Category: Celestial Events

The Twelfth Night Eclipse

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It’s enough to reflect on the fact that the Epiphany story, as it’s told in the Xian tradition, involves astrologers being given the gift of seeing things as they really are.

In the story, God is revealed to them, not in the halls of power and privilege but rather among the destitute and the working poor in a town that we would describe today as “flyover country.” Likewise, just as the divine is revealed for who the divine really is, Herod is likewise revealed for who he really is: a vindictive tyrant and a puppet of empire, not really king material at all.

Still with me? Okay. This eclipse in Capricorn, which falls on Twelfth Night and therefore the eve of the Epiphany, is so delicious because it speaks to the shedding of all pretense. We speak today of having “epiphanies” when we come to a realization about something that had been hidden to us—things hidden to us either because of ignorance (simply not knowing the truth) or because of arrogance (our refusal to see things the way they are presenting themselves).

Dr. Maya Angelou said, “when someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.” And so this eclipse, critical juncture though it may be, might engender an epiphany for you in whichever house it falls in your chart, as, in a moment of revelatory crisis, someone shows you who they actually are. When that happens, believe them. If you are a Magus searching for the divine and the divine shows you that all divinity has sided with the poor, believe them. If a tyrant shows you that he is a tyrant, believe him. If a partner shows you that they are truly committed, believe them. If an enemy shows you that they are truly a friend, believe them. If a friend shows you that they are truly an enemy, believe them! It can go both ways, you know.

The epiphanies which this eclipse will bear as a strange gift to you will be related in particular to matters of material security and the containers we build for ourselves to establish that security, whether those containers are patterns and practices, career trajectories, or relationships. You can tell what that will be simply by looking closely at the house in which this eclipse falls.

As the night approaches, set the intention for yourself to believe what this eclipse will reveal to you. As pretense is shed, you may discover that the containers you have constructed for your survival are not necessarily contributing to your thriving, and it may be time to move on to new structures.

An example from therapy: sometimes our coping skills and defensive behaviors work really well for helping us survive traumatic experiences, but as we grow and heal, they no longer serve us, and so we can bless and dismiss them as they are shown no longer to be helpful.

The same might be true with people, honestly. No need to cancel anyone. In another story from the New Testament, an old man named Simeon, upon meeting the infant Jesus at the temple, was recorded as saying, “Let me depart in peace, for I’ve seen what I needed to see.” This revelation to him was the culmination of a long-awaited promise, and upon its fulfillment, he was ready to depart. This eclipse might ask you to let some structures, behaviors, and people (associated with the house in which it falls in your natal chart) depart in peace, for their role in your story has drawn to a close at this time, and their promise has been fulfilled to this point. The shedding of all pretense will show you.

On this night, pretense will be shed, and Ketu will give us the gift of being able to see something clearly. Do not let it pass by unregarded or unexamined, or you may be in for a rude awakening from Rahu in six months’ time.

One more point: when the Magi departed from Bethlehem, they were warned in a dream not to return to Herod but rather to go back to their own country by another road. Perhaps the angel will suggest to you that you need to proceed by a different path instead of retreading old ground, back into the arms of the pretense that has kept you in its grip to this point. This is the gift of having had an epiphany: it often comes with the desire & ability to proceed in new ways, now that you can see clearly. Return by way of another road.

The Sun-Saturn Opposition of 2018

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Once every year, the Sun opposes Saturn. This is, perhaps, one of the most intense possible aspects that we experience during the year’s cycle, simply because it is a conflict between giants. So, I want to suss out the story a bit; I’ve also written brief scopes for each of the rising signs too, as part of a warm-up to writing a daily column every day during Leo season later this year!

Oppositions are, as a rule, destructive; without any kind of intervention, they are always a deadlock, a stalemate, a blowout. Feelings get hurt and assumptions get shattered. Such is the nature of the aspect. Let’s look at the chart for the opposition that’s occupying all of our minds. It perfects (in Lexington) on Wednesday morning at 9:21am, which is about when I’ll be walking into work.

Screenshot 2018-06-25 15.24.27

I actually have a somewhat pressing conversation that I need to have with someone in a sixth house position about a fifth house matter and honestly I may need to wait for this aspect to start separating before I talk to them. Why? The Sun is transiting the back end of my fifth house and is coming up on my sixth cusp. I am in a sixth house year. The conversation I need to have is going to be somewhat touchy, and I really don’t want the energy of that opposition spoiling it. If there were any aspects from benefics touching either planet, I could be a little less tense about it, but there aren’t any aspects from the benefics (Jupiter or Venus) that are intervening to ameliorate the situation. We would see that if Venus were translating light from one planet to the other, or if Jupiter was collecting light from a Rx Saturn and the Sun.

Now, the Sun is applying to Saturn and Saturn to the Sun, since Saturn is Rx here. So both parties are moving toward each other to the point of engagement, yet the Sun is not on his own turf while Saturn is. The Sun is also representing the agenda of the Moon here, which is antithetical to Saturn’s purposes. This is because the Sun is placed in Cancer at the moment of the opposition. Saturn sees this touchy-feely Sun coming at him and shuts off completely.

He owes the Sun *nothing*. He will not hear what the Sun has to say. Whatever interests are represented by the Sun—since Leo is rising in this chart, it would be the interests of the individual approaching a situation—will be flat denied. Saturn has everything he needs where he is, being in Capricorn, though he is moving backwards and so there is a sense to which he is meeting the Sun for the express purpose of being able to say “no” to the Sun’s interests and intents.

But there’s a part two to this story that needs to be brought into consideration: the *very* next thing that happens is the conjunction of the Moon with Saturn, later in the day (11:33pm in Lexington).

Screenshot 2018-06-25 15.40.00

This is an interesting turn of events, because the Moon is approaching Saturn from Saturn’s home turf of Capricorn, that is, the Moon is representing Saturn’s interests as she seeks counsel from him, and Saturn has an obligation to be irenic toward her. This is a change of the story if we’re focusing not on what the Sun was trying to accomplish, but rather what the Moon was trying to accomplish all along. The Sun was representing her interests and doing kind of a bad job at it, so she has to go into “enemy territory” and take care of business herself. Here’s the chart for the Moon-Saturn conjunction (which will be great to watch in real time if the weather cooperates!)

I’m not going to go into too much detail here, but as a rule, whatever conflict emerges at the time of the opposition will see some kind of resolution as the Moon brings her counsel to Saturn in his own turf. It’s not going to be all sunshine and rainbows (we’re still talking Saturn here), but when there is this kind of reception, we see things go quite a bit more smoothly. Imagine if this were the chart of a relationship question: we would be able to give quite a positive report in this instance.

All that said, here are the horoscopes for this opposition for each of the rising signs! I had a blast writing these. You can read for your sun sign, but it’s always best to read for your ascendant (also known as your rising sign).

* * *

Aries: Things go off the rails when you fail to see eye to eye with an otherwise reliable creative collaborator; they’re completely under the thumb of their responsibilities and aren’t in a position to take on any new endeavors, regardless of how exciting or close to your soul they seem to you. Brace for impact.

Taurus: Emotions run high as a visit with family erupts into an all-out brawl when your folks can’t quite understand how your horizons have expanded as you’ve come into your own. The cosmos is screaming at you for you to learn how to set some boundaries and, perhaps, to set some boundaries with family. Stay the course, steady Taurus: this isn’t the first fight you’ve had with them and it won’t be the last.

Gemini: Today’s not the day to be doing any negotiating with credit card companies, bill collectors, or the tax man. Any attempt to communicate, negotiate, or asking for an extension on a late bill will meet swift and terrible denial, and your emotional appeals will fall on stopped ears. How’d you get yourself in this situation in the first place? Present the facts and make a plan if you want any shot of being heard.

Cancer: Tempers might flare today as your earnest appeal to a trusted partner for assistance, financial or otherwise, meets with flat rejection. It’s not that they can’t help, it’s that… they don’t want to help. They see your emotional appeal coming a mile away and would much rather deal with the facts of the situation and pay only the dues that they owe, no more and no less. They’re not going to do your emotional labor for you. The story will change once you’re able to see things from their perspective later today.

Leo: Today is a day to take a nap and retreat, dear Leo. As much as you want to shine brightly, you’ll find yourself tempted to put far too much of yourself out there in order to attract people to your radiant causes—which cause is you!—yet you’ll just end up hamstringing yourself, inviting nothing but torpor and headache at the end of the day. Save your strength; it’ll serve you better soon.

Virgo: Friends come calling to take you away for a time of rest, rejuvenation, and retreat, but as desperately as you dream of a time to focus on yourself, your responsibilities will hear nothing of it and continue to call you back to work—doubly so if you have children or if you work with them. Game the system by learning to find respite and retreat along the way—perhaps a story hour might be the best thing for you.

Libra: Your hopes for a promising transition in your career come tumbling down to earth when the tension between your inner vision and your outer realities erupts to the surface. “The way it’s always been” draws a hard line around “the way things could be,” and you’re faced with the need to rebound and regroup after catching your breath from an unexpected impact. For femme folk especially, the glass ceiling seems to be bulletproof today.

Scorpio: A brilliant, expansive vision of your life’s work “as it should be” has been echoing in your heart, yet as you begin to share that vision with others, you’ll quickly find that the folks you are sharing this vision with are quite content for everything to stay the same, thank-you-very-much—especially if those folks happen to be blood relatives. “Beware of casting your pearls before swine,” even though the swine in question have all your best interests in mind—but it’s their version of your best interest all the same.

Sagittarius: A distant association comes calling today with a poorly veiled attempt to take advantage of your natural generosity by getting something out of you, financial or otherwise. They have no intention for an equitable exchange, and they’ve gotten used to your willingness to help out—but, for once, the word “no” might well escape your lips for the first time in too long! Be gentle as you send them on their way; you’ll find your boundaries around your resources unusually easy to maintain today.

Capricorn: Don’t be surprised if a precipitous conflict erupts in a close partnership or covenanted collaboration today about your level of investment in the relationship. It’s been brewing for some time, but you’ll find that you’re fully in control of your reaction to what’s emerging the dynamic tension between you two (they, much less so). You’ll be speaking in facts and figures; they’ll be speaking in feelings and gestures. Let it lie; no agreement will be reached today. Hope is not lost; a third party steps in to intervene later on to translate your partner’s needs for you.

Aquarius: As much as you’d desperately like to attend to the ever-growing pileup of responsibilities that your dutiful soul has seemed to accumulate for yourself, nothing will get done today because your very body seems to be screaming for respite. There is a deep magic in not trying so hard, because to do so will only turn up the volume of whatever “I’m worthless” tape is in your internal tape deck today. Retreat and rest demands to win today, and it must, dear Aquarius. The gentle attentiveness you will need to do your part in healing yourself and healing the world will arrive soon enough.

Pisces: Allow yourself to be surprised by an ability to say “no” to the demands of pleasure that you’ve gotten yourself tangled up with. Securing your inner world through self-medication only goes so far; today, your duty is to name what it is you really want and to let that hope be your guiding star, as opposed to falling asleep—once again—to the harsh light of reality.

Featured image courtesy of NASA/JPLS/Space Science Institute, reproduced here as fair use.

On Uranus in Taurus

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A lot of folks seem to be worrying the Uranus Taurus ingress to death. With these outer planet transits and ingresses, we expect big things to occur on the world stage. Uranus’ trips through Taurus have a way of coinciding with major shake-ups to the foundations of society; his last transit of Taurus lined up with that weird and worrisome period between the Great Depression and the outbreak of World War II. But bear in mind that Uranus in Taurus was not the only thing happening at that time.

What I want to make clear here is that Uranus’ property is not to create geopolitical crises. His property is to disrupt such that it forces adaptation. Uranus qua Uranus is the crisis waiting to happen, the precipitating factor, the change agent.

There’s a reason that a number of astrologers are starting to refer to this planet as Prometheus. In his myth, Prometheus steals fire from the gods as a boon for humanity, but then humanity still has to adjust to the new reality that having access to fire engenders for everyone. All Prometheus did was say, “here you go, now deal with it.”

Uranus queers–that is, Uranus makes things weird. Honestly, I need more astrologers to be talking about Uranus power to queer. Whichever house cusp Taurus lies on in your chart will be queered with this ingress.

Consider what it is that the Fab Five do on any episode of Queer Eye: they come in unexpectedly, rumble around a man’s entire wardrobe, living space, grooming, pantry, and confidence, leaving no matter untouched. And the men whose lives they impact, though they are completely unsettled and jostled around by this process, come out on the other side for the better.

Uranus will draw the elements and qualities of all that which is on the outside, the margins, the unexpected—”All things counter, original, spare, strange; / Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?) / With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;” to quote Hopkins—right to the center, where it will demand adaptation. The power of the Fab Five is not that they come in and teach a man how to wear pants that fit; they teach a man how to make manifest his divine dignity by uprooting his comfort, his ugly-ass dad sneakers, and addressing the emotional baggage that caused that man to become stuck and fixed in the first place. In other words, Uranus will be the sand in the particular oyster that Taurus represents in your chart, as he always is and always does. She ain’t give a damn, hennie.

That’s the gift of queerness. We exist on the margins and when we draw the margins to the center through our presence, we create an adaptive crisis for the status quo. For me, Uranus was transiting my third whole sign house (second Placidus) and so much of the last seven years was about queering my relationship with traditional religion, which is now my day job—as well as learning how to talk about my own queerness and communicate it. There were any number of crisis points on the way that played into the whole theme (which I won’t list here), but looking back, I have a clear view of what it was that Uranus was doing in my life over the last seven years.

This goes to show that even though the precipitating crises Uranus instigates might be tied to specific events, those are amplified points of the overall theme of the transit. Is Uranus hitting favorable aspects to planets in your chart? Be ready for boons you aren’t expecting that still require you to adjust. Squares or oppositions? The same, but those will be tougher.

Regardless of the quality of the transits themselves, whether we experience them as positive of negative, we still have to be flexible, and each of the specific contacts between Uranus and other planets play into the overall story of this transit.

And we can sit around and speculate, but all the while, Uranus transits are by their very nature unpredictable. We can refine the possible manifestations of a Uranus transit by looking at our charts, but ultimately, the odds are that we won’t be able to nail down exactly what it’ll be until after the fact.

Worrying possible transits to death will make you rigid, and rigid can’t deal with Uranus. Better to bend than to break. So, friends, meet Uranus’ transits to your Taurus-placed house with Taurus’ cool head and patience. Think more Ferdinand under his cork tree, less rage-blinded animal charging at a toreador.

So I ask: what are the things that hold you to the ground? What is it that gives you a sense of stability and fixity? What are the material things with which you surround yourself in order to feel a sense of pleasure and peace? Uranus’ transit through Taurus is going to ask you to reevaluate anything that you would root yourself in, and that question is not going to come in the form of a gentle “have you considered this,” but rather, “oh by the way, your house is on fire and your investments are all over the place and your paycheck is screaming and your food is killing you and eat a vegetable and prom’s tomorrow!!”

So, as always, be prepared.

If you’re ready for a given area to be jostled in your life, if you can roll with the punches, if you can abide—and participate in—Uranus messing with all of your stuff, you’ll come out on the other side a reformed person. For our society, so rooted as it is in our relationship with money, this might necessarily mean some unprecedented shifts. And for each of us on our own, Uranus will come wheeling into whichever house Taurus is on and—as Prometheus did in the myths of ages past—hand us something fiery like “universal healthcare” or “cryptocurrency” or “food justice” and say, “well, here you go. Let’s zhuzh it a little.”

Spring Cleaning: the Virgo Lunation

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Today on the Twitter™ a friend posted the following:

The Virgo moon asked me to discern. Asked me to purge. Asked me to focus. In a way, this is what i imagine Lent feels like…♍🌛🌕🌜

To which I said, immediately, “hey, yeah, that’s exactly what Lent is about.”

In my faith tradition there is a season that precedes the holiest days of the year, viz. Holy Week, which culminates with Easter. We call this season “Lent,” or in Latin, Quadragesima. The word “lent” is related to the French word lent, meaning “slow,” which is evocative of the journey our tradition takes us on: we spend the forty days (quadragesima) preceding Holy Week slowing down, “discerning,” “purging,” “focusing,” to use the words my friend used, so that we can better appreciate the promises, the gifts, and the joy that the Easter season brings.

In a felicitous calendrical accident, we have a Virgo full moon marking the midpoint of the season. It so happens that, because of the way the calendar works and because of the calculation of the dates for both the Jewish festival of Pesach and the Christian celebration of Pascha, we always have this Virgo full moon occurring every year during this season—and it is exactly the symbolism of this particular full moon that so richly captures the process of Lent and similar processes in other religious traditions that seem to happen this time of year (to say nothing of general “spring cleaning” as the Sun makes his transit through double-bodied Pisces as winter dissipates and we shake out the dust of our hibernation).

The symbolism of double-bodied, or mutable, signs is rooted in the change of seasons as one season falls away and yields to the next. Each of these signs (Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius) has an obvious “double bodied” icon: the two fish, the twins Castor & Pollux, the virgin Astraea and her eagle (or the Virgin Mary with the Dove, pick your legend), and the two-bodied centaur Chiron, the tutor of Achilles. Each of these signs marks the time of the year where the story of the year bridges two seasons, and each calls for adaptation, adjustment, and yielding to change.

Virgo is the double-bodied sign of the earthy triplicity: indeed, a full moon lunation in this portion of the sky speaks to the need to re-order and re-structure our very surroundings. This manifests, as I said, as spring cleaning for most of us in the northern hemisphere: many of us will spend time over the next weeks purging and getting rid of stuff that’s been hanging around, changing our sheets (change them more than once every three months, please), selling old stuff on eBay, vacuuming out our cars and washing the crust of brine off of them, changing the filters in our HVAC system, doing our taxes, and so forth. Some of us will also spend time out-of-doors, tilling the ground, fertilizing, mulching, and making our gardens and flower beds ready for another season.

But the energy of this particular lunation also manifests as a call to engage with the process of spiritual “spring cleaning” as well. What is it that demands our energy? What takes up room in our soul? What do we need to let go of? How do we re-order, in Virgo fashion, our material and spiritual existence in order to make ready for the next cycle of life? Those are questions that I can’t answer for you, but the placements in your chart may give you some guidance. For instance, this lunation occurred in my natal 7th house, at the trine of my Part of Fortune, and I’m finding that I’ve spent quite a bit of time and energy in the last day or so attending to money management and my spiritual relationship with my “fortunes,” so to speak.

Moreover, the Virgo lunation serves as a counterpoint to the Pisces sun, which signifies deconstruction: we can’t remain in a state of deconstruction forever and expect to continue to thrive, so the contrapuntal play of the Virgo moon reminds us to adapt to what we have learned through the process of the deconstruction that is a function of growth as humans.

Indeed, this lunation can be read as the cosmos bidding us to make ready for the great greening and renewal of the entire planet which occurs as the Sun ingresses into Aries each year. It is a call for us to breathe along with the breath of the planet, which the stories of our faith traditions bear out in festivals around this time of year: Pascha/Easter for those of us who are Christians, Pesach for our Jewish friends, Ostara for others, and on and on. So many of us, especially those of us who are making preparations for our respective holy days, will experience the energy following this lunation as “tidying up” energy that, when employed skillfully, can enable us to Marie Kondo our physical environments as well as our spiritual environments in order to reorder and restructure for the best growth possible.

So I give you this prayer or affirmation to hold in mind as you work with this energy over the next two weeks: “may I reorder and make room in my life and my heart so that I may feast on the joy of the Earth’s restoration.”

 

On Saturn in Capricorn

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We’re almost there—Saturn finally enters Capricorn in a few days after about 2.5 years hanging out in Sagittarius. The sagacious Saturn comes home to roost in the sign of the Letter of the Law, the sign of commandments and structure and strict judgment, the sign of Wisdom, the sign in which Caesar Augustus was born. Saturn, who is the greater malefic, is perfectly comfortable here and has everything he needs, unlike to cause problems unless provoked—say by Mars opposing him from Cancer or squaring him from Aries (which we won’t get for a while).

Saturn in Capricorn, though never fully “benevolent,” desires the best for the matters under his care and sets boundaries for his cattle, fences in his crops, and gives his workers schedules to assist them in fulfilling their responsibilities to the best of their abilities. Saturn in Capricorn—especially for those born around late 1988 to 1991 or so—demands that we assume fully the responsibilities that are ours to assume and set boundaries, learning how to say “no” in a way that encourages growth and not needless suffering.

Saturn in Sagittarius has been creating gaps and divisions between ideas and nations and journeys, making those far-flung reaches of our world even more distant. Yet he asks us as he comes home to Capricorn: “how shall ye bridge these gaps that I have made? Entropy belongs to life indeed, but it must be held in balance by connection, construction, and order, lest the world fall apart.”

It’s always so easy to say “no” to the other in order to say “yes” to ourselves, but in ways that are destructive and diminishing to people whose lives we have the opportunity to impact for the greater. We relinquish our opportunities to be agents of healing for the sake of getting our own desires fulfilled and our attachments assuaged. Remember too that Saturn rules Aquarius, the Social Worker of the zodiac.

Depending on the houses which Saturn rules in your chart, this may mean saying “no” to a promotion that won’t ultimately move you in the direction you want to go, or “no” to a parent who continues to try to parent you. It may mean saying “no” to things that bring you a lot of joy, not because those things are “wrong” in and of themselves but because those matters cause you to be so inwardly-focused that you cannot see your fellow human in need. That human is you, too, Saturn reminds you. The best way to honor this season is to learn how to construct healthy structures and disciplines for yourself—and for many, though the idea of asceticism might make us queasy, the benefits of saying “no” can make us appreciate the blessings in life all the more.

Where do you need to say “no” in order to free up the resources that building bridges within your own heart and world will require? Where are you over-invested and over-exerted in your life? What tethers you to the glimmering delights of the world such that you can no longer see the light of God in the people you meet from day to day? What benefits might come if you allow yourself to be freed by Wisdom that rightly and sweetly orders all things?

Consider the spiritual progress made by those who have said “no” to the things that we find ourselves attached to and instead have built systems of discipline in which they can explore their own Interior Castles—and consider what opportunities await you as you respond to Saturn’s invitation to do this work.

Saturn in Capricorn does not demand that we become monastics, but he does demand that our lives be ordered toward life and abundance for both ourselves and our neighbors—Saturn is, after all, a farmer, and without fences, furrows, schedules, tilling, hauling, composting, and patience, nobody gets to eat.

The prayers for Advent include this Saturnine invocation to the ordering energies of God, and may it be a blessing for you as you make ready for the Sun’s own ingress into Capricorn during this season of light: “O Wisdom, who proceedeth from the mouth of the Most High, stretching from one end of the world to the other, rightly and sweetly ordering all things: come to teach us the way of prudence.”

Peace and all good, friends.