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Welcome to Monday,
Well, I did not read the Pope’s chart, but I did see his motorcade go by heading northbound on FDR Drive on Sunday afternoon, and it was extremely impressive. I think I got a look at several Lexus 2012 model SUVs which seemed to be chasing about 100 motorcycle cops and were followed by a fleet of ambulances and then three Good Humor men ringing their bells. I did not see the Pope, but when I asked a traffic cop at the 96th St. exit if that was indeed his motorcade, he smiled and — obviously kidding — said yep, the closest thing to God.
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Along with reading the Pope’s chart, I was having fantasies of Eliot Spitzer confessing his whole scene to Pope Ratzinger, but I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen. I think if you’re Jewish you have to confess to a rabbi, though the pope was wearing a yarmulke.
Today the Sun is conjunct Asbolus and trine Saturn. Asbolus is Centaur #4, after Chiron, Pholus and Nessus. Asbolus was discovered going around our Sun in 1994. These first few Centaurs are easy to work with. Asbolus leaped out of the charts for me about five years ago. When you’re an astrologer, you hear a lot of intense stories about how fucked up life can be. This really teaches us compassion: it’s necessary to be fully present but not take on the pain directly; indeed the whole point is to help everyone let go of the pain.
I kept noticing that Asbolus would show up on an angle (such as the ascendant or descendant) of people who had some of the most harrowing childhood stories. I picked up quickly that it would be possible to “blame Asbolus” for the kind of stuff they went through, and then I realized that the common thread was that they had survived. So I began to think of Asbolus as the archetype of the survivor.
Now, there is something lonely about surviving. There is something desperate. As the Sun has approached this Centaur, what I’ve notice as the weather has warmed up is that people seem less obsessed by fear and more willing to be open and friendly. This is merely what I’m noticing from walking on the streets of my town and to some extent on the Internet. Anybody picking this up?
If you look with some sense of context, it’s possible to see that the turn of the century era has come with an obsession with fear; I mean fear of things like terrorists being used against everyone but also the rising tide of many people being paranoid to be real and talk to people, even down to social situations. I have a friend in LA working on an article about how people are too freaked out about one another to socialize or have sex. In California?
And the past 10 years all our TV programs on the UK and the US have had the theme of “getting voted off the island” or competing to see “who is the best.” We get Top Chef judging scenes that make military tribunals at Guantanamo look cheerful.
I think some of us can finally say we’re striving to go beyond surviving, and by that I mean emotionally, socially and creatively. I’ll tell you something else I’m noticing now, which is a lot of people saying they want to do this, but they seem to have no idea how; how to break the patterns and slip into their creative mental space or socially relevant mental space.
How do you get out of your routines and give yourself some freedom? How do you slip out of the state of mind that conditions you to believe that what you’re doing is irrelevant, and move into something that feels right? This is THE spiritual challenge of our times. How do WE personally change, to get in alignment with our purpose and then gradually get together and change the course of what is happening on our planet? I can tell you that we’re not going to do it from a place of strife, misery and certainty that our lives are meaningless. We may need some of that good old Human Survivor Spirit, but it’s going to take a lot more than that.
We have a clue in Saturn and Pluto, which are closely trine the Sun at the moment. These are the two planets whose energy we need to master. Saturn helps us have sane boundaries. In other words, we have to do better than “say no till you’re good and drunk.” That is not a healthy boundary. We need to be able to negotiate. Walls must have a door; doors need locks and locks need keys. Who gets the keys? And when can they come over? This is how you can start thinking of healthy boundaries.
Pluto gives us the ability to change; to evolve; to let go of our old forms and develop into new ones that serve us better. It can, at times, be a harrowing process. It helps a lot and I do mean a lot to embrace Pluto every single day; to be willing to change and grow and not be set in your ways.
Today the Sun is conjunct Asbolus, which means “carbon dust.” This is a reminder of what all life has in common. The answer includes carbon and it includes the need to survive — but what else? What do we have in common with our neighbors, our boss, our enemies, and our friends? I mean really have in common?
Here are today’s aspects, and the Oracle takes us back to Taurus time in 1999 — when I was preparing my readers for the imminent total solar eclipse later that year.
Monday 21 April 2008
Venus (18+ Aries) conjunct Pallas (18+ Aries)
Apollo (20+ Cancer) sesquiquadrate Hylonome (5+ Sagittarius Rx)
Mars (20+ Cancer) sextile Sedna (20+ Taurus)
Venus (18+ Aries) opposite Sisyphus (18+ Libra Rx)
Pluto (1+ Capricorn Rx) square M87 (1+ Libra)
Atlantis (19+ Libra Rx) quintile Pluto (1+ Capricorn Rx)
Ceres (8+ Gemini) quincunx Chariklo (8+ Scorpio Rx)
Sun (1+ Taurus) conjunct Asbolus (1+ Taurus)
Sisyphus (18+ Libra Rx) opposite Pallas (18+ Aries)
Sun (1+ Taurus) quincunx Arachne (1+ Libra Rx)
Venus (18+ Aries) trine Quaoar (18+ Sagittarius Rx)
Sun (1+ Taurus) trine Saturn (1+ Virgo Rx)
Apollo (20+ Cancer) sextile Sedna (20+ Taurus)
Venus (18+ Aries) opposite Atlantis (18+ Libra Rx)
Vesta (1+ Aries) square Pluto (1+ Capricorn Rx)
Vesta (1+ Aries) opposite M87 (1+ Libra)
Mars (20+ Cancer) quincunx Chiron (20+ Aquarius)
Arachne (1+ Libra Rx) quincunx Asbolus (1+ Taurus)
Sisyphus (18+ Libra Rx) septile Pholus (9+ Sagittarius Rx)
Venus (19+ Aries) quincunx Pandora (19+ Scorpio Rx)
Eros (16+ Taurus) sesquiquadrate Pluto (1+ Capricorn Rx)
Eros (16+ Taurus) sesquiquadrate M87 (1+ Libra)
Mercury (8+ Taurus) quintile Apollo (20+ Cancer)
Mercury (8+ Taurus) opposite Chariklo (8+ Scorpio Rx)
Mercury (8+ Taurus) quintile Mars (20+ Cancer)
Monday’s Oracle Sept. 17, 1999 – TAURUS – Weekly
When I get all confuddled exploring the complexities of Taurus, I have to remind myself that difficult as it may be to comprehend what is happening over in the part of the sky known as your life, you are the one who has to live with yourself. For the moment, that is taking some patience, which you’ve got plenty of, but patience can work for us as well as it can work against us. You may feel you have all kinds of catching up to yourself to do, but as far as I can see things, it looks like you have everything you need, and know all of everything you need to know, and possess all the emotional readiness you’ve been working out, in order to take the next big step; in fact, you may have already taken it.
There is a lonely side to harsh experiences. We want to share the good ones with others. HArsh experiences bring an eye opening realization of our own sense of separateness. The lesson for me is not to allow just those experiences to identify who I am. It is difficult to find the joy of life in them. There is no comfort in some experiences. And they have a way of popping into your head and bringing pain with them.
Think of all the people with whom we share great experiences, and the joy that comes with those memories. The sense of companionship. Even shared laughter brings its own joy.
You are a wise man E. I love you always.