true self

The 0 Libra/Aries Point ... Identity and Relationship -- Distilling the Astrology of September and October

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I wrote this article spontaneously last night to talk a bit about the North Node at 0 Libra and some messages that I have been getting about what has come up in the energies lately, and what I think these things are saying to us on a soul level about how we interact with, relate to and create in the world. I really feel this is a momentous time, and have found the vibes to be extremely intense. What I see right now, in summary, is that the time has come to release the past and fully choose the new direction. I feel the nodes on the 0 Libra/Aries point are marking that transition, and that the lessons they carry for us are a major key to our development going forward. My sense is that we are entering a phase of real time, on the ground, transformation and creation according to the truths and visions that we have been working with in the course of the past several years, and it is time to get clear on issues around our innate sense of identity and self expression.

To explain in brief: The nodes (north node and south node) are an axis point in the chart representing where the orbit of the earth and the moon intersect and are considered a point of fate. They circle the zodiac in 18 year cycles. The 0 degree point of Aries/Libra is a significant point because it falls on the world axis and is the first degree of the zodiac, thus it is a significator for major change and powerful initiation. The north node actually moves retrograde through the zodiac so even though it is at 0 degrees right now, it is the end of its phase in these signs for another 9 years. The nodes in astrology point to our soul work -- the area of our lives where we have gifts to uncover and addictions to kick. Aries/Libra are signs that are specifically about self and other and have been very prominent in the astrology of September & October (Venus Retrograde, Mercury Retro in Libra, The Aries Blood Moon Eclipse, and this whole axis of fate thing).

Since I have natal north node in Aries, I've been deeply reflecting on the dynamic we have been sitting with regarding relationships, and how that pertains to my own soul work, and the message that we are receiving as a world through this axis point and at this particular threshold. The happenings of the past month or so have been major in some way or another for most people that I know. I feel we've all been grappling with dynamics around how we show up in the world -- how we assert ourselves, how we yield to others -- and the complete balancing act therein. As an Aries north node (which is opposite the current Libra north node), I am well versed in the tendencies of these two signs and know all too well the vacillations between the extremes of Libra's obsession with people pleasing and Aries' "I could care less what they think" attitude. What this energy is really showing me, however, is another, more refined level to this polarity that I'm only now fully understanding.

I think sometimes when we go through life taking the warrior's perspective (e.g. Aries), we tend to feel that we are expressing our power through self assertion and directness by stating facts such as, "I feel X, I don't like that, I want this" and supposing it is our right to do so even if our feelings, wants, and desires are not in alignment with anyone else we are dealing with. We might even feel that we are even more right to assert our power if this is so. "Well somebody had to say it, right?" Sometimes we also come to this type of expression as a manner of survival. When we feel our needs are consistently ignored by others, we think if we just state them more loudly, maybe we will be respected. Generally, though, all this generates is more anger about what we're not getting and how people are not responding the way we want them to. We're not always necessarily shown by our elders and authority figures that there is a way to be firm about ones desires and freedom of expression without feeling the need to bulldoze those that oppose us.

This is of course where the Libra polarity plays in -- since Libra is all about diplomacy and tactful negotiation. However -- as a Libra moon, Libra south node myself, I know that even this can be done to excess. The whole energy of the past few months has had me seriously scrutinizing all of my not-so-great Libra traits. I saw myself being indecisive and wishy washy in moments when I felt what I wanted and what someone else wanted were different. I saw myself yielding like a contortionist under the delusion that I was "keeping the peace." And I noticed just how much time I spend fretting over whether or not something I said offended someone. But then something interesting happened: The part of me that used to get to this extreme and pull a 180 Aries-style table flip on my life gained some actual maturity and said to me -- You know, it's really your own fault you don't have the things you want!!! Why don't you try having the courage to actually ask for the things you want nicely, instead of assuming the absolute worst and running out of the place with guns blazing like there's a firing squad with a secret conspiracy against all of your hopes and dreams...? It's all about BALANCE, right? So create BALANCE! For you! And make it easy on yourself, will you?

See, because here's the deal. Beneath Libra's peace-keeping is an irrational fear that if the truth gets out and disharmony occurs, the end result is most likely a war. Beneath Aries' most self-serving motives, there is a deep desire for acceptance. Yield too much in life, and you are guaranteed to never have peace. Make it all about what you want, and you are unlikely to feel that people accept you. What lies in between is the understanding of two things -- the fact that ultimately all most of us truly desire is to be accepted and to do as we wish in peace. And so, is not the solution to the conundrum just as simple as accepting the truth of what we want and doing as we wish peacefully? I write this and it sounds like the most obvious wisdom I think I've ever written... but realizing that there is such a thing as a win/win situation when it comes to harmony in relationships and harmony with self has been kind of a breakthrough for me.

We don't enrich anyone's lives by agreeing with them all of the time. Our most pure and innocent fingerprint is the part of us that inspires, heals, and helps those around us. It's our RESPONSIBILITY to know ourselves, and fulfill our own pathway to happiness by sometimes letting other people know that Yes, we really do enjoy this activity/place/person, and if you don't like it -- go do something you like for a while and we'll meet up later! There's no need to justify what we want to do with any aspect of our lives -- and when we find ourselves justifying, resisting or fighting, it is so often just an insecurity arising from the fear that X person or group won't accept us for who we really are. If we really do know ourselves well, we can have peaceful relationships with other people because we know that we are free to live and let live. We don't have to control anyone to feel fulfilled and whole with that person, and we don't feel a need to yield to someone else's idea of reality just because they said so.

Knowing what you want in life, where you're going in life, and who you are inside intimately and well is basic self acceptance. Being at peace within yourself and these knowings, and honoring your own personal boundaries, there is no need for aggression. So when we meet another soul and it comes time to make a compromise, we can do so with complete truth.

Let people know who you are. Your friends, your family, your partner, your clients. Their acceptance, or non-acceptance of you has nothing to do with who you are as a being. Remain in hiding and you will have many regrets. Be you from a place of ease. When we're easy with life, we have harmony without losing ourselves. We can be us in lightness, in freedom. Not because anyone gave it to us, but because we gave it to ourselves. And in giving it to ourselves, we give it to everyone else we meet.

Saturn in Scorpio - Redux ... A Note on Inner Strength, Transformation and Spiritual Evolution

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I do not love the energy of Saturn in Scorpio. Probably because Scorpio also rules my 12th house and lord knows, the 12th house (as I have learned through this treacherous transit) can be an unpleasant room of faceless anxiety and emotional terribleness.  However, inexplicable emotional turmoil aside, I am appreciating this final ingress for the motivation it's given me to go the extra mile on the physical, emotional, and spiritual house cleaning left undone when Saturn went into enthusiastic Sag this December. I think what's happening with this little dip back into Scorpio that lasts throughout the summer is that since we have begun the Sagittarius visioning process in the earlier part of the year, we have a bit more clarity about WHAT our problems in life really are, and WHY we need to make the effort to resolve them. We now have a much more tangible understanding of how making certain changes really serves our immediate and long term goals. Additionally, there's likely been some progress made since last fall that is allowing for changes to take place now that were not possible then.  We are finishing up business, tying up loose ends, and making deep life adjustments that will be essential for our future growth -- and even more specifically -- our long term mental & emotional health.

Scorpio governs psychological processing, sexuality, shared resources, raw emotion, grief, birth and death. The past few years of Saturn in Scorpio has been one of experiencing the psychological blockages that we might have around any or all of the above issues, recognizing them, and working to open up a process of healing.

Saturn in Scorpio is really about commitment to our own empowerment. So often we think that this is as simple as saying "Go" only to find that authenticity as an actuality is an arduous task of parsing through one's own misgivings, societal conditioning, childhood wounding, etc. What Saturn in Scorpio shows us is the true nature of power -- A person does not become truly authentic, thus truly powerful, without enduring the full experience of their own darkness and going through the process of transmutation and transformation. Power in the form of wealth or status can display itself so brightly and seem so convincing, but if it is all a facade, it is ultimately a house of cards that will someday fall down. True power comes through humility, surrender, and commitment to the absolute truth of oneself on all levels.  Under the eye of Saturn we are directed to face ourselves, our fears, and the hidden ways we behave in order to recognize the way our falseness undermines our strength.

To be our whole self takes courage and integrity.  Scorpio energy in its ultimate is the pure, raw, and honest merging with the infinite mysterious power of primal chaos.  It is the fearless knowing and embodiment of our true soul -- the freedom from all the suppression and oppression.  We all want this, yet the profound fear of it can cause us to behave in so many strange ways -- clinging to the things that feel "safe" but are in fact illusory, attempting to control every outcome, and so forth.  Even the desperate and crisis driven "survival mode" Scorpionic folks can fall into is a type of emotional safety and psychological clinging.  The power of the Scorpio spirit, however, is its ability to be in crisis and remain open to the possibility of its own, inevitable death.  We cross these thresholds of fear -- that of life and death -- to meet transformation.  Invariably, in these moments of giving in to that which seems the most frightening, something about us does die, even if it is not our physical body.  But in the process we have met the true self and liberated it.

Though I would not describe these vibes as particularly pleasant, they are productive. We have a few months to excavate and steam clean some final dark, murky space in our psyche. Or at least bring it to light in some way to later set it free. It may be an unpleasant task but we're sure to feel better when it's over, and ready to move on to bigger and better things with a great deal more clarity and peace of mind.

A Season of Love & Surrender: Total Solar Eclipse on the Spring Equinox

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My writing about eclipses has lost some of its thunder due to the amazing abundance of great information already out there about what is going on in a technical sense. I felt -- Why add to the redundancy? Instead, I wrote a piece to cover everything I was just simply feeling intuitively about the Solar Eclipse chart, and in my own life. The biggest message I received in my contemplations of 29 Pisces was “The end of victim consciousness and realizing the divine order.” So I present some words on all that I have been seeing, feeling, and experiencing with reference to these recent and momentous astrological currents...

The old self is dying. The future is arriving. Our grief is profound, our new freedom amazing. What we want and wish for the past we know is no longer, and we let it go. Maybe joyfully, maybe with some reluctance. We love and embrace who we were, we celebrate everything that we’ve been through these tumultuous years -- we feel all of our pain, all of our joy, as one unified emotion of gratitude. Blessed to have known these octaves of experience, blessed to have received the gift of life – in this moment, at this time, at this place. Life is different now, the world is different now.  It has all been altered – permanently and irreversibly. For better or worse, everything has changed.

We knew all along that one day this change would come. At least, many of us did – if not consciously, then somewhere deep in our cells. We knew that there would be a moment in time when the world itself was to pass through a threshold of being and that every glorious romance of life as we once knew it would yield to the current of memory. We let go of what we cannot carry. We surrender even our most cherished parts. And we do so with the hope and the anticipation of a future that is beyond the bittersweet and delicate well of our past. A future that, until now, has resided only in dreams.

Today is the day we end our consciousness of victimhood and take full responsibility for our soul purpose. Now is the time to realize our authentic self expression, to create our high ideals, to be our dreamselves. This is the moment we make our final break from the old paradigms – purge the collective record of karma through magical thinking and free our value from sinking foundations. It is not the external world that needs to be righted, it is us. Ourselves. No outer form truly changes without the authentic evolution of inner conditions. Take off the masks. Especially the ones that seem the most real.

Release history, embrace love. This is not just new age tripe or a dismissal of the real. A friend offered this message at precisely the moment I fumbled to find these same words: “We can no longer teach through pain.” Have gratitude for your loss. Hold your pain in your arms and squeeze it with all your love and compassion. Then turn it over. Ask the universe to bring the love you feel for that old self into the present day, into your current relationships, into what you share with others. Remove your own bitterness, your own anger. Remove the bitterness, sadness, and regret of your ancestors. Tell them you will live out your destiny, whatever that may be, whatever it may mean. Be open to change. We live our destiny for the highest good of all peoples past and present. We step into our conscious power in order to completely surrender into divine service. Releasing, purifying, questing, feeling, experiencing – hurt, loss, joy, love, anger, grief, despair, elation – to know it, to know us, deeply, all of it – this is the purpose of life on earth.

There is a world beyond our suffering. It is deep and rich. Full and vibrant. There is a world beyond our fear. It is light and free. Open and endless. Do not tarnish it with doubt, heavy expectations or social chains. We are all capable of complete freedom. We are all capable of seeing reality – Oneness, divine harmony. We all can know our true center, which is the same as knowing truth. Sincere intent, humble gratitude, virtuous action, heartfelt humanhood. The simple path to joy.

In choosing to accept all that is offered to us in life, whether it looks just how we think it should or not, whether it ends up hurting in the end or not, whether it is the final destination or not, we choose to open to every possibility, every learning. We open to Tao, Source, The Divine Flow, God, Our Higher Self -- whatever words you choose to express the concept of deep, intimate connection with the unique rhythm of your own individual design and its place in the greater cosmos. The Divine Order of Pisces is in accepting life as it is, with no alterations, no manipulations, and to live from our heart – emanating, eternally, the infinite vibration of Divine Love -- and surrendering everything, absolutely everything, that could possibly interfere with that state of supreme acceptance.  Holiness.  Oneness.

We can all be this.  It is not something we even have to acquire.

A final word, from my Sifu: “Surrender to the Universe and the Universe will surrender to you.”