Toward Wholeness and Awareness

By Len Wallick

“Imagination is more important than knowledge” – Albert Einstein

Today’s astrology continues the complimentary themes of individuation and integration started in yesterday’s blog. First, however, another review of the big picture. Saturn is backing up like a big old truck, bound for Virgo one more time to make its penultimate opposition with Uranus. Mars is backing up like a little red Corvette bound for its sextile aspect to Saturn and inconjunct Pluto, serving to balance and temper the new Moon.

Chiron and Neptune will exact their long conjunction on Feb. 17. On that same day, Venus will form a visible conjunction with Jupiter in Pisces. The New Moon on Valentine’s Day will herald the Asian Year of the Tiger and be part of a tight four-way conjunction — Sun, Moon, Chiron and Neptune. Lots of interesting stuff, especially when one considers the unusual but telling concurrent aspects.

Now to rejoin today, Tuesday the 8th. The Sun enters the 21st degree of Aquarius (about 21 days into that sign) and forms two sextiles with the dwarf planet Eris in Aries and the other with the trans-Neptunian object Quaoar in Sagittarius. [Eric adds: When the Sun makes contact with a planet, it picks up and amplifies the energy of the planet, and gives it to us in some tangible form. Here, we have a story about where identity crisis (Eris) meets family patterns (Quaoar). How does this look? Well, identity crisis may not seem comfortable, but it helps us break free of family conditioning. It is the questioning of that conditioning. Over and over again, we ignore the influence of families on our state of mind or the condition of our lives; therefore we often don’t respond to the influence,]

Quaoar was discovered in 2002 and was assigned the minor planet number 50,000. This was not luck of the draw. This was a number that astronomers had been saving for when they found the large object they were looking for beyond Pluto. Quaoar is an amazing planet but it turns out astronomers could have waited. Four bigger ones have shown up since (though size means little in minor planet astrology — that is the point). Quaoar was named after the creator god of the Tongva people, the first Americans who inhabited the Los Angeles area for centuries without messing it up. It is a binary object: it’s really two planets in one.

Eris is better known to the readers of Planet Waves, having been the subject of feature articles and repeated references. And why not? It’s a big deal. Its discovery upset the apple cart of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) something fierce. It was farther away than Quaoar and bigger than Pluto. In a still unresolved attempt to maintain a grip in 2006, the IAU changed how the uncounted bodies orbiting the Sun are classified, resulting in the demotion of Pluto to a less-than-planet, among other things.

Fittingly Eris was the problem child of Greco-Roman mythology. Not accepted into the in-crowd, she refused to simply go away quietly, constantly reminding the established order that the grief brought upon her would revisit them in kind. Eris also has a Moon of its own: again, a binary, meaning that she has at least two distinct natures. Notably, Pluto was the first such way-outer planet binary, having this property of two distinct natures.

It is an encouraging and optimistic aspect when the Sun in the sign of groups (Aquarius) reaches out to support energies that have been left out of participation. On the one hand, you have the idea of existing in harmony with the fragile Earth rather than striving to assert dominion over it. On the the third hand (perhaps one of your feet, or your tail) there are elements of the feminine present in us all that don’t fit into roles comfortable for the patriarchal paradigm.

As if in compliment, the Moon moves into Capricorn today where it it will conjoin with Pluto and square Saturn in Libra. In this way Luna encourages us to reflect upon and feel our place in the conflicts that are forcing the established order to remake itself in the face of its sustainability. This is a deeply emotional aspect and many people will feel it.

Speaking of impending change, Mercury dances into the anaretic (last) degree of Capricorn today, going void after a trine to the asteroid Terpsichore (Greek muse of the dance) in Taurus and a conjunction to the asteroid Icarus (peak experiences).

Having been in review of the sign of the increasingly impaired established order (that would be Capricorn, under the influence of Pluto) for the past two months, the conjunction is a fitting end to this long, strange trip. In Greek mythology Icarus and his father, Daedalus, attempted to escape island exile by flying with wings made of feathers held together with wax.

The intoxication of being airborne caused Icarus to forget his father’s advice to keep a middle course between the Sun, which was bad for the wax, and the sea which was bad for the feathers. In the same sense, the tenure of Mercury in Capricorn has made us conscious of the fact that our Capricornian institutions — government, education, banking and other financial institutions among them — cannot remain aloft by flying higher and higher into practices that brought the financial crisis in the first place. Mercury will make its ingress into Aquarius late tomorrow.

Also on deck for a sign shift is Venus. When it reaches the last degree of Aquarius on Wednesday, it will remain in aspect, being in an opposition to the powerful, useful hypothetical point, Transpluto (or Isis-Transpluto), currently in the last degree of Leo, the sign of the empowered individual.That seems designed to focus awareness on the feminine.

That is to say: before a big change, one needs to get into balance, and pay attention.

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