Good morning,
I’ll be back in a bit with some thoughts on Venus, Ixion and the Great Attractor. Ixion (a planet similar to Pluto) is one of those hot spots in a chart because it speaks so eloquently to a certain aspect of human nature: the total asshole. Of course, with an archetype we get to resolve it: we project our issues onto it, and let it do some of the work of processing shadow material.
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For now, I have time for a brief comment. Yesterday, I mentioned that a development in the capital punishment issue once occurred during an exact Mercury-Sun conjunction — Gov. George Ryan commuted the sentences of all 153 death row inmates in Illinois in 2003. He did so after 13 cases were proven to be false; i.e., innocent people were queued up for execution.
Synchronously, during yesterday’s Mercury-Sun conjunction, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld lethal injection as an execution method. While the court has in recent years taken a number of steps to curb executions, they did not agree that lethal injection violated the 8th Amendment’s requirement that there be no cruel or unusual punishment. Of course it is difficult to see how the lottery that is the death penalty cannot be considered unusual (if you win), and lethal injection is obviously cruel — particularly if you gag for 12 minutes while the drugs take hold.
Our resident civil rights lawyer Steve Bergstein, a Planet Waves editor and my collaborator for many years, has written a comment about this development in his Psychsound blog.
In any event, for the second time in recent memory, there was a major historic turning point in the capital punishment issue the exact day of a Sun-Mercury conjunction. On one occasion, many people were spared; on another, many were condemned to die. This is evidence of both the amorality of astrology, and the unpredictability factor.
It’s now 9:30 am NY time and I’m going to head out to Woodstock for an hour of respite and inner focus visiting Joe Trusso, my mentor (or therapist, as you prefer). After being away from the Hudson Valley for nine years, it’s really great to have Joe as a resource 15 minutes from my office. I’ll be back with part two in a bit — a few ideas about Ixion.
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OK back…an interesting discussion of what it means to be blossoming in a time when the prevailing social message is shut down. There is plenty to reflect on here — I will probably take it up in Friday’s edition of Planet Waves Astrology News, our subscriber edition.
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So, Venus trine Ixion. All these newer planets present a challenge of interpretation. There are very few discussions; from what I have seen during 12 years of traveling the world, the astrology circuit, the Internet and writing in the industry, astrologers are extremely shy about new discoveries, and they are easily overwhelmed. I have found my readers to be considerably more curious, intuitive and insightful than most astrologers, by the way.
Here is my best delineation of Ixion, from Planet Wiki. Skipping, again, the myth; here is some of my interpretation of this point:
On the surface, we have someone who seems to lack all moral fabric, any integrity whatsoever; he kills a person; he betrays his friend; he plots a rape of the most powerful goddess, the revered Hera.
Deeper down, he says take heed: anyone is capable of anything. This is a commentary on human potential. Ixion bears the ‘original sin’ — which turns out to be murder, not sex; and if any extension of that sin is sexual; it is rape, not eroticism.
Ixion points to the common thread among all forms of violence, physical or emotional. Ixion is the pattern or psychological construction which says we cannot change our inherent nature no matter what the consequences or punishment. It’s not that we cannot actually change; rather, it’s that we carry the idea that we cannot. It is a kind of mental affliction that needs to be addressed on that level.
Currently, Ixion is sitting on the Great Attractor. On one level, this is emblematic of the amoral times in which we are living: it has never been more abundantly clear that you can get away with whatever you can get away with. In many respects we have the Bush administration to thank for this. Hey, you bump off a hundred thousand more Iraqis based on a big pile of lies and fake intelligence reports and visions of mushroom clouds, and then the pope comes and blesses you and your army.
So Venus trine Ixion might be the total asshole presented as the nice guy.
On another level, we have the theme of being friendly with one’s shadow side. You can look at society and all our bullshit: our consumerism, our refusal to teach kids about sex, our obsession with violence, millions of people going to church on Sundays hearing about how the world is about to end, all the [Black and Latino] people in jail, and you can easily get the feeling that we are running from our shadow. We are scared of our shadow.
It is clear that the reasons people avoid discussion of, or open expression of, sexuality (and I do NOT mean glamour photography) involve unprocessed injuries, lack of trust in ourselves, and the fear of what will come up to the surface if we actually do have a real discussion. And if you live like that, you live in a borderland of insanity; of psychic instability; encased in fear. You have an option. You have a lot of options.
See you Friday with Planet Waves Astrology News. If you sign up between now and Monday, we are including Small World Stories (our amazing 2008 annual edition) at no additional cost.
Oracle and aspects below.
Thursday 17 April 2008
Vesta (28+ Pisces) sesquiquadrate Hidalgo (13+ Scorpio Rx)
Hidalgo (13+ Scorpio Rx) quintile Saturn (1+ Virgo Rx)
Sisyphus (20+ Libra Rx) quincunx Sedna (20+ Taurus)
Eros (12+ Taurus) septile Uranus (20+ Pisces)
Amor (26+ Aries) sextile Hades (26+ Gemini)
Sisyphus (20+ Libra Rx) conjunct Atlantis (20+ Libra Rx)
Pandora (19+ Scorpio Rx) sextile Logos (19+ Virgo Rx)
Mercury (29+ Aries) sesquiquadrate Great Attractor (14+ Sagittarius)
Venus (13+ Aries) quincunx Hidalgo (13+ Scorpio Rx)
Venus (14+ Aries) quintile Hades (26+ Gemini)
Ceres (7+ Gemini) semisquare 1992 QB1 (22+ Aries)
Pallas (16+ Aries) sesquiquadrate Saturn (1+ Virgo Rx)
Mercury (29+ Aries) sesquiquadrate Ixion (14+ Sagittarius Rx)
Venus (14+ Aries) trine Great Attractor (14+ Sagittarius)
Mercury (29+ Aries) trine Juno (29+ Sagittarius)
Sun (28+ Aries) trine Orcus (28+ Leo Rx)
Venus (14+ Aries) sextile Nessus (14+ Aquarius)
Vesta (29+ Pisces) semisquare Nessus (14+ Aquarius)
Mercury enters Taurus (direct)
Venus (14+ Aries) trine Ixion (14+ Sagittarius Rx)
March 07, 2003 -Pisces – Weekly
The Oracle takes us to 03. Can anyone remember back that far?
What to do, what to do. Just keep feeling, how about? Enlightenment, freedom, spiritual clarity and creative strength have been described many ways, but we often forget the simplest of them: when in doubt, just simply love. That is freedom. I am certain that, if you could somehow connect a remote sensor to everyone’s mind, you will see that this is THE issue. We wind up ensnared in ‘ties that bind’ and those bindings translate to little more or less than the restriction on feeling love. I recognize that there are many reasons to mistrust feeling, not the least of which is that we are fed an artificially sweetened mix of rationalism and fantasy from our first sentient moments. But you will soon be craving your freedom like never before, remember.