Waxing outer planet cycles

May 31, 2011 By

For some time now I have wanted to do an analysis of the outer planet cycles to see how they affect global periods of transformation so I was glad to see this article by Dharmaruci in which he discusses the fact that the current cycle of Uranus in Aries in a square to Pluto in Capricorn is part of a larger cycle in which all three outer planets (Uranus, Neptune and Pluto) are in the waxing phase of their relationships to one another.

Like the Sun and Moon, planetary cycles have phases which begin with the conjunction (corresponding to the New Moon), the opening square (corresponding to the first quarter Moon), the opposition (corresponding to the Full Moon), the waning square.  The waxing phase of all cycles is an expansive period in which new ideas are created and change occurs.  DR calls it the “creative, constructive” phase and reports that the last two times all three outer planets were in the waxing phase were 1479-1538 CE and 965-1029 CE.

The outer planets represent transformational forces – their influence goes beyond the personal limits of our individual lives, so it makes sense that the interactions between the outer planets create forces that often feel as though they are beyond our control.  But they also serve the purpose of pushing us beyond our comfort zones so that we are forced to develop and progress – as individuals, as collectives, and as nations.

The period between 965 and 1029 CE witnessed the flowering of Arabic civilization, and the next period of waxing phases, from 1479-1538, was marked by a push for exploration beyond Europe into new lands.  DR notes that our current waxing phase began in 1993 and will continue until 2046 – a long period during which we will undergo many changes and transformative pressures.

The West has dominated world culture and finance for centuries, and in the mid-1990s, as this waxing phase began, the balance of power began to shift.  Some of this was due astrologically to Pluto entering Sagittarius in 1995, inspiring an expansive view of globalization (both Sagittarius keywords) that resulted in the transporting of American jobs overseas.  This period also began a tremendous period of immigration across the globe which is forever altering the identity of individual nations.

DR shares my view that the end result of this has been a growing middle class in Asia as the middle class in the US and Britain have dwindled.  Just as in these other waxing phases, the base of power in the world has shifted and this is likely to ultimately create greater expansion of knowledge and economic balance in the long run, even though it’s painful for Western countries at the moment.

 

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Musings on the Fixed Stars

November 5, 2009 By
I am on vacation until November 12th, and until then I am posting some oldies but goodies along with more timely stories as internet access becomes available.  From 2007:

Dharmaruci writes:

I’ve lately been feeling more dissatisfied than usual with the imaginary nature of the zodiac in modern astrology. The planets are in real places, and their relationships with each other are real, but the constellations that are supposed to be behind them and influencing them are not there. This is partly due to precession, but actually the neat 30 degree segments they were divided into several thousand years ago are also a fiction, because nature is never like that.

In a way western astrology is more straightforward than Vedic astrology in this respect. A western astrologer will tell you that the zodiac we use bears no relationship to the stars. I don’t want to put words in the mouth of a Vedic astrologer, but their astrology takes precession into account, so there seems to be more of a relationship with the stars, but actually the neat 30 degree fiction still remains.

This is not to say that western astrology doesn’t work, because it does, and it does so very well. But as an astrologer, what turns me on is my symbolic relationship to the sky, that is the foundation, that is what moves me, and that is what in large measure is not there. It’s like modern western astrology for me is part relationship to the sky and part tea-leaves.

I think this is really undeniably true which is what makes the skeptics so crazy. The sky isn’t cut up into nice little 30 degree segments which we call the zodiac, astrology is a symbolic system and not an astronomical system. Yet there’s no doubt that it works so we have to wonder why.

I have a fantasy that when we take a body on planet Earth we are given this map which contains our quest and our mission (the Sun sign) and a description of the tools that we are given to accomplish this mission (the rest of the chart). The symbols are given to us in the shape of the Sun, Moon and other planets because we can identify with them. We look up at the Sun and we feel warmed by it. We look at the Moon and we experience its mystery. Mercury is the quick mover, the messenger that delivers communications. Mars is fiery red and rules over anger.

Yet there can be no doubt that the planets themselves have a powerful influence. A client who has been going through a difficult Chiron transit said last week “So this wasn’t just a random series of events?” And we were able to pinpoint exactly when the difficult times occurred so that she could see what the changes were all about. Understanding our astrological makeup and cycles gives us a greater perspective over our life so that we can live more effectively and in a more integrated fashion.

Like Dharmaruci I am also becoming interested in the Fixed Stars and have bought the Brady book and I’m trying to figure out how to view the stars in my Solar Fire program. (Any help with that would be greatly appreciated!!) Meanwhile, the Astrology.com site has a page with the position of the major stars and other interesting details that may prove useful for us.

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Gordon Brown: Will he stay or will he go?

June 9, 2009 By

Dharmaruci has been following the saga of Gordon Brown from the beginning, and he has an article up from Sunday that reviews the charts not only of Brown but also of the New Labour Party and draws some interesting conclusions.  Regarding the chart of the New Labour Party:

With Jupiter Rising in Aquarius, it believed (Jupiter) it could create a better world (Aquarius). Tony Blair’s Moon in Aquarius harmonised with this, and gave him the ability to connect this vision to the people. The MC in Sag also describes this sense of mission to the world. Mercury retrograde in Taurus square to Uranus and Neptune shows the desire to communicate this vision in a practical way, but not always successfully. Tony Blair’s Sun at 15 Taurus conjoins the New Labour Sun at 11 Taurus (and Venus at 19 Taurus), making him its natural leader (Sun).

When Tony Blair left as leader in June 2007, Neptune had been conjoining the New Labour Jupiter, reflecting the loss of self-belief by the party, the disillusion that Tony Blair had brought about, mainly over Iraq. Brown’s time as leader has seen Neptune finally cross the Ascendant in Feb this year, with 2 more crossings later in the year. Given what has happened so far – and Brown’s leadership has been under question, on and off, almost since the start – this transit looks likely to bring about an almost complete loss of vision by New Labour.

Regarding Brown:

As for Brown himself, what we see natally is a fiery character with vision (Aries Rising and Leo Moon) who is nevertheless unable to give direction to himself or those around him (5 personal planets in 12th House Pisces). As a Pisces, Brown is able to shapeshift, to project the strong-man image when he speaks. But the rumours have always been of his authoritarianism, indecisiveness and inability to lead. I think his authoritarianism is partly his Moon conjunct Pluto in Leo; but I think it is also that weird, wilful thing you sometimes find in very Piscean people, who seem to sense and fear their own inner powers as threatening and chaotic, and try to control themselves and everyone around them to keep the ocean at bay. It is Canute syndrome.

Although Brown has an Aries Ascendant, its ruler Mars is in 12th House Pisces, which is a very difficult placement for someone who needs to be, and to appear, strong and decisive. It is also opposite an inhibiting Saturn (which, to be fair, has at the same time given him an ability to apply himself long-term to his personal goals). As Tony Blair’s Chancellor, he was a master of passive-aggressive behaviour, never daring to speak out against Blair, not even standing against him in the original election to be leader; he was, however, forever plotting against him. It is not a good quality for a leader – or for anyone, I suppose. For the last year we have seen Uranus conjoining Brown’s Mars, and in some ways we have seen some surprising leadership from him, particularly through his handling of the financial crisis when the world teetered and Brown saved it (Pisces), or so he seemed to think. But broadly speaking, a Uranus-Mars transit, when Mars is so afflicted, is unlikely to result in the steady leadership that he is so fond of projecting, but which his colleagues clearly do not experience.

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Venus and Mars square Pluto: The political connection

April 24, 2009 By

Dharmaruci at Astrotabletalk has a great article today. Mars is gearing up to square Pluto on the 27th, and a stressful aspect between those two can be quite intense.  Mars deals with the more personal issues of anger and boundaries, and Pluto, as the higher octave of Mars, addresses the larger scale issues of rage and nuclear war.

DR writes:

There is a particularly pokey aspect in the sky at the moment: Mars conjunct Venus, square to Pluto. Mars has just entered Aries, and Venus will do so tomorrow (Friday). Pluto is at 3 degrees Capricorn, so this square will be intensifying until Sunday.

No wonder Hillary Clinton has announced that the situation in nuclear-armed Pakistan represents a ‘mortal threat’ to world security, and also that the US is preparing to up the ante over Iran’s nuclear programme. In today’s New York Times we read: Pushing deeper into Pakistan, Taliban militants have established effective control of a strategically important district just 70 miles from the capital, Islamabad, officials and residents said Wednesday. “They take over Buner, then they roll into Mardan and that’s the end of the game,” a senior law enforcement official in North-West Frontier Province said. …

Venus has in fact been stationing at 29 Pisces. What a place to station, the final degree of the zodiac! The end of an era. How fraught with significance are the outcomes we are now seeing! And the sign Venus is in, Pisces, is one in which she can be very powerful. But not in an aggressive way: we have to wait for Aries for that. You could say that Venus stationing at 29 Pisces means you are, in a sense, helpless: you have to yield. What can the USA do about the Pakistan insurgency? Not much. What can she do about the Iran nuclear programme? Not much, it seems, apart from threatening sanctions, which isn’t going to stop Iran….

Venus is also a planet of money, and Pluto a planet of riches and money as power. So we are now seeing the outcome of the first task of the Obama administration which was to pump loads of government money into the economy. As Venus has gone direct, so are there the first signs of stability in the economic crisis. Venus stationing at 29 Pisces is also saying, however, that yes you may have had some success in stabilising the economy, but all that could have been done has been done. You can only pump in so much money without building up ridiculous levels of government debt, and there is growing political resistance to further fiscal stimuli. You can’t do much more at this stage beyond waiting and seeing. The US Venus is at 3 Cancer, hard-aspected by the current Venus-Pluto cycle, which shows how economically defining the past few months have been. Obama’s Venus is at 2 Cancer, again hard-aspected by Venus-Pluto, which shows how defining in terms of personal popularity the last few months – his first real test – have been. Stage one of his Presidency – ‘the first 100 days’ – is coming to a close.

read more here… It’s an interesting read!

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The “I” Within

August 20, 2008 By

The "I" Within

The "I" Within

One author who has had a profound affect on my personal evolution and my client work is Stephen Levine, author of the magnificent book Who Dies which you can find in the Recommended Reading list in the sidebar. Stephen, a practicing Buddhist, writes about the softening of the hardness that we build around our hearts when our lives are under stress, and how to relax into a sense of presence and that-which-is.  These are Buddhist concepts, but they transcend Buddhism or any religious or spiritual definitions.  This presence is also what is taught by Eckhart Tolle, who has become one of the leading spiritual leaders of our time.

Dharmaruci at Astrotabletalk was a practicing Buddhist for many years and has an interesting article up today on this subject in a follow-up on an article about a Buddhist nun.  He begins:

There are certain things I love about Buddhism. Its philosophy of emptiness makes complete sense. It is saying that everything is part of an interconnected flux in which there are no separate ‘things’. That includes the sense of ‘I’ – hence the famous ‘no-self’ doctrine.

I have to say that this “no-self” idea has always perturbed me.  I myself practiced a disciplined form of meditation for about 18 years and found when I entered psychotherapy that I had spent much of that time using meditation to numb myself from my painful feelings.  I actually quit meditating during the time I was in therapy so that I could more fully awaken to myself and begin to process a lifetime of discomfort.  When I began to meditate again I no longer worked to quiet the mind but instead to be present with what was happening in the moment.  The more I became Present, the quieter my mind became.

But Dharmaruci effectively describes this process in today’s article:

The sense of ‘I’ is a good place to start. It certainly seems very solid and real, and it locates us experientially at the centre of the universe, to which we reach out and relate. But that sense of ‘I’ is usually based on identifying with what we think and feel – that is what makes us ‘us’. What a lot of people don’t realise is that you don’t have to identify with, and act on, what you are feeling. We have a choice. If you are angry with someone, you don’t have to torment yourself with it, the mind circling endlessly as it tries to justify the feeling of anger. Nor do you have to go into therapy and try and find the root cause of it (though that can have its place.) We can make the decision to stand back and observe the feeling. This is a deeply transformational act.

This principle applies to all sorts of limiting, painful emotions which we all experience every day. And it is a different self that does the observing. This new self is not rigid and protective, for there is nothing to protect anymore. It is spacious. You no longer need take events so personally. You are fully present and aware, fully emotionally responsive to others, fully connected in a way you never were before, because you’re no longer seeing the world through the veil of your own reactions to it. You are, in other words, more aware of the interconnected flux to which in reality we all belong.
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Read more here. This process of becoming fully present is easier than one might think, but it requires courage and awareness and time to be still and pay attention.

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A Mini-Blogvacation

April 28, 2008 By

Dear readers, I am taking a few days off to handle the transit of Pluto to natal Mars. Rest assured that when I return I will have new insights about this powerful combination of planets and a new sympathy for Hillary Clinton, who has these guys conjunct in her chart.

Meanwhile, Dharmaruci will be regaling you with interesting tales from the world and his world, and you can also browse the archives of this blog for tidbits from the past, or peruse the articles page of my website for lots more.

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Pluto and Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

April 28, 2008 By

Posted by Dharmaruci

From the New York Times:

“The Justice Department has told Congress that American intelligence operatives attempting to thwart terrorist attacks can legally use interrogation methods that might otherwise be prohibited under international law…

Determining the legal boundaries for interrogating terrorism suspects has been a struggle for the Bush administration.”

This is Pluto in Capricorn: setting the boundaries (Capricorn) around torture (Pluto). I think it’s also a measure of how hideous the present US administration is, that you end up with this sort of debate. It’s like something from a horror spoof.

But it’s no surprise given that the 2005 Presidential Inauguration chart has a Mars-Pluto in Sag conjunction in the 8th House: secret (8th House) torture (Pluto) in a war of ideologies (Mars in Sagittarius). The 8th House suggests that while practices like waterboarding are being publicly debated, the CIA under Bush may well be getting up to much worse stuff that the legal system never gets to hear about.

But at the same time, does the US do anything that other countries do not do? At least it is more out in the open and subject to public scrutiny, which I think is a good thing. Of course, it also means that some practices become formally legitimised and therefore more widespread. It’ll be the local police force wanting to use waterboarding next.

It was the Gestapo, incidentally, who came up with the term ‘Refined Interrogation Techniques’ as a euphemism for torture. The Bush administration also has ‘Special Methods of Questioning’, ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ (for kidnapping), ‘Sleep Management’ and ‘Stress Position’. The themes of political misuse of language and government control are central to George Orwell’s 1984, a book whose time may have come under Pluto in Capricorn. I’m not suggesting that society will end up fully like Orwell suggests it could, rather that these themes are likely to be strongly present and strongly debated.

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