ASTRO-DEBRIS.... and some SHAMANISM

 AN EMERGENCE FROM THE UNDERWORLD

It's been a helluva transit of Sun-Mars in Scorpio over the last month. It's been described outwardly by the deep scouring of Gaza by the Israelis. What gruelling unconscious contents have you been exposed to in that time? There was an eclipse early on, and then an eruption around the 13th, as Uranus opposed Sun-Mars: the Gorgon finally showed her face.

We are moving to the sunlit uplands in the next few days as the Sun then Mars enter Sagittarius. You can look back from a brighter place and get perspective, understand yourself. The square to Saturn in Pisces will push you on this one to start with. Look to the bigger picture of yourself.

It looks like being reflected also in a resolution of the Israeli hostage crisis and perhaps a scaling down of hostilities.

 

 

AI and PLUTO in AQUARIUS 

 

 

Last autumn, as Pluto first moved towards Aquarius, ChatGPT was released and astonished us with its human-like AI abilities. 

 

This autumn, as Pluto (empowerment) again moves towards Aquarius (AI), the AI world has been stunned by the sacking of Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, that created ChatGPT. Pluto will be moving towards his 3rd and final Ingress into Aquarius next autumn. I wonder what might happen then? Maybe legislation, and the hyping of apocalytic fears around an AI takeover?

 

MUGGLES

Muggles can only see from their own point of view. We magical people can see from many viewpoints. That is what magic does, that is its wisdom. So we don't fill the world with a cast of bad guys to blame, who we imagine to be in control. 

 

We don't need to, because we don't suffer from the envy and powerlessness behind this Punch and Judy view of the world. So we can see everyone as humans like us. Our magic gives all the inner power and riches we could ever need.

 

 

URANUS and THE US PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

I think the outcome of next year's US Presidential election is impossible to predict at this stage. Not just because of the potentially tight race, but because of all the other factors involved. It is looking like Trump vs Biden. But who knows? There are Trump's legal problems and his Gemini trickster energy, Biden's mental capabilities, the family corruption hidden in his son's laptop.....you couldn't make it up.

This unpredictability is reflected in next year's hard transit of Uranus to the US Moon in Aquarius (the people, the voters); to Trump's Mars and Angles; and to Biden's Scorpio Sun. Watch for the Uranus station at 27 Taurus in Sept 2024.

 

SHAMANISM AT THE EDGE

(From my other blog at shamanicfreestate.blogspot.co.uk)

I just saw an ad for Contemporary Shamanism - Safe Practices. Harrumph! Is the Sundance, where you dance until you are exhausted and your breast torn open, 'safe'? Is a Sweatlodge, where you struggle to bear the searing steam, 'safe'? Is a Vision Quest, where you are exposed to the elements for 4 days, with no food, 'safe'? Is a trance dance that takes you to the point of possession by the spirits, writhing on the floor and speaking in tongues, 'safe'? No, the whole point of these things is that they are not 'safe'. Think of the young Siberian Shaman, called by the spirits to his vocation, and ill until he accepts the calling. An illness that may kill him unless he yields: an offer he cannot refuse.

The whole point of this shamanic path is that it takes us to the edge, it dismembers and rebuilds us. There is risk involved. And in that process we find gold, a source of guidance and connection that comes from deep within - or without - that can be trusted, that renews us, and that serves the world. If your shamanic practice is 'safe', it will remain superficial. The role of teacher is often safe too, they hide behind it.

Enough of this coddling and safety. There will be trigger warnings next, and a #metoo group for anyone who has had a fierce power animal. We have been prosperous for too long, we have cast out the warrior instinct as toxic and patriarchal, and little that is real can happen in that context. Though the groups we attend may serve our social needs and award badges of shamanic attainment: everyone's a winner. Good luck with that😎

ASTRO-SMORGASBORD

MARS OPPOSITE URANUS 

 

With Mars in Scorpio now tightly opposing Uranus, watch out for hidden depths of emotion revealing themselves. What have you been sitting on without even knowing it? What do you need to stand up for in yourself?

 

 

AQUARIANS: URANUS vs SATURN

Aquarius has contradictory rulers: Uranus, who wants to disrupt convention; and Saturn, who wants to protect it. The future and the past, liberal and conservative, at war with each other. In the mythology, Uranus imprisoned his son Saturn, who in his turn sliced off his father’s testicles, at the instigation of his mother Gaia, after he had broken free. Both planets have their tyrannical sides. Aquarians need to make peace between this primordial deity and his titan son. It can take most of a lifetime. Uranus has raw insight, he uses words, but they do not come from reason. They come from something he has seen directly. Saturn's first instinct is to recoil from and denounce this rude energy.

Uranus needs to find a way of adapting himself so that he will be heard. Saturn needs to be open to the continual modification of tradition that is necessary for life to remain healthy.

Uranus' problem is that he is right, and therefore doesn't see why he should 'compromise', as he sees it. Saturn's problem is that underneath the rectitude his foundations are fragile, which is why he clings on to the known and, if really pressed, will slice off Uranus' testicles, burn him as a heretic. On the other hand, Uranus needs this treatment sometimes to get him off the spectrum.

So I wish all Aquarians well in their wrestlings with these deities :) It is your path to balance and wholeness.

 

 

WHISPERINGS IN THE WIND

All widely held collective beliefs are wrong, if only because they have been simplified to the point of falsehood. Our job as astrologers is to stand outside of these currents: that is difficult, because they are often like tidal waves that carry all before them. Political/religious views especially, and don't think we haven't got religion because of its formal absence: it finds an outlet in causes of all kinds. Protest gives purpose. It is the apocalyptic beliefs that I think we need to be particularly wary of.

So it is a dance. Only if we can put our backs to the winds can we be clear channels for what the planets want to whisper in our ears. They are not bound like we are: humans have a tiny slice of consciousness, the planets speak for the whole cosmos.

Astrologers are best being in the world, but not of it. We have a choice as to which voices we are going to listen to. It takes courage to heed that still voice in the hurricane, and it won't always make you popular.

 

 

VENUS ENTERS LIBRA 

 

Venus recently entered Libra. You may have had some kind of epiphany of love and joy as Venus in Virgo opposed Neptune in Pisces. Now it is time to begin to weigh that up, particularly if your head was turned. Think the Temperance Card. Time to look outwards. Venus in Libra is very good at seeing and feeling from the other's point of view. She loves to do this. She brings qualities of imagination and empathy from her recent encounter with Neptune.

 

 

ASTROLOGY ON WIKIPEDIA

Fund-raising season seems to be over for now on Wikipedia. I'm always torn about giving to them, because I use Wiki a lot. But it is rude and disingenuous about astrology.

Here is how the article currently opens: "Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century." What does it mean by 'recognised'? You use recognition for facts, like the gender of a child at birth. Astrology does not claim to be scientific, so it is disingenuous to call it a pseudoscience. It is fair enough, indeed necessary, to point out that many would call it a pseudoscience. You have to put in the critiques: that is a matter of integrity, as is also making a distinction between facts and opinions, which Wiki does not do with astrology.

I think integrity lies not in adhering to Jimmy Wales' logical positivist stance, but in allowing the experts in a field to speak for themselves - rather than, as in the case of astrology, having the article controlled by a bunch of editors who are anti-astrology. That is just insulting. And then after that, as I say, you put in the critiques.

 

Citizendium, an alternative to Wikipedia, is more scholarly, and shows more decency and integrity about astrology. It does not hold back about the strong cultural critique of astrology as a pseudoscience, but it presents it as that: a critique, not a fact. Thank you, Citizendium. 

 

JORDAN PETERSON

A fun prediction: Jordan Peterson will convert to Catholicism in 2031, when Pluto very publicly conjoins his Saturn, the ruler of his traditionally-minded Capricorn 9th House. In the run-up,the divide between his ultra-sharp rationality and his religiosity will become ever more apparent, but probably not to him.

Saturn square Neptune: there's a man who loves the crucifix 😅

I reckon I'm good on the astrology of Catholics, particularly Popes, and maybe Peterson belongs in that category. I called the resignation of the last Pope, and the current Pope's unusual relationship with the Madonna.

He takes himself too seriously (hence the photo.) But he does help me think outside the box, in an evidence-based way. I am grateful for that.

 

PS Subsequent to posting this, I was informed that his wife will be formally converting to Catholicism next year. 

 

MY BOOK

A new review of my astrology book: as ever, you get a free reading if you buy it and leave a (genuine) rating on Amazon 😇 The same applies for my other book, The Medicine Wheel.

 

 

GOD IS DEAD: A SHAMANIC MANIFESTO 

Shamanism is my other big passion alongside astrology. For me, what is astrology but the sky spirits speaking through us? That is why astrology is for me essentially divinatory, rather than about following rules of interpretation - though I do not ignore them. So here is what I called a Shamanic Manifesto that I wrote recently. (You can find my shamanic blog, with free email subscribe, at http://shamanicfreestate.blogspot.com/): 

 

“God is Dead,” declared Nietzsche over 100 years ago. Who is this God who has died - or who, rather, according to Nietzsche - we killed? I think he was the corrupt invention of a desperate people. 

 

It goes this way. The Great Spirit is everywhere in nature. All is sacred. This is the universal experience of early peoples. It is how things are, and far older than God, the new kid on the block. The Jews, a slave race, flee the Pharoah, and spend years wandering in the desert wilderness: this is the book of Exodus. They have fled a tyrant, but tyranny is what is familiar to them. And so, in the absence of a tyrannical worldly ruler, they create a tyrannical Otherworldly ruler. It is the psychology by which adults replicate painful family situations from childhood, because that is what they know. 

 

This tyrannical God is abstracted from the natural world, he dominates it from above. The Jews were living in a harsh, unforgiving reality in which the people's survival was at stake if they did not follow strict codes of behaviour. So there was a practical as well as a psychological reason for an authoritarian God. He is for the same reason jealous of the pagan god Baal. What eventually arose were the monotheisms of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all of which treat the Old Testament as a holy book. 

 

There is, of course, the New Testament, which has a less authoritarian flavour. But even there, right at the start, you have Jesus saying you can only reach God through him. So it is there also. Christianity hit the big time when the Roman Empire, which needed an authoritarian religion to unite it, adopted it. And the rest is history: crusades, inquisitions, witch burnings and so on. 

 

It has been said that monotheisms are desert religions, because their context is just one reality: the desert and the sky. In a jungle, by contrast, there are many realities, which therefore lends itself to polytheisms. Lots of spirit animals! It is why you got saints as Christianity spread beyond the desert. 

 

So good riddance to God and his authoritarian ways. It has left the western world floundering in a sea of uncertainties. Politics has taken its place. Extreme right and left wing politics are a substitute for religion: they give the sense of certainty and belonging, and the prospect of redemption, that religion once provided. We see it too in the causes that young people take up - it is natural to them to do so - but with a religious dogmatism that brooks no disagreement. You are, for example, quickly labelled a 'climate denier' or a 'transphobe' if you question the mainstream narratives around climate and gender. People get 'cancelled'. 

 

Into this brew walks Shamanism, which represents a return to that which was universally true before the corruption of the monotheisms. 

 

Shamanism is not true in a rigid sense: it has no holy books or founders. It is nevertheless perfectly possible to become authoritarian about it: you see that on the internet, where some people are quick to correct others about what shamanism is and isn’t. That is just a power thing, that is people wanting to stand above others, and there will always be people like that. You can learn a lot by watching them. Shamanism, in a way, begins and ends with the experience of the natural world. In that is everything you will ever need to know, but you have to find it for yourself. We are a part of nature, neither above it (as God would have us believe) nor below it, a kind of plague (as many environmentalists would have us believe). The latter is an example of what Jung called enantiodroma, in which one switches to the psychological opposite: from above nature to below nature. 

 

For the Chippewa Cree, we do indeed have a special place: the new-born ones, because we are the only animal that does not know who it is. And so we can learn to know who we are by observing nature – as part of it, not as separate to it – for animals and plants and rocks and streams all know who and what they are, and get on with it. 

 

The loss of our traditional religion has been a mixed thing, and its influence persists: in, for example the scientific quest for truth, with its unspoken implication that the truth will redeem us. It is this passion that drives research scientists. It will indeed redeem us, but not very much if we are using the narrow scientific definition of truth alone. I think the hatred of humanity often found within environmentalism has reverberations of Original Sin, in this case our sin against the Mother, the Earth, for which we must pay by dismantling our whole way of life. I think it is important to look at the mythological roots of what drives us. 

 

The collective needs a new mythology to live by, or it will continue to treat politics as religion, as a philosophy that can set us free. We saw how disastrous that was with Communism. (The far right is as nothing compared to the far left when it comes to mass murder.) We can only ever free ourselves individually. Trying to change the world is usually an avoidance of the responsibility we have for our own souls. 

 

Whether our huge modern collectives of people can have a mythology that is not to some degree authoritarian and crazed is something to which I do not know the answer. When there are fewer people, a tribe can govern itself more through relationships than rules. And that keeps things human, and keeps the mythologies softer. Most people will always want a simple belief of some sort about the universe and how it came to be; you need people who are listened to who can dance around that, in the knowledge that really we know nothing about how the universe came to be, and never will. The healers and medicine people, if you like. Or, in our context, the poets. 

 

I think Shamanism does provide the necessary basis for any society to be healthy. The modern world needs Shamanism. We have a big mission on our hands, we have a whole world to convert! But I don’t mean that evangelically. It is more like a spirit we can convey in a natural kind of way, without actually trying to, simply by being ourselves, and letting people come our way rather than seeking them out. 

 

We do nevertheless have some ideas to convey: for example, that the whole world is alive, inspirited, and why would it not be? That we belong intimately to the natural world, there is nothing in us that is outside of that. And the simple, but world-transforming, idea of regularly expressing gratitude to the earth for her bounty.