Alchem­i­cal Tree of Life

Tran­script of Radio Show: 2022 Fore­cast – Part 2 — Nep­tune, Our Spir­i­tu­al Crisis

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

Today we will con­tin­ue our look at 2022 with a spe­cial empha­sis on the influ­ence of Nep­tune in the com­ing year, both gen­er­al­ly and with spe­cial atten­tion to its mes­sage for the USA. Nep­tune has been mov­ing through Pisces since 2011 and will not move into the first sign of Aries until 2026.

But before we look at Nep­tune on its own, I want to point out an inter­est­ing cor­re­spon­dence between Pluto’s tran­sit through Capri­corn and the tran­sit of Nep­tune through Pisces. What we will find is that in every oth­er pas­sage of Plu­to through Capri­corn, Nep­tune will be pass­ing through either Vir­go or the oppo­site sign of Pisces for much of that peri­od. And this cor­re­la­tion has been true for lit­er­al­ly thou­sands of years.

Pluto/Neptune Cycles
Astro­nom­i­cal­ly, this is due to the ratio of their respec­tive orbital dura­tions. The rela­tion­ship cycle of these two plan­ets, from Con­junc­tion to Con­junc­tion is about 491 years, and it is one of the “Mas­ter Cycle” indi­ca­tors for Mun­dane Astrol­o­gy. Inter­est­ing­ly, Plu­to com­pletes a cir­cuit in rough­ly 245 years, while Neptune’s orbit is rough­ly 164 years. This means that 3 rev­o­lu­tions of Nep­tune around the Sun equals about 491 years, and 2 rev­o­lu­tions of Plu­to equals about 491 years.

For our pur­pos­es, what this ratio of their rela­tion­ship or of their har­mon­ic res­o­nance means is that when Nep­tune goes one and one-half times around the Sun it will equal just one orbital rev­o­lu­tion for Plu­to. And that is why each time Plu­to is going through Capri­corn, Nep­tune spends part of that time either mov­ing through Vir­go or through Pisces. I find this cor­re­spon­dence in their rela­tion­ship very inter­est­ing and informative.

Plu­to in Capri­corn – Nep­tune in Vir­go or Pisces
As I have not­ed many times, the pas­sage of Plu­to in Capri­corn her­alds the end of an insti­tu­tion­al order and the birth of a new one. But giv­en its rela­tion­ship with Nep­tune, which is that Nep­tune is pass­ing through Vir­go or Pisces while Plu­to is in Capri­corn, we should expect that the nature of each Plu­to shift or tran­si­tion would be dif­fer­ent or alter­nate in some mean­ing­ful way each time. If we look at this influ­ence of Nep­tune blend­ed with Plu­to, it can help us to bet­ter under­stand what is sim­i­lar yet dif­fer­ent about our time in the 2000’s to the for­ma­tive one for the USA in the 1770’s.

Giv­en that the present-day pas­sage of Plu­to in Capri­corn has Nep­tune in Pisces, our cur­rent peri­od of insti­tu­tion­al break­down and re-order­ing cor­re­sponds with that of the 1500’s more than the Capricorn/Virgo pat­tern at the found­ing of the USA. The ques­tion for us is how we might under­stand and so dis­tin­guish and define these differences?

With Plu­to as the Avatar of the Pow­er of Alche­my or the shaper of Spir­it-Mat­ter, and the wield­er of the Will, and Nep­tune as the Avatar of our Fields of Dream and Imag­i­na­tion or the ves­sel of our Hopes or Fears, the type or kind of re-shap­ing and re-form­ing in these two dif­fer­ent pas­sages of Plu­to in Capri­corn can be dis­cerned by the very dif­fer­ent influ­ences ema­nat­ing through Nep­tune in Vir­go ver­sus Pisces.

Nep­tune in Vir­go or Pisces
What I believe we can see is that the pro­tean trans­for­ma­tions of the Nep­tune in Pisces peri­od, gives birth to a re-dream­ing of the dream; and this in a fash­ion sets up or leads to the next Plu­to in Capri­corn with Nep­tune in Vir­go, where that peri­od brings this dream into the reshap­ing and reorder­ing of life for that peri­od. So, we would see that the 1500’s “re-dream­ing of dreams” cre­at­ed the con­di­tions for the 1700’s, and the USA being a “New Order for the Centuries”.

I find it is crit­i­cal­ly and inter­est­ing to note, that at the mid-point in Neptune’s cycle from that align­ment, we see that 1770’s dream and real­i­ty-mak­ing fac­ing its great­est test when Nep­tune went through Pisces in the 1850’s and 1860’s dur­ing the USA Civ­il War.

What this means to me is that with Neptune’s return to Pisces while Plu­to is in Capri­corn now, we are being chal­lenged to reform or fash­ion anew the real­i­ty-form we made in the 1770’s, and we will do this by being inspired, as were those dream­ers of the 1500’s, by a new vision of who or what we can be.

Pluto/Neptune in the 1500’s
In the peri­od of the 1500’s, with Plu­to in Capri­corn and Nep­tune in Pisces, the entire Euro­pean order­ing of life was turned upside down. From the Divine Right of Kings and the Order­ing of Faith hier­ar­chi­cal­ly arranged from Pope to Priest to the peo­ple, in what became known as the Ref­or­ma­tion, turned that social order and way of mean­ing com­plete­ly around. Faith became per­son­al, it emanat­ed from the per­son­al expe­ri­ence of the “Word of God”, as the bible was now avail­able in the com­mon tongue. Faith became Indi­vid­ual, and no longer medi­at­ed by the priest­hood and Pope. And over time the grow­ing sense emerged that humans should order their lives around the sanc­ti­ty of the indi­vid­ual con­science, and this informed and shaped the need to orga­nize our insti­tu­tions towards self-rule and democracy.

Pluto/Neptune in the 1770’s
When Nep­tune was in Vir­go in the 1770’s, the dreams of that Plu­ton­ian end­ing of an age and reorder­ing were focused through the cri­tiquing, defin­ing, and refin­ing lens of Vir­go. That is because when Nep­tune is in Vir­go, we are asked to reimag­ine how we order our world, how we find our order of life with­in our­selves, in how we man­age our lives, and how we form our insti­tu­tions to meet our needs. And I would argue that with Nep­tune in Pisces, like in the 1500’s, and as it is now for us today, we expe­ri­ence the won­der and con­fu­sion of redream­ing our very dreams, we are forced to go beyond our old par­a­digms of faith and fear so that we can find a new faith to guide our lives and refash­ion our institutions.

Where are we today?
Where we find our­selves today is in anoth­er shift in what I call our “Bub­bles of Belief”, and we have come to a time when the very notion of what is true, or a fact is not so very clear. Rather than the medi­a­tion of Truth and Fact being deter­mined and fil­tered by hier­ar­chies of author­i­ty in the var­i­ous realms of Sci­ence, Eco­nom­ics, Cul­ture or Pol­i­tics, we find that our shap­ing by the indi­vid­u­al­is­tic par­a­digm that was found­ed in the 1500’s has led to our moment where by the mag­ic of inter­con­nec­tiv­i­ty to immense data­bas­es of infor­ma­tion, each per­son can fash­ion and for­mu­late their own ver­sion of real­i­ty from a ver­i­ta­ble cor­nu­copia of data that they have gath­ered from innu­mer­able sources, but which, of course, vary great­ly in their reli­a­bil­i­ty. With­out some means to sort fact from fic­tion, or truth from lies, we are at the mer­cy of the storms whipped up by those who prof­it from out­rage and fear. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, what we have cre­at­ed is a ver­i­ta­ble chaot­ic cacoph­o­ny of truths and half-truths, rev­e­la­tions and false­hoods, wis­dom, and non­sense. How did this hap­pen, and what does it mean for our future?

Bub­ble of Belief, Cir­cles of Reality
As I have pre­vi­ous­ly not­ed, we humans exist in what we have fash­ioned for our­selves, what I call our “Bub­bles of Belief” which form our “Cir­cles of Real­i­ty”. The role of Nep­tune is cen­tral to this expe­ri­ence because it holds the forms of real­i­ty, because it frames the lens­es that we see as our real­i­ty. The Greater Real­i­ty behind it all, which will be known as and will be some­day under­stood and expe­ri­enced to be, is sim­ply and pro­found­ly called “the One”.

Why? Because the Foun­da­tion Source of Spir­i­tu­al Truth is this: All of Cre­ation is the Body, Heart, Mind and Spir­it of the One. But to expe­ri­ence the One, for even a brief instant, would pro­duce for most ordi­nary per­sons a shock that would shat­ter their being; it would quite sim­ply be an encounter with what would appear to be pure Chaos! The One is beyond our com­pre­hen­sion, beyond our lim­it­ed frame­works of prin­ci­ples, ideas, laws, or con­cepts. But this One is the Ulti­mate Real­i­ty. To us, as we look out into immen­si­ty of all of Cre­ation it is tru­ly chaot­ic; for those who have reached a high­er con­scious­ness it is tru­ly sublime.

Nep­tune — Avatar of Mean­ing and Dreaming
Nep­tune forms our pat­terns of Con­scious­ness and our means of Per­cep­tion. It is the Avatar that will lead to our greater under­stand­ing. It is our Spir­i­tu­al Source for Imag­i­na­tion, and the pow­er of our Dream­ing into Real­i­ty of what­ev­er we imag­ine will become. Yet, here lies the great dan­ger too, because by Nep­tune we can expe­ri­ence the exhil­a­ra­tion, the intox­i­ca­tion, of being “touched by the Gods”, so that we can imag­ine and dream the most won­der­ful forms of being, but we may equal­ly stum­ble into illu­sions and night­mares too.

So, this would seem rather para­dox­i­cal; how could it be that the very instru­ment respon­si­ble for our jour­ney in awak­en­ing, this Divine gift of our pow­er of Imag­i­na­tion and Dream­ing, how can this also be the same instru­ment or source of our delu­sions and con­fu­sion too?

Nep­tune holds the gift of Clair­voy­ance or Clear-See­ing, and Astrologers will often call the way of Nep­tune is that it oper­ates as a “Uni­ver­sal Sol­vent”. It dis­solves the bound­aries and bor­ders between thoughts and things, between dimen­sions and realms, and so enables us to see truth of the ulti­mate con­nec­tion of every­thing and every­one, which is why it is also called the Avatar of Com­pas­sion and Uncon­di­tion­al Love.

The Chal­lenge of Awakening
But here we face the chal­lenge of jour­ney in awak­en­ing, the oppor­tu­ni­ty and dan­ger we face in mov­ing from one Cir­cle of Belief and into anoth­er. When we are under­go­ing any oppor­tu­ni­ty to let go of our for­mer assump­tions and lim­it­ed per­cep­tions with the assis­tance of Nep­tune, we may encounter the risk that we will become too unteth­ered from a rea­son­able real­i­ty, by a Cir­cle of Belief that served to keep us cen­tered upon some essen­tial truths with­in our­selves, and that equal­ly formed our com­mon under­stand­ings between one another.

Here we encounter the “razor’s edge” on our jour­ney of awak­en­ing, the bright shin­ing line between love and fear, between Illu­mi­na­tion and Mad­ness. When let­ting go of for­mer cer­tain­ties, and becom­ing unteth­ered from an old Bub­ble of Belief, one may lose the com­mon under­stand­ing shared with oth­ers as to the nature of real­i­ty. By this an indi­vid­ual or group or even an entire peo­ple or nation, may become enam­ored and entranced by ener­gy-forms that are unfa­mil­iar, yet seem­ing­ly offer the promise of a greater truth, of a spe­cial knowing.

Illu­mi­na­tion or Intoxication
This expe­ri­ence of a spe­cial vision can be quite won­der­ful, and per­haps it is does hold a greater mea­sure of the light of truth and even of wis­dom, and so it might be that a less­er or greater awak­en­ing is at hand. But it is equal­ly pos­si­ble, and this is sad­ly found in far too many peri­ods in human his­to­ry, that those cer­tain­ties of a greater truth impart­ed by those cap­ti­vat­ing visions, are real­ly refrac­tions and shad­ows formed by unhealthy desires and self-formed fears, forged in hearts that have turned from the light of love, cre­at­ing illu­sion­ary notions of what is good and true. This per­il of delu­sion and sep­a­ra­tion is most espe­cial­ly true when the siren song of Neptune’s rev­e­la­tion is not anchored in one’s heart by love, and so it may instead become shaped and twist­ed by fear. As always, the fault lies not in the stars, or in Nep­tune, but in our spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment as to our for­tunes and fate.

Through­out many peri­ods in human his­to­ry, pan­ics and manias, con­spir­a­cies and divi­sions have erupt­ed. But the peri­ods when Nep­tune is mov­ing through Pisces, as it is now from 2011 to 2026 or like in 1848 to 1862, are par­tic­u­lar­ly strong in this pro­tean capac­i­ty to dis­solve the bound­aries between real­i­ty and illusion.

We have moved from a world in the 1500’s where the order­ing of Truth ver­sus Fic­tion was deter­mined by and medi­at­ed through a descend­ing hier­ar­chy of author­i­ty, from Pope to King to Com­mon­er, and instead we have cre­at­ed a world where every per­son is a pope or king, their own mak­er of fact, rea­son, and truth.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the nec­es­sary lev­el of spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment that is required to wield such god­like pow­ers, where one would see a peo­ple or human­i­ty guid­ed by Wis­dom and act­ing with Humil­i­ty, well that is sure­ly lack­ing in most if not all the var­i­ous sec­tors and realms of our soci­ety now, from the upper­most and pow­er­ful down to the powerless.

Spir­i­tu­al Cri­sis of Today – Chaos of all Realities
We live in dis­con­nect­ed Bub­bles of Belief; we do not share the same assump­tions about our world, about how we can dis­cern what is right and what is wrong, or how we are to under­stand and treat one anoth­er. We are lost in the Ocean of Nep­tune, in the Chaos of all real­i­ties, and so for many souls there is no real­i­ty what­so­ev­er, there is only con­fu­sion and despair. We are hav­ing what is known as an Epis­te­mo­log­i­cal Cri­sis, a cri­sis of how we know what we know, of how we can deter­mine fact from fic­tion, or the truth from all the half-truths and lies; we find our­selves in a great Spir­i­tu­al Crisis.

What can you do?
What can we do; what can you do? As always (and for­ev­er), I will gen­tly advise one and all that the Truth has been known from the begin­ning of our jour­ney in awak­en­ing, because it forms the very fab­ric of the Uni­verse, as it is equal­ly the very spir­i­tu­al sub­stance of you and me too, of course.

What we need to do indi­vid­u­al­ly, and then when we gath­er as friends, neigh­bors, col­leagues and loved ones, is to return to the sources of truth found in all the great teach­ings, because we need to be guid­ed by the Wis­dom of the Wise Ones, our elder broth­ers and sis­ters, whose shin­ing exam­ples of Love and Com­pas­sion has shown us “the way” through­out the ages.

You can­not find your way by your­self, and so you must on the one hand look to the exam­ples of those who left these trea­sures of truth for you, both in how to know the truth as well as the Truths them­selves. And you most cer­tain­ly can­not cre­ate your own under­stand­ing of your world because you are shaped and formed by all with who you have direct and indi­rect con­tact. You must choose wise­ly where you look for answers and avoid those indi­vid­u­als and groups whose cer­tain­ties have cre­at­ed the very extremes between the dark and the light that make for our per­il now.

As I said many times, and most recent­ly in June of 2021:

The way of Truth has always been the Path of Love. For all those who fol­low the path of the Ancient Wis­dom, and equal­ly the many who under­stand and fol­low the great teach­ers whose mes­sages are the “Heart Doc­trine” of all reli­gious tra­di­tions, we must begin and remain upon the Shin­ing Path of Uncon­di­tion­al Love.

This will often be exceed­ing­ly dif­fi­cult, seem­ing­ly impos­si­ble, when we encounter the cold mean­ness, and the dark hatred that seems to splash across our com­put­er screens or onto our streets every day. But we must remain cen­tered and true to the one path of the Mas­ters. No mat­ter who is before you, no mat­ter how much what they do or say is dis­turb­ing or even repug­nant to you, you must remem­ber this and hold your­self to the path of Spir­it and the clear Light of Truth. What­ev­er you do, and whomev­er you encounter, you must fol­low your High­er Self and:

“Love One Another”

Love is the way; it is the only way. It is the Way of Peace and Under­stand­ing. This is the Truth of Nep­tune, for Nep­tune is the Way of Uncon­di­tion­al Love. It is the Light at the Core of you and of all Creation.

So, what I would advise each and every one of us today is this, to remem­ber this:

The Light of Truth is with­in you, and you can obtain and secure it by an Open and Ques­tion­ing Mind, that is held from excess­es by Uncon­di­tion­al Love, and togeth­er with your Rea­son and Com­pas­sion, you remain cen­tered in your high­er spir­i­tu­al nature by your Cen­tered Will.

Democ­ra­cy
Self-gov­ern­ment, what we call Democ­ra­cy, requires that each mem­ber of that soci­ety to be guid­ed with rea­son, held by love, and unbent by the pas­sions and fears of those whose rea­son and love has been bro­ken or for­sak­en. When­ev­er you encounter those who are nar­row of mind and heart, you must under­stand that they are act­ing from a space of fear, and the only way to reach them is by your Rea­son, Love and Will.

Remem­ber the teach­ings, and fol­low the Mas­ters, so that you remain on the path where you are Wise and Gen­tle and Stead­fast. Remem­ber the oath you took long ago and stay true to your Des­tiny. Remem­ber the Great Invo­ca­tion and say:

From the point of light with­in the Mind of God

Let Light stream forth into our minds

Let LIGHT descend on Earth.

From the point of love with­in the Heart of God

Let Love stream forth into our hearts

May LOVE increase on Earth.

From the cen­ter where the Will of God is known

Let pur­pose guide our wills

The PURPOSE which the mas­ters know and serve.

From the cen­ter which we call Humanity

Let the Plan of Love and Light work out

And may it seal the door

where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Pow­er restore the Plan on Earth.

Earth & Nep­tune — Sacred Geometry

In my first show of 2022, we will con­tin­ue to exam­ine the larg­er Astro­log­i­cal trends for 2022. Today I would like to look to the role of Nep­tune in gen­er­al, and to also con­sid­er the spe­cial mes­sage it has for the USA this year. We have come to this moment, this most crit­i­cal moment in our his­to­ry, and what we are encoun­ter­ing can best be described as an Epis­te­mo­log­i­cal Cri­sis, or more accu­rate­ly, a Spir­i­tu­al Cri­sis. We do not know how to under­stand the world we have made, because we do not share a com­mon under­stand­ing of it or of one another.

If you wish to sug­gest a sub­ject or top­ic for a future show, please email me as I would be hap­py to hear from you. My email is: billattride@gmail.com.

Here is the main link to Astrologer Bill Attride Radio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride

Here is the link to the show on Sun­day Jan­u­ary 9^th @ 2 pm EST:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2022/01/09/astrological-musings-2022-forecast-part-2-neptune

The phone num­ber to call if you wish to ask a ques­tion dur­ing the live show is: (516) 531‑9638.

Please join me on Sun­day Jan­u­ary 9^th @ 2 pm EST as we look at the cur­rent astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions and what they mean for you.

If you miss the show, it will be avail­able as a Pod­cast short­ly after on BlogTalk or my Apple Pod­casts.

Tran­script of Radio Show: 2022 — A look ahead, the 2022 Fore­cast – Part 1

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

As we say good­bye to 2021 and pre­pare for 2022, I thought it would be help­ful to look out to the year ahead and see what the Astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions are for the oppor­tu­ni­ties and chal­lenges that lie on the path before for us.

Mun­dane Astrology
Much of Astrol­o­gy and many Astrologers focus their atten­tion upon what we call per­son-cen­tered Astrol­o­gy, which is based upon the exam­i­na­tion of the pro­gres­sions and tran­sits occur­ring in the charts of their clients year after year. But when we step back and look at World­ly or what is called Mun­dane Astrol­o­gy, we con­sid­er the larg­er forces shap­ing cul­tures, cor­po­ra­tions, nations, and the world.

To do this, Astrologers con­sid­er two gen­er­al types of indications:

• We look at the gen­er­al plan­e­tary align­ments, which are the move­ment of the plan­ets through the signs of the Zodi­ac, and we also con­sid­er the sig­nif­i­cant angu­lar sep­a­ra­tions that the plan­ets form with one anoth­er over time, which Astrologers call the plan­e­tary aspects between the orbital paths of the planets.
• And sec­ond­ly, Astrologers observe the Plan­ets orbit­ing through the Solar Sys­tem and note the aspects they form to the natal plan­ets in any one or any num­ber of charts of say a nation, a cor­po­ra­tion, or any oth­er enti­ty. In addi­tion to this we will often con­sid­er the charts of the lead­ers of these orga­ni­za­tions or oth­er sig­nif­i­cant actors on the world stage as well.

You would cer­tain­ly think, giv­en the con­di­tions that we are wit­ness­ing around the world right now, that the gen­er­al indi­ca­tions of the World­ly or Mun­dane place­ments and aspects would be very notice­able, stress­ful, and sig­nif­i­cant. But this is not the case, at least not at first glance. Yes, as is true for many things in this world, things are often not what they seem.

In Mun­dane Astrol­o­gy, Astrologers focus upon the most sig­nif­i­cant long-term or long-wave cycles of the plan­ets through the signs of the Zodi­ac. What we find this year is that from Sat­urn on out to Plu­to, all the plan­ets remain in the same sign in 2022 as they were in 2021. Sat­urn is mov­ing through Aquar­ius, Uranus through Tau­rus, Nep­tune through Pisces, and Plu­to remains in Capri­corn. And where­as last year, Sat­urn was mak­ing a Square to Uranus, there is no major aspect between these out­er plan­ets in 2022. Does that mean that noth­ing sig­nif­i­cant is shown by these place­ments? Well of course not!

Plu­to in Capricorn
As I have con­tin­u­ous­ly not­ed since the mid 2000’s, we are mov­ing through a peri­od in our his­to­ry which I (and oth­ers) have called the “End of an Age”. Prin­ci­pal­ly, I see this as being indi­cat­ed by the pas­sage of Plu­to (the plan­et of the Will and Trans­for­ma­tion) mov­ing through Capri­corn (the sign of Real­i­ty and Insti­tu­tions). If we look to Pluto’s pre­vi­ous cycling through this sign, (1762–1778 and 1516–1532) and com­pare it to our own peri­od from 2008 to 2024, we can see that the Cul­tur­al-Eco­nom­ic-Polit­i­cal order that had been in place since the end of the pri­or pas­sage of Plu­to in Capri­corn falls apart and a new order begins to emerge.

Why is this so; why does this hap­pen? Quite sim­ply, every Cul­tur­al-Eco­nom­ic-Polit­i­cal order is formed for one pur­pose; we cre­ate a hier­ar­chy of insti­tu­tions to address or meet our human needs. But over time, the nature of these needs and the ways in which they are met evolve and change to such an extent that the old sys­tem begins to fail. Even­tu­al­ly we reach a cri­sis, like now, and from the undo­ing of the old order a new one is formed or ris­es from its ashes.

Plu­to and the Will
Plu­to rules the Will; it is the vehi­cle of the spir­i­tu­al gift as to how we form our bound­aries with one anoth­er, of how we cre­ate and pre­serve our sacred space with­in our­selves. It holds the spir­i­tu­al prin­ci­ple that we must relate to oth­ers by respect­ing their sacred space as much as we pre­serve our own. This Truth must guide us as to how we must work to cre­ate our shared spaces that are found­ed upon the under­stand­ing that we are the means to one another’s self-ful­fill­ment or “Hap­pi­ness”, and to do this we form our Unions or Shared Sacred Spaces, in which we join, grow, and trans­form one anoth­er and our world. Plu­to holds the capac­i­ty for “Agency”, to hold our­selves in self-mas­tery, with the abil­i­ty to say, “yes or “no”, to join in mutu­al under­stand­ing or to sep­a­rate from one anoth­er when we do not.

Alche­my
Plu­to is the Avatar that holds the root dri­ving ener­gy-form of Cre­ation, which we know as Alche­my, and it is by this Spir­i­tu­al Ener­gy-Form which makes man­i­fests all that is; it is “prime mover” behind the whole of Cre­ation. The Cos­mos began as the One becom­ing the many, and those many went forth in a spir­i­tu­al jour­ney of becom­ing, mov­ing through a hier­ar­chy of com­bi­na­tions from the phys­i­cal to the spir­i­tu­al, from chem­istry to alche­my, and this pro­gres­sion of com­bi­na­tions by these many ones, it is this which cre­ates how we, all the divine Sparks of the One trans­form one anoth­er, becom­ing ever more com­plex and inter­re­lat­ed, so that they and we form a ver­i­ta­ble Riv­er of Cre­ation that is the body of the One or the Cosmos.

We humans exer­cise our will in numer­ous ways. As our nature became ever more aware and com­plex, we formed and expressed our pow­er of the will through a hier­ar­chy of vehicles/institutions to meet our needs for one anoth­er, from the fam­i­ly to the trib­al group, to larg­er com­mu­ni­ties, to var­i­ous state and cor­po­rate struc­tures of our mod­ern world on up to nations and world insti­tu­tions. All these instru­ments of our will are made by us to care for one anoth­er; we are only able to be and become what we are because we make pos­si­ble our ful­fill­ment through one anoth­er. But if “life is spir­it and spir­it is life”, and spirit’s pur­pose is to grow and change, so it must fol­low that we and our vehi­cles of self-real­iza­tion must change too. Any insti­tu­tion­al order is formed for a par­tic­u­lar time, to meet the needs of that time as best as it can. But it will not and can­not last for­ev­er, and so we have watched our com­mu­ni­ties, cul­tures and civ­i­liza­tions rise and fall through­out human history.

In many peri­ods of Pluto’s 245-year orbit, we will find exam­ples of the right use of the Will and of Pow­er, and the mis­use of it too. Today, as our insti­tu­tion­al order that was formed in the 1700s comes undone, we see how the very instru­ments of our ful­fill­ment, of how we meet our basic needs for food, cloth­ing, shel­ter, and secu­ri­ty, and so much more, how these very means of our liv­ing have become the obsta­cles and per­ils for life on this plan­et for us, and for many oth­er life-forms too. The very solu­tions we cre­at­ed to meet our needs have become the obsta­cles and per­ils to our con­tin­ued existence.

We find our­selves now at the end of Pluto’s pas­sage through Capri­corn, as it will begin to move into and out of Aquar­ius dur­ing 2023, before remain­ing there to stay at the end of 2024 (and con­tin­ue until 2044). We might like to think (or hope) that the end­ing of this tumul­tuous peri­od in Capri­corn would lead to a time of rebuild­ing and peace in Aquar­ius. But if the pre­vi­ous two pas­sages pro­vide some illu­mi­na­tion with regards to this, his­to­ry seems to indi­cate that our time of end­ing will lead to a peri­od of chal­lenges in the 2020’s, 2030’s and 2040’s as we attempt to cre­ate the New World.

We can take com­fort from this fact, that at least our hearts and minds will not be focused upon what we have watched fall apart. No, instead we will lift our hearts and minds as we will be look­ing to the far hori­zon, as we focus our love, faith and hope to build the future and forge a path of light and love of what we may yet become.

Plu­to and the USA
As I men­tioned ear­li­er, the oth­er approach of Mun­dane Astrol­o­gy is to exam­ine the plan­e­tary aspects formed by the orbit­ing plan­ets to the natal plan­ets in the chart of some enti­ty. For some time now we have wit­nessed the pas­sage of Plu­to in Capri­corn through the chart of the Unit­ed States as it made a series of align­ments: the oppo­si­tion to Venus in 2009 and 2010, the oppo­si­tion to Jupiter in 2011, the oppo­si­tion to the Sun in 2014 and 2015, a square to Sat­urn in 2015, and the oppo­si­tion to Mer­cury in 2020. Tru­ly we have wit­nessed a sig­nif­i­cant and pow­er­ful series of chal­lenges from 2008 until now.

But 2022 is the final tran­sit of Plu­to in Capri­corn to the USA chart, and it is per­haps the most con­se­quen­tial. Because this is the year that Plu­to will return, (for the very first time) to its natal posi­tion in the chart of the Unit­ed States; this year we will expe­ri­ence the Plu­to return for the Unit­ed States.

I have spo­ken and writ­ten about this for some time now, and I believe we can under­stand much of the promise for and per­il of the Unit­ed States by look­ing at Pluto’s role once again. As I have writ­ten repeat­ed­ly, this Cos­mos, the sto­ry of Cre­ation, is formed and pow­ered by what we know as Chem­istry (phys­i­cal­ly) or Alche­my (spir­i­tu­al­ly), and this Foun­tain Source or Pri­mal Ener­gy for Cre­ation cease­less­ly unfolds as the prime mover or the Self-Becom­ing ener­gy that forges the innu­mer­able com­bi­na­tions and trans­for­ma­tions of the hier­ar­chy of Ener­gy-Forms of the One Spir­it. Whether by atoms com­bin­ing with atoms to form larg­er atoms, mol­e­cules with mol­e­cules, organ­isms with organ­isms, on up to the plan­ets, stars, and galax­ies, what dri­ves Cre­ation is the Pro­tean Pow­er that is Alche­my, which is the mag­ic and the mys­tery of combination.

This secret to Cre­ation, of Birth, Death and Rebirth, is held by the Sign of Scor­pio and the Plan­et Plu­to for us. The posi­tion of Plu­to in the chart of the USA is inte­gral to our under­stand­ing of who and what we are. Plu­to is in the sec­ond house of Val­ue, and it holds the secret of where our true val­ue comes from, of how we are to make val­ue, pre­serve val­ue or destroy val­ue as a nation.

Alche­my and Community
For humans, this pow­er of Alche­my is most clear­ly seen in our part­ner­ships, col­lab­o­ra­tions, joint ven­tures, enter­pris­es, com­mu­ni­ties, cul­tures, and nations. To form any union, we must make a sac­ri­fice which elic­its our change and growth; we let go of our less­er qual­i­ties to com­bine with one anoth­er by our deep­er val­ues, and by this we move into a greater real­i­ty. We forge our own growth and make pos­si­ble our greater and shared qual­i­ties through com­bi­na­tion. When prop­er­ly guid­ed by love and under­stand­ing, we give up for one anoth­er what we must, but we hold onto the core of who we are, sac­ri­fic­ing our ego but lift­ing our hearts and minds together.

The USA was found­ed as a Union, as a sacred com­pact, an agree­ment made by indi­vid­u­als who sought to free them­selves from tyran­ny and pledged to one anoth­er, and they swore an oath, that estab­lished “a new order for the cen­turies”. They deter­mined and declared that they would cre­ate a new kind of soci­ety and gov­ern them­selves by mutu­al con­sent. Their ideals and inten­tions stat­ed in our Dec­la­ra­tion res­onate to this day, “that all men are cre­at­ed equal”.

Now of course it is true through­out our his­to­ry, that humans have always joined togeth­er, to hunt and to gath­er and to grow food­stuffs, and to make the neces­si­ties for life like cloth­ing and shel­ter, to join in groups for mutu­al pro­tec­tion, and so they formed them­selves into fam­i­lies, into bands of fam­i­lies, and into tribes, and they cre­at­ed vil­lages, cities, nations, and empires. The nature and qual­i­ty of those com­bi­na­tions has var­ied wide­ly, with a range of agency or “free will” for the indi­vid­u­als with­in those socio-cul­tur­al orders. No mat­ter how free or equal, even in what we may look to as “freer” soci­eties of mutu­al con­sent, there was ever to be found injus­tices and inequal­i­ties, of pow­er wield­ed by the few over the many, of peo­ple bound and enslaved to the wills of others.

“Out of many, One”
The Way of Amer­i­ca has been an attempt to form a new order for the ages, that as our mot­to states, “Out of many, One”. But as in any indi­vid­ual being, or group of beings, there are three “direc­tions” that must be forged into the “one way” to make a whole per­son or a whole soci­ety, to make a One; there are three ways to con­nect with­in and with­out to forge whole­ness and well-being. From Astrol­o­gy we take this under­stand­ing from the three Water Signs, to find our cen­ter from Can­cer, by forg­ing con­nec­tion to one anoth­er in Scor­pio, and to reach for the sub­lime by Pisces.

The Water Signs
From Can­cer we go down and back, to our ori­gins and roots, to who and where we came from (fam­i­ly, cul­ture, faith), and we estab­lish that which cen­ters us with­in our­selves and with our fel­low mem­bers. It is the sto­ry we tell about who we are.

By Scor­pio we go out to form our unions with one anoth­er, our join­ing in per­son­al, pro­fes­sion­al, social col­lab­o­ra­tions by which we make pos­si­ble our self-ful­fill­ments through one anoth­er. We cre­ate the share sacred spaces gov­erned by our mutu­al agree­ments (shaped by morals that guide our con­duct, pro­tect­ed by the laws that embody our truth) and by this we become the means to one another’s ful­fill­ment. It is the way in which we show our love for one another.

To Pisces, as we reach up and out, to that which we hold as our belief in a greater order, and our faith about what we will be and become as we fol­low the ever-ris­ing spir­i­tu­al imper­a­tive to become what we dream. We find the faith to believe in some­thing greater than our­selves, and that this is equal­ly the gift that makes us who we are. It is the lumi­nous path by which we can be greater than we are.

These three ways of Water, of Can­cer, Scor­pio and Pisces, these ways of being and becom­ing a bet­ter human, is true for every indi­vid­ual. But this means that these three are also the key to any com­mu­ni­ty, soci­ety, or cul­ture. And for the USA, we find our­selves at anoth­er great turn­ing in the tides of his­to­ry for these ways of being have become dimin­ished and are in dan­ger of being broken.

Bro­ken Connections
What we are wit­ness­ing at the present time for the USA is an end­ing. Why? We have become sep­a­rat­ed from our ori­gin sto­ry; so, we do not know where we came from. We have lost the capac­i­ty to cre­ate our shared sacred spaces because we can­not find a way to over­come the dif­fer­ences that divide us; so, we will not sac­ri­fice for one anoth­er. We have lost our faith in the Amer­i­can dream of a bet­ter life for one and for all; so, we can­not imag­ine a world that will be bet­ter than what came before.

Now, of course, the sto­ry that we told of Amer­i­ca had to change. Our ori­gin sto­ry was incom­plete to begin with, as it left out so many who are part of the heart of the Amer­i­can jour­ney; and, we have changed in so many ways that we need to share our sto­ries with one anoth­er so that we might cre­ate a new com­mon story.

Like­wise, our way of join­ing with one anoth­er, (which should be guid­ed by our morals and laws), is no longer pro­tect­ed by being cen­tered in a com­mon sto­ry, so our unions have been ever more dimin­ished and hol­lowed out, allow­ing those with influ­ence and pow­er to take advan­tage of our bro­ken social com­pact. The val­ues that we cre­ate with one anoth­er, that are for one anoth­er, our social wealth, is stolen by the few for their own pri­vate ben­e­fit. Our pow­er through com­bi­na­tion is lost, and we have retreat­ed into iso­la­tion and despair.

It is by these bro­ken roots and sev­ered con­nec­tions, that we have lost faith in our future. We have wan­dered off the path of faith because we do not know where we came from, or how we can join with one anoth­er. We do not have a com­mon sto­ry, nor an equi­tably shared space for self-ful­fill­ment, nor a faith in a future that is bet­ter than before. We find our­selves at the end of our days, and we are con­fused and scared, and our fears dark­en the horizon.

Amer­i­ca — A New Beginning
Yes, Plu­to is return­ing; the Lord of Birth-Death-Rebirth is here. Plu­to is ring­ing the bell of truth, that what was our Amer­i­can Jour­ney of Val­ue for the past 240 years is over. Plu­to says that we must let go of the past that is past, and the only way for­ward is for there to be a renew­al and restora­tion of our true source of val­ue. For we have nev­er lived ful­ly by the truths we declared to be “the Truth”, and we must take up the chal­lenge of being bet­ter than we were once again, which real­ly is the quin­tes­sen­tial core of the Amer­i­can Sto­ry. We believe that we can be bet­ter, and we can be again if we under­stand that we are for anoth­er the means for this bright future.

We must remem­ber the true source of all val­ue, shin­ing at the heart of Cre­ation, and in every par­ti­cle and being in this Cos­mos. At the cen­ter of it all is the One True Spir­it, and we know, and we feel this gift of Spir­it for what it is, which is quite sim­ply and pure­ly that behind all of Cre­ation we feel the splen­dor that is Uncon­di­tion­al Love.

We must write a new sto­ry that lifts our minds and heals our hearts; we must forge deep­er unions with one anoth­er by know­ing that we are the instru­ments for one another’s hap­pi­ness, and by this we will restore our faith in a future that is wor­thy of those who will fol­low us.

The Way Forward
The only way we can go for­ward is by tru­ly under­stand­ing how we got here. We need to share our sto­ries and lis­ten to one anoth­er. We must acknowl­edge the good efforts and sac­ri­fices of so many who made this nation a lit­tle bet­ter than before. But we also need to acknowl­edge the great inequities and injus­tices that exist among our peo­ple too, and to under­stand that much of this is not an acci­dent, no it is not, because it is the result of delib­er­ate poli­cies and actions that broke our promis­es to one anoth­er. It is the prod­uct of fear, from those who prof­it by divid­ing us from the truth one way or anoth­er. But we must put away these false­hoods now and choose love over fear.

The divi­sions of well-being by race and eth­nic­i­ty, the stag­ger­ing dif­fer­ences in income and wealth, the dis­pro­por­tion­ate cir­cum­stances of secu­ri­ty and safe­ty among var­i­ous groups, all these dif­fer­ences are no acci­dent but the result of our fail­ure to live by the truth that we are here to love one another.

This is going to be hard. It is going to require resolve and kind­ness, ded­i­ca­tion, and com­pas­sion, it is going to require pas­sion, intel­li­gence, and for­give­ness. Build­ing a bet­ter future is going to ask each of us to let go of our fears and believe in one anoth­er, to sup­port one anoth­er, for we are the wealth of this nation, and the future is ours if we will keep faith and have the courage to believe in one another’s essen­tial good­ness and courage to live and love as we were meant to be.

The answer is to live by the Light of Love, where you see the one before you as you see your­self, essen­tial­ly the same, but also dif­fer­ent too. That we must cel­e­brate and embrace the Truth that our real strength comes from our alike­ness and dif­fer­ence, com­bined; we need to be the Truth of our mot­to, “out of many, One”.

The way has always been thus, to see the light of the Uni­verse shin­ing from the oth­er as it is in you. And you will know the answer is quite sim­ply what it has always been,

You are here to love one anoth­er as you love your­self, there is no oth­er way, and this is what you were made to do.

May the Light of Truth, Love and Under­stand­ing guide us now and forevermore.

Johfra Boss­chart — Zodi­ac-Paint­ings — Capricorn

The Path­way to Perfection 

The Sun stands still. That is what the word sol­stice means. In ancient times, peo­ple stopped what­ev­er they were doing, as they watched and wait­ed. Would the dark­ness pre­vail or would the light return? Would their hopes be dashed, or their faith restored? They wait­ed for a sign, for the promise of light and love to return to Earth.

We have reached anoth­er turn­ing in the Astro­log­i­cal cal­en­dar. Four moments each year when we seek to under­stand the great turn­ings, and we know and under­stand them as the Four Ques­tions of life, “Who am I, and who are you, where do I come from, and where am I going”. These are the noble “Four Direc­tions”, the “Four Cor­ners of Life”, and you should at this most sacred time of the year con­sid­er them all as you con­sid­er the path that you are on today.

Yes, you are at a turn­ing point, and the only ques­tion is, “which way should I go, what path is right for me, what is my Destiny?”

The hid­den mes­sage behind the realm of Capri­corn is often said to be that “Char­ac­ter is Des­tiny”. But for those who under­stand the true pur­pose behind our lives, we can reverse this phrase and say equal­ly that our “Des­tiny is Character”.

The tru­ism that “Char­ac­ter is Des­tiny” is an ancient and holy under­stand­ing about the jour­ney of the human spir­it. More recent­ly, it was attrib­uted to the philoso­pher Her­a­cli­tus of Eph­esus who lived between 540–480 BC. His keen­est obser­va­tion, which is very much in keep­ing with one of his con­tem­po­raries, the Bud­dha, is that “…Every­thing flows, every­thing is in con­stant flux and move­ment, noth­ing is abid­ing. There­fore, we can­not step twice into the same riv­er. When I step into the riv­er for the sec­ond time, nei­ther I nor the riv­er are the same…”. This is a restate­ment of the Ancient Wis­dom, that behind all of Cre­ation is the eter­nal Spir­it which ever strives to be and become, mov­ing in and out of forms, the pro­tean spir­it of Spir­i­tu­al Alche­my behind the mys­tery of Creation.

But what Her­a­cli­tus also said was that “our char­ac­ter is our fate”, that our char­ac­ter or our lev­el of devel­op­ment cre­ates the kind of life we will live and so forms our des­tiny. With regards to the Ancient Wis­dom, what this means is to the extent you have become more self-mas­ter­ful, that you have achieved a greater under­stand­ing of your own true self and so equal­ly of the world around you, then to that extent your life becomes more aligned with your true spir­i­tu­al nature.

By the gift of self-aware­ness, by this pre­cious gift that makes pos­si­ble the evo­lu­tion and “devel­op­ment of char­ac­ter”, we see that an indi­vid­ual is no longer sub­ject to being seized and dri­ven by uncon­trolled pas­sions from with­in, nor are they cap­tured by the dis­si­pat­ing attrac­tions from the world around them. By this ris­ing light of con­scious­ness, an indi­vid­ual on the path of awak­en­ing is no longer the pawn of “the fates”, no longer held in chains by the per­fect­ly equi­table but mind­less action/reaction of the ordi­nary life. Instead, they have become a mem­ber in a great com­pa­ny of souls, they have become anoth­er self-direct­ed aspi­rant on the Path­way of Perfection.

But this is also why those who have come in any life to that turn­ing point or por­tal that divides the more fat­ed from those of freer wills, and who by mak­ing this choice to take the steep­er path of self-quick­en­ing, so that their life and pur­pose becomes ever more firm­ly focused upon self-mas­tery and wis­dom, which will bend their life increas­ing­ly towards a path of self­less ser­vice, com­pas­sion, and love, that it is by this lov­ing choice of faith over fear that they will tru­ly under­stand that our “Des­tiny is Char­ac­ter”. But what does that mean?

Humans have dis­cussed, debat­ed, and argued as to what is our des­tiny, of what is the true pur­pose and mean­ing behind our life here on Earth, of what pur­pose are we made for or des­tined to be. For those who study the great works of Ancient Wis­dom, or equal­ly observe the great souls in action, they under­stand and know that our pur­pose and des­tiny is quite sim­ple, real­ly; we are here for one pur­pose, which is “to become a bet­ter human”, and even­tu­al­ly become a com­plete human.

How do we do this? By using all our fac­ul­ties of body, feel­ing, mind and spir­it; by learn­ing through tri­al and error, by striv­ing and fail­ing and try­ing again. It is by this slow, steady climb up what we might imag­ine is the moun­tain that is life, it is by this that we will slow­ly raise our­selves up as we learn what not to do and so how to be better.

This is the les­son and gift of Capri­corn, that the most pre­cious moments in this life, and in all your lives, are when you “failed”; when you tried and fell short, but you did not sur­ren­der. The spir­it with­in you did not dim; it grew stronger, more deter­mined, more pur­pose­ful so that in the end you did mas­ter that craft, you did acquire that strength, you did find a way to not only know the Truth (as in Sagit­tar­ius), but you also felt a burn­ing light in your heart that your true pur­pose was to live by Truth, and in fact to be this Truth.

But what you have also learned is that every obsta­cle you over­came, and in each chal­lenge well met, is that your vic­to­ry over fate and your devel­op­ment of a freer will, was some­thing that you did not do on your own or by your­self. No, you are part of a nev­er-end­ing Hier­ar­chy, like a Rib­bon of Light in Space and through Time, formed by all the souls above and all the souls below you, both here today and in the far, far dis­tant past. Yes, you stand upon the ever­last­ing foun­da­tions built by all your ances­tors, by all of humankind, and your pur­pose now is to add to that foun­da­tion for those who will come after you.

Our Des­tiny is Char­ac­ter, as we are for one anoth­er both pupil and teacher, and in every encounter with all whom you meet in this or in any life, is that you are to under­stand that your expe­ri­ences with one anoth­er are the very means by which each of you will forge a greater wis­dom that is revealed by your com­pas­sion and love for one another.

At this time of the year, and wher­ev­er Capri­corn is found in your chart, you are remind­ed that what you are today, and what you will be tomor­row is no acci­dent. You are the Mas­ter Builder, you are the pil­grim and the seek­er, the teacher and the pupil, the child and the wise one too. And all that you do, from the sim­plest of tasks, to the great­est con­tri­bu­tions and ser­vices you offer, all of it was part of a “mas­ter plan” to bring you clos­er to your Destiny.

That is why, at this time of year we give thanks to our ances­tors; we bow our heads and bend our knee and pledge to one anoth­er that the Light will not go out, not on our watch, not in our time. We will keep the promise, that we will take care of one anoth­er, and we will con­tin­ue to fol­low the path of Light that is the Hier­ar­chy of Love and Compassion.

At this sacred hour, in this moment when the light returns once more, we say:

THE GREAT INVOCATION

From the point of light with­in the Mind of God

Let Light stream forth into our minds

Let LIGHT descend on Earth.

From the point of love with­in the Heart of God

Let Love stream forth into our hearts

May LOVE increase on Earth.

From the cen­ter where the Will of God is known

Let pur­pose guide our wills

The PURPOSE which the mas­ters know and serve.

From the cen­ter which we call Humanity

Let the Plan of Love and Light work out

And may it seal the door

where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Pow­er restore the Plan on Earth.