Astro update September 2015

We grow in direct proportion to the amount of chaos we can sustain and dissipate - Ilya Prigogine, ‘Order Out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature’

Right now it may feel as if we are in a kind of gap, treading water in high speed cross currents. In this gap there is a longing towards completion, to arrive somewhere with clarity and order. Our momentum may seem to have stalled in mid-flow and this can give a sense of overload, helplessness, despair that the task of creating order is too great, that we are chasing a mirage, or that our energy is simply leaking out in too many different directions.

This is the impact of Neptune which dominates this month and in fact the next few months. The full moon on 28th August was conjunct Neptune in Pisces, opposite the sun and Jupiter in Virgo. This initiates an influx of inspiration, heightened spiritual attunement, ecstatic states of consciousness, or feelings of sadness, disorientation, chaos, spacing out. The air is if charged with expanded space; this is a gift if we don’t get lost in it!

Fling the emptiness out of your arms

into the spaces we breathe: perhaps the birds

will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying. - Rilke

The numinous shape-shifting landscape is amplified through September by solar and lunar eclipses as well as by Mercury turning retrograde on the 17th, the same day as Jupiter exactly opposes Neptune. That’s a double whammy of dreamtime logic, muddle, misinformation… or on the positive side a massive download of creative flow, magic, realisation. Jupiter in Virgo will oppose Neptune on and off for the next year with Saturn joining the alignment from November. Our understanding of what is real is being tested and we are being challenged to wake up within the collective dream, to cultivate an awareness of both visible and invisible worlds.

The impact of Neptune at a global level shows up in the dizzying outpouring of refugees, suffering, desperation, no boundaries, no solution, and a reaction of compassion, overwhelm or denial. Jupiter as it passes through Virgo could start to find practical solutions through a commitment to sharing the load, team work, heart work, to seeing the bigger picture.

Uranus, symbolising the main thrust towards inner awakening and global change in terms of transparency and democracy, turned retrograde on 26th July to join all the other 'heavy' transpersonal planets who have been marching backwards for the last few months. Venus (money, resources, affiliations) neatly U-turned the day before Uranus. So during the last week of July all the above were back-peddling.

Saturn represents rules and pressure to conform to authority, Uranus takes wild risks for freedom; Neptune, if not the inspired by Source is the glue of illusion and suffering, and Pluto (Hades) is raw power, its shadow ruthless manipulation. Remember this mythic pageant unfolds 'as above so below', on the great world stage and metaphorically as archetypal energy in the hidden recesses of our own psyches!

Trust your heart if the seas catch fire, live by love though the stars walk backward – e.e. cummings

Venus (trust, love and/or attachment) will turn to move forward on 6th September after meeting Mars in backward motion today 1st September. From here the lovers are in close proximity for a week lighting up the predawn skies in Leo in sparky connection with back-tracking Uranus.

Mars continues speeding forwards, and although Venus normally moves double his speed it takes her until 4th November to catch up with him. During the last week of October and early November these archetypal lovers are moving forward side by side in Virgo. This can be a period of joyful practical co-operation, or if the shadow side prevails, a conflict over resources based on obsession with details and lack of perspective.

It’s interesting to note that their first liason this year on 20 - 22nd February, on the first degree of the Zodiac in Aries (new beginnings), coincided with an agreement of a four month loan extension for Greece. Observing the dates of these archetypal encounters can reveal patterns in the collective as well as within our own relationships.

The first of the heavy planets to resume its forward momentum was Saturn, Lord of Karma, on 2nd August, on its last weeks of a three year long voyage through the deep waters of Scorpio (ending on 18th September). Its remit has been ruthless: to strip away our attachment to the past, to memories, to who or what we have lost, or never found… Saturn insists that we see through the patterns of attachment itself, not just drop an attachment here and there!

It may become clearer over the next weeks how this often painful process of elimination, sacrifice and purification has opened up space for new growth and brought us new ways of relating to others and to our own emotions, empowering us with the qualities of patience, forgiveness, and authenticity. This is our ongoing practice and Saturn’s bottom line is as ever – Learn or suffer!

Since June Pluto aligned with this process, taking us on some seemingly bottomless dives into personal or collective unconsciousness. Saturn strips away the old skins, Pluto helps eliminate the karmic seeds deep in the unconscious. We are in the final phase and Saturn will not visit Scorpio again until 2041.

A whole new chapter is opening as Saturn moves into the visionary wisdom field of Sagittarius .We already had a preview as it dropped in between 23rd December last year and 15th June, coinciding with the Greece’s opposition to austerity...

On 13th September (9.55am Greek time) there is a partial eclipse of the sun exactly aligned with Chiron in Pisces. Chiron brings to the surface old pain or wounding that is ready for healing, at individual and/or global level. The eclipse energy can persist for some months.

On 28th there is a total eclipse of the moon which falls on significant points for Greece (on both the 1822 independence chart and the 24 July 1974 chart) as well as on heavyweight Pluto (power/transformation) of Tsipras’ chart who was born just four days later. The total eclipse lasts for over an hour and most of it will be visible in Greece before dawn.

As always through whatever the new times bring, inner stillness is the reference point that never lets us down.

In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in a clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.- Ghandi

When illusion dissolves undeluded wisdom is simply present, where it has always been – Dilgo Kyentse Rinpoche