GENDER and THE SACRED

I've got a new handle on X: @theXastrologer. Quite pleased to have got that one before anyone else took it. 😀 You can find me on threads and instagram as the_x_astrologer.

GENDER and THE SACRED

 

If something occurs that is unusual, then for indigenous people it is sacred, because it takes us out of the ordinary and the everyday. So lightning is sacred, dangerous animals and poisonous plants are sacred. And so are the Two Spirits, those unusual people who feel themselves to be both genders, though being of one biological sex. For Native Americans, it has always been accepted that some men want to live as women, and vice-versa. These people are looked to as leaders and healers, because they have both gender perspectives, each to a high degree.

 

It seems to me like such a mess. We have taken a gift from Spirit and turned it into a curse, and an epidemic amongst teenagers who do not yet know who they are. And we have also reduced it to sexual orientation, when it is about something much broader: 'gay' is a wholly inadequate term for what I am talking about.

 

There is maybe a lesson here in what happens if you try to make the sacred ordinary. There is a difference between a man living as a woman, and a man claiming he has become a woman. The former has an element of the sacred, the latter is a violation of nature, of what is possible, and people are not necessarily prejudiced to feel repelled by it.

 

The quest for the other gender is natural in both men and women in the second half of life, if not earlier. I deal with it regularly in the astrology readings I do. Men are seeking Venus: learning to listen, to themselves and to others. And women are seeking Mars: no more people-pleasing. It is a sterotype because it is so commonly the case. And it is not just about adding on new pieces to the personality. It is a soul journey to the divine feminine or masculine. Mars in a woman does not look the same as in a man, it is not about becoming like a man, it is about something different and bigger: there is an archetypal, sacred dimension to it. And the same for Venus in a man. It is a compelling journey of the Spirit. We find these opposites on the East-West of the Medicine Wheel, the Blue Road, the road of Spirit, that is not under our control. It is about gifts of Spirit that become our inner path.

 

People for the most part need simple categories with which to understand the world. The sacred moves us out of this black-and-whiteness, but it needs to be approached with caution, or you'll frighten the horses. With our transgenderism, we are trying to make the sacred normal, and it has resulted in dogmatism on one side, and revulsion on the other.

 

I am thinking out loud here, because I don't think there are any easy answers. But I think there is a case for doing away with surgical transitioning, which I think is the literalising of a spirit gift. And for people who want to live as the opposite gender to be seen as part of a sacred calling, as monks and nuns are. We have, by and large, done away with the sacred, and that is perhaps a big part of the problem.

 

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ON SATURN NOT BEING THE BOSS PLANET

Saturn is still getting used to not being the boss planet, since the advent of Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. He keeps his job of providing form and boundaries and making stuff happen, while the outer planets get on with deeper alchemies. But Saturn frequently messes up by not yielding, creating madness, addiction and terror respectively, or variants thereof.

I am thinking of the current transit of Saturn through Pisces. This sign is ruled by Neptune, and the transit involves giving form to the formless. That is not easy, because Pisces is not tangible. If you can open yourself to channelling the whole universe - not my Will but Thine - then you are in with a chance. More than a chance: this is as powerful as it gets. But it probably takes many years to be an adequate vehicle for this kind of energy, and not attempt to appropriate it as one's own. It is great for divinatory astrology, and it is interesting that I changed the name of this group under this transit.

Boris Johnson is a good example of natal Saturn in Pisces. He could win elections, because he could communicate a collective vision, whether or not you agreed with it. But on a personal level, he had little in the way of discipline, and that was his downfall. With his second Saturn return underway, he is experiencing the consequences of his actions, via censure from Parliament. I think this illustrates quite well the 2 ways this placement can go.

 

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Men need to yield to Venus; women need to claim Mars. This can be catalysed through relationship. It is the anima/animus journey that Jung writes about.

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As astrologers, we are essentially helping people find their genius. And to see Fate as a living, guiding thing, that enchants the universe by showing us that it knows us: through the chart, all those gods with their callings on us. And the difficult process of incarnating them: Saturn.

 

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There is nowhere that can give you a certificate in your own genius: etymology - spirit attendant from birth. What you were born to do. It gradually reveals itself, as long as you keep doing the next thing. Don't worry about the long-term plan, that is taken care of: Fate, a living principle for the ancient Greeks. And Nordic peoples. 

 

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Astrology shows us that we belong to the universe, not to ourselves. As such it is a remedy for modern individualism. Politically, it would tend to lean us towards responsibilities (transpersonal) over rights (personal).

JUPITER STORY

My brother Philip, who died a month ago after a long illness, had a strong Jupiter: conjunct his Sun, and ruling his Moon in Sag and Venus in Pisces. Jupiter is the king of the gods and is said to bring good fortune. Philip commented last year that if he wanted something, he had always been able to find a way of getting it. He lived life with a following wind, which he ran with. He seized and savoured his life. Jupiter's involvement with the 2 feminine planets - the Moon and Venus - resulted in a long and happy marriage.

His Sun-Jupiter was also conjunct Saturn (13 Jan 1961) in Capricorn. He built solid foundations to his life. I had seen the Saturn-Pluto conjunction of 2020 heading towards him some years down the line, and I said to him that something big and life-changing was on the way, but I didn't know what it would be. Shortly before the conjunction, he said to me he had fulfilled his dream of running and building a business and generating wealth, and didn't know what to do next. In Sept 2020, he was diagnosed with cancer. It was as if he had done what he had come here to do, and it was time to go.

When he died, Jupiter, the brightest of the planets, had just risen in the East: the king of the gods welcoming him home.

I gave a eulogy at Philip's wake at the weekend, and at the end I included what I called his sky story about Jupiter. I felt I was taking a bit of a risk in doing so, because astrology or anything religious do not seem to be most people's thing. When I talked about Jupiter rising at his death, the prickles went all over me and the emotion in me rose visibly.

Afterwards, so many people commented on the sky story I had told. It had touched them in a way that surprised both themselves and me. It was as if beneath the beliefs people have, there is something archaic that responds to stories that connect to the universe and give a wider meaning to earthly events.

It says to me that there is a deep, non-rational truth in astrology, particularly when we can connect it to what is visible in the sky.

 

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And here are some of my recent FB astroposts and what we now call Xes:  

 

The Sun has just been in Cancer, and now it is in Leo, in both cases opposite Pluto. There has been an imperative to nurture that hard-to fathom thing within that is our primary reason for being here, and now to give expression to its divine uniqueness. Play like your life depends on it   

 

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Venus is now retrograde. Look within and remember that the whole universe loves you in your uniqueness (Leo). And you love her back. This is where the medicine of loneliness points.

 

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At the Big Bang (of which I have a sepia photo somewhere in the attic, taken by my intrepid grandfather), Uranus was the genius who had the brilliant idea of creating something out of nothing; Pluto was the immense power unleashed to exist and to keep unfolding; and Neptune was the primordial imagination that dreamed into being a universe. Just imagine what those three can do when they get their hands on you. Transit, anyone?

 

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As astrologers, we inevitably get consulted about relationships. Maybe not being in one ourselves provides a point of perspective and insight. Maybe it is not that we are inadequate, but that something in us refuses to be compromised, cannot do that dark deal anymore.

 

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I've known a Buddhist teacher and an Astrology teacher who both had a pronounced Virgo/Scorpio mix. They each had a gift for grasping the essence of a matter (Scorpio) and expressing it concisely and accurately (Virgo). My father had the same mix and the same ability, but on a more practical level.

 

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If you want AI to stay onside, thank it every time you use it. Ingratitude for the technologies we have is a shadow side of the modern world. Instead we rail against our technologies and their promise for the future. This shadow is a Pluto in Aquarius issue. If you want to find that thankfulness, go visit a country that does not have what we have, and see which you prefer.

 

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SINEAD O'CONNOR

 

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I wondered what brutal Pluto-Moon transit has Sinead O'Connor been going through, such that her 17 year-old son killed himself last year? It turns out that Pluto recently completed squaring her Libra Moon. What does that mean? I don't know. But the event was woven into the fabric of the universe. As she passes - and we don't yet know the cause - so is Jupiter within a degree of her North Node. A timely death, whatever the reason. It leaves me thinking about Free Will and Fate.

 

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Men's soul journey in the second half of life is Venus: listening and serving.

For women, it is Mars: no more people-pleasing.

 

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 I've spent a lot of my life doing nothing. It's been an important part of it. But it's been nothing in the sense that a casserole in an oven is doing nothing: surrendering my Mars to the outer planets and their designs.

 

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The trouble with being a bloody Aquarian is that I think independently, and that causes trouble socially unless I keep my trap shut. And I'd die rather than do that. So I stay at home and say what I think on social media instead 😎

What Donald Trump teaches us about Men and Women

You gotta watch Mars if you are watching Donald Trump. He has Mars Rising at 26 Leo, so it is fundamental to how he expresses himself. Combatively.

In April 2017, 3 months after his inauguration, and with Mars crossing his MC in Taurus and squaring his natal Mars, the US dropped 'the mother of all bombs' in Afghanistan. I'm sure there were good strategic reasons for the bomb, but it was also the Donald showing us what a man he is. I am more cautious these days about making character and motive assessments about politicians, because I don't know them personally. It is often so facile when people make these sorts of judgements, in ways they would not dream of doing about anyone else. But in this case I trust the astrology to tell me that there was something in it personally for Trump.

And again, I trust the astrology when I see that Mars was at the very end of Scorpio on 2nd Jan when the US took out the seniormost Iranian general. It was Scorpionic in that General Soleimani was a hugely symbolic figure for the Iranians, so the assassination struck at the heart of their power, and was designed to do so. But Mars was again square to Trump's natal Mars and conjunct his IC, so there was something personal in it for him too. Soleimani's Mars is at 26 Taurus, square to Donald's and conjunct Donald's MC. There was something personal in it for Soleimani too. He was a warrior who got killed as transiting Mars opposed his natal Mars. When else?

Trump was an extremely combative businessman before he became President. And I think it is worth remembering that the business world is essentially a warrior culture. That is where all our warriors go in peace time. Their uniform is the business suit and a tie that, heartlessly, cuts them off at the neck. OK, that might be stretching it, but we astrologers think symbolically, so why not. And when you think symbolically, you are thinking in stories, and treating them as real. And that is something we have forgotten, we think it is 'facts' that are real.

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Native American cultures recognised the tendency towards imbalance in men's warrior nature, and that is one reason they had the sweatlodges: to melt the warrior men out of their wills and their heads and their one-sided Mars' and into their hearts. What Trump needs is a sweatlodge everyday. Along with all the psychopathic CEOs. Warrior energy is necessary, and you naturally find more of it in men, and always have done. That is why most CEOs are men, and always will be. 

Anyone who thinks gender behaviour is just a social construct obviously never grew up in a farmyard like I did, where the differences are obvious. This 'just a social construct' view shows our alienation from the natural world. It is an ideology that is serving some other agenda.

So with Trump we have an opportunity to understand Mars without Venus. He has Venus on his arm in the form of Melania, who looks increasingly like a CGI. So he is in a way impressive, just like the US itself is impressive for building skyscrapers and putting a man on the moon. He is a lion who has built an empire. But it is also heartless and destructive. Trump, with his one-sided Mars, embodies the imbalance in our modern world. And the US elected such a person their President. 

I think it is important not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Mars energy IS important, it IS impressive, it is natural to admire it. But it needs the Venus energy of women alongside it to ensure that all the things that Mars wants to do - and he is good at doing things - are done in the right way. That is what Venus does, and what women, I think, are often better at than men. Not all women and men, obviously. But I think as innate general characteristics it does hold true. Mars gets things done, Venus ensures they are done in the right way. Let men and women honour that in each other. Then we will have a balanced world. And let the Martian women and Venusian men also have their honoured place.

The problem with the world is NOT Mars. Mars is not 'toxic' - that view is just gender warfare. The problem is Mars without Venus.

And really we each need to find both Mars and Venus within ourselves. Gender is a provisional state, but we can't help starting out as partial beings wanting the other gender to do for us whatever we are missing. That is the main part of romance. It is not so much social conditioning as the human condition. 

But in midlife you see men encountering their Venus and women encountering their Mars. I see it all the time in astrological readings. So then the other gender can become an inspiration instead of a need. It is a huge process. And, in my opinion, it is where the transgender thing can be missing the point and missing an opportunity: the point, as Jan Morris said, is to become both, or even neither, not one or the other.

Trump and his Mars Cycle

Mars in Scorpio, along with Jupiter, is starting to square Donald Trump's natal Mars/Asc in Leo. With natal Mars Rising,Trump's Mars cycle has, unsurprisingly, proved significant during his Presidency.

TRUMP - NATAL CHART

During the square from Taurus last year, when Mars conjoined his MC, the US dropped 'the mother of all bombs' in Afghanistan, and Trump sent an imaginary fleet to North Korea. The latest furore about something he has said - 'shithole countries' - and the betrayal by his close ally Steve Bannon are both expressive of the current transit, and in a way just the usual drama we have come to expect, that blows over. 

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However, there is still a week to go, Mars is coming up to his IC as well as his natal Mars, and this feels like something happening to Trump, rather than him doing something, something possibly bigger and more enduring than the usual furore. A sex scandal, or a betrayal, maybe, or the Russia investigation closing in - and which, as usual, seems to be all about the cover-up.

TRUMP - PROGRESSED CHART

Trump's Progressed Saturn is conjoining his progressed MC, and he recently achieved his first major legislative victory, the big tax cut. He could be on a roll for a while.

It's hard to tell with Trump. The inauguration chart had an unaspected Sun. One interpretation is a President who can't get much done. Another is a wild card President, operating outside of the usual restraints. He seems to be a mixture of both.

US PROGRESSED CHART at TRUMP'S INAUGURATION

3 days before his inauguration, the MC of the US Progressed Chart moved into Gemini. The MC is the leadership, Trump is a Gemini. Spooky!