m.o.
Month: March 2018
astrology of mid-life chiron & what jupiter rx wants
The best example of Aries in action is currently seen across media… the young women who are survivors of mass school shooting speaking fiercely, honestly, and holding accountable the entire country, in front of an audience of thousands of activists and protesters. It’s so Aries-in-action to watch, it’s breathtaking. Children holding our culture’s terminal apathy accountable, righteous anger peppered with ferocity, correct, outraged youth.
Jupiter’s retrograde in Scorpio has a role here too. Jupiter is a planet that enlarges everything it touches or passes through. Jupiter through Scorpio (coupled with Mars which finally left the sign) is what gave us #metoo and the deluge of finally illuminated truth-tellings and stories of assaults perpetrated by scores of high profile men last year. It’s given us people speaking and living their truth, releasing it from shadowy places, finally. Scorpio is liminal, where painful secrets, hurt, and anger reside – feelings and subjects we as a culture consider taboo.
Think back to November of last year when the Sun was also in Scorpio. How much did we learn about those around us and our own truth? What was brought to light that had previously been just a resonant subtext? Jupiter still in Scorpio, continues to pluck that string in a big way and on a grand scale. What have we changed since then? Jupiter’s current retrograde in Scorpio says that we aren’t done yet, facing what’s true, unpleasant, difficult, and desperately needing to be addressed, both personally and culturally.
Whether #metoo or outraged shooting survivors or our own realizations about our ability to look at our own emotional shadows , Jupiter is saying, ‘Yeah not so fast. I’m not leaving until I’m sure you can’t deny this any longer. You can’t unsee.’
A note about the 12th house — I’ve been asked by a few friends recently to explain the mysterious 12th house. It’s been called the ‘house of suffering,’ ‘house of self-undoing,’ ‘house of subconscious,’ house of death.’ It’s the house where we face ourselves, whether we want to or not and whether we are aware of it or not — where we are our own worst enemies or create narratives about ourselves and our lives that we cling to, even when they are outdated, preventing our own real happiness and growth, sort of like emotional and psychic security blankets. Comfy, same or similar, safe choices that ultimately work against us.
No matter what sign is in this house, trying to understand it will probably feel like trying to grab at fistfuls of fog. What the 12th house wants you to know is likely functioning like a rider on the other running themes in your life, asking to be addressed by the choices that we actively make towards our fulfillment and wholeness, instead of our stagnation and undoing.
A lot about Chiron returns after the clicky click
the hounds of love
Friend Sarah sent me updates from the finish line of the Iditarod. And she sent this (link below), which I’m posting in part to come back to and also to share this work, which I’m curious to read. It’s a thrilling interview.
My second cause in life was dogs, after worries about dwindling farm subsidies (which I used to lay in bed and cry about when I was small). I’ve learned so much about people by being a dog steward to rescue dogs or dumped dogs, and volunteering in the olden days at Anti-Cruelty Society. As a highly sensitive person and survivor of trauma, I’ve incredibly identified with dogs — their primary confusion at our coarse, human actions and behaviors, and their purely earnest responses and feelings.
It surprises me not at all that justice among dogs is something we can learn, and learn from. I was just listening to a Carolyn Casey talk where she relays a story about how chimpanzees exhibit and model non-violent revolution. In it, a studied, exiled chimp from a chimp community found a tin can and started rolling it and making beats and percussion. The other chimps were so impressed, they eventually made that chimp the leader. Almost all of the models and answers we need are in nature already.
It’s no cultural secret that we vilify not only certain dog breeds (and often the wrong ones — German Shepherds, associated with law enforcement are the cause of most human attacks… funny how that escapes the mass consciousness) but their human stewards by extension. An image that always sticks with me year after year is that of the rescued dog fight dogs at Anti-Cruelty Society, those just above so far gone that they were given a chance at rehab. They would be shortly tethered near a highly trained volunteer with a chalk circle drawn around them, letting us underlings know to stay away from the perimeter.
Day after day the dogs would just sit in the circle, noses pointed down, peering up, supremely skeptical and holding themselves in a muscular half-brace, ready in case anyone or anything suddenly started toward them. I always wondered how many were actually able to be rehabbed. I have at times identified with both the dogs and the handlers. Those dogs and their partnership with the volunteers are of course reflections of many of our life experiences.
The canine / volunteer relationship becomes an exchange of energy about risk in trust, love, and healing; if we can love ourselves and trust enough to greet change, if we can risk vulnerability to another, and if we accept the new programming that ushers a new experience and life. The primal nature of the instincts, in all animals, only makes it easier to see how binary our choices can feel, when in actuality it’s the day after day showing up of the volunteer and building the new patterns — or experimenting by trying new things… repeatedly rolling the tin can in new, interesting ways — that makes the difference.
As my own canine girl gets older, grayer at the muzzle and more grumbly, and my boy settles into adulthood with his epilepsy hopefully totally managed now, every night before bed I whisper to them, repeating: “good dog, you are such a good dog.” I do this in part because it’s a true expression, but also to create the pattern for the day that comes when I will have to hold them while they leave, and I will repeat it over and over while they pass, and hope that they know how much I mean it because I have said it so often… created that neural pattern. And most importantly, I will thank them for making me a better person and for loving me even on the days I wasn’t able to love myself — for being my stewards, as I am theirs.
What Dogs Can Teach Us About Justice: A Conversation with Colin Dayan
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(editor’s note: Mercury Retrograde is on. Thinking of communicating a big decision? Making a large purchase? Signing important documents? Responding to messages from exes or approaching an old interest? Leave it be! Mercury is mucking up our works and thinking, and depending on the house it’s in, you might regret steps taken now. Mercury Rx doesn’t just frustrate daily communication, it mucks up communication between our hearts, heads, and intuition. On the other hand, it can make for really methodical and intricate communication, if what we are trying to communicate will benefit from parsing and understanding — slow communication that revisits existing topics and themes versus broad strokes. As usual, double check details, schedules, and facts… and leave the big decisions for later, especially those of y’all who are more energetically perceiving. Mercury Rx is a time to revisit, renew, reconsider, renergize. Don’t be dictated to by transits. Don’t let them bandy you about like a stray pebble in a clothes dryer. Use their energies to grow. We are still under the influence of the healing Pisces new moon, and for the next 6 mos. It’s one that is going to show us where and how we need to (and are now able to) heal… and it probably isn’t going to look anything like we think it should, or would. Have faith to let the next months unfold; change toward a more verdant, emotionally salubrious, and elemental life. Don’t grab or force decisions right now in order to feel a false sense of control. That’s a reactive human recipe for missing out on the far greater gifts we are being asked to receive and let unfold.
(More in depth, I really like this synthesis from embodied astrology. Especially if you are feeling this one more or wanting to understand how this is functioning in the sign of Aries.)
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dreaming, during transit saturn
…conjunct natal Venus (which is opposite natal Saturn), square natal Pluto… It’s like noble Venus is being constantly hollered at in both ears by relentless drill-sergeant Saturn, and Pluto is shouting up: “Heeeey, I can just tear it all down if you want!”. Not helpful, Pluto, but I feel you.
The Moon through Pisces and Cancer was emotionally intense. And, so much is still in Pisces (Sun, Nept, Venus, Merc. and Chiron), all trampling over my natal Moon in Pisces, conjunct Jupiter (and both planets are square Neptune {which my north node sits in exact conjunction} in my stellium sign and house… yeah. Let that sink in, chart readers!). Even I was impressed by how much my subconscious self decided to shut down last month. After a cold, I developed some sort of extremely painful rib lining and sternum inflammation (?) I had never heard of, got a bunch of needles and rolfing which only slightly helped, and ended up staying home for over a week until I could breathe deeply and move my right side. It cleared up, but I can see now it created a strange pocket for me to totally check out. I just read, researched, and slept and played with my kid. That part was kind of a dream, minus the sparking white pain while breathing.
I probably shouldn’t grouse. A few days ago was a lovely, surprising dream. But Saturn is nearly conjunct Venus now… I’ll be deeply relieved when this transit eases and planets leave Pisces. We folk of the Pisces Moon are a very singular sort. A lot is written about us. Astrologers respond soberly when they find out. And, having so many planets though the sign is kind of our worst Piscean fear — like a spontaneous, gregarious party appears in your house and will not leave and will not allow you to leave.
3/4/18 – dream notes
living in or visiting an apartment in a neighborhood that reminded me a bit of Kensington, in London. I was walking at night and saw a house between two others had been demolished, debris cleared. In its place, like a full-scale placeholder, someone had built a house from rich black earth — stairs, stoop, second floor, columns and all. They even gave the facade a beveled art deco detail. It made me think of how beautiful it would be if everything started growing from it, but also, how it might be like a sand castle, but from earth. It was solid and gorgeous. I wanted to show you. I was sad I didn’t have a camera.
I went back the next day, but it was gone. A new, boring building, a 3 story walk up trying to look authentically old, but super phoned in had been put up in the meantime. I was totally disappointed, but not surprised.
I went to an historic, indoor arcade which was supposed to be a local attraction, but it was super small… only 1 skee-ball alley, and 3 bumper cars that couldn’t get enough space to work up any speed. Some kids were trying to use them. There were 2 llamas outside that I could see through an open dutch door. The woman running it seemed like she had been doing it a long time.
As I was leaving, I saw several felt feathers affixed to an interior column, like someone had made them and posted them up. I was drawn to the white one, but also a striking cobalt, and a rich rust. She told me I could take one. I put the white one in my pocket.
I started walking home. I thought to ask you if you had seen someone make the earthen buildings before, but knew I had no way. And then, my fingers fell off. I gathered them with my palms and put them in my coat, hoping I would later be able to get them back on.
1481hyperion 