{"id":62344,"date":"2012-11-13T00:01:43","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T05:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=62344"},"modified":"2012-11-12T23:15:58","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T04:15:58","slug":"watch-out-for-what-youre-not-watching-out-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/astro-daily\/watch-out-for-what-youre-not-watching-out-for\/","title":{"rendered":"Watch out for what you’re not watching out for"},"content":{"rendered":"

About two hours after today\u2019s New Moon \/ total solar eclipse in Scorpio (which is around 5:08 pm EDT), Mercury in Sagittarius makes its second of three exact squares to Neptune in Pisces during its current retrograde process. Eric has covered the eclipse in great detail in yesterday\u2019s Daily Astrology<\/a> and separate Planet Waves FM broadcast<\/a>, but Mercury-Neptune could use a little more attention — partly due to Mercury\u2019s trickster tendencies while retrograde, and partly due to Neptune\u2019s proclivity for denial and obfuscation. The message: watch out for what you\u2019re not watching out for.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Simplified chart section showing retrograde Mercury (green glyph with horns) in Sagittarius square Neptune (blue trident) in Pisces. Also shown are the Sun and Moon in Scorpio, just past their conjunction and solar eclipse, and the North Node (orange horseshoe), also in Scorpio. The north and south lunar nodes indicate where eclipses will be happening.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s a classic-style riddle, nearly worthy of the sphinx. How can you watch out for what you\u2019re not watching out for? Step one is to slow down enough that you can see and feel where the gaps are in your observations and awareness. In any situation where you\u2019re on autopilot — especially where the emotional\/sexual stakes may be high, or where you\u2019re feeling tension — it might help to make a list of all the things you know, and another of all the things you know you don\u2019t know. <\/p>\n

In checking the two lists against each other, see if anything pops up as missing — or if anything gives you that slightly queasy feeling that can signal you\u2019re brushing up against denial.<\/p>\n

Retrograde Mercury square Neptune is classic denial astrology. Sex may be one of the primary things we tend to lapse into denial about, whether it\u2019s denial of our own desires; denial of what our partner really wants (or what they may really be doing when we\u2019re not around — and vice versa); or denial of the consequences of our actions (emotionally, socially, health-wise). <\/p>\n

With this square happening concurrent with a New Moon \/ solar eclipse in Scorpio, those layers of emotional and sexual denial (and perhaps financial — are we really honest about the role money plays in our sexual exchanges?) are getting ripe for exploration. We haven\u2019t had any solar eclipses in Scorpio since 1995, so these trees are extra laden with low-hanging fruit. <\/p>\n

We\u2019re already seeing Mercury-Neptune in the news: CIA director David Petraeus has just resigned amidst an FBI investigation to see whether his extra-marital affair with his official biographer, Paula Broadwell, put any classified security information in jeopardy; that does not seem to be the case in this instance.<\/p>\n

Does anyone else find it amusing\/curious that this news coincided with the release of the latest James Bond flick, Skyfall, in the U.S. this weekend? These things are never quite as slick and glamorous as they are in the movies, and affairs have been common since time immemorial, yet they\u2019re still news. And most of the time, we still don\u2019t see them coming in our own little non-Hollywood lives. But is that true? Are we really as in the dark as we tell ourselves we are? <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Consider another bit of news with Scorpionic leanings. It was announced today that Brandon Lacy Campos, the openly queer and HIV-positive activist, artist, writer and poet, has died at the age of 35, cause of death unknown at this time. In a speech earlier this year at the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Conference at Hampshire College, he said,<\/p>\n

“Let me be clear: HIV isn\u2019t over. It\u2019s relevant to your work. It\u2019s relevant to your lives. It is not just a disease that affects white gay men. It isn\u2019t a disease that impacts only men of color on the down-low. In fact, it isn\u2019t a disease that impacts only men. Women, and specifically women of color, and even more specifically African-American and Latina women, are the fastest-growing population of people living with HIV. And with 300,000 women living with HIV in the United States and women representing more than 50 percent of HIV cases around the world, you cannot in justice or in faith remove issues of HIV from reproductive justice.”<\/p>\n

I do not include this quote to suggest that we all need to be paranoid about HIV the way we were in the early and mid 1990s — right around when the last Scorpio solar eclipses occurred. I mention it as an illustration of one of the many things we\u2019re in denial about culturally that\u2019s related to sex, and specifically to women\u2019s sexual health. It\u2019s one of the things most of us are not watching for — but I use it here as metaphor rather than as an explicit health warning.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think the message of Mercury-Neptune is to give in to paranoia. It\u2019s not that we need to suspect the worst in our own motives and the motives and actions of others. Rather, it\u2019s about staying sharp enough in our awareness and loose enough emotionally to recognize whatever presents itself for what it is, and to work honestly with it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About two hours after today\u2019s New Moon \/ total solar eclipse in Scorpio (which is around 5:08 pm EDT), Mercury in Sagittarius makes its second of three exact squares to Neptune in Pisces during its current retrograde process. Eric has covered the eclipse in great detail in yesterday\u2019s Daily Astrology and separate Planet Waves FM … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1734],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/191"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62344\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}