(Seen this post before? That’s because Chiron goes retrograde every year. This year, does it affect YOU? Read on to find out. . .)

“Wake up!” says Chiron.  “Are you feeling wounded?  Recently I brought you a difficult experience.  It was also a reminder, an echo of a difficult experience from your past.  I have a special message for you about how to heal it once and for all.”

Chiron Turns Retrograde June 8–A Pivotal Day
When a planet turns retrograde it makes a pivot in the sky and also creates a metaphorically “pivotal” experience for human beings.  This time, that planet is Chiron.  It’s as if Chiron is telling us, “You can’t go on avoiding this change forever.  Now I’m delivering a wake-up call.”  If Chiron is touching a planet in your chart this year, this message is for you and it will have very specific meaning, depending on what planet that is.  That planet, and the part of you it represents, is being sent on a healing journey.  It’s time for old, wounded places to surface so that real, deep healing can happen.  June 8 is the peak of Chiron’s wake-up call, but it could happen anytime within 5 days surrounding that day.

Initiation Leading To An Inner Journey
Sometime between February and now, Chiron showed us an area of life in which we are due for a change.  What he delivered was an initiation and it was our first chance to catch a clue about the healing journey to come.  That clue may have been obvious or it may have been subtle, but we’ve been shown a way to heal something deep.  And the road to that healing may be pretty rocky.

The clue was delivered, but did we notice?  It’s human to go into denial.  During the spring we may have said to ourselves, “Maybe I don’t have to do anything about this.  Maybe it was just a one-time thing.  Maybe I can just move on.  Maybe I can get away without paying attention to this.”

Or maybe not.  Now Chiron turns up the volume and gives us a reminder.  “That deep healing you’re going through?” he says, “You’d better get with the program.”  This week, Chiron’s retrograde journey begins and with it begins our healing journey.  Chiron will continue moving retrograde (i.e. backwards) until the day it turns direct, which is November 10, 2011.

Every Healing Journey Begins With Pain
Have you ever had a medical condition that had to get worse before it could get better?  Perhaps you had a broken bone that set wrongly and had to be re-broken and set properly before it could really heal.  Perhaps you had a dislocated shoulder that had to be pulled out and dropped back into place.  Perhaps you had an abscess that a doctor needed to dig into and clean out before it could finish healing and seal over.  All these experiences reflect the fact that real, enduring healing often requires the opening of an old wound.  Chiron, the Wounded Healer, is in charge of this process.

Chiron’s process is connected to the homeopathic “doctrine of similars,” which is a principle that a very small dose of exactly the same thing that harmed you will assist your body to heal itself.  This principle is also the theory behind vaccination.  Similarly, you can have a life experience that delivers a small amount of emotional pain in the present, but that also brings up a whole mass of previously unexamined feelings from the past.  This brings us to Chiron’s “healing crisis.”

A “healing crisis” is a moment in which we feel worse, but we’re actually getting better.    This is a powerful moment and the way we respond to it determines how things unfold:  do we get caught up in the symptoms and mistake them for the reality of the situation, allowing them to propel us into a more difficult future?  Or do we recognize the symptoms as an opportunity to heal more than the surface discomfort?  It is normal and human to get caught up in the pain of the moment and it usually doesn’t occur to us to question its deeper roots.  But amazing things can happen if instead we stop and ask ourselves, “What does this remind me of?  What does this connect to in my past?  And is there something ancient there which, if healed, would liberate me?”

Is This Story Your Story?
If this feels true for you, it may be that you are personally touched by this transit.  Chiron may be triggering a planet in your own chart, thus bringing these themes up for you.  This year Chiron is covering the space between 0 and 5 degrees of Pisces.  If there is anything in your chart in 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 degrees of Pisces, Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius, you will feel this.  And knowing it can help a lot if you’ve been feeling smacked down by the universe and you don’t know why.  If Chiron has sensitized you this year, this could be the year when you finally let go of all the old baggage and gain access to more of yourself than you’ve ever had before.

What Area Of Your Life Is Being Affected?
Good question.  It will have to do with the planet in your chart that’s being triggered by Chiron.  If Chiron is affecting your Venus, you may find yourself in a painful situation in a present relationship that brings a larger relationship pattern into focus.  Now is your chance to heal this so as to stop unawarely bringing the past into the present.  If Chiron is affecting your Mars, you may find yourself feeling wounded about how you express anger or hold boundaries—this is an opportunity to heal this deeply in a new way.  And if you are turning 50 this year, then you are having your Chiron return, which is an enormous life passage loaded with healing themes and opportunities to clear the past and create a more powerful future.

Chiron’s Gift
A wonderful thing happens when we choose to examine a present pain more deeply.  Chiron links the past with the present such that, if we heal the new wound in the present, the healing echoes into our past.  Similarly, if we delve into our past and heal the ancient root of the problem, then the present wound can disappear as if by magic.  And the very best part is that whatever part of us was caught up or locked into that old wound gets released and we find that Chiron’s healing journey has left us more whole.  The part that’s released may be some part of us we haven’t had access to for a long time—we may even have given up on it long ago.  It’s funny how it ends up feeling like finding buried treasure, right in your own backyard.

Want to know more about how this Chiron transit affects your life?
Contact Jamie at pandora@pandoraastrology.com
to schedule a reading.

“Wake up!” says Neptune.  “Recently I showed you that there is more to your life than what can be experienced with the physical senses.  I demanded that you look deeper.  Now I’m telling you again:  it’s time to re-dream your life.”

Today Is A Pivotal Day
When a planet turns retrograde it makes a pivot in the sky and also creates a metaphorically “pivotal” experience for human beings.  Today, that planet is Neptune.  It’s as if Neptune is telling us, “You can’t go on avoiding this change forever.  Today I’m delivering a wake-up call.”  If Neptune is touching a planet in your chart this year, this message is for you and it will have very specific meaning, depending on what planet that is.  That planet, and the part of you it represents, is receiving a vision of what is possible; during this time you’ll be asked to re-dream that part of you.  Today is the peak of Neptune’s wake-up call, but it could happen anytime within 5 days surrounding today.

Initiation Leading To An Inner Journey
Sometime between now and the beginning of last November Neptune showed us an area of life in which we are due for a change.  What she delivered was an initiation and it was our first chance to catch a clue about the spiritual reorientation to come.  That clue may have been obvious or it may have been subtle, but we’ve been shown a way to become much bigger and much more like our ideal.  And we may have to push through some uncomfortable delusions to do it.

The clue was delivered, but did we notice?  It’s human to go into denial.  During the winter we may have said to ourselves, “Maybe I don’t have to do anything about this.  Maybe it was just a one-time thing.  Maybe I can just move on.  Maybe I can get away without paying attention to this.”

Or maybe not.  Today Neptune turns up the volume and gives us a reminder.  “That redreaming you’re going through?” she says, “You’d better get with the program.”  Today, Neptune’s retrograde journey begins and with it begins our journey into our personal land of dreams (and nightmares).  Neptune’s retrograde journey lasts until the day it turns direct, which is November 9, 2011.

Journey Into the Imaginative Realms
The veil between physical and nonphysical realities is thin right now.  If you close your eyes you can reach right through it.  You can enter that place between the worlds where nothing is actual and everything is possible, that magical, in-between place where imagination is rich and you can dream up your future to be whatever you want it to be.  Neptune is the stuff fantasy books are made of.

But Neptune is also the planet of illusions and delusions.  While Neptune is retrograde (until November 9) you will be pulled into circumstances that bring your delusions into sharper focus.  Examine your life carefully—are there places where you are pretending things are different than they are?  Are there places where you are living a fantasy because it’s nicer than the reality you face?  Sometimes a fantasy is a form of healthy escape that helps us cope with a painful but necessary reality, but at other times escaping from reality keeps us from coping and from courageously changing our reality to better match our ideal.

This transit can be great for those who live by their imaginations:  writers, artists, filmmakers and creative people of all stripes.  It can also be great for those who know themselves to be psychically sensitive.  Neptune’s action is gentle and so subtle that it can be hard to notice unless you are already the kind of person who pays attention to your imagination.  This is a great time to attend a dream-group or keep a dream-journal or to do Morning Pages.*

Is This Story Your Story?
If this feels true for you, it may be that you are personally touched by this transit.  Neptune may be triggering a planet in your own chart, thus bringing these themes up for you.  This year Neptune is covering the space between 28 degrees of Aquarius and 0 degrees of Pisces.  If there is anything in your chart in 28 or 29 degrees of Aquarius, Taurus, Leo or Scorpio, you will feel this.  You’ll also feel it if you have anything in 0 degrees of Pisces, Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius.  And knowing it can help a lot if you’ve been feeling sucked into other worlds and you don’t know why.  Neptune has you in a walking dream this year, because she has an important message for you.  Your ideal life is calling and if you listen to her siren song, this could be the year you make a subtle shift in direction that leads to a whole new future.

What Area Of Your Life Is Being Affected?
Good question.  It will have to do with the planet in your chart that’s being triggered by Neptune.  If Neptune is affecting your Mercury, you may find yourself a little mentally fuzzy and more prone to daydreaming than usual.  What’s happening is an awakening of your intuition, so make room for that.  If Neptune is affecting your Venus or Juno, you may become aware of illusions you’ve had in your relationships.  You’ll want to clear those away.  If Neptune is affecting your Moon you may have a psychic opening or a very active dreamlife this year.  Pay attention to your dreams—they will contain wisdom for you.

But whatever planet Neptune is affecting, you can bet that the dreamworld is catching hold of you now.  You may find yourself more distractible, more prone to daydreaming.  You may even want to sleep more.  It’s as if there’s another you, who dwells in your dreams.  That other you is activated right now and when s/he is awake, you must sleep.  This is normal for a Neptune transit.  Get the rest you need.  Pay respect to Neptune and in return, she’ll make your dreams come true.

Want to know more about how this Neptune transit affects your life?
Contact Jamie at pandora@pandoraastrology.com
to schedule a reading.

*Morning Pages are a creativity-priming technique devised by Julia Cameron and described in her book The Artist’s Way which I recommend highly.

Are you tired of dating and not finding someone
who is really right for you?
Are you bogging down in your marriage,
unsure if it meets your needs—or ever will?
What if you could become so irresistibly attractive that
your ideal type flocks to you?
What if you found a way to fall back in love with your spouse?

Your astrology chart holds the key.
Your Venus sign tells what you need to be in love, and
Your Juno sign tells what you need to marry.
It’s that simple.

In this FEMTalk, hosted by San Francisco Bay Area’s Ripe Paradigm just for women, you’ll . . .

• Discover how to use the ancient wisdom of astrology to attract—and keep—your ideal partner.
• Learn what your “type” is and how to spot it in potential partners.
• Learn what you offer in relationship that you have always taken for granted—and how to work it for maximum attractiveness.
• Become the radiant magnet of desire you were always meant to be.

What You Need In Romantic Love Is Not The Same As
What You Need In Marriage
Find out what they both are.
Satisfy both needs for a lifetime of love that’s both erotic and stable.

If you’ve been enjoying my blog, you will love this talk.  Come see me in person and learn how to awaken and honor these primal goddesses in your life–and watch all your relationships blossom!

When:  May 9, 2011
Time:  7-10 PM
Where:  Berkeley, CA (near University Avenue, exact location released when you register)
Cost:  $15

This talk is filling up fast—register today on the Ripe Paradigm website and I’ll see you there!

warmly,

Jamie Kahl
Pandora Astrology
Berkeley, CA

PS. At the FEMTalk, you’ll have an opportunity to find out how to access your own unique Golden Goddess of Love and Beauty (Aphrodite/Venus) and your own personal Queen of Heaven (Hera/Juno).  You’ll also come away with a free gift worth double what you paid to attend the talk.  You don’t want to miss this!
PPS. Sorry you missed it? If you’re seeing this notice after the FEMTalk is over, invite me to speak at your women’s group, at no cost: pandora@pandoraastrology.com.  I look forward to meeting you!

When astrologers want to understand the archetype that underlies a zodiac sign, they look to the mythological stories that center around the deity that rules the sign.  To understand Gemini, we look to Mercury, ruler of thought and ideas, wearer of the winged cap.  To understand Libra, we look to Venus, goddess of love and beauty.  Her nature as siren, tempestuous lover and self-indulgent hedonist helps us understand both Libra and Taurus, the two signs Venus rules.  Clearly Venus and Mercury were well-identified by the ancients and interpretations of their movements that worked thousands of years ago still work today.  All the other bodies visible with the naked eye (the Sun and Moon, Mars, Jupiter Saturn) were also clearly identified and associated with the right archetypal principles and so their zodiac signs are well-understood.  But astrologers have had a challenge when it comes to Aquarius.  This sign’s ruling planet, Uranus, may have been misnamed.

The deity Uranus is not one that has much mythological tradition surrounding him. There are not many stories to look to in discovering the meaning of this sky god.  We know he was father to Saturn and that Saturn overthrew him, we know he was a primordial sky god.  And that’s about it.  No long tales to tell, no intricate personality quirks.  And the things we do know about Uranus only fit Aquarius marginally.  It’s occurred to one astrological thinker that there is a different deity whose stories and personality do fit the qualities of Aquarius, and that would be Prometheus.  The astrologer is Richard Tarnas, whose discovery and line of thinking are detailed in his book, Prometheus the Awakener.

All of this gets me to my point, which is:  Aquarians, the myths of Uranus do not have a lot to tell you about your own nature.  But the myths of Prometheus do.  Here is his story . . .

Our tale begins in a time before human beings existed, when the world was fresh and new, and populated by gigantic gods called Titans.

Prometheus was one of the Titans.  Animals had already been created and they were wonderful, but Prometheus wanted to make something better, so he created Man out of clay.  He made Man in the shape of a god, which was rather arrogant of him and resulted in Man thinking a bit much of himself as well.  By the time Man was made, all the gifts of life (wings, feathers, speed, strength, fins, etc.) had already been disbursed among the animals, so that there was no special gift for Man.  Prometheus had an idea what to do about this, so he took himself to Mt. Olympus, the dwelling-place of the gods, and got some fire and gave that to Man.  This was an incredible advantage over the other creatures, because Man could keep himself warm, cook his food, and make tools using fire, and the other creatures couldn’t do that.  Fire gave Man enough safety and leisure to cultivate arts and commerce.

(Here I could tell the story of Pandora, the first Woman, but I’ve told it elsewhere, so I’ll skip over it for now.)

According to Bullfinch’s Mythology, Prometheus is represented by the Greek & Roman poets as “a friend to mankind.”  But Prometheus’ gift was gained at a price:  Jupiter (Jove to the Greeks) was angered at the theft of fire and he, as king of the gods, punished Prometheus.  Prometheus was chained to a huge rock where every day a giant eagle came and ate his liver from his still-living body.  Every night the liver grew back—so this was an unending torment, because Prometheus was a god and could not die.  Prometheus was in possession of a secret about which of Jupiter’s offspring would eventually overthrow him.  Jupiter swore that Prometheus might be released if he would reveal the future usurper’s name.  Prometheus refused and stubbornly endured his punishment.

Prometheus’ release eventually came, through the actions of Hercules and Chiron—but that is a different story.

The tale of Prometheus contains a number of themes that connect with the Aquarian temperament and mark him as the originator (planetary ruler) of that temperament.

1.    Prometheus loves humanity.  The sign of Aquarius is well-known for producing individuals who are “people persons.”  Some Aquarians love humanity more as a concept and less in terms of one-on-one relating, but Aquarians are famous for standing up for human rights.
2.    Prometheus demonstrated a refusal to support monarchy, holding out instead for decentralizing power.  This strongly parallels the Aquarian tendency toward political activism and democracy.  Aquarius comes down solidly on the side of the people as opposed to Leo, its opposite sign in the zodiac, which represents monarchy and centralized power.  The best illustration of this is that around the time of the discovery of the planet we call Uranus (which, I’m arguing, should be called Prometheus), revolutions began happening as a phenomenon.  I’m speaking of the French and American revolutions.  The people joined together and rose up as one against an oppressive monarch, on two continents at the same time.  These revolutions were soon followed by more revolutions, in Russia, China and elsewhere.  Since the middle 1700s, revolution exists as a thing in itself, as it never before used to.  When Uranus was discovered, the Revolutionary that lay hidden in humanity’s collective unconscious reared up and was activated.
3.    The theft of fire from the gods and the giving of fire, with all its power, to humanity, was an act of rebellion on the part of Prometheus.  He was a rebellious god, stuck in his own ideas and doing his own thing.  He was a trickster.  In a similar vein, the planet Uranus brings out a quality of rebellion in people when it’s strong in their charts.  Uranian types tend to be rebellious, reactive and strong-minded.  They sometimes enjoy rule-breaking for its own sake.
4.    Fire itself represents insight, inspiration and one central symbol for Aquarius is lightening.  We speak of thoughts having the speed of lightening and ideas striking us like lightening.  Thought itself is the passing of electrical impulses in our brains—and it does happen at a lightning-pace.  Sudden insight and the overthrow of old thought-structures is at the very heart of the archetype of Aquarius—and it’s the source of the famous Aquarian inventiveness.

To live fully into one’s sun sign it is sometimes necessary to invite a god into one’s life.  Aquarians, your god is above all things a rebel, a revolutionary, a paradigm-shifter and rule-breaker.  Your god loves humanity, even when that’s not the popular thing to do.  Your god is willing to take the hit for humanity and endure great suffering and pain in order to take a stand for humanity’s right to be just a little bit godlike.  Your god gave us the gift of startling ideas and brilliance.  He deserves the biggest temple you can build him.

Once upon a time, in the long ago and far away, when gods and goddesses walked the earth among humans and when human beings aspired to godhood, there lived a centaur named Chiron.

A centaur, as you may know, looks like a man from the waist up and a horse from the neck down.  There was, at this time, a whole race of centaurs, but Chiron was not really one of them, for he came to be a centaur in a different way.  He was the product of a rape.  Before Chiron was born, his mother, the nymph Philyra, attracted the attentions of Chronos (or Saturn).  Chronos was accustomed to taking whatever—and whomever—he wanted, and so he pursued her relentlessly.  She cleverly turned herself into a horse and sped away, but he turned himself into a horse also and caught her.  Chiron was the product of their unwilling union.  Think about that for a moment.  His mother abandoned him at birth without a second thought.  His father he never knew at all.

Chiron was always an uneasy union of opposites.  The way he came into existence was an example of that, along with the fact that he was, himself, half-god and half-beast.  A third example is in his attempts to negotiate treaties between the unruly centaurs (representing Freud’s unconscious or “id”) and their neighbors, the Lapiths (representing Freud’s repressive superego), even though neither fully accepted him as one of their own.  Chiron’s dualistic nature drove him to seek his own wholeness.  He was driven by a need to put the warring parts of himself together, so he could become one person.

Chiron in all his duality symbolizes an essential human problem:  a human being is a spirit in a body.  A human being is a bundle of instinctual needs and unconscious drives and yet “in aspect, how like a god” are we.  Has it ever occurred to you how funny it is that, when we are pointing out someone’s flaws, we say “He’s only human,” and yet, when we see an animal behaving in a way that seems beyond its capability, we say, “it’s almost human.”  It’s almost as if humanity itself is an odd blend of bestial and divine.  Chiron is this puzzle of being human.

Chiron formed a strong friendship with Hercules, the mightiest of heroes.  They fought in battle together, side by side, on many an occasion.  In one battle, amidst the confusion, a poisoned arrow shot by Hercules injured Chiron’s leg, causing what should have been a mortal wound.  But Chiron, being immortal, could not die.  So the animal part of him had to suffer while the divine part maintained his connection to life.  Perhaps it was for this reason that Chiron became a renowned healer.  He studied herb lore and healing ways and became a medicine man in search of a cure.  He never found one, but he found something better—a way to transcend his suffering and to become truly whole.

During this period, Prometheus was being punished.  He was one of the Titans, the gods before the gods we know best (Jupiter, Mars, Venus and the crew).  Prometheus thought Man was a pretty good invention, the best and brightest of the earth-dwelling mortal creatures.  He believed human beings should have fire, so he stole some from Mt. Olympus (home of the gods) and gave it to humanity.  For this, he received an extremely harsh punishment.  He was chained to a rock in the underworld and each day a huge eagle (or in some stories a griffin) came and ate his liver from his still-living body.  Each night it grew back.  Before leaving him there to endure this daily torment for all eternity, Jupiter (aka Zeus) declared that whoever of all the gods wished to, might relieve Prometheus of his torment if that god was willing to take his place for just one night.  After that night, the rescuer would die and become a ghost in the underworld, as if he were mortal.  No one agreed to—and why would they?  They were gods.  They had immortality and a luxurious existence.  Why would they give that up?

Chiron heard this and thought to himself, “I am already suffering on a daily basis and there is no value to my suffering.  If I took on the suffering of Prometheus, at least he would be freed.”  Chiron did so—he took Prometheus’ place on the rock and endured the torment of the giant bird.  Jupiter was so impressed with this behavior that he did more than make good his promise to free Prometheus.  He liberated Chiron from not only the rock, but also the torment of his own wounded body, and placed him among the stars as the constellation Sagittarius.

Now I want to point some very important things out here.  Chiron’s decision to heal Prometheus by taking on his pain was exactly the thing that liberated Chiron himself.  It was a truly selfless act.  It also illustrates a healing principle of homeopathy: “in the poison is the cure.”  Which means that a very small amount of the very thing that hurt you will cause your body to cough up and expel, in a healing reaction, the original damaging agent.  It is also the reason why people drink in the morning to cure a hangover, calling it “the hair of the dog that bit you.”  And this principle is related to inoculation, in the idea that a small amount of a disease, when introduced into the system of an otherwise healthy person, will cause that person to create antibodies which stand ready to fight the disease if it appears in force later in life.  Whether preventative or curative, all these principles suggest that small amounts of poison effect cure.

Chiron’s story is both beautiful and profound but for Chironic types (people with Chiron placed strongly in their chart) it is more than this:  it is a life-path with deep, rich meaning.  To be on the path of the healer is a gift which hurts at first, but leaves one with a wholeness, a sense of being knitted together and of having access to all of oneself that would not be possible if the wound had not been there in the first place.

The key to this is to spend as little time as possible in the victim role, and to, as quickly as possible, move on to the role of survivor and ultimately to become a thriver.  If you’re a Chironic type, you cannot afford to get self-indulgent anywhere on the path, because you will get stuck there.  Acknowledge that the pain is life’s gift, driving you onward toward healing and wholeness—for yourself and the many others lucky enough to cross your path.

Chiron is a part of all of us. All of us have a primal wound, a wound that feels like it will never heal.  Our human tendency is to think that we are special in our woundedness (“You don’t know how it feels to be me” was how Tom Petty put it) but that attitude is the very thing that forms the greatest obstacle to our healing.  In order to heal and truly move on to surviving and thriving, we must let go of the glamour of victimhood.

Chiron is split; he is both wounded and divine.  Chiron in your astrology chart shows a place where you came into this life ready to be wounded.  It also shows a place where you have a capacity to be divine, extraordinary, special.  Heal the wound and you are left with the divinity.  How do you heal the wound?  Three ways:  First, accept and bring yourself to love the broken or split off side of yourself.  Second, let go of attachment to being special in your brokenness, a victim of your fate.  And finally, heal others who are like you because this will bring out and exercise your divine ability.  You don’t have to do these in any particular order—life will send you random opportunities to do all three.

Chiron’s gift is great, but unattractive.  Can you accept it and make something of it?  If you can, you will release the pain of being human and take your rightful place among the stars as a constellation.

In the first two articles of this series, I looked at what happens when Pluto and Jupiter get together in the sky and form a stressful square:
Jupiter Squares Pluto: Going To Extremes
Jupiter And Pluto Go On A Binge
This month’s square is their final pass, so their influence will be fading quickly after February of 2011 ends.

Today’s story finds them sitting on Mount Olympus, contemplating the landscape.
Jupiter:  I love a view from a lofty height like this.  I can see forever and I can really get the big picture this way.
Pluto:  This is not my favorite view—I prefer to look underneath things.
Jupiter:  You always get so dark when you do that.  You like to find the darkest, grittiest, ugliest thing at the bottom of something and point it out.
Pluto:  And you have a way of overlooking what matters.  I put human beings through their own dark places.  It’s my job and I’m very good at it.
Jupiter:  Yeah, but I’m the king of the gods.  I help people see the heights they’re capable of.  That’s more important.
Pluto:  Not in my world.  In the underworld, I’M king.  You can’t even get in unless I let you.
Jupiter:  Oh, I can get into the underworld anytime.  I just don’t usually want to.  It’s not the best vacation spot.
Pluto:  But important things are going on there!
Jupiter:  Stop pleading, Pluto.  It doesn’t look good on you.  Make your point.
Pluto:  I will.  People need a place to go when they die.  They need a concept of hell to sober them up while they’re alive.  They need a way to work off bad behavior.  They need a well of souls to rejoin after death and to be reborn out of.
Jupiter:  I just don’t get why this stuff matters.
Pluto:  It may not matter to you, but it matters to human beings.  You’re a god.  You live forever.  You don’t die, can never be reborn.  A human being can become a little bit more like a god by going through death and rebirth.  That’s why I’m here.  To make it possible for a human being to burn away his mortality and become his finest, greatest self.
Jupiter:  Who’s making himself sound important now?
Pluto:  Here, I’ll show you what I mean.
Pluto grabs Jupiter’s arm and whisks them both away to the underworld.  It is a dark, dreary place.  They stand in an empty landscape where everything is in shades of gray.  A Human Being trudges along, unaware of the presence of the gods.
Pluto:  This human is experiencing what they call a “long, dark night of the soul.”  Eventually, he will come out the other side of it and find that he has changed in a very fundamental way.  He will be a new person.
Jupiter strikes a light.  It flares up brilliantly.  The Human Being perks up.
Pluto:  (putting the light out) Hey, don’t do that!
Jupiter:  Why not?
Pluto:  This human hasn’t gotten to the end of his journey yet.
Jupiter:  But you just said the journey through the darkness has to end sometime.
Pluto:  He has to suffer some more first.  Then he will get to the light at the end of the tunnel.  It will happen naturally in the time that’s right for him.
Jupiter:  Who are you to say that I didn’t just provide the light at the end of the tunnel?
Pluto:  I’m the Lord of the Underworld, that’s who!
Jupiter strikes another light and illuminates it even more.
Pluto:  Cut that out!
Jupiter:  (moving away from Pluto and turning the light up.  The Human Being reaches for the light with a look of hope on his face.) No, I won’t.
Pluto (roaring) You’re RUINING IT!  This is supposed to be scary!
Jupiter laughs and runs around with the light, totally confusing the Human Being and keeping just ahead of Pluto.
Jupiter:  Thought I’d shed a little light on the subject.
Pluto:  You bring humor into the most inappropriate places.  This is a serious matter.  This Human is experiencing real tragedy and you’re making fun of it.  False hope only adds to the anguish.
Jupiter:  Can’t take a joke, can you?  There’s nothing so serious in life that a little lightening-up won’t help.  Humor is the best way.
Pluto:  You’re going to leave this Human with the idea that the gods are laughing at his troubles.
Jupiter:  Aren’t they?
Pluto:  No!
Jupiter:  Maybe this Human will learn to laugh at his own pain and not take himself so seriously.  Laughter and tears are sometimes very close to each other.  You should take yourself less seriously too.  Oh, and the joke’s on you—told you I could get into the underworld whenever I wanted to.  Nah-nahhhhh!
Pluto:  You’re insufferable!
Jupiter:  I’ve been called that before.
Pluto:  You’re nothing but a giant gas—oops, I mean gas giant.
Jupiter:  Caught you making a joke!
This is getting ugly, so we’ll draw a curtain over the scene here, Gentle Reader.

Suffice it to say that when Jupiter and Pluto get into conflict, sometimes we find ourselves making fun of a bleak situation, just to find some light—any light at all—in the darkness.

This month is the final pass of the Pluto-Jupiter square.  If you have anything at all in 7 degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn, you’re probably feeling it.  And if you have Jupiter and Pluto together in your birth chart (in any aspect at all—conjunction, sextile, square, trine, quincunx or opposition), most likely you tend toward extremes and a dark (sometimes inappropriately) sense of humor.

If what follows looks familiar to you, it’s because this is my post from last year when Uranus went direct.  Uranus goes direct every year, so the post continues to be useful, but the dates will be slightly different every year.

Uranus has spent the last few months (since July 6) traveling backwards.  Today he turns his face forward and re-covers the same ground.  Why should it matter to you?  If he’s passing through a zone where you have a planet in your natal chart, he’s bringing you shocking new ideas that can turn your head around.  And it’s still in progress.

This Is A Pivotal Day
If you are one of the millions of people having a Uranus transit this year, today may be pivotal for you.  Around July 6, you came to realize that some area of your life was in a chaotic uproar.  This was the chaos or breakdown that leads to breakthrough, although it probably didn’t look like that at the time.  Since then, you’ve been re-evaluating that area.  It might feel like a puzzle, the pieces of which have been thrown up into the air, forcing you to reassemble it entirely from the beginning.  And when you’re done, chances are it will not look like it did before.  Not in the least.

The puzzle is still in progress and now you’re waiting for the right moment to act.  That moment is not today, but today (Dec 5, 2010) is when the seed may be planted that will lead to the right moment happening in the next few months.  This day is pivotal in the process of you arriving at a whole new perspective in which so much more is possible than ever before.

Today (and I mean this loosely—it may happen as soon as 2 days before or as late as 2 days after today) is pivotal.  Today may be the day you realize your internal quest for understanding is over.  You’ve heard the message the universe is sending to you and you’re almost ready to act on what you’ve learned.  You can now gather yourself to take that action sometime in the next few months (between now and March of 2011).

“What is a Uranus transit like . . .”
Uranus is archetype of the Revolutionary and he brings a shift in paradigm.  A paradigm shift is a state-based shift, where enough momentum has been built up to cause a cascade into a new state, fundamentally different from the old one.  Uranus’ purpose is to present a new way of thinking about something, so new and so radical that everything that previously existed inside that way of thinking is now reframed and thus altered by its new context.  So the ways in which you were like a fish in water, taking the water for granted, will change because the very water you live in has changed.  Uranus’s paradigm shift is intellectual in nature—a shift to a new perspective where the old way of thinking is rendered irrelevant in the new context.  My favorite example is the way people used to think the world was flat and they shifted to thinking the world is round.  You and I may never travel all the way around the globe we live on, yet every aspect of our lives is different because we know the world is round, not flat.

“. . . and how do I know when I’m having one?”
First of all, you know by feel.  If what I’ve described resonates for you, it’s likely you’re having a Uranus transit.  (If it resonates, but only a little, you may be having a transit, but by a planet other than Uranus.)  A Uranus transit has a particular sensation of agitation and unrest associated with it.  There’s disruption and disarray in some area of your life.  You feel that something has to change and you feel unsettled while you’re figuring it out.  Maybe a new, startling idea has struck you like lightening and your point of view has already begun to shift and you are coping with all the fallout from that.

You can find out whether you’re having a Uranus transit by peeking at your chart.  This year Uranus is covering the space from 26 degrees of Pisces to 0 degrees of Aries.  This will affect you if you have any planet in the space from 26 to 29 degrees of any of the four Mutable signs (Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius) OR in 0 degrees of any of the four Cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn).

If you don’t have your chart, or don’t know how to read your chart, you might want to order your own personal Astrology Chart Decoder.  This is a special tool I’ve invented that puts your chart’s details into English, instead of astrology symbols.  Your Decoder tells you where every planet in your chart is located:  the sign it’s in, the house it’s in and the exact degree it occupies.  When you’ve got your Decoder in front of you, check to see if you have anything at all in 26, 27, 28, or 29 degrees of Pisces Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius OR in 0 degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn.  If you do, you are definitely having a Uranus transit this year.  And knowing that gives you a chance to understand the major shift that you’re involved in and to see the usefulness of the chaos, instead of feeling overwhelmed by it.

“How long does it last?”
A Uranus transit will typically last for 9 months to 1-1½ years.  Today is just one part of it, a pivotal day in its flow.  The timing of your transit will be personal to you.  It takes an astrologer to look it up—it’s not something I can just tell you in a blogpost.  In an astrology reading you can find out the timing of it and how to move through it consciously, instead of spending this valuable time agitated and disturbed.  You can also find out which part of you (i.e. planet in your chart) is being affected by this paradigm shift.  Is it Relationships (Venus)?  Career (Saturn)?  Home (Moon)?  Or it could be something more subtle.

“What do I do now?”
Take a close look at the area of your life that’s changing.  Why do you feel so agitated there?  Is there some aspect of your life that doesn’t fit the way it used to?  You may have to let go of some old ways of thinking before all this is done.

Sometimes a Uranian paradigm shift is launched by the arrival of a new, startling idea.  It’s startling because it doesn’t fit into your old ways of thinking and therefore it makes you see ways you’d gotten stuck in thought-patterns.  It shows up the flaws in those thought-patterns as if to say, “You weren’t prepared for me, were you?  I’m a truly new idea and you’ll have to make room for me now.”  Everything has to change to accommodate the new idea but because the system itself has to change, this results in a cascade of changes that will not only make room for the new idea but also make possible a whole host of new, exciting ideas, thoughts, perspectives and approaches that you couldn’t ever have seen from the old point of view.  Holy ripple effect, Batman!  This can be a shocking experience.  And it massively widens your vistas.

Sometime Uranus transits are experienced by Uranian (i.e. Aquarius) types in different ways than other types experience them.  For most people, a Uranus transit is a time of breaking out, rebelling and going in a new radical direction.  But a Uranian may already be living that radical way, so for them sometimes the most radical thing they can do is to go conservative.  Sometimes that’s the only new territory left.  So if you’re already a rebel in the area where Uranus is influencing you, this transit may (paradoxically) stabilize you.  It’s like of like how ADD people need to take a stimulant (Ritalin, etc.) to calm down their already hyperactive brain.  (ADD is a Uranian condition, linked to the short attention span that seems necessary and appropriate for coping with the Aquarian Age of Technology.)

Uranus’ Gift
Uranus’ gift is that you come out the other side of this change with a whole new way of thinking about something.  That new way of thinking yields ideas and approaches that were not possible before, that didn’t exist in the old paradigm.  Your world is about to expand into new dimensions that were not foreseeable before.  You are facing a singularity.  After this, everything changes.  Are you ready?

When it’s over, it’s over
After this transit ends, your period of paradigm shift will be over.  It’s quite possible you’ll have another transit like this in a different area of your life in the next few years (it’s likely in fact), but this one will have passed.  If this period is frustrating to you, be at ease, because it will end, and soon (between now and March).  But also, and more importantly, take advantage.  Use this shift while it’s happening.  It doesn’t happen every day.

This is part of a series of articles, beginning here:
Venus Goes Retrograde: The Tale of Eros and Psyche

Venus is finally going direct today.  In celebration, one final post about Eros and Psyche, because we’ve arrived at the end of the story.

The tale of Eros and Psyche might also be called, “How The Soul Got Her Wings” because the ultimate end to this story is not only the restoration of love to the psyche, but also the immortality of the soul.

Upon being restored to Eros, Psyche is fed on ambrosia by his father, Jupiter, lord of all the gods.  This makes her a goddess and she is welcomed to the table at Mount Olympus with the other deities.  This is an unlooked-for benefit of seeking love.  Psyche’s journey, which was only ever intended to bring her back into communion with love, has done so much more.  She has deepened as a soul and finally is rendered immortal.

The message here is clear:  to find true love, you must not seek it outside yourself, but only love truly, and not only love, but immortality is your reward.  This is a true, “happy-ever-after” because it is more than just a fantasy.  This happy-ever-after was earned and is therefore sustainable.  The beauty of a goddess is eternal, but the beauty of a mortal fades, unless she does her soul-work.  Then she takes her place among the stars.

There’s one thing I didn’t tell you as the story was going along.  All that glorious lovemaking couldn’t fail to have an effect—when Eros flew away, he left Psyche pregnant.  In anger, he told her that her child would be mortal, not divine.  Psyche pursued him and did all her tasks while carrying that child, never knowing if she would see him again.  When Psyche drinks the ambrosia, her child is also rendered immortal.  That child is named Pleasure.  And how perfect is that?

Does This Apply To You?

Are you ready to love without bargaining for what you will receive for the gift of your love?  Are you ready to go into your soul’s darkness for love?  Are you ready to sort yourself out?  Are you ready to do the tasks that will restore love to you?  If you are, then even Aphrodite cannot stand in the way of your eternal love.

This thread is dedicated to my husband, who does the work of love as well as inspiring it.

Jolly Jupiter has spent the last few months (since July 24) traveling backwards.  Today he turns his face forward and re-covers the same ground.  Why should you care?  If he’s passing through a zone where you have a planet in your natal chart, he’s been bringing you growth and confidence this year.  And he’s not done yet.

This Is A Pivotal Day
If you are one of the millions of people having a Jupiter transit this year, today may be pivotal for you.  Around July 24, you came to realize you were facing a growth period and since then, you’ve been re-evaluating some the area of your life that’s expanding.  You’ve been examining it and mulling it over.  Perhaps you’ve been researching it.  Basically, you’ve been asking yourself, “What is this part of me that wants to explore and get bigger right now?  How have I lived this part of me in the past and what is it turning into for the future?”

Today (and I mean this loosely—it may happen as soon as 2 days before or as late as 2 days after today) is pivotal.  Today may be the day you realize your internal quest for understanding is over.  You’ve come to clarity.  You’ve recognized where the growth needs to happen and you’re ready to do something with what you’ve learned.  You can now gear up to act on that recognition, sometime in the next few months (between now and February of 2011).

“What is a Jupiter transit like . . .”
Astrologers call Jupiter a “benefic” planet because he tends to bring good things.  He’s kind of like Santa Claus.  When you’re having a Jupiter transit, you tend to feel a sense of adventure, an expansiveness.  This expansiveness and willingness to have fun with what life presents you increases your self-confidence and you tend to approach life with hope and optimism.  Because of that, people feel good around you and they tend to offer you opportunities.  You are more apt to get lucky during a Jupiter transit.  It’s almost like being a “lucky Sagittarian” for a specific time period.  The luck is a side-effect of your openness to growth and expansion right now and your ability to perceive events in your life as opportunities.

I’m not saying nothing bad will happen to you during a Jupiter transit—but I am saying that anything bad that happens is likely to go much better than it would have without Jupiter’s benefic presence.  This is because during a Jupiter transit you are more able to put even bad events to good use, to squeeze those lemons into lemonade by adding your own sugar.

“. . . and how do I know when I’m having one?”
You can find out whether you’re having a Jupiter transit by peeking at your chart.  This year Jupiter is covering the space between 23 degrees of Pisces and 3 degrees of Aries.  This will affect you if you have any planet in the space between 23 and 29 degrees of any of the four Mutable signs (Pisces, Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius).  It will also affect you if you have any planet in the space between 0 and 3 degrees of Cardinal signs (Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn).

If you don’t have your chart, or don’t know how to read your chart, you might want to order your own personal Astrology Chart Decoder.  This is a special tool I’ve invented that puts your chart’s details in English, instead of astrology symbols.  Your Decoder tells you where every planet in your chart is located:  the sign it’s in, the house it’s in and the exact degree it occupies.  When you’ve got your Decoder in front of you, check to see if you have anything at all in 23-29 degrees of Pisces, Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius or in 0-3 degrees of Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn.  If you do, you are definitely having a Jupiter transit this year.  And knowing that gives you the chance to identify the opportunities when they appear, and to grab them.  You might well ask . . .

What area of my life is being affected?
Good question.  It will have to do with the planet that you find is in that zone I told you about, between 23 degrees of Mutable and 3 degrees of Cardinal signs.  If it’s Mercury, you could be having a period of intellectual expansion, which is great for learning and expressing yourself in words.  If it’s Venus or Juno, you could be having relationship luck, attracting fun partners who take you on adventures or experiencing adventure in the relationship you already have.  If it’s Saturn, you could be facing a career expansion, a time when you exude confidence and grow your business.

“How long does it last?”
A Jupiter transit will typically last for 8-10 months.  Today is just one part of it, a pivotal day in the flow of a months-long period of growth, expansion and opportunity.  In an astrology reading you can find out all this good stuff:
•    what area of your life has “gotten lucky”
•    exactly how long it lasts
•    when it started
•    when it ends
•    what various phases of it feel like
•    how to take advantage of it
The timing of your transit will be personal to you.  That’s why it takes an astrologer to look it up—it’s not something I can just tell you in a blogpost.

“What do I do now?”
Grab the opportunities as they fly by.  You’re on life’s carousel and Jupiter is not going to just give you the goodies.  You have to reach for and grab the brass ring.  It’s up to you to decide which of all of Jupiter’s offerings are best for you right now.  You have to use discernment and you have to take action.  You have to respond.

It’s OK to say no to some of the opportunities.  Jupiter will simply send you more.  Focusing on what you really want can have the effect of shaping what Jupiter sends you.  It’s a great time for a deliberate manifestation practice.

When it’s over, it’s over
After this transit ends, your lucky period will be over.  It’s quite possible you’ll have another lucky period in a different area of your life in the next few years (it’s likely in fact), but this one will have passed.  Take advantage of it while it’s happening!

This is part of a series of articles, beginning here:
Venus Goes Retrograde: The Tale of Eros and Psyche

Psyche receives a lot of help in the completion of her four tasks, often at the very moment when she has given up.  Where does that help come from?  It appears as if by magic from resources that are close at hand, but the power behind that help is Eros himself.  He stirs the ants up to help Psyche sort the seeds and he breathes wind into the reeds that tell Psyche the secret of how to gather the golden fleece.  The eagle that fills the crystal goblet is sent by Zeus (Jupiter), who is Eros’ father and is helping him.  And Eros himself shows up to gather up the stygian sleep and cram it back into the box so that Psyche may return with it to Aphrodite’s temple.  Without love to inspire her every move, how could Psyche ever reawaken love?  And so he is her helper, but he cannot do these things for her.

Eros has his own story, which is the negative space around Psyche’s story.  His is the story of how erotic love connects with the soul and matures into intimate love.

Eros represents erotic love.  He is portrayed in Greco-Roman mythology as a mother’s son, a male principle that arose from the feminine.  But even Love had to grow up and leave his mother.  Eros’ journey begins when he first catches sight of Psyche (having been sent to kill her by Aphrodite).  He pricks himself with one of his own arrows and falls in love with her.  This means he must change from devoting himself to beauty to devoting himself to soul.

Instead of killing Psyche, Eros has her carried away to a hidden castle where he lives with her.  But he is a god—love is an eternal principle, a divine thing, and it cannot live forever with that which is mortal.  The marriage between Eros and Psyche is inherently unsustainable as long as Psyche is not a goddess.  Eros has married beneath himself, captivated by Psyche despite knowing that she would age and one day die.  You might say he was hanging around a girl from the wrong side of town.

A story is no story without setbacks.  What did Eros do when Psyche lifted the lamp and viewed him in the light?  He flew away to his mother, Beauty.  Eros’ part of the story is about how erotic love must learn to stop revolving around the beauty (Aphrodite) that gave birth to him and start instead apprehending the soul inside what he loves.

The tale of Eros and Psyche is a tale of converting passionate love into intimate, enduring love.  Passionate love is intense and consuming—if you were to try to live that way on an everyday basis, it would burn your life away.  Enduring love is less intense, but it is what passionate love turns into when it learns to bear the light of day.

At the beginning of the story, the Soul (Psyche) is in love with Love itself, and by the end she has taken a hard look at Love and deepened her soul.  Love is already divine; the soul has to earn her divinity.  At the beginning, erotic love (Eros) is in love with the beauty that aroused it (his allegiance to Aphrodite) and has to sneak around to explore his connection with the soul (Psyche) and even leave her to return to beauty.  Ultimately, the soul wins him over and Eros gets to have, not just sexuality with beauty, but sexuality with soul.  Not just erotic love, but intimate love.

Put another way, the psyche falls in love with love, but love itself is in thrall to the beauty of the beloved and needs to learn to love the beloved’s psyche.  Love is the offspring of beauty and is devoted to beauty, but upon encountering the soul, love is awakened and made conscious.

The message here for the Soul is:  Do your own soul-work. A mature lover will see your depth and not run to Beauty to escape encountering the Soul.

The message here for Love is:  Beauty is enthralling, but connection to the Soul is what’s needed to create the enduring connection that will allow Love’s expression over a lifetime.

There’s one final post in this thread, Psyche Is Made Immortal . . .