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<\/a>The most potent aspects of the chart make a close trine to Vesta in Taurus. Vesta, for its part, is precisely on the discovery degree of Chiron. So this chart opens up a flow of energy from that Chiron\/Vesta dimension.<\/p>\n
Not long ago I read about a French woman (let\u0432\u0402\u2122s call her Vesta) who, for 30 years, lived with and cared for the people in a Cairo trash dump colony. By choice. The community — men, women and kids– tended the burning piles of trash and raised pigs for their meat. No devout Muslim would touch them because they ate pigs and lived in filth. Their kids climbed mountains of other people\u0432\u0402\u2122s broken furniture, and the stiffest brush couldn\u0432\u0402\u2122t scrub the smell of burning refuse and pig shit from their little bodies. Even straight from a bath, they were grimy, as if the soil were part of them.<\/p>\n
This amazed me, so much so that she lived in my mind for weeks afterward. Whenever I threw out my own trash, I added some detail of what I imagined her life was like. My potato peelings and the onion skins became her dinner. My snotty tissues, her kindling. My foot-high pile of mail order catalogs, a guilty offering of expiation to the recycling gods. \u0432\u0402\u045aPlease, please forgive me: I signed up because I thought the stuff was pretty; I never had an intention to buy it. So sorry…\u0432\u0402\u045c I offered them to this woman, too, who once tended the flame and smoke of Cairo\u0432\u0402\u2122s burning trash heaps.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After her death, Dr. Mounir Neamatalla, a leading Egyptian expert in environmental science and poverty reduction who worked closely with her, marveled that this woman chose \u0432\u0402\u045aone of the worst qualities of life on the planet… [she] was living right among them, the garbage collectors, the pigs, the whole mess. I had never seen anything like this in my life.\u0432\u0402\u045c Together they created a composting plant to process the tons of pig manure and sold it as fertilizer. In time, Vesta also brought a school and medical care to these unwanted people.<\/p>\n
People like this are unforgettable because they\u0432\u0402\u2122re so rare. But they are a type of modern day Vesta, the Roman goddess of selfless and devoted service. Traditionally Vesta was the original keeper of Rome\u0432\u0402\u2122s eternal flame, and her mortal servants, the Vestal Virgins of the Roman Empire<\/a>, served to keep Rome’s flame alight, night and day. As any camper knows, maintaining a perpetually burning flame requires careful, sustained attention and patience. Call it investing. Today when we invest, we\u0432\u0402\u2122re likely to think of money instead of attentive service. While there\u0432\u0402\u2122s nothing wrong with money, it\u0432\u0402\u2122s a poor substitute for Vesta\u0432\u0402\u2122s original meaning. We haven\u0432\u0402\u2122t forgotten Vesta; we just renamed her.<\/p>\n This is because our culture defines us by our spending power. At the bank and in shops, we heap our offerings upon a false Vestal altar hoping that somehow our little flames of self-importance might not go out. With devotion we cultivate our next contract, our next project, our next gig that might lead to the kind of connections and wealth that guarantee our worth to others — and ourselves. It\u0432\u0402\u2122s so pervasive, it functions like an autonomic response in the body politic. Someone would have to throw us into a burning trash heap of a town to get our attention.<\/p>\n This New Moon we might just get that experience. Right now Vesta is approaching the Chiron discovery degree. This is a degree that functions as if Chiron is always present. Chiron is our astrological marker for the struggle or quest for awareness, and so we\u0432\u0402\u2122re approaching a moment where lots of us will find ourselves standing, latte in hand, negotiating the next \u0432\u0402\u045adeal,\u0432\u0402\u045c more aware that the whole thing\u0432\u0402\u2122s a sham and uneasy about why.<\/p>\n Vesta is now in Taurus, and that gives a clue. Here Vesta wants to illuminate our resources, but because she\u0432\u0402\u2122s moving toward Chiron, she\u0432\u0402\u2122s inclined to purge our Taurean weakness to seek financial security at the expense of sexual and creative confidence. Vesta\u0432\u0402\u2122s approach to Chiron uncovers our secret shame about this whole money game. At heart we\u0432\u0402\u2122d all rather enjoy a lot more creativity and a lot less embarrassment about our bodies, but we don\u0432\u0402\u2122t know how to ask for it. This is the other side of Vesta, which Eric says, \u0432\u0402\u045aholds space, warms the room, offers compersion, helps the birthing and the dying, surrenders her body to the reproductive process when called upon\u0432\u0402\u045c that calls us. She is the woman within who honors the core sexual self, the body in service to the act of biological and artistic creation.<\/p>\n Conflict between desire and shame emerges because Vesta gives selflessly, abundantly. But we don\u0432\u0402\u2122t. We take and tend not to give, and then wonder why we feel so impoverished. But when we hate our core selves and neglect our core needs, feel ashamed of our bodies and ashamed of our desires how could we possibly have anything to share with others? Fear and avoidance take the place of generosity and grace.<\/p>\n Eric calls this \u0432\u0402\u045aThe Beltane Issue\u0432\u0402\u045c:<\/p>\n Beltane is the celebration of sex as the source of abundance. We live in a society that is not only sexually shut down, and in enormous pain, but which is gradually criminalizing sex. To wit, states trying to ban gay and lesbian people from getting together; and the decades-long abstinence campaign, which is a \u0432\u0402?ban sex\u0432\u0402\u2122 campaign. Now, where is our abundance going to come from, if we cannot connect to the source of human creation? Note that Vesta also addresses the shame we feel about our creativity and our core sexual fire. There is a necessary element of healing shame to heal sexuality and abundance issues.<\/p>\n If you doubt this, let me ask you: When did parsimony ever turn you on? And who would you rather eat crackers in bed with — Santa or Scrooge?<\/p>\n This New Moon, we can change that. If we want.<\/p>\n A return to the awareness of service.<\/strong><\/p>\n Every chart has a history, and this chart reminds us to two BIG historical charts: The Dec. 26, 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami chart, and the Sept. 11 chart. In other words, this New Moon is about power that change fundamental structures in our lives.<\/p>\n First, the history. Chiron, the planet of awareness and healing, was the lead character in the past charts, so the story of this New Moon is also very much about awareness and healing.<\/p>\n Chiron entered Capricorn Dec. 11, three months after the September attacks. Chiron in Capricorn forced our awareness of corruption in corporate and government authorities, a prelude to the real renovation that Pluto would bring in 2008. <\/a><\/p>\n Chiron is now passing through Aquarius, the sign of the people and their dreams, awakening us to our Neptunian visions of a false future, aided by Aquarius\u0432\u0402\u2122 ties to the media. Connect the plot points and you get a rising awareness of institutional failure and media manipulation. Each time Pluto approached Capricorn and then hit the Aries Point, that awareness became incontrovertible.<\/p>\n The hammer and the flame<\/strong><\/p>\n With this back story in mind, let\u0432\u0402\u2122s look at our chart. The most obvious feature in all three is a Mars-Pluto connection to the Aries Point. This is the power to transform in all caps, and in the sign of Capricorn, the transformations that will hit our foundational institutions — governments, big business, banking. In this chart a Capricorn Sun, Moon, Mars and Pluto power are directly tied to a Taurean Vesta. Think of Mars, the hammer, striking a hard blow against Pluto, the chisel.<\/p>\n Now think of that chisel laid to the already cracking foundation of one our favorite false Vestial temples, say, Citigroup. What do you think\u0432\u0402\u2122s gonna happen? With the Aries Point involved, and an earth to earth contact, the ground (literally or metaphorically) is bound to shift and we\u0432\u0402\u2122ll all feel the rumble. The aspect is trine, a supportive energy, but the aim is breakthrough — growth through transformation. A new Vestal fire.<\/p>\n Saturn trines Mercury and Jupiter, too, which gives us three planets in harmonious earth signs, expanding (Jupiter) and structuring (Saturn) the message (Mercury) of the chart. Saturn\u0432\u0402\u2122s Sabian degree is a \u0432\u0402\u045aroyal coat of arms,\u0432\u0402\u045c which rewards those who aim for the highest principles of humanity. Jupiter\u0432\u0402\u2122s degree is the image of an aviary, Mercury\u0432\u0402\u2122s image is of a woman entering a convent. Together they say this moment is about a search for meaning and a commitment to a turning point within a group or common interest. So take some time to reflect and get organized, practically and philosophically.<\/p>\n With reflection and organization, we can construct better futures for ourselves. The great theme of this chart is the call to serve. Capricorn calls us to be practical; Chiron calls us to open our eyes and hearts to the mixed messages and false ideals of the media; Pluto and Mars says the change happens now. Vesta is the proving ground, and the scene of this transformation.<\/p>\n What do you want to break down, recreate, rebuild? I ask because I want you to be very intentional this New Moon, specifically about how Vesta functions in your life and how you want that to change. How do you feel about your sexuality, your body? Do you burn a flame within that resonates with your true self and creates feelings of abundance that have to be shared?<\/p>\n These are personally significant questions to me. I say this because the day after this New Moon, on the 28th, I turn 40. I can\u0432\u0402\u2122t help but project myself into this chart\u0432\u0402\u2122s message and it\u0432\u0402\u2122s call to a renewed awareness of service.<\/p>\n If you\u0432\u0402\u2122ve passed the 40-year mile mark, you know what I mean. You examine you work, your friends, your kids, partner, hobbies, everything — and ask, \u0432\u0402\u045aNow what?\u0432\u0402\u045c Mid-life, most of us have acquired the stuff our culture thinks is important: a career, maybe a home, usually a car, complete with a settled-in feeling of community connections. At least that\u0432\u0402\u2122s the way it used to be. Maybe today the settled-in feeling isn\u0432\u0402\u2122t there, and maybe instead of a church or a club membership, we\u0432\u0402\u2122ve got a Facebook membership, 8G of iTunes memory and steady rotation of Netflix envelopes to keep us connected. It\u0432\u0402\u2122s a busy ol\u0432\u0402\u2122 world out there, y\u0432\u0402\u2122know? Technology keeps us in touch.<\/p>\n You don\u0432\u0402\u2122t have to be over 40 to spot this lie. Even if you\u0432\u0402\u2122re not yet 40, you can still appreciate the problem. There\u0432\u0402\u2122s a lot of \u0432\u0402\u045anow what?\u0432\u0402\u045c in the air these days; it\u0432\u0402\u2122s a sentiment that doesn\u0432\u0402\u2122t discriminate by age.<\/p>\n So I don\u0432\u0402\u2122t ask these questions because I feel I\u0432\u0402\u2122ve adequately answered them all myself, I ask because they\u0432\u0402\u2122re my questions, too.<\/p>\n I, too, am caught between the hammer and the flame. And actually, that\u0432\u0402\u2122s not a bad thing.<\/p>\n Yours & truly, Dear Friend and Reader: On Saturday, the Sun and Moon align in early Capricorn and form the New Moon. This is exact Dec. 27, 7:22 AM EST. For many of us, this will be a life-changing New Moon that calls us to a new (and truer) understanding of selfhood and service. This an extraordinary chart, … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,52,160,117],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517"}],"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\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>
\nShanna Philipson<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"