that chart represents the whole planet. We’re not talking about just feeding the space station folks here.
Then there’s the whole idea behind Hades the Uranian point; that it represents something we just can’t bear to look at, such as famine. Have you seen the most recent dreadful pictures on TV of the starving children? We just HAVE to do more for them. Ceres seems pretty intent on focusing on that image, or is it Hekate in Gemini teamed up with Saturn in Libra? Well, wise old Hekate was a help to both Persephone and Ceres as the story goes, so maybe she and Saturn are pushing the images while Ceres pushes our Aries point button. It’s like you say Len, “look inside yourself, then look at another; you will know what to do.” It’s not going away by itself. When Ceres moves away from 0 Aries, Uranus (or your anus) will return to that degree in November. (Lord forgive me) Didn’t you tell us he would be there for a couple of months?
With Persephone at 3+ Cancer she’s conjunct the U.S. Sibly Venus, and for a Cancer Sun country, that’s our money and our food. Transiting Persephone will no doubt be opposing transiting Pluto before the summer is over and that devil just can’t resist that young’in. Who loves you baby?
be
Thanks dear Len. Beautiful and challenging – to face our wounds from a totally different perspective, by embracing compromise and compassion rather than tying the knot tighter in struggle. Not easy (but very necessary). xx
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-jaycee-dugard-20110711,0,3936726.story?track=rss
“…interview with Diane Sawyer broadcast Sunday, Dugard, displaying remarkable poise and smiling often, provided chilling details about the 18-year ordeal she endured at the hands of her captors.” and “Dugard’s memoir, “A Stolen Life,” to be released Tuesday”
– Timing……
Shortly before 5 am PST this morning, I woke to rain, which in the desert is a welcome and too rare occurrence. Weather in Arizona appeared to be in line with celestial bodies. I hope this signals a change in our political climate as well.
Yesterday, I was in terror, too. Today, I am relieved as Len sets a course with the mythic story. One With–Letting Love love through us.
As always, in debt and gratitude.
All that has been bubbling near the surface with no available release of the nature I need/ed to find – finally received an open vent in the right direction in the early waking hours of my morning (dare I say around 4 or 5 PST). The “icky feeling” of abuse/terror was upon me and this time I could see a “safe door” or “safe passage” through which I could/can now Actually See the dangers in the dark – not in order to confront them in the ways we have typically done, but rather, like Ceres, take the opportunity to embrace them (knowing over-powering them is not likely) and by doing so, transform both myself and ultimatly the world around me.
Thank you Len. You are my Light in the Night; my Guiding Star.