memories...

'heron now' ds '08

"Perhaps this intimacy between calling and fate is why we avoid the daemon and the theory that upholds its importance. We mostly invent, and prefer, theories that tie us tightly to parental powers, encumber us with sociological conditioning and genetic determinants; thereby we escape the fact that these deep influences on our fates don't hold a candle to the power of death...." (James Hillman, The Soul's Code)

(*archetypal psychologists hold that memories are fictions, flights of fantasy...)

for venus and mercury square pluto...

'art class' ds 'o6

"my workshop participants, too, were in touch with their intution - but they assumed that intuition meant clear direction rather than intuitive guidance. They hoped one good intuitive 'hit' would give them the power to reorder their lives in complete harmony and happiness. But intuitive guidance does not mean following a voice to the Promised Land. It means having the self esteem to recognise that the discomfort or confusion that person feels is actually directing him to take charge of his life and make choices that will break him out of stagnation or misery."

(Carolyn Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit)

dark moon..or ..Saturn in Virgo?

'other half of eden' ds'o8

"The humanly impossible, rapid change out of dark motherhood into bright virginity is discernible against the cosmic background. The inner tension and opposition between motherhood and a maidenhood that is dedicated to the father and signifies a prohibition against all other men is a human reality. If we have understood the peculiar birth of Pallas Athene through the epiphany of the new moon, we must not forget the bondedness of a real father's daughter to her progenitor, to the dominant spirit of the father."

(Karl Kerenyi, Athene)

routine...

'a little privacy, please' ds 'o8

"They look at me in a way that says, "My, what an intriguing question, but don't come any closer."

When they offer responses, the first chorus invariably includes descriptions of power as the ability to maintain control over one's environment, or as a vehicle for getting things done. The second chorus describes power as the internal strength to control oneself."

(Carolyn Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit)

and for the sun in virgo

'half of eden' ds 'o8

"While Mary the mother is swamped by the tragedy, this Magdelene stands up and turns towards the world. Her story is of the gaining of inviolable presence through traumatic initiation. She flings her right hand outwards. There may be anguish shading into horror in her face but she is rising through it. Her work will be in the world and for the world, where she will both command and nurture."

(John Carroll, The Western Dreaming, p 61)

bibliomancy for mars in libra

'waiting for moonrise' ds '08

"This is a story about being at home on the earth. To abide requires an abode - where one fits. Vocation is right dwelling, a way of possessing the here and now as a place in which I abide. It has taken over in a modern West in which other homelands, the more traditional ones, have been left to run down, or abandoned - the tribe, community, town and suburb, church, and even family. Ever present, in the near vicinity of I am, it is that trustworthy intimate who is also portable, like a favourite light coat. Snug in that homely coat, the I am may speak through the act of doing the work, speak the grace note. Vocation informs being."

(John Carroll, The Western Dreaming)

everything I need...

Need is such a problematic word, isn't it?

Need, want and desire - these three are tricky things, often involving 'being clear', writing lists, sorting through, taking action and letting go. There's a culture springing up around these terms, including a psychological and spiritual 'correctness' meaning that they must be clearly distinguished from other human-invented qualities (such as desperation). Or so it may seem.

There was once a man in my life who'd occasionally say to me 'you're a bit needy, Dan' - completely baffling me as I lived what I believed to be a self-contained existence, independent in so many ways. He'd then go weeks without calling or answering my calls just to prove how needy I was. As it turned out all he proved was how much I didn't need him. (a Scorpio, what more should I say?)

From time to time, on this blog, I state that I 'have everything I need', meaning that in every situation Life has shown me that there really is no need to worry about there Not Being Enough. Of anything. If I need it, I have it - or will have it soon. If I have it, then I need it - until I Don't Need it Anymore. It works like that, as simple as that, every time.

But, like the guy who decided for us both that my needs are a bad thing, occasionally something 'negative' does show up in my experience. My faith in my Theory of Needs is then tested. I have to question, after an initial struggle with emotion (aka a bit of a sook), why would I need what I don't think I want?

The whole question has been on my mind lately as I've been going through some turbulence, and the only answer I have is this;

Any external circumstance that triggers an unexpected internal reaction (i.e. so called 'negative' emotion) is an opportunity to see something else about myself.

Under these circumstances, other questions arise; how much of a fight is going on with reality? That's a battle that can't ever be won. Does there have to be an underlying reason or spiritual lesson for what is? (how exhausting!) And if I'm Creating My Own Reality, why on Earth would I sign up for Trouble?

Acceptance seems to be the key that opens all doors - and locks those that are better closed against what is no longer serving a purpose from entering in again.

More and more I see there's a part of each of us that knows what's best, whether we think we want or need it or not. Some call that part God, others call it The Universe, the Higher Self, Spirit or Soul. Whatever we call it, Its got it all covered, so best step aside and pay attention (or risk having to go through it all over again).

And, as I keep reminding myself, if I have everything I need, then I need all the emotions and experiences that I have, so its all alright. OK?

That's got to be all I need to know right now.

detached...

'there goes my angel...' ds '08

"..the office of conversation is to give me self-possession. I lie torpid as a clod. Then comes by a safe and gentle spirit who spreads out in order before me his own life and aims, not as experience, but as the good and desirable. Straightaway I feel the presence of a new and yet old, a genial, a native element... I regain, one by one, my faculties, my organs; life returns to a finger, a hand, a foot. A new nimbleness - almost wings - unfold at my side..."

(Ralph Waldo Emerson)

bibliomancy for venus with saturn

"...earlier we considered the demonic feminine who must be appeased, as in the appearance of the rabid dog in the 'Font of the Knight of Treviso." Here, in this part of the alchemical text, we see her other face, the redemption bringer. Redemption comes experientially, when human and divine essences of being open to one another, and the cosmic heart of being penetrates between the mortal and divine spheres, and peace arrives..."

(Monica Wikman, Pregnant Darkness, Alchemy and the Rebirth of Consciousness, p 143)

but wait - there's more.... mercury enters virgo and a free set of steak knives...

'danae and angels' ds '06

"Greek myth has it that the goddess Demeter personally showed the people of Eleusis 'the conduct of her rites and taught them all her mysteries..- awful mysteries which no one may in any way transgress or pry into or utter, for deep awe of the gods checks the voice...we might say, then, that in many traditions the injunction to silence is the speech act by which a particular narrative is made sacred. The rule of silence separates or cuts these stories off from all other stories and makes them special, holy, sacred..."

(Lewis Hyde, Trickster Makes This World)

Just kidding about the steak knives...

and not forgetting a generation of pluto in virgo....

'unfinished business' ds '08

"...since modern roses of sin and sorrow tend to go beyond those of the past in extremities of anguish, the number and force of our roses maintaining affirmative roots become significant as a measure of our still surviving hope. It is surely a healthy sign that even in the troubled present the rose has continued to be far more often linked with attempts to resolve man's problems than with the deceptiveness of such attempts..."

(Barbara Seward, The Symbolic Rose)

This morning, while trying to figure out where this (almost) petrifying fearsome feeling I have is coming from, two things occured to me. First, that with planets moving through Virgo, including new entrant Venus, that these are touching an area of my own chart that's particularly potent; and second, that there's a whole generation of us with Pluto (and Uranus) in Virgo who are likely to be feeling it, to varying degrees, too.

Mars goes by this region of the cosmos regularly - about every two years; likewise Venus transits Virgo every year, so a lot of what we're experiencing now is familiar. However (and wherever) Virgo energy manifests itself in our lives, we're getting a fresh wave of Mars and Venus vibes and more opportunities to do as we Will, love as we can and continue soul-making as we do. Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, will have us come-what-may. Mars as the archetype which carries forth our desires, plus Venus's wont toward beauty and transformation - well, these are the easier energies to work with when it comes to Pluto's compulsion toward destruction-regeneration and digging through our depths for hidden treasure. The process can bring out parts of ourselves we didn't know we had and polish them up so that they're a pleasure to notice.

Born with Pluto in Virgo, Saturn's (once in 28 years) transit feels at once like a double dose of fear, death and pain. The darkest depths of Soul stretching to the outer limit of Ego. Mythical outcast Titan, King, Terrible Father (eater of offspring) - Lord of time, Dweller of the Threshold - the Grim Reaper - meets The Guy in Charge of Hell (where all things squalid and sordid dwell), in the constellation that represents service and honourable servitude and all things wholesome. It calls to us to a new awareness of how much our unconscious - both personal and collective - (Pluto) controls our lives and how our ideas about need (Saturn) do likewise.

I'm looking to Virgo's ruling planet, Mercury (who in this guise I like to think of as a girl, as the glyph for the constellation suggests) who has a part to play here - as psychopomp or guide of souls. In this capacity Mercury keeps our minds on our work, on the journey - vigilant against hungry ghosts that may pull us into a downward spiral towards despair - and points us toward the signs and the way out if we get carried away during this time.

Stay well, stay the path - and see you on the other side!

bibliomancy for Neptune's oppositions

changing gaze d sinclair '06

"This is the Alchemy that is the Sister of Prophecy, a Prophecy that is rupture, iconoclasm, and a call to waken from the sleep of the dead and hear the voice of the Verdant One, the Green Man who is the Incarnate One and the Angel of the Earth. The prayer of the fourth century North African Bishop Serapion can stand as the great cry of the human heart: "We beg you Lord, make us truly alive!""

(Tom Cheetam, The Unrefused Feast)

and for mars opposite uranus...

'naked man dancing' d sinclair '06

"Overtly sexual relationships are often being driven by something deeper, more fundamental. This has to do with the need to be held together as a cohesive personality, so that we do not easily fall apart with unbearable anxiety or depression, so that we can maintain reasonable self esteem, and so that we can withstand the usual fluctuations of life's successes and failures with reasonable equanimity, without excessive inflation or despair. I believe that the elusive bonding agent which is required here is what the alchemists referred to as the glutinum mundi."

(Lionel Corbett, The Alchemical Glutinum Mundi, in Fire in the Stone: The Alchemy of Desire, p 127)