Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Tao, counsel him not to use force to conquer. For this would only cause resistance”
-Lao Tzu
If there is anything to astrology, the big picture will endow our time with the opportunity to end conflict and unify humanity, one person at a time, one day at a time. The coming days will bring this lesson home from several points in history, courtesy of Mars, Neptune and the New Moon, which is the unifying locus of the astrology.
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Mars will enter the sign it traditionally rules a day before Sunday’s New Moon, also in Aries. For Neptune into Pisces, it’s the day after. Both events are a big deal, and both are part of something bigger: A confluence of events surrounding the time and location where one lunation cycle ends and the next begins. The theme is moving from opposition into unity.
It’s been a long time since Mars has been in Aries, since the last day of May 2009. It’s been nearly a century and a half since Neptune was last in Pisces; Abraham Lincoln’s 53rd birthday in 1862, to be exact. Over the course of the next several days they both come home to the signs they are most closely identified with.
The conjunction of the Sun and Moon this coming Sunday is not only closure on their most recent opposition. It is the other side of the space-time coin. The ‘super’ Full Moon was about geometric orientation in space. Earth was the focal point of a grand mutable cross. One axis connected the nearest and furthest points of the lunar orbit (perigee and apogee) which were, respectively, conjunct with the Moon and Sun at the time. The other axis of the cross was the line of opposition between the lunar nodes. Because of the players and their orientations, it was an arrangement that had some of the spatial qualities of an eclipse.
Just as the Virgo Full Moon approximated some geometric qualities of eclipses, the Aries New Moon is setting up to do the same thing with time, pulling into the present events from the past and future.
When retrograde Mercury crossed into its echo phase on March 17 it did so by passing a point, approximately 13 degrees Aries — near the middle of the sign. When Jupiter opposed Saturn on March 28, it was within one degree of that point. Sunday’s New Moon will be in the same spot. This is a relationship in time. One spot, three dates. It connects those three dates to this coming April 23 when Mercury will station direct at the same spot.
It also connects to the year 2000 (the last year of the 20th century) when Jupiter was last conjoined with Saturn (along with the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars). It was another big deal New Moon which was closely followed by a stolen election; that precipitated eight years of perfidy and two wars the United States is still involved in. Just as the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction has come to its conversion point, so it seems have the illegitimate martial enterprises originating with that period. Once again, a connection in time.
Neptune and Mars changing signs on the day of the New Moon widens the temporal connection to include two United States presidents — Lincoln and Obama — attempting to govern a nation divided by war. Abraham Lincoln’s birthday in 1862 must have been a somber occasion. The last time Neptune was in Pisces, he was presiding over a the worst sort of political conflict, civil war. Things were not going very well at the time. People of the same nationality were murdering each other in a conflict over the nation’s founding proposition: that all humans are created equal. He was compelled to issue a formal proclamation — the Emancipation Proclamation — to make the issue clear.
Conversely, the last time Mars was in Aries, President Barack Obama must certainly have felt some internal conflict when he stood in the presence of the fallen at Arlington National Cemetery. He proclaimed that he would exercise his prerogative as Commander In Chief only when absolutely necessary.
Which leads to perhaps the most telling of the time connections in the nexus we now occupy. Shortly after the New Moon, Mars will conjoin with Uranus on the Aries Point. This volatile combination invokes the presence of Pluto in Capricorn by way of its early cardinal sign placement, and awakens us to just what the 21st century warrior may have come home to.
The last time Pluto was where it is now, the most powerful empire in the world, Great Britain, ignored Lao Tzu’s advice. It used force and provoked a resistance that led to a revolt (the American Revolution) that ultimately brought the British to be supplanted and displaced by its former colonies in North America. It is the irony of our times that the succeeding empire, the United States, is now so deeply invested in the use of force that it’s the only thing that it’s any good at anymore.
But that force is no longer useful or relevant except to cause a new cycle of resistance when the world needs it the least. When oceans are dying and ecosystems are being decimated, when the continued viability of DNA itself is in question, the very ideas of both force and resistance are rendered absurd, no matter how just the cause. The decision can no longer be left up to those with the power to force the issue. Their track record sucks. It is up to those of us with no power except to say “no more.”
That’s the meaning of this New Moon folks. What began with war when Pluto was last in Capricorn — as it is now? What was divided by war when Neptune was most recently in Pisces? What was deluded into war when Jupiter and Saturn were conjoined? What strained to justify a decade of war when Mars was on its way out of Aries? That’s right — the United States has finally found that what goes around comes back. It’s not just one planet, it’s a bunch at once. It’s not just one nation, either. It is all of us together, all at once.
We are at a nexus when we must change our ways. The polarities which have served as the excuse and scaffold for our material conflicts must be resolved if we are to continue a material existence at all. And we can’t sit back and expect the power structure that has brought us to this fine predicament to get us out of it. The established order is bankrupt literally and figuratively; it is powerless except to make things worse. It is for individual human beings to begin with each other. One person at a time, one day at a time. You know what to do, you always have. That’s how you come to be reading these words today.
Offered In Service
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejzDJkUXgdw
I have zero interest in participating in old, outmoded systems that do not work.
I am very interested in developing and participating in new systems that work for our world. Marianne Williamson says all human problems are due to a lack of Love, and I believe this.
I also believe that the physical (energy) problems we humans now face are due entirely to a lack or failure of imagination. (although, there’s that greed thing, too, making it worse)
Here’s one example of a plant based renewable fuel source; ever heard of jatropha oil?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jatropha_oil
I don’t know the specifics, but I definitely can imagine us being able to meet humans’ energy needs in ways that are sustainable, and even beautiful.
Thank you, Len, for always making me think!
You’re so on song Jere my man! It’s good to hear you’re busy tearin’ down walls and answerin’ to yourself and the whole of humanity…
And a huge “HEAR HEAR!” and thank you to all our wonderful teachers on Planet Waves. Thanks Eric and Len and Amanda and Anatoly and Judith and all the contributors…(and anyone else I’ve left out)…
I’m in the mood for Dean Martin…Volare… Take it away Deano…
xx
Yes Len, “..each person must answer for themselves and to all of humanity.” Damn straight! (I personally can’t wait for the rush of Pluto in Aquarius!). (..but I guess I’ve got to deal with the practicum of Cap. in the mean time..) Thanks man, for all your ‘putting yourself out-thereness..
I wish I knew how to express how much you guys all teach me.. (.honestly I think I do,.. I’m going to be the best person I possibly can, here now. To prove that we will get by on our own decisions, which will be those that are inclusive as well as well thought out and measured judgements regarding the health of all of us,.. and those steps we ‘must’ take to keep a society ethical.)
(I swear, I’m on the rampage these days.. “..I would tear this whole building down!”, “..If I had my way..”)
Love, (as ALL parts of speech.. thank you Medea for opening me up to that!)
Jere
..although I didn’t bust out the scythe today, (which I could have, the weeds are tall enough), I decided to pull the weeds one by one with my ‘own two hands’. I’ve almost got my ‘side garden’ project ready to plant. (And thanks to Horizon Herbs, I’m gonna grow something I never have before???) And, my compost pile is massive with fine nutrients..
I know this is weird but, if the Japanese people need a place to run to.. I’m one who will shack as many folks up as I can, ..even if it is a motorhome.. and there’s always dirt we can work. This world is shrinking, and people are growing,.. it won’t be long before we’re all kickin’ back enjoying some good tunes and fine conversation.
I Love you guys,
Jere
Yes, Jere – you are swathing Our path.
And Len, you are as one with your planets as Pooh with his Tao; you here holding high a bright torch so that those of us blind in the dark may see.
Thank you.
Pam: i cannot speak for Eric and whether or not he feels lucky when one considers my obvious deficiencies. i can say for myself, however, that i appear before you as the luckiest man on the face of the Earth to have the honor and privilege to write for Planet Waves.
Jere: Great poet that you are, you get there before anyone else. Your question is a good one and each person must answer for themselves and to all of humanity.
Sempersophie, a couple of books, “The Tao of Pooh, & The Teh of Piglet”, as well as Alan Watt’s “The Watercourse Way”. (or anything Alan Watts.. or Thich Nhat Hanh, ..the latter rocks, my daughter cut two teeth at a gathering in Oakland way back when..)
So Len, when (by the transits and celestial compass) do you think we might be able to stretch into the conversation of what ‘all’ of us are doing, in our daily lives, to affect the whole and its process of mediation? (We all could have been done with despots ages ago if we stopped ‘supplying’ them with the capacity to be despots.) (Yet, this is a tricky substance, a slippery slope.) (One of ‘personal’ import..) We Need the conversation, soon.. this Gaia is being stretched too thin.
..I’m just bummed I wasn’t the one to pick you up from the dumpster.. but, Eric has nurtured you well, and you are a fine gentleman.
I Love you Len, as well as everyone else in reality. (I’ve got two hours ’til our water ‘group hug’..)
..Take care,.. think sharp,.. and dream really freakin’ big.. “one life eh, may as well ‘use’ it, to get to the next!”
Jere
Len, thank you for articulating both planetary movement and influence we are now and will be engaging with. I had forgotten about the ‘essence’ of Pluto in the mix. I recall reading about Pluto at some point in my life, something along the lines of …. the instructions in alchemy and in astrology are that the alchemist in each one of us must reach up and connect with whatever we want to imagine that is larger than ourselves and releasing the desire to control or be controlled by anyone or anything.
We belittle our capacity to affect our own lives, let alone the world. Pluto values the hidden, small, sincere endeavor. As the old Chinese saying goes, ” the right man sitting in his house and thinking the right thought will be heard even a thousand miles away.”
Thanks again Len.
Len, brilliant writing from your heart shining out like a star into consciousness!
Love it! Love it! Love it!
A new friend recently introduced me to Tao. I’m grateful for a starting place to respond/interact with shifting energies. I remain hopeful in spite, or in “light” of the end of hopefully all things irrelevant to our forward evolution as a species.
As an ambassador of phoenix types everywhere, I remember…there’s a burning time before rebirthing. So, here’s what ours looks like…and, the stretching of wings yet remains to be seen! =)
Picked out of a dumpster huh? forgotten by the stork? Picked out of a dumpster…!
Sounds like you and Eric both had a lucky day…
Thank you wonderful Len – these are the very words I need to read right now. This is the challenge that I’m up against right now, to meet opposition in another way, not to always take up arms and fight when feeling oppressed, to meet it in another, different, more creative and positive way.
Love
Liz xx