The Cycles and Circles of the Planets, Part 1

Astrology operates through a system of wheels upon wheels, cycles within cycles, spirals within spirals.  The outer planets symbolize collective forces, Saturn and Jupiter reflect how we adjust to those cultural cycles and the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars symbolize our 'personal' bias.  Let's explore how these planets are doing right now.
 

The outer planets—Uranus, Neptune and Pluto—describe the collective tone of the moment. The background upon which we create the future!  We are immersed in those energies culturally and globally.  Right now, those three planets are disrupting as well as energizing our collective paradigm.  

                                     Pluto and it's moons

Pluto symbolizes the archetypal energy of death and rebirth, of evolution, of raw, catalytic energy.  Things change when Pluto comes to visit.  Pluto in the sign of Capricorn (since early 2008) is dredging up the dead weight of our cultural institutions – the ineptitude of our Congress, the greed and power of Wall Street, the unsustainability of capitalism, the waste of war and the wrong-hearted repressive beliefs of our patriarchal religious institutions – to make room for new growth, a new culture and a new paradigm of community life.  And like any catalytic agent, Pluto is quickening the transformation.  It isn’t pretty, but it’s necessary.  As within so without.   As people’s belief in our cultural institutions crumbles, so too, our inner belief that Patriarchy Knows Best is also crumbling.  When Pluto gets through with Capricorn in 2024, my hope is that we will have evolved into a more responsible, self-aware world, where peace is our obvious choice, where good stewardship of our Mother Earth the bottom line, and where feminine wisdom is once again valued alongside masculine intellect.  

                                                Neptune

Neptune symbolizes the archetypal power of the Imagination: at once vivid and illusive.  Neptune energizes our spirit, opens us to the imagination and honors our compassion.  Depending on our self-awareness, Neptune can also disillusion us, get us lost in fantasy (like being in Faerie for a night and emerging 300 years later), and literally drive us crazy through merging us with everyone around us.  Neptune moved into its own sign of Pisces in 2011 and will stay there until 2025.  So our spiritual awareness and imagination is being taken back into the ocean of the collective unconscious where it will also be renewed.  My hope is that Hollywood starts telling the stories people need to hear, rather than the inept fantasies of young men from 18-36 (Hollywood’s target audience).   Never doubt that your psyche/soul is influenced by images, and that the increase in violence in our world isn’t influenced by the violence we see on our movie, TV and computer screens.  Take back your imagination!  Find stories and images that inspire you to be the best person—not a goody-goody best but the most real person—you can be.  Perhaps Percy Jackson, son of Posiden/Neptune, is the new hero archetype, the hero who also allows others to be heroes, the hero who knows we’re all in this mess together.  Look at the inventiveness with which they defeat the old powers of Chaos once again, as all good heroes and heras (female hero) do. 

                                          (tilted) Uranus

Uranus symbolizes the archetype of the new, the original, the revolutionary.  Uranian energy demands a breakthrough, a sudden twist, a surprise awakening to a larger understanding of life.  Uranus loves the archetypal energies of the Mind and the heavens, the eternal laws of the universe, which need renewal and expression.

Uranus in the sign of Aries offers us a new beginning, with chances to be courageous, to know how to deal with changing situations and to find a new identity.  We have to stop thinking of ourselves as less than expected, which is what patriarchy has done to all of us.  We need to discover our archetypal identity as teacher, healer, mother, father, bard, warrior, judge, artist etc.  We are so much more than we’ve been led to imagine.  

So, the collective planets are telling us that things have to change—our culture is no longer a viable option for continued life here on Earth.  The on-going Pluto square Uranus challenges us to find a new, bigger self-identity to meet the chaos of these changing times.  Neptune opens us to other dimensions of reality, helping us to cope with the big changes coming our way with imagination, compassion and spiritual awareness of our oneness.