The Astrology of Purpose
Bonus Articles on:
Jupiter and Uranus: Attracting luck
Neptune in Aquarius and World Events
The healing power of Pluto
Attracting luck with Jupiter and Uranus
Neptune in Aquarius & the War in Iraq
URANUS
&
JUPITER: MAGNETIC ATTRACTION
One of the factors affecting everybody these days is Uranus' long transit through the sensitive and romantic sign of Pisces. Uranus settled into Pisces for good in 2004 and it intends to stay there all the way through the beginning of 2011. In the process it will indeed make some people more sensitive and romantic (Cancers, Virgos, Leos most particularly). For others, it will shake up their occupational life (Geminis, Aquarians, and Libras can expect some of this). It will affect everyone to some extent, and usually in a startling way.
Uranus operates on two different time scales. One is very slow, and the other is very fast. It takes seven full years for it to make its journey through a single sign. Changes will generally occur for you in the sector it transits, but changes that take place over the course of seven years sometimes don't really attract our attention. It's like they happened accidentally through the drifting of time. For example, at the beginning of its transit through your 11th house you may have one set of friends. At the end of its transit, you may have an entirely different group you hang out with. You didn't plan this, maybe weren't even thinking about it, but somehow it happened.
Uranus, though, also works with lightning quick speed. If you've experienced a moment where your life changed overnight--that's Uranus. Disturbances, agitation, suddenness, shock, surprise--those are the key concepts for Uranus. Memorize that list and you'll be somewhat prepared for what it does. Sometimes disturbances are just disturbing, and agitation just agitating, but sometimes suddenness is a great thing. As in suddenly winning the lottery, getting your chance to appear on Leno as a stand-up comic, or whatever other improbable thing you'd always wanted but never thought would happen. Uranus can make these kinds of things happen, and sometimes it does. It's the kind of planet that can wake you up in the middle of the night with an absolutely brilliant idea--or an inexplicable panic attack. It never telegraphs its intentions in advance, and sometimes it seems to act with no reason. If it all sounds a bit hard to handle, well sometimes it is.
Fortunately for everyone though, Uranus in Pisces offers a really good opportunity for the next 13 months. Jupiter in Scorpio and Uranus in Pisces are going to be in a happy trine by sign. Jupiter is the kind of planet Uranus tends to get along with anyway, and the fact that they'll be buddies for a year is apt to put it in a better mood than usual. When these two planets hook up the principle at work is magnetic attraction. For the next year or so, you and I and everyone else have an opportunity to put this principle to work.
The idea is to combine Uranus mind power (it's a big time mind power planet) with Jupiter's ability to attract good things. This is more of an affirmations and mental focus effect than a working real hard to make something happen effect. Uranus doesn't reward hard work; it believes in short cuts. It doesn't reward sensible planning either; planning just bores and annoys it. If you insist on making carefully laid plans in the sector Uranus is traveling for you, at some point it will kick over your apple cart and send all your little plans spilling all over everywhere, just because it's a contrary planet that way. So the thing is to avoid hard work and sensible plans in the sector Uranus is affecting in your life. Instead practice wrapping your mind around the idea that you can magnetically attract whatever you need in that sector. Practice believing that stuff will come to you, instead of you racing all over town to get it. If you need a mate, practice believing that you can, in fact, attract one. If you need a job, practice believing that you can attract opportunities to capitalize on. If you need answers to difficult personal problems, practice believing that they will come to you if you're willing to wait and listen to your inner voice for them.
This sort of principle is a lazy person's dream. It's also an efficient way to make use of the energy available in the universe. Many times it makes a lot more sense to keep your eyes open and see what kinds of opportunities develop than to frantically search for solutions. Keep calm and centered in the sector Uranus travels (not necessarily always easy), and focus your mind on attracting what you need. For example, if you need help with health issues, focus on attracting the right doctor. This kind of happy alignment between Jupiter and Uranus won't happen again for awhile so make the most of it while you can. And good luck!
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NEPTUNE
IN AQUARIUS:SERIOUS
BUSINESS
Neptune has been transiting Aquarius since 1998 and it will continue to do so into the early part of 2012. This placement has been affecting everyone on the planet in one way or another and it is a far more serious placement than a quick glance at planetary keywords would lead you to believe.
Neptune has a reputation for being a spiritual, nebulous, foggy, idealistic, slow-moving planet more concerned with unseen realms than daily life. Aquarius is said to be the sign of humanitarianism and universal brotherhood. They both seem like kind of nice, benign energies. What could possibly go wrong when they get together? In fact, what could possibly happen at all except that everyone could get a little more spiritual and humanitarian? Ah, but sometimes it doesn't pay to underestimate the power of the cosmic cycles these energies represent.
For, you see, Neptune in Aquarius is the placement responsible for the war in Iraq. Since the media keeps telling me the public is increasingly disillusioned with that war, Neptune in Aquarius may not seem like a very good thing at all. Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't. It is certainly not something to take lightly.
Let's look at how the combined energies of Neptune and Aquarius created the perfect storm that facilitated the US led invasion of Iraq. There was deception, confusion, and deceit right from the get-go. Weapons of mass destruction were not there, intelligence was faulty, lying was done, mistakes were made. All of these are Neptune specialties. The idea was in the air that it would be easy, that an American victory would be fast and painless, even though there were no clear-cut objectives at the time, and no pre-installed exit strategy. What could go wrong, the thinking went. The hope was bandied about that Iraqis would react to liberation by dancing peacefully in the streets, rather than setting off car bombs in crowded civilian areas.
The lure of easy victory was an illusion, indeed, a delusion, and that, for better or worse, is another thing Neptune specializes in. The delusion that things will be easy, when in fact, they will not be. The tremendous sacrifices of soldiers and civilians--more Neptune energy. The chaos and dissolution of an entire social structure, you can't get more Neptune than that, for Neptune is the very planet of chaos and dissolution. The uneasy feeling that perhaps the whole thing was a terrible mistake--that's Neptune too. Even the role the religious convictions of President Bush played is a Neptunian influence, for it deals with matters of faith and religion.
And yet...the underlying reasons for that war were, at root, humanitarian. Not only the humanitarian objective of getting an entire nation out from underneath the horrifically oppressive rule of a very bad dictator, but even more profoundly, the idea of bringing democracy and freedom to people who had no other chance at it. That's the Aquarian side of the equation. President Bush has, on a couple of instances, eloquently articulated the faith that freedom, justice, and equality can be brought to a people, and that this is something worth doing. In true fixed sign fashion, he is sticking to that faith, and not giving up on the enterprise. That's Aquarius.
Indeed, Aquarius is not generally seen as a warlike sign, but it is the sign most willing of all to fight, and to fight very hard, for democracy, freedom, and self-determination. Aquarius never backs down from a war when human liberty is at stake. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? History, I suppose, must be the judge of that. At the moment Saturn in the opposite sign of Leo is reminding everyone that freedom and democracy don't necessarily arise spontaneously from the shards of a broken system, but that an often painful and tedious building effort must take place as well. Saturn in Leo is here to teach us that all freedom is hard work.
But...what does all this Neptune in Aquarius mean to you and I personally? For some I suppose, it inevitably means a confrontation with conviction, to support or oppose the war effort as a matter of conscience. Almost no sign is more conscientious than Aquarius, and the consciences of reasonable people do not always reach the same conclusions. For others, here and abroad, it means heart-wrenching Neptunian sacrifices. Sacrifices that the planetary energy of the month compels us to respect and honor.
For the rest of us, I think it means something profound and complex about human nature. It seems that Neptune, as a prodder of collective and individual human progress, believes that sometimes you and I won't make the effort, won't reach at all for something noble and unlikely, if we aren't tricked into being deluded that it will be effortless. Neptune wants us to reach, reach high, reach for an ideal, a belief, for something meaningful. It wants us to try, even if our initial efforts end in failure and loss. Neptune in Aquarius is an unsettling reminder that progress is often fueled by unrealistic hopes, misguided optimism, muddled motives, and even outright error. Without the influence of something like Neptune, human beings would never explore the reach of their potential.
As we head toward 2006, Neptune is encouraging each and every one of us to explore the reach of our potential in some key area in our lives. Saturn, moving slowly toward inexorable opposition to Neptune by the middle of next year, is encouraging us to remember something equally important. That faith, hope, and optimism by themselves are not enough. That progress in our lives takes work, dedication, and requires good, realistic decisions based on truth, not fantasy. Look closely at the areas affected by Aquarius and Leo in your chart. They will be significant all throughout 2006, and in 2007 as well. Give these placements for your full respect, for they may change your life in more profound and far-reaching ways than you even imagine.
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Astrologers like to say that Pluto affects both world events and generations of people. They point, for example, to the years when Pluto was in Leo and say that its influence on the children born with Pluto in that sign are responsible for the sexual revolution. Theoretically, I suppose, that would mean that with Pluto in Sagittarius that the kids born between 1995 and 2007 would be the most cheerful Pluto generation ever. Sagittarius is a pretty cheerful sign.
Pluto, on the other hand, is not really a very cheerful planet. It's a planet that tends to disapprove of things unless they operate in accordance with its ideas of moral law. It operates outside of the territory most of the other planets are familiar with. It's critical of existing conditions usually, but it's also, in its own inscrutable way, the most fair of all the planets. It just insists on truth, and if you can hack the truth, it will heal you. And heal whatever sector of the world it's focusing on as well. It usually, however, manages to greatly upset the people and things it's healing.
Pluto is actually almost done with its transit through Sagittarius. A couple of years from now, it will be in the very conservative sign of Capricorn. In the meantime, you can basically ignore it if you want. Or...since this is a page where we view everything as an opportunity, you can do the opposite and enthusiastically work its remaining influence in Sag. You can joyfully work at cleaning up your affairs in the house in which it's transiting for you. (Count round the zodiac starting at your sun or rising sign to identify its house). Pluto clears things out so that there's room for the new. It just hacks away at old and rotting and underbrush, leaving things all sterile and barren for a bit, and then plants seeds for a new and improved life in that sector. For example, if you've got Pluto in your 11th house of hopes and wishes and you've been clinging to the hope that one day you'll be a rock star even though you're well over 50 and don't play an instrument... well, Pluto can help.
Pluto can point out to you that the reason you wanted to be rock star was for the attention and that if you give up all ideas in your head of having undiscovered talent or living some life filled with improbable glamour, you can actually get a lot of attention for the person you actually are. It may seem silly, I mean on some level you know you're not going to be a rock star, but...the truth is we all cling to these kinds of things even if we don't realize it. We cling to a past we didn't have, a present that isn't actually occurring and a future that isn't in the cards. We cling to fears, to survival habits, jobs, spouses, beliefs, you name it, we cling. That's what makes Pluto so darn upsetting and healing at the same time. The things we cling to so often hold us back. It's ironic really.
We cling to a relationship with Mom, even though Mom has been problematic and hurtful almost since day one. But we wish she wasn't that way, so we cling. We cling to the hope, we cling to the effort, we cling to the habits. It's tough, tough, tough getting to the point where you can say "Listen, Mom, if you're going to criticize me like that, I'm going to have to hang up the phone and not talk to you. I can't have conversations like this anymore." It seems horrible, cold, and frightening--like not having a Mom at all. And yet, darn that mysterious Pluto, he shows time and again that if you take the difficult actions, stuff can undergo amazing transformation. Mom, against all odds, drops a lifelong habit of criticism and suddenly you find yourself in a pleasant, loving, almost warm relationship. Go figure. Or Mom does nothing of the sort and you grieve the loss of a relationship you wish you had only to find out that suddenly, the siblings you've been estranged from for years are open and accessible to you and great people. Your devotion to a relationship that didn't really exist kept your real allies away. Ironic for sure.
Sometimes sad. Sometimes tough. Sometimes scary and painful. Sometimes amazingly exhilarating. That's Pluto. No astrologer really understands Pluto completely; we try, but he's bigger than we are and hold secrets of the universe that peoplekind hasn't quite got the grasp of yet. Pluto's deep. He's the very planet of deepness. Deep is hard for human beings, so with Pluto, we end up just doing the best we can.
If you could stand some healing in the house Pluto's transiting now, you can meditate on the theme of letting go. Just letting go of what you cling to that you didn't, in fact, ever like, although you've always pretended to. It's tough to let go, but if you need to in order to get to where you want to go-you can do it.
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