Whence – Where – Whither

Part 2 – Where

A New Year is upon us, and you need to know what do the signs in the heav­ens por­tend? You can per­ceive the facts or real­i­ty of your world as they appear to you. But what is behind that appear­ance or phe­nom­e­na of real­i­ty. What are the “Noume­na” behind the appear­ances? What are the deep­er forces cours­ing through your world that can inform and guide your jour­ney today? What you need to know is “Where” am I now?

As 2017 begins two major align­ments are in place: Jupiter is Oppo­site to Uranus from Decem­ber 2016 until Sep­tem­ber 2017; and, Jupiter is Squar­ing Plu­to from Novem­ber 2016 through August 2017. What this means is that you are going through some­thing this year that is some­what like what you encoun­tered in 2013. That was when Jupiter was squar­ing Uranus; and Jupiter was Oppo­site Pluto.

This also serves as a reminder that the major aspect from 2012, of Uranus Squar­ing Plu­to, is still here in 2017. The Uranus/Pluto aspect is the major theme of this decade. Their rela­tion­ship, along with Plu­to mov­ing through the sign of Capri­corn, forms the fun­da­men­tal Ener­gy-Form, the deep­est melody of spir­it, con­sti­tut­ing our chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty to find a bet­ter inte­gral bal­ance of Free­dom and Order. This ongo­ing chal­lenge is still thrum­ming through your world this year, (just as it did dur­ing their con­junc­tion in the 1960’s, or their pre­vi­ous square in the 1930’s…and yes, many peo­ple have not­ed how sim­i­lar “our” time now is to those two periods…and they are cor­rect to do so).

But for our peri­od there is an added over-tone, the march of Plu­to through Capri­corn, (from 2008 to 2024), also car­ries the echoes of its pre­vi­ous pas­sages through this sign, (1516–1532 and 1762–1778). The ear­li­er peri­od accom­pa­nied the breakup of the Feu­dal Order, the rise of Absolute Monar­chies, and the split­ting of the Catholic Faith; the lat­ter peri­od accom­pa­nied the Fall of Monar­chies and the Rise of Par­lia­men­tary Democ­ra­cies. Each time an old world was super­seded by the emer­gence of a new Spir­i­tu­al-Polit­i­cal-Cul­tur­al-Eco­nom­ic order. Each also wit­nessed the emer­gence of a new kind of “human”, as New Thought-Forms and New Forms of Self-Real­iza­tion co-cre­at­ed a new kind of human, a new human-kind.

The peo­ples of those peri­ods, as we in our time, found them­selves in a “world turned upside down”, with social bonds break­ing, insti­tu­tions col­laps­ing, and the with­er­ing of old sources of influ­ence or pow­er and the emer­gence of new ones. For us, as it was for them, we also find our very way of life, and the insti­tu­tions that are sup­posed to embody, pre­serve and pro­tect our soci­ety and cul­ture, seem­ing­ly falling apart around us.

The good news? Our fore­bears sur­vived, and prospered…and so should we. We have been here in some way many times before, and we will find our way through this trou­ble-filled time too. For this year, (and always), you can rely upon the Wis­dom of the Stars, as con­veyed to you espe­cial­ly now by the twin mes­sag­ing of Jupiter Oppo­site Uranus, and Jupiter Square Pluto.

Jupiter is the Avatar of Phi­los­o­phy, Sci­ence and Reli­gion. It forms and informs how you relate to your world, as it rep­re­sents the beliefs that shape and guide your actions. Dur­ing its three pass­es over Uranus and Plu­to it will be shin­ing this light of under­stand­ing from the Sign of Libra as it is mod­u­lat­ed by Uranus’ posi­tion in Aries, and Pluto’s in Capricorn.

Uranus/Jupiter:
The mes­sage of Uranus/Jupiter address­es the del­i­cate bal­ance (or the neces­si­ty of main­tain­ing an ever-present and dynam­ic equi­lib­ri­um), between, 1) Being more tru­ly one­self as an indi­vid­ual, (Uranus in Aries), while at the same time, 2) Evolv­ing greater social intel­li­gence so that in any rela­tion­ship you can bring about a mutu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial expe­ri­ence of self-ful­fill­ment in your rela­tion­ships with one anoth­er, (Jupiter in Libra).

Uranus in Aries argues for Free­dom for the Self above all; Jupiter in Libra coun­ters with the real­i­ty that “Real­i­ty is Rela­tion­ship”, that the Uni­verse is a web of inter-con­nec­tiv­i­ty and with­out this noth­ing (and no one), could exist. Tak­en to extremes, which oppos­ing plan­ets can often do, you have Absolute Indi­vid­u­al­i­ty opposed by Absolute Com­mu­ni­ty. What are you to do?

As always, the path of truth is found “in-between”, upon that noble mid­dle path of inte­gra­tion. Each of these truths, Indi­vid­u­al­ism vs. Com­mu­nal­ism, each of them depends upon the oth­er, are tru­ly part of one anoth­er. Each tak­en to an extreme is anti-spir­it, anti-truth. Only by hold­ing and bal­anc­ing them, one with one anoth­er, only there can you find the weav­ing-way of your true spir­i­tu­al nature.

Each of us is a unique spark of the Divine; yet each of us is also the very col­lec­tive-cre­ation made from all our interactions/interrelationships with one anoth­er too…We are each a unique “one of a kind”; but we are all of some “kind”, insep­a­ra­bly made by one anoth­er and of one anoth­er, and so out of the many we are also One.

Pluto/Jupiter:
The mes­sage of Pluto/Jupiter address­es the equal­ly del­i­cate bal­ance between, 1) Exer­cis­ing your Will/Power as artic­u­lat­ed by the var­i­ous hier­ar­chi­cal roles in your cul­ture (Plu­to in Capri­corn), while at the same time, 2) Guid­ing that Will’s appli­ca­tion by the social con­tracts (implic­it and explic­it) whose basis is formed by the Beliefs-Truths of your cul­ture that become enshrined/enforced into Laws, and that these Ideals are what shape and deter­mine what is the right­ful exer­cise and lim­its of your will (Jupiter in Libra).

Plu­to in Capri­corn has been exert­ing tremen­dous pres­sures since 2008, and these cathar­tic waves have erod­ed the nor­mal insti­tu­tion­al foun­da­tions as well as con­straints for Will and Pow­er in your world. These trans­for­ma­tion­al forces of Plu­to are dis­rupt­ing the insti­tu­tion­al struc­tures of pow­er, cre­at­ing a loss of con­fi­dence in insti­tu­tions as well encour­ag­ing the emer­gence of new, con­tend­ing sources of Will and Authority.

Reac­tionary forces, seek­ing to pre­serve pow­er and priv­i­lege, by seek­ing to hold onto their pre­rog­a­tives, become ever more abu­sive of their pow­er. Mean­while, the emer­gence of new sources of pow­er and will puts them in con­tention with the old ways, and fur­ther erodes the con­fi­dence in the real­i­ty struc­tures of your world. Both the legit­i­mate and abu­sive attempts to pre­serve the old, and the cre­ative and destruc­tive attempts to replace the old order, lead to ever greater crises in your insti­tu­tions and culture.

Plu­to in Capri­corn is doing what it is sup­posed to do, tear­ing down the old ways so that a New World can come into being. Jupiter in Libra can pro­vide a bea­con of light as you seek to find your way in a world careen­ing through frac­tured realms of reality/myth, fact/falsehood, truth/lies. The prin­ci­ple ques­tions are: from where does any wield­er of pow­er derive their Author­i­ty; and what guides and lim­its their exer­cise of their Will and Power?

In our time, as in those pre­vi­ous peri­ods of trans­for­ma­tion, the answers will not be found in the lat­est iter­a­tions of Right vs. Might. Rather, when­ev­er this cathar­sis and re-birth of soci­ety shakes the foun­da­tions of a world, it shat­ters the appear­ances of things to reveal once again the greater truths upon which your Jour­ney in Spir­it will for­ev­er remain cen­tered and secured.

You are here now to remem­ber…
You are here now because you are to stand in the Light of Uni­ver­sal Spir­i­tu­al Truths.

A world must pass for a new world to emerge, but the core ele­ments that bind togeth­er all the worlds that were, are and are yet to be remain. Look to the Great Ones, the teach­ers who seri­al­ly come forth to re-state the Ancient Wis­dom. More than their thoughts, look at their way of being, how their embod­i­ment of Uni­ver­sal Truths in their lives shine a light for us to fol­low. The teach­ers do not require or need your wor­ship; they have come to inspire you to life a spir­i­tu­al­ly inte­gral life.

With regards to “human” laws, look to the sacred his­to­ry of the great law­givers, the Laws of Manu in India, to Baby­lon and the Codex Ham­mura­bi, to the Laws of Rome, our own Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, to the Dec­la­ra­tion of the Rights of Man and to the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights. All these human laws find their Foun­tain-Source of ever­last­ing Truth in the Fun­da­men­tal Teach­ings of all Ages, The Ancient Wisdom.

A core prin­ci­ple, a fun­da­men­tal Law of that Ancient Wis­dom is this:

Every speck and mote of this Cre­ation, every being, world and Galac­tic Sys­tem has at its core a spark of the one Divine Flame. This core of Light and Love anchors the Sacred Space with­in which that being abides. It is by and through this Sacred Cen­ter of Love-Light that every Life-Con­scious­ness-Spir­it finds their own cen­ter, their own space of Will-Pow­er, and yet this truth equal­ly affirms our essen­tial con­nec­tion to one anoth­er too. For what abides in that cen­ter of one and all is a Divine Spark of the One Divine Light. Tru­ly we are insep­a­ra­ble, because of our ori­gin in the One, and through all our many Lives and Loves we are held togeth­er, all our lit­tle Wills held in lov­ing under­stand­ing by the Love and the Will of the One.

There­fore, whomev­er you encounter is anoth­er just like you. In fact, in their heart of hearts they are already of you and you are of them. This law, found­ed by your ori­gin in and of the One, and bound togeth­er by your sacred cen­ter that is a spark of this One, means that before me is anoth­er self-lumi­nous dew-drop of the one Divine Light. To bring about or cause harm to this or any oth­er is to irrev­o­ca­bly do equal harm to myself.

This is The Law of Kar­ma: That what­ev­er you cre­ate, what­ev­er action, feel­ing or thought you make will return to you. This is the source of the Great Teach­ing regard­ing rela­tion­ship found in all sacred teachings:

“Do unto oth­ers as you would have them do unto you.
For you are all relat­ed, and what you do to the least of these,
You do unto me, The One.”

This is Sacred Law…

This is the Source of Right and Truth…Love.

Fol­low the Ancient Wis­dom, fol­low your heart.

Love one­self,

Love one another,

Just Love.

Next, “Whith­er are we going?”

Join me live on Mon­day Jan­u­ary 9, 2017 at 6 pm EST when I talk with Suzane Northrop on her show. We will be dis­cussing what’s ahead for 2017 and tak­ing your calls too. Find out what is ahead for you and your world.

Here is the link to Mon­day’s Show: Suzane Northrop Blog Talk Radio-Astrol­o­gy 2017

The show will also be avail­able there to lis­ten to after the broadcast.

Hap­py New Year!

Whence – Where – Whither

Part 1 – Whence

As our civ­il cal­en­dar turns the page to a New Year, it seems most fit­ting to look back upon the year just past so that we might bet­ter under­stand from whence we have come; to con­sid­er where we are now; and to look out ahead and see if we might dis­cern more clear­ly whith­er we are going.

Regard­less what the plan­ets and stars may pro­vide, we must always remem­ber that although they are the Avatars of the ener­gies that inform and guide our lives, it remains for us to deter­mine what use we will make of these “Gifts of the Spir­it”. As the great bard, Shake­speare wrote in his play Julius Cae­sar:

“The fault, dear Bru­tus, is not in our stars,
But in our­selves, that we are underlings.”

It is upon each of us to do our part, to lis­ten for our “voice of the silence”, our high­er self, our spir­i­tu­al com­pass, and choose how we shall strive to make our­selves bet­ter and so cre­ate a bet­ter world for those who come after us. How these ener­gies play out, as they sur­round, inform and hold us as one to one anoth­er, depend upon the devel­op­ment of our spir­i­tu­al tri­ad, our Wis­dom-Love-Will. It is by our self-unfold­ment or spir­i­tu­al growth that we may more grace­ful­ly embody these ener­gies, and find our way to their best appli­ca­tion and most benef­i­cent manifestation.

The most con­se­quen­tial Astro­log­i­cal align­ment for 2016 was the square between the plan­ets Sat­urn and Nep­tune. Their cycle, from con­junc­tion to con­junc­tion, is about 36 years in dura­tion and they will form their most chal­leng­ing aspects, (con­junc­tion, wax­ing square, oppo­si­tion and wan­ing square), rough­ly 9 years apart. Their most recent cycle began at the con­junc­tion of 1989, lead­ing to their wax­ing square of 1998 and to their oppo­si­tion of 2006-07, and final­ly to their wan­ing square this past year, (they will start a new cycle at their con­junc­tion in 2026).

Their ser­i­al rev­o­lu­tions artic­u­late the rela­tion­ship between Order (Sat­urn) and Dreams (Nep­tune), or Real­i­ty and Fan­ta­sy, or Respon­si­bil­i­ty and Sac­ri­fice. In the realm of Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy, of Polit­i­cal-Eco­nom­ic-Cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­na, it is inter­est­ing to note that the three most recent con­junc­tions of Sat­urn and Nep­tune, per­fect­ly align with the birth of the USSR (1917), the Cold War (1952–3) and the col­lapse of the Com­mu­nist order (1989).

For Per­son-Cen­tered Astrol­o­gy, for you and I, when­ev­er we expe­ri­ence these align­ments of Sat­urn and Nep­tune, we should see it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to exam­ine how close­ly we are hold­ing togeth­er, in a mean­ing­ful and respon­si­ble man­ner, the del­i­cate and inte­gral bal­ance between our dreams and our real­i­ty. There are pre­cious moments in any one life, or in the lives of a peo­ple, when their dream becomes real­i­ty. But there are those despair-filled times too, when the chasm between real­i­ty and the dream is (seem­ing­ly) unbridgeable.

There are those pre­cious moments in time and space when what we believe and what we expe­ri­ence are in greater res­o­nance, so that what we imag­ine our world should be like is what we indeed encounter. And there are times, such as this past year, when what is “real­ly real”, what is unde­ni­ably a “fact” and what is fic­tion­al (or false) become hope­less­ly confused.

What are we, (or what were we sup­posed), to do when faced with such con­fu­sion and mis­un­der­stand­ing? The square aspect between two plan­ets quite lit­er­al­ly calls upon us to face this these two Avatars, in this case Sat­urn and Nep­tune, not with fear or appre­hen­sion, but with a renewed and Rea­son­able Faith com­bined with a Com­pas­sion­ate Real­ism. We need to bring the two Ener­gy-Forms togeth­er, for that is the path of Spir­it, the Inte­gral Path, for it is by this that you will find and forge a new or bet­ter way. We should embrace this and every such turn­ing as a nec­es­sary chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty for growth.

If all the Great Teach­ings are true, then the entire­ty of Cre­ation is Spir­it. If so, then the one con­stant of this Uni­verse is Growth. Then it fol­lows that the oth­er con­stant of this Uni­verse of Spir­it is Change too. We need to con­sid­er how we can find a Path­way that helps us to con­tin­u­al­ly clar­i­fy our Dreams and to fold them into an ever more mean­ing-filled Real­i­ty. We need to find a way through both our inter­nal divi­sions and the divi­sions between one anoth­er, so that we might heal the divide between our present Real­i­ty and our Hopes and Dreams for a bet­ter world.

Since Nep­tune is the dom­i­nant influ­ence, (being the out­er­most plan­et), the challenge/opportunity was for each of us to allow Nep­tune to help us to slip beyond our assumptions/certainties about the nature of our real­i­ty and at least imag­ine (if not come to under­stand and believe) that there were oth­er dreams and real­i­ties that are co-present and co-exist­ing. That all of these sub-real­i­ties, from the small­est to the largest “Dream-Real­i­ties”, are part of the One, the Greater Real­i­ty in which we tru­ly abide.

Part of Neptune’s way is to dis­solve or eat away at the fab­ric of our per­cep­tion of real­i­ty so that it can be re-formed, re-shaped and trans­formed into a more encom­pass­ing expe­ri­ence of what we tru­ly abide in, that Greater Real­i­ty. Typ­i­cal­ly, we move from a peri­od of cer­tain­ty about our assump­tions about our world into a peri­od of doubt and mis­un­der­stand­ing. These will begin to grow and cre­ate greater dis­so­nance lead­ing to greater doubts, claims and counter-claims as to what is true or false. Final­ly, many if not most will find them­selves in a state of great con­fu­sion and mis­trust, doubt­ing them­selves and one anoth­er, as a com­mon­ly accept­ed dream-real­i­ty gives way because the bonds of affin­i­ty between indi­vid­u­als and groups dissolve.

With­out a shared under­stand­ing, with­out an agree­ment as to what are the dreams we share and what is the real­i­ty we face, with­out this wide­ly shared Dream-Real­i­ty, the shad­ows of fear and blame are unleashed. This break­down in a shared Dream-Real­i­ty erodes our trust in one anoth­er, and under­mines our shared sense of com­mit­ment to, and will­ing­ness to sac­ri­fice for, the good of one another.

But do not “blame” the Plan­et Nep­tune. This Nep­tun­ian fog of dis­so­lu­tion is not here to bring about harm to you or your world. It is mere­ly there to reveal what was and is becom­ing more and more appar­ent. That for­ev­er and always you and your world were chang­ing, and you had reached a time which required a let­ting go of your lim­it­ed assump­tions so that you might find a way to cre­ate a more encom­pass­ing Dream-Real­i­ty for your­self and your world.

These Illu­mi­na­tions of Nep­tune are stronger now than they have been for a very long time, and that is because Nep­tune is cur­rent­ly mov­ing through its own sign of Pisces from 2011 until 2026. The last time Nep­tune was in Pisces was from 1848–1862, and it was a time of great Spir­i­tu­al, Artis­tic and Social transformation…and it will be so in our own time too.

Then as now the par­a­digm of beliefs shift­ed, and for a time the mean­ing and pur­pose of what should be the foun­da­tion of Dream-Real­i­ty was con­test­ed by indi­vid­u­als and groups. Cer­tain­ly, it was no acci­dent that here in Amer­i­ca, it was when the awful crime against Spir­it at the found­ing of our nation, the abom­i­na­tion of slav­ery, was con­front­ed and ulti­mate­ly abolished.

May you find a sim­i­lar courage to face your shad­ows and fears today.

You can find your way for­ward by remem­ber­ing to hon­or and to hold to the fun­da­men­tal teach­ings that have guid­ed you through the best and the worst of times.

May you find com­fort and guid­ance in the great teach­ings, sto­ries and lives of those who have walked these same paths that you must fol­low too. Their exam­ple of Wis­dom, Love and Cen­tered Will is there for you:

Be guid­ed by the Wise Ones, who know there is no reli­gion high­er than Truth.
Walk the path of the Great-Souls, who prac­tice the Wis­dom of Love.
Find inspi­ra­tion in the Lone­ly Ones, their Will­ing-Sac­ri­fice hon­ored by
the Angels and Devas above.
Lis­ten for the Voice of the Silence, attend the gen­tle whis­pers in your Heart,
And you will find “The Way”.

Next, “Where are we now?”