Tag Archives: Transformation

Sunday inspiration: Take what you are and use it

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At a ritual recently I learned of a wonderful book called Remedios: Stories of Earth and Iron.  Each us of selected one of the remedios, and mine was Milk Thistle.  The story of Milk Thistle is very appropriate for the Virgo New Moon so I’d like to share it with you for this Sunday’s inspiration. (Image is Ancestor Spirits by Willow Arlenea.)

Willow Arlenea

Milk Thistle works with what is here: the yellow layers of toxins, the charcoal grit, the green bile slow as crude oil pooling in the liver’s reservoirs, waiting to learn to flow.  Milk Thistle says take what you are and use it.

She’s a junkyard artist, crafting beauty out of the broken. She’s a magician, melting scar tissue into silk. She’s a miner, fingering greasy lumps of river clay for emeralds. She can enter the damaged cells of your life and recreate your liver from a memory of health. She can pass her hands over this torn and stained tapestry of memory and show us beauty, make the threads gleam with the promise of something precious gained.

She will not flinch from anything you have done to keep yourself alive. Give it to me, she will say, I will make it into something new. She will show you your courage, hammered to a dappled sheen by use.  She will remind you that you took yourself over and over to the edge of what you knew. She will remind you that the world placed limits on your powers. That you were not omnipotent. That some of the choices you made were not choices.

Use what you are, she says again and again, insistent. You are every step of your journey; you are everything that has touched you.  You are organic and unexpected.  Use what you are.

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Soul surgery: Planetary news this week

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Art by Gaelyn Garrick

Those of us on a spiritual path seek transformation and spiritual evolution but then resist it when the experience is upon us.  This is human nature since the ego seeks to control the experience of the life – to surrender that control can be frightening to many of us, especially if we have planets in fixed signs (like I do!!) which tend to be more inflexible and lack adaptability.

But life is about change and adaptation, and understanding the astrological cycles can help us to find peace within the storm of change.  When we recognize the dynamics of change that are at work in the form of planetary energies it becomes easier to work with them – they become trusted teachers and we know more about what we can expect in times of change.

A few days ago Venus opposed Chiron, the Soul Healer, and today the Sun is opposite Chiron. Relationships may be more painful than usual now as Chiron goes about his job as Soul Surgeon, exposing any sensitive places in the heart so that they can become healed. This kind of emotional sensitivity is quickly healed if we permit ourselves to consciously move through these experiences and allow these old thoughts, feelings or memories to emerge and then be released.

Venus made a trine to Pluto last night, helping to soften the rough edges and help us to be real and genuine in our relationships with others for the next 12 hours or so.  The Moon is moving away from Mars and it’s easier to express our vulnerability under the Cancerian influence. Meanwhile the Sun/Chiron opposition helps to crack open the protection that we keep over our wounds so that we can blossom and open from the heart.

By the 28th when the Sun trines Pluto at the New Moon in Virgo you will feel renewed.

Here on the East coast we are preparing for the onslaught of Hurricane Irene.  I’ve lived in North Carolina for over 30 years so I am very accustomed to hurricane preparation, and I have come to think of personal transformation as being very much like a hurricane.  It can be frightening when the eye of the storm passes over your house, as it did in 1994 when Hurricane Fran stormed through the state.  But after every hurricane the air is clean and refreshed, and though there may be damage to clean up and restore there is a sense of renewal and a new beginning.

As we head more deeply into the square of Uranus and Pluto we will become more familiar with the cycle of intense personal storm activity that is followed by a personal renewal.  This is an important aspect of the process of our personal evolution and like a hurricane, it is inevitable.  The more we can cultivate a personal relationship with our own inner voice and guidance, the easier the process of transformation becomes.

Understanding the planetary cycles that guide you personally can be a great aid and comfort as well as help us to prepare for the shifts that are required for the planet to adjust to the energy of this new age.

 

 

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(Part II) Looking forward: The Transformation of 2012

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This is Part II of a series that will conclude tomorrow.  You can catch up on Part I here, and tune in tonight (Wednesday) at 7 pm to the Musings on Astrology radio show where we will be discussing these important cycles.

Where we are now

transformation of 2012Art by Teka Luttrell. In 2010 a major alignment of planets in the cardinal signs of Capricorn, Cancer, Aries and Libra began to take shape.  Pluto in Capricorn, Saturn in Libra, and Jupiter and Uranus in Aries all  took their places in a drama that forced many of us to make changes in our personal lives in order to accommodate these global forces for healing and transformation.  These forces reached a peak during June’s eclipse in Cancer when the planets aligned in a Grand Cross of transformation and power.

Now that we are just one year away from the dreaded 2012, many are fearful of changes that might still occur.  “Haven’t we had enough change?” we may be asking.   And if everything in our personal lives is in balance, then we have had enough change.  THEN we are ready to take a break.  Until that point, the planetary gods work tirelessly to encourage personal and global transformation to bring balance into our earthly lives.

During the summer of 2011 Uranus in Aries will be within one degree of an exact square to Pluto in Capricorn.    The combination of Uranus and Pluto is a particularly potent one that breaks down old structures and ways of being (Pluto) so that something new and fresh and completely authentic can replace it (Uranus).  This is not always an easy process.  Those of us who remember the 1960s (when Uranus and Pluto conjoined in Virgo) will remember the thrill of radical and revolutionary new lifestyles that broke down the stuffy (Virgo) morality of the period.  This was a time of great liberation around the world: Black Power, Women’s Liberation, the domino of independent states across Africa as colonialism fell– but there was also a great Plutonic cost in terms of human lives that were lost  as the old order was broken down (Pluto) in order for change (Uranus) to take place.

The upcoming square of Uranus to Pluto will actually begin in the summer of 2012, and the two will dance an incredible seven times before concluding in March of 2015.  The turbulence that we see now sweeping across the Middle East and North Africa is just the beginning of this wave of Uranus/Pluto energy that seeks to sweep away the old and rotting corpse of a way of life that no longer works for humans at this stage of their psychic and spiritual development.  This same dynamic will be at work in our personal lives, revealing any pocket of experience that is no longer serving us and which needs to be removed from our lives.   This will understandably create a certain amount of chaos on an intimately individual level.

The changes of the next few years will most personally affect those of us with planets between 5 and 15 degrees of the cardinal signs (Cancer, Capricorn, Aries and Libra), and most especially those with Uranus and Pluto in these signs, including:

  • Those born between 1919 and 1928 with Pluto in Cancer
  • Those born between 1929 and 1932 with Uranus in Aries
  • Those born between 1951 and 1953 with Uranus in Cancer
  • Those born between 1969 and 1972 with Uranus in Libra
  • Those born between 1974 and 1978 with Pluto in Libra
  • Those born between 1989 and 1992 with Uranus in Capricorn

With Pluto in Capricorn, the very foundation of our material world will be challenged by the Uranian influence.  Our finances, our retirement plans, our marriages – any of these structures that we build to contain our lives could be threatened if they are not built on solid footings.  The effect of Uranus can be very stressful for the nervous system since Uranus operates on an electrical platform that can excite and thrill us, but also inspire anxiety and distress.   It is crucial to remember during this period that if any aspect of our personal lives break down under these influence, it is because they are no longer serving their purpose and require transformation in order for all involved to move forward in their personal evolution.

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“Self-knowledge is only the beginning”

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self understandingCartoon by Doug Savage. One of the more challenging yet rewarding aspects of my work with clients is taking the leap from “here is why you have had these problems” to “here’s what you can do about it.”  It’s always reassuring to hear that your desire to flee a committed relationship comes from the fact that libertarian Uranus challenges your “I want to be closer” Venus.  Or that you are afraid of success because Saturn’s voice of “You’re not good enough” sits right on your Jupiter in Leo that says “But I should be fabulous!”

After a few years of exciting realizations like this coming out of consultations, I started to realize there was a big need for something more – a way to help a client strategize their way out of the boxes they put themselves in.

The New York Times has an interesting article on the same topic:

It is practically an article of faith among many therapists that self-understanding is a prerequisite for a happy life. Insight, the thinking goes, will free you from your psychological hang-ups and promote well-being.

Perhaps, but recent experience makes me wonder whether insight is all it’s cracked up to be.

Not long ago, I saw a young man in his early 30s who was sad and anxious after being dumped by his girlfriend for the second time in three years. It was clear that his symptoms were a reaction to the loss of a relationship and that he was not clinically depressed.

“I’ve been over this many times in therapy,” he said. He had trouble tolerating any separation from his girlfriends. Whether they were gone for a weekend or he was traveling for work, the result was always the same: a painful state of dysphoria and anxiety.

He could even trace this feeling back to a separation from his mother, who had been hospitalized for several months for cancer treatment when he was 4. In short, he had gained plenty of insight in therapy into the nature and origin of his anxiety, but he felt no better.

What therapy had given this young man was a coherent narrative of his life; it had demystified his feelings, but had done little to change them.

Was this because his self-knowledge was flawed or incomplete? Or is insight itself, no matter how deep, of limited value?

Psychoanalysts and other therapists have argued for years about this question, which gets to the heart of how therapy works (when it does) to relieve psychological distress. …

I recall one patient who was chronically depressed and dissatisfied. “Life is just a drag,” he told me and then went on to catalog a list of very real social and economic ills.

He had been in therapy for years before I saw him and had come to the realization that he had chosen his profession to please his critical and demanding father rather than follow his passion for art. Although he was insightful about much of his behavior, he was clearly no happier for it.

When he became depressed, though, this insight added to his pain as he berated himself for failing to stand up to his father and follow his own path. …

[H]e came to see me recently looking exceedingly happy. He had quit his job and taken a far less lucrative one in the art world. We got to talking about why he was feeling so good. “Simple,” he said, “I’m doing what I like.”

Many of my clients report that “astrology is better than therapy,” because it helps us to zoom right into the heart of the issue like a laser, enhancing our self-understanding and giving us new insights into the root of our behavior.  But we still have to change that behavior in order to find happiness and release the past.

We often believe that our patterns of behavior and thinking are who we actually are which makes it more difficult to alter them.  But the smallest alteration in our thought patterns and accompanying reactions can take us to a new destination of greater empowerment and joy.

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Transformation and the Gulf oil spill

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"Gaia," by Alex Grey

Much has been written recently comparing the Gulf oil spill to the rumored Hopi prophecy that predicts the seas turning black and causing the death of many living things.  Certainly there is no doubt that the disaster in the Gulf will transform life as we know it as it destroys much of the undersea life in the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding areas.

Daniel Pinchbeck, editor of the online magazine Reality Sandwich, has an interesting article about the oil disaster.  He, like other authors, has written about the sociopathic disregard of the “corporate and financial culture” in the United States (the US chart has Pluto in the second house of money and finance):

Our corporate and financial culture instills a mindset of sociopathic disregard, and the system permits certain psychological profiles to thrive within it: those capable of disassociating their actions from any moral consequences. What should be an extreme liability in a complex and interconnected world shared by a multitude of living beings has become an asset for our corporate, financial, and political masters – the current ruling elite who congregate at events like the annual Bilderberg gathering, who see massive loss of life as “collateral damage” along the way to their next golf game or yachting match.

But then Pinchbeck takes a more spiritualized view of the disaster which I find a compelling viewpoint:

These are aspects of my current view of the world: the faltering of my faith, that horrible presentiment that the forces of disillusion and destruction have already triumphed, that creepy familiar feeling (as if I already experienced this, long ago, on some other lost world, many forgotten splinters of incarnated lifetimes ago) of failure and futility. On another level, I feel an equally uncanny presentiment that all of this is still going perfectly according to plan, that the script of our collective world movie/space oddysey has to unscroll or unfurl in just this stomach-clenching way, toward its still mysterious denouement. Observing my own life, I see that it often takes a drastic crisis to spur me into action – perhaps that is the only way change ever takes place, on the individual or species level.

The environmental and economic meltdown could clear away all the obstacles and obstructions that keep us from attaining clarity, from putting into practice what we know intuitively to be true. Is it possible that the Jungian archetypal Self – the increasingly humanized god-image that seeks to incarnate in our human world – must bring about the complete breakdown of what is known and familiar, to open the space for what can only be revealed, in the fullness – and emptiness – of time? Perhaps we can only reach the depth dimensions of our higher being through an unfolding mega-crash that exposes all levels of delusion and self-deception, that forces those of us who desire illumination to break all the bonds, the “mind-forg’d manacles,” that keep us from attaining liberation. …

It is now agonizingly obvious that humans do not change their ways until they are far outside of their comfort zone. It is only at the point of death that transmutation becomes possible. Perhaps the rampant desecration of the physical world is going to force the more conscious subset of humanity to purify their intentions, clearing cobwebs from the shadowy corners of the psyche, to access extrasensory capacities on a regular basis. Many of us have experiences of this energy, this potential, but the manifestations tend to occur at uncontrollable junctures and in mysterious ways. In my own life, I have found that psychically charged events occur at certain highly charged junctures, which seem to reveal the working of a synchronic order, as if some form of superconsciousness, when magnetized by the energy of intention, can ripple through the underpinnings of our 3-D reality, causing changes that seem beyond the parameters of what we generally accept as possible. Can we learn to access these capacities on a regular basis, like the dependable current we get from electricity? If we can come into alignment with this superconscious shaping force, we may be able to begin to heal the wounds of Gaia, to stop tormenting the generative earth that shelters us and gives us life. I think it is quite possible that even the course of seemingly unstoppable biospheric and geophysical events, like climate change or the oil spill, could be altered through collective psychic effort, much as indigenous groups like the Hopi used initiatory ritual and trance dances to bring rain down from the sky.

I pray this is the universe’s wager for us: that we will go beyond our current ruts and limitations, that we will manifest a future of imaginative joy by stepping into our potential, becoming the wizards, warriors, and initiates that the world needs so desperately now. As Nietzsche pointed out accurately, “man”, in his current form, can only be a transitional creature. Either we are rapidly approaching the terminus point for our species or we can collectively choose to transmute, creating an evolutionary implosion, from the physical to the psychic realm. As the oil gushes forth and the earth’s resources disappear, it may be that we can learn to thrive on subtler and far more powerful forms of energy. Working together, we can guide the world toward its next phase of being – a plateau of intensified consciousness and synchronic coherence, in which conscious evolution becomes both sacred game and participatory art form.

read the entire article here…

I see this less as a test from the Universe as a natural unfolding of the flow of life.  Many of my friends are lost in despair over the dramatic loss of life and corruption of nature that we are seeing in the Gulf today, but in focusing on that we miss the point.  The point is to allow the rage that fills our hearts with hate instead to energize us to fight for change.

This is what occurred in the 1960s when Uranus conjoined Pluto, and rage over the Vietnam war spilled over into a creative and exciting movement to transform every aspect of human life.  In the coming years, as Uranus forms a square to Pluto, that creative energy is once again available to us.  Rather than sink into a lethargy of melanchology over the events that we cannot control, adjusting our focus and activating our consciousness can begin to make huge changes, even if they begin in small ways.

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Reform: “to convert into another and better form”

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Kathryn Cassidy tweeted yesterday: “The word ‘Reform’ is everywhere. It strongly correlates to the current Saturn/Uranus opposition as do the words Rebellion and Revolution.”

She’s right about calls for reform being heard everywhere.  In the US we’ve had healthcare reform, but also financial reform, immigration reform.  Now, with the disaster in the Gulf, the new mayor of New Orleans has called for reform and restructuring of the city’s police department.  An independent think tank in Britain has called for reform to police departments in the UK.   Protesters everywhere are marching for reform of marijuana laws.  In Greece, pensions and tax collections are part of a greater overhaul to help reform that country’s failing economy.

Some of this more immediate focus on reform is due to the current Mercury retrograde cycle which tends to cause us to look backwards rather than forwards.  But there are several planetary cycles along with the Saturn/Uranus cycle that are providing this impetus for reform.  One of course is the larger cycle of Pluto (transformation) in Capricorn (structures, including banks and governments).

The conflict between Saturn and Uranus makes reform more difficult, because the restriction and delays of Saturn keeps the Uranian innovation from occurring freely.  This will change in a few weeks when Jupiter and  Uranus enter Aries and the calls for reform become louder and more clear.

The need for reform isn’t limited to governments and banks – it also affects our personal lives.  There is a tremendous amount of energy available to us personally as well.  How do we want to reform our own lives so that we can convert what we’re doing into another and better form?

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Happy Resurrection Holiday!

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This article is a repost from last year.  Tune in to Astrological Musings Radio Sunday morning at 11 am Eastern for a discussion about resurrection in personal transformation from an astrological perspective!  You can also call in with questions about your own chart.  For listening instructions and links visit my website.


Spring renewal.jpg

Art by Diane Clancy I have always found it interesting that the timing Christian holiday of Easter is based on the lunar cycle and the Spring Equinox.  The holiday that the Christian world celebrates as Easter retains much of its pagan roots as a fertility festival and a time of balance as the days and nights (in the northern hemispheres) are of equal length. Even the name “Easter” is taken from the Saxon fertility goddess Ostara or Eostre, who is related to Astarte in ancient Babylon and Ashtoreth in ancient Israel.  And the Easter bunny is, of course, an old pagan symbol of fertility.
The resurrection story of Jesus is virtually identical to the tale of the resurrection of the Phrygian god Attis who preceded him:  According to Gerald Berry’s Religions of the World: The Record of Man’s Religious Faiths Primitive rites, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity and others written in 1965, “About 200 B.C. mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican hill …Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name). He was a god of ever-reviving vegetation. Born of a virgin, he died and was reborn annually. The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection.”
Another interesting aspect to the timing of Easter is its combination of the solar and lunar calendar, taking place as it does on the first Sunday following the 14th day of the lunar month following the Equinox.  The Jewish festival of Passover, which was certainly celebrated by Jesus and his followers, takes place on the 15th day of the month of Nisan in the lunar calendar, which is the first Full Moon after the Equinox.  The ancient Christian leaders, probably wanting to differentiate their Easter holiday, uses an “ecclesiastical” full moon rather than the actual lunar event.  (Passover, however, is not a resurrection festival.)
Other ancient cultures celebrated the resurrection of their dying gods:  Osiris, Tammuz, Dionysus – all are gods who died and were reborn anew. In the Spring, when life springs forth anew from every tree and flower, there is a sense of resurrection and rebirth and an opportunity for a fresh new start. Even in Islam there are some stories (not universally accepted) that Mohammed ascended to heaven on a a white horse, although no effort is made to connect this phenomenon to the Spring resurrection festival.
Let us celebrate this renewal, no matter what our faith, and the beginnings of Spring!
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The Dark Night of the Soul

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dark night of the soulThis article was originally posted in September of 2006 when Saturn and Neptune were in opposition.  Many of my clients have been referring to a “dark night of the soul” resulting from the Chiron/Neptune conjunction so I thought it might be useful to repost it.

While I was on vacation I happened on a radio interview with Andrew Harvey, a mystic and Shakespearean scholar who believes as many do that the earth is heading for some troubled times. I was very impressed by the depth of his commitment to the spiritual life and his eloquence in describing the twists and turns that are required on the path to becoming one with the divine.

Harvey’s recent book is entitled The Sun at Midnight: A Memoir of the Dark Night , written about his long journey through the dark night of the soul. In the opposition from Saturn to Neptune, many of us are experiencing such a “dark night” in the form of the ending (Saturn) of our illusions (Neptune). Although Pluto is now associated with death and the principle of rebirth, before Pluto was discovered Saturn ruled over death’s domain. Death under Saturn is a cold hard ending as we come face to face with the fragility of our spiritual connections under Neptune. Although Saturn is a stern teacher, the rewards are great and when we face the hard lessons that Saturn brings we are given great rewards. In its opposition to Neptune, adopting or deepening the discipline (Saturn) of a spiritual practice (Neptune) will help to facilitate the progression of our cosmic education.

But there is a deeper death in Harvey’s writings: the death and regeneration that we associate with Pluto. The reclassification of Pluto into a new category along with Ceres and now Eris adds a new complexity to our concept of this transformation that we may not yet have the capacity to understand. Perhaps there is a clue in Harvey’s words from an interview he gave in San Francisco last year:

[Regarding St. John's "night of the senses" and "night of the soul"] This first dark night purifies all of the senses so that they can become the vehicle of the inner divine self. This first dark night is extreme, but it’s not as extreme as the second dark night. It’s a purification that enables the ordinary senses to start registering the divine world. Through devotion, through meditation, through intense mystical practice, you start to see the divine light. At first it just flashes, and then when the process is complete, you have an overwhelming experience in which you see the entire creation as a manifestation of the light, and your consciousness is one with that. This is not enlightenment. This begins what is called the state of illumination. Although the senses are purified, and although they’re able now to register the divinity of the world, the ego is still subtly present. So there has to be a second death on the path, which is the death of the personal identity. . . .

The entire world is now going through a massive crucifixion on all levels. It’s going through an environmental crucifixion — hundreds of species are vanishing every month. It’s going through a personal crucifixion. There are two billion people living on less than a dollar a day. It’s going through a crucifixion of all the patriarchal systems — look at Enron and what it has shown us about Corporate America. Look at the Catholic Churches’ scandals of pedophilia and what it shows us about authority. Look at the growing disillusionment of politicians of all kinds. All of the systems are being exposed as illusory and as fantasy ridden — as deeply corrupt and exploitative.

There’s another kind of crucifixion going on — crucifixion of purpose and hope. Everybody is totally bewildered. They know that the world is potentially on the brink of total apocalypse. There’s a tremendous danger that as people wake up to the horror of what is going on, they will run into political extremism or into fundamentalism of one kind or another. So it’s extremely important that the wisdom of the dark night gets across because if people understand the necessity for this crucifixion, and understand that it’s preparing the resurrection and the birth and an empowerment, then they will be prepared to go through it without fear — or without too much fear — trusting in the logic of the divine transformation.

See, the power that is doing this to us is coming towards us simultaneously with terrifying destruction and extreme grace and prosperity [emphasis added]. The destruction is, in fact, a form of that extreme grace. It’s quite clear that humanity is now terminally ill, and can only be transfigured by a totally shocking revelation of its shadow side. And this is what we’re living through, these shadow sides exploding in every direction because we have done nothing but betray the sacred in us.

We have lacerated the sacred in others. We have betrayed the sacred in an orgy of fundamentalism. We have brutalized the sacred in nature. We are now terminally destructive. . . .

You can lose hope. But if you know the wisdom of the dark night, then you are looking out for protection. You’re aware that through this terror, protection will be given. This is the universal testimony. They mystics have gone through this process. It’s the testimony of Rumi. It’s the testimony of the great shamans. It’s the testimony of St. John of the Cross, and it’s the testimony that I gave in this book. And it’s, of course, the testimony of Bede Griffiths. You are given tremendous divine protection, because as the human is being destroyed, the divine consciousness comes up. So one side of you is being annihilated, but the other side is stronger than ever in the ashes. So great dreams will come and light will become more and more vibrant. The divinity of life will become more and more naked to you. Miracles will take place to protect you. To anybody who comes to this path, the divine is both extremely ferocious and extremely tender. Ferocious to destroy the illusions, but tender to give the human being the courage to hang in there and do the work.

It’s becoming more and more clear to me that the newly tripartite nature of Pluto embodies the symbolism of this process: Eris creates the discord and strife that begins the death of the ego under Pluto, and Ceres presides over our emergence from the underworld and the regeneration of our lives.

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Thoughts on Pluto as it retrogrades today

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Willow ArleneaArt by Willow Arlenea. Pluto has been slowing down for the past month or so in preparation for making its station, and we have seen a dramatic increase of violent acts including several mass murders during that period, particularly around the time of the New Moon in Aries.  Planets don’t actually move backwards, but because in astrology we look at the movement of the planets from car it is not astronomically correct.  Astrology places the human being at the center of the universe and analyzes planetary motion from that perspective.

When a planet is preparing to change direction it slows down, just as a car must slow down before it makes a U-turn.  At a certain point it is said to be “stationary”, and it is most stationary on the day that it changes direction, which in Pluto’s case is today.

Pluto, despite its small size, is dramatically powerful in astrological terms and it’s easy to become afraid of its usually intense effects.  But if we take a longer view of the planetary influence Pluto doesn’t have to be frightening.  Pluto seeks nothing less than total transformation and the elimination of anything that is no longer serving us, and the changes that occur under Pluto events, even though they may be very difficult, always change us for the better.  It was Pluto who wrote the old adage, “That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.”

When Pluto is powerful in our life, either in our natal chart or when Pluto is affecting one of the planets in our chart by transit, we have lost control.  There is no solution but to let go.  I always tell the story (and forgive me if you’ve heard this one before) of the first time I went tubing when I lived in Colorado.  The guide said to keep all of your limbs inside the tube and let the water carry you, but I was too frightened so I kept trying to reach out for the rocks, trying to slow down my travels, which resulted in the tube being smashed against the rocks.  When I finally did let go, the tube was able to travel the path of least resistance through the water and I had a glorious ride.

But Pluto also requires that we become empowered.  It’s not enough just to let go if we allow ourselves to be weakened.  Pluto often pits us in circumstances where we must fight – for our money, for our job, for our family, for our life sometimes. There are often power struggles and battles for dominance.  We can’t control the circumstances, but we can control our choices and how we will react to those circumstances.  Pluto asks, where in your life have you allowed yourself to be diminished?  What in your life isn’t working for you?

Pluto also can bring out our compulsive and hidden behaviors, and dredge up old memories to be processed and released.  Unlike Chiron, which reveals the actual emotional experience, Pluto sometimes goes into the depth of the soul and forces us to confront the original source.  Repressed memories, sexual compulsions – during Pluto cycles we may find ourselves facing a dark side of ourselves that we prefer to keep safely in the basement.  Pluto demands nothing less than the absolute Truth.

When Pluto entered Capricorn last year it was a bit of a psychic shock after the glee of the Sagittarius cycle (1995-2008).  It has taken a while for the general population to get used to this new and more contracted experience, but gradually we are starting to see an adjustment.  The retrograde passage of Pluto will slow down this adjustment as Pluto completes its work through the early degrees of Capricorn.  Capricorn is the reality check – which structures in our life are solid, and which are based on whimsy?  Anything built on shifting sands will not survive the Pluto in Capricorn period.

Venus is tightly involved with Pluto this year as well as she squares Pluto three times during the retrograde cycles of both planets.  Venus presides over the way we relate to others as well as our personal values and how well we value ourselves.  Over the past few weeks since Venus began her retrograde cycle I’ve been seeing more clients dealing with relationship issues.  Some have been avoiding relationships – others have marriages that have been failing for years and need resuscitation.  Relationships are a critical part of our spiritual growth – they are often the crucible in which our spiritual evolution is processed. In the mirror of the Other, we see ourselves more clearly.  This kind of soul work does not require a husband or a wife; the intimate interaction between souls can occur between any humans on any level.

Venus made the first square to Pluto in early February at 2 degrees Aries/Capricorn.  The second square to Pluto occurred yesterday (Friday) at 3 degrees, and the final square in the cycle will take place in early May at 3 degrees.  There’s no question that this Venus/Pluto cycle will challenge relationships, but there is a purpose behind the challenge – anything that is not working in our relationships will be brought to the forefront.  There are likely to be power struggles, and the need to accept that which is behind us and that which is lost.

There is also the need to balance the needs of the Self relative to the needs of the Other, and this will be highlighted at the Full Moon in Libra on April 9th.  Over the next week this need for balance will become more obvious as we enter the shadow of the Full Moon.  It’s a delicate balancing act, but one worth mastering as we work with the shamanic process of Pluto to strengthen and empower our souls as they learn the dance of partnership.

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Sunday Inspiration: Thoughts on Transformation

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mountains” In a world of beginnings, middles, and endings, all beginnings force an ending. Beginnings push through middles and roll on to endings. And what do endings do? Does the energy of the event disappear?

No, it doesn’t. It goes on to be something new, re-forming in a new beginning, an endless, inexhaustible cycle of energy.”

~Ajahn Sumano

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from the Zentio blog

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