NEPTUNE DREAMS
Neptune is now moving forward. When he is retrograde, he is pulling inwards, giving dreams that pre-figure our life.
These dreams are from outside time, from the pattern of Fate set down at birth. Their time is now. There is nothing to be done. Neptune is always 'Not my will but thine.'
The first crossing of a hard Pluto transit, schematically, is a demolition job. The old paradigm has to go. The suffering we experience at these times is in large part due to attachment to old ways, old habits of being. They have served their time, even though this may not be recognised as such.
If it is our life itself that is going, the transit tells us that it is time, it is our Fate. It may appear brutal from a human point of view, but from the point of view of death it is necessary and even commonplace. Trust it.
The next stage, the retrograde crossing, is when we are mulched. The pieces are taken to the breakers yard deep underground, where the dwarves can busy themselves with reconstruction. The energy of the old is used to make fertile soil for the new.
It is in the second direct crossing that the new can reveal itself, can be claimed from the depths of the ordeal, its raison d'etre. Another piece of the code, the pattern that we were born with - which the sky story at birth has been generous enough to reveal - is ready to come into place. But it is not an add-on.
It may be that discomfort, the thing that never worked over the years, the inconvenience we thought we could ignore or maybe change, which has reared its head, now glaring Medusa-like in its full power, perhaps raging at having been excluded for so long. It demands that we arrange our whole lives, our whole sense of who we thought we were. The whole process can be dark and unrelenting, and there may have been a build-up for years beforehand. But that can be what it takes to break through old habits of being.
You will never regret what is born. You will be deeply thankful, perhaps through gritted teeth. You could never have seen what it was that was waiting to be born. Those are the limits of knowing that astrology teaches us, that you can take forward from the transit into life's continuation.
Astrology, or the astrologer, can at least accompany you to the gates of the Underworld and explain its necessity, and give you faith in the outcome. And then leave you to cross those barren plains, alone, as it has to be.
This is from someone who is about to have Pluto cross his Venus for the first time. Whatever I think it is about, it's probably not that. If it is, it won't feel like anything I've felt before. There is joy at the end of the road. We come to own our life as never before. You will flourish. But there is no escaping the desolation that comes first. From the Latin 'to abandon'. They key is to let go gracefully, with the faith in the designs of Fate that Jupiter gives. In my case Jupiter in Scorpio, who probably has a gift for keeping faith in the dark places. The sharing of which is the intention of this piece.
WHAT DOES JUPITER SIGNIFY?
There will be a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in Taurus next April. It will be most operative between the New Year - when Jupiter turns direct - and May, when he enters a new sign. This conjunction is associated on a mundane level with, amongst other things, scientific breakthroughs (which we may not know about until later.) AI is an obvious candidate. Other areas are currently burgeoning, such as space travel, space telescopes and the origin of the universe, quantum computing, genetic medicine and nuclear fusion.
But what might it mean on a personal level? It is easy to overlook Jupiter in a reading, because it is not clear which 'bit' of the psyche he refers to. Mercury is the mind, Venus is relatedness and so on. 'Luck' or its equivalent is what we usually think of with Jupiter, and that is by definition something that is outside our control. 'Growth' is maybe something we have more of a handle on. Jupiter is the king of the gods, and is associated with faith and trust - which we might associate with the 2 signs he rules: Sagittarius and Pisces respectively.
In this sense, Jupiter is that confident sense of life moving forwards and unfolding. There is Goethe's couplet: "Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now."
Jupiterian luck in this sense is the stream of helpful events that appears around us when we are following that inner genius, that thing in us that wants to be lived. As Margaret Thatcher said, you create your own luck. It requires the courage of Mars, the hard work of Saturn, the discernment of Mercury....
How is Jupiter different to the Sun? The Sun is that unique thing in us that wants to be lived. Jupiter is the faith we have in life, the optimism, the sense of wanting to live life, that enables us to seize hold of the Sun and live it. Jupiter is our ability to remain optimistic in the midst of life's vicissitudes. Which we may need precisely because Jupiter's desire for growth leads us into difficult places, into those inward pressure cookers out of which the diamonds of the soul are forged. He is good medicine for the apocalyptic thinking that currently has so many in its grip.
Jupiter's sign describes the type of faith we have in life. And that then spills over into the beliefs we have, which are emotionally based, however rational we might think we are.
If the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction impacts your chart, then it will be a very good time for confidently seizing hold of (Jupiter) the new opportunities or ideas (Uranus) that present themselves. They need to be concretised, as Jupiter-Uranus will be in an earth sign. It could take you to places beyond what you imagined was possible or realistic.
ADHD 😈
It seems like everyone I do a reading for at the moment has been diagnosed with ADHD, or diagnosed themselves with it. I think it's bollocks. It just means that you are open and creative, and you cannot take an interest unless you ARE interested. And then you can keep it up all day and night. It is a strength, a gift, the call of the diamon. As Jung said, "The gods have become diseases."
When I reached 18, I could no longer study. I got a 3rd class degree. If I tried to put in the hours to learn, I would feel terrible. But I had no problem doing the things I wanted to do: reading literature and the occult, initiating myself through magic mushrooms, and dressing outlandishly. 45 years later I write books, and read about one a week. I still can't pay attention to subjects I'm not interested in. If a book isn't holding me, I'm ruthless with it after about 40 pages. My dress sense, though, has moved on from a dressing gown to a tiger onesie.
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| At a Fork in the Road |
ASTROLOGY IS NOT AN ADD-ON
I think astrology is usually best seen as the overall context for the other things you do. I think it does astrology an injustice to make it a mere add-on, or to try to see it in the context of something which is probably smaller.
Astrology is a series of ancient sky stories about the gods and goddesses, who call us in different ways, and who between them amount to a very full picture of the human psyche. And yet it is a psyche that is embedded in, inseparable, from the cosmos. At the same time, through the 4 Elements of Sun, Soil, Wind and Rain, it grounds us on this planet.
Humans will get dogmatic about anything. You see astrologers aligning themselves with the formalities of the past - which belong, effectively, to a foreign culture - just as you see Europeans attempting to align themselves with Native American traditions. Don't get me wrong, we need tradition, but we need to be able to dance around it. You cannot reduce Mars to a set of formal meanings. You need a sense of his presence to do astrology.
If you are overly attached to tradition, then astrology becomes a religion like any other. But if it can dance through you, then its completeness and unboundedness can make it the context for everything else, whether you are a therapist or a christian. Or a scientist. Science is a specialised tradition that emphasises Air (theory) and Earth (data). Astrology is the senior tradition, being both older and more complete. As such, astrology cannot be explained under the terms of science. But the reverse is true. Everything has its place in the cosmic vision of astrology.
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