Amelia’s Blog

“Last night as I lay sleeping
I dreampt – marvellous error-
That I had a beehive in my heart
And the golden bees
Were making white combs
And velvet honey
From my old failures.” Antonio Machado

“There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.” Leonard Cohen

Chiron, the asteroid of the Wounded Healer,  stationed direct this week and is now transiting through the late degrees of Pisces. Chiron in mythology brought the knowledge of homeopathic healing to the gods and goddesses and it is often strongly positioned in the charts of healers.

Chiron is associated with fragmentation and an evolutionary process of wounding and healing that can lead towards reclaiming wholeness.  The ancient Peruvian shamanic traditions teach  that when people experience trauma, part of the soul fragments off. The shamans have a ritual for soul retrieval in which they call  back the broken piece- creating increased inner wholeness and harmony.

David Whyte, the author of “The Heart Aroused, Poetry and the Preservation of the Soul in Corporate America” has written about the process of wounding and healing, and has cautioned about becoming overly guarded , rigid or defensive due to painful experiences and instead to work to use them as a tool for increased understanding,  personal  growth and evolution.

Wherever Chiron is placed in an individual’s chart will indicate in which area of life this journey will take place. For instance in the first house it will have to do with identity or the sense of self, in the seventh house it will have to do with relationships, in the eleventh house, personal goals and the community that supports them.

With the Chiron station it bodes well to heed any information that may or may have surfaced recently about this journey in your life and how you would like to evolve it. Also with the Mercury station occuring so close to Saturn and the Galactic Center do heed any info related to how to broaden your horizons. Do honor any aspirations you may have in that area. Saturn  will move into Capricorn mid month and this will provide excellent timing for building pragmatic plans for future initiatives.

The glyph or symbol for Chiron – interestingly enough- is a key. People born with Chiron in Pisces often have a yearning for a type of interconnectedness that they can feel but have trouble finding in the outer world. Pisces is the sign of spirituality, creativity and the imagination.

Chiron stationed at 24 degrees of Pisces and one of the Sabian symbols for that degree is, “The purging of the priesthood.”

“New ways of thinking about familiar things can release new energies and make all manner of things possible.” Charles Handy

“Most humans are not couch potatoes or whiners. We are doers and creators. In fact humans need to “make a dent.” Francis Moore Lappe

It’s a busy time here on planet earth and Mercury retrograde periods provide an excellent time to pause, rethink and reflect with an eye towards renewal.

Over the past week on two different occasions,  people have said to me (in a friendly way) “It’s not important to think about that now.” The retrograde period in Sagittarius provides a good time to look at the way we think about things. With the fast pace of events sometimes more important things are pushed into the background.

The tendency towards fragmentation is high now with the increased pace of communications. In the early computers one of the important instructions for maintenance was to periodically “defrag the computer.” A graphic would come up of a circle with some colored pieces inside but a lot of colored fragments on the ground outside it. When you hit the defrag button all the colored pieces outside would go inside  the circle in a perfect pattern. Like restoring a sense of inner wholeness. Or peace of mind.

The Dalai Lama has written that,”We must  always be thinking about what we are thinking.”

Mercury will station retrograde on December 3 at 29 degrees of Sagittarius and continue its retrograde motion until the direct station on Dec 23 at 13 Sagittarius.

“Have patience and the mulberry leaf will become silk.” Spanish Proverb

This is a busy week in the starry heavens as Mercury slows down to its retrograde station on Sunday December 3 – the day of the Full moon at 11 Gemini.

Mars is transiting opposite Uranus now and this can contribute to a time when tempers are short and irritability is about. Mars, the planet of the warrior god is in the sign of peace, Libra.

It’s best to avoid rushing and do exercise more caution when driving as impulsive actions are more likely under this influence. Also do double check all important info is backed up.

Mercury will station retrograde at 29 degrees of Sagittarius conjunct Saturn One of the Sabian symbols for this time is, ” A splendidly built bridge, a heritage 0f unknown ages, still spans the beautiful and wildly primitive stream.”

Sabian symbol from Lynda Hill.

 

“To go into the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is travelled by dark feet and dark wings.” Wendell Berry

“Though my soul may set in darkness,
It will rise in perfect light.
I have loved the stars too fondly
To be fearful of the night,
Fearful of the night.” Epitaph of Galileo

The Sun recently entered the sign of Sagittarius – the sign ruled by Jupiter which is associated with long journeys – both of the body and of the mind. It is the sign associated with  travel and  higher learning as well as philosophical  systems and personal belief systems.

The Sun’s entry into Sagittarius indicates that we are approaching the Winter Solstice or the “darkest evening of the year” as Robert Frost referred to it. It is common in our time to associate light deprivation with the tendency towards depression and often there is a rush to cure or medicate it.  But depression, like the darkness, has its own purpose and can very often be part of a cycle – the darkest hour before the dawn- before a sense of renewal or rebirth emerges.  Depression or melancholia as they used to call it,  creates  the capacity for increased depth and a more profound understanding of life and its painful nature.

There is something about depression, though,  that can keep perceptions frozen in time which results in living in the past.

David Tresemer the author of the anthroposophical book,  Counseling as if Soul and Spirit Matter, has written, ” It is very important to realize that time is not something that is only flowing from the past into the present and into the future. There is a stream of time that flows from the future into the present. When we are really awake and aware of this stream coming from the future into the present we can then, with our own awareness, see the past differently. It is important to review and redefine the events of the past. How we attach meaning or do not attach meaning to our memories and experiences makes a lot of difference as to how we feel in the present and go forward in life.”

Pluto and Uranus – the duo reflecting the revolutionary times in which we are living, are moving closer to each other once again. This aspect has a long term evolutionary aspect to it and speaks of personal, collective and planetary change.  The Aquarian Age we are now entering  offers the opportunity to create a more compassionate, harmonious and just world through the visionary use of the mind – a mind unhindered by perceptions of the past which are, “set in stone.”

“I looked up when Icarus came down –
But who would notice ?
People are always crashing.” Dashka Slater

“You say he flew too far?
He flew just far enough. He flew precisely
to the point of wisdom.” Dashka Slater

The Moon waxes new  Saturday Nov 18 at 26 degrees of Scorpio. One of the symbols of  the sign of Scorpio is the Phoenix with its legendary ability to “rise from the ashes.”

Alot of the problems we face now in our time have to do with not properly acknowledging  and working with the natural life/death/rebirth cycles that accompany us throughout our lifetimes. This process often involves an ending of some kind and then a time of walking through the darkness of not knowing. When this part of the cycle ends we emerge – like Persephone – with a renewed vision and new aspirations.

Sometimes our aspirations  can be too high – like those of Icarus who flew too close to the sun with his wings of wax and crashed to the ground.  Times like these are an opportunity to understand things from a deeper level and eventually move on with a renewed but wiser sense of our process.

The New Moon in Scorpio provides good timing for moving on like the Phoenix – with renewed vision, courage and increased wisdom.

One of the Sabian symbols of this time is,”Native Americans making camp in new territory.”

Sabian symbol from Lynda Hill

“We tense up where Saturn is in our charts and would remain frozen there if it wasn’t for the transits, which repeatedly knock on the door, suggesting that we face our fears and engage with this great god of time and limitation… Saturn transits give us an opportunity to go back and engage with thresholds we were not able to cross before. To lay old ghosts.” Clare Martin

“Let us be glad for the work that must be done.” Joanna Macy

Saturn is the planet of duty and obligation. It governs our responsibility to ourselves, our personal evolution, our responsibility to others and to the world at large. Saturn will enter the sign of Capricorn on Dec 20  and transit through this sign through 2020. Saturn in Capricorn is about mastery and power. It is wise to keep the idea of service to others and to the world during this time and to keep joy in the doing.

“And the caravan is on its way
I can hear the merry gypsies play,
Gypsy Robin, Sweet Emma Rose
Tell me everything I need to know.” Van Morrison

I was reading an astrology forecast this morning from Eric Linter. He is an astrologer who I knew awhile back when he lived in a rustic stone cabin on a remote, beautiful hillside near a pristine granite quarry. In winter we would skate on the quarry and on hot summer days we would dive off the cliffs and swim there.

As Christmas approached one year and my little daughter was hoping for a dollhouse, Eric built a beautiful one for us. It was three stories high with cedar shingles on the roof, a star carved on the front door and a shiny brass doorknob.

There was always something  kind of magical and mysterious to me  about Eric and his friends that shared the cabin with him. They were a bit nomadic and seemed to be free and in touch with things that were important – a life away from the more burdensome aspects of  contemporary American society.  They each played an instrument and lived close to the earth. There was a woman with two small daughters –  one who had long red hair like her mother.  One day the daughter came home from school and was upset because a classmate had been mean to her. Her mother smiled and said,  “People like that need love.”

In his recent forecast Eric was writing about the Moon conjunct the North Node. In a birth chart this aspect is associated with destiny and life mission and indicates that there will be a lot of twists and turns in getting where one needs to go in this lifetime. Eric’s suggestion about it was,”Live from your joyful essence.” Perhaps the ability to look at life this way is one of the reasons why Eric and his friends seemed so mysterious and wise to me.

“Even my best friends
Even my best friends
They don’t know
That my job is turning lead into gold.

Up in the morning
Up in the morning on the road
My job is searching for
The Philosopher’s Stone.” Van Morrison

So much of the ability to move freely forward in life has to do with the ability to transform perceptions of the past. The ancient alchemists spoke of this transformational process symbolically in their striving to turn lead into gold. In other words to change something heavy and burdensome into something of great value. Gold symbolizes heart warmth as well and often this process has to do with integrating more love, compassion and forgiveness into the old perception in order to understand it more deeply and release it in the old form.

This kind of process can be ongoing in nature but there are particularly auspicious times indicated by the movement of the celestial bodies in anyone’s chart. Full Moons are astrologically one of the times these crossroads can present themselves – particularly when a full moon occurs around twenty years after a significant event in your life. At that time the Moon will wax full at the same degree and sign as twenty years prior. If memories of that time or event occur to you or if someone enters your life who triggers those memories in some form, it could indicate that this is happening in your chart. The reason for the re-occurence is to offer another level of release of the original event in its old form and move forward in a more empowered, wiser way.

Today’s Full Moon at at 11 degrees of  Taurus. This Full Moon cycle will be in effect through the Full Moon on Dec 3rd.

This week both Mercury and Venus change signs. Mercury will ingress into Sagittarius and Venus into Scorpio. This placement of Mercury offers the opportunity to broaden perspective and brings in new info. Venus is Scorpio deepens passion and increases intensity in relationship. I have a good friend, a therapist in Ireland who used to say,”The two biggest issues in any relationship are sex and money.” This duo can be on the table now as well as the desire to break free of restrictions in relationship, the desire to move relationships in a more innovative direction and love at first sight occurrences.

The Sabian symbols for Mercury and Venus at this time are,” The ocean covered with white caps” and “A sight- seeing bus filled with tourists.”

Sabian symbols from Lynda Hill

“The obstacles along the way sometimes
might feel so tremendous,
There are guides and spirits all along the way
Who will befriend us. ” Van Morrison

“Let us be silent that we may hear the whispers of the gods.” Emerson

The author Clare Martin has described the Lunar Nodes in the astrology chart as representing, “a doorway or magical threshold between this and other worlds.”

Another way to describe this is “meetings at the edge.” The author Stephen Levine, in his book by that title, evolved contemporary thinking about the path of being with someone who is dying. He described the kind of intimacy  that can develop between people when one of them is preparing to transition. It is a very inspired work.

Cycles of birth and death accompany us throughout our lives as we move forward and leave things behind.  “Meetings at the edge” can also be present at threshold times – when we might feel stuck but are actually at a crossroad waiting for information or direction. People may show up or experiences occur which clarify or affirm our way forward. It can be something that’s read in a passage of book, heard on a train from a stranger three seats back or can come in a dream or moment of inspiration and recognition.

In general the Nodes in an astrology chart describe which parts of ourselves we need to work on and evolve during this lifetime.

The Lunar Nodes are constantly in motion while the birth chart is stationary and captures a moment in time. This means that throughout time you are likely to encounter guidance in the sphere of life being targeted by transiting Nodes. For example if the Nodes are transiting the first and seventh houses, guidance can come through relationships that bring up the question of the balance between our identity and who we are  in partnership with others. Someone can show up at a time like this and clarify or evolve who we are in this area through their interaction with us.

The people who come into our lives at these times – in one form or another -put us in touch with a missing piece of the puzzle. They may be strangers or liminal people – people who come into our lives to transmit information or contribute to an experience that sets us on our way. Often they do not stay.

In the sixth and twelfth houses guidance can come through experiences in the daily routine, health, work and from the realm of dreams, ancestors and spirit guides. For example is a health related challenge asking us to change our daily life’s routine or our relationship to the Mysteries? Is work pushing us in another direction? Are the anscestors calling us to live out some side of the anscestral lines that they were not able to in their time and place?

Alot of people are looking for direction now- in this topsy turvy time we are living in. The Lunar Nodes can be helpful in this realm.

 

“Behind our existence lies something else that becomes accessible to us only by shaking off the world.” Arthur Schopenhauer

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find that it is hitched to everything else in the universe.” John Muir

This week Mercury aligns with the Lunar Nodes which govern destiny and  life path. The Lunar Nodes are indicators of incarnational purpose or life mission in anyone’s birth chart.

Proactively, this alignment provides a good time to be open to information that may lead down another path towards resolving long standing or  challenging areas of your life. Best to put customary beliefs and responses aside for the time being and remain open to options.

It bodes well to raise awareness and provide quiet time when intuitive messages can be heard or come through.

One of the Sabian symbols for this alignment is, “A carrier pigeon fulfilling its mission.” Throughout time and in many metaphysical systems, birds have symbolized the arrival of messages. The four Pages in the Tarot deck symbolize this as well.

An astrologer or Tarot Card reader should be a trusted ally on your life’s path.