Tarot ArkLetter - http://www.tarotarkletters.com
By Christine Payne-Towler
ArkLetter 98, May 9, 2013
Greetings from the shores of Puget
Island!
Here we are slightly past mid-Taurus, and I hope everybody's season is unfolding as they would wish. We are hip deep in spring crops and their many spring predators, a time-honored dance that I am still learning. Although I have come to this avocation later in life, my Taurus Moon and Jupiter are never happier than when standing in the dirt contemplating with the elements. I just couldn't slow down enough to enjoy this form of Eros Magic properly when I was younger.
This ArkLetter and the next few are going to be truncated, because we are now back to work on the Tarot of the Holy Light book, and this time there will be no stopping us! Saturn may still be retrograde, and the Pluto-Uranus square is causing immense volatility over our collective heads, but so what? I'm riding the tail of Jupiter right now as he crosses my nadir and begins his upward trajectory along the sunset side of my chart. I trust his momentum and accept his influence with pleasure.
Certainly we are all Sol-Luniacs of this season of triple eclipses! As a metaphysician I have to love these times of intense change and stirred-up energy, though of course our bodies and emotions can easily get caught up in the stressful aspects of it all. Let's all remember to deploy our roster of stress-busting techniques early and often! We want to have the best chance of staying levelheaded and using these considerable energies towards the fulfillment of our goals, instead of wasting them in conflict or confusion.
The NewMoon chart for the coming month is quite bunched
up, with seven out of ten moving bodies within 40 degrees. The group as a whole starts with Uranus at
10+ Aries, followed by Mars, South Node, Mercury and NewMoon between 14º and
20º of Taurus. Finally there's Venus at the cusp of Gemini and Jupiter crossing
the 19th degree. Without a little bit of
management, this can become quite a bundle of contending forces, competing for
our attention and fragmenting our concentration.
Taurus energies seek calm, peaceful, secure conditions in order to do their best work. This is delicately suggested in the representative Tarot Trump for Taurus, which is that of The Lovers. Both Aries (Hierophant) and Gemini (Chariot), by contrast, are busy signs that crave a lot of outward-directed action and change to satisfy their needs. Uranus (Magus) and Jupiter (Emperor) are also natural hustlers that arouse hubbub and heighten contrast wherever they stand. It is likely then that our NewMoon is craving privacy and protection while being bracketed in this way.
The good part of this powerful NewMoon conjunction -- which is our monthly pairing of The Priestess and the Fool in Tarot terms -- is that our Taurus goals are being empowered by Mars the driving will (Strength), and Mercury the shape-shifter and translator (The Star). All four of these energies are clustered within the degrees given to the 4 of Disks, so watch how that card moves around in your readings over the coming weeks. Also watch the King of Disks and the Lovers for other possible signals about this NewMoon's impact in your current affairs.
The sign of Taurus is endowed with a huge amount of stubbornness, possessing the sheer mass to sustain a goodly amount of momentum. Unfortunately, it is often seen as plodding and arbitrary, being very much a creature of habit, and not verbally forthcoming. With Mars in attendance, we can tap into a higher octave of will power and dynamic drive that comes from ambition, aspiration and initiative. Mercury meanwhile supplies cleverness, inventiveness, creativity and articulation, adding inspiration to our normally unvarnished plow-dragging labor. The influence of the South Node can also be read as advantageous in this case, because it suggests that we can finally put an end to those longstanding, stretched-out tasks that have been pending for so long but never quite completed. Finally, after all is said and done, those past cycles can move behind us and make that great leap forward into the untrammeled future.
Jupiter (The Emperor), who is running ahead of NewMoon by exactly 30º right now, makes an aspect called semisextile, which offers a subtle but fundamental influence on the NewMoon. I view this short span as a little "tickle in the back of the mind", drawing our attention to information we were heretofore ignoring. We have discussed in the past that Jupiter has been enjoying a vacation of sorts in Gemini (The Chariot), once he completed his retrograde period between October and January. Jupiter continues in this carefree and optimistic mode right through his ingress into Cancer in early July, and he doesn't stop until he hits his next retrograde period in early November. He is classically understood to be a "benefic", meaning an influence that bids for growth, magnification, expansion and harmonious increase. Just having him there ahead of the pack instills confidence in the planets that follow in his wake.
All things being equal (which they admittedly seldom are), we Gemini "little people" have a supportive and benign big brother moving ahead of us and clearing the path, right through the end of May. In particular, during May 26 - 30, both Mercury and Venus will be conjunct with Jupiter in the last degrees Gemini, which sounds like a beautiful blessing to the Inner Child within all of us. If you can schedule a visit with dear family or friends at this time, it will be a boon to everybody's happiness!
The Sun (The Fool) will close the gap between himself and Jupiter at the far end of his upcoming transit through Gemini. They bless each other via conjunction between June 18th and 21st, just before Summer Solstice. Then they will roll into Cancer within a few days of each other, and after that Jupiter will continue his goodwill services as a background influence. Mars will make his conjunction with Jupiter in mid-July; at which point every moving body in the current NewMoon conjunction will have received the blessing of Jupiter. If we can't find a way to make some progress while all this is going on, then we really have to question our programming and ask ourselves why not!
NewMoon opposed North Node & Saturn: As a part of the innate structure of this NewMoon moment, the conjunction of Saturn (Judgement) with the North Node in Scorpio is forming an opposition with the NewMoon bundle. The epicenter of this opposition arcs between the North Node and Mercury, who sits within one degree of conjunction with the South Node. Therefore we would designate Saturn/North Node as the "handle" of this chart's bucket, with one lip in Capricorn and the other in Gemini.
Saturn is the driver of this month's changes from his involuted situation in secretive Scorpio. We've all got to sharpen up our antennae and tune into the unspoken Word, the undelivered message. I cannot emphasize enough how imperative it is for each of us to stay open to our inner voices and visions. We will each be receiving powerful echoes arising from our deep interior wellsprings, and it would be a real loss to miss their importance at this pivotal time. The real action happening here is from an invisible cause, which we have to ponder long and hard to find. We are put on notice via this NewMoon chart to watch for intuitions from Saturn, who is the Karma Lord and strict father figure of the visible planets. If we get such signals and then choose to ignore them, we will surely suffer with years of regret as a result!
These are 'put up or shut up' times as far as Saturn is concerned, as he reaches the final degrees of his backslide. Yes, he still has another 60 days to spend in the solar shadow, but the speed of his apparent reversed motion is ratcheting down over May and June. Now his attention concentrates into the few degrees between his current location of 7º 20', and the final retrograde day at 4º 49' (on July 7th). Saturn actually spends the entire month of June and the first week of July inching backwards across that final degree. Truly, the bigger they are, the harder they fall!
As a result, anybody who has planets in this part of the zodiac should proceed very carefully right now, with a strong focus on the long haul. Whatever Saturn does is thereafter set in concrete, and will be very difficult to change. Anybody who has birth chart factors in the middle degrees of the fixed signs will be feeling this as a ponderous weight upon their shoulders, challenging them to rise to the occasion. Luckily Saturn is not standing exactly upon the North Node, though their loose conjunction is powerful enough, truly. We need to be watching our hands, because whatever we each find ourselves doing right now is fateful and destiny influencing. Choose well where you are spending your time and energy!
With Venus (Empress) at the cusp of Gemini joining Jupiter in Gemini, and Mercury blazing saddles across the month to catch up with them, we have the very interesting situation of the two benefics converging with Mercury in his home sign. We already know that Jupiter and Mercury are considered the Teacher/Student pair of the set. Thus we should expect to have our collective IQ raised by several points during this transit. In addition, according to the very ancient world-view that animates the assumptions of Astrology, Jupiter is the leader of the "angels" and Venus is the leader of the "demons". When they come together they bring the full compliment of graduated beings from highest to lowest into harmony. It's as if all the Invisibles from every level of vibration are being called to attention for the sake of the upcoming collective developments!
This is a perfect time for creative breakthroughs of the type that can change culture going forward. With the assistance of unseen allies, and the fortunate convergence of the Jupiter/Mercury pair with Venus, I expect to see the dawning of a new and evolutionary force that is capable of raising consciousness around the world. Because of the signs and planets involved, I would also expect to see this development 'trickling up" from the grass-roots level of culture, instead of arriving from our current leader class. No amount of centrally planned ersatz "infotainment" can persist in the face of billions of self-determined individuals striving to fulfill their unique creative mandates!
The karma-lord Saturn (Judgement) in Scorpio (Temperance) is currently backing into a very close trine with Neptune (Death) in Pisces (The Sun). This should give us another peek under the lid of Scorpio's boiling cauldron, which appears to be filled with cure-me-or-kill-me energies. May is the month where these two power-sources finally lock into each other’s tractor beams and resonate as one. This circumstance only gets more poignant when Neptune begins its retrograde while still locked into this trine with Saturn.
Neptune represents the collective psyche, the zeitgeist and it's unconscious preoccupations. I can only imagine that a persistent collective delusion is going to be corrected during this month, one that has sustained a huge degree of unsupportable denial. Saturn retrograde in Scorpio roots out the nefarious and manipulative hidden hands attempting to control events from under cover. Meanwhile Neptune in Pisces is incapable of providing cover for any level of subterfuge. I'd say the more the squeeze is applied by the master manipulators hiding in Scorpio, the more the powerless Pisces victims will cease their silent codependence, becoming the veritable "last who shall go first". Look for courageous whistleblowers and conscience-stricken functionaries to pop their stitches and make some amazing revelations as the weeks go by! The purveyors of cookie-cutter culture will have a hard time holding this trend below the radar.
The novile between Uranus and NewMoon is a subtle aspect but I didn't want to ignore it completely. I like the resonance of divisions by nine; they extend the harmony and fellow feeling that can be found within the trine and sextile aspects (divisions by three and six). Having already mentioned the arousing and stimulating energy of Uranus in Aries, let us now allow that this kind of influence is not all bad by any means. I'm imagining that Uranus is serving as a kind of pry-bar to assist the Taurus NewMoon in reaching beyond the staid and stolid habits of our fixed Earth sign.
We have also already considered the capacity of Jupiter to awaken and educate us through arranging new evolutionary adventures. Perhaps Jupiter and Uranus are co-conspiring to offer a carrot-and-stick combination, one to promise and one to prod. Hopefully the sudden unprecedented rate of change presaged by Uranus will feel exciting rather than daunting as the month unfolds. I'm looking forward to people being pleasantly surprised about how much easier it is to accomplish the hard tasks, especially in light of a new-found ability to stay calm despite stressful surroundings. Since Uranus is only 1/3 of the way through Aries, it's just about time to get used to this higher level of intensity and discover that we're not so overwhelmed by it after all!
Pluto (The World) in Capricorn (The Tower) squaring Uranus in Aries is the mantra on every astrologer's lips these days, and there is good reason for this. This pair includes two out of the three Outer Planets, so called because they occupy the far edge of the Solar System. (Neptune is the third Outer Planet.) Astronomers only discovered the existence of these bodies by studying the distortions they impose on the orbits of the visible planets. All three move so slowly that they have come to signify whole generations of people, governing mass collective developments that span nations and eras. The present long, intermittent square between Uranus and Pluto is synchronous with an extraordinary time in the collective culture.
Uranus is synonymous with galvanizing breakthroughs (or breakdowns) and the adaptations we invent in response. It represents spontaneous 'acts of God', and is therefore associated with unique, one-off emergences (sometimes emergencies) that could not have been anticipated, and which are so transformative that nothing is the same after they have passed. Uranus energies spontaneously discharge from seemingly nowhere while transforming whatever they touch in the blink of an eye. Many astrologers associate the "wired world" of the Internet with Uranus through the link with electricity. Astro-alchemically, this energy connects with the Saturn/Moon pair, galvanizing the Middle Pillar of the Kabala Tree, which is the spinal column, symbol of the magic wand and humanity's upright posture. The Trump card that represents this heightened state of expanded awareness is the Magus, which is associated with the Hebrew letter Aleph and the crossbar of the Heart Triangle in the Tree.
Pluto, alternately, enforces slow grinding tectonic changes, often intergenerational, which can alter whole ecosystems, fundamentally reshaping the ground beneath our feet and the DNA expression of affected species. I analogize Pluto to a volcano, which can rumble, quake and belch lava for a sustained period, even spanning geologic eras. Astro-alchemically, Pluto represents the Hebrew letter Shin and the Heavenly Fire. This divine source of searching, blasting Light and heat emanates from the crossbar of the Supernal Triangle of the Tree. In the human form this is the plane defined by the left and right eyes. This cosmic and creative Fire expresses through the Mars/Venus union, marking them as the seminal pair whose yearly dance populates the planet with her infinity of lives.
Jacob Boehme taught that, after enlightenment, the Mars/Venus functions would fuse together at the Daat point (the throat chakra) to inaugurate a new Age of the Holy Word, inaugurating an age of creating directly through the Word, by Fiat. The consummation of this pair's cosmic creativity is the project of Sophia, the Wisdom and Consort of God. Sophia has been with the Creator from the beginning, but She comes into this world of time and space as the Paraclete or helping spirit, called forth to heal the wound caused by the rip in the Kabala Tree. The Trump card that represents this fiery Shin penetrating matter is The World.
Putting these ideas in human terms, this square pits an electrically expanded awareness of the unique potential of the individual against a mass of unconscious but irresistible desires to consume and create without reflection. These distinctly different energies are currently at the stage of conflicting and contending, radically polarizing in a way that eliminates any possibility for middle ground. Ultimately, of course, Uranus and Pluto are working together in the great unfolding of Time, but at the moment they appear to be clashing, experiencing irreconcilable differences.
A tremendous amount of contrasting energy is being released, far more than puny humans can summon or control. Luckily, it would again appear that the fleet-footed individual with his or her unpredictable creativity and spunk has a great advantage over the reptilian instinctive drives, despite how compelling those Plutonian forces are at capturing and controlling the collective attention. Here's a link to a list of all the squares between Uranus and Pluto from late Jute 2012 to mid March 2015: http://astrology.about.com/od/Uranus-Pluto/a/Uranus-Pluto-Quotes.htm. There's also a nice overview on the individual experience this square can stimulate here: http://astrology.about.com/od/Uranus-Pluto/a/Breaking-Ground-Waking-Up.htm.
I think the upshot of all the advice and admonitions that have been offered about living through this period of Uranus-Pluto squares is to be prepared. Have a plan B, a fallback plan that will give you some confidence in case this Battle of the Titans doesn't go well. Try to keep your feelers out so you can apprehend these titanic changes as they are happening, in case there are some necessary adjustments you'll want to make in response. Don't behave as if everything will remain normal indefinitely. It hasn't and it won't -- change is the new normal. You and I might not be able to do a thing about the causes that drive these changes, but we can at least be mentally, emotionally and physically ready in the areas that matter the most to us.
That's it for now dear readers! I'll meet you here next month with another installment of our Continental Tarot analysis of the NewMoon chart in June. May your studies be fruitful, and your gardens as well.
blessings,
Christine
copyright christine payne-towler 2005-2013, all rights reserved
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