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.