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