Astrological Musings

The Planetary Illuminations report for February is up on my website and you can read the article in its entirety here.  My newsletter subscribers receive a translation of this report into easy to understand English, so if you’re not already on my list please sign up in the sidebar to the right of this article.

Meanwhile, here is the introduction which reports on the major planetary cycles this month (for the details of February planetary alignments please visit the article:

Mars turned retrograde on January 23rd, and when February begins it is still moving very slowly through the sky so its influence is felt on a more deeply personal level. The energy of Mars is important for our motivation and our ability to move forward in our lives, and Mars is in Virgo where it is bringing our attention to the details of life – the mundane everyday world in which most of our lives transpire.

Any planet in retrograde motion asks us to look within a little more carefully, and Mars retrograde periods urge us to carefully consider areas of life in which we react to stimuli without thinking. Where do we respond in anger? Where are we blocked from expressing ourselves when our boundaries are violated? What do we really want and how can we put our dreams into action? These are all Mars Retrograde questions and because Mars will be inching along very slowly for the first two weeks of February we will continue to feel its effects. This could include sleeplessness and agitation if Mars is hitting a sensitive area in our chart and we are allowing that energy to implode without giving it an outlet, through physical activity perhaps, or by expressing ourselves more clearly and assertively.

Saturn is preparing to turn retrograde too – that retrograde turn occurs on February 7th so Saturn’s motion is also slowing down to a standstill in preparation for that retrograde turn. Saturn is at the 29th degree of Libra, not quite ready to move into Scorpio but instead going back one more time to complete the work of helping us to re-establish our sense of values and aesthetics (Libra).

Saturn turns retrograde every year, so this is not such an unusual event. Saturn is the planet that teaches us to build and create strong structures that will sustain our lives and grant us success in the material world, but in order to accomplish this it often calls our attention to areas in which our performance has not been adequate. This can lead to feelings of self-doubt and anxiety. Saturn retrograde periods offer opportunities for us to use this awareness of where our efforts have fallen short so that we can improve them and ultimately achieve lasting success.

We also have Neptune re-entering Pisces after a brief sojourn back into Aquarius. You can read more about that here.

And finally, Pluto is moving into position to form a square aspect to Ceres. Ceres represents our ability to nurture ourselves and others, and Pluto presents a challenge to that ability. There are often issues of food disorders under this aspect, or at the very least a difficulty in balancing our emotional needs with the physical ones.

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This is the Year of the Water Dragon, which evidently is a very big deal in Chinese culture.  I confess that my knowledge of Chinese astrologer doesn’t extend far beyond what’s printed on the placemats in Chinese restaurants, but I do know that I am a Dragon which made no sense when I was younger.  It’s only now that I am aging that I see the Dragon within me.  But that’s another story…

Evidently the Dragon year is a very popular year during which to have children because it is thought that Dragons will be successful financially.  Dragon years are periods of growth and change, and evidently attract events that are larger than life.  It’s interesting to me that mainstream publications that don’t traffic in Western astrology will often make a big deal out of Chinese astrology, such as this one:

According to CLSA, Asia-Pacific Markets, the word for “Dragon,” in Chinese is spelled “Lóng.” Automatically that is a good sign for markets, as we are always hopeful for long markets and lots of profit. The Chinese Zodiac takes into consideration all five elements of metal, fire, water, earth, and wood, and in the Year of the Dragon, the zodiac predicts that markets will steadily drop until about mid-August when a huge surge will take place and a “Lóng” market takes us well into the next Chinese New Year. Predominant elements this year are water, which could douse any fire in the markets, and is expected to be a powerful force in February and March, and so the Dragon says to liquidate (yes, liquidate) any funds you have during that period (CSLA).

There’s an interesting corollary between the Chinese Year of the Water Dragon which combines the element of water with the natural fire of the Dragon, with the combination of Uranus in fiery Aries and the entry of Neptune into watery Pisces.  I suppose it’s possible that Neptune in Pisces, with its penchant for delusion, could indeed douse the over-the-top enthusiasm of Uranus in Aries.

While there are twelve animal years, each animal year has an element year and since there are five elements in Chinese philosophy this makes for a 60-year cycle.  So this next year, my 60th year, is actually my Dragon Return, the first time the Water Dragon has returned since the year of my birth.  (Which I guess is now no longer a secret!)

So I have been wondering, what does it mean that this is my Dragon Return year?  I asked the proprietor of the local establishment of Chinese cuisine that I frequent, and he shook his head.  ”Not usually a good year,” he said.  ”Sometimes it brings out the worst in you.”  That was not very encouraging but I can see where that would be the case.  Just as with any astrological cycle, much of what occurs depends upon how far we have grown during the preceding period.  And since in this case the preceding period is my entire life, I suppose the question will be how far along I’ve come in my mastery of Water Dragon-ness.

In any case, Happy New Year to all!  And blessings for taming the Dragon.

Like people, countries have astrology charts that are based from the date and time of their inception.  There is a great deal of argument among astrologers over which is the “real” chart for the US, and if you like you can read more about that argument and why I use the Sibly chart here.

In my Astrological State of the Union post from 2009 I wrote:

The United States is at an astrological crossroads.  The US progressed Mars turned retrograde last year, and is searching for a new direction.  Pluto, god of transformation, has been challenging the US Midheaven, the point of public perception.  The qualities that gave the US its power over the past 400 years will not work for the next 400, and the nation will have to adapt.  Economic systems are changing and becoming much more tenuous and fluid as they go global.  Traditional social systems are weakening and require a new way of looking at the way humans form families and cultural groups.  As a people we must become more lithe and limber so that we can adapt to the changing collective, or we will not survive the 21st century.  This is not a time to look back and long for the conservative values of the 1950s – those days are over.  There is a new day dawning, and we will have to be ready for it.

This is no less true today.  The transit of Pluto, planet of destruction and regeneration, in a square to the US Midheaven oversaw the breakdown of much of American life which resulted in the appearance of a decline in the American role as world superpower.  Uranus, the planet of radical change and revolution, is preparing to transit in opposition to the US Midheaven.  Uranus is known as the “awakener” because it stimulates a view that is different from the everyday world view that keeps our lives in order.  Under this Uranus cycle there will be a growing awareness among the common people that the lives that many of us knew have been irrevocably changed, and there will be a growing unease about the future.

Uranus and Pluto are getting ready to face off in a powerful cycle such as the 1960s when the alignment of these two stimulated the social change and upheaval of that period.  In 2014 and 2015 the square (90 degree aspect) between these two planets will reach the degree of the Sun in the US chart and stimulate some radical events that are likely to continue the ongoing battle between the forces that seek to return to the ways of the past, even though the bridges have burned behind them, and the forces that demand change in a radical and perhaps unsustainable form.

In the meantime, though, there is a “double whammy” of Uranus and Jupiter events beginning with a square of transiting Uranus to the US Jupiter this year beginning in April.  Jupiter in a national chart represents the national ideology and belief system, and with Uranus demanding a radical departure from the past we are likely to see a further splintering of religious dogma and organized religion over the next year.  But this cycle will also stimulate excitement and greater readiness for the changes that are necessary in order to move into the next phase of the nation’s ability to sustain itself.  Then Jupiter will conjoin Uranus beginning in July (through next February) which could stimulate greater innovation and new ideas.

The death of an old way of living leads to a new beginning, but only if we can let go of the past and move forwards.  This Uranus/Jupiter “double whammy” can provide the fuel for this to happen if we allow the change to unfold.  If we cling to the past, things will not go well under this influence.  Change is inevitable.

In the summer of 2012 there is a large number of Jupiter cycles which will create expansion and help the changes to find their ground and become anchored in the new reality.  After that point the transits are generally favorable for growth and national confidence that can put the nation’s finances back on track.

Art by Willow Arlenea. It’s hard to deny that we are being pulled into a vortex towards a new future that is unlike anything any of us have ever known.  This is exhilarating for some of us and frightening for others, but our reactions and programming don’t really matter now.  The change is happening and we are a part of it.

This guided meditation is taken from Joanna Macy’s fine book Coming Back to Life and titled “The Web of Life.”  I’ve made some changes to fit with the intention of integrating with the process of the earthly incarnation and the purpose of the Change that is afoot.  I invite you to read it aloud, or perhaps record it and then play it back when you are able to relax with your eyes closed.

Feel your breath, glide on the breath as it flows in, and then flows out.  The oxygen ignites each cell, stirs it awake as it burns in the metabolism of life…. Extend your awareness deep within to feel this energy…. It is all around you , too – sustaining your body, sustaining great circles of air, water, fire and earth flowing through us all… weaving us into the web of life.

See these interlacing currents, like threads of light…connecting you with everything else in the room you are in.  Expand your awareness beyond the room – to your entire home, to the street on which you live, encircling your entire community, encircling the Earth.  This great multiplicity of strands, formed of the emotions and thoughts and laughter and tears you’ve held in your being and shared with others…they hold you in place.  Sense those filaments – lie into them.

This web sustains your bones and blood and skin, concocted so intricately out of the food you have eaten and the soul of the earth from which that food has come.  The soil that yields the grain for your bread, the boughs of the tree that bears the fruit you eat…all are part of your body now.

Back through time this web extends, back through your mothers, fathers, all of the ancestors…extending back through countless generations to the very stars themselves from which we come.  For it is of star stuff evolving that we are all made in the flowing of time… We are each a jewel in this vast net that called us into being…. Each of us a unique and wonderful jewel, sparkling with awareness, reflecting the world.

There is pain, too, along the strands of the web and perhaps this pain has become stuck in the filaments.  A memory of loss…an aching of rejection and betrayal – open to these sorrows…breathe them in so that the channels may open once again and the beautiful sparkling web may flow smoothly with the energy of life and change and love and joy.  There is power in the flowing of this fluid net, love that has enriched us and love that we give.  Feel the opening of your heart as you breathe love in and breathe love out, nourishing and feeding the web with love and grace.

Open your inner eyes and your heart and your mind to the pulsing of the web and all of its murmurs and whispers as deep as time and life itself.  You are a part of it, and it is a part of you.  Open to it all – unafraid, relaxed, with perfect love and perfect trust.  You are the Universe, knowing itself and flowing with divine inspiration and courage.

In this time of change we may go through a dark place, but we do not go alone, and we do not go without the timeless wisdom of the web which nourishes and sustains us, which cradles us in the arms of ancestral power and love.

You are already home…there is nowhere you can go where you’re not held in grace.