Note to readers: This is the today’s Tuesday edition of Planet Waves, posted here as a sample of what [sometimes] arrives in weeks when there’s no monthly horoscope. This is premium content, usually available only to subscribers. You can subscribe using one of the options on the top right of this diary frame.
Good Morning!
As you may have figured out by now, Tuesday horoscopes are on an as-available basis. Currently I write two monthly horoscopes, which run the first two Tuesdays that the Sun is in a new sign. The rest of the Tuesdays, I send a letter. Today, you get a letter: about a chart I will be using later today to write Friday’s horoscope — that is, Saturday’s Aquarius New Moon.
Simplified version of the Aquarius New Moon. for the full version side by side with this one, tap on image. Clue about charts: the houses and signs overlay one another in a seemingly random pattern. The house cusps are in black. They intersect the signs in the middle of a sign; the numbers around the outside of the wheel tell you where that happens.
If you are in a hurry and want some useful information, here is my summary of the chart: you may need to take an odd path to figuring out what you want. You may need to ‘back into your desire’, or find it by making what you perceive as a mistake; you may discover what you want by an experience of conflict that resolves itself quickly and then leaves you with real information. Therefore you need to be mindful of experiences that teach you what you don’t want, and therefore provide information about what you do want.
One other point. What you want and how you feel about that influences your environment — particularly your mental environment but also your direct ‘physical’ environment. Your conscious desire changes the world around you, and has an influence on elements of life that you thought were ‘too powerful’ to respond to you. Therefore, focus on what you want and observe how the local cosmos responds. Observe how you respond.
One last point. This is a good time to observe your conditioning patterns and see the ways in which you are influenced by groups and by the media. Until we do something about it, we are all brainwashed by the influences of others who are trying to tell us what is supposed to be good for us (a luxury car, an awesome new deodorant, chewing gum that makes you hallucinate). To move out of that level of consciousness primarily takes awareness.
Now, how did I get there? Are these kinds of declarative statements really possible? (Note to English majors: astrology writing is a literary format, in which I am expected to give you useful material that you can actually apply to your life. But this is a kind of mental trick; it’s useful because I interpret it in a way that slants it in that direction.
Let’s look at the chart for Saturday’s New Moon. This chart is a simplified version, with most of the planets and points removed. If you want to see this contrasted with a more complex version, tap this link. I’ve left the ones that are directly in the current game. I will name them in order, from the top, anticlockwise: Mars retrograde, Saturn retrograde, Pluto, Mercury, Sun, Moon, Chiron, Neptune, Venus and Jupiter. The glyphs are all intuitive and you already recognize some of them.
Notice that there are planets with lower numbers next to them (from 3 to 6). They are talking to one another, and working as a set. Then there are planets with higher numbers next to them and they are talking to one another and working as a set (those in the 25 to 26 range). The sky is a little like a radio. Planets tune into frequencies based on their degree position, and relate to other planets in that range. Easy.
The definition of astrology. Photo by Eric Francis.
The planets in the 3 to 6 range are in aspect to Mars retrograde (the purple guy at the top). The ones in the 25 to 26 range are the Aquarius New Moon, conjunct Chiron and Neptune.
Reading astrology, the thing that is odd or unique can call the tune. Mars retrograde stands out in this regard. Mars has retrograded far enough back in Leo to be mixed up in the Saturn-Pluto square. You can see that because Saturn (green thing on the left) and Pluto (purple thing on the bottom) are within one degree apart, in a square aspect (see the line that connects them? It’s not necessary, you can see the aspect without it because planets in the same degree range are in aspect to one another.)
Toward the right, Venus and Jupiter in Pisces have moved into the aspect structure. When I am describing all the planets in the 3 to 5 range, that is called an aspect structure: the one that involves Mars retrograde and the Saturn-Pluto square. This is quite a mix of tension and gratification. Notice how Mercury is opposite Mars: that’s the conflict (Mercury opposite Mars can have the flavor of a blow-up or of psychic tension), which is largely mental in nature. It’s about an idea, and that could well be within you, trying to work itself out.
When I say, “you may need to take an odd path to figuring out what you want. You may need to ‘back into your desire’, or find it by making what you perceive as a mistake,” that is the influence of Mars retrograde talking to, and influencing, and being influenced by, Saturn and Pluto: an aspect that is changing civilization as we speak. Where Mars encounters that is where the individual will meets the big forces that shape the world. Example: if you lose your job (presumably as a result of Saturn-Pluto restructuring), you then get to figure out what you want to do next (Mars involvement: desire, but it’s retrograde, it’s an ‘odd’ way to figure something out, but it works).
New York City skyline. Photo by Eric Francis.
Then there is the New Moon group, at 25-26 Aquarius. (By the way, they are really at 26-27 because once you go over 25 even you are into 26th degree; but I’m stating it this way to match the chart illustration.) As I explained in a recent edition, when a slow moving setup such as the Chiron-Neptune conjunction is met by a close event from the Sun and the Moon, it brings out the nature of the slow moving setup.
And what would that be?
Chiron conjunct Neptune is about seeing our environment for what it is: the psychic environment, the digital environment, and any environment involving exclusive groups of any kind. By exclusive I mean anything for which you need membership, a password, a device, or to believe in an idea. The Neptune fog is being clarified and focused by the high-precision energy of Chiron. We are getting to see through the fog, which includes seeing the potential for creative movement and the toxic potential of the environment that is around us. If we get good information, it will give us some ideas for how to respond — not merely present a hopeless situation.
I have been learning a lot from the Abraham-Hicks material under this Mars retrograde in Leo, and today’s daily quote sums up this point nicely.
“Anytime you feel negative emotion, stop and say: Something is important here; otherwise, I would not be feeling this negative emotion. What is it that I want? And then simply turn your attention to what you do want…. In the moment you turn your attention to what you want, the negative attraction will stop; and in the moment the negative attraction stops, the positive attraction will begin. And — in that moment — your feeling will change from not feeling good to feeling good. That is the Process of Pivoting.”
Yours & truly,
I respectfully disagree with something. It has been my experience that those that tell people that all they have to do is “simply turn your attention to what you do want…. In the moment you turn your attention to what you want, the negative attraction will stop; and in the moment the negative attraction stops, the positive attraction will begin” have been lucky. I have heard this stuff for many years and the alarm bells of the realist in me go off every time I read or hear it. It sounds like the Joel Osteen stuff about how we all can realize our deepest desires if we just focus on what we want and get rid of the negative things holding us back. Well I am here to say that this doesn’t work for everyone. I know too many people that have bought that ideology and done that change in perception and guess what? They didn’t get to “do what you want.”
That motivational stuff has a hidden meaning.
First let me make a disclaimer: I am all for improving yourself and being more positive and even for striving for what you want but with the added caveat that if you don’t succeed, it isn’t always because you didn’t try hard enough or think positive enough or “let go” of fears enough….it just might be because things bigger than you are have prevented it. Failure doesn’t mean we should stop trying; to stop trying is to stop living because part of being alive is about striving for something you want and improving yourself. So I am not saying it is ok to give up and blame the universe for things you didn’t get. I am saying you must know that many times, through no fault of your own, you will not get what you want even when you do the motivational things like perception change. I would tell people to change their negative perceptions to positive, work at getting what you want but know when the universe is telling you that you won’t get some of it (know when to call it quits) and change your perceptions to accept that. I see too many people damaged by the guilt and blame they heap on themselves (and society heaps on them) for not getting what they want (after working so hard for it) when they could just accept it and think that maybe what they wanted wasn’t what they needed and some higher force knows that and prevented them from realizing their desires. We must have compassion for ourselves and others.
Having made that disclaimer, I must say that the motivational stuff hidden meaning goes back to that big American individualism and idealism lie: the one that says you CAN get what you want if you are positive enough or work hard enough or do the right thing; the converse being that if you fail it is YOUR fault and yours alone. This sets people up for terrible expectations and self-loathing blame. It also absolves the lucky ones of feeling like they should help out or have compassion for those less fortunate.
It is a thing called LUCK that is often the difference between the successful ones that worked hard and the unsuccessful ones that worked hard. Most people hate that concept because it is unfair. They also hate it because it is far easier for those that are successful (because of luck) to blame those that are not so they can feel better about the fact that they got something they wanted even though they are no more or less deserving than the next guy that also worked hard and was positive and so on but that didn’t get what he wanted.
The guy that was working with Bernie Madoff said in an interview that when he started making so much money with so little effort, he started telling himself that he deserved to have that much money, that he was somehow superior to other people and his getting that money with so little effort was proof of that superiority. I see many people thinking along the same lines in the modern “prosperity gospel” ideology that is being preached these days.
The truth is, you can be positive and change yourself and improve yourself and work hard until the cows come home but if the society in which you live and times in which you live are not conducive for you to “get what you want” you will not….and it won’t be because of some personal failing on your part. That is one of the Big Lies we are all told in this country and it is time to put that one to death. The awful truth of it is, some people are luckier than others. The worst thing is, those lucky ones often prefer being smug about that and not wanting to help those that are not lucky.
The most generous people, the best tippers, the most giving and compassionate are often those that have had to live with hardship. I am not talking about just finances here, I am talking about sympathy, emotional support, empathy. Their hardship taught them compassion. I know a woman that has had the same job for many years and her husband has also. Because neither of them have ever been laid off or fired, they have zero compassion for those that have been. They stopped associating with a longtime friend of theirs because that friend got laid off. Just when their friend needs their emotional support the most, they turned away. Or another couple that have been happily married for years; the wife’s best friend suddenly finds herself dumped for another woman. Instead of offering the newly single woman emotional support, the married woman avoided her.
I think lucky people fear the very luck that gave them their success in getting what they want because they innately KNOW that luck is fickle and though they will not openly admit it to themselves, they fear it deeply. It is this fear that makes them avoid the recently laid-off friend or the friend that is having marriage problems or kid problems when that friend needs their emotional support at that time. They fear their luck may change too so they avoid the unlucky one because that laid off friend (or divorcing friend or suffering friend) is a constant reminder that it could happen to them too. Their lucky lives have taught them no compassion.
It is time to stop the Big Lie and be honest with ourselves; we won’t all get what we want even if we change our perspective, be more positive, name it and claim it, or work hard. Many of us will just have to make do with what we have and learn to deal with it. And we don’t need to beat ourselves up because of that nor let anyone else blame us for our not getting what we want. Every time I say or write this people around me tell me I am “being so negative” and I tell then that no, I am just being realistic. Reality is what it is; people try to tell you that you make your own reality but that just isn’t so. There’s too much blame and guilt going around as it is; people are damaged by it and it is so unnecessary and so counterproductive.
I would rather be cynical than foolishly positive, realistic than delusional and sweep away the cobwebs of the fog-like mentality that we have been living under. Every parent knows they have to teach their kids that we can’t all have what we want because some people want things that would cause other people distress or pain. A major hallmark of attaining adulthood is the ability to delay gratification and to understand that not everyone can have what they want in life; life is unfair. We must accept this even as we continue to be positive, strive for what we want, and be compassionate with ourselves and others when we don’t get what we want. To me, that is a more realistic, healthy, and honest message to send out.
Amen, amen, and AMEN, carecare7. My entire life could be described as the PhD program (potentially) leading to the insights that you have so eloquently described. I was raised a Christian Scientist– and by that I mean mandatory Sunday School attendance until I went to college, and some attendance at CS-run grade school and high school. I have lived in the San Francisco Bay area, that hotbed of ‘new age’ belief systems, for close to 50 years. So my encounters with our born-in-the-USA ‘mind-only’ school of protestant Christianity/Humanism have been continual. Long ago I noticed that it has played out in a neo-Victorian comforting of the comfortable and afflicting of the afflicted.