The Cosmic Story: The Wheel of the Year: Samhain 2019

The Cosmic Story: The Wheel of the Year

Samhain: Day of the Dead: All Hallows

The Crone and Her Cauldron

The Celtic New Year: Samhain, the Last Harvest

While our culture, and the whole world, has embraced Halloween, most people don't know why we celebrate the way we do. Why do we become someone else, grab all the sweets we can, and wander through the night, sometimes (at least in the old days) wrecking a tiny bit of havoc?

On Samhain, it was believed that the deceased came to Earth in search of food and comfort, while evil spirits, faeries and gods came in search of mischief.

We celebrate the Celtic New Year on October 31^st-November 1^st: it is Samhain, the pagan New Year, it is The Day of the Dead, it is Halloween and All Hallows. This is the time of year when the veils are thin and the beloved Dead come close and wander around for a bit. It is a day to honor the Dead and our ancestors. That's where the costumes come from-- we want to 'try on' another life. And since we want to honor our Dead, we offer them some of the food they loved in life. That's where the sweets come from. And the havoc comes when we don't honor those spirits properly.

Unfortunately, most of us have forgotten this ancient rite. Halloween is just another excuse for a party. But if we don't honor Death, we will be afraid of it. We get a chance, each year (and for women, each month with our bleeding), to release what is dead from our energy bodies, so something new can be born in the New Year. And when we add to this release the honoring of where we've come from, we can go forward into the next year with hope. And perhaps even an ancestor spirit to guide us in the coming darkness.

This is the time to put a layer of protection around yourself – may I only attract energies of the highest vibrations within myself – if you're going to open yourself to the ancestors. Because we know that there are both positive and negative energies, spirits and souls that do get attracted to us, especially when we're open to it. Open yourself to the highest spirits and bless your ancestors.

We are about to descend into the darkest part of the year in the Northern Hemisphere (while in the South, the sunlight will be growing and you'll be celebrating Beltane! Dance the Maypole for me!). What is darker than Death for us? What if we accepted a small death now, so that something new can take its place? One of my friends said, “I sometimes feel like I'm out to pasture.” I know the feeling as an elder, but not really! This is not a time to stand back and let the world flow past you. It is a time to stay centered in a larger vision and hope, while you engage in the world in the best possible way.

Whoever you are – come dance your dance. Whatever you do – it will be perfect since it's you.

What is it like to dance with death? Words can't take the place of experience. Imagination can get you there. Having a power animal along with you to give you strength, cunning and instinct and an ancestor who can give you clarity is one way to do it. Out in the desert, we dance all night at this time around an alchemical fire, We dance a bone dance.

The Celtic witches honor this time as the passing of the king, the death of the green man of summer. Men especially can look to the Green Man archetype to learn how to live, to love and to die at the proper time. Seasonal renewal, ecological awareness, the Green Man, his face masked behind leaves and branches, is a archetypal energy of growth and fertility, who also knows when to let go and die.

There are legends of him (Khidr) in which, like Osiris, he is dismembered and reborn; and prophecies connecting him, like the Green Man, with the end of time. His name means the Green One or Verdant One, he is the voice of inspiration to the aspirant and committed artist. He can come as a white light or the gleam on a blade of grass, but more often as an inner mood. The sign of his presence is the ability to work or experience with tireless enthusiasm beyond one's normal capacities. In this there may be a link across cultures, …one reason for the enthusiasm of the medieval sculptors for the Green Man may be that he was the source of every inspiration.

[William Anderson, Green Man: The Archetype of Our Oneness with the Earth. San Francisco: Harper Collins, (1990).]

Women can turn to Persephone's myth, the Maiden who is ravished away from her Mother to the Underworld where she claims her name – Persephone – and becomes a queen in her own right, away from her Mother's power. Persephone is the strong one who each year descends into the Underworld and welcomes the Dead, leading the way through the dark to new life. Her work is to abide in the Underworld for a season, with patience and calm, to invoke the next generation, the next phase of life. She is 'brewing beauty in the Underworld'. (Caroline Casey) She is also strong enough to ascend and come back in the springtime to bring that new life with her. 

 

Both the Green Man and Persephone lead us to renewal.

Renew yourself and your soul ancestry as well as your human ancestors by releasing the old story lodged in your DNA. We can make a leap in evolution with our self-awareness and our values. Understand your place in the beauty of creation. Take responsibility for your world. It is time to take our place again the the biosphere of Mother Earth. It is time to reclaim our bodies, our souls and our spirit.

Mercury Retrograde in Scorpio

The Faerie Queen & King at Samhain

As Fate would have it, Mercury is here to help. Our messenger/psychopomp is about to reverse direction on Halloween (11:42am EDT). The Sabian symbol for Mercury turning retrograde at 28* Scorpio is: The King and Queen of Faerie are solemnly welcomed to their realm. Quite perfect, don't you think? When these archetypal energies return to the inner world or other dimensions – in a solemn manner – we are called to follow. Now is the time to turn within and contemplate our inner landscape, our innersphere. 

 

Mercury has spent this year, and will spend next year, retrograding in water signs. I guess the cosmos (the Mercury retrogrades and Cancer North Node) wants us to look at our emotions and heal them. This is Mercury's 3^rd and last retrograde this year, the other two occurring in the signs of Pisces and Cancer. This Scorpio retrograde can help us work on those shadow qualities related to other people in our lives – family, friends, co-workers, strangers. 

Mercury can lead us to see how we choose to hold ourselves apart from intimacy, from sharing ourselves emotionally, from diving deeply into life. What's holding us back? Fear of betrayal, fear of failure, fear of being unloved and unlovable? Terror at being dominated or worse? Fear of the unknown or the stranger? Fear of our desires and passions? Fear of the Dark? 

 

For these 3 weeks, from October 31^st to November 20^th, we can let Mercury lead us back to the source of our wounds, which will become the source of our healing. Take the time and meditate and/or journey with Mercury into the deep inner reservoir of your emotional body. Face your fears, release and thank your shadows, and embrace the joy of emotional freedom. Leave the trauma you learned with in the cauldron of regeneration and claim the gift of your initiation.

Re-member, re-lease, re-deem, re-claim, re-new, re-dedicate, re-enchant and re-turn to your original state of blessing and wholeness. Let the old king die so the divine child of Light can be re-born at the Winter Solstice.

Mercury moving in front of the Sun

[Sky Alert! On the morning of Monday November 11, Mercury will cross the face of the Sun – looking like a tiny black dot! If you still have your glasses from the Great American eclipse, pull 'em out. Also, find an observatory. In Rhode Island, Frosty Drew Observatory is opened from 7am to around 1:30pm.]

The Astrology of Now

Sun at 15* Scorpio Power Gate 

The intense Scorpio New Moon on October 27^th was opposite the planet Uranus in Taurus. Many people found it hard to sleep those nights – the energy was high. A Scorpio New Moon plants the seeds of emotional death and rebirth, embracing an awakened awareness of life because we face death. With the awakener Uranus opposing this New Moon, our psyches are energized and electrified with an awakened body as well. Uranus in Taurus is an awakened Earth – our awareness can align with Earth's awareness now. Our wholeness has to include our bodies, our hearts and minds and our spiritual awareness. This is it! This is what we've been working toward, preparing us for the big upheavals of 2020 and beyond.

If we're going to have an awakened Earth, we have to be the agents of that awakening. The Sabian symbol for the Scorpio New Moon at 5* is: A massive rocky shore unchanged by centuries of storms. We have to remember that there are fundamental principles of life that can sustain us in these stormy times. We have to find our strength, because who knows when a fire, flood, storm or earthquake will demand that strength from us. 

 

Uranus in Taurus is an awakened Earth spirit. Our mother, Earth, will help us survive those hard time is we're open to listening to her wisdom. The body knows! We have moved so far away from living in our own skins that we no longer know how to eat, to sleep, to stay healthy and relaxed. Uranus in Taurus wants us to get back into our bodies. That's when we'll confront the poison in our food, our soils, our atmosphere, our waters. If we don't feel it, how can we heal it?

Mercury joins the Sun the day before the Taurus/Scorpio Full Moon. Always an intense time of year, the Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Capricorn trines this Taurus Full Moon and sextiles the Scorpio Sun. Simply put, this energy of release before a new cycle of power and re-structuring starts will push us to go deep and find out what it is we really love and desire.

As Caroline Casey says, while Venus is in Scorpio, we are brewing beauty in the underworld. Then Venus will quickly move into Sagittarius on November 2^nd and into Capricorn the day before the Sagittarius New Moon on November 25^th.   Mars is challenged to work for peace and harmony rather than self-aggrandizement at the Samhain power gate.  Mars leaves Libra on November 19^th for Scorpio, settling in to transform the Libra lessons into passion and power.  

 

December starts with Jupiter finishing up his time in his home sign of Sagittarius (where does time go?) and moving into Capricorn, where he'll meet up with Saturn and Pluto later in 2020. 

 

And it's a big year for eclipses. Including the late December 2019 Capricorn solar eclipse, in 2020 we have a total of 7 (6+1) eclipses in Cancer/Capricorn and Gemini/Sagittarius coming up in the New Year, along with the much anticipated Saturn/Pluto conjunction in Capricorn on January 12, 2020 – to be joined throughout the year by Jupiter and Mars. Big energies for transformation and rebirth are due in 2020. 

 

So. Prepare Yourselves. Open the Way.

Samhain Blessings,

Cathy

It Is Hard To Have Hope – Wendell Berry

It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,

for hope must not depend on feeling good

and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.

You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality

of the future, which surely will surprise us,

and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction

any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.

The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?

Tell them at least what you say to yourself.

Because we have not made our lives to fit

our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,

the streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope

then to belong to your place by your own knowledge

of what it is that no other place is, and by

your caring for it as you care for no other place, this

place that you belong to though it is not yours,

for it was from the beginning and will be to the end.

Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are

your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor,

who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,

and the fish in the creek, and the heron who manlike

fishes for the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing

in the trees in the silence of the fisherman

and the heron, and the trees that keep the land

they stand upon as we too must keep it, or die.

This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power

or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful

when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy

when they ask for your land and your work.

Answer with knowledge of the others who are here

and how to be here with them. By this knowledge

make the sense you need to make. By it stand

in the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.

Speak to your fellow humans as your place

has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.

Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it

before they had heard a radio. Speak

publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.

Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up

from the pages of books and from your own heart.

Be still and listen to the voices that belong

to the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.

There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,

by which it speaks for itself and no other.

Find your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.

Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground

underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls

freely upon it after the darkness of the nights

and the darkness of our ignorance and madness.

Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,

which is the light of imagination. By it you see

the likeness of people in other places to yourself

in your place. It lights invariably the need for care

toward other people, other creatures, in other places

as you would ask them for care toward your place and you.

No place at last is better than the world. The world

is no better than its places. Its places at last

are no better than their people while their people

continue in them. When the people make

dark the light within them, the world darkens.

~ Wendell Berry ~

(This Day: New and Collected Sabbath Poems)

The Cosmic Story: Aries/Libra Full Moon 2019

The Cosmic Story: The Aries/Libra Full Moon, October, 2019

Only Strength Can Cooperate!

"None of us, including me, ever do great things. But we can all do small things, with great love, and together we can do something wonderful." – Mother Teresa 

As we head into the big conjunction of Pluto and Saturn in Capricorn next January 12, 2020, we might be feeling that we have to get our own house in order. This big conjunction is already showing up in the intense political infighting we’re seeing in the U.S., Britain, the Middle East and Hong Kong. The conjunction deals with the death pangs and restructuring of our consumer, capitalist global society, and the old order is not going down easy.

The truth is, it has to happen within each of us to make it happen in the outer world. Or at least a tipping point percentage of us have to do this. It’s time for us to look within ourselves to see where we continue the old patriarchal patterns of competition, greed and domination that are the hallmarks of our society.

This Aries/Libra Full Moon asks us to look at where these old patterns exist in our relationships. It’s time to divest ourselves of the inequalities, injustices, jealousy and competition that are such a big part of patriarchal relationships.

Relationships come in many colors and flavors. These include same sex love, different sex love, polyamory love as well as family and friendship love. And on a global scale, it’s time to develop our Agape Love, which is the spiritual love we can feel for others, the Earth and all of Nature. If the Celtic tribes could do it 5,000 years ago, we can certainly give it chance. (As a matter of fact, the last time we had next year’s astrological patterns in the sky was in 3838BC – Jupiter, Saturn & Pluto in Capricorn with Uranus in Taurus.)

With the nodal axis in the sign of Cancer/Capricorn, we’re being asked to let go of the Capricorn ‘rules’ of love we’ve been subject to and open to the warmth and openness of the mothering Cancer kinds of love. A good mother is happy to see love blossom wherever it will. Because love makes us want to be our most excellent selves.

Love is beyond our ability to contain or control and we have to accept that as a fact of life. Poor Aphrodite, the great goddess of Love! She’s been the most subjugated of all the ancient goddesses, because patriarchy couldn’t get rid of her and so they bound her in chastity belts and bondage to suit men’s need to control. Happily it didn’t work. But it did twist us into shapes that we need to get out of.

Now it’s time to restructure how we relate to lovers, to friends, to family and to the world.

Aries/Libra Full Moon 2019

The Aries Full Moon occurs on Sunday, October 13^th at 2:08pm PDT/ 5:08pm EDT and 10:08pm GMT.

Looking first at the ruling planets of both Aries and Libra, we see that they are ‘visiting’ each other’s homes – Venus is in Mars-ruled Scorpio and Mars is in Venus-ruled Libra. That means that they’re ‘talking’ with each other – or at least listening to what the other is up to. Don’t forget, Venus and Mars met in the underworld (or were invisible behind the Sun when they came together) on August 24^th. So they’ve already started their new dance.

Now, Venus in Scorpio wants to get down to business. Like the Sumerian goddess Inanna, Venus in Scorpio isn’t afraid to go down into the underworld to be renewed. First she’ll have to face that part of her which has been rejected and is raging, like Inanna’s sister Ereshkigal. What part of you is raging, wanting, longing? And what are you willing to do about it? Venus is opposite Uranus retrograde in Taurus, so she’ll likely do something wild and unexpected to break free of old patterns. Have fun with her this weekend – we are meant to have joy in life.

Mar is in Libra so he’s already changing his ways, since Libra asks him to pay attention to the ‘other’. It’s no longer ‘all about him’. While some people might find this frustrating, a true warrior like Mars can accept the challenge. Life is better when we learn to cooperate, especially if we get hugs and kisses as our reward.

Mars is also connected to Uranus in Taurus, except in a harder struggle than Venus. While Venus wants to put on her independence and wild side, Mars is challenged by an inconjunct with a disruption in the ways he usually wants us to operate. Too much assertion or too little initiative can be the problem our Mars faces. It’s time to face the root causes of our relationship dysfunctions, rather than just treating the symptions – usually by leaving! This is where we’re being asked to face our aggressive impulses, try not to inhibit our sexuality, and stop always having ‘to be on top’! Watch out for rashness and impulsiveness because it will only trip you up.

But these two energies can also give rise to new and original ways of dealing with relationships. You know, I think it’s been my generation’s Neptune in Libra that has us all looking for our soul mates and then destroying those mates who don’t measure up. Something has to be done with how we handle our breakups and divorces. We don’t need to be angry that we’re no longer compatible. Sometimes one person grows more than the other, and we need to find kind ways to let each other go.

This is the potential of this Full Moon. Finding kind, just ways to deal with each other.

The question is: How do you ask for what you need with kindness and truth? And how do you listen to things that might ‘break your heart’ without wanting revenge?

Now for the Full Moon itself.

With the Aries Moon, we get to look at where our shadow keeps us self-involved, angry, controlling and too independent to make a strong commitment to another person. The Libra Sun asks us for justice, fairness and a balanced, diplomatic understanding of each other. Venus helps us see our true desires while Mars helps us meet the challenges that each relationship faces, since we all have our own soul purpose as well as our own wounds around trust and commitment.

This Full Moon is intense because added to the push-pull of the needs of our Aries self and Libra other, it is challenged by a square from the Saturn, South Node and Pluto conjunction in Capricorn. There’s an exact square to Pluto by degree and minute! That’s intense. Pluto wants to be a part in our conception of how we want to be in relationship to others. If we’re holding on to the old story, we want to use Pluto power to dominate and intimidate others. If we step into a new story of our own empowerment, Pluto will help us transform any relationship we’re in.

Here’s the deal: how deep can we go to heal ourselves, because that’s how deep we have to go to heal our society. If we can’t heal ourselves of our prejudices, our entitlements, our unconscious feelings of unworthiness, we won’t heal our families, our communities and our world.

If we use these energies in the right way, we will be empowered to be our truest Self in all areas of our lives.

The Sabian symbol for the Sun at 20*40’ Libra is: Hot Sunday crowds delight in the cool sea breeze. We all share in the trials and joys of life. This Libra Sun wants us to delight in what is good and true and let others do it too.

The Sabian symbol for the Moon at 20*40’ Aries is: A boxer, flushed with strength, enters the ring. This is a symbol of intense assertiveness, wouldn’t you say? This is the attitude we need to look at, the cultural shadow we need to face. Do we have to smash our opponents? Or dominate the ‘other’? Personally, I’d rather go to a dance, which in a way what boxers do (Muhammad Ali) but without punching anyone.

The Sabian symbol for Pluto at 20*40’ Capricorn is: A relay race, each runner springs eagerly into place. Here’s the answer to this Full Moon question of the right balance between Self and Other. Are we the boxer or are we totally chilling at the beach? This symbols says that the answer is total cooperation and give and take between us. We are all in this together – Republicans (even if they don’t realize it) Democrats (even if they feel they have the answers), independents and libertarians. Native peoples and the Earth. Easterners and Westerners. Men and women. Elders and children. Our world is One. When will we really believe it?

Pluto provides the way out of our dilemma. It is up to each of us to take up the baton.

The other energy at work during this Full Moon is the square between Jupiter in Sagittarius and Neptune in Pisces, each planet in the sign of its rulership. We need to know what our truth is and not get caught up in the chaotic collective delusions that have been created by the idea of ‘fake news’. Only you can know what your heart knows as truth. Doesn’t that excite you? To know and live your truth. It does me!

And because these energies deal with our beliefs and spiritual aspirations, we need to turn within for the answers. It’s not a time to look outside yourself for someone else to give you the answer. There is no one answer until we find that answer which fills us with light and hope and joy. Then we’ll know. Until then, we are given longings to follow, dreams to guide us, symbols to work with. Watch for the signposts, which show that you’ve arrived.

Learn how to listen within. Mercury is in Scorpio as well as Venus. He is the psychopomp, the traveler who leads the way between dimensions and worlds. Let him guide Venus to the truth of her heart and take her where she belongs. It’s time to do some journeying.

Learn to base your relationships on respect and cooperation. And most of all, Kindness.

And take the time and this opportunity to find balance within yourself – a balance of play and work, self and other, masculine and feminine, inner and outer, doing and being.

Blessed Be!

Cathy

A Gift

Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.

~ Denise Levertov ~

 

(Sands of the Well)

 

 

The Cosmic Story: The Wheel of the Year: Mabon -- Autumn Equinox

The Wheel of the Year: Mabon – Autumn Equinox

Onward we go round the Spiral,

Touching darkness, touching Light.

Twice each year we rest in Balance.

Make choices on this Night.

Make choices on the Night.

We've come three quarters of the way around the Wheel of the Year. We rejoiced at the Re-Birth of the Light at Yule on Winter Solstice. We looked for the Light slowly coming back at Imbolc, bringing the hope of warmth and new life with it. On Ostara at the Spring Equinox, we saw how a balance of day and night struck in mid-March echoes this present balance. The growing Light brought life and color and song to the world at Beltane. And at Litha on Summer Solstice, we celebrated the Earth's fertility, warmth, and life. On Lammas we saw the first fruits of harvest come in, celebrated fun and family, along with cooling weather, shorter days and the last push of summer. 

 

Now we are about to find our balance once again. In the northern hemisphere, we'll celebrate the Autumn Equinox, when day and night are of equal length. A moment of balance before we begin to enter the dark time of year. In the southern hemisphere, the Light will grow and you will be welcoming longer days and warmer weather. 

 

This is the time of year when we gather in our harvest and release what is dying back to the Earth. What dies is the outer shell that grew and protected the harvest – just like the habits and beliefs that shelter our psyches until we're ready to mature. That's what we leave behind to compost. When we recognize what we've become and learned this year, we can also let go of what no longer serves our soul's purpose. 

 

The Fall Equinox is paradoxical: it's a time when we want to get on with business and connect with others, and yet it also marks a time of introversion, a time to turn within to communicate with our soul, through dreams, stories, shamanic journeys and art. How do you feel about yourself? Do you know what you've harvested this year? Do you know what you really believe and value? Are you living them? When you do live your truth, you can relate to others in a profound way.

With my Gemini ascendant, I like to be active (mentally & physically), and sometimes I move quickly through my day. This year as Neptune in Pisces made a challenging square to my Ascendant, I learned to slow down and go with the flow of the energy of the day, without shame or blame – often getting lost in reading. I also admit that I chose to create a few rapids during the year for some excitement. And in allowing myself to change my rhythm, some things suddenly jelled without my having to push for them. I learned a new way to Be in the world and now Do things differently.

Through the years I've learned to trust the universe, but now I'm living that trust daily. So can you!

So take time this weekend before the Equinox to recognize where you've been this past year and gather in your harvest. It's been an intense year. Again. This is Mother Earth in transition – the hardest part of labor – as she pushes us out of the birth canal with great pressure to evolve us into our new birth as mature human beings.

Motherpeace Deck

The Autumn Equinox is called Mabon in the Celtic Wheel of the Year. The Celtic myth about Mabon is interesting, because Mabon stays a mystery to us. The Welsh god Mabon, son of Modron, the Great Mother. A divine child, stolen away at birth. Locked away in the underworld. Searched for. And eventually found. He is the Divine Youth of possibilities. He is that spiritually awake part of us that is repressed into the unconscious underworld of our psyches. He is the energy to do what we incarnated on Earth to do. He is Greta Thunberg and all our kids who are doing something to change the world. Just like we did back in the 60s-70s. This is the next phase of that transition into a new age. We have been searching for this childlike vision that sees through the collective trance we've been in – to see that corporate capitalism is the Emperor who has no clothes on. We need to make systemic changes in our society. It's time to grow up and become the Stewards of the Earth we were created to be.

As Caroline Casey says, Co-operators are standing by. Nature is standing by to co-operate with everything and everyone. We just need to call on the cosmic and earthy energies available to us.

Saturn stations direct on Wednesday September 18^th.

 

Just a reminder. Saturn, the Master Tester, is about to move forward again, this time to a full meeting with Pluto on January 12, 2020. Get ready to shed karma and start living your new story. We all need new scripts, new ways to understand our lives at this moment. Just as we need a new government that is not run by the wealthy and connected. But by the people.

Saturn moves very slowing as it changes direction. And so follow his lead. Go slow. It's all about integrating your new, awakened emotional body into your life. As your soul gets used to your skin, cut yourself some slack. You've never done this before. Let your soul be your guide. I can tell you, it takes a lot of experimenting and some failures. But always new learning. So find out what house your Saturn is transiting – might as well look up Pluto as well – and go slowly and listen deeply.

Autumn Equinox, September 23, 2019

 

The Autumn Equinox occurs September 23^rd (the 22^nd further West) at 12:51am PDT/ 3:51am EDT/ 8:51am GMT. The Chart below is cast for Washington D.C.

With the Sun in Libra and the Moon in Cancer, we're looking at a last quarter Moon energy – conserving the seeds of the future and choosing which beliefs and values are important to take into that future. 

 

The Libra Sun forms a wide conjunction to Mars in Virgo and opposes Chiron in Aries. Our integrity ( meaning: wholeness, completeness) comes from Mars in Virgo – paying attention to details to get the complete picture. Our wounded sense of ourselves (Chiron) can lead us to our greatest gifts, so be open to relationships (Libra Sun) that give you a chance to live your gifts rather than your wounding. 

 

Mars in Virgo also squares Jupiter in Sagittarius, opposes Neptune in Pisces and trines Pluto in Capricorn, so this Mars is powered by enthusiasm (perhaps too much!), imagination (rather than illusion) and transformation (reaching deep inside for the true you). Be authentic, have integrity, invoke your creativity and use your power for life. 

 

The Cancer Moon is conjunct the Cancer North Node, highlighting the need to listen to our emotional intelligence rather than the shoulds and oughts of the old, dying patriarchal rules of engagement (Capricorn South Node). It's interesting that the world-wide Climate Strikes that our children are leading happens during this week of Equinox. Our North Node destiny is to secure the safety of our children and families from climate change – we need Mother Earth to be healthy to sustain us. 

 

There are some challenges this Equinox chart says we'll face. These challenges come from two T-Squares. T-Squares are comprised of two planets that oppose each other with a planet that squares (90*) both planets of the opposition. This planet is called the focal planet and is the dynamic point of release and resolution; it’s where the seesaw polarization of the opposition can manifest in a concrete way. It offers a powerful solution to the pent-up tension.

First, there's a mutable T-square involving Mars in Virgo, Jupiter in Sagittarius, Neptune in Pisces. Jupiter is the focal planet, challenging Mars and Neptune to come up with some concrete solutions to our questions about how do we manifest our faith and belief. If we put it in terms of fake news vs. the truth, we need to ask ourselves: What lies do we tell ourselves? How truthful are we with each other? This ongoing Jupiter and Neptune square asks us to distinguish between false illusions and daydreams and true visions that support our beliefs. Can we have faith in our visions without getting trapped in grand illusions? Denial won't help us now. We have to look deeply into the Neptunian mists and find the truth that will sustain us as we move forward to the Pluto/Saturn conjunction in Capricorn next January 12, 2020.

Then there is the more intense Cardinal T-square involving the Moon and North Node in Cancer, Venus/Mercury in Libra, and Saturn, the South Node & Pluto in Capricorn. While mutable planets can change things, cardinal planets want to start things. So between these two configurations, we have the ability to change our beliefs and grow into them more fully by acting on them.

With the North Node conjunct the Cancer Moon, we really need to check in with ourselves about what we really need to feel nurtured and secure in life. Not the fake 'I'll protect America first' security, but an inner security that will help you stand tall when faced with necessity. This Cancer Moon must look across the sky to Saturn and Pluto releasing the South Node's old energy, the energy that sustains the old patriarchal rules of society. How do we really feel about the deep changes going on in our society? 

 

There's a false dichotomy between thinking of Capricorn as the outer world of society and of Cancer as the inner world of family. Capricorn is supposed to create the culture that sustains the family/tribe (Cancer). This is what's breaking down now. Corporate rights are more important than our citizens well-being. (BTY folks: The corporate mind is the anti-Christ. How ironic and interesting that it owns so many fundamentalists.) While the corporate mind cries, We can't afford Social Security, cheaper schooling, updated infrastructure, it is demanding more investment in the military and more free rides for corporations like Amazon, which doesn't pay any taxes. Corporate welfare has ruined our world, both financially and environmentally. Our governments have given corporations, (what in the old days were merely merchant traders) the power to rule over all of them. That ring of power's gotta go, Frodo! 

  

At the Climate Strike yesterday, I saw all these beautiful young people demanding that we face climate change with new ideas, especially the Green New Deal. I wonder if they realize that this transformation of our culture will demand sacrifice on all our parts. Sacrifice – to make sacred. Will we recognize that to heal Mother Earth we'll have to sacrifice our entitled style of life? Will these kids willingly give up some of their technological toys as we shift energy systems, which might entail using much less energy until the new system is in place? Will we give up using our personal cars and use more mass transit? The world won't change if we don't change the way we live. Just saying! 

 

The focal point of this T-square are the planets Venus and Mercury conjunct in Libra. This means that while we're bringing down our capitalist society and what no longer works for us, we're challenged by the Libra Venus/Mercury to do it courteously and diplomatically. By pointing out what people really need at this moment in history rather than what our rulers want for themselves. It truly is a time to re-create democracy in our country and around the world. Just think what will happen if we, the American people, take back our country from the military-industrial complex and turn this country around on all levels. Think of how the rest of the people in the world will react when we share with them the important technology that will help heal Mother Earth as well as give everyone a chance to flourish in life. 

 

We have the knowledge and technology to create Heaven on Earth. But we have let economic interests turn our beautiful Mother into Mordor. It's time to cast that ring of power into the fires of destruction. We have a chance to redeem the mistakes of the Industrial Revolution by creating technology to clean up our mess. So be courageous (Chiron in Aries opposite Libra Sun) and fling that power ring into the transformative fires. Go listen to your heart, rather than to the fear and worry filling your head. Imagine your part in bringing in a true new world order – one that we the people of the world create for ourselves.

The only planet that doesn't make any aspects to other planets is Uranus in Taurus. This wildcard energy is free to work on it's own to awaken us to a new vision of who we are and what our world can become. So hook your wagon to this rebellious energy and Be Yourself!

May the Blessing of Mabon be yours this Equinox season.

Cathy

For Presence

Awaken to the mystery of being here
and enter the quiet immensity of your own presence.

Have joy and peace in the temple of your senses.

Receive encouragement when new frontiers beckon.

Respond to the call of your gift and the courage to
follow its path.

Let the flame of anger free you of all falsity.

May warmth of heart keep your presence aflame.

May anxiety never linger about you.

May your outer dignity mirror an inner dignity of
soul.

Take time to celebrate the quiet miracles that seek
no attention.

Be consoled in the secret symmetry of your soul.

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven
around the heart of wonder.

~ John O'Donohue ~

(To Bless the Space Between Us)