Autumn Regeneration and Reinvention

Libra -- Balancing the Scales

The Week of September 27th, the Sun conjuncts Saturn in Libra, with both planets squaring the Nodes of the Moon.  Because the Moon's nodes relate to our path of soul-fulfillment, as well as our karmic attachments, we can feel the Sun-Saturn energy compelling us to get serious about our soul's mission here.  We may be asking grand and weighty questions at this time about our destiny and vocation -- a word which means "to be called."  Saturn's tendency to depress or challenge us with added pressures is the taskmaster's way of forcing maturity, discipline, and willingness to do the necessary work to climb to the next level of our mountain of manifestation.  

Solitude and hermit time for reflection benefits us this first week.  However, the surplus of personal planets in Libra and Scorpio magnetize us powerfully towards others.  With the New Moon at 14 Libra, on October 7th, we may be looking to our partners or friends for answers to what to do with our lives.  We may also fall into the traps of the blame game.  We need to beware the Libran tendency to project on the other, and to lose the ability to decide our path instead from our individual third chakra.  The October passages of the Sun, Mercury, the New Moon in Libra, along with Saturn's two-year journey through Libra, demand us to examine the foundations of our relationships for solid ground.  With Saturn-Mercury, our words will carry greater weight.  So we must compassionately speak our truth, instead of playing into any facades.  October's transits will profoundly effect the members of the Pluto in Libra (1970-1984) generation, who as a cluster of souls, are learning to language and live truly equal, balanced, and harmonious relationships.

Seduction Combustion -- Venus and Mars in Scorpio

The week of October 4th, the steam begins to rise as Venus and Mars conjoin in Scorpio, and Venus begins her six week retrograde in the same sign. 

Mars began his odyssey through the Scorpio lair September 14th and will continue treading the underworld though October 27th.  Mars loves the challenges of his sign of feminine rulership in Scorpio, where he turns his sword inward, confronting the inner demons of his own psyche. We feel Mars' volcanic frustrations as we recognize where we do not have the power we seek.  Monstrous forces from our own unconscious surface and must be confronted like the Cyclops, Leviathan, or alchemical Dragon in the cave.  

With Mars and Venus both in Scorpio, our unconscious desires are boiling up onto the surface, and we begin to ask ourselves who we want next to us, as we are stripped naked in the cave of shadows, inhaling the depths of the psychedelic mystery.  We feel the paradox: the urge to commit unconditionally and transcend our limited egos, but simultaneously, we fear an entrapment.  Whether a relationship or a project which engages our deepest passions, we may find, by the time that Mars joins Pluto in December, that we have to shed the old desires, and experience a cathartic release from that which cannot serve our evolution. 

Thus, surrender is the key mantra for the autumn season.  Even as a cataclysm arises to help us let go, we must ALLOW.

Now with the God and Goddess in the sexiest sign of the zodiac, the tantric juices can entwine couples in the dance of the kundalini spiral.  Radical transparency can pry open vast dimensions of self-awareness, the hearts, formerly separate, now bursting from the cocoon into a butterfly of resplendent glory.

But with Venus retrograde, we will chase after that butterfly, and begin to question the design of our desires.

Venus Retrograde Part 1

Every eighteen months, Venus enters her retrograde phase for roughly six weeks.  Astronomically, we will lose her seductive twilight sparkle as she enters the underworld, disappearing to fuse with the Sun for 9 days before she begins to rise before the Sun, as the Morning Star.  This is known as heliacal rising: to rise before the Sun.

The sign of Venus' first appearance shows us how the collective version of the feminine is being reborn.  The last time Venus emerged from the underworld as the Morning Star, she appeared in the sign of the warrior, Aries.  Thus, during the last 18 months, the collective psyche has been rediscovering the aspect of fearless courage, the warrior exerting herself towards a goal.

The Scorpio themes which will dominate the evolving feminine for the next 18 months, and peak through the end of the year, take on a much deeper dimension.  The emerging feminine becomes a shamanic alchemist, transmuting her base desires into gold.  Relationship-as-catharsis and partnership as a spiritual practice of regeneration become the major goals of the feminine aspect within humanity.

Under Scorpio, Venus is pushed into every aspect of discomfort as she interrogates us.  Do I really want to be this vulnerable and naked to another?  Can I be this clear with my self, and hold my own ground, so the two of us can meet each other as two wholes, merging into something greater? 

We will also examine our resources during Venus retrograde.  How much am I dependent on my beloved, or my inheritance, or my loans for sustenance (Scorpio)?  How does this contrast with what I earn through my own efforts (Taurus polarity)?

Venus in Scorpio's ‘urge to merge' can be motivated from very different places.  Do we see a relationship, a lifestyle, or a financial situation we envy, and then we allow that value system from outside of us to dominate our drive?  The goal of Venus retrograde is an honest re-evaluation of what truly matters and motivates us.

Often, it will take a catalytic situation to compel this kind of self-examination.  For instance, due to the retrograde nature of Venus, previous lovers and old friends will return to our lives.  Often there are issues seeking resolution, and in Scorpio, these issues will likely have sexuality and power as major themes.  Perhaps a brief sexual fling wants to rekindle the flame.  Is this connection appropriate now for you, and at what depth?

In another example, let's say you are in a polyamorous relationship.  Before, you were open to your partner playing with others.   Maybe this decision to remain open was challenging for you.  Now that original feeling of wanting monogamous depth seems to consume you.  A volcano erupts inside of you as you consider your partner with another.  You must ask yourself, what motivates the magma seething within?  Is the single, exclusive partner your personal truth, or is it an engrained condition, from parents or religion, or some other source?  And is this current partner the one to fulfill that role?   On the other hand, if you are committed to a single partner, but one aspect isn't so appealing, you may find yourself more easily seduced by an ex-lover or a more passionate affair.  Excessive drama, jealousy, and love triangles typify the Scorpio realms.  Are you willing to own up to these desires? To transparently communicate them to your lover?  Or does some fear of loss prevent you from radical honesty?

On a practical level, one should take many precautions when beginning a relationship under Venus retrograde, as there is often some unconsciousness underlying the desire to engage with another, which could turn messy if not perceived clearly.

If one is in a relationship, whatever toxic energy is circulating there -- lurking fears, power struggles, not so obvious obsessions, hidden compulsions, and yearnings to contro l-- all of these issues must surface now from the unconscious in order for the relationship to evolve, and for each individual to grow.

As these shadows weave their serpentine dance, an all-or-nothing attitude may develop between partners.  We can imagine that some relationships will have to shapeshift their form and release from the old skin.  It may be helpful to consider outside assistance to ritualize any sort of separation, to make the act sacred.  The pagan practice of "handparting," the other side of handfasting, may be an appropriate ritual.

In one version of this ritual, the couple meet on a bridge near a river--an important symbol allowing for release.  At least one of the hands should be bound between the partners with some sort of tie or ribbon. This should be during a waning moon, and not during mercury retrograde.  With three pieces of paper, entitled "I Forgive," "I Apologize," and "I Thank," the couple takes turns expressing their sentiments for each before tossing the papers into the river.

The couple toast each other with wine, each sipping from the bottle, and then release the liquid into the sea, stating "Love released is not love lost.  It returns to the Sea.  It returns to the Sea."  After the wine completely spills away, the couple can cut the cords or ties and walk in separate directions, honoring their journey together and decision to move on different paths.

The reason why Venus is in her "fall" in Scorpio is that she loses sight of her natural ability to be self-reliant and appreciative of the sensual abundance so natural to the polarity sign of Taurus.  Venus' normally comfortable sense of relaxation, ease, and grace becomes more paranoid and psychologically probing.  In Scorpio, she suspects the other of betrayal, she resents the powers other wield, and she may even plot vengeance.   The seeking of revenge can regress or retard one's evolution, threatening to actually create new karma and repeat the cycle of suffering.  This Venus retrograde in Scorpio challenges our ability to remain objective and impartial, as Venus is in her rulership in Libra.  Karma is healed when the charge with another is neutralized.  When we love and appreciate ourselves enough (Taurus polarity), then we can ascend to the higher relating with our karma-mates.

With the preponderance of planets in Libra and Scorpio, it is an especially appropriate time for couples' counseling, for pujas, for tantric practice and sex magic, and group circles about relating.  Anyone with planets in Scorpio or a Scorpio rising will be triggered with extra force during this retrograde, as will the entire Pluto in Scorpio generation (1984-1996).  If you would like a single couples' reading or to begin my coaching sessions, please contact me.  

Jupiter-Uranus and the Tech Overload

Jupiter-Uranus conjoined once again September 18th and will be dancing with each other through January, when Jupiter begins spreading his fortune and vision through the zodiac in Aries.  We all felt the inspiring thrust forward at the beginning of summer, as Jupiter conjoined Uranus in Pisces and both moved into the first sign of the zodiac in Aries.  With this summer's transit, Jupiter magnified our vision of our Uranian potential as individuals co-creating a new Eden.  We resonated with that moment in 1927-28 when the first transatlantic flight, first television broadcasts, and first color and sound films appeared, shifting our perspectives forever. Even Burning Man took a cue from those years, in perfect harmony with the planets, as the 2010 theme for the festival was Metropolis, the name of the revolutionary film about technology and machines, released exactly during the last Jupiter-Uranus conjunction.

The integration of individually tailored technologies, smartphones, profile sites, the Google brain, are all helping to connect individuals, communities, and ideas more rapidly.  It seems now that the whole world is literally at our fingertips.  We are guided by our ability to harness the imagination and open it to spirit helpers, angels, the ancestors, and the muses (Pisces).

We are on the brink of something so profound in terms of our merger, and yes, dependence upon technology.  There is always a shadow to technological enhancement, and even to spiritual breakthrough.   Jupiter knows no limits, and in Pisces, no boundaries.  Uranus uses science, technology, and sudden, shocking, epiphanous experiences and information to wake us into the next level of consciousness.

So for many of us, Jupiter says, YEAH! Bring on another crazy, wild, third-eye opener--psychedelic journeys, cathartic breathwork, workshop intensives, festivals, and ongoing travels.  But we need to be careful with the trauma of too much expansion, and too little integration, and then that feeling of drowning in the ocean, lost without a buoy, anchor, or center.

We may also want to cling to the fantasy that all these technologies are being implemented to help us.  Although many of us don't want to admit it, our fascination (Pisces) with the latest gadgets, media, and online tools has been hypnotizing us, sucking away more of our privacy one step at a time.  RFID chips, a tracking technology, are becoming more the norm than the exception, being used in everything from ski lift passes to amusement park wristbands.  The multibillion dollar company we all suckle, Google, has become increasingly despised for their invasive tracking technologies as they record your every move through your ISP.  We should wonder why Google funds luncheons for certain politicians, or what the real motivating factor is behind the "cool" but also frightening technology of the Street View, which allows users to take a virtual 360 degree panoramic walk through tours of a city, including your own backyard.  (Google's camera is located high on their van and has caught many individuals in compromising situations in their own bedrooms.) It is becoming less and less possible to keep our internet usage private in any way or to have any amount of public, and now even private space not recorded. 

Jupiter expands the Uranian urge to break free, to find our authentic and unique voice.  Both Zeus-Jupiter and Prometheus-Uranus were gods of the sky, hurling thunderbolts of awakening.  The way to not get electrified and fried in this chaotic sea of exciting, but overwhelming possibilities at this time is to establish Virgo daily practices and healthy regimes which allow the sparks of insight into the future to have fertile, stable, and sacred ground to build upon.

We seem to feel EVERYTHING with this transit: every city siren, every bark of every neighborhood dog, every news story, every sentiment from family or friend or facebook post.  So we must be cautious with our psychic inbox, and realize that the more we surround ourselves with spiritually uplifting environments and individuals, the epiphanies and synchronicities will continue to align our paths.

For instance, in our Denver dance community, we recently integrated a Fruit of Life sacred geometry pattern into our weekly spiritual dance event, Rhythm Sanctuary.  The participants held space as nodes of energy, each of them fasting for the day, to maintain a high vibration.  The electric pulse was palpable, the juice stirring through the room as the cauldron of evolution seemed to stir one beat at a time, exciting and awakening the 100+ dancers. This is our potential: synaesthetic, integral healing and arts events, where languages of spirit merge to inform, educate, and inspire everyone, recognizing the Unity at the Source of Creation.

I wish you a bountiful harvest season and hope you'll join me next month for deeper investigations of Scorpio, Venus Retrograde, the Saturn-Pluto complex, and the mythical deities of the Underworld.

For information on private consultations, upcoming seminars, and publications, please visit the author's website here. 

Image by Royalty Free Images, courtesy of Creative Commons License.