Sun in Scorpio - 2008
by Phil Reckard
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Sun in Scorpio, October 22 - November 21 (All times EDT, EST after Nov. 2)
No doubt about it, things have been crazed lately - a Mercury retrograde in the middle of the largest financial meltdown in recent history will do that. It's only money - take a chill pill and consider the really important things in life like our personal and collective karmic responsibilities, how love, peace and understanding conquer fear and hate at every turn, the benefits of living the simple life - all of that truly good stuff.
Turn off the distractions and tune into the astrological event of the year and maybe even the most significant astrological event of our entire lives. The first of five exact Saturn/Uranus oppositions (exact on November 4 - Election day) is the cosmic light-switch that we agents for positive change have been sensing and waiting for. The focus is off of the junk of the past two-plus years during the Saturn/Neptune oppositions (extremism doesn't work) and the residual lessons learned from the past eight years of the Saturn/Pluto oppositions (2001 -2003, oil wars don't work either). Several reasons why the next three years may be the most important mini era of our lives are given later, so please read on.
The Trickster energetic of the Devil's Play card from last month gives way to the Tower card for this month. Old-school depictions of this Tower card show it being struck down by lightning with two figures being ejected from the Tower, otherwise known as divine intervention in expelling who and what are no longer working for us, and which institutions require radical change. More modern Tower cards have two figures - a man and a woman - at the base of the Tower practicing the alchemy that brings the necessary change to the Tower. The difference between the old-school way of thinking and the new-school of thought is stark and revealing - WE can be the divine intervention we're looking for. More accurately, we can become "divine inventions" and divine creators of the new world order we so desperately need.
What's our calling in this? Where do we need to be and what do we need to be doing? Living without fear is where all shall be revealed - leave no doubt about that! A vote for you-know-who would be a great place to start.
This Mercury retrograde shadow officially began on October 15 and ends on Samhain (Halloween, October 31) when "the veil" is said to be at its thinnest - the veil between us and the "spirit world" if you will. Being aware of this energetic can lead to breakthroughs of all sorts, while living in fear of the veil (or the economy) can produce the opposite effect of staying stuck or worse. Saturn and Uranus are less than one degree of exact opposition while the veil is at its extra-crispiest, so the clues can be everywhere. Pay close attention to daytime and sleeping dreams especially in late October and early November. Both Chiron and Neptune station (stop) to move direct during this stretch offering a bit more insight on where spiritual (Neptune) healing (Chiron) can occur for us as individuals, as well as for the collective whole.
This forecast offers clues for how to maneuver the upcoming changes correctly (at least in my humble [?!] opinion) and what's at stake in the astrology of the US elections and why we'd be correct in sensing we're at the most critical pivotal moment of our lives. For non-American readers, consider the conventional economic wisdom that says "when America sneezes, the whole world catches a cold." Oops - too late.
Life during a Mercury retrograde shadow, especially this time around, is perhaps more challenging than the three-week retrograde period itself. Mercury began it's current retrograde cycle on September 15, moving back over the same terrain it did the previous month during the Mercury/Venus/Mars combustion, the longest such combustion of our personal planets (within five degrees of each other) in at least the past 108 years. The economic roller coaster began as Mercury (in balance-seeking Libra) slowed down to move retrograde and reached it's scariest points at the New and Full Moons with the "gate to the garden of all fulfilled desires" left unfulfilled, at least for the time being. Remember, no one is going to push us through that gate - it's now clearly the time to break on through to the other side.
Major clues can be found along Mercury's direct path, of (painful?) hints and suggestions of where we've lost our Libran balance both as individuals and as a collective whole. This month might therefore easily feel like we've got one last chance to start making things right.
Traditional ruler of Scorpio Mars leads the way for the Sun throughout this month while gorgeous Venus is the "Evening Star" in next-door Sagittarius. Notice how some folks have become positively energized lately while others not so much? Mars' two Moons Phobos and Deimos (fear and terror) were aptly named but we don't have to live in fear or terror if we don't want to. That's the beauty of the birthright of our free will - we can honor the things we truly value (Venus in adventurous Sagittarius) or we can follow Mars' destructive side by not exercising our free wills constructively. Utilizing our birthright correctly is critical with the Saturn/Uranus opposition, and the New and Full Moons for this month offer guidance about how to get from here to there.
The 6° Scorpio New Moon of October 28 has the Sabian* imagery of "The gold rush tears men away from their native soil." No one should ever condemn anyone for moving away from their homes in the search of a better way of life, so long as they fully acknowledge what they are leaving behind. In times of war or real hardship, such a move away from one's home might be the best or only possible choice. In fact, a souls journey often prompts us to leave our familiar surroundings to see what's on the other side of things. Keep these thoughts in mind at the New Moon and bravely take a look around the corner to see the potentials for what's coming.
On the other hand, when greed alone is the sole cause for moving away from the home of our birthright, our souls can become impoverished far beyond whatever material gains can be earned elsewhere. On the spiritual level, running away from the birthright of our soul, whether for greed or in fear, is the starting point of where everything is lost. This New Moon is therefore more about whatever we have lost when we've sold our souls for gold (the past bunch of years?), knowing that a gold rush is essentially the quest of "something for nothing," much like the mortgage crisis started with buying a home for no money down and loans made with no hopes of ever being repaid. Nothing (no thing) is where we all came from in the karmic sense and nothing (no thing) is where we're all destined to return. No one is excluded from this karmic law - such is the point being driven "home" at this New Moon.
As always, the fulfillment of this New Moon lies in the Full Moon two weeks later on November 13. The Sun (opposite the Moon at the Full Moon) sees the Sabian imagery of " Hunters shooting wild ducks - the socially accepted release of... aggressive instincts." While I'd rather see these ducks leading long, happy and productive lives, perhaps this image would be more palatable as "Kick back with a cold one and watch a football game." Our life-source the Sun wants us to only play the moral equivalent of war - the honorable sense of competition where both sides know it's only a competition - and not the literal acts of violence that are already way too prevalent these days. Make love, not war.
What we really need is what the Moon at Her fullest has to offer on November 13; "White dove flying over troubled waters, the spiritual inspiration that comes to the individual in the overcoming of crisis." White dove is of course the symbol of peace - Venus' bird totem - and we've been having more than our fair share of troubled waters lately, no? Sounds like a good thing, however the first of five exact Saturn/Uranus oppositions, the aforementioned astrological event of the year, butts-in almost halfway between the New and Full Moon on November 4. Briefly, in order to take full advantage of this lunation cycle, we'll need to be in the correct frame of mind on November 4 to unleash the white dove of peace. It would therefore help to break down the meanings of Saturn and Uranus, what the energetic of the opposition means for us and to place the significance of this month into historical perspective.
Basically, the opposition energetic often brings out the worst aspects of both planets. For instance, a debilitated Saturn is the grumpy old authority figure yelling "You kids get off my lawn!" (McCain) A crippled Saturn restricts, constricts, doesn't want to change or adapt, and urges us to remain in fear of the unknown. What's missing here is our innate need to evolve and adapt to changing situations, just as we as a species have accomplished since Day One. Little do we acknowledge that Saturn is more than happy to be the Good Professor for us but only if we're open and available to be learning what his true wisdom is telling us. This flip-side wisdom involves remaining young at heart and not letting money or aging get to us for instance.
A debilitated Uranus is the "rebel without a clue," the anarchist who wants to break down old systems without offering better solutions. The overused keyword for Uranus is "change," quite often without regard for our personal or collective well-being. This is why it is so crucial to exercise our free wills and welcome change into our lives and in the world, or better yet - to become the change we need to see in the world (Obama). In other words, we need Saturn's Good Professor teaching methods of true wisdom to know how to move with Uranus' knack for shaking things up. This is the perfect time to remember the truism "necessity is the mother of invention."
Uranus was discovered in 1781 and promptly misnamed for the "God of the Heavens" as if future astronomers wouldn't discover anything farther out there like Neptune, Pluto, Eris, Chiron, the asteroids, etc. Uranus was the first planet discovered by the manmade technology of the telescope so we can forgive them for their hastiness but they should have been looking around and known that the planet is discovered when humanity is "ready" for it's discovery. In this case by human scientific methodology at the end of the American Revolution and at the beginnings of the French and Industrial Revolutions. A more appropriate name for Uranus would have been Prometheus, the Titan of ancient myth who stole fire from the Gods and gave it to we humans when our ancestors were still living in caves. The theft of fire can be seen in the harnessing of electricity for one, the gift of divine inspiration for two, examples of which have recurred throughout history during more recent Saturn/Uranus oppositions.
Revolutionary change (there's that keyword again) is guaranteed during a Saturn/Uranus opposition, most notably with Uranus' discovery coming while opposed to Saturn in 1781. Saturn/Uranus oppositions happen every 43 - 45 years, the last ones coming from 1965 to 1967. (Saturn was also opposed Pluto at the time which was adding a self-destructive tone to the Sixties but not this time around!) You name it - everything was changing at the time. The war in Vietnam began meeting resistance, Civil Rights, Women's Liberation, Native American Rights, Gay Rights, the births of the environmental movement and the hippie counter culture, alternative spirituality, etc. - all were expressing the need for change and... expression. Technological advances were made in space flight, computers, transistor radios, medicine, the arts, etc.
(Notice how a lot of the art and music from the Sixties has resurfaced lately? Madison Avenue uses astrologers too! Also notice how Obama's people have utilized the word "change" so successfully since the beginning of his candidacy? Either B-Rock has his own clue-ful astro-geeks on staff or he's been working correctly with the planets - the Universe - since Day One on the collective subconscious level. Some folks even see him as the avatar of Abraham Lincoln coming back to finish the job of reuniting the country. Spooky, spaced, or karmically triumphant, either and all avenues point to victory on some level, hopefully of course the White House.)
Prior to the Sixties, Saturn and Uranus opposed each other from roughly 1917 - 1920 which saw the end of the Great War (World War One, "the war to end all wars"... as if), the Bolshevik Revolution and the births of the League of Nations and the Jazz Age. That mini era also saw the signing of the Versailles Treaty which virtually guaranteed World War Two. And that Saturn/Uranus opposition also spurred the "Roaring Twenties," the excesses of which guaranteed the Great Depression. In some ways, we should be grateful that our current economic crisis is happening now and (hopefully) not again in the next few years as the Saturn/Uranus oppositions find a T-square focus in Pluto. More on that bit of weirdness in upcoming forecasts but we can easily expect a broadening underground economy, perhaps even a not-for-profit People's/Green Stock Market.
Prior to then, Saturn and Uranus opposed each other in the mid to late 1870's which heralded Thomas Edison's harnessing of electricity to invent the light bulb, the first power plant and phonograph while the Statue of Liberty (the ultimate symbol of light and hope) was being built and Alexander Graham Bell was making the first phone call. Before that, around 1820 was the first steam locomotive furthering Westward expansion in the US. Nothing too important...
Of course, none of these breakthroughs happened in a vacuum simply because Saturn was opposing Uranus. The Good Professor Saturn was also busy opposing the other outer planets Neptune and Pluto, effecting all of humanity in different ways even before their discoveries were made. And Saturn's oppositions with each of the other outer planets were happening at different times and in different orders than they have been these days and were in the Sixties, so some serious research was done in trying to find replicating patterns from the past in order to see what the future might hold for all of us, adopting the truism that "everything old is new again." It's a little dizzying but well worth the ride for we futurists and would-be agents for positive change.
At present, the Saturn oppositions to Pluto, Neptune and Uranus (in that order) from 2001 through 2010 are rare in that they would occur in such a relatively short span of time. The Saturn oppositions to Uranus, Pluto and Neptune (in that order) from 1965 to 1972 (equally rare in such a short time-frame), happened in almost the exact same orders and brevity they occurred in from 1465 to 1471 and from 1501 to 1511. This might not sound too impressive on it's own but no other forty-plus year cycle was nearly as comparable to now as it was some 500 years ago - in all of the last millennium - not even close.
In other words, no other time-frame such as the past forty-plus years quite conforms to the lessons learned (Saturn as the Good Professor) as what was going on a half millennia ago. Five hundred and forty-plus years ago began with the Italian Renaissance, the works of Da Vinci, the birth of Copernicus, etc., and forty years later culminated in the births of the Protestant Reformation and Henry VIII, effectively separating church from state in a relatively short time. In between was Columbus' "discovery" of the new world. These in turn led to the English Renaissance which sowed the seeds for the Ages of Enlightenment and Reason. In other words, the Dark and Middle Ages were being shut down, the Crusades were abandoned (until 2002 - 2008) while Western Civilization was birthing scientific thought and eventually creating such things as the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights, a formal and sanctioned acknowledgment of the birthright of our free-wills.
Whatever the monumental changes were happening back then, they were moving at a snail's pace because the printing press was the only form of mass communication and most folks couldn't even read. Compare and contrast then and now and we'll soon see that the next Renaissance can happen today in a matter of months if not weeks or even days! Yup, it can all happen that soon. Whatever it will look like will be dependent on what we want it to look like - "it" is waiting for us to happen to it rather than for "it" to happen to us. All it will take is for us to activate our birthright of free-will to make it happen, such is the benefit of a Saturn/Uranus opposition.
We're currently being reminded of the European Renaissance of 500 years ago - as well as of the energetics of the Sixties - it goes that far back in both cases. While we've been busy thinking that this current mess is all uncharted territory, our karmic selves have been reminding and compelling us to finish the job - to be co-creators of the next Renaissance - right here in the right now. Just consider how many of us have literally or figuratively stood up and demanded "never again!" the past eight years. That's been our karmic responsibilities talking.
Think of the parallels between now and five hundred years ago. For assistance, consider the old-school image of the Tower card of the tarot; the two figures being expelled from the Tower were the Pope and the Emperor, representing the need for there to be a separation of church and state. Transpose that same imagery onto the current US administration - a systemic approach to foreign policy based on the biblical book of Revelations - and you might see my point. Oil hasn't been the only thing "they" have been after with their most recent Crusade - pushing the world toward Armageddon has been on their agenda since before the 2000 election..
Bush and Cheney can be seen as the two figures being expelled from the Tower at this time but it could also be two or more other "things" being tossed out of our collective consciousness. It could easily be the fundamental nature of dualism and/or polarity themselves, a growing majority opinion that everything is connected as painfully seen in the global economy for example. Going back to last month's Mercury/Venus/Mars combustion, we can hopefully see the inevitable conclusion of thinking (Mercury) about our most basic polarities (Venus/Mars) and during this Mercury retrograde shadow - back over the same Libran balancing ground - could easily force us to look at where we've lost ground with our most basic polarities and where we need to find the unifying common ground. Republicans of course find such thinking abhorrent.
In other words, we've been seeing plenty of examples where we as a species have lost our balance, in recent days between the "haves" and the "have-nots" in the economic crisis. What we've maybe been missing are the other polarities - male/female (Mars/Venus), black/white (especially in this US Presidential election), the soul-full and the soul-less (religious extremism exposed during the Saturn/Neptune oppositions of the past few years), rampant consumerism versus sustainability on all levels (living simply so that others might simply live), etc.
See why this is so huge? We simply have the most important bunch of decisions of our lives to make at the beginning of this first Saturn/Uranus opposition. It's clear to see that the old ways of doing things are echoing Einstein's definition of insanity, "doing the same things over and over again expecting different results." What we need are new approaches to the world's problems. Duh.
Will we be victors or victims? It's our choice. This is all about the preparation for whatever awaits us in 2012 (the end of the Mayan calendar) which has nothing to do with divine intervention but more about us becoming divine inventions. It begins with channeling our inner Leonardo Da Vinci and Thomas Edison in creating an entirely new world - one that's sustainable for all living things. We either move with this energetic and make the choices between becoming agents for positive change or we can sit back and let the changes plow over us and plow us under. It CAN be that significant if we've ever had the sense that our life's purpose has had any meaning to it at all, or it WILL overpower us if we've given our free-wills away to the highest bidder.
As Marvin Gaye sang in his 1971 LP "What's Going On?" (perhaps Obama's most influential LP) "...Who really cares? Who is willing to try?... to save our sweet world, that is destined to die?"
Stand up and be counted - now is the time.
(*The Sabian symbols are from Dane Rudhyar's "An Astrological Mandala," 1972.)
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