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Inside
Planets
Ellias Lonsdale
©
North Atlantic Books
Berkeley, California
Inside Planets
Copyright © 1995 by Ellias Lonsdale. No portion of this book, except for
brief review, may be reproduced in any form without written permission of
the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.
Published by
North Atlantic Books
PiO©N Box 12397;
Berkeley, CA 94712
Cover art by Michael Abbey
Cover and book design by Paula Morrison
Printed in the United States of America
Inside Planets is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sci-
ences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an edu-
cational and crosscultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and
artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of the arts, sciences, humanities, and
healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind,
body, and nature.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lonsdale, Elias, 1947—
Inside planets / Ellias Lonsdale.
p. cm.—(Inside astrology ; v. 1)
ISBN 1-55643-212-7
1. Astrology. 2. Planets—Miscellanea. 3. Magic. I. Title.
IT. Series.
BF1724.L66 1995
133.5'3— dc20 95-19457
CIP
12 3 4 5.6 7 8.9/99 98 %97.996.505
This book is dedicated to all those who tested us so severely to make
sure we would carve this out of our flesh and make it live.
Acknowledgments
I would like to acknowledge with gratitude the co-writing of Theanna
or Sara, as the sparkling center of this book. Tremendous editorial
assistance was provided by Mark Borax. Hina, Bhasa, Margie
McArthur, and so many friends gave of energy and time. This labor
of love is a community accomplishment.
Contents
Pretace Src ee ost ae eer tere meee aa atetatone eres Sonboneee Vill
INtroductiOtiew asst eee een te ee ernener ee ee oe eer XIV
The Sun and the Earthy. 7.22 0
eee ene eases
ee3.22 arent 1
Sun and Earth in the Signs:
SUMOVERaHG Bar Odach ene
tere ne ae 5
SUPP ANGLE GEM IID GC OUISES onan eee rene ae i reco 15
Te: MOOS as oto ee Le ee oe ee eee ete ae a Ae 25
CANTO OM APSLITC:S LOTS ae tare tne See ee ere ea 26
THe IM OOH. LEH OUSESwen te eye eee 36
Mier curry a ieterticie ena ghee tes ste nate otee ate eee ee 47
Mercury THIE SICHSanne te eneee = ee ee eee ee 48
IMEFCUTY 11TH esPIOUSCS mati ee eee eee 58
VOTIUS Aaiics 4 oh ATA eee hale non hk cae See eee eal (ee ese eae eee pe 69
VENUS IIL The: SIONS tow se Mere an ee 70
VENUS Ti THE HOUSES: seen termes ee ae ee 78
Mars toa Peet te, wee hae a8 es tO ee Ta Le 87
MarSi11 THEISIONS cee ance te eee en Oe 88
Mars tte FIOUSES sae vane oe Atte ee 97
The Asteroid Belt gatuee pent ea ee 107
NOSUA a rere Ri eae Gee a era a eee ee 109
VESi@ TTL TNE SIGHS we aeeeriee caer eee ee 110
Vestanin the Houses... ce ne ne ee 117
JUNO ora ree ee 125
Juno tn the Signs 4 a ee ee ee 126
Juno in the Houses
(CBR LE TAD SIRTS me ate a 148
OPC Chel OUSES Rh
athe Ne ye fo 156
PAE RS 1 5 ssosesciesb aioe Hear ee Me ea 167
SHOUTS M2 SYA TOS rh oe Aen OE 168
ECNLASS IE ELMOUSES HME, Ch ee ec onan seeder en. 176
WRSTRTN
GSTS: Seolsac oles nc tr Si UT re a
DUP SICTAUTEL CRS IOFIS NR See Ces Ae TO OAR cs, WL LG 186
WLEDINCTATL LC TAO USCS rea WN eee eo ea eRe ad os 194
SUL Ud reeset sie ete en ON i he od st 2 aldn ater ncupiigic t
SALUT TOR OICNIS Ok Mel, nineteen tule ee a es a culek 204
SLU TPATISE CAILOUSES aye nem Mea et hea ne ate eee. 214
IN VOLNE MOTIVE 5 Weg Gn eee, He See Oe Sct RRA aE Ce IS eo!
EPG OMeca dat iewI Onsen. ae nantes ease 225
Al DIG NOME AAMC TAQUSES AAG 12> seats Saee st sees 233
ANTS sre rare erm a eee eee See haku apehadSiaotha So ete
Cy AMS UCTS SNA asacet ad: Oates eee eanianns Sey 245
WF AUSHIMI NEA OUSCS Hare coe oe ae eee see lee Lee 254
STCUTIS: Gissey Ch an PS
INS Ae Ac Raa SOE GnRH ere aca aioe:
INE DEiilea Muticrot OTIS rts Reis a epee) Pilane lear 267
IED cal ELCMAOUSCS etn niay te tare es teak sen ga)
DhalPar c. oie
| RS oR ON a ee eS an ay vee Ene or IRE
DTP POAT SI Se fc8 nae soar Beare WIN SOOT NAO CE 289
PU TOMNGLILE. IOUSES Aarne acai ae bet see bes Sea 298
AY OTC MEME
PSTLC Aare Ee oA crn ee eine ens lees wets Sinhiesett
Preface -
nside Planets is part of a new tapestry of sacred literature woven
|ees Ellias Lonsdale by Master Weavers, using a past and future
loom in the guise of astrology books. Firmly rooted in world history,
philosophy, contemporary culture and metaphysics, Inside Planets
ushers you into a wildly expansive and previously untapped realm —
the realm of an inner astrology first used in the mystery temples of
ancient Atlantis. This realm has never before been excavated with
such adroitness, authenticity and depth, not to mention practical
relevance and sheer undiluted emotional impact.
Inside Planets is the first installment of a great visionary work in
Atlantean Astrology and Star Genesis—two fields in which Ellias
and his wife Theanna-Sara have been channelling many vast volumes
of information since 1987— the year of Harmonic Convergence. This
book is more than a book; it’s a key to the Universe past, present and
future. The section on the outer planets (Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto)
in itself constitutes a concise map of the evolution and destiny of the
human race.
Ellias Lonsdale has devoted his life to the study of deep astrology
through readings, workshops, talks, classes and copious notes which
he makes in his journal each night, poring over the meaning of how
the stars relate to us all. During the last seven years, ve had the
delight to participate in a small circle of people who meet in Ellias’
home on a weekly basis and work this material into the roots of our
being.
Even if you’re new here, you know it’s Ellias entering the room.
Well over six feet tall, with salty beard and straggly locks, he conjures
up the image of a beat poet or Old Testament prophet, mixed with
Vili
Preface
a bit of Merlin, Gandalf and a stuffed teddy bear. He moves half-
gracefully, half-awkwardly, as if the world around him fits a bit too
tightly for comfort. Slouching slightly, shyly nodding to one or two
of the familiar faces, he carries a couple of thick looseleaf binders
and well-scribbled papers to the large chair beside the wood stove,
where he arranges materials and sets up the tape recorder. After sit-
ting contemplatively for several minutes, he snaps his fingers to acti-
vate the tape. In a soft but very clear and expressive voice, Ellias says,
“Okay, we’re gonna do it in about ninety seconds. Ninety seconds,
everyone.”
Then you're off on a two- to three-hour Journey to the Inside that
never stops. We rarely discuss astrology in these classes. Several peo-
ple who have been coming for years still haven't learned the first thing
about yods, trines, or conjunctions. We’re too busy sinking deeply
into the pool of wonder and communion to bother with such things.
If youre interested in those features, many other astrology books will
explain them to you. But if you're ready—not to learn yet another
mental-based, hide-bound theory but to board a direct spaceship to
the Other Side—then you may be ready for this book. It’s written in
such a way that it can’t be read like normal books. If you try to read
it without opening your heart and mind, it will dribble away into so
many words, like the visionary material of the great Austrian seer
Rudolf Steiner. But if you are ready to enter a new state of con-
sciousness, this book will get you started on a journey you're not
likely to come back from any time soon.
As you turn these pages and sink deeply into the texture of mys-
tery, you'll find that the astrology of outward semblances is con-
spicuously absent. Inside Planets tells you nothing about the planets,
nothing about Mercury in the Fifth House, or Saturn in Pisces. No—
this book goes straight to Source, taking you directly inside each
planet as a vital living being, with as much or more outward com-
plexity and inward consistency as the most fascinating person or ani-
mal. The planets truly come alive as magnificent beings in these pages,
not as if they were written by a mediocre fantasy novelist but with
verve, wonder and terror as in high drama.
INSIDE PLANETS
You won't find any representational astrology here. Venus doesn’t
stand for anything, doesn’t symbolize anything. Venus just is, as much
as you are or | am—perhaps even more so. In the early part of this
century, the humanistic astrologers Marc Edmund Jones and Dane
Rudhyar liberated us from the fatalistic approachof medieval astrol-
ogy. They took the power from the high-and- mighty archaic planet
gods, and offered it back to human beings through what was then a
revolutionary psychological approach. Mars, Venus and the rest were
reconceived to stand for internal forces that Jung, Freud and Adler
had begun to map out in the human psyche.
Here, at the end of the century, Inside Planets goes one leap fur-
ther by invoking each planet as a mighty full-bodied organism with
a character and soul of its own, a living breathing force with passion
and humor and purpose that changes as it moves through the houses
and signs. In this incredible waketime story for everyone who still
believes, each planet grabs you by the imagination and drags you to
the campfire of the Greatest Story Ever Told. Far more than an astrol-
ogy guide, this book resuscitates from the ancient mystery temples
of Atlantis an elegant and inspiring pantheon of wonder, terror, and
creative solution to the problems that plague the soul. Obviously, the
only sensible explanation for how any of this can work is— magic.
Magic. The first of Ellias’ many magical volumes to appear on
Inside Astrology, Inside Planets delivers a consistent high magic that
only deepens through repeated reading over the years. This is a blessed
relief to anyone like myself, who has grown thin and malnourished
on the diet of quick-fix metaphysics currently glutting the market-
place.
So much New Age esoterica falls for the trap of exalting the light
without embracing the shadow. The result is a crown-heavy, root-*
weak spirituality that falls over if you push too hard on it. Modern
metaphysics has too much harp and not enough drum for my taste,
too much talk and not enough action or, as Ellias would put it, too
much false Uranus and not enough true Mars. Anyone used to a
steady diet of this, be forewarned! The evolutionary vehicle you're
about to enter is about as ephemeral as a bulldozer.
Preface
For twenty-five years, Ellias has blazed a visionary path through
astrology, fulfilling the promise of his early training with Marc
Edmund Jones during Jones’ last years. Jones can be regarded as the
greatest Western astrologer of the twentieth century, even though his
other outstanding student, Dane Rudhyar, eclipsed the great teacher’s
popular influence. Ellias traded the heady, laboratory-like, highly
psychological approach of Rudhyar and Jones for a living, breathing,
revelatory wilderness astrology which is here introduced to the world
outside Santa Cruz in full measure.
Seven years ago, faced with the career choice to become a profes-
sional astrologer, I had my first reading with Ellias, who said, “To be
a true astrologer you must never know what Aries or Virgo means,
but find out all over again what it means in this new person who sits
before you.” That has proven wise counsel throughout the years. I
have never forgotten it.
Beyond the informative content of Inside Planets, the book is filled
with shrill cries and wild hollows, wilderness spaces where things
can be born and die between the dense layers of information. Noth-
ing in here is smug and self-assured. Everything breathes and dances
in an interconnected dance of passion that summons each of us to
the flame, to burn everything but our true core natures.
Even though I’ve been reading the rough version of this manu-
script for four years, and had my own copy to refer to during my stud-
ies of thousands of birth charts, this book of high magic continues to
astound me with its cutting-edge visionary insight into the myster-
ies at the heart of creation. This book names names, opens gates and
answers some primal questions to which so many contemporary teach-
ers are afraid to commit themselves, such as “What’s the nature of
good and evil?” “Where did we come from, and where are we going?”
and, perhaps most crucial of all, “What can I do about it?”
Inside Planets fires the heart with fierce desire for liberation and
transformation, and gives the hungry mind something solid to chomp
on. It also challenges contemporary astrology and metaphysics to
shake the tunnel-visionary dust off its eyes and come down from its
ivory tower into the blowing ocean and bellowing Earth.
xi
INSIDE PLANETS
We need an astrology of the ghetto as much,as the ashram. We
need a metaphysics that truly nourishes us, rather than leaving us
hungry half a lifetime later. We need a spirituality that sticks to the
ribs when the weekend in Maui is long gone and alarm clocks ring
in New York City and Peoria. Ellias Lonsdale [Link] a Vital astro-
logical sourcespring, a motherlode of inward wealth, a red-hot forge
of passion and renewal, an owner’s manual for the care,and feeding
of the late twentieth-century human soul. Astrology will never again
be quite so complacent and, well, outer. ’
Today just happens to be a Monday evening in the Santa Cruz
Mountains. Ellias is about to light the fire. Park your car alongside
the winding drive. Walk up the porch steps. Kick off your shoes. Pour
yourself some spring water. Grab a pillow. Relax. Remember the
words of nineteenth-century physicist Michael Faraday, who said,
“Nothing is too wonderful to be true.” The door is open. Come in.
Mark Jeffrey Borax
Soul Level Astrologer
Santa Cruz
15 August, 1994
Introduction
he planets in astrology are virginal territory for a new species to
explore. Under the mental astrology of old, each planet was
viewed as a hypothetical construct, whose possible influence or cor-
respondence to human behavior marked out the familiar territory
of shared assumptions, and dressed it up to look new and exciting.
In this book, we are launching an extended project of moving all the
way inside the actual planetary forces and the entire sphere of astrol-
ogy, as a challenge to evolve further into full-scale participation within
Earth and cosmos.
It is now the time, in our collective cycle, to become united with
a much deeper and more fundamental level of reality. Astrology is
an excellent focus for going into these deeper roots of the human
experience. We view the surrounding space and the rhythms of devel-
opment with confidence in a guiding power, and with great interest
and enthusiasm for the journey that each life embodies. Star-know-
ing breeds star-living, which balances Earth immersion with keep-
ing in immediate touch with greater worlds.
In this volume we are considering the seven classical planets known
to the ancients; the three galactic planets discovered in modern times;
the four main asteroids, which have never been previously deeply
fathomed; a small new planet, which is ushering in the future; and
the Earth itself, as landing place and point of many fixations—and
taking each one of these through each sign and each house, with a
description intended to confront, awaken and transform. There are
no wasted words, and absolutely no elaboration of either astrologi-
cal clichés or common biases.
This book will take readers as far as they are willing to go, anda
xii
INSIDE PLANETS
little bit further. The authors, with spiritual guidance, are thoroughly
convinced that the time for appeasing people and keeping them in
their place is now past. We are all called into a crisis of restoring truth
to the center of our lives. We dedicate this book to the open-ended
process of each individual’s confronting greater dimensions of capac-
ity and heavier depths of self-obstruction than they had previously
imagined. at
We would like to suggest a few basic approaches to working with
this book. Each of these suggestions can be adapted to,a wide vari-
ety of life situations, and should never be taken as a dogmatic for-
mula or prescription.
We would suggest that the text as a whole be approached from a
non-ordinary consciousness prepared ahead of time by going within,
quieting, centering, removing distractions, and asking to be led in
the spirit to find the meaning and value that is rightful at this time.
There are several ways in which such a reflective mood can be deep-
ened and strengthened. Some options include the following:
- Playing music that we feel comes close to expressing or
confirming our own inward nature.
- Taking such friends as crystals, specially chosen pictures or
images, and any other touchstones of value that are more
challenging than sentimental, and involving these in the
process of contemplating this material.
* Reading in a natural setting if possible, or on retreat or deeper
vacation; or in a condition of having recently come to a higher
point in awareness and being therefore specially receptive.
* Providing sufficient time and space to go into further
introspection, perhaps writing down in a free stream of
consciousness whatever comes through without censoring
anything.
Another way to absorb and assimilate the contents of this book,
especially in sections which apply to yourself or others close to you,
is to lie down in a comfortable yet firmly supported position, put
XivV
Introduction
some kind of covering over your eyes, and have a trusted friend or
companion read a particular description aloud slowly, agreeing before-
hand that the one who reads is to present what is being read with
equanimity, devoid of exaggerated praise or blame. Naturally, both
friends can alternate reading for each other. But if this is done, be
careful to steer away from comparisons and surface-of-the-mind talk.
Another approach to the body of this work is for those with an
astrological background to go through a ceremony or ritual of your
own choosing ahead of time, in which you consume or burn your ~
prior concepts and ideas about these topics with complete release,
so that the slate is clean and this new material can be assimilated
openly and freely. It will be found that the dimension tapped into by
the material in this book has virtually no overlap with previous astro-
logical understandings. It is therefore best to meet this text ritualis-
tically cleansed of presuppositions.
Yet another approach particularly suitable to those who meditate
or pray regularly is to do your regular meditation or prayer practice,
and then to approach this book in the same vibratory frequency,
rather than first readjusting into a mental, analytical stance. When
the inner life has been cultivated rhythmically, the images and insights
herein can be approached more spaciously, and with a depth of feel-
ing for the place from which we speak.
Finally, we offer one more basic approach to the book. This more
radical approach is for the adventurous, and for those who imme-
diately recognize and connect with the energy and awareness in this
text. Take in strictly one section at a time—as much as you feel is
enough to move with—and then give forth an artistic body expres-
sion of what is being released, through seeing yourself or somebody
close to you in this light.
Some forms optimally tuned to such a process might be: free,
spontaneous movement to strong music; drawing quite spontaneously
and uninhibitedly with colored chalk; or receiving a depth massage,
in which you go inside of the spaces that are opening as the mater-
ial sifts through your deeper awareness. All of these may be enhanced
by synchronizing with inwardly evocative music.
XV
INSIDE PLANETS
It is also possible, in this advanced vein, to take imaginative jour-
neys with a given planet, entering its realm and “following out fur-
ther the realizations touched upon in the text. This last approach will
be further explored in our later books, and representsa vast inward
frontier just now beginning to open up in fresh ways. :
Between 1930 and 1990, a convenient and superficial brand of spir-
ituality has been circulating and pretending to be the real thing. This
form of spirituality has been most sharply characterized by a perva-
sively ego-gratifying and materialistic series of assumptions. The
marketing of spiritual approaches to life during the 1970s and 1980s
became highly sophisticated in conveying to consumers that a spir-
itual path or dimension is the icing on the cake oflife, and does not
require any deep soul searching or inward changes.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, a counter-movement has been
emerging which is much more Earth-real and oriented toward core
spiritual values. As this counter-movement gathers momentum, the
truth that every spiritual aspirant must move through major and
extended upheavals will become basic to our evolutionary planetary
shift into the 21st century.
Our primary purpose in uncovering the material in this book and
sending it forth into the world is to support and give encouragement
to those who find themselves faced with a call to die to their old selves
and to come alive in a vibrant new way. We wish to affirm with glad
hearts that each individual is equipped with all that is needed to move
through the planetary identity crisis and their own personal strug-
gle and change. In no way can we float along with the comfortable
insinuation that these radical transformations will be easy, or sim-
ply a matter of changing the paradigm of the way we look at things.
Now is the time to set to work to change ourselves and serve this.
planet with a whole heart.
May the gods speed us upon our way, as we brighten from lonely
strangers on Earth to joyous and alive awake co-creators in the amaz-
ing journey that is ours.
Inside
Planets
CHAPTER 1
The Sun and the Earth
r |Vie EarTH AND Sun together are the stream of unfoldment
of creative individuality, and obstructions to that unfoldment
become the main focus oflife on Earth. The Earth influence
is the decisive one in cosmic astrology. The Earth stands directly
opposite the Sun, radiating a magnetic field of forces that pull us
away from Solar light and warmth. The Earth tends to condense and
contract unto herself, and to hold in place those characteristics of
human experience which are not ready to yield their form to greater
realities.
When the Earth influence is examined astrologically, it proves to
be the shadow realm which has, together with the asteroids, domi-
nated astrological thinking, while remaining itself unknown. The
popular Sun-sign astrological caricatures are distorted versions of
Earth-sign patterns of pulling away from the Solar dimension, and
the Earth influence is rendered much more powerful by not being
detected in its real nature. These hold-out places, these stuck kar-
mas, these basic negations of selfhood are heavily influential in keep-
ing youthful souls from enjoying their youth. The true Earth—the
one being reclaimed by contemporary human consciousness, which
is the living being of Earth existence—has no connection with the
Earth influence in astrology. The Earth, as positioned opposite the
Sun, strictly contains the earthbound fragments of the human being
which keep each soul in bondage and subjectively cut off from its
true solar individuality.
INSIDE PLANETS
Every Earth sign reveals the most surface- oriented and falsely-
founded sides of that sign. Every Earth house position is caught in
the most worldly, automatic, and compulsive facets of that house.
The real, pivotal function of the Earth influence in astrology is to pull
individuals back toward the origin, and keep them there until they
feel able to enter the solar path genuinely. The shift from Earth to
solar focus takes place in gradual stages during an individual’s twen-
ties, thirties and forties. To the extent that those past their forties are
still held back by the false Earth, they suffer greatly in self-ignorance.
But the earthbound character of those not yet in their twenties is nat-
ural and rightful, and offers a buffer against becoming too rapidly
oriented toward the demands and scope of solar selfhood.
The Sun leads those who have sloughed off their outer earthly
skin of doubts and fears, and assumed limitations in the sacred
precincts of true selfhood. This realm is virtually unknown in con-
temporary life except in so far as isolated individuals outlast the tests
and trials of an earthbound humanity. The most pivotal character-
istic of solar selfhood is being-unto-self in such a way that one is as
well unto all. Christ Jesus modeled and incarnated solar selfhood in
total measure.
The Sun shines brightly enough that every human heart receives
sufficient solar power to keep the individual’s essential being cosmi-
cally aligned. The exceptional person who claims the solar power
more completely is simply alive and aware enough to sense that deep
inside the heart lies all that one truly is, and that the person one seems
to be is an earth idol or semblance. The solar path empowers the
bright flame of each individual being a child of God and a child of
the universe.
In astrology, the Sun gives clear direction toward self-realization
and self-fulfillment. Each sign through which the Sun moves pro-
vides ample room for the fullest unfoldment of all that lies within.
Whichever house contains the Sun at birth grants optimal circum-
stances for free becoming. Whenever individuals orient toward the
inner Sun, the living Christ path, they feel completely alive in their
bodies; they feel great joy in their heart, and an abiding sense of whole-
The Sun and the Earth
ness and the sustaining presence of that part of self which never dies.
The Sun draws Mercury and Venus around itself, for streams of
personal experience. In rare moments it permeates the Moon with
inner light, for fresh developmental impetus. And it polarizes the
Earth to play out patterns of intricate repetition, to show the differ-
ence between essential being and the darkness and opacity of not-
yet-being.
Those who can distinguish the true light of the Sun from the false
lights which distract and divert are blessed. Those who can assist oth-
ers in making this distinction are twice-blessed. And those who can
incarnate in themselves the true solar light for everyone to know the
difference are thrice-blessed, and Christed. The Sun shines all the
way home, and each step in the direction of the Sun is warmth-filled,
celebrational and inwardly liberating.
Sun and Earth in the Signs:
Sun Over and Earth Under
Sun over Taurus / Earth under Scorpio
e meet under Scorpio a repository of cosmic memories, bub-
bling underneath the surface and causing us to fear the
unknown and to pull back from what might take us over. We sense a
barrage of subtle impressions as destructive and dangerous. Our own
unconscious nature feels treacherous, strange, and remote. We fall
under its spell far more often than we would care to admit. The Earth
under Scorpio fixes us in place as a petrified rock of heavy, enveloped
emotional patterns that seem fatalistic and as if from a world before.
The Sun over Taurus is forming an entirely different way of being,
one that is fresh, vibrant, and open. This entering into the natural-
self territory is a welcome relief from the ravages of a haunted uncon-
scious. The Sun over Taurus celebrates existence and spontaneously
discovers that there are ample resources everywhere for love and life
to be whole, fertile, and meaningful. When the Sun over ‘Taurus casts
away the shadows of Earth under Scorpio, through claiming the ground
INSIDE PLANETS
of individual awareness of self as unlimited, there arises a way of being
which endows existence with upbuilding forces and forward-looking
perception, no longer haunted and looped back upon itself in terror
and dread. For this emergence into light, the Sun over Taurus lives,
aspires, searches and strives with great perseverance and dedication
regardless of the intensive multiple obstructions along the way.
Sun over Virgo / Earth under Pisces
ith the Earth under Pisces, the unconscious regions are fath-
WAV Sarl deep and populated with monsters and strange shapes
of every description. Every traumatic situation that has been passed
through since infancy and early childhood exerts a great imaginative
hold upon the Earth under Pisces. These memory realms and inac-
cessible regions of exotic reverberations are thoroughly and utterly
irrational, beyond explanation or analysis, infinite and nonreduce-
able. They generate phobias, chronic habit patterns and myriad idio-
syncrasies and superstitions.
Multiple sub-selves, in fact, stay in hiding inside their own evanes-
cent domains, emanating negation, confusion, and fragmentation
from far back inside. The pervasiveness of subtler moods and pass-
ing fancies is so acute with Earth under Pisces that conscious denial
must come in to assert a tiny measure of autonomy and secure ground.
The Sun over Virgo is sturdy, firm, and filled with life wisdom.
An exquisite sensibility to nuances of self-development and inward
process leads us through the maze, with a careful and constructive
approach that works wonders in this territory. The Sun over Virgo
inaugurates multiple cycles of ever more effective strategies for learn-
ing how to wield optimal intelligence in action. We are intent here
upon becoming adept in our chosen sphere, and somehow outdis-
tancing our vast nighttime specters of catastrophe and annihilation.
Most of all we are drawn forward toward the light, moment by
moment, recognizing implicitly that where we are going is unen-
cumbered and clear and true. When we gather the possibilities of
goodness of the Sun over Virgo in full measure, we arrive at last ina
serene place inside, a place that is a rugged veteran of all fabulous
The Sun and the Earth
infinities, yet not compelled to churn up the waters one more time.
Standing within the place of honor, the individuation chamber, is
radiantly rewarding, and the only place we need to be.
Sun over Sagittarius / Earth under Gemini
Vays youthful, with the Earth under Gemini, we sense our exis-
tence to be elsewhere. We wander and dream, and lose our way
constantly. Our fantasies, our desires, our pulsebeat of driving need is
to scatter, to disperse, to spread, to be randomly, capriciously free. We
become accustomed to worlds in which we can play and lose ourselves
and be relieved of the burden of selfhood. In each moment, we delight
in the perverse thrill of not-being-there, or being there as lightly as
possible. We learn to send stand-ins, substitutes, a merry crew of rogues
and rascals, charmers and heroes out into “straight” existence.
The Sun over Sagittarius slowly, gradually, and in many stages
infiltrates the airy vacancies of the Earth under Gemini, and estab-
lishes presence, interest, and involvement. Where there was talk and
radical division, there begins to enter a sensibility which more deeply
and genuinely can partake in and enjoy the bounty of life. We immerse
ourselves in a give-and-take, which asks us to descend ever further
into the fire of experience. We can even ecstatically inhabit body and
nature as our this-moment world, without flying away into getting
off on ourselves. The narcissistic self-indulgence of the Earth under
Gemini is supplanted by a concrete grasp of life as real, and of the
given environment as optimal for self-unfoldment.
If we follow the star of the Sun over Sagittarius with full-scale will-
ingness, there opens to us a human counterpart of the childhood
wishes and yearning. We gain a magnificent knowingness that enables
us to accompany ourselves upon our journey, and to flesh out the way
we look at things by active observation of the panoramic sense hori-
zon yielding magic in the smallest cell of awakening within the world.
Sun over Pisces / Earth under Virgo
ur primal self, with the Earth under Virgo, stays put in a level
of existence that is constricted and held away from permission
INSIDE PLANETS
to flow forth freely. Over and again, we remind ourselves that we
must somehow endure, concentrating as totally as possible upon
straightforward linear thinking and unimaginative, predictable pat-
terns of self-effacement. We do all this as though programmed from
a reality checkpoint that tolerates no insubordination. The more
completely we enclose ourselves within the tight-fitting garments of
social acceptability, the more likely everybody is to [Link] be.
The poisonous side effects of such a rigid program are deep wells
of loneliness and self-estrangement, and a pervasive unwillingness to
deal with life on the terms of our actual inner experience. When the
Sun over Pisces begins to rise and to uncover the hidden treasure of
worlds within, the tyranny of rational sub-voices lifts, and we find
ourselves in the garden, unscarred by the veils we have taken on. Our
deep core of limitless selfhood is there, waiting patiently and time-
lessly in the extraordinary living waters of our deep self. Worry and
external fixation dissolve, and in their place come trust in all that is,
and the ability to dive effortlessly and freely beneath the surface. We
navigate the inner reaches as one who has always known the feeling
of union.
As we plunge ever deeper inside the world, the layers of pain, grief,
sorrow and loss at last guide us to that world within the world, where
the ethers hum with Christ-presence and Christ-love everlasting.
_ When we surrender our weary cares unto That One Who Knows what
to do with them, we are reborn in the spirit as ones whose heart has
led them truly from the Earth-under-Virgo quagmire of mental dis-
tortion to a way of being that is constant and utterly consoling to those
who have overcome the world sacrificially, poignantly and faithfully.
Sun over Leo / Earth under Aquarius
Wave Earth under Aquarius, we have been much too old before
our time. We have recognized and been deeply aware of each
individual around us, and what they require of us from birth. This
has led us astray into a grand preoccupation with peripheral matters
of surface concern, while our inward self has lain dormant. We know
precisely how to appease and pacify the shared mind, and our skill
The Sun and the Earth
and finesse in doing so have distanced us from ourselves with a moat
around who we are. The worst part is that we do not see what we
have done to ourselves. Incredibly enough, we have adopted the
worldly viewpoint even in our most intimate self-image.
When the Sun over Leo proclaims the strength and power of the
core self, a great reversal begins. What had always looked good now
“feels” right. We bring the flame that warms our lifestream into play,
and at last we honor and cherish the gift of who we really are, in
unconditional embrace. Everything we put out into the world as self
becomes self-awake, self-empowering, self-freeing. The dry irony
goes out of our viewpoint, and we truly believe in all that we had
previously championed ideologically and hyper-mentally.
When we fully enter into our destiny design with the Sun over
Leo, we drop into the incarnation-readiness position, the stance of
those who embody their innermost being in a sense embrace of a
world that we quicken into new life by the magic wand of true self-
creativity, the Christ power unlimited, coursing through our cells in
the brightest generosity of outpouring.
Sun over Aquarius / Earth under Leo
or an extended time—seeming to last forever—our Earth under
Leo persists in a folly quite thematic and all-pervasive. This folly
is almost madness, in that the very thing inside that distinguishes us
so brilliantly is held back as far as possible, while the Earth under
Leo becomes captured by the enticements of surface personality. We
swoon under the apparent total thrill of those around us, who reflect
back to us that we are everything they admire. We seek to perfect the
image, to sharpen the impression, and to refine the many ways in
which we generate respect, approval, acknowledgement and envy.
What we are most swept up in is a feverish yearning to postpone
indefinitely what seems with Earth under Leo to be a terribly respon-
sible and demanding destiny.
When the Sun over Aquarius, usually quite late, starts to show its
native intelligence in more than a passing flash, we find to our stunned
delight that what had seemed to be imposed and forbidding is from
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the inside utterly fulfilling, and the first rightful fit we have known.
We are unleashed from our dark fears, and can walk the Earth as full-
fledged citizens of an evolving humanity. With Sun over Aquarius
we focus the full potential of conscious service that expresses and
embodies core selfhood, devoid of personal attathment. -
If we take up the Sun over Aquarius path with thorough convic-
tion, we come again upon a stunning discovery that our brand of
intelligence is one both well-formed and fluently adaptable enough
to remake the world in the image of a free-flowing selfhood, which
is just beginning to emerge upon the common horizon and asking
for volunteers to exemplify a stream of truth embodiment that will
not quit.
- Sun over Aries / Earth under Libra
ith Earth under Libra, we are swamped in emotions and deep
WNP eee of all that we are not. Everything “other” and
strange comes in, filling our emotional field with antipathies, ten-
sions, and pressures. We cannot ever quite get over the astounding
multiplicity of messages that “The world is already full. There is no
room for anybody who is different.” Slowly such messages erode our
basis of confidence and strength of selfhood, and draw us downward
into a life saturated with collective shared currents. Something about
this entire pattern is revolting, impossible to take. We therefore end
up loading our human sharings— especially our key connections—
with hidden agendas, old stories, terrible anger and a seething resent-
ment which continually and unsuccessfully tries to throw off closeness
to others and cannot find satisfaction, rest, or ease anywhere.
When the Sun over Aries comes into play in our lives, the shift in
emphasis is dramatic. A stark clarity of candid intentions and resolves
pushes through to front-line emphasis. It begins immediately to open
space, clear away negative clutter, and free up the dreaded undertow
of hatred and internal conflict. We follow the main thrust of our indi-
vidual destiny, in dynamic interplay with others who are going our
way. And as we walk for awhile with a chosen other, we enter upon
an adventure so exciting and stimulating that the torpid clusters of
10
The Sun and the Earth
“I never can be,” in all its variations, are exploded. We come upona
territory beyond the need to recreate old wounds and chronic defeats.
If we go all the way with the Sun over Aries, we have the chance
to set the pace for new worlds to begin. And we will leave out of the
fresh synthesis Earth-under-Libra-style stuffing places for mutual
suppression. Our Aries innovation will be to say to each and every-
one, “You have complete permission from me to try out your wings,
without needing to worry how it looks to me. I am with you, and I
have no reservations.”
Sun over Libra / Earth under Aries
W: are driven, with Earth under Aries, to use every human
encounter to gain energy, credence, and sharper position. We
are “on” constantly, and the fierceness of our need to be somebody
is so dominant that we have no room for embellishments or special
touches. When someone is so relentlessly out for the kill, there comes
a terrible reckoning with the poisons that are being spewed forth. At
critical junctures, we draw to ourselves what look to be unfair and
terribly oppressive sequences of events, in which our hopes and
dreams are shattered and spurned— only by such purging, it seems,
can we go onat all.
When the Sun over Libra shines redemptively over this previously
harsh landscape, many spacious and positive stages appear. For us,
this shift seems too good to be true; we have kept ourselves in such
a fury of fascinating difficulties that to allow ourselves to be at all is
vibrationally miraculous. The journey of Libra wonders and revela-
tions that we enter keys particularly strongly on issues of who we
really are. Previously, we had assumed with very little question that,
a la Earth under Aries, we existed insofar as we gave incontrovert-
ible proof of ourselves in the moment. Now, an open-ended journey
begins in which there are myriad possible ways to come to know our-
selves—and each one of these is valid, meaningful, and uniquely
appropriate when it arises.
If we can find the courage and vision to dance with the whole-
ness of this Sun-over-Libra free stream, we will become fine artists
int
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in our own self-transformation and in assisting that of others, with-
out any form of egoism or rude insistence that the others themselves
fit our own compulsive ideas or addictive desires.
©
Sun over Capricorn / Earth under Cancer — -
e feel, with Earth under Cancer, that someday— eventually —
we will take seriously our path of development, However, for
a very long time before that eventuality looms into view, we become
engrossed in a truly monumental personal delusion. .
With Earth under Cancer, we take on the base human level with
a gargantuan appetite for self-loss. Our world becomes a vast net-
work of places to externalize our being. We are especially attracted
and attached to familiar groupings that feature a driving necessity
for each and every person to play an all-consuming role. Our secret
delight in having an excuse to merge with anything and everything
“out there” is well covered over, and we easily become convinced that
these demands represent a terrible imposition. But as soon as we get
out of them, we quickly repeat the pattern. Our Earth under Cancer
allegiance is to fixed forms that can house our hidden anguish with
room to spare.
When the Sun over Capricorn emerges into view, we catch a
glimpse of our true being, and discover its character to be far more
inward and deeply founded than anyone could have suspected. The
Sun over Capricorn asserts a primal drive to fulfill individual des-
tiny consummately—the one factor which was so blatantly missing
before. We find that we are seers where before we were blind, and
that we are meant to be where before, with Earth under Cancer, we
were the world’s most avid doer.
It may take us a good long while to grow accustomed to the shock
of having a real path to walk that is our own. But if we persevere in
striding on to that place where we belong, we will awaken purely to
the truth we have been carrying. In seeing it and knowing it, that
truth will be released into doing its real work, which is to make it
self-evidently clear to everybody who we are at our core.
12
The Sun and the Earth
Sun over Cancer / Earth under Capricorn
W: force ourselves, with the Earth under Capricorn, to do the
right thing regardless of how it feels. We obligate ourselves to
take on the heaviest burdens. We perpetually martyr ourselves to our
fate. The one given seems to be that that our role is solidly estab-
lished and massively prearranged. Under such terms, all we can do
is submit and make the best of it. However, making the best of it here
means drawing endless gratification for the suffering ego by self-
righteously glorying in our virtue and impeccable restraint. Thus,
with Earth under Capricorn, we forge a long-term plan of radical
self-avoidance, in a form that gains universal approval as necessary
and highly appropriate. We are cradled in a womb of rather anony-
mous standards from which we dread awakening.
When eventually the Sun over Cancer first manifests its inward
power, we stir from our nightmare and encounter a different self in
a different world. The self we are becoming is inwardly alive. It feels
and knows that self and world are one. This realization comes in
waves, over an extended period of self-exploration. We gradually
reform our entire existence, based upon an opposite premise to the
one imprisoning us with Earth under Capricorn. Instead of existence
compelling us to subordinate ourselves to everyone else, Sun over
Cancer restores the true pattern in which our own rhythmic stride
is hand-in-hand with the world process.
If we proceed into the further reaches of the Cancerian realm, we
at last come upon the even more remarkably wide open world-view
that our own being is ideally suited to lead everyone forward, toward
a ripe consummation of human values. Incredibly, there is nothing
stopping us.
Sun over Gemini / Earth under Sagittarius
ith Earth under Sagittarius, we convince ourselves moment
WW; moment that the world-as-usual is stacked up against high
and free energies and awarenesses, and that only in worlds apart can
we breathe into totality. The adjustments we make based on this
13
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assessment are manifold, covering every inch of life. We live and die
by dualism with Earth under Sagittarius. Almost everything we do
has only a tiny piece of us in it, while the vast bulk of our being roams
in fantasy pictures. - 5
The few contexts which interestea challenge Earth under Sagit-
tarius are entered into with such manic enthusiasm that we typically
violate and shoot out the other side of whatever we feel rapport with.
Worst of all, we never ground ourselves in Earth experience. We
remain immune to any depth of involvement. ¢
When the Sun over Gemini lights up inside, we are ushered into
a spectacular re-grasping of our stream of self-expression. The Sun
over Gemini has vast room for expansion, but populates all of this
vastness with expanded awareness, the presence of individuality in
its fullest flowering. Where before we were always split, now we mas-
ter the skills of unity, of bringing worlds together. Our spark of life
streams brightly into worlds we never before conceived. If we take
up this fantastic journey of the Sun over Gemini with a passion of
unquenchable self-conviction, we can be the ones to walk on ahead,
instantaneously radiating to all that the evolutionary stretches ahead
are accommodating, joyously releasing, and just what everybody
would hope they would be if they dare to enter upon the infinite way
and never look back.
Sun over Scorpio / Earth under Taurus
he inertias of racial heaviness take hold of us with Earth under
Taurus and immobilize any forward progression. A sheer retro-
gressive blocking of energies swirls us under, into a void of resistance
and denial that is formidable and stubbornly tenacious. We feel lit-
tle else besides sorry for ourselves and, underneath this, in vast uncon
scious realms, we feel lost, suspended, and darkly dreaming. This
spell of non-being infects our body, our soul, and our spirit. Noth-
ing gets through. Even the most intense sensations only serve to
deepen our sense of tragic loss of touch with life.
At the bottom point of this oblivion stream, we violently tremble
with yearning and longings. We cannot fulfill these longings because
14
The Sun and the Earth
our own inward core of selfhood is buried and cannot be accessed
until we have served our time in the dungeon of forgetfulness.
When the first quickenings of the Sun over Scorpio manifest an
urgency and criticality of need to come back to life, we have heavy
trouble attempting to arouse ourselves from our ancient stupor. Only
repeated attempts can reverse the flow. When the Sun over Scorpio
vanquishes inertia we face a boundless, inwardly brand-new world.
In that world we become as multidimensionally alive as we were for-
merly dead and buried. If we move into the universal stream of the
Sun-over-Scorpio eagle path, we shall see and feel and be the form
of individuality that brings the race closer to its intended destina-
tion of encompassing all worlds inside of one being. This being is
one who can never get over the awe and staggering revelation of
returning from dark depths into brightness, and of the power of love
from a limitless source, streaming through the world without hin-
drances from any side, ever again.
Sun and Earth in the Houses
Sun over the First House / Earth under the Seventh House
WAVES: Earth under the Seventh House we are held fast, in cords
of karmic predisposition, to repeat patterns in close relation-
ships. We tend to create similar stories and limitations over and again,
drawing to ourselves those who reflect us in our most habitual and
restricted patterns. This theme, with many variations, develops in us
characteristic antipathies toward drawing close to those who might
bind us to even our lesser capacities. This reflexive avoidance builds
up to a point where we unconsciously stand away from others and
crave to be on our own.
When the Sun over the First House rises toward fullness, our own
individual path presents itself as genuine, meaningful, and a clear
way forward, and we enter the region of involvement with ourselves
for the first time. We can now put behind us our compulsive patterns
of mutual interpersonal thwarting and conflict.
15
INSIDE PLANETS
We walk onward in the light of our own freebecoming. Along the
way, we experience self and other as individual presences, each one
unto itself and fully equipped to follow destiny in its own way. This
frees us up to gradually recognize that absolutely no ‘ancient karmas
or ancestral ties can any longer cling to us, and that we are surrounded
by a light which guides our steps and is always pointing toward fresh
beginnings and unconditional self-beholding. We live true to our-
selves, in fullest willingness to go the way of what lives within.
Sun over the Second House / Earth under the Eighth House
WwW the Earth under the Eighth House we feel magnetized to
spread ourselves around, and experience everything there is
to find outside ourselves. We wander and move outward further and
further, and delight in the sensation of self-release. However, the fur-
ther we go into variety and apparent vital openings, the more we find
we have left ourselves behind, and there is therefore nobody there to
enjoy the show. Often this growing realization provokes us to go out
even further, in an attempt to flee from reckonings or consequences.
As we postpone the inevitable rude awakening, we live on borrowed
time, frantically forcing our world to keep going.
As the Sun over the Second House looms into view, a sobering
influence comes into play. We begin to form a substantive commit-
ment to our deeper selfhood. This represents such a drastic turn-
around that for quite a while we must transition from self-oblivion
and escapism to self-stirring and constructive living through small
and modest steps. We learn through experience how to stay with our-
selves as we go. A certain inherent satisfaction and fulfillment come
into play, sustaining and enhancing whatever we do. Best of all, with
the Sun over the Second House, we earnestly and purposively believe
in life, and honor the basic fabric of existence as fashioning charac-
ter through everything we take up. This eventuates in a steady, cohe-
sive, upbuilding nature that contributes positively and meaningfully
in every situation, as dim memories of the superficial rampages of the
outer personality fade before the consistent attainments of a core self
consciously weaving a life destiny with operative wisdom as its fiber.
16
The Sun and the Earth
Sun over the Third House / Earth under the Ninth House
W: are far removed, with Earth under the Ninth House, from
all that unfolds around us. We fashion for ourselves a sepa-
ratist kingdom housing a fascinating blend of ultimate possibilities,
lacking any real present-time carry-through. Remaining suspended
in this unusual condition is for us quite familiar, reassuring, and
almost safe. We know, however, that we are missing life’s challenge,
and we cannot forgive ourselves this terrible missing part. As a result,
we look upon ourselves with disapproval, impatience, and anxious
concern, yet somehow remain almost paralyzed with a sense of not
being able to break through.
When the Sun beams over the Third House, every corner of our
world starts to light up from the inside. We are coming out of a long
sleep, and we are delighted to discover that we can do what is in us
to do—and enjoy it, without standing over ourselves in grim mis-
giving. As we thaw from the long cold winter of being elsewhere, sim-
ple everyday matters become ever more welcome and interesting.
Our landing in the common world is a source of endless surprise and
elation. We are becoming free in our bodies, and alert to the life pulse
as it streams through us organically. If we persevere in carrying this
current ever further, we will bring everyone around us to life as well,
in that contagious enthusiasm which is so life-generative. Our spon-
taneous flow of response to what comes to meet us sparks occasions
and sharings, worlds removed from the lonely, stark stretches of not-
yet-being-here which haunted us so long ago.
Sun over the Fourth House / Earth under the Tenth House
ith Earth under the Tenth House, we are attached to places
\WaViaae are high and advanced. Feeling that we have come forth
from loftier worlds, we cling tightly to our origin, our greater roots,
our vaster belongingness. We endlessly attempt to stay there, to remain
immune to Earth suffering and changes. Most of all, a systematic
order and hierarchical structure have been our privilege and status,
and we yearn to keep these as always.
17
INSIDE PLANETS
When the Sun penetrates into the Fourth house, we arrive in the
depths of experience for the first time. Here we meet our personal
karma, ancestral karmas, and collective karmas. Through these, we
have specific, definite orientation and placement. Our being calls us
to take hold of physical/material existence, and.¢o involve ourselves
in limited human patterns. When we release ourselves into ordinary,
basic levels of life-as-lived, we are greatly relieved, almost able to rest.
With Sun over the Fourth house, our true path in life draws us
ever deeper into the world, into facing everyone and everything await-
ing us down below. We find our freedom and our joy in encompassing
limitations, in being realistic and unconditionally present. It is a long
way down, and it takes us many phases of development even to begin
to take seriously that which to others is already a given. Our ultimate
landing instructions are to make ourselves at home in the densities
of matter, and to bring our gifts all the way into the common ground
where they can do the most good, and where our exile in the heights
is overcome as we at last suffer and die, and fall into the waiting arms
of the Living Christ.
Sun over the Fifth House / Earth under the Eleventh House
ith the Earth under the Eleventh House, we have been one
with everybody. We are thoroughly accustomed to joining
forces with all around us, so that we have been anonymous and split
among many selves. Our sense of reality has been nebulous and ever-
shifting, and we justify any pattern we get lost in as “just what was
happening.” In so many ways, we have been “out there,” dreaming
into collective patterns as a given.
When the Sun blazes forth over the Fifth House, we are mobi-
lized to fulfill a destiny that is embodied and quite individual. We
gather our forces and concentrate upon purpose, fruition, and self-
awareness. This path forges extraordinary depths of inward devel-
opment, where there has previously been little discipline and virtually
no real sense of selfhood. This is a turnaround lifetime, the most
drastic of shifts, and it can lead quite far.
The remarkable and infinitely rewarding factor here is that being
18
The Sun and the Earth
ourselves is so natural and rightful and clear that it is evident to every-
one that this is what we are here for. Because we have been so scat-
tered and unconscious, the entry into full selfhood sets the stage for
an expressive outpouring of loving qualities. These transmute the
diverse strands of our talents into earth-worthy and life-renewing
form, as the abundant fruits of coming to selfhood in our journey
supreme.
Sun over the Sixth House / Earth under the Twelfth House
e have been lost in vast regions, with Earth under the Twelfth
House. For what seems forever, we have been captured by
forces beyond our control, compelled to be everywhere and nowhere.
This harrowing journey is still with us, and very hard to shake. We
find ourselves pulled back into loops of inability or refusal to make
any consistent forward progress. In perilous and frustrating fashion,
we relive karmic ancestral scenarios of limitation and absence of indi-
vidual dynamics. These multiple patterns engulf us with emotional
and physical wounds and scars.
When the Sun exerts a renewing presence over the Sixth House,
we take up a conscious path forward into a viable identity. Such a
course is at first fragile, tentative, and precariously perched between
memory and intention. We seesaw back and forth for a good long
while, slowly developing confidence and self-respect. We are head-
ing toward full dimensional capacity, as awake and ready participants
in the shared reality. Quite often, we fashion ourselves into a vehicle
through a life work which can hold us steadily in place.
Our conscientious efforts are rewarded by at last putting behind
us lifetimes of encasement within oppressive, collectively bound
karmic dramas. We are learning the lessons of solid, persistent ded-
ication. This rather demanding way of being makes perfect sense to
us, drawing us ever closer to the mark of one pointed endeavor,
expressing worthiness and heightened emphasis on doing it right
and being intelligently in harness with the evolution of Earth and
the real needs of the objective situation.
19
INSIDE PLANETS
Sun over the Seventh House / Earth under the First House
e are intimately familiar, in Earth under the First House, with
Wi precincts of personal and formative development. We have
a certain ease and flow in being ourselves and falowing the pattern
that is given. However, we are not synchronized with anything other
than the basic rhythms of life-as-a-dream. We roll along, heeding the
cues of nature and society in lazy ways. We could go on like this for
a very long time, getting along and staying with what we have always
known. :
When the Sun shines brightly over the Seventh House, we meet
ourselves as other, and are startled by the encounter. An excitement
and quickened pace of developments draws us forward and keeps us
attentive and able to stretch, and stretch, and stretch. Soon we can
even come into relationship with others, in a charged vibrancy of
meeting what we are not. Our path becomes open-ended, our pat-
terns change, and our life pulse is much more expressive of being
willing to venture.
If we follow this course, the risk of radically different possibilities
becomes attractive. Ultimately, we can put behind us our long-cul-
tivated insulation and contemplative slowness, and evolve into con-
temporary beings who are available for candid encounters with others.
We are freely unfolding as pacesetters and leading forces promoting
communication and connection, with tremendous power to make
way for worlds yet to be.
Sun over the Eighth House / Earth under the Second House
ith Earth under the Second House, we have known how to
make sense of our immediate experience and to function
within the framework of constructive endeavor. We can go through
all the steps in our sleep, and we develop variations on the theme of
reassuring, persistent patterns holding us to the track of common
earth. This becomes old hat and soul-deadening. Every reasonable,
commonsensical and linear sequence, in fact, has turned into a crutch
or a chronic habitual trap. We continue to repeat these ad nauseam,
The Sun and the Earth
and our minds hold tightly to prudent and straightforward ways of
seeing things. The worst part is that nothing of ourselves is expressed
through it.
When the Sun warms and lights the way forward over the Eighth
House, a world keyed into change and responsive feelings comes to
meet us and claim our allegiance. We dive deep and jump far, into
places previously inconceivable. We are like a coiled spring that has
been held down much too long. Our drive to break through into new
worlds is overwhelmingly strong. The deep self is intent upon strip-
ping away all routines and limited notions, no matter what.
If we follow this regenerative path where it is leading, we become
supercharged with impulses, visions, and ways to get others moving
toward a limitless future. In our hearts we seek to push further
onward, knowing deep inside that hanging around in safe spaces is
a slow and painful death. And we know even more strongly that when
we keep evolving in total propulsion, all that can happen is that we
become absolutely ourselves, in a way which in the collective future
will become the only way to be.
Sun over the Ninth House / Earth under the Third House
e have been covering a great deal of ground, with the Earth
Ne the Third House. Our energies have been everywhere.
Our interests have pushed us and pulled us relentlessly, and we have
fallen for every possible wayward impulse. Our greatest temptations
have manifested in the form of addictive patterns and youthful excess,
with a sharp accent on “anything goes” in the moment. Throughout
all this, we have been agitated, insatiable, and somewhat self-destruc-
tive. Obviously, this somewhat random pattern burns out quite eas-
ily, and leaves us needing something else altogether.
When the Sun rises over the Ninth House, we are given a series
of ever sharper glimpses of who we really are. We begin to climb
toward our greater self, and to discard whatever impedes our devel-
opment. It is amazing how utterly our former patterns are revealed
to us as having nothing really going for them. The higher we climb,
the more we become accustomed to the self-awakening process.
21
INSIDE PLANETS
Essentially, who we thought we were becomes an old picture to be
dissolved.
For the few who go all the way to the summit, that place which
all lifetimes lead up to becomes our beacon and our touchstone. We
intend in this pattern to embrace the cosmic reaches of existence,
and to take hold of every delusory, self-serving way of being we have
ever known, and make sure we are never under its sway any more.
Sun over the Tenth House / Earth under the Fourth House
WwW Earth under the Fourth House, we have gotten lost in the
under-places of unconscious emotional and physical stop-
page. Our plight is extreme. We have virtually pulled apart from our
greater destiny, and submerged personal identity in all that we are
not. The result is pain, leading to numbness, which leads to despon-
dency and pervasive dislocation. Even though most of these feelings
and impressions are deep underneath our surface awareness, their
cumulative poisonous influence undercuts our existence and leaves
us hanging, without any sure ground.
When the Sun comes forth over the Tenth House, there is a dra-
matic, conscious shift of focus from all that is not to all that is. We
gaze upon the greater path of destiny as all that we are about. This
elevates our vibrational frequency considerably. We can now take
command over our destiny from a deep place of great wisdom and
steady purposive capacity. The swamping unconscious patterns of
the past dissolve rapidly as we strive to fulfill the core of our being
in everything we do. Best of all, we behold ourselves in our experi-
ence wakefully. It becomes self-evident that our endless toiling far
below was a completion of very old karmas, and that from this point
onward, the way is bright. Spiritual assistance is accessible to us, and
draws us to an expanded selfhood that is our true birthright.
Sun over the Eleventh House / Earth under the Fifth House
Ww Earth under the Fifth House, we have been working on
ourselves for a long time. However, much of this effort has
gone into shining up our surface personality to make it completely
Didi
The Sun and the Earth
appealing and accessible. We have succeeded in turning ourselves
into a beautiful package, an outstanding example of the fulfillment
of the common standards. This has given us a focus and a way of life
that is gratifying, flattering, and diverting. If we carry on with this,
it turns sour and bitter.
When the Sun streams across the sky over the Eleventh House,
we are granted another life in a greater horizon of opportunity. The
pivotal difference is that now we hold faithful to our own individual
selfhood, and expand from there. As we take up this mighty chal-
lenge to be far more than we have ever been before, all personal ego
goes out of the picture and is supplanted by a highly spiritualized
and profoundly genuine core of selfhood that unites with totality. A
dynamic, forward-looking and brotherhood-centered lifestream wel-
comes us, and calls us to prepare the way for the rest to follow. We
are now infinitely alive, and graced with abounding gifts to give freely
and joyously. We are bestowers of love, and there are no inhibitions
or restrictions whatsoever upon what streams through us, co-cre-
atively, from a greater source.
Sun over the Twelfth House / Earth under the Sixth House
ith Earth under the Sixth House, we know how to work and
how to apply our intelligence. We have been intent upon the
task at hand, continually refining and distilling our expression in
form. However, we have run aground by becoming so thoroughly
attached to definite fixed results that we have fallen under the con-
siderable burden of taking the self literally and seriously. This has
reached monumental proportions, threatening to swallow us up alto-
gether in mental arrangements, business-like functioning, and set
patterns geared toward pragmatic, utilitarian considerations. It almost
seems as though we ourselves will become an object, a piece of data.
When the Sun rises over the Twelfth House, we begin to pene-
trate deeper inside of life. Our heart opens, our sphere expands, and
our sense of selfhood metamorphoses from known quantity to an
unknown and open sphere. Our being comes to life, and directs us
to enter the journey with a passion.
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INSIDE PLANETS
This path leads to myriad possible realms. Among these are: 1) a
sacrificial stream of innermost surrender to whatever is needed in
the total sense; 2) a mutational stream of making ourselves available
to evolutionary currents leading far beyond past models of what is
possible for the human species; and 3) a heartful dedication to be
there for others in simple supportive ways that key into soul gifts and
spiritual faculties made to fit everyday life, reaching the desperate
places where human beings have lost their way and need the touch
of one who cares completely.
»
24
CHAPTER 2
The Moon
ACH SOUL LIVING on the Earth is beating to the pulse ofthe
lunar timings. These cycles are shifting by the month, by the
week, by the day, by the hour. Inside the human body, the sub-
tle fluids move with the tide of lunar influence. Feminine wisdoms
have in every corner of this Earth for a very long time stayed in touch
with the Moon’s life-giving properties, making themselves at home
within that natural, inward measure of timing.
When the drive of the human being focuses upon dominating all
of nature, the lunar forces become negatively polarized and inverted.
This is a sad and sorrowful situation; the deep feeling of organic well-
being that enables us to endure sufferings without being taken over
by them is severely affected by hyper-mental, over-intentional liv-
ing. This timing is presently intact in only a few scattered native peo-
ples of the earth, and a few wise enough to reclaim the deepest and
truest feminine wisdoms.
When the human being is stripped of this lunar coating of essen-
tial goodness, a terrible consequence follows. Everyone becomes
engrossed inside the lunar melodrama, with primary emphasis upon
the dark moods and the heavy emotions. The human condition as a
depressed and out-of-phase condition becomes a given.
Those most thoroughly damaged by this lunar inversion are the
youthful, the inwardly sensitive and the psychically charged. A shared
atmosphere permeated with the feeling that life is hard and the Earth
is treacherous makes for a premature conditioning and coercion of
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INSIDE PLANETS
the young and the sensitive to turn outward in self-defense. ihe
inward subtle frequencies of their soul development are thus not
honored and given their rightful place in the contemporary world.
This situation changes drastically the ways in whichwe must view
the lunar influence in astrology. Everyone attempting to assess how
the Moon affects a person’s life-development or character must fully
take into account environmental influences from conception and
birth to the present moment. It will be found that each person man-
ifests quite distinct shadings of lunar influence, depending upon the
intensity and power of formative contexts turning that person out-
ward out-of-phase or encouraging them to partake in ihe sponta-
neous flow of deeper feeling.
Each Moon sign offers a great range of opportunities to move
through the contours of experience, and to learn and grow through
error and partiality. Each lunar house placement forges a definite
path of taking upon oneself the shared environment, and weaving it
into one’s being.
At root, the influence of the Moon is to draw one forth slowly,
organically, and in rightful stages, from the earthbound condition
of the baby and small child to the open spaces of Solar possibility
awaiting those who, during the prime of life, can encompass the lunar
cycles and spring forth from them in freedom.
The Moon is the moment’s pulse beat. It is the psychic intangi-
bles. And it is that within the human soul which hungers and thirsts
to be whole and to be vitally engaged in Earth evolution. It touches
each person to the quick, bringing gifts and struggles and everything
that can fill the soul with the nurturance of discovering how to be
oneself in a strange yet haunting world.
The Moon in the Signs
Moon in Taurus
he comes into a ready-made world, finds her place within it, and
then stays where she is. Her impulse is to ensoul her world with
26
The Moon
familiar, easy, and natural ingredients, taken from what is at hand.
She is dreaming uninterruptedly, and cannot be awakened. Almost
everything to which she habituates herself is quite similar to every-
thing she has known before. Therefore, she slips right into it as into
a velvet glove. Her style, her form, her native sensibility is traditional,
past-focused, clinging to memory, habit, and shared pattern.
Her ache at being bound so snugly is a dull one; she barely notices
her condition. Her fate is to stay as long as she possibly can, as com-
pletely as she can manage, in whatever comforts her and assures her
that her world is intact, safe, and viable. Any attempts to move for-
ward would demand stripping away many layers of assumption and
of pretended obliviousness to disruptive factors. Her emergence into
open space is a protracted ritual drama with many plateaus, many
pauses for breath, and much need to assimilate growth and devel-
opmental stages. Even when she is highly motivated to change, out
of desperation, she takes so much with her as she goes that her
progress is slow and her tread is heavy. She has everything to lose
and nothing to gain in breaking the shackles of routine, yet her inner-
most instinct informs her that the “everything” she looks back to is
not truly essential, and that the “nothing” she looks forward to is a
basis for discovering new worlds that begin when nothing remains
of what seemed to be warm and cozy. Instead, she now has the chance
to enter freshly that which calls her unconditionally onward.
Moon in Virgo
he is at odds with the thought pattern she meets all around her.
She feels her mind searching and probing, seeking clarity and
autonomy, while yet held fast by confusion and conformity. Her devel-
opment is an ongoing struggle between opposing polarities. The most
valued part of her dwells in a suspended reverie of neutral observa-
tion, witnessing each side in each dispute without comment or favor.
There are many sub-selves, with many voices, each sounding like her.
Their intentions are to keep evoking segments of experience, sides in
the dispute. Each sub-self identifies itself utterly with one separative
fragment of consciousness. The part of self that witnesses all of this
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INSIDE PLANETS
is infinitely patient, with a great deal of room for all the sub-selves to
play themselves out endlessly.
This predicament is so continuous and consuming that she has
no choice but to make way for the entire gang to run wild. She draws
to herself close companions who constellate a host,of factions to con-
front her inexhaustible group of sub-selves. Her path ts to become
entangled, time and again, with every way of lookingat things and
every kind of experience, and then eventually to find again a living
relationship with her core self, which abides unscarred and virginal
and can bring her into integrative wholeness and the affirmative
strength of poised awareness. Pockets of weakness and susceptibil-
ity, however, tend to persist, filled with the myriad voices of those
sub-selves which intend to stick around no matter what happens,
because they have something to say that must be said in order to keep
the picture comprehensive and honest.
Moon in Sagittarius
he wanders and wonders, and questions and stays open to what
she senses to be a world full of surprises. Her path is erratic, her
orbit eccentric, her impulses spontaneous, almost random. She learns
early to cover up, to talk as though she were legitimate, thematically
patterned and on her way. But she is given over to the impressions
of the moment, and her awareness cannot resist the pull of the next
bright light or the next juicy possibility. She comes alive in situations
where everybody lets go and follows the current of the moment. But
most of the time, she feels constricted, hindered, and agitated by the
way in which everybody does the same things in the same ways, day
after day. Her passion seeks outlet. Her notions crave to be embod-
ied. And her motivation to be vibrant and some version of “free” is
tremendous. But her attention span is brief and staccato; and between
ambitious thrusts, she falls asleep and drifts into spaces of self-betrayal.
Her path must find discipline and harnessing of her wild nature.
She so utterly enjoys getting away with mischief that lassoing herself
to a genuine developmental sequence is quite a strenuous endeavor.
Her own greatest enemy is her balkiness, a certain defiant self-will
28
The Moon
that knows how to defend itself superbly and keep going. Eventually,
the romantic adventure of being everywhere at once yields to a will-
ingness to be in tune with her own particular path through the maze.
Yet, more than anyone else, she must always have an alternating cur-
rent, so that the other side of life can express itself through her while
she points herself toward self-mastery and becoming aligned with
who she really is—which may prove to be the greatest surprise of all.
Moon in Pisces
he is under a spell. Her body and emotions draw her downward
under the surface of existence, into a realm of passive absorption
in multiple impressions. She is convinced that she has always been
inside this spectrum of strange phenomena. Her soul grieves deeply
and laments lost worlds, missing parts, something vital far distant
and unreachable. She must learn how to navigate through dark waters
of bottomless doubt and reverberating fear. She is sensitized to every-
thing underlying what seems to be happening. But the imprint of
these subtle soundings on her is pervasively painful and over-
whelming.
Her most difficult challenge is to activate herself in some fashion,
and to come to know that she can be herself. Ancestral karmas, per-
sonal half-memories, and proliferating signs all indicate to her that
she is a product of her world and must somehow endure and sur-
render to the fate of being down under and held fast. Within this
bleak scenario, she can be resourceful, ingenious, and remarkably
stalwart and courageous despite herself. Profound wells of soul
remembrance bathe her protectively in a mystic rapport with the
totality of existence.
Her task is merciless, and her position stark and devoid of escape
routes; yet in this very dire plight she begins to uncover parts of her-
self that have long been lost. She begins to bring to others a spiritual
force of redemptive caring and concern that is simultaneously per-
sonal in the extreme and wisely objective. She can fathom human
suffering in the Earth. And she can know throughout her body what
the fallen human state has wrought, and what it will take to bring
29
INSIDE PLANETS
mediation and true resurrection. Her conditiomis indeed agonizing,
and her soul mood is very hard to change. Right there in hellish states,
something comes through, in between and all around, that is
poignantly beautiful. aye ea
Moon in Leo
he is seeking herself in the heart of the world, and she recognizes
sparkling facets of her own individuality long before she can do
anything with them. It is a tantalizing proposition to sense and glimpse
such wonders of selfhood while yet being far removed from source
or destination in manifest reality.
She dreams herself into being, and her arrival upon the scene takes
forever. While she waits, she creates for herself a world compounded
of delusion. Her fondest folly is that the ritual enactment of the ges-
ture of selfhood can do the job of individuality, as though intention
and vision were all. Her performance in the role of trying on for size
her future self is almost convincing. The more successful she is in
persuading her audience to acclaim her expression as the real thing,
however, the further she postpones the much harsher task of self-
embodiment. She so delights in magnificent displays of personality
that coming to herself, sad to say, is the most arduous and demand-
ing of human endeavors, especially in that it requires radical self-
overcoming and the renunciation of personal ego.
Her fool’s-gold paradise is thus doomed eventually to reveal its
true colors; then her real life begins. She has one great gift to assist
her in the great work of uncovering selfhood: She has seen and felt
the brightness, warmth, and vitality of full self-expression, and is
therefore intensely motivated to go all the way from the outwardly-
fixated self to the Christ-filled self radiating abundant life.
Moon in Aquarius
SO": is aware of what is wrong with her—and even more sharply
aware of what is wrong with her world. Wakeful amidst sleep,
keenly observant in the thick of general inertia, she strides forward,
keeping her eyes set on what is happening and especially on what is
30
The Moon
not happening. Her basis for comparison and evaluation is quite
developed from an early age. As a result, it would be easy to overes-
timate her capacity for wisdom. The sphere of her scrutiny is actu-
ally tightly limited. All that she is registering is how everything works,
and what could make the world work better. Such a pragmatic intel-
ligence is excellent for symptomatic relief and changes in outward
structure of self or world, but has nothing to do with real change.
In order for her to get where she is going in this self-monitoring
and critical perception, she must take an infinite number of small
steps to facilitate and ensure effectiveness and capability. She is refin-
ing and distilling her intelligence into form, but feels very little. Hers
is a highly specialized nature, optimal for projects, tasks, and practi-
cal results. Self-alienation is her shadow and her burden. She cannot
find herself in a deep sense, amidst the evidence of what-she-is-like,
and others generally will have no greater luck than she in fathoming
who she is.
This is for her a bridging lifetime, exciting in its many discover-
ies, leading over from one side of existence to a completely different
side while the inner self is veiled and suspended. Behind the scenes,
however, the inner self fashions a vehicle suited for future ventures,
and is content to remain anonymous and unknown.
Moon in Aries
he forges herself into someone who cannot be ignored. She strives
uphill against the current, attempting the impossible. Her nature
is contentious, her very existence a battle. She is upset because she
cannot do what she wishes to do. What stands in her way is her own
self-image. As she experiences herself through the lens or filter of
frustration and inadequacy, her fulfillment always lies ahead of her,
just out of reach. She tries to grab it, thereby pushing it away.
The worst part is that she cannot resist taking the road which will
fail. She is teaching herself a lesson, and inwardly she prefers diffi-
cult outcomes to the false desire for instant gratification. Whatever
she does, her little self pushes toward the exact scenario that her
greater self recognizes to be dead wrong. The pervasive conflict within
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INSIDE PLANETS
herself generates an energy field of strife and anguish. She knows she
is wrong. Her most ardent desire on personal levels is to have some-
body else come along and make her right. And the radical divergence
between what she wants and what she needs defines the parameters
of her existence.
Her will persists in keeping her in deep trouble. The repetitive
nature of her interminable battles with herself is,discouraging, and
much of her effort goes into maintaining sufficiently high spirits to
carry on with the next skirmish. The instinctual life wisdom inside
her keeps her going magnificently, makes her face the consequences
of her actions and attitudes, and will not let her fall for her own fever-
ish attempts to hide and avoid herself completely. She can emerge
victorious over her own denials and resistances if she stays in there
until realization hits, and something hard and heavy gives way at
long last.
Moon in Libra
H;: journey through the world is spiced with a great number of
life episodes, all keying on one theme. Each variation has its
own color and tone, and its own quite distinctive sphere of out-
working. It is very difficult for her to come to the center of these radi-
ating spheres oflife experience. She becomes fascinated with the
contours of each variation, and distracts herself quite successfully.
Eventually, the color and the sound and the sparkle cannot veil any
longer the underlying content or theme—that this is a lifetime of
moving through a radical change, from a world fabulously endowed
with familiar strands of every description to a world just now form-
ing toward the future, best characterized as involving stretching and
expanding at every juncture.
In the life she must leave behind, there was a virtual absence of
inward demands, and a tremendously engaging spread of outward
semblances and arenas to lose herself in. This has built up an exceed-
ingly deeply ingrained habit pattern of feeling and knowing herself
from the outside, and not at all from the inside. This particular syn-
drome envelops her with fingers all pointing the wrong way.
oy)
The Moon
She must therefore turn herself inside out. Usually, the personal
desire is tenacious enough to refuse to budge from its favorite pur-
suits until character deepening and tempering by painful con-
frontations turns her around. The demand to reverse her field is felt
as too much, until she genuinely feels and knows that the false self
cannot satisfy, that no form of outward fruition can fill up the empti-
ness inside. Only a complete turnaround can make life again a sphere
for joy and partaking in love with all of her being.
Moon in Capricorn
he insists upon coming forth out of the world-dream. Nothing
less can detain her. She is fiercely demanding of herself, and vig-
ilantly rejects all compromise. She is so determined, so set upon her
way, that she overshoots the mark time and again, and then must
humble herself and start over. She has the right idea, but a terrible
strategy. Somehow, she is convinced that forcing herself to be the
best possible version of herself is the shortest way there. It is not. She
does terrible damage to herself as a matter of course, and then pushes
onward.
This way of operating is the hardest way to go. She exults in the
difficulty, rallying herself to the cause with brutal self-disregard. When
challenged, she can instantly prove how right she is. The saddest part
of all is that she rejects assistance, reflection, or real naked interac-
tion, and substitutes for these a solitary resolve of the loneliest and
most self-alienating kind. What finally happens is that this drastic
mode of forcing the issue meets its successor, which is a renewed striv-
ing for truth and awakening that honors and gives full credence to
each step along the way. It allows her to feel for the first time some
measure of forgiveness toward herself for not always having been per-
fect. Ultimately, she can break through to consummate mastery with-
out violating the fabric of all the lesser levels of experience.
Moon in Cancer
he has a secret. She is a secret. Her secret is that she knows some-
thing, and that what she knows drives her always. It would be
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INSIDE PLANETS
almost impossible for her to articulate the mystery she carries, but
from the beginning she senses and feels, and inwardly knows that
she is called into public service of a kind that wilfdemand everything
she has and more. Along the way, she cultivates an exaggerated per-
sonal tone, an idiosyncratic normalcy. She wishes to pass as entirely
ordinary, and works very hard to achieve this effect. But her way of
seeing life is different. She sees as a representative of the whole in
archetypal ways. Seeming to be ultra-personal, she is inside supremely
impersonal. Whatever happens, she keys on: What does it mean?
What is its value? What can we do with it?
There is, however, a huge pitfall in this way of seeing. What she
misses is the truly human element. She knows the story, she is infi-
nitely familiar with the drama, and she can tell you everything about
how it all fits together. Lacking completely in this account is the actual
human part that changes everything into an earthly and quite involved
situation, which she denies. The result is that she designs and believes
in a finely formed way of being which she superimposes upon what-
ever she meets.
Others feel that they cannot match her idealized image, and she
has such a consistent and complete systematized way of organizing
the world that it does seem a shame that the full-blooded flow of life-
as-lived cannot synchronize with the master plan. She cannot imag-
ine what could be wrong with such a perfect, cool and crisp world-view,
but sooner or later the truth must dawn that something else altogether
is going on here. In all its raw challenge, the truth is more compelling
and powerful than any preconceived idea ever could be.
Moon in Gemini
he entire world is in motion, and she is riding the waves of that
motion, making the most of the ride. She places herself right in
whatever is moving, and knows with unnerving instinct how far she
can go with it and how much to make of it. She is dazzling in her
dynamism. She takes each part as she finds it, and marshals it into
its quintessential expression. The odd part is that nothing whatso-
ever makes a deep impression upon her. Nothing stops her for long,
34
The Moon
and few factors even slow her down. Her intention is to participate
avidly and flowingly with whatever is there. She is determined not
to let anything be heavy, dominating, or obsessive. She has so many
places to go, so many experiences to enjoy, and she knows very well
how to maximize all plus factors and minimize all minus factors.
What will happen with this way of going is that it will achieve its
primary goal of taking her into all the corners of the world. The
shadow phenomenon accompanying this attainment will be just as
vast, and that is she will have no rest, no enduring point of reference,
and no intensity of feeling for anything other than the strident pace
of her journey and the perpetual need to go further along the infi-
nite way. This is a lifetime emphasizing breadth over depth, and only
when the many worlds have all been plundered will the interior
dimension show itself as it truly is, and ask, “Have you got the energy
for one final adventure, in another direction completely?”
Moon in Scorpio
he dives down to the bottom and then dives further. Her karma
leads her on a chase without boundaries. At the very center of her
being, she seeks herself, and is willing to move through all of her
shadow places, dramatizing each of them as she passes through it in
such terms that it consumes all of her attention and forces her to
become a different person to survive it. She has no breathers, no time
away. Her will-to-be is utterly relentless.
She has come to a point in her soul’s journey where she has got-
ten so foundationally lost that her only possible path forward is to
take up each karmic strand and reweave it, even if it kills her. She
lives many lives in one, and in the molten core of any given life she
seems entirely caught up in the pattern and the lesson. Her courage
and strength see her through, while her anger and her agony threaten
to prevent all further measures. Her vibratory field swirls in vortices
of destruction and recreation. When all the dust has cleared, all the
passion has been spent, all the terrors and all the ordeals have faded
into memory, there she will be, perhaps ready for a brighter way of
being, and perhaps still seething, still unrelenting, still captured by
Sp)
INSIDE PLANETS
the urgent crisis of her own strange story, which emanates from her
as the only thing she knows, and the most drastic and total way of
being anybody could possibly muster.
ca
The Moon in the Houses -
Moon in the First House
he is a child of Earth. Her receptive capacity is unlimited. Life is
streaming into her from every side, and she is there to form life
into personal expression. In many ways she dwells in suspension, in
waiting, in longing. She is coming in, very much in the process of
coming to know herself in simple ways. Her world forms around her
organically and in rightful stages.
Her gift is that she remains responsive to spiritual forces, to nature’s
breath, and to the whole of the situation. Her shortcoming is that
she cannot take any given aspect of experience very far at all. She is
thus quite open to the initial impressions she receives, but she does
not take up the fullest engagement with anything at all. Her sensi-
bility is delightfully naive and “right there.” In the moment, she
emanates restorative forces; yet she is quite thoroughly held back
from earthly depths of involvement and struggle, so that she can free
herself up for moving with each and every side of life just as it pre-
sents itself, with an almost clean slate. Subjectively, she enjoys and
appreciates implicitly her special status. She feels fortunate, blessed.
And she is given time and again the essential message of whatever
she passes through, with little obligation to take on the weight of all
the nonessentials that accompany and hedge about what is most vital
in life.
Moon in the Second House
Grae steps must be taken, and she is nominated to take
them. All she has to do is to comply with the objective require-
ments of each situation that arises. In order to do this she must remain
in present time, focusing her sphere oflife unfoldment upon what
36
The Moon
is firmly, definitely calling to her within each context. Her gift is that
she knows the way forward, and it is in her to find and hold to that
way. Her shortcoming is that the vast bulk of experience contradicts
and goes off on a tangent from the straight and narrow. So she is
perennially tempted and tried. The weight of outward conditioning
pulls her heavily downward, while her optimal level of expression is
poised at the verge with watchful eye and steady tread. She must
recover her point of reference many times a day, and if she comes to
believe her mental formulations of external reality, the model she
uses will drag her away from herself.
She is in a real bind. She must fall into falsehood and confusion
many times, and must then come to herself afresh each time. Her
greatest enemy is the seduction of habit and routine. If she falls under
the sway of mechanical behaviors and automatic assumptions, her
world dims to grey and she becomes pale and withheld. Her true
path forward requires her to adhere to standards of skillful and well-
motivated ways of being, which are always minority phenomena
without obvious immediate social reward. Ultimately, she finds her-
self with precious little leeway. When she hits the mark brightness
opens ahead, and when she wavers and vacillates, smoke and mist
begin to envelop the scene. Being forthright, clear, and willing are
her hallmarks. Anything less sucks her into a tailspin, so that she
must learn the difference between conscious presence and simply
going through the motions.
Moon in the Third House
he lives moment by moment, breath by breath. The forces stream-
ing through what lives in each moment are so strong, so power-
ful and so unavoidable for her that she has no room for anything
else. Such a way of life demands remaining in synch with what is aris-
ing, or else each wave submerges her. Her physiological makeup must
be ultra fine-tuned for her to find her way in spite of the endless
demands that keep coming and coming and coming.
Her situation is quite treacherous. Her gift is a radical spontane-
ity that rides the waves with a flourish. Her shortcoming is that any
7,
INSIDE PLANETS
lapse of attention reaps the whirlwind. Staying on top of so very much
so constantly can easily press her outward, into external personality
syndromes of myriad varieties. Her substitute selves have far greater
facility in operating this way than she herself does: Each time she
places herself completely outside herself, her world is served, but she
disappears.
This syndrome is frightening, and cautionary. The only way she
can genuinely engage the moment’s challenge is by releasing out-
wardly while being alive and present inwardly. Her practice and
growth must key on developing this combination, since the natural
drift of events is for her world to loom large and for her inner self to
be swept away on the tides of circumstance. Her one way through is
to stay at the converging point, not flying outward and not sinking
inward, but dancing in tune with the pulse beat of rhythmic timing,
and catching the knack of being there as she goes, with every false
step teaching her just as much as every time she stays on the beam.
Moon in the Fourth House
he is from birth held fast by Earth. Every situation she meets has
weight, substance, tangible underpinning. She is deep-down
underneath the world, and must slowly and gradually find her way
out again. There are no easy steps, no quick fixes, no shortcuts.
She is compelled by inner necessity to take on the specific grav-
ity of each world she lives in, and then to bear it forward with her.
Her pain and struggle permeate her aura with karmic and ancestral
half-memories and inward echoes. Her gift is to remain steadfast and
deeply committed to the task of self-renewal and world-renewal. Her
shortcoming is that she recurrently becomes discouraged, despon-
dent, and stopped cold.
Living at such a density level is oppressive and deadening. Her
greatest temptation is to pretend to throw it all off, to create for her-
self a world that avoids these heavy regions completely. Whenever
she does this, she brings out all around her a shadow reflection of
immense darkness, remaining herself in a circle of light in the mid-
dle. The consequence is that she experiences all limiting factors as
38
The Moon
coming from the outside, imagining herself to be immune and pure
in the midst of encroaching factors.
Even without this idolatry of appearances and escape into the vac-
uum of quasi-innocence, she abides in a supercharged realm, bring-
ing up whatever is down there into her surroundings and in herself.
She is a walking karmic clearinghouse, taking world-stuff through
her and attempting to transmute it into a basis for going further. Her
most difficult endeavor is to take hold of her own old pictures and
shake them out, to make room for what is to come. This requires a
less prejudicial atmosphere, and a tone of accepting and encom-
passing whatever is there without any preconditions.
Moon in the Fifth House
he fashions herself into being. She is her own creative matrix. Her
ancestors, her previous existences and her ongoing context are
merely raw materials for her becoming. She is intent upon staying
true to herself and making her own way; she stoutly resists influence
and imprints from outside. Her strength of will is tireless.
Her gift is sheer determination to hold to her course resolutely. Her
shortcoming is that her fierce self-intent discards so very much of what
is coming in that her receptivity level is at its lowest ebb. She therefore
makes little use of life’s graces and the loving potency of beings other
than herself. This is a lonely, stark proposition. Even though she prefers
it this way, she has little idea of what she is missing.
Purposive development of autonomous selfhood is her stream of
unfoldment. And it will be fulfilled, unless she becomes ensnared in
the worship of outward personality performance, which is the norm
in the late twentieth century. Any immersion in this will short-cir-
cuit all her individual virtues and strengths, and plunge her into the
terrible ordeal of attempting to make herself into the darling of oth-
ers while remaining deeply estranged inwardly. If she moves through
and beyond this one great snare, her life’s path is crystalline, well-
formed, and ideally suited for self-embodiment upon its own terms—
the terms of free will—and for the remarkable sequence of steps
leading from being one of everybody to being utterly oneself.
39
INSIDE PLANETS
Moon in the Sixth House
er world is concrete, and speaks to her quite defjnitely in a lan-
H guage she can understand. It asks her to pitch in-and make it
work better. This always involves specific measures, taken in orderly
sequence toward preconceived results. Within narrowly pragmatic
spheres, she operates superbly. However, she has no idea how to par-
ticipate optimally in looser contexts. Her tasks are all-consuming.
Her gift is to produce the results she intends reliably, consistently,
and conscientiously. Her shortcoming is that whenever it is time to
release pent-up forces into other forms of life expression, she draws
a blank. Naturally and inevitably, she will cover this up and learn to
act casual and at ease in the lighter situations she encounters. Nonethe-
less, in this performance she is skating on thin ice, and is inwardly
tenser than ever as she acts outwardly cool.
This lifetime is a hardworking, no-breaks experience. She seeks to
serve, to be of help—and she will. Her special skills can be marvelously
crafted, and doing her best is often admirably and stalwartly just what
one might wish someone would take up in that way. Her one great-
est sacrifice is of her playful spontaneous child-self to the rigors of
fully adult functioning. It would do her great good if she can learn
eventually to create around her adamant dedication some space, some
feeling for wholeness, and some immediacy of connection with other
souls, with no program and no controlling voice whatsoever.
Moon in the Seventh House
he hungers to enter into experience and to meet those who can
share with her. Her impulse is passionate, alive, immediate, and
easily triggered. She knows herself through what happens to her and
how she responds to it. Her gift is to be accessible, and to draw forth
whatever wants to emerge in each and all. Her shortcoming is that
she has no basis for containment, long-term progression, or approach-
ing anything from another level than the point of entry. In fact, she
is so driven into the drama of encounter and confrontation that any-
thing else is for her quite dull and commonplace.
40
The Moon
Her life is a highlight film, a sequence of key events. In between,
there is less than nothing. Being so totally event-oriented, she is read-
ily convinced that the given way in which her situation is unfolding
is somehow the only way it could happen. This track is an ever-accel-
erating sequence of momentum, building toward extreme dynamism
and overwhelming force. Her greatest difficulty is that she has
absolutely no appetite for entering and staying within the basic flow
of experience. Instead, she tears out after the most outstanding and
sensational facet, and gives herself over to the foreground enactment
of karmic relationship and romantic idealism, shadowed by deep
wells of fear and doubt. These only serve to push her further out on
the limb of candid and forthright head-to-head meetings, which take
her everywhere and nowhere, and just keep on coming, to satiation
and beyond.
Moon in the Eighth House
he is in a perfect position to draw to herself pivotal lessons and
experiences, and to make the most of them. She delights in par-
taking fully in the stream of events without limit. She comes on strong,
and keeps on coming; her path through life is ultra-alive. The rever-
berations and reflections from experience go through her in intri-
cate ways. She is capable of a tremendous variety and startling
sequence of significant sharp changes. Her vital force is unstoppable.
Her gift is to be somebody quite formidable, amazingly protean
and adventuresome. Her shortcoming is that she gets so carried away
with her own story and infinite possibilities that she expends herself,
inviting abuse, addiction, and every manner of extreme impetus. She
is so eager and so ready to jump into the pool of shared experience
that discrimination, constraint and perspective are virtually unheard
of here. In the contemporary world, this is indeed a danger sign. If
she pushes too far, her tendency is to turn destructive and perverse.
If she takes this all the way, her emotional extremism places her in
jeopardy of losing her way altogether. She is risking all on her imme-
diate chances at every juncture.
While depths of wisdom or heights of calm centeredness are
41
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remote here, she does have sufficiently strong tenacity, and such an
insistency on taking up her destiny full-on, that her world will for-
give her endlessly and open tremendous space for her to make every
mistake in the world and still keep on discovering what she can do
and who she can be when there is no lid over the horizon.
we
Moon in the Ninth House
he beholds her own little self and everybody else’s little self, busily
scampering about way down below. She is fascinated endlessly
by what she sees. Her consciousness is avidly trained upon the flow
of events as object lesson. It is all so amazing, so revelatory. No sin-
gle piece of experience captures her completely— she is after the inte-
grative view.
Her gift is to become ever more deeply in tune with what is really
going on in her world. This is a very progressive path. Her short-
coming is that her dispassion and acute observational powers elim-
inate ruthlessly the one component of life experience that the Earth
is all about— falling into the embrace of life-as-life, and then pick-
ing oneself up again. She does not truly fall, and she wills never to
lose herself completely.
This is an unfortunate decision. She cannot be fertilized by weak-
ness, anguish, and mortality. Instead, she opts for knowing better,
which indeed she does. This kind of fate has tremendous advantages,
and equal disadvantages. Her foremost advantage is that her cosmic-
spiritual alignment always remains sound and intact, which does give
a certain stillness and peace. Her most drastic disadvantage is that,
in never getting thoroughly dirty, she does not empathically or com-
passionately recognize what it is like for everybody else. She there-
fore stands above the world, and cannot lose her stature, nor even
risk it. She does have the miraculous component of sensing intu-
itively who she is, from the very start of her life, and growing stronger
with each passing season.
42
The Moon
Moon in the Tenth House
S* can and she will reveal through her expression what life is
about, in the broadest terms. She is a living demonstration pro-
ject, an example, an archetypal manifestation. Her awareness is geared
toward fashioning a vessel of higher selfhood, in whatever form is
quintessentially representative of the good of the whole. Her moral
force is radiant with empowering strength, and she knows how to
come across to others in a way that speaks volumes.
Her gift is to stand there, before everybody, pointing toward what
is needed, what is intended, what is critical. Her shortcoming is her
exaggerated maternal bias, which turns the world into her family,
and forms all that happens into part of a shared circle of concerns,
in such a way that any other perspective or point of view is out of the
question. She persuades, she prods, and she gets inside of people with
her conviction of what is best. If she should become bound up with
limited conceptions or conventional conditionings, she is more than
capable of contriving to blindly impose the social pattern onto each
individual involved. Even when she serves a greater truth and is alive
to a framework of greater understanding and love, she tends to talk
down to people and to sweep them away with her vision. She is the
foremost example of hierarchical standards and traditional order.
It takes considerable metamorphosis for such a dominating style
to become ready for an open-ended future. Meanwhile, she is extra-
ordinarily well put together, and the ways in which she manifests
perfection are sterling in promoting higher levels of human striving
as natural, intrinsic and simply common-sensical.
Moon in the Eleventh House
he has embarked upon an extended journey through the world.
What she will go through is unpredictable, and always subject to
shifting tides. She has many arrows to her bow, and myriad worlds
to move among; yet rarely does she stay alive to the multidimen-
sionality possible in her experience. To stretch this far requires courage,
and the overthrowing of shared limitations. Her fatal flaw is that
43
INSIDE PLANETS
every tight conditioning pattern is for her a Coat to try on, which
may cling to her skin a long time. She moves through some of the
most harrowing levels of experience, and eventually chalks them up
to where she was at that time. She is a sponge for chances to become
absorbed in what seems to be familiar and mémentarily safe and
solid. Yet all is relative for her, and in the long run even her own fer-
vent desire to escape the wild reaches of her destiny cannot keep her
back from them.
Her gift is to fathom the steps and stages and moving current of
life’s greater journey, and to show everyone how wide open life’s stage
can be. Her shortcoming is that stretching the Moon so very far goes
against the grain of all social standards. She is therefore exaggerat-
edly susceptible to the pull from lesser levels of experience. Her jour-
ney is undertaken against great odds, and consistently threatened
and endangered. The open-ended question which stares her in the
eye is: Can she ultimately overcome herself? Can she take on the sem-
blances and the easy ways out, yet keep coming back for more, meet-
ing the challenge to exceed the limits of shelter and sanctuary in
breaking through to open territory?
Moon in the Twelfth House
he has agreed ahead of time to come into deep touch with every
limiting fragment of experience, and to penetrate yet deeper. She
has a hyper-intense drive to uncover what is worthwhile in the thick
of what is obstructive. Her entire existence is saturated with inward
struggles, in the deep waters of collective and karmic accumulations.
There is nothing else for her to do than to face the worst and survive.
Her gift is to breathe under water, to hold the tension, to stay
within the overwhelming force of whatever she comes up against.
Her shortcoming is self-antipathy. She holds against herself the recur-
rent feeling of being bound up within sharply old and harshly painful
patterns. The truth of the matter is that feeling antagonism toward
herself is a strange kind of comfort, that one constant that gives her
definition and form. Any measure of self-hatred, however, in the
deepest perspective, is a holding back, a resistance to surrender, and
44
The Moon
in truth the last stand of the separative ego. Her rightful path is to
forgive, to heal, to redeem, and to be completely humble.
She receives the greatest spiritual help that is available to speed
her through her changes. In the molten core of her experience, she
finds herself to be irreducibly a being of a love so great that it can-
not stop until it has burned through the dross of the ages, and
returned to the beginning with elemental readiness to be once again
the child of a vast and exquisite livingness.
45
wd
CHAPTER 3
Mercury
HE PRESENT-DAY WORLD is enraptured with Mercury. This
planetary energy shows up everywhere— humor, movement,
variety, and restless currents give Mercury access. This is the
god of a consumer culture, the way of life of those who are drawn to
the surface to find gratification. It is difficult to make Mercury an
astrological influence in a contained fashion, because the world calls
everyone's Mercury to come out and play. There is, in and through
all of this action, communication and interest in keeping going, some-
thing much more lively and free than the apparent runaway Mercury
would generate.
Mercury can be manipulative and tricky, or it can be stimulating,
candid, and wide open. What is the difference between agitated self-
externalizing and a quickened vital interest in what is there? In the
gross, acquisitive Mercury—the one greedy for quantitative experi-
ence—the dominant chord is a hyping of received social images, in
order to look good and fool everybody. Mercury becomes mentally
lower-oriented when frustrated and bored, calculating ways to over-
throw frustration and boredom in an arbitrary fashion.
The more heightened and engaged side of Mercury involves tak-
ing hold of what comes, and bringing to it an enthusiasm and eager-
ness that make for a truly enjoyable occasion. As one becomes ever
more adept in the Mercurial craft, in the Mercury that is willing and
able to activate the self in relation to others, there evolves an extra-
ordinary immediacy of spontaneous rapport, a rising to what can
A/
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happen optimally. The skillful and self-traingd Mercury launches
from the social and habitual Mercury, drawing out what is most cur-
rent and on the edge of emerging in others. Genuine Mercury ener-
gies are will-centered, body-alive, and improvisationally-attuned.
Each astrological sign is a fluid arena in which Mercury can do
its best or its worst. Every astrological house is the perfect external
framework in which Mercury can run away with itself endlessly, for
better or for worse. Even the most wonderful of Mercury influences
tends toward excess and has difficulty stopping. There is something
about Mercury that squiggles into quicksilver pieces, running every
which way and invading the domains of the other planets; yet most
light-hearted and free-flowing human experience is in Mercury’s
domain. On balance, the one planet whose magic everyone needs is
Mercury, to fluently move through the points between and among,
and render them part of the shared fabric, each with each and all
with all, shouting exuberantly, in synchronized catalytic dancing,
into the early dawn.
Mercury in the Signs
Mercury in Taurus
H: is not interested in keeping up with the passing show. Hav-
ing very little sharp immediate reaction to events, he ruminates
upon the unfolding of meaning and value, in direct contrast with
prevailing currents. His qualitative approach selects areas that deserve
cultivation, and proceeds to give rapt attention to them only. His
track of discovery and movement forward can be greatly enhanced
if he unlearns his most limiting behavioral rut, and supplants it with
its virtual opposite.
The rut is that of reflexively pulling back with suspicious instincts
from anything moving strongly and fast, in order to consult with his
internal team of experts. The way through this pattern is to gener-
ate a second room adjoining his main internal room. From this sec-
ond room he can enjoy and participate in the parry and roughage of
48
Mercury
surface probes, while protected in his inner room from placing more
of himself in the flow of events than the situation can hold. He needs
this middle chamber, a neutral space, in order to have some measure
of fluent give-and-take. This will keep him at ease with the unavoid-
able fact that his internal rhythm and the general external pulsebeat
are worlds apart, which can be either an awkward issue or an open
secret leading to a way of operating no longer captured in “all or
nothing”—at last willingly generating “something.”
Mercury in Virgo
H° ambivalence toward the immediately forming likely trend of
events is so pervasive that every point of view makes sense to
him. He is strangely wired, in that every forward inclination fosters
a corresponding backward reaction or reflex. Any movement to the
right has a shadow pulling just as far to the left. It is as though a geo-
metrical field were in automatic motion, with internal consistency
compelling the re-establishment of symmetry or equipoise constantly.
Such a pattern becomes the height of fluent functioning and syn-
chronized activity whenever he is walking upon his rightful ground.
However, the moment he attempts to ignore and bypass his appro-
priate circle of concerns, he becomes foolishly and self-evidently at
a loss—compensational, and trying much too hard with self-con-
scious sincerity. His way beyond the impasse of becoming twisted
and snarled whenever he treads on uncertain ground is itself quite
involved and intricate.
Essentially, he must train himself to hold two divergent positions
simultaneously in his awareness, without jumping into one of them
and exteriorizing the other. This means accepting and appreciating
the multiple voices within, and finding out by experimentation that
these voices are not really quarreling or emphatically convinced of
anything, but rather are attempting to point out missing pieces for
the sake of aquick scan of more of the territory. All he has to do,
therefore, is acknowledge and lightly go with each voice. Then he will
find that seeing many sides of an issue can be a fullness of reference
that clarifies and gives a diversity of possible leanings, which is more
49
INSIDE PLANETS
constructive than confusing if he allows it to be informative and never
fixed or definitive.
Mercury in Sagittarius :
e is the natural eager, move-with-events participant. He has
lain for many sides, and takes very few of them seriously. His
level of meshing with immediate phenomena is genuinely optimal.
He is best at taking hold of each factor or facet and granting it no
more and no less than its obvious social currency. THis makes him
the popular candidate for speaking for everybody, in keeping each
and all aware of what goes and how far it goes. This is done effort-
lessly, spontaneously and gladly.
If any subtler frequencies of a more unitive need well up in him,
this throws off his casual, easygoing social monitoring capacity and
brings in something more compelling and formidable. He will tend
to avoid that eventuality if he can. However, if it becomes graphically
clear to him that an entirely different scale of interests is more to the
point than his surface activities, he must then move through a con-
siderable fine tuning of his interactive field. This primarily involves
standing back from the vivid rush of impressions, and forming for
himself a familiarity with the next layer of what is occurring in the
environment. Unfortunately, that next layer demands the exact oppo-
site of what he is accustomed to, instinctively and by conditioning.
The name of the game of surface functioning is giving as little
weight as possible to any given factor, whereas deeper connections
depend upon taking seriously and to heart those factors that are
speaking to him, and having no restrictions on how far he is willing
to go with what matters to him. This means that the previously cool
and untouchable character becomes the epitome of someone who
cares and looks into motivating factors, treating every situation as a
possible window into something vital and stirring and worth pur-
suing passionately.
50
Mercury
Mercury in Pisces
H: fathoms what underlies experience far better than the out-
ward framework and its maintenance. He is hopelessly caught
inside of everything that others know how to stay on top of. This is
his source of disturbance, and can be his entryway into many realms
which he is uniquely suited to navigate. First he must resolve the issue
that plagues him—that of fundamental security. Because he natu-
rally senses what is going on underneath what others see and count
on, he keeps encountering a layer of denied and discarded internal
contents. It is especially difficult for him to pretend that the vast bulk
of what he is exposed to is anything less than treacherous and quite
fertile territory for doubt and fear.
What he is most powerfully up against are those emotions and
chronic conditions of soul that feed into characteristic patterns of
strife and aggression, as well as the vastly proliferating response to
these poisons in fear, doubt, and escapism. His greatest difficulty lies
in staying with the force of his impressions. His pervasive tendency
is to fear everyone’s fears, and in every way to match and even exag-
gerate each corrosive pattern he encounters. Worst of all, he takes
what is in itself relatively straightforward and associates it with all
similar examples in a self-defeating whirlpool.
His only way through this dilemma is to get underneath it. This
means learning how to field the one collective prohibition which has
him pinned into an untenable position. He must feel his way deeper
than the collective assumption that if there is a lot of sludge directly
beneath the surface of events, then the further down you go, the worse
it gets. If he finds out for himself what is moving through the greater
depths, he will discover to his astonishment that those levels are much
more hospitable. He will discover his considerable capacity to sound
the greater depths—there to uncover ways to break the spell of neg-
ative chains of events, and to turn fate into a fascinating and alive
watery domain permeated with beauty and the guiding trails of beings
who do not abandon humanity, and who love the human soul uncon-
ditionally.
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INSIDE PLANETS
Mercury in Leo
s he comes to know himself and to be at home within his own
Ne eae field, he finds the world around him to be in
accord with his own essential being. He takes an’affirmative vantage
point instinctively and persistently, and others may wonder why he
is so convinced that goodness and rightfulness shall prevail. This
comes from his own often-repeated discovery that his internal struc-
ture of innate tendencies is somehow synchronized and in tune with
the pulse of life as a whole.
His basic stance is that everybody can make the same discovery,
and that we have a well-put-together shared arena for growth and
development. Under optimal conditions, such a point of view is
encouraging, strengthening, and rallying to the best in everybody. If
he perseveres in his quest for self-knowledge, such a presence or influ-
ence will be hardy and unmistakably true. However, he is given as
well the task of living into the vantage points of others, and depend-
ing upon how far he chooses to go with this, he may be in for a series
of destiny shocks.
For those who are determined to carry through on the interper-
sonal task, a series of hurdles must be mastered. First, he must strip
away all assumptions and beliefs concerning who, why or how any-
one is or is not. He must then learn to dispassionately observe the
actual expression of each one, and to steer clear of his pervasive ten-
dency to jump to conclusions. Instead, he must keep observing, with-
out resorting to any form of convenient explanation or evaluation.
Only if he can bear the tension of not-knowing long enough can he
then meet the real human being who, it will turn out, is as different
as could possibly be from any familiar category, because each indi-
vidual is unique and can be seen strictly on his or her own terms, if
one wishes to encounter a living being.
Mercury in Aquarius
| e has the kind of mind ideally appointed to grasp the lessons
and meanings within the complex panorama of contemporary
52
Mercury
existence. This ability goes far and wide. Among its brilliant facets
are two of great significance. One is an unsurpassed ability to sift
through particular examples of any given pattern, and to determine
how any particular version of that pattern fits with and can work
within that pattern. The other optimal capacity is to observe for him-
self how a thing works, and to be virtually impervious to others’ sub-
jective or personal projections onto what is being viewed.
The combination of these two traits equals a form of applied intel-
ligence that can lead others toward whatever needs to happen next.
His fatal flaw is correctable, but his pride in what he does well tends
to blind him to the need to correct this quite pervasive mistake. What
he fails to come to terms with is human emotion as a determining fac-
tor, at much deeper levels than he is willing to even suspect. The two
emotions he especially discounts at his own peril are primal anger and
primal fear. He tends to perceive anger as ignorance, and fear as a
pathetic lack of resources. But the nature of anger is to claim and merit
respect for what it has come to know. And fear, even more so, is a pro-
tective emotion whose very nature is to make evident what would oth-
erwise be overlooked. Therefore, it is imperative in every way for him
to develop, despite his bias, a willingness to come up against his own
emotional patterns and those of others, recognizing and respecting
that a great deal of what must be seen in this world is held in the grip
of emotion, which will not yield its fruits when it is put down.
Mercury in Aries
e has a tremendous opportunity. He can, if he wills it, become
lel with each and every living being he meets as a full-
bodied, lively, and engaging presence. In order to enter upon this
challenging interpersonal territory, he must first grapple with his
own issues around the immediate encounter between himself and
his world. His primary obstacle to full-scale interaction is the fact
that everything comes too easily for him. His inclination, therefore,
is to do as he pleases and get away with it. Unfortunately, it is quite
possible and even likely that no one will try to stop him, and that he
will succeed in making the world his playground.
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INSIDE PLANETS
von
The reason this is unfortunate is that there is so much more in
life that is available to him directly on the other side of naive egoism.
Can he leap beyond his own bright light? Will he feel motivated to
engage meaningfully with others who have much’to show him? His
interest and attention are there, and he can readily enter upon a dis-
covery process with another, but something vital is missing. What
he meets in himself is a natural focuser of social occasions who is
deaf to subtle reverberations of what is really living in the other.
If he is to fulfill his potential for catalyzing and responding to
strong human connections, he must first go through a series of tests.
Each test is simply a threshold as he moves further into the depths
of human sharing, progressively discarding the excess baggage of pri-
mal masculine conditionings. Each layer of masculine reserve has to
do with a foundational assumption that he is his own boss and that
nobody should get in the way of his desires or impulses. But actual
human sharings at every juncture demand a flowing forth beyond
self, to meet the needs and energy pulls of others freely, joyously and
with willingness to become ever more vulnerable to the living
encounter.
Mercury in Libra
H* social skills fill his screen of attention with people, events,
and experiences in which to lose himself. He is never so happy
as when he can be swept away in the momentum of shared experi-
ences. His specialty is orchestrating, arranging and fostering the best
in human relationships, and in pervasive crisis. His appetite for being
invaluable to others is insatiable. His very best is his upbeat attitude,
the world’s greatest at keeping active the hope that everybody can
cross-fertilize and have a remarkable time.
His Achilles’ heel is his virtual absence of interest in, or real involve-
ment with, himself. Often this becomes extreme, and he altogether
denies his own and others’ separative dimensions of inward selfhood.
He has difficulty in changing this pattern, and until he does his con-
tribution is questionable. The only way he can take up the path of
return to selfhood is by deepening and intensifying his edge of aware-
54
Mercury
ness of how he feels in this moment. He has an aversion, however,
to doing this. A certain subtle conviction endlessly repeats inside of
him that life is much more enjoyable when you hang loose and take
it easy. Usually, the only factor that changes this outlook is a major
life ordeal, which exposes a crying necessity for going deeper and
coming to know, as if for the first time, the much-denied inward side
of selfhood.
Mercury in Capricorn
he measure of his awareness is that very few life contexts bring
him anything he cannot deal with, if he stays alert. In his mode
of quickened attention, he is superb at encompassing all that is there.
Most in this position spend very little time in this condition. The dif-
ficult part of being so sharp and clear is that he invariably sees what
he would prefer not to see. His usual response is to shut down his
awareness and become as blind as possible.
What is it that he sees, when his eyes are open, that makes him
so ready to endure the consequences of not seeing? His particular
mode of awareness is ultra-fine-tuned to every motivating factor
behind human tragedy and failings. Critical perception, implicit judg-
ments and harsh realities prevail. It takes a highly developed indi-
vidual to be able to deal rightly with such keen and acute knowing
of all that is dark and grim. In a culture manically given over to a
monumental level of denial, it is indeed a great challenge to stay with
his inward sharpness to any significant degree. Within specialized
contexts, his awareness will serve him well. But for anything broader
he will need the seasoning and tempering of much life experience,
radical self-overcoming, and alignment with a greater truth stream,
to be able to stand there objectively and affirm, directly in the face
of evidence that condemns the situation as devoid of hiding places
and stripped of surface charm.
Mercury in Cancer
e surveys his world with a mixture of cool disinterest and per-
vasive agitation. The disinterest pertains to ultimate outcomes
2»)
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and larger themes, which are kept track of splendidly. The agitation
has to do with the immediate impression of concrete events, moment
by moment. His part in these unfolding patterns in the moment is
for him a knotty question. ,
His preference is to stand clear, to ensure majorr archetypal results
and long-range resolutions; yet his world comes at him furiously
with everything but that. Whenever he agrees to activate himself
amidst the stream of urgent events, he becomes as bound up within
the crosscurrents and controversies as anybody could possibly be.
Thus, his onlooker consciousness is crystal clear, but his participa-
tory awareness is muddled and fragmentary. Something is lost in the
translation from inward view to outward expression.
This is a destiny riddle and a personal anguish. What is actually
involved is that the overview reveals valid, accurate thematic strands
and their relationship to each other. But the human component
changes everything drastically. As soon as he becomes one force
among many and is thereby reduced to human size, he finds himself
taking up a partisan viewpoint. He attempts to promote the good of
the whole, but with a vehement style that suggests personal entan-
glement, distortion and fanaticism.
He must learn to vanquish his need to expect others to be correct
and perfectly in place, since this comes across as personal egoistic
insistency that immediately polarizes the situation. Most of all, he
must learn to cut loose from entrenched positions as fast as he takes
them up, for any measure of standing for the one true way places
others in the background and ends up becoming a personality plat-
form for humiliating variations on the theme of standing out, once
again, too obviously.
Mercury in Gemini
H: knows how to communicate, and how to draw the other per-
son out. He is multi-talented in promoting and maintaining
enterprises, endeavors and social initiatives. His form of bringing
across what everybody needs to see is ideally suited to persuade, influ-
ence and have total impact. Such a gift can lead him in many possible
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Mercury
directions, often all of them present at once. The four most charac-
teristic directions are:
a. The public relations impresario, whose every word is somehow
magically the right word to generate response and results, precisely
as desired.
b. The social instigator, vastly adept in using communication skills
to do as he pleases with individuals and groups, quite far beyond the
parameters that would hold for anybody else.
c. If motivated by egoistic frenzy, he can fill his days with making
himself into an ideal figure, who uses everyone else’s consciousness
as raw material for becoming a fantasy version of the consummately
conscious human being.
d. When motivated by awakened future vision, he manifests an
extraordinary aptitude for assisting others to see, imagine, conceive
and activate what might otherwise remain dormant and untapped,
especially toward mutual empowerment and larger currents of broth-
erhood. This influence runs the gamut from lazy living off the fat of
the land to a sparkling dramatization of what we all can be together.
Mercury in Scorpio
e is always suggesting and implying far more than words can
tale Stretching concrete awareness to its limit and beyond, he
gets in touch with multiple levels of experience, and attempts to com-
mand them like a keyboard. His abilities in taking several possible
directions at once and connecting these implicitly border on genius.
Most remarkably, he can stay aware in many different ways with such
magnificent aplomb that he gives flashing previews of what human
beings will be like when they are no longer in their own way.
For him, these glimpses are tantalizing. When he finds himself
under the sway of human ignorance and chronic blockages in self or
others, he is often stymied and thrown back. There is something
about the minute hitches on the road to optimal capacity which fail
to interest him, and therefore trip him up time and again. He assumes
these trivial course corrections to be beneath him, and he cannot
quite come back from his metapersonal movement beyond to become
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absorbed and preoccupied in ordinary, habitual, minor failings. This
eventuates in a vast accumulation of tiny overlooked bits and pieces.
His only thoroughly viable path forward is to humble himself
drastically and endlessly in the face of myriad karmic blind spots,
which look at first like tiny distortions, but when yanked into the
light of awareness prove to be deep-rooted and poisonous. Until these
are worked through, the rocky course he keeps facing has boulders
underneath that look like pebbles on the surface. He cannot get
around them, no matter how ingenious he is.
ra
Mercury in the Houses
Mercury in the First House
e has a wide-open path into full-scale participation in what is
tele all around him. Eagerness, willingness and readiness
characterize his soul mood much of the time. There are few condi-
tions upon his natural exploratory process. Best of all, he is again
and again in the right place at the right time for optimal outcomes.
The one sub-theme that nags and disturbs this considerable open-
ing into life is a repeated experience of human connection as drag-
ging behind the level of vibrational responsiveness he is moving
through. This can be corrected. The difficulty arises from automat-
ically sending out a signal that says, “I seek and wish an open, no-
strings-attached, free, mutual sharing.” But the other requires more
form and definition in order to find orientation. And when the solidi-
ties of a particular form make themselves evident and palpable, he
instinctively and instantly pulls back into a neutral observing perch,
which effectively cuts the energy. His aversion to what he senses as
special programs and hidden agendas is extreme, and thoroughly
inhibiting to realistic connection.
What is needed here is a conscious re-evaluation of the smug
assumption that others’ more formed worlds are inevitably encroach-
ing and consuming for him. If he drops his reflexive distaste for any-
thing too definite, he will begin to find that every framework and
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Mercury
every continuum of patterned insistency can be followed through
and opened at the other end. In Earth schooling, the rightful open-
ing is an earned one that comes after densities and containments. If
the opening is an implicit demand from the beginning, there is not
sufficient basis for a deep penetration into Earth’s foundational
lessons. It will be found that corridors and cellars are breathable,
especially for the one who always senses light and space streaming
through at both ends of the specific context.
Mercury in the Second House
e is squarely faced with time and space requirements that are
binding and tautly held in place. He comes into a living-room
or life-space that has intricate detail and precise coordinates at every
juncture. He is so intensively impressed with the givenness inherent
in his way of seeing that impressions tend to concretize, become
cumulative and mutually reinforcing. He thereby forms life pictures
that are set and remarkably thematic throughout. This results in the
classical predicament of the monkey mind. To an extent that far out-
does others, he thinks his world into being, and imagines his way of
conceiving it to be factual, accurate, and commonsensical. Thus he
takes each given impression literally, and adds them all together in
tight linear progression.
It is a source of great satisfaction to him to assume that he knows
what he is doing. This is so central to his self-definition that he works
very hard and long to assure himself a steady stream of familiar fac-
tors to deal with. Sad to say, this way of building a world of safe and
sound dimensions walls him in so drastically that he becomes inbred
and absorbed within his own internal dialogue, without recognizing
that he is missing anything. His urgent imperative is to periodically
clean out every assumption, every cherished given, and even that he
voluntarily dismantle the structures he has devised to hold himself up.
Most of all, he must be willing to give the benefit of the doubt to
dissenting voices and fresh influences whenever a stale, suspicious
odor announces to him that what at first seemed to be vital building
blocks for a meaningful world have become the rotting wood of habit-
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ual and chronic ways of thinking about life. He-must never take it
for granted that a clutter of personal notions creates a well-furnished
room to cling to as real and necessary.
r=
Mercury in the Third House oe
e is skilled in making the most of whatever comes along. His
eee of responsiveness to life’s flow gives him quite exten-
sive opportunities for fresh and lively interchange. He is right there
on the spot, resiliently able to keep coming back, breath-by-breath.
His most remarkable gift is a startling level of genuine interest in the
whole spectrum of human ways of being. Curiosity and amazement
make him poised in harkening to what is coming, and infinitely hope-
ful that it will be lively fare.
He is the great host and impresario of magical events. In con-
temporary life, such alacrity and impressionability usually becomes
overextended into a hyper, manic forcing of each little thing to yield
as much as can be squeezed out of it. If he does succumb to the per-
vasive temptation of addiction to the rush of release and wild free-
dom, he will need to take a number of measures to rediscover a natural
spontaneity that allows him to appreciate tasty morsels in every direc-
tion without devouring them.
These corrective processes start with and key upon letting go of
the need to have the influx of experience in set grooves and pack-
ages. Falling for appearances is a costly mistake for him, and can be
reversed. Basically, he must recall himself from any outwardly-fix-
ated focus of expression, and reinstate a vantage point that can move
fluently. His path winds through colossal mistakes, and repeated
episodes of losing the way. Yet he can always come back strong and
fresh if he believes in himself and is willing to uncover in himself the
gifts and treasures he carries so prodigally and effortlessly. At last, he
will care about and foster what lives in him as precious, rare and
wondrous, and always sparkling brightly.
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Mercury
Mercury in the Fourth House
H: is adept in somehow finding a measure of maneuvering room
within dense and hard conditions. He is intent upon outwit-
ting his many tormentors and prevailing against all odds. This uphill
battle is unceasing. Deep inside it, he is learning the ways of the Earth
in its fallen condition. He is best at grappling with hardship and
deprivation, and unprepared for anything else.
The shadow side of his stalwart courage is that he feels compelled
to turn every situation into a test and a trial. And the very worst of
this is that secretly and pervasively he is most at home when down
under, finding endless ways to keep himself there. He is caught in
an old loop that condemns him to repeat his mistakes and not to
really learn from them. The bottom pit of this syndrome can be deep
wells of unforgiveness toward self and devising a world of endless
torture.
Naturally, his conscious pretense will be that he is trying his best,
and that all of this keeps happening to him. The way through this
self-fulfilling prophecy is only open when he has reckoned with the
fierce negativity he is carrying. He must begin again simply, taking
basic measures to form a viable lifestream that allows itself to make
mistakes and changes, free from extreme pressures and demands.
Often a parental figure from his childhood personifies the oppres-
sive mode of consciousness. His task is to overthrow such figures,
inside and out, and to establish a base of self-respect through small
measures taken up constructively. Most importantly, he must think
small and content himself with modest attainments in order to live
without the heavy chains of memory and denial choking off his
impulse to grow.
Mercury in the Fifth House
e has a point of view that he fashions into a vehicle for self-
development. Clustered around this point of view are stirrings
toward whatever he needs to come to himself. The sparks from his
wheel have catalytic power; often his self-rallying waxes into elo-
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quence, inspiring others to do as he does. He beeomes a steady flame
of conviction and will.
His weakness is that he knows no other way than his own. If he
seeks to be of help to others, he runs the risk of ego inflation, power
domination and, most of all, a blithe and easy assumption that “all
we must do is take hold of ourselves.” The way beyond this obvious
trap is to champion individuality on its own terms and not on his
terms. Individuality is as variously formed as can possibly be. Each
person he meets is asking for a reflection that is truly empowering.
This means that he must take his cue from all that is in that person,
including the murky depths of not being ready to grow. For himself,
the developmental progression is full on, unmistakable, and mar-
velously energetically clear.
Mercury in the Sixth House
e has supreme advantages and abject disadvantages. Most of
his advantages have to do with harnessing consciousness to
draw forth from it everything it can do. This includes an astound-
ing self-application to specific objectives and projects, as though his
entire world were one throbbing consciousness seeking total expen-
diture. This kind of mind is well rewarded amidst the complexities
and demands of the contemporary world. He can even spearhead
impossible strategic maneuvers, making himself into such a dedi-
cated worker that he becomes more than invaluable. He sets the pace
for others.
Almost all of his exaggerated deficiencies have to do with neglect
and atrophy of the parts of self that might take away from the task-
at-hand. Unfortunately, most parts of self have this potential. If he
does consciously eliminate what is nonproductive or personally messy,
all he discards will cluster together slightly below the threshold of
awareness, from where it will drive him crazy by drawing up an end-
less sequence of bizarre events.
His rightful path through this dilemma is immediately ceasing
from agitated reactions to such events, so that he can stand back and
view their sequence dispassionately. He will then observe that they
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Mercury
are unerringly coded to fit his hidden fears and doubts and to con-
firm them. Then he must take a hard and long step, which may take
much time and effort, and amounts to reexamining every premise
of his worldview in light of the hidden assumptions and biases under-
neath the apparently rational structures.
Finally he can adapt a more broadly based frame of reference,
which at the very least makes allowance for his own and others’ human
failings, and especially which honors and does justice to the multi-
dimensional nature of human consciousness, including those qual-
ities of experiencing the world that keep life unresolved, open-ended,
fluid and beyond the grasp of any systematic approach whatsoever
toward perfect functioning.
Mercury in the Seventh House
e sees himself reflected in the eyes of each other person he meets.
Such an experience is stimulating, fascinating, and gives much-
needed counterpoint to his main point. He is tremendously open to
partake in human relationship and to enjoy its fruits delightedly. He
draws to him in right timing those karmic connections that can fur-
ther him along his path. A certain grace surrounds his way of becom-
ing, and is a guiding light of considerable strength.
His blind spot is subtle, elusive, and at first apparently insignifi-
cant. It involves being able to move into firm and steady commit-
ment and dedication in relationships. He has such a great time in
each connection that it would almost seem unnecessary to place all
of himself on the line in relationship, as he can always find someone
else. However, this turns out to be a rationalization and a delusion.
The purpose of powerful sharing is to lead into complete giving and
unlimited receiving. Such a level of giving and receiving is impossi-
ble in casual brief encounters, even though an excellent semblance
of total sharing may show up early to stimulate further interest.
He is called upon to vanquish “romanticism” and heroic free
adventure as images of the good life. He can do this by learning
through hard experience to what extent the drama of all-for-the-
moment eventually leaves him worse than alone and at times embit-
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tered. If he somehow musters the deeper courage to forge a path of
surrender to the full dimension of relationship, he will break through
and have as well a much more embodied and whole connection with
himself at last. .
Mercury in the Eighth House
e is leaning forward toward something, looking, for it every-
where. For a long time, this “something” masquerades in myr-
iad forms that endlessly entice and divert him. It may look like interest
and enthusiasm for irresistible objects and phenomena. It may seem
to be incredible experiences and extraordinary worlds. It may show
up in the form of another human being who sets him onfire. It may
easily present itselfin the guise of a path of transformation and
renewal in endless profusion. But he is never satisfied with any of
these, because he is looking through them toward something else.
Truly he is seeking his inner self, and there is no path whatsoever that
will take him there.
He senses this fact, and so he sets off hot on the track of another
eager preoccupation. Eventually, he must face the one thing to which
he has the greatest aversion— his own deeper reflection in the lim-
itless mirror of the living waters of life. He has until this point been
so intent upon his pursuit that he has outsmarted himself. The real
thing is so simple and direct and powerfully unadorned that the world
cries, “Don’t go there.” But in the end he must.
Then it will turn out that the one great mistake pervading his
entire existence has been over-intentionality. A responsive allowing,
when it supplants all seeking, reverses the polarity of human striv-
ing. From this point on the greater gods do the pursuing, and all he
must do is open unconditionally inward and yield all control, which
is precisely what he always yearned for in his feverish pursuits.
Mercury in the Ninth House
| :is direction is homeward. His magnetic pull toward essential
truth is straight on and unavoidable. The lodestar of his life
shines forth from within. When such a path is laid out so clearly, it
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Mercury
brings on a last battle with everything but this—and this battle has
many skirmishes. Outwardly, he may draw unto himself every con-
ceivable escape possibility. He may even glory in losing himself for
a time in the sweet forgetfulness of some ancient calling or familiar
path. It is understandable that all his resistances are brought up, as
his deeper track is ego-shattering and strange to the ways of the world.
Therefore, anything at all can be a blessed relief from what he knows.
The one telltale sign of his not really being interested in the toys and
games is a look in his eye that says, “I am from elsewhere. I am going
toward something else altogether. Do not try to stop me.”
His radical defiance of limitation becomes his long-range key to
return. Along his journey, he will recapitulate and refamiliarize him-
self with every stopping point, every lost oasis. But his is a haunting
presence, and even when he is most thickly engrossed in escapist sen-
sations his stature as a being is standing directly above and behind
him, gazing upon false appearances and empty ways with inward
comprehension schooled in timeless worlds.
Mercury in the Tenth House
e has everything to offer, and he proceeds to offer everything at
elie His inner contents spill over freely and lavishly. He is a
walking wonder show, possessed of magnificent abilities in a host of
directions. Whatever he touches turns bright. In one sense, he is unat-
tached to any particular outcome, and identifies himself with the total
picture. In another sense, he is avid for release, needing to be needed.
This is someone who has been storing up treasures in consciousness,
and is now ready to bring them out and to be stripped of them.
There is great momentum behind this snowballing movement.
He has too much inside, and must move it out into the world. The
one great test along this path is to hold steady inside while he streams
forth with so much awareness outside. In order to keep himself clear
and positive, he needs many measures of internal self-acknowledge-
ment and self-strengthening. Without this bolstering of selfhood, he
can easily become compulsive and extreme in his need to place him-
self outside himself.
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At his worst, he does tend to be completely captivated by the arche-
typal figure he is portraying, even to the point of a bizarre plunging
of self into a mental stream that features mind and nothing-but-
mind as the decisive force in life. He must see through the rush of
power inherent in being seen by others as a light of impeccable intel-
ligence, and come back into balance with the inner, unknown self
that cannot be calculated.
Mercury in the Eleventh House
he life force is at full tide, and he is on top of the wave. Every-
thing in him is tumbling over itself in insensate desire to express
itself to the fullest. The drive of awareness propels him far. There are
no limits upon what he can do. His finest abilities lie in drawing
everyone forward toward future possibilities. In the right situation,
and when the timing is right, he manifests optimal human capacity
for opening the way ahead.
When he falls short of the mark and is not yet ready, he has great
difficulty taking progressive steps in reasonable measure. He tends
to be way ahead of himself, feverishly impatient with those parts of
self that have not “gotten it” yet. Remaining grounded in present
time realities is a mighty struggle for him. His cutting-edge vision-
ary awareness can sense many leaps down the line, and his greatest
trial is finding the restraint to affirm and stay with where he really is
at each juncture. At the molten core of this trial is the deep issue of
learning to value unconditionally each stage of the process, and to
steer clear of utopian fantasies and inflated presentations. His vision
burns a trail ahead, and he will follow when cycles permit, and when
he can take all of himself with him as he goes.
Mercury in the Twelfth House
|cha time he tries to generate movement and forward activity, his
world sets him back on his haunches. Within each cycle, each
lesson, he finds that any attempt to force himself upon his world is
doomed. Over and over again, in myriad variations, he stumbles
over the same obstacle. Why is it so hard for him to take this repeated
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Mercury
lesson to heart? He is convinced that if he fails to struggle and strive,
he will disappear into anonymity.
The winds of fate blow strong for him, and will not let him off
the hook of meeting his one great fear brought to life. Sooner or later,
he must, despite all objections, dive deep and far into collective waters.
Ultimately, he will find under the surface world the underworld path
through anguish and loss. He will turn out to be a shape-changer, a
shaman, one to whom all worlds are equal. Nothing is alien. And as
he navigates the subtle inner realms, he will at last know what he is
made of, and why he has always been so very different in such unmis-
takable ways, as he greets his other form and reunites with origin.
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CHAPTER 4
Venus
HERE IS MUCH in ordinary life that contains within it seeds
of something new and something beautiful. These seeds are
given soil in the heart and throat, and in the place between
the heart and throat. Something there wishes to express itself. This
creative formative impulse has always been sensed and known as the
true feminine. What is most poignant and evocative about this plan-
etary energy of Venus is its inherent ability and desire to permit and
to welcome that which lives in each and in all.
Venus is inclusive and life-generating, and unconditionally cher-
ishes budding possibilities. She holds out an opening for life to begin,
in the next chamber of coming-to-itself. Yet this finest and most life-
affirmative of planetary influences must go through a great change
in its actual expression for the Earth to flourish. Venus is the sister
planet of Earth, and cares deeply for her sister who has lost the way.
She is attempting to bring to the aid of She-of-the-Earth loving forces
of fresh vision and new life potency. These come through as gentle
waves of healing and life renewal.
During springtime each year, the season of Venus, these treasures
and gifts are on the increase. In selected places upon the surface of
the Earth, there is accessible as well a heavenly manna or pranic fluid
of baptism into a deeper life consecration. This is desperately needed
because the ordinary human expression of Venusian sensibilities
became during recent decades a lost art, a forgotten grace. In pre-
sent timing, Venus is coming through in its true quality only where
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the heart and soul are given over to the divine. The surrender of nar-
cissistic absorptions frees up the Venusian energies to serve and to
harmonize.
Where self-love and self-hatred quarrel and dispute in the human
breast, the potency of Venus turns into a sour and bitter draught of
forgetfulness and lamentation. In those worlds most bound by self-
interest, Venus is bewitched into forming one’s self-expression around
what will momentarily bring one pleasure or status. But anyone who
infuses imagination and perceptions with selfless and higher vibra-
tional pictures and tones expands immediately beyond this self-
entrapped model, and begins to uncover the future vessel inside the
cracked container of false personality and separative ego.
Venus in each sign astrologically asks the individual to choose
between the self-serving elements of that sign and the mutually
enhancing, life-germinating facets of that sign. Venus in the houses
becomes inwardly identified with one given sphere of life experience,
and there can play herself out in all her glory and her reticence.
The true and ultimate heart of Venusian influence is to be a car-
rier of grace, an invoker of greater forces, one who loves in such a
way that the beloved is known inside and out in full dimension as
an independent living being. Venus is the threshold planet, standing
poised at the door into all that awaits one in the fragrance of living-
ness, entered into gladly and willingly and knowing it is right to be
here.
Venus in the Signs
Venus in Taurus
he appreciates what is hers and she makes the most of it. Gath-
ering choice fruits, she is content to stay with these and to form
her life around them. She is markedly removed from most of the
complexities that preoccupy others. Half-knowingly, she builds much
of her sense of identity around her capacity and ease in steering clear
of extensive entanglements. Her great love is partaking in her own
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Venus
instinctual nature, free from constraint or self-consciousness. She is
usually gifted in fostering quality and substance, especially when she
is not trying to do anything. Her path winds out ahead of her in slow
gradual stages of coming ever further to selfhood.
Because her experience tends to remain intact and consistent, she
may seem in casual situations to be out of touch with the contem-
porary shared reality. For her inside, that is not what matters. What
she is concerned with is a viable lifestyle, entered into affirmatively
and constructively, and rich with personal reference. This tone or
soul mood is rare and invaluable, and can draw to itself much of what
it seeks. Her charm and grace have their real impact when she is on
her own ground, and open in a way that allows and encourages oth-
ers to be at ease. The very center of it all is a gentle, naive stance that
touches each one and forms a circle of shared goodness that radiates
strength and assurance in the occasion of wondrous discovery.
Venus in Virgo
he is enthralled with her characteristic pursuits, and wishes to
take them up endlessly. For her, there is the world inside her cher-
ished interests—and then there is the world outside. She perceives
these two worlds in their separate tracks, juxtaposed to each other
in frictional overlap. Much of her effort goes into assuring herself
and those close to her that the world inside her circle will predomi-
nate and prevail. Because much of this struggle is close at hand and
in tight constraint, she observes and sharply learns through experi-
ence that almost all her strategies and approaches must be subtle,
ambiguous and skillful in minutely and constantly shifting position.
All of this is the package she buys when she decides early on to
cultivate and foster one side of life while intent upon eluding the
grasp of the other side of life. Because she assumes that her values
and standards are commonsensical and basic, she insists to herself
and others that she cannot but do what she does. Her pivotal desire
is to stay within the temple precincts of a satisfying, rhythmical life
sphere with all its special touches, and she believes that everything
else will then work itself out.
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Safe and sound inside her chosen sphere, she will cultivate fine,
expressive virtues, gifts and styles. However, ler hothouse-flower
orientation sharply limits her options, and puts such weight on issues
of inclusion and exclusion that in a complex contemporary existence
she will usually have a great deal to grapple with, and repeated dif-
ficulties in shoring up her fullness against the emptiness she hopes
to be spared from enduring.
Venus in Sagittarius
he enjoys the ride through a world that contains every extreme
within it. Her instincts are acute, constantly engaging environ-
mental cues with a passion. She seeks release in the full gamut of sen-
sations and impressions, and each moment is for her a different story.
Her magic consists of a sparkling ability to make things happen and
to let things happen.
The shadow of this desire for immediate experience is a pronounced
and pervasive inability to follow out the track through all its wind-
ings. Her preferences command her actions. An endless round of won-
derfully surprising and ever-from-fresh-angles experience is her dream
and her fervent search. When the first flush of the new is spent, how-
ever, she begins to feel trapped and in danger of losing her edge.
Her journey through the world is a chase, with peaks and valleys
throughout. Eventually, after moving though every shifting current,
she may decide that her instinctual craving for variety and stimulus
is less than optimal for growth and development. In such a realiza-
tion, vast territory opens out ahead. This quite different landscape
has in it the much more wise and inwardly meaningful aspect of
metamorphosing her original adolescent wildness into a vibrant
approach that can equally meet and move with every side of experi-
ence—no longer just the ones that are dramatically appealing and
overtly exciting and irresistible.
Venus in Pisces
Se feels her way inside of each situation, each experience, and
each human connection. Her navigational skills enable her to go
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Venus
deep and go far. She is in tune with the subtle contours, the inward
registers, and she can feel the bottom, the top, and the middle as they
reveal themselves in emotional terms. She is most at home when she
moves down into the heavy levels of emotion and uncovers those
places she had already sensed before. In them she meets all of the
earth and all of humanity. When she taps the higher frequencies of
emotion, she can go as far up and out as she could previously pen-
etrate down and in.
In the middle, in ordinary mixed emotions and complex situa-
tions, she has specific ways to travel there and find the essence of
what others might feel is barren. Her being is drawn to sound the
insides, to feel the unfelt. Seldom does she recognize what she is doing
or why. Her gift is to be inside of the shared undersoul, and from
there to raise the energies as far as they can naturally go.
Most of the time, this lifting-off does not go very far, because her
fatal flaw is that she automatically responds to the deeper fears and
the basic doubts of others as a given. This limits her to the existing
state of things unless she unites with a cosmic-spiritual orientation,
and then empowers herself to supplant fears and doubts with regen-
erative love. Her path is beautifully formed by her innermost sym-
pathies, and can move from allegiance to the fate level of experience,
to the soul artistry of drawing forth the emergent capacities of a
humanity just beginning to feel its true wings.
Venus in Leo
he holds before her inner eye an implicit picture of where she has
been and where she is going. She is coming out of an identifica-
tion with the All, and she is coming into the one. Her path grows ever
narrower and more to the point. In the early stages of her growth, she
enjoys playing in the effortless domain of the human personality.
As she evolves, pretending to be one of everybody in archetypal
display begins to seem false and devoid of interest. Her own core
individuality is drawing her out of the social diffusion into a way of
being that is distinctively her own. As she encounters the rugged ways
of self-realization, her attention becomes harnessed for the first time,
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and she embodies herself as a radiant source of warmth and light.
This remarkable attainment will not come quickly, and will chal-
lenge her to the utmost. Her great obstacle is her practiced familiar-
ity with the ways in which each other person sees her and wants her
to be. A different mirror is held before her eyes by her angel, por-
traying an entirely different mode of expression. It gives a glint of
her higher self, seeking to mold her in its image. Contrastingly, she
sees through the eyes of the world that others look at themselves
through her. It is her responsibility to return each of the pictures she
has borrowed to their rightful owners. Then she can gaze deeply upon
her own individual prototype, and ever more closely align herself
with its stark and direct rays of self-revelation.
Venus in Aquarius
he knows how to refine her own expression to the utmost, but
she misses many parts along her way. In emphasizing the opti-
mal model and making sure it is fulfilled, she casts into shadow the
vast bulk of her being, and senses something missing underneath.
Eventually, she must begin an odyssey into all the forgotten territory.
In this part of the journey, she is equipped with one great gift or tal-
ent, and she has to face one stubborn weakness.
Her gift is a willingness to take up the entire task she has set her-
self, and to place great stock in her own ability to get through. The
weakness that will not go away is an antipathy toward stuck places
and messy chronic sufferings, which will not be at all manageable
until she does justice to the most unwelcome parts of herself. Her
determination and her will match her intelligence, and make her extra-
ordinarily resourceful and ready for an extended life journey. The one
key battle will be in permitting the most irrational and refractory
components of her makeup to find their way into the rich mix of her
many ways of being a citizen of a multidimensional, living world.
Venus in Aries
he is meeting the other as herself and herself as the other. Inter-
personal relationships hold great mysteries and an overwhelm-
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Venus
ing magnetism for her. She is seeking herself in what comes back to
her through others, and she is also seeking to connect with what is
in the other through her own experience of what happens to her in
the connection. There is so much crossover that after a while no one
person is “there” unto themselves.
Essentially, her very existence is tied in with periodic and recur-
rent attempts and desires to move into a place of being more-than-
self. When she can orchestrate a trans-self condition for both,
something magical comes into play that is not possible when each
one stays put. When she has sympathetic companions to merge with,
she is fulfilled and continually amazed. When she cannot play with
another who is pliable and suggestible as she is, this seems to her to
be a huge deprivation, leaving her horribly alone. She can become
adept in a full range of interpersonal dynamics, to the point of being
entirely available to candid mutual disclosure. However, her inter-
vals of being alone with herself must be well used if she is ever to be
clear with others.
Once she has overcome those social conditionings that say mat-
ter-of-factly that “you cannot have a relationship with yourself,’ she
will discover the pivotal missing piece in being with herself as other,
and thereby no longer attached to someone else as her everything.
She can now move back and forth between solitude and intimacy
without preference, and without needing to fill her world with loved
ones in order to have a real personal existence.
Venus in Libra
he is emotionally available to enter upon the dance of life with-
out inhibition. Her feelers are out, and her senses are ready for
whatever arises, to be taken further and gone into with enthusiasm.
The key to her unusual charm is the unconditional nature of her
vibrational accessibility. She is particularly adept in heightening and
quickening the shared field with love and acknowledgment.
Her journey will go as far as she is able to change and grow with
all that she draws to her. Her one great pitfall is that the aura she car-
ries of attractive flow is so much in demand in the contemporary
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world that she can easily end up everybody’s favorite version of the
way life should be. Then the inner changes becéme much more cer-
emonial and toward a dramatic effect. She must see through beauty,
popularity or form, in any aspect, to the soul within that is in need
of radical overhaul at every key juncture, in order to enter again the
~ shared world from renewed places of taking up the next ‘challenge of
full-spectrum life participation.
Venus in Capricorn
he is watching herself, scrutinizing her every gesture, and attempt-
ing to use every possible resource toward going all the way with
what she wants. As she fine-tunes her personal expression, she is peren-
nially tempted to both severely criticize her own image and to flee
from this tendency in elaborate phases of blind self-externalization.
A side of self is always on guard, and can certainly crush all spon-
taneous process if allowed to take over. When the other side of self
overcompensates by blocking out the one who sees, what happens is
a massive taking-on of masks and roles intended to make her as total
as possible. Both standing under self-accusation and the frenzied
flight from all internal heaviness, however, are difficult states—and
being in both of them at once is intolerable.
She is embarked upon a great journey in which she must experi-
ence repeatedly these two opposing poles on her way toward an inte-
gral relation to self, entirely and simultaneously in heaven and earth,
in truth and falsehood, in ultimates and in obscure, nagging places
of fixation. This particular journey develops a capacity for high-level
tension and a coming to truth in deepest measure that never leaps
beyond falsehood, thereby always honoring the process of trial and
error in its fullest significance.
Venus in Cancer
Si is near and she is far, and she crawls between near and far.
What she is near to is her own unconscious depths of longing and
of terror. What she is far from is the wrap-around world she places
herself in for safekeeping. Her private personal dramas, although
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Venus
unbearably near to her, gradually become secondary factors, while
the remote and strange world of everything happening around her
looms ever larger. She is moving from private to public, from near
to far, from the personal unconscious to the collective need. She
brings with her as little as possible from her internal infinities.
Her fervent attempt is to make herself over completely, from a
tightly bound, passive absorber of experiences into a worldly-wise
_and potently influential figure. She is likely to succeed beyond her
wildest dreams in this transmutation process. Along her way, she
encounters a more and more contained and manageable world, which
is thrilled to give her a privileged place from which to operate.
The one painful and prolonged difficulty she does meet in shift-
ing her focus is that her secret soul remains heavily laden with mem-
ories and saturated with sentiment. This force will come back to
haunt her in key moments, returning her instantly to the child of
vast impressionability who asks her to be worked through and taken
in. That child will never go away completely, as its cry must sooner
or later be heard and known in its hidden meanings and unlived
anguish.
Venus in Gemini
he is expanding into a windswept sphere, and as she takes wing
her world becomes bright and free. Her imagination is taken up
with images and sensations that have no boundaries. Her abilities,
her knack for doing what she wishes to do—these are stupendous.
Her world is always out ahead of her, and she is on her way into the
total view.
Human relationship is her playground and her schoolroom. Any-
thing and everything that could happen to anybody happens to her,
and it takes her quite a while to grant herself permission to be as big
as she is. Her interests, her enthusiasms and her whims are unpre-
dictable, ever-shifting and quite marvelous. What she is really doing
is going on ahead and seeing what is out there.
Lacking almost completely are intensity of emotion and intimate
self-involvement. In their place, she has broad, even universal sym-
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pathies, and a bemused stance toward herself. Many will feel her to
be strange and inaccessible, and few will fathom her motives. She
herself barely glimpses the scope and magnitude of the world she is
advancing into with such insouciance and sang froid.
Venus in Scorpio foe
he lives in the molten core of world process. What c comes to her
is of her, and in her. She cannot make separations between what
she is taking in and what she is giving out. Supremely subjective,
utterly experiential, she only knows what fills her pores..Most of all,
she is driven, compelled to make her way further inside what is already
too much to deal with. The logic of emotion prevails altogether over
good sense and ego constructions. .
She knows somehow that she must at any cost go into and through
the depth charge of her experience. She also knows that the crises of
psychic survival will be punishing and severe. There is no place what-
soever for her to choose otherwise, except in the sense that she can
force herself for stretches of her life to be on hold and to feel very lit-
tle. That option is pressed into service only when she has become
swollen with unconscious emotion to the point of becoming self-
destructive. Then her emergency system kicks in, and she is gone for
a time while she recuperates deep down inside.
In the end, she will use every ounce of emotion for cumulative
power, gathering toward radical breakthrough into complete self-
overcoming. And if she does not get there, the pressure toward that
evolutionary edge will keep her going toward the abyss with the furi-
ous intensity of the one nominated by all as having the guts to take
the greatest risk of all.
Venus in the Houses
Venus in the First House
| |er continuum of values gives her a world-within-the-world to
stay with. She is wrapped about by a fragrant remembrance of
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Venus
origin. She feels strongly and firmly that she has always been herself.
Her situation is that she can make room for whatever needs to unfold
to do so in right timing. This rhythmical sensibility enables her to
optimize many opportunities and openings, by naturally and instinc-
tively placing herself directly in the center of what is unfolding.
She is remarkably tuned in to the basic flow of events, and
immensely enjoys being so fertile with her own path of becoming.
Most extraordinarily, she finds herself to be uniquely capable of draw-
ing forth the best of whatever is around her, consistently and as a
matter of course. She dwells within a sphere of self-discovery, pure
and simple, and this stance cannot fail to draw in what is deeply
needed.
Her surface desires may try to pre-empt for themselves the good
that is pouring in, but she is protected from such a miscarriage of
justice. So even though her surface self may protest, it is her great
good fortune to have her inner self fed by limitless springs, and her
surface self revealed in the process as an impostor and a thief who is
thwarted every time.
Venus in the Second House
er ambivalence and unease mark her movements through the
world. The ambivalence comes from feeling pulled by so many
currents in such compelling directions. Her unease underlies the
ambivalence with self-doubts and self-questionings whether she can
make her way in a direction that makes good sense.
Her ongoing crisis in values is acute and painful. It seems as though
each facet of experience lays a claim upon her allegiance. She stands
there in the center of a circle, with sharp spokes going out in many
directions. Her mind and her heart are especially at odds with each
other. She would like to simplify, essentialize, strip down to what is
real and appropriate. However, her cues or signals give her conflict-
ing and ever-shifting indications.
Her only viable basis for choosing is a subtle, elusive, and para-
doxical peeling-away of voices and claims, and then heading straight
for the point just ahead of her that appears as soon as she is quiet
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inside. Her entire difficulty lies in allowing herself to be still and bare
and plainly present. But if she can, her way forward is marked out in
crystal-clear fashion, directly in front of her nose.
Venus in the Third House
ll circuits are open, and she is at the ready. Her world is spread
out in every direction, and she is involved with every side of it.
Her spontaneous spark of willingness to engage with whatever is
there is bright and self-evident. Her weakness is that she cannot say
“no,” and she cannot find inward space to digest and assimilate her
experiences. She is stuck open, her eagerness to connect prevailing
wildly over all other factors. This brings her variety and spice of enjoy-
ment and stimulus, and as she goes out into phenomena and events,
she grows and blossoms in many ways.
Nonetheless, something deep inside becomes cut off in the process.
Most of the time, this eventuates in a split between outward experi-
ence and inward reverberations. Her outward experience tends more
and more to be gratifying and absorbing on its own terms, while the
inward reverberations subconsciously register satiation and a need
for a deeper link with something more than the enticements of the
senses. This is a fertile predicament, making it possible that down
the road will come reckonings and shifts into bright worlds that con-
tain both outward and inward fuel for awareness and energizing of
the whole person. This will be quite a leap, and the only place to go
after the party is over.
Venus in the Fourth House
he keeps in touch with the roots of her being while journeying as
far from those roots as she possibly can. The deep inward self
stays in the world she has always known. Her feelers probe outward,
to sense and link with what is occurring in alien worlds. So much of
her attention and interest and involvement targets those realms of
experience that can reflect for her the unknown and what she has
missed.
As she streams outward to the furthest periphery of her circle, she
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Venus
feels momentarily whole, even as she loses herself in what is out there.
Almost everything about this level of experience eludes solid cate-
gories of making sense and fitting together. How could she explain,
even to herself, that she is most at home in forgetting and yielding
herself to what is infinitely far away? How could she further explain
that when she draws these foreign worlds close to her, there is com-
pletion somehow, but that this circle of completion quickly dissolves
and leaves her utterly alone?
Her sensibility contradicts itself at every turn, and seems to be
what it is not. Truly, what is occurring is that she is desperately cling-
ing to worlds she knows not, as she feels the barrenness of worlds
she knows. These opposite realities are subject to the same spirit of
endings that permeates the known and familiar. Ultimately, she comes
to a lingering end to dramas and familiar patterns, even in their most
far-flung variations. It is a time for letting go, for yielding up every-
thing, and especially for uprooting the base patterns behind repeti-
tive cycles, so that she can come to herself again in the depths of earth,
in anguish and loss, rising from the ashes singing the song of renewal
throughout her being.
Venus in the Fifth House
he is filled with everything to offer. Her treasure chest is ample,
generous, and dazzling. What comes forth will epitomize and fur-
ther what lives inside the body of the situation she is in. It is vital to
master her timing. Her special timing requires her to wait, to gather,
to form, and to build.
She is ahead of her world, and must be substantive and clear to
bring across her empowering life force. Tremendous depths of abil-
ity to perform or create bubble through her being. It is all she can
do to harness these living waters.
At the center of her lifestream is joy in freedom. This is the free-
dom of right expression— of coming forth as she is, of being utterly
herself. Her one great boon is that when she is right with herself, she
will be right with her world. This wondrous ripening of the faculties
of free expression shows others that it can be done, and that when
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the self flows into magical delight in being all_benefit, and all are
touched by the startling presence of human genius in its element,
radiating a conviction that is love.
Z
Venus in the Sixth House w
;
he particularly specializes in making available to others what she
comes to in herself. The objective need forms her expression com-
pletely. As she refines her expression, something inside of her is bal-
anced and made whole. It is as though this were the level she had
previously missed altogether, and now everything hinges on being
able to transmute selfhood into true service.
This task will prove to be immensely difficult. Even as she fine-
tunes her embodied skills, and offers these graciously and conscien-
tiously, something goes wrong in the transaction. Because this occurs
many, many times at different stages of the journey, it becomes a rid-
dle of destiny.
Succinctly put, the dilemma she faces is that others feel shamed
and indebted, somehow positioned into prescribed roles and set rou-
tines. What reassures and gives her solace, therefore, disturbs others
sufficiently to cause pervasive misalignments and difficulty in ful-
filling her intentions. She must learn to tread lightly and to leave the
situation free and open. She will then be able to bring across to oth-
ers superlative and welcome missing pieces in the shared pattern of
events, which definitely does need her contribution.
Venus in the Seventh House
he feels keenly the direct, unavoidable impact of what the other
is carrying. Her way of interacting with that visceral impact deter-
mines much of the course of her life’s unfoldment.
There are three divergent options before her. The first, most acces-
sible and instinctive option is to throw herself into the immediate
encounter as though her life depended on it. This leads to a way of
life focused around the adventure and romance of destiny meetings
and karmic clashes, with particular emphasis on a need for graphic
evidence of “something happening.”
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Venus
The second option, which is usually a course adjustment from
the first, veers almost in the opposite direction. This involves becom-
ing strongly identified with a formidable system of defense against
being taken over, abused, misunderstood or rejected by intimate oth-
ers. This pattern leads to a characteristic and remarkably intensive
preoccupation with standing her own ground against all who might
obstruct her momentum.
The third option is usually an attempt to come back from the first
two. It involves charged interactions which are entered into without
great expectations or ingrained assumptions about what must hap-
pen here. However, even this third option is problematical, in that
what moves between people is so much a matter of karma and des-
tiny that nobody can come up with the ideal stance to optimize fruit-
ful relationship and minimize grappling with negative situations.
Instead, whichever option is chosen at any point in life, she must
reckon with one thing: What she brings to meet the other, and what
the other brings to meet her, have between them many sharp edges
and much to be moved through on an ongoing basis. Eventually,
therefore, she must relinquish all images and ideas of what is desir-
able and what is not, and explore what is between herself and oth-
ers as a free stream that wanders as it will through every height, every
depth, every coming together, and every moving apart.
Venus in the Eighth House
he can go deep, she can go far, and she can feel what is moving
through at every point in the journey. The full range of feeling
experience is spread out before her. Because she can meet all of it, a
great freedom, spontaneity, and effortlessness comes through.
In her best moments, she will be the quintessential lover, having
ample room in her heart for whatever is possible. The dark side of
the picture is that because each phase of the process of weaving
together is meant to reveal her to herself, and because it is socially
agreed that “we will not go that far,” she often comes up short in
searching for herself through vital experience. Instead she meets per-
sonal flavors, fragmentary possibilities and tantalizing glimpses of
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yor
what it could be like.
In order to move through that barrier, she will need to discover
how to move with others into the void of what happens when the
collective patterns have been left behind—and no past experience
of any kind shows the way. In deepest truth, [Link] fertile
territory of all. But in order to reach it, she must first have the courage
and the foolhardiness to fly directly in the face of racial wisdom,
which states that there is nothing more dangerous than following the
track of passionate intensity where it leads. For her, if she takes the
plunge, that notion will be proven wrong.
Venus in the Ninth House
he has a greatly extended comfort zone. She is capable of mak-
ing herself at home in just about any frequency of consciousness.
Because of this, the dimensions of her territory for personal experi-
ence are incredibly expanded. The one thing likely to stop her from
going very far is that searing, radical self-knowledge comes as the
fruit of each dimension one passes through. The human ego being
what it is, the bulk of what she sees and feels about herself will shat-
ter ego structures.
The intent of this stage of development is to cut through all dis-
guises and hiding places, allowing her to become herself. That is a
journey for the rare few. Most in this position will instead come upon
a few of these self-revealing trials and testings and then back off vocif-
erously, then integrate them at whatever level can be managed. She
is called beyond all personal grasping, yet can only go as far in this
direction as she is allowed by her internal permission and wholeness
of being. At whatever level she operates, her aspiration is to be true
to herself as completely as possible. Her compromises can be hard
to take, when she knows how much further her path leads, unto the
peaks of the highest mountains.
Venus in the Tenth House
Ss" wishes to forge a path by which what she feels and what she
knows can be shared with the world. She earnestly sets out upon
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Venus
that path. In order to achieve the results she intends, she must at cru-
cial points of decision further become a healing cup for collective
renewal. She has nothing unless she gives it away.
Along her journey, she meets the world need for life-giving,
encouraging, and positive influences or models. She is drawn mag-
netically and irrevocably toward being one who stands there for all.
Her heart becomes public property, her feeling archetypal and some-
what generalized. Her influence can be generative, inspirational, and
quite thoroughly nourishing. Her work in the world often is close to
her vision and her concerns. She brings a touch of greater worlds
into the shared world of mutual sympathies.
It is hard for anybody, including herself, to access her secret feel-
ings, her inner soul. But everyone knows, and she best of all, her posi-
tion on each issue, and her sensibility in relation to the direction and
trend of events. She sets a tone of good will and of unconditional
loving regard for each one who is part of the pageant of shared ded-
ication and renewal, in a progressive movement from the limited to
the full flow of possibility emerging with each breath.
Venus in the Eleventh House
he walks onward. What comes to meet her is the future current,
asking her to imagine, to stretch, to open wide. Within the sphere
of her allegiance and belonging, she will expand the shared fabric as
far as it can comfortably stretch. In mass consciousness situations,
this will mean simply lightening the shared load, and spreading a
feeling of upbeat ease with the whole of the given situation.
At the other extreme, in visionary contexts, this will mean giving
heart and soul to the limitless range of what is looming into view. In
points between mass and utopian contexts, she will show forth what-
ever can realistically assist those in her circle to go forward one fur-
ther step. Whatever the context, she is markedly ready for the next,
hoping for more and yet reconciled to what is agreed upon and within
range of likelihood. Her gifts in drawing forth ability and momen-
tum are superb. In truth, she can always be a bit more courageous,
stretch a little further, and in the process, instead of losing her friends,
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gain a greater world than her more tentative instincts would suggest,
as she is a true forerunner.
Venus in the Twelfth House we
:
here is something going on with everybody that she is in on, so
deeply that she can only move with it all the way. Her experi-
ence is that she and her world are intimately bound together. This is
by turns beautiful and horrifying, but never neutral. Each moment,
it seems to be either moving toward reconciliation and integration
or moving toward dissolution and wreckage. Either momentum
snowballs as she becomes in tune with its groundswell.
The alternation between vast wonders and grotesque tragedies is
consuming, and very hard to stay with. There will be times in her life
when she will take time out for extended periods to go into neutral
and let everything wash over her. However, this life pivots around
getting through the old karmas and tracking into fresh territory. All
resting intervals, therefore, are strictly for the sake of coming back
stronger than ever afterwards.
When her world is cooking and she is riding the great waves, she
is unstoppable. When she is caught in tide pools of atrophy, her energy
is waterlogged and self-negating. Her path is eventually toward a
reweaving that brings all worlds into one. In that place, her prefer-
ences and her fears will both fade in the stream of bipolar existence,
the stream that can find its way in the most varied terrain, as all
washes out into unified participation in the deepest waters of shared
livingness.
Qk
CHAPTER 5
Mars
INCE THE TIME Of Shakespeare, the primary arena for the expres-
sion of the Mars principle is much more internal and self-aware
than barbaric and raw. Each individual asserts his or her own
life in Mars as it is. However, there are now very few human situa-
tions that permit the primitive Mars to hold sway. Each individual
is learning how to insist upon their own destiny dynamism without
destroying or even threatening the same edge in others.
This extraordinary shift in evolution involves many steps, many
phases, and many mistakes along the way. What once was war and
anarchic anger becomes vital engagement and self-empowered will-
ingness to venture. A truly heroic dimension enters human experience
again, now from a strength of individuality that is mutually enhanc-
ing and earth-renewing. The masculine force of Mars is undergoing a
rapid, radical and irrevocable quantum shift in its mode of expression.
The two mistakes it tends to make along the way from beast to
man are in opposite directions to each other. Mars leans too far back-
ward in self-recrimination, remorse and shame—then leans too far
forward in a blind, insistent fury of regaining lost territory. These
two extremes must be expressed and experienced. It is absolutely
vital that the defensive or self-accusing or impotent phase of Mars
be permitted to struggle through its grief, its loss, and its self-betrayal.
The excessively aggressive, forceful and angry side of Mars must also
have its chance to wildly and chaotically explore its creaturely power
to mow down the enemy and feel victorious in the warrior immedi-
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acy of proving the self supreme.
It will turn out that neither of these swings of the pendulum of
Mars can fulfill the masculine principle. As soon as they are granted
their place individually and collectively, however,.they will lose their
enticing aura of the forbidden and give way to the regenerative force
of the future-directed Mars, whose energy is just beginning to find
its way in the Earth. Its impulse is to spearhead transformation as a
way of life. Mars becomes the passion to evolve, the challenge to over-
come oneself, and the intense drive to assist everyone else to do the
same. The new Mars is in love with what the Earth offers in vibrant
and dramatic arenas for moving forward and becominga different
kind of being altogether.
Most pivotally, Mars is the one planet that cannot be stopped
when it is on the beam and fully self-empowered. It then fulfills its
cosmic destiny as the planet that pulls the earth back into orbit and
fashions a physical re-embodiment as the human species takes a giant
leap beyond its hyper-civilized nightmare of having no space left to
move freely and gladly. The most full-on instinct of the true mascu-
line is to pioneer the unfoldment of new faculties for feeling alive
and being free. This force will prevail, and harness the human desire
for open spaces into an inward breakthrough in ability to feel that
becomes a springboard for further exciting developments beyond
the stalemate of the twentieth century.
Mars in the Signs
Mars in Taurus
| e eases his way though the many layerings of built-up resis-
tances that characterize the already existing frame of events.
He knows how to steer clear of every trap or ambush set by status-
quo mentalities. His intention is to remain solidly on track, regard-
less of the myriad complications and contrasting impulses of those
around him. He keeps a low center of gravity, and resists high-flying
notions with great gut conviction.
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Mars
His greatest attribute is his stick-to-it-iveness which, when touched
by brilliance, becomes a striking gift for choreographing and main-
taining a multi-level reality in high-powered yet cohesive, intensively
in-touch focus.
When he strays from the truth he bears, there is nothing to cor-
rect his slide. Because he listens to nobody and heeds no prudent
warnings, his negative pathway is greased downward, toward blind
adherence to delusory notions and with thick disregard for any objec-
tive reality whatsoever. Overall, he is ideally suited to follow internal
instructions implicitly and tenaciously, toward either self-consistent
clarity of direction or staggeringly solipsistic assertion of personal
will over anything external that gets in his way.
Mars in Virgo
H: is attempting to surround his world from many angles with
sufficient purity of grounded, centered presence to ensure a good
and rightful life for everyone. This effort is arduous and continuous.
It places him directly inside the minute particulars of moment-by-
moment experience to harness his driving power in tangible form.
He has miscellaneous abilities of exquisite dimension. Whatever he
turns to with care and interest he can refine toward perfection.
His pivotal way of operating is to put such thorough emphasis on
a ground-level, conscientious approach to each facet that arises that
nothing can go wrong. When such overwhelming precision of self-
command is steered toward a worthwhile and genuine life vision, he
can become a scintillatingly capable and skilled practitioner of the
art of doing what is needed in just the way it should be done.
When he wanders off from his rather narrow band of focused will,
he can quickly become cut off from his source of strength, and headed
out toward personal disaster. He especially tends to become dis-
couraged and self-nagging, chronically captured by alien voices that
feed him a steady diet of undermining, chaotic information and
impulses. Coming back from the absurd levels of self-estrangement
all of this can lead to is a major operation. It will take patience and
trust in life’s graces, renewed daily and faithfully.
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Overall, he is learning the ropes of self-application to specific tasks
and objectives, leading to either a superb upbuilding of ever finer —
abilities and strengths or a downward-turning, self-negating vortex
of becoming quite fragmented and lost in the minutiae of a world
devoid of meaning. .
Mars in Sagittarius
e is magnificent in knowing his way around with total resiliency
lralieee any variety of situations and difficulties. His talents jump
out at every challenge and opportunity, and target these so ardently
that he will do whatever he needs to do to make his way in the given
area of involvement. He has at a moment’s command charm, spon-
taneous courage, wild self-conviction and vibrant exuberance to get
in there and do it.
With all of these talents lavishly spread out all around him, his
pivotal interest is in fulfilling the occasion with style and finesse. He
spreads enthusiasm and an exaggerated high-vibrational sense of all
good things coming through, here and now. When he is blessed as
well with natural genius, he can become a fluent, ready, multi-dimen-
sional catalyst of the world’s greatest events and experiences, effort-
lessly and with abounding joy.
When he imagines himself to be omnipotent, immune to higher
law or able to get away with whatever he pleases, he can leap into the
abyss of creating worlds upon worlds that always say that he is right
and perfectly on, when the reverse is true. He then begins to look
like a prankster of the wild, captivated in the dizzying dance of nature’s
flames of self-enchantment. Overall, he is one who excels in getting
his point across, and in backing it up with another point and yet
another. This can lead at one end to a wondrously empowering, naive
delight in existence, a liberating improvisational movement—or at’
the other end to driving himself crazy by endlessly insisting on cov-
ering his tracks and viewing himself the way he wants to see himself
in a rapture of escapism.
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Mars
Mars in Pisces
| eis driven deep and far, through all hindering conditions. The
worse things are, the more momentum he builds up to emerge
from the pits of inconsequence. His soul drama is dripping with the
intensity of searching for ways to overcome himself. His best and
steadiest path of unfoldment features a sudden, drastic and total
mobilization of inner forces to carry through his deep resolves and
commitments.
When he marshalls his core conviction and drive, nothing can
stop him. If his path is blessed with warrior virtues such as courage,
perseverance and tempered will, he can become the champion of lost
causes, the one who mobilizes collective conscience and attention
toward mitigating ancient wrongs and sweeping the field clear of the
corrupting influence of special interests and ancestral feuding monop-
olizers of psychic energy that hold back the evolutionary surge.
When he surrenders his soul to the dark powers of self-forget-
fulness, he swamps himself in multiple lost realms of collective mem-
ory, each one carrying onward in an isolate splendor of utter oblivion
to the ravages of time. Deep down inside these insidious clusters of
nonbeing, he broods and stews, and feels encapsulated by a vacant,
drifting, anti-earthly quagmire of lost dreams. Overall, his path is
marked by vast forces sweeping through, carrying him aloft or car-
rying him away. When he is aloft, his core striving unites with cre-
ative powers to further the cause of humanity. When he is away, thick
mists keep him back inside a nightmare vision of worlds gone by.
Mars in Leo
e is the quintessential individual, the one who proudly emanates
llescee of inward direction. His way of going is set out ahead
of him, and he follows it with such purposive intent that everybody
makes way for him to pass. His fiercest conviction centers on the
need for someone to set an example of right motivation breeding
right action. His ethic is his life.
When he gathers to himself a brilliance of already developed gifts
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and attributes, he can shine forth a beacon of creative individuality
mastering its lessons and seeing its way free and-clear. In that even-
tuality, he blesses, strengthens and regenerates as he walks through
the world.
His downfall, if it comes, is mighty and hard. The issue is betrayal
of the cause. If he falls for the idol worship of personal selfhood, and
ceases to serve the Great Ones, his titanic arrogance exposes him to
every manner of destructive power in the world.
Overall, he is poised at the brink of tremendous events. He can
concentrate these epochal forces through himself as a vessel of incar-
nation that radiates the warmth of love and the light of truth; or he
can twist the pattern into egoistic assertions of vital will toward brute
insistency upon his own separative program for triumph and vindi-
cation and trying blindly to go it alone.
Mars in Aquarius
H° intelligence seeds a quest for a path in life that impeccably
serves the common good. He grasps the principles behind the
ways things work upon the material plane, and his dedication is to
finding the optimal way to bring spirit downward into form con-
sciously and with steady presence.
If he musters sufficient attunement to his core level task, he is
equipped to carry it out effectively, and to set a tone for others to fol-
low. He is especially gifted in standing outside himself and viewing
his progress dispassionately. When such remarkable abilities are
crowned with true genius, he will manifest a form of rightful expres-
sion of the human equation that is the forerunner of a new day to
come for all.
If he slips into the tempting side journey of allowing the ways of
the mind to saturate his energy field with cleverness, sophistication,
and manipulative dazzling tricks, he will slot himself into the well-
defined position of one who serves a false master and who enforces
the code of the earthbound intellect, to confuse and confound human
intelligence.
Overall, he is granted a crystalline firmness of seeing, which either
Q2
Mars
becomes a sharp beam of superlative capacity in any direction needed
or buys into the technical juggernaut that mechanizes and deper-
sonalizes the human operator and makes him a caricature of smooth
and flawless functioning.
Mars in Aries
H: directs his forces straight down the middle, and keeps them
there. His strategic priority is to maintain a steady barrage of
insistency upon his special concerns. In pursuing this course, he
brings to his aid pointed and exceedingly well-formed capacities for
maximum impact in the moment. Foremost among these is a one-
pointed willingness to risk everything for a total, immediate hitting-
the-mark.
When such raw, undiluted ability is wedded to higher faculties of
penetrating clarity, he has a dauntless fiery command of the lifespace
all around, which opens the way for a cosmic fresh slate to supplant
all the old patterns with a new way of life. When this pattern becomes
distorted and perverted, it gravitates toward severe aberration. Among
the distinct possibilities in which this aberration expresses itself are
an angry, resentful edge that permeates all endeavors to the point of
causing continual conflict and tension, and an overwhelming drive
to prove himself to be on top of the world, in such a way that he takes
over each situation and powers his way through in complete disre-
gard and defiance of anything other than his flaming libido.
Overall, this is the fashioning of optimal personal expression to
convey what is intended without any fading or loss of potency. This
can lead to ideal, free and clear self-mastery on the spot, or can eas-
ily degenerate into a bombastic assertion of the competitive ego that
shows everybody he is the one champion— and that he is a prisoner
of his own private depths of torment.
Mars in Libra
| |e is busy devising an endless series of ways to perfect his expres-
sion for maximum interpersonal fulfillment. In this endeavor,
he has a great deal going for him. Most especially, he can weigh and
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evaluate the emotional atmosphere he finds himself in, and instinc-
tively choose the single path of expression that takes up all that is
there and weaves it into a common thread. Everything he does
uniquely combines carefully thought-out plans with sonny flu-
ent, immediate responsiveness.
This fusion of polarities is beautifully and hamoniously geared
to attaining a perfect match of internal resources with environmen-
tal needs and possibilities. When real genius takes hold of this pat-
tern, it generates a breathtaking dance of doing what is in him to do,
in a way that draws others forward as far as they can possibly go,
given the realities of existing conditions.
The destructive side of this vibration keys on abusing this splen-
did ability for a dazzling array of manipulations, personality black-
mail, and controlling energies to fit his idiosyncratic notions. He can
even become his own reverse image, pulling backward as far as he is
meant to pull forward.
Overall, this is the state-of-the-art position for meeting and match-
ing of self and world, leading to anything from a loving touch that
makes radical transformation gentle and accessible, to a strange
thrilling to his outrageous ability to get away with a vast range of
undermining maneuvers, just to show himself it can be done.
Mars in Capricorn
e is coming into peak expression of all that he can do, and chal-
lenging himself to exceed all previous limits. He possesses a
great number of outstanding ways to fulfill his objectives. Most incred-
ibly, he is adept in fine-tuning his immediate expression with his
soul’s ultimate inward purpose. He is thus the one who can accom-
plish, demonstrate, and make self-evident whatever inward pictures
are ready for outward potentiation.
With a touch of genius, this becomes a stark and impregnable
embodiment of cosmic design, expressed in a form that does not ever
compromise, vacillate or apologize. If he becomes literally engulfed
by his image being godlike in its expression, there creeps ina form of
asserting the “great me,” which is unfortunately almost impossible
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Mars
for him or anyone else to clearly see through. It has a thick covering
of looking like the real thing.
In fact, the only difference between serving the highest and being
swept away by super-egoism is that the one who serves the highest
will draw forth tremendous development in others, while the one
who serves himself will end up draining and diminishing others.
Overall, this is the world’s greatest ability to translate consciousness
into action, toward a host of extraordinary fruitions, or toward
becoming a one-man example of what happens when supreme pride
takes over and runs the show.
Mars in Cancer
H: gazes all around, looking for cues to determine which form
of expression is most appropriate. His sociocultural sensibility
is acute and hyperactive. He can innately sense what will happen if
he does “this,” and what will happen if he does “that.” His intention
is to use his hyperconscientiousness to maximum advantage in min-
imizing sloppy and out-of-synch efforts or misconceived strivings.
His considerable strength harnesses itself toward fulfilling and
furthering the shared reality in every possible way. When he has a
brilliant grasp of the whole, he can be a mouthpiece for greater pur-
poses to stream through into the human arena in superlative obedi-
ence to the pattern of evolution. When this highly attuned quality of
soul becomes carried away with considerations, necessities, and imper-
sonal requirements, it confounds itself in a profusion of unbudge-
able factors, each of which claims his attention and allegiance. The
net result is immobilization, losing all touch with life, and becom-
ing wrapped about inside a cocoon of doubts and fears.
Overall, he is blessed with the finest of sensitivities to the entire
matrix of experience, leading to, on the one hand, a genuine knowl-
edge of how and when and where to do what needs to be done; or, on
the other hand, extending the self far into the social jungle of what
must be taken into account, to the point of losing all edge of initiative
and plummeting downward into such extreme overidentification with
social standards that there is no room left to be or do anything at all.
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Mars in Gemini ~
|e casts a broad net of possibilities. Each magical and brightly
shining vista stretching out ahead of him draws him toward it.
He is pulled every which way, fascinated and delighted with all sides
of existence. Everything speaks to him. If he cafi foster a genuine
breadth of living vision, he has carte blanche to move in any and every
direction at will. This can even mean such free opening toward a liv-
ing future that imagination and energy dance together to the fur-
thest horizon. ‘
The ways in which this almost random opening can fall short,
become distracted and go off on a tangent are infinite. Among the
most likely deviations here are a suggestibility and impressionabil-
ity that has no strength or center of focus of its own, or a mischie-
vous, impetuous spirit that delights completely in sending any given
sequence toward an infinity of capricious fantasies being played out
endlessly.
Overall, he can become anything, everything, or nothing, depend-
ing upon whether he breaks through in living vision to bright, free-
wheeling prospects or swirls himself up in surface winds and fantastic
idle notions that draw him into a vast, empty plane that has every
dream and every nightmare rolled into one, but no reality.
Mars in Scorpio
e dwells in the deep center of the collective dynamic and dense
undersoul. His passion and his dispassion war for supremacy.
His fiery passion plunges him into total identification with what
everyone is going through. His icy dispassion pulls him back into
defiant dissociation from any depth of experience.
Walking the edge between these two polarities gives him an unique
quality of energy expression. Each thing he does partakes fully of
over-involvement and under-involvement. This is optimal for one
crucial breakthrough, which, if sufficient strength of will comes
through, can be his attainment. This is pushing the boundaries of
the situation until something gives way deep down at the center,
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Mars
releasing a floodtide of creative forces for collective renewal.
When he cannot find his way to this great liberation stream, his
imagination is filled to bursting with the need to break through, and
the impossibility of doing so. This can readily lead to a terrible ordeal
of innermost soul in which the one thing that must happen cannot
happen, and everything else becomes meaningless and rejected. At
its worst, this means stirring up the collective waters with an unap-
peasable negativity, keeping the waters churning as an outlet for a
horrendous sense of loss.
Overall, this is the make-it-or-break-it crossroads of personal and
collective destiny, with everything riding on it and no way to ease off
and even out. At its best, it is the way through, and brings such rad-
ical openings that any previous trouble is more than worth it. At its
worst, it is blacker than black, cursing existence for being so frus-
trating and impenetrable, and stinging itself in furious denial and
despondency.
Mars in the Houses
Mars in the First House
e is willing and able to be himself at all times. Nothing more
ibe nothing less will do. This resolve and commitment sharply
fashion his expression in the direction of staying with what imme-
diately feels right to him. Such a rule of thumb is an excellent guide-
line for staying on course, and steering clear of the complications
and side issues that everybody else is so engrossed in.
His challenge is to discover what to do with the many sides of life
that operate in ways far removed from his own. This issue arises espe-
cially strongly in the realm of self-assertion, and response to the asser-
tions of others. If he follows his own instinctual direction, he will
put forward his own personal impulse and only minimally respond
to anyone else’s comparable expression. However, such a pronounced
emphasis upon self over other brings rude interpersonal consequences.
Because almost every other person he meets has a more complex
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and extended expression than he does, he will tend—if he learns
patience and tolerance—to be endlessly compelled to make way for
others’ assertions. Therefore, both his original point of primal self-
assertion and his adopted counterpoint of social tact in making way
for the other are inadequate to the task of making his own rightful
way. A third option must eventually be found that dares to reveal
candidly and boldly what he feels and seeks, while delighting in draw-
ing forth from others their own outrageous, honest expression in a
conversation that is lively, engaging and, most of all, genuine.
*
Mars in the Second House
e is activating multiple levels of awareness with every move he
makes. He stirs up issues, polarities and an intricate sequence
of many-sided events leading to clarification and renewal at best, and
to defeat and fundamental unrest at worst. His optimal track involves
pointing out the issue and, when disputes surface, deriving satisfac-
tion from following his original position and refining it as he goes
without either becoming blind to the issues that arise from every side
or backing down from his beliefs and convictions.
This poised edge is very hard to maintain. He tends to fall over
in either direction many times, and a chronic pattern of moving too
far forward and then receding too far backward is unfortunately a
considerable liability in building up a consistent, steady base of per-
sonal life. It is quite easy for him to become frustrated with himself
and his own erratic tendencies—but when he tries to push forward
insistently or to be reasonable and fair, either side leads to such over-
whelming imbalances and self-conscious struggle that he has little
choice but to keep working with the two sides of his world, making
mistakes and learning from them.
He must at last fine-tune his own primal drive as he goes, recog?
nizing all factors involved without in the process undercutting the
power of what he is attempting to express as one way to approach
life, with its own validity.
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Mars
Mars in the Third House
H: is impetuous, impulsive and instantaneously alive to what-
ever openings are there. His best shot is the first and the fastest,
and he senses strongly and sharply that he must stay on top of his
experience. When he feels interested in what is happening, he can be
vital and involved, a tremendous catalyst for everybody making the
most of the shared occasion. He has very little else to fall back on if
the initial surge of power should falter.
Naturally, his only alternative to full speed ahead—being idle and
waiting — is for him nowhere near as attractive, or anything other
than an inbetween time. His primary challenge is to make good use
of his time-outs despite himself—to recharge, and to uncover deeper
resources in those intervals between dynamic outpressings.
He will find as he ripens that another side to his character emerges,
one that can find stimulus and value in those pursuits that once
seemed devoid of obvious appeal. He may even develop an ability to
move without preference through his many worlds, connecting and
disconnecting, free from compulsion and reactivity. This is possible
through the tempering and seasoning of having put himself through
enough struggle and trying to force the issue that he really knows,
throughout his body, that the flow of life cannot be commanded and
engineered to stay in channels that are most instantly rewarding and
nakedly gratifying to the adolescent in us all.
Mars in the Fourth House
e pierces to the bottom of world dilemma, and then gets stuck
lFilige His nose for trouble sniffs out the undersoul stresses and
perpetual anguished edges of common experience. These surround
and envelop him, rendering him helpless. He must admit defeat, and
let go of all attempts to ameliorate the external levels of fundamen-
tal dysfunction. If he fails to yield, he inevitably takes on the full
weight of all that is going wrong and makes it his own.
His pivotal challenge is to bear the weight of the world lightly,
and to continually relinquish the need to make everything better.
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The lessons he faces in this direction are painful, demanding and of
massive proportions. If he can let go when racial instinct says to hang
on tight, he will be doing something for his world. And if he can fol-
low this through with a profound faith and conviction in the divine
power, he will create in himself a driving wedge toward racial renewal.
The usual expression here is hopelessly far removed from the
regenerative possibilities. It features the crushing sensation of being
held under far too often for far too long, and being robbed of ini-
tiative, drive and raw desire. If he identifies himself with martyrdom
and victimization, he can get lost in the vast territory of the racial
undersoul in its bleakest manifestations. His one way through is
always to overthrow the basic fears and doubts swimming in his direc-
tion, and to say emphatically, “I trust and release myself into the arms
of aloving God.”
Mars in the Fifth House
ndividuality shines a beacon light through the haze of a sleeping
world, and he follows that beam closely. He is leading himself out
beyond the false earthbound condition, into solid and true incarnation.
There is much release, opening and celebration connected with
this emergence into self-recognition. It takes place in many stages,
over extended cycles of two steps forward and one step back. His
keynote throughout is a gut-level, passionate realization that he is
meant to become all that he is. This means that purpose and will are
working for him in his striving.
He feels constricted and unfree within any mold, and this moti-
vates him to make his own way and not look back. He has set him-
self the most essential of tasks, which is to uncover the roots of
dynamic, creative selfhood, and to keep these roots vital and ready
for the next destiny challenge, without constriction, inhibition or
hiding inside any limitation.
Mars in the Sixth House
’ ‘he world is in trouble, and he is chosen to assist in turning it
around. The skills he brings to this mission are formidable.
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Mars
Among them are an ability to get to the point and stay on the point,
and a tireless pursuit of rightful solutions. When he applies himself
to this rightful mode of service, he produces extraordinary results as
a matter of course.
His greatest motivator is his sharp recognition of how far into
chaos and distortion the general situation has come. His critical per-
ception at times sets him back. Being so persistently in touch with
the problems, the shortcomings, and the cumulative negative pat-
terns can be discouraging, especially when he is not fully involved in
his true expression in response to the need. In fact, when he finds
himself, for whatever reason, momentarily unable to pitch in and
make a difference, he will tend to consume his own substance, and
bring himself headaches and body aches galore.
He is a projectile of specialized abilities, which will find appro-
priate outlet when inner and outer cycles converge. His consummate
grasp of the factors that need to be worked with is so impressive that
when he does do what he is here to do, his world will breathe easier
and function far better.
Mars in the Seventh House
e believes in being ready and available. Life has a way of bring-
lie him the next thing to meet with. This pattern is so depend-
able that all he has to do is to mix-and-match with what comes toward
him, time after time, and he knows it. Opportunity abounds in his
world, and he is empowered to take full advantage of it and to give
over each strand of given experience as soon as the encounter is con-
summated, to open the space for the next.
There are many ways this can go, each of them intriguing and
worth pursuing. In most instances, all of these will show up sooner
or later in his life’s unfoldment. These include stretches of adven-
ture, risk and free movement forward; times of nothing seeming to
lead anywhere, fostering thereby more internal and introspective
catching up with himself; and golden moments when he and his
world are simultaneously in high gear, willing to engage with each
other completely. His overall pattern is marked by sudden shifts and
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radical departures, and forms itself through destiny challenges with
no other places whatsoever in which to busy himself.
The one significant overcoming he is called upon to master, in
ever-steeper levels of training, is placing himself as a separative ego,
out of the way, so that primal energy can manifest and he can serve
it rather than expecting it to serve him. When’primal energy has
found free access into his lifestream, there will be much brighter
opportunity than ever before to be fully present as life reveals her
own inherent dynamic. In that process he will have more than enough
vibrant engagement to satisfy the most ardent of souls.
Mars in the Eighth House
rom birth he is given optimal equipment to take up the path of des-
ee and never let it drop. His most powerful focus is to activate
himself in such a way that he brings all that he can into his world—
and then more. The knack he obsesses on cultivating within himself is
a willingness to draw all that is there from himself, from his environ-
ment, and from the connection between himself and the environment.
Such total eagerness requires quite a bit of life experience to dis-
cover what happens when total desire meets full-on destiny. Primarily,
he must come to terms with timing, and learn the hard way how to
allow himself to grow with the situation and to move beyond his
need to have incredible events occur before all conditions are right.
Unfortunately, this sequence of extended lessons in synchronizing
self and world will be supremely demanding in one respect: The very
quality he starts out prizing in himself, and which everybody says is
remarkable, must be sacrificed in order for his greater truth to man-
ifest. That quality is his naive, nonreflective, total accessibility to the
flow of experience.
When sacrificed or not clung to overlong, this quality metamor-
phoses into the world’s greatest capacity to enter upon and take fur-
ther all changes needed, even to the point of becoming fully awake
to the place within each soul that can move forward beautifully, and
tapping that place with loving, strengthening, direct knowing that
each and all can be and do whatever is called for, without limit.
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Mars
Mars in the Ninth House
H: is on a quest, seeking self-knowledge in every direction. He
has been on this quest many times before. The one thing that
really matters to him is coming to selfhood consciously.
He has one great instrument to aid him along his way, as well as
one familiar obstacle that is very hard to dislodge. His instrument is
the ability to observe himself as he does what he does, and to thereby
fine-tune his expression with supreme adroitness. This quality sets
him apart as a veteran of the struggle of selfhood to bring itself toward
clarity of direction.
The obstacles he faces are his own surface self having unfinished
business down below, in the realms of personal desire and naked self-
will, and empowering that surface self to hold off the bulk of the
greater journey until he has consumed his drive for personal signif-
icance. In most instances, the seeking of recognition or the drive to
prove himself is so urgently demanding that only one corner of his
focus will be trained upon the total view, while the rest of him runs
wild, charging forward toward becoming effective, dynamic and mag-
nificently all-there with the urge to be somebody. Meanwhile, wait-
ing in the wings is the long-familiar, oft-postponed journey into
realization and true freedom. That journey, if it is ever taken up, will
dwarf the magnitude of his insensate craving for personal heights.
Mars in the Tenth House
e intends to fulfill the task of making himself into a worthy ves-
Hi for the common good. He gives his all to make this possi-
ble. As he progresses ever closer toward being an example of the way
everybody should be, he comes into a reckoning with collective lim-
itations, negations, and conditioned ideas of what is right, what is
true, what is intended. He has a difficult time sifting through the
many layerings of shared assumption and attitude, in order to be
right on the mark of what is asked.
He is especially strongly up against the myriad ways in which a ceil-
ing has been put on the shared aspiration and the common longing
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for more. He bumps up against this limiting point, and must some-
how push clear of racial memory and mental doubts.
What is right for him is to keep going, to evolve further, and to
take everybody with him as he goes. However, the usual tendency
here is instead to heed the already existing mental and emotional
standards and norms, and to fulfill these to the letter. His main thrust
becomes validating and confirming the already existing and tena-
ciously persisting shared reality frame, in such a way that it looks for
a moment as though all the old structures could hold up a little longer,
and nothing really needs to change. But the creative power that can
stream through his expression becomes a trickle of suggestion around
the edges that something more is possible.
Mars in the Eleventh House
he space is open, and he is moving into it. As he ventures fur-
ther than could have been imagined before, he comes upon the
dreams, the visions and the greater waves of human potential that
have so haunted and spurred humanity on throughout its journey.
His central driving force is visceral, instinctual and unavoidable.
There arises from deep down inside of him the urge toward signifi-
cant evolutionary changes and mutational thresholds.
His life impulse is to take up the challenge of what is just begin-
ning to be possible. There is available to him a guiding power, straight
down the middle, from taken-for-granted boundaries to fresh, sen-
suously alive and calling vistas. His one great hurdle is that what he
senses as vitally needed core reality is beyond the range of others’
view. Most in this predicament will attempt to believe everyone else,
and simmer down. However, such a compromise and denial has
volatile consequences, as the racial crying-out toward the unknown
forms a rod of power that keeps poking him in his center, and will
not let him be.
Sooner or later, he must respond to the goadings of this impetus
forward, which recognizes in him a chosen instrument who can enter
the stream of limitless forces with courage and great daring, push-
ing out beyond what others think is “human nature,” which truly is
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Mars
the complete refusal to take up the surging power of inwardly alive
human nature.
Mars in the Twelfth House
H: path is destructive and re-creative. Death and endings mark
his way through. If he is available to the full intensity of this
process, he will emerge every time with a firmer and deeper con-
nection to totality. He must make himself fearless and take the plunge.
Collective inertias and all that has been swept under come to meet
him, and say “Go back!” His fervent challenge is to take the blow of
personal and collective denial and negation, and come back for more.
He has one tremendous attribute—a defiant streak that digs in
stronger when everything looks impossible. His refusal to be pru-
dent and reasonable is a priceless gift. He is the depth warrior, the
veteran of many battles, the one who knows the many ways of life
energy. Often he is held back by injuries, scars, and seemingly over-
whelming handicaps; yet he is determined and tough. His only option
is to stay with his terrible journey, even if it will take a miracle to pull
off. He does have more than one miracle down in there, waiting for
him to reach into the territory of the impossible, which is his home
ground.
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The Asteroid Belt
ACH ONE OF the four major asteroids—Vesta, Juno, Ceres, and
Pallas—holds collective forces in mentally-fixated domains
that prevent humanity from awakening or even having clear,
steady bearings. The asteroid belt was first glimpsed by human sci-
ence from 1801 to 1807.
Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, these seem-
ingly miscellaneous and fragmentary isolate rocks between Mars and
Jupiter have been the single major factor in molding each one of us
to think and operate in a vacuum and a void. The goddess names
given to these asteroids represent a joke, a satire not yet perceived by
astrologers, in which the mythical qualities of each goddess are
inverted into everything-but-that, in each asteroid’s expression as a
tester.
The asteroid belt as a whole is keeping Jupiter and Saturn, the
largest planets of this solar system, veiled and distorted, away from
Earth access. The purpose of this disruption of humanity’s evolution
is to put a freeze on striving until the conscience of the Earth herself
has become imprinted upon all of humanity. Then, during the late
twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the human mind and emo-
tions will throw off the blinders and shackles, and the Earth shall be
served and cherished even as human consciousness stretches toward
a future beyond material attachment and binding.
The asteroids irritate, and keep up a perpetual round of diver-
sions and atomizations of attention. Yet any individuals who align
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themselves with the true fusion of Earth and cosmos toward the
future can step away from the buzz of lower, automatic mental and
emotional patterns, and walk the Earth as free agents.
Each asteroid is a world all its own, a compact ball of special test-
ings and trials masking themselves as points of terrible constriction
and resistance. These become a central issue in development during
each person’s twenties, thirties and forties, and must be passed through
in order to reclaim knowingness and life presence in unconditional
expression of the right to think for oneself and live for the whole,
genuinely and from the inside. .
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CHAPTER 6
Vesta
ESTA WRAPS HERSELF around the human craving for secu-
rity, stability, and safety, and is preoccupied with making
sure that everything is taken care of, pragmatically and with
dogged persistence.
The mind becomes a multiplex field of material-plane factors to
track with and hold together. All considerations become basic, reduc-
tionist and utterly insistent upon “first things first,” which means the
apparent before the real. What seems to be of immediate crucial
importance is maintaining the minute particulars of everyday exis-
tence, competently and conscientiously. Worry, stress, and struggle
take on a quality of underscoring life as a problem.
The most crucial factor becomes developing those subselves that
can take on specific responsibilities and look after them; one becomes
an administrator, overseeing the operations of a great number of vir-
tually autonomous busy bees who stay on their job twenty-four hours
a day.
The Vesta trap is to accept as a given the requirement that one
operate this way. To pass the Vesta test, one must learn how to free
up one’s mind and life forces from the tyranny of quantitative rea-
soning. In order to do so, one must blast the foundations of assum-
ing that this is the way life is and the way life always will be.
The mockery of the Vestal is that in the profane temple of con-
temporary life, the flame that is watched over so vigilantly and pre-
served so caringly is the literal fact of outward existence as one’s only
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fervent allegiance. But the true fulfillment of the worship of Vesta is
the recovery of human value, and the steady watch over the inward
need of all life to be approached in a spirit of surrender and respon-
sive beholding of what is truly there.
Vesta in the Signs .
Vesta in Taurus
he believes in all good things. Her mind eliminates-the possibil-
ity that disruptive factors might break down her solid structure
of fostering the good. She dreams as she thinks, and thinks dream-
ily. Her ponderings and broodings feature a repetitive fantasy in many
variations, in which an intact, unfallen world can be dwelled within
endlessly. She feeds herself on this picture, and sticks with it resolutely.
Her greatest blind spot is toward the forces at work in every direc-
tion in the world of today. What she is doing is so consistently pic-
turing a wonderfully put-together memory world that she can quite
successfully believe that no contemporary chaos can get near her.
However, this generates a consciousness field that is completely the-
matic and self-convinced in every inch of its themes.
Inevitably the various messages and meanings that run counter
to this thick welter of assumptions will come right in and make them-
selves at home, undetected and unassimilated. The cumulative effect
is that her self-consistent story stays clean, clear and fragrant, while
what is really taking place throughout her world is pervasively at odds
with her dream vision, to the point of having very little overlap across
the board.
Vesta in Virgo
he is ingenious, infinitely resourceful in plugging in gaps and keep-
ing her mental screen free of debris. She has a great appetite for
purity and crystalline clarity of thought leading to effective and appro-
priate measures. Her earnest dedication to making sure that this sys-
tem is working well keeps her outlook bright, poised, and affirmative.
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Vesta
She must keep improving and refining this model in any way she
can, in order to deny altogether the barbarians at her gates that keep
trying to get in. These barbarians are crude, heavy and strange in
their ways. Just below consciousness, she is swarming with these insis-
tent invaders. Their insinuation is that she is sealed off in a world
strictly her own, and that they are part of herself, seeking access.
When they do break down her defenses, she finds herself enveloped
by doubts, anxieties and a sense of meaninglessness. She is engaged
in a moment-by-moment, detail-by-detail battle between healthy,
upbuilding, yet somewhat heedless ways of thought, and extraordi-
narily critical, judgmental and disturbingly alien ways of calculating
and computing.
Her only possible way through is to observe closely the way in
which each thought pattern makes her feel inside. She will find that
her own self-protective ways of perceiving have a settled and stable
quality to them, while the alien swarms of irritation and disturbance
make her feel shaky and hardly there at all, and are self-evidently
against the flow of her life forces, not to be entertained or invited in
no matter how clever they are at seeming to be parts of her own per-
sonal viewpoint.
Vesta in Sagittarius
verywhere she looks she meets abundant evidence that her world
EF pulling apart, and she with it. She becomes bound up with
many forms of interpretation and evaluation that go everywhere and
nowhere. No matter what she does, no matter how hard she tries,
the factors and facets she is faced with keep becoming more com-
plex, more spread out, and more mutually contradictory.
What can she do to maintain equilibrium and basic composure?
She finds herself manically driven to pursue particular tracks, thus
generating sufficient avid interest and momentum that the vast dis-
array disperses and leaves her able to meet her world on her own
terms. Because this sequence keeps recurring many times over, she
learns to permeate her mind with a host of vivid interests and ideas,
and to keep these going at all times. She finds herself stimulus-crazed,
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restless for outlets, and needing a perpetual variety and richness of
interests being pumped up.
This situation is hard to maintain on a viable level day after day,
yet the alternative seems to be inundation, even more wildly and
overwhelmingly, with miscellaneous tangents that neyer add up. So
she feels compelled to keep her world going in ‘high gear. By sheer
vital enthusiasm, she can forge a path to her liking that has enough
mental fascination to keep her occupied and sharply attentive.
*
Vesta in Pisces
he soul anguish of her world keeps her fascinated, and horrified.
She is glued to her seat, taking in the fabulous array of subtle
impressions, which reveal how deep and far-reaching life’s funda-
mental difficulties really are. She is awash in undercurrents, insinu-
ations, rippling feelings that cannot be kept out.
Her typical strategy for holding herself together in the eye of the
storm is to create an island paradise of simple pleasures and basic
sanity. From there, the rough seas of the world rumble and churn,
but remain outside. Her mind and her emotions are deeply divided
in this process of keeping herself from going under. Her mind works
hard to gather sufficient evidence that all is well, in order to mini-
mize her deep emotional feeling that she is at the mercy of all that is
most painful and chronically wrong.
Her mind thus becomes a thin, tight surface of compensational
ways to stay above her inward experience. The vast bulk of her con-
sciousness is taken up with swirling, tempestuous currents that she
fights to keep down below the level of immediate conscious focus.
Right in the midst of this desperate endeavor, something tells her she
cannot keep it up, which pushes her all the harder to maintain her
efforts at operative sanity, no matter what the cost.
Vesta in Leo
| er identity structures are strong, deep and durable. Her world
is constantly beating at the doors of her massive superstruc-
ture. Most of what is going on out there never reaches her. This allows
12;
Vesta
her to build her immediate sphere into a dwelling place free of extreme
mental ferment.
Great advantages accrue to this mode of operating. Especially
strongly, she cannot be distracted or diverted from her intentions or
designs. At best, she can even focus her consciousness so sharply and
acutely that those very things that make everyone else anxious and
disturbed cannot cause even the slightest ripple.
If she has within her a sensitivity to other’s plights, she will be at
a loss to imagine how the others could be so susceptible to negative
suggestion, while stalwartly refusing to budge from her conviction
that her own destiny is at the radiant center of events and cannot be
messed with. She is under special protection and guidance, and holds
that position as a beacon for all, to keep showing that the path for-
ward through all mental mazes is illuminated and steady.
Vesta in Aquarius
H2 mental set is raging with an incredible multiplicity of fac-
tors to encompass. The most powerful and persistent factors
cluster around her tasks and preoccupations. When engaged in pur-
suing the track of problem-solving, trouble-shooting or taking care
of impossibly complicated and difficult matters, she puts all her exper-
tise into action and generates superb results. However, she turns
everything into monumental tasks and impossible challenges, and
has no room in her world for anything else. She functions in a vor-
tex of extreme demands, and her approach to these keeps them going.
When anyone is possessed of such an avid taste for things to deal
with, they will be granted a full-to-bursting share of what they seek.
Her judgements and analyses are based upon the world’s greatest
capacity for harnessing factors into elegant solutions and brilliant
displays of applied intelligence, to the point of considering the world
around her to be strictly a puzzle to be solved. And she is the one
who knows how to solve it—and solve it, and solve it—as her way
of being magnificently helpful and useful.
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Vesta in Aries zg
he is up against a toughly demanding world fraught with peril.
Her instinctive strategy for coming to terms with this challenge
is to hold her own, sticking to what she knows and asserting it bel-
ligerently. She is attempting to outmaneuver whatever is trying to
get her down, by seeming to be strong, self-commanding and will-
fully self-assertive.
This is a perfect approach to straightforward, gut-level situations,
and a terrible approach in more complex, involved contexts. The
more intricate and multiplex the factors at hand, the more deeply in
trouble she is. Her stark aggressiveness and tough insistency cannot
possibly handle mental factors with contradictory and perpetually
compounding patterns. Therefore, she ends up forcing her way
through situations by pushing off to every side whatever she cannot
immediately meet head on.
These deflected bits and pieces of experience do come back to
haunt her, by narrowing her scope to such a rough-and-ready level
that in effect she specializes utterly in one or two characteristic ges-
tures or moves. She then cannot begin to find ways to move with or
against the myriad forces that come back at her with far more than
she expected, time after time, to the point of virtual insensibility.
Vesta in Libra
he meets a lifestream with a bit of everything in it, and she engages
with every side of her world as it comes along. She must be con-
sistently on top of a vast array of factors, and she knows it; she is
mobilized, willing, and quite fluent in her use of her bag of tricks.
She is most adroit in neutralizing difficulties almost effortlessly, and
maintaining a smooth flow of give-and-take.
Her greatest skill of all is to remain unflappable and vibrantly
resilient, regardless of repeated situations in which she could become
upset and even profoundly divided within herself. However, the secret
of this knack is her refusal to take anything too seriously, or to respond
to mental issues in any depth. She is brilliant at taking everything as
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Vesta
it comes, meeting it where it is and dealing with it on the spot.
Her mostly successful style of finessing the proliferating dilem-
mas of experience is thus to go forth into the territory of semblances
and the common ground of shared endeavor, altogether denying
implications, reverberations and underlying causes, and thereby
drawing upon interpersonal social dynamics so all-pervasively that
there is no room whatsoever for anybody to pull her down into the
heavier vibratory frequencies. And that is the way she likes it.
Vesta in Capricorn
he is a veteran of civilization’s consciousness stresses, and she
intends to participate fully in resolving them. Her stature and
presence enable her to place herself in the center of events, and to be
given a voice that is decisive. No mountain of staggering proportions
involving chronic, longstanding shared problems can get her down.
She is built to grapple with the worst.
Such a body of forceful determination and authoritative clarity
is formidable. She sets to work, and insists upon optimal perfor-
mances by anyone who expects to be granted her approval. She scales
the heights of each and every life challenge in a way that everyone
would if they remained self-possessed and disdainful of giving way.
Ultimately, this remarkable way of meeting with what wears oth-
ers down precipitates all around it a field of influence that is bol-
stering and rallying to the human spirit, saying by example, “We can
prevail against the tide of any level of shared issues, simply because
that is who we are.”
Vesta in Cancer
he is concerned about the world she lives in. It matters to her what
happens, how it happens, and when it happens. She responds to
the need she meets. Most of all, she thinks about all that is occurring,
and attempts to put it right by the power of clear consciousness.
Her gifts in this direction are multiple. She takes hold of each fac-
tor, and places it in juxtaposition to each other factor, lucidly, dis-
passionately, yet with dedication to optimal results. She is especially
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adept at viewing the whole, then viewing the parts and bringing the
specific details together with the larger view. She-does all this by plac-
ing her focus of attention and interest directly upon what she sees as
being most relevant and vital, time after time.
Essentially, she has the good sense of proportion and right mea-
sure to be able to evaluate wisely the ways in which each and every
part helps to form all that is there, and equally the ways in which the
total context shapes the contours of each contributing factor in the
design chosen when nothing is left out of the unfolding picture and
the gaze is steady and firm. .
Vesta in Gemini
he is attempting to track with such a variety and diversity of life
impulses that she must extend, expand and keep opening her
point of view until she is so fast and so ready that her vision matches
the phenomena exquisitely. Such a path has the property of wearing
away all previous vantage points, and supplanting them with broader
and greater views. This happens so relentlessly that there is no look-
ing back, and there is no time or opportunity for second-guessing
or double-checking. She must utterly wing it.
Great collective momentums are operating continuously in this
sphere. Those who cannot breathe such quicksand air here find them-
selves pushed back sharply. When she plunges back and down, she
falls as hard as she previously could rise. Thus, the stakes are “future
or bust.” Those who are selected by evolution to stay with the greater
currents will be granted a boost, a great gust of forwarding wind to
send them over the top into places of far vision and catalytic broth-
erhood and sisterhood power of the highest order.
Vesta in Scorpio
Se contains within herself every progressive and every retrogres-
sive consciousness current in the world. Her journey is marked
by extremes of knowing and unknowing, of being and not-being, of
sensing the way through and being blocked altogether.
The collective undersoul provides her with everything she could
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Vesta
possibly need whenever she synchronizes her striving and vision with
the core need of the whole. But the collective undersoul sabotages
her convictions and purposive drive whenever she pushes too hard
on the button of strangeness. When she becomes disoriented and
murky, everything becomes suddenly heavy, harsh and terribly wrong.
When she focuses her larger beam of destiny-scrutinizing fervor
in a fine-tuned piercing gaze, all that she sees becomes lined up, inte-
gral, and magnificently congruent. Her way of seeing is acute and
utterly persuasive. It will lead her all the way through blank, bleak
depths and inwardly illuminated heights of dazzling comprehension,
towards an intensity of innermost knowing that drives on human-
ity’s destiny, stirring toward awakening amidst all lessons and all dif-
ficulties, calling through the eye of the needle to the infinite way.
Vesta in the Houses
Vesta in the First House
ee thought wave remains for her distinct and unto itself. The
order and sequence of steady consciousness maintains its ground
insistently. When she is exposed to the incessant bombardment of
multiple contradictory mass mental currents, she pulls down beneath
them, instinctively letting them pass over, away from her.
This stand against confusion and dissociation is able to keep going
admirably. It grants her a space to live in that has her own thoughts
and values as its base, and is permeated by very little collective cacoph-
ony. This frees her up in several directions, with the especially strong
inherent possibility of forming her world simply, straightforwardly
and calmly.
Her priority is to stay true to her own lifestream and to follow its
windings as closely as possible, leading to a gradual uncovering of
the course given by nature, which timelessly yet rhythmically strength-
ens itself and finds itself to be very good.
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Vesta in the Second House we
he experiences a continuous and perpetual sequence of events in
Sa all of the world is imprinting itself on her mind and mold-
ing her attitudes accordingly. She is directly in the line of fire of those
influences and impressions by which contemporary consciousness
orients itself. Because these come from everywhere, and have very
little basis for being woven together into a common fabric, she finds
herself plugging into many viewpoints, and going with different ones
at different times. It always seems that the one she currently embraces
is thoroughly plausible and relevant.
Thus, she consecutively gives her mind over to a dazzling sequence
of ways of looking at life, each one selected for its momentary cen-
trality and palpable currency. Because she can fully convince herself
of the validity of each perspective she takes up, she can quite well
hold a firm and self-convinced position, phase after phase. But in
deeper truth, her basis for each stand is somewhat tenuous and frag-
ile, which only makes her more adamant and defensive.
She is trying as best she can to cut a sound path forward through
a jungle of vastly colliding mental messages. This attempt is half-suc-
cessful in making each moment reasonably intact, but half-unsuc-
cessful in forcing a survival stridency to keep her righteously on top
of experience in a way that is, on closer inquiry, riddled with gaps
and desperately patched together.
Vesta in the Third House
he has no filters against the rippling reflections of collective cur-
rents. Her mind is bombarded by tiny bits and pieces of experi-
ence, which seldom emanate clearly from anywhere in particular.
Her only possible way to operate in such a continuum of insinuat-
ing messages is to maintain a naive and spontaneous approach that
sticks with the moment for all its worth.
The only place she can find maneuvering room is the concrete
moment taken on its own terms. The instant she spreads her con-
sciousness further, she meets that fantastic downflow of multiple
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Vesta
worlds to which she is so receptive and susceptible. The sharply dis-
tinct moments she clings to for breath are won by sheer will in ongo-
ing effort, moment-by-moment.
At best, she can fill her hard-won moment with sufficiently vivid
life-content that the enveloping madness is pushed back sufficiently
far that she can momentarily breathe easily. However, inertia and the
pressures of contemporary existence make it likely that much of the
time she will instead become a product of the overstimulating and
quite strange proliferation of manic energies poking at her mind’s
focus and flooding her with so much that she has all she can do to
resist the temptation to be an instigator of everything going every-
where-at-once toward a consciousness best pictured as all edges and
no center.
Vesta in the Fourth House
he is fated to receive and respond to every side of existence, as it
comes in strongly. She barely knows what is happening, or that
there are other ways to process and meet the influx of impressions.
Instead, she lives so filled up with worlds-upon-worlds of what is
happening all around her that her own private sphere of experience
is latent and unformed. She is her world, and she becomes every
world at once. This pattern is quite difficult to form into any pro-
gressive sequence. Her tendency is to take it all on and quiver with
subtle sensitivities and atomized, virtually autonomous subselves,
each talking at her and trying to take over.
The one way she can make her peace with all of this is by ardu-
ously learning to go deeper into the space beneath all the mental jab-
berings, and from there to absorb them without any longer reflexively
reacting to them as though they were authoritative and absolute.
Such a way of reconciling this condition of total onslaught is gen-
uinely available to those who come to the aid of their inner soul, and
begin to recognize that they deserve a world that is whole and mean-
ingful, and simply in tune with their own primal need for quiet and
organic continuity.
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Vesta in the Fifth House yor
he is deeply convinced that her own consciousness must form
itself from its own premises. She has a battle on her hands, to fol-
low this through. Her plan is to hold to her own perceptions and her
own essential design of being, regardless of any external factors what-
soever.
This is hard to carry out, as she tends to polarize many forces
against her. Especially strongly, she reaps a dramatic sequence of
events perfectly geared toward testing and tempering her inner resolve.
The strongest and most persistent difficulty she faces is that every-
body agrees that the collective mental patterns upon which to base
everything else are a given; but she cannot go along with this assump-
tion and conditioning.
Instead she charts an independent course, steadfastly refusing to
have anything to do with anybody’s shared premises. Fundamentally,
she sees her world and herself from a place of stark focus, and is
engaged in an earnest attempt to guard this focus from all contrary
rumors and limitation scenarios. In that intention she walks alone,
but the inward voice of each and all secretly and ardently roots for
her cause.
Vesta in the Sixth House
he practical details of a hardworking life keep her omnivorously
busy. She makes herself into a total functioning dynamo, and
resists at every turn the many ways in which this stance can be rela-
tivized or called into question in any way.
Her mental abilities are impressive. She harnesses her mind with
a tight and optimal fit to the task at hand and the most nagging issues.
She is superb at using the presenting dilemma to escape from thé
clutches of everything outside of that focus. This entire endeavor is
underscored by a subtle, permeating, desperate pressurized need
underneath, to keep all going in a direction that is viable.
The one great pitfall in operating this way is that she treats every
situation that arises along this current as an emergency, either wel-
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Vesta
come and relevant or unwelcome and irrelevant. The crises she takes
up are well served, but the crises she avoids tend to keep nipping at
her heels and threatening to capsize her well-constructed vehicle of
selective mobilization. A quite characteristic anxiety therefore accom-
panies this position, and gathers momentum when she is at her weak-
est, motivating her even more compulsively to keep it all going at full
volume.
Vesta in the Seventh House
he seeks to emerge from unconscious depths of suggestibility and
impressionability, into direct experience and forthright aware-
ness. Her handicaps in this effort are her memory of multiple con-
flicts and difficulties, and her retrogressive instinct toward repeat
performances of what was previously so very binding and consum-
ing.
She is caught between a part of self that strives forward with sig-
nificant initiatives and a side of self that is addicted to conflict and
disruption. The tension between these two sides of self is thick and
magnetic in bringing to her matching interpersonal and collective
variations on the theme of frustration, push-and-pull, and angry
reactions. She circulates within a stream of developmental tug-of-
war, pulling back and pulling forward with almost equal force.
This edge powerfully stimulates and quickens her attention and
interest. It brings her to the brink of great changes, and offers excit-
ing and melodramatic urgencies of choice and direction that can lead
to real breakthrough in the exceptional case. Usually, however, they
lead to ever more of the same—a cross between fertile vistas and
exasperating, predictable, multiple examples of making a way of life
out of walking the edge.
Vesta in the Eighth House
very social current finds in her its advocate and partisan. She
delights in taking up the cause of whatever she presently feels
most identified with, and pushing this forward in any way she can.
Most fulfilling of all to her is to strikingly make evident what could
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be, should be and must be. Her destiny rides on each phase of fos-
tering and cultivating emergent possibilities.
Her deepest struggle is the quite fascinating pattern of pumping
her world full of urgency and overwhelming pivotal significance to
her interests and involvements, and then coming up-against solid
barriers to her cause and becoming discouraged,,.disillusioned and
set back upon herself in extreme emotional backlash.
She has such an exaggerated, fervent conviction that the whole
world depends upon the triumph of her great cause that she is unpre-
pared for setbacks and the internal devastation accompanying those
setbacks. Yet it is exactly in the ritual enactment of major disap-
pointments and defeats and their consequences that she meets her-
self for the first time, and finds a more substantive basis for going
onward into the next cycle, renewed and ready for the evolutionary
crossroads she is intended to meet once again.
Vesta in the Ninth House
he is the veteran of many polarized struggles and sociocultural
stresses and strains. Her task now is to make her way through the
remaining examples of these that still hold her, and then to stand
clear of the multiple voices and seeming urgencies of the shared exis-
tence, in opening toward what lives beyond them. This is an uphill
struggle, rendered especially difficult by the fact that anyone who
shows signs of breaking out into the open from the thicket of men-
tal currents is immediately viewed by others as the perfect person to
take up some further version of dispute and sharp conviction of the
rightfulness of one side. Thus, she may easily tarry a long while in
ever-further refined and subtlized versions of the human predica-
ment.
Nonetheless, her higher consciousness yanks her towards its per+
spective of being one with the whole of existence, no longer able to
fall for anything against anything else. If she does awaken to this
impersonal point of vision, she will provide a reference point, a liv-
ing example of what it means to know the difference between being
inwardly bound up with particular facets of existence and being
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Vesta
deeply and ultimately aligned with the all, within and through each
facet of existence unconditionally.
Vesta in the Tenth House
he common good selects out certain representatives to be con-
scious mouthpieces for whatever serves the shared welfare. She
molds herself into a finely crafted vehicle for what needs to happen,
embodying preparations and formative sequences to make possible
what is intended. Her awareness homes in on practical measures and
definite procedures at every turn. She makes these top priority.
Her concern is to cover the ground necessary to make sure that
the fabric of the common good is woven from the finest available
materials. Most of all, she fixes on one or two vital, pivotal facets,
and becomes thoroughly knowledgeable and intensively mobilized
toward furthering these parts in order to make the whole structurally
sound and optimally serviceable. Each and all will then know that
they live in a rightly-formed shared reality, and that they are inte-
grally part of something worth working for.
Vesta in the Eleventh House
o much is yet to happen; so many significant parts of life have yet
St be experienced. She is open and available to these realms. The
collective awareness falls short of the insights, the visions, the dreams
and impulses she carries. The parameters of collective shared notions
end where she begins. She is a scout, a forerunner, wandering out
ahead into virgin territory. What she brings back are the missing
pieces, everything that has been denied.
Her searchings and extended journeys reap abundant fruit for
everybody. However, transmitting her seeds of renewal to those who
hold back from imaginative leaps is tricky and demanding. At the
core of this dilemma is a mystery that involves time, and the syn-
chronizing of advanced probes into the unknown with limited, time-
bound collective judgements and thought forms.
Essentially, the only way that greater realities can pierce the veil
of ordinary worlds is through unlikely and risky ventures, orches-
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trated by those who walk on ahead and do not stop to calculate what
might make sense to those who see them as going too far. Only when
someone is wild enough to “go too far” can thé common mind be
torn loose from its ruts, and open a notch for a change.
Vesta in the Twelfth House :
he feels the shared thought patterns inside herself, and meets their
deeper impact within. She knows the destructive power of delu-
sion and folly intricately and irrevocably. Her being takes in and takes
seriously each of the consciousness streams that come her way.
As she internalizes them, quite often she becomes lost to herself
inside of the world. Her inward strength of will is monumental, and
enables her to come back from the depth impact of the collective
miasmas time and again. Nonetheless, she does take on for others
the shadows and the undertows, and cannot help but do so.
Her innermost anguish lies in being negated or scapegoated as a
bringer of dark and somber news. Even this terrible burden is right-
ful, since what she is bringing through is painful and difficult to face,
and does surround and envelop her world with ghosts and all that
was carefully swept under for safekeeping.
Her greatest influence is to make the misbegotten fragments
unavoidably part of things, simply by her experiencing and witness-
ing of them. This is a sacrificial task, taken on under duress, so that
the cumulative unacknowledged depths can have some degree of
cleansing and purging, whatever it takes. While nobody feels at ease
with this kind of reckoning, it is precisely true that those who like it
the least are most in need of this collective-dweller experience, bring-
ing to the surface for all to grapple with what has been too-long-
denied.
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CHAPTER 7
Juno
UNO DOMINATES UTILITARIAN INTELLIGENCE, with a compelling
program to make efficient what has always been sloppy and messy.
Juno streamlines mental concentration and programs the mind
o reconstruct the world in the image of the machine. Whatever makes
for optimal functioning devoid of subtle factors is laid out as per-
fect, to be sought by all who are up-to-date and wish to participate
in what really counts. To synchronize their brainwaves with the mas-
ter program, people must reduce all extraneous factors to a mini-
mum, and so computerize their entire operation that their skill and
cleverness are continually refined and sharpened by an army of sub-
selves.
The Juno plan is to eliminate human error, to render the human
mind an impersonal instrument that can forge ahead without the
folly of sentiment, emotion or irrational factors of any kind. This
power is infinitely stronger than contemporary human beings can
admit.
The overcoming of the Juno lie begins with observing its devas-
tating impact upon all of life, and then questioning every set of pro-
grammed instructions and their intent. The complete overcoming
of the destructive aspect of Juno lies in becoming an independent
thinker who encompasses the multi-dimensionality of life experi-
ence, devoid of rationalistic bias.
The mockery of the Queen of the Heavens, Juno in mythology,
lies in making the tyranny of insect-like intelligence act as Queen of
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the World. The true fulfillment of honoring “She who is Juno” lies
in awakening from all superimposed depersonalizing systems, and
putting back in the throne the magnificent creative mind that holds
steady within complex situations, and knows with inward authority
how to be ready to move with the energy where it is going, riding the
wave with no arbitrary or rigid mindset to block the clear and open
: we
view.
Juno in the Signs
Juno in Taurus
he imagines that she must stay right where she is, and from there
command her world by implicit means. She becomes thoroughly
convinced that if she succeeds in neutralizing and minimizing super-
ficial disturbances, she can have her way and be unto herself. As a
result, she sets herself the task of holding steady against the barrage
of frictional factors, and sticking to basic values and fixed principles.
In refusing the thorn of being cut up and confused, she gravitates
toward the opposite pole of a siege mentality, which rigidly denies
the vast bulk of whatever comes in too hard and too fast. She ends
up being compelled to crystallize ever further, until explosion or cri-
sis intervenes.
Her real lesson lies in discovering how to dive under the heavy
artillery of extreme chaos, without avoiding or attempting to escape
the internal core of each segment of experience. In order to engage
in this life task meaningfully, she must gradually muster a genuine
willingness to meet what comes toward her, to cut through its frag-
mentary and dissipating tendencies, and then to support the moti-
vating sourcespring in each segment of experience. Ultimately, she
has little choice but to enter the thick of world dilemma with open
eyes. If she does so, no destructive complexes of “too much to deal
with” can stop her from forming her world rightfully and steadily.
Juno
Juno in Virgo
H: attention is riveted upon the immediate objective situation
with its self-evident demands. She experiences each given facet
of what is there to be met as distinct, palpably insistent and densely
packed with a whole world of necessities. Because this field of con-
crete particulars is so multiplex and keeps on coming, she finds her-
self with virtually no room to maneuver. Instead, she is right there
in it, faced with the most firm and definite level of survival demand.
Her task is to uncover strategies that work miracles inside the dif-
ficulty or dilemma, rather than ever attempting to avoid the sting of
rigorously working with what cannot be missed. In order to attain
real operative leverage, three qualities are urgently needed. The first
is a light approach that places each particular facet within a circle of
spacious beholding, thus neutralizing or allaying anxiety and stress.
Secondly, within this lightness, she must be thoroughly ready to take
up what arises, and take it forward, in and of itself, just like that. This
will strip away the distortion of overcomplexity. Thirdly, she must
then deposit each given facet in the pool of all other facets, releasing
it without attachment or overidentification. This will bring sufficient
momentum to override her inherent tendency to get bogged down.
Ultimately, her work is intensively forged by right attitude and
simple touch. It can only be ineffective and hopelessly entangling if
it is over-conscientiously taken on as literal fact or surface phenom-
enon, as her own hard fate.
Juno in Sagittarius
er striving to stay on top of the proliferation of everything-at-
lake cannot be successfully fulfilled. Instead, what she tries to
handle ends up handling her. This takes many forms, and keeps shift-
ing in its pattern. One way or another, she finds that what she resists
she becomes, and what she denies breaks down her barriers and
comes right in.
It will take a great number and variety of such experiences for her
to begin to submit and truly let go. Whatever it takes, she will cer-
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tainly be given ample opportunity to yield her pride and go deeper
than her preferences and desires.
This is a humbling, sobering, and at times humiliating level of
experience. No matter what she tries, she cannot squeeze her way out
of it. The entire pattern is there to shatter false ego structures and
penetrate into real Earth aliveness. The most diffigult part is that she
may often be fantastically reluctant to acknowledge what is happen-
ing to her. If so, she can come up with ingenious and resourceful
explanations and fantasies, each one of which can keep her going for
quite a while.
The only path through this labyrinth is Poraritiets straightfor-
wardly that nothing she tries makes her world smooth, and instead
that finessing or skirting the edges of her predicament is self-defeat-
ing and absurd. Ultimately, she will tend to pick her way through a
very treacherous thicket of far-too-much against all odds, only when
at last cornered and right up against being stranded in a flood of
impressions, asking for spiritual help when all seems lost. Under-
neath, she is then at last quite close to being with herself in her expe-
rience for the first time.
Juno in Pisces
he feels discouraging factors everywhere, and she knows she can-
not track them down or even begin to come to terms with all that
they imply. She must absorb their shock, their subtle impact, and
then emerge through her impressions into becoming inwardly poised
and ready for anything.
This is a very tricky and delicate endeavor. The temptation is to
float underneath the surface of painful events, staying numb and
impassive. If she falls into this stagnant pool, nothing reaches through
to her, and she barely notices that she is missing anything. This can
eventuate in her becoming so submerged that she wanders through
nightmare and dream, contacting ongoing events only at an oblique
angle, and never with any conviction of being able to work with them.
In order to pull herself out of this anti-world, she must first imag-
ine that what is truly at stake is her ability to be true to the innermost
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Juno
meaning oflife, which involves redeeming suffering by taking it
through herself. She can then begin to test the waters by mustering
the courage and strength to enter within a particular difficulty and
not go away, no matter what happens. Her deepest challenge is to van-
quish all received notions that she cannot meet her world, and instead
navigate through the very quandaries that previously haunted her.
She is coming back from a long way away, to feel and know what
is coming in as it comes, by increments of simple availability. Ulti-
mately, her quite inward path through the most seemingly chronic
and fixed-in-place parts of experience will take her just where she
needs to go, in right timing. However, great faith and trust in life’s
graces will be needed, as the drama of outward events persistently
features murky and turbulent conditions that lift when she instinc-
tively recognizes that there is much more involved here than bleak
scenarios and impossible predicaments, and that there is an inside
to this realm in which it all makes perfect sense as life regeneration
at core.
Juno in Leo
onfidence in herself is the basis for her ability to meet life on
meaningful terms. Belief in herself must temper itself through
experiences in which everything goes wrong. Only a sense of self that
comes from not being able to forge her way—and then coming back
stronger than ever—can serve her and sustain her.
Her most arduous task is to honor the vibrancy of individuality
when it seems, on the face of it, that all she should do is retreat, hide
and never come out again. She draws in situations in which she makes
a fool of herself, or fails completely to hang in there under duress.
Then she must face without flinching her own downfall, with all its
implications, and still back herself up and re-enter the thorny dilem-
mas of contemporary life with a passion. This requires a tireless align-
ment with what destiny truly means— advancing along one’s chosen
path in the name of the regenerative essence of the human being,
regardless of temporary setbacks.
Ultimately, she only renews her efforts when she fails, and only
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deepens her commitment to a living Earth when the struggle of exis-
tence threatens to consume her. She knows deep down inside that
she will meet many defeats and recurrent setbacks, but that she has
absolutely no excuse to crawl back inside. Her world lies ahead of
her; she has many lives in her, and cannot be stopped come
unless she wills it.
Juno in Aquarius
|er mind is a battlefield of forces and energies, translated into
problems and issues that never stop. Her vantage point in these
thought currents is that of a dispassionate witness, yet also an over-
wrought participant. The witness provides a margin of distance and
observational clarity, but the participant is subject to the world’s
most extreme propensity for becoming fascinated and absorbed in
a given situation, to the point of extreme obsession. Thus one side
of mind stays back while the other side loses itself completely.
This combination breeds a quite distinctive track of quintessen-
tial contemporary challenge. What she must do is to sharpen the
observer while allowing the participant to go too far. This means that
she watches helplessly as she gets utterly caught up in impossible
conundrums. Then she will have the chance to teach herself to move
forth, out of what she has gotten herself into. There are no short cuts,
no easy ways out. She must lose herself to find herself.
Ultimately, this path breeds dedication to service, by taking up
the most difficult-to-resolve shared situations and responding to
them from fresh vantage points even when these seem highly unlikely.
She finds, to everybody’s surprise, that the most massive and terri-
ble of stresses and strains are the very stuff of human intelligence,
developing ways of understanding and working with material form
in refined, intricate and multifaceted ways. She is on the spot, and
that is exactly where she needs to be.
Juno in Aries
he is intent upon making every experience count. She has so much
riding on the encounter that it is as though her entire life were
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Juno
encapsulated in the immediate connection with what is coming to
meet her. No one can question her drive, her desire, her potency of
presence. Best of all, she knows how to keep reframing her existence
in the next fiery challenge.
However, something vital is desperately wrong here. The missing
part is having a living sphere available for genuine engagement with
what is coming to meet her, as itself. Inside of her ritual enactment
of head-to-head confrontation, all is self-referential. Thus, supreme
egoism supplants loving and open sharing. Yet the style and stance
of this egoism is accommodating of mutuality and powerful rapport.
She generates charged and formidable archetypal events and expe-
riences, but does not place herself on the line because her passion is
for the story she tells herself about what is happening. This is a sit-
uation of thick illusion, involving what it means to be available to
life experience.
Ultimately, she pushes for what she desires and assumes, until she
comes to a point where she can no longer keep her world stretched
out ahead of her, and must begin to make herself vulnerable to what
moves between people when neither one is forcing every moment to
yield up delicious semblances. The spontaneous event then reveals
itself in all its splendor, calling her to merge with it without reserva-
tions, and without knowing where it might lead.
Juno in Libra
he loves the challenge. She makes the most of the dynamism of
what is there to meet her. She even goes so far as to orchestrate
beautifully shared events and sequences, with the finest flourishes.
Her abilities blind her to the underside of her challenge—and
the underside is the vast bulk of what she must meet. There she will
find that her natural affinity for optimal outcomes is matched inside
of her by a virtual void when it comes to working with all the facets
of experience that are stagnant or retrogressive. She almost dares life
to stun her, in appropriate timings with major experiences running
directly counter to her expectations and her assumptions. The sad
part is how easily she crumbles under these reversals. Her major lesson
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lies in encompassing the lost child in her who persists in falling apart
when events move against her.
Ultimately, she will be restored to herself in a-very different form
when she has broken down her defiant resistance to life’s pain and
struggle. In some ways, she is let off easy because her vision of the
ideal is sincere and heartfelt, and it simply needs tempering and bal-
ancing by being exposed to everything that runs-counter to it, and
by then living integrally with all sides of experience, free of self-serv-
ing preferences or naive projections that the world must conform to
the ultimate design at every stage.
Juno in Capricorn
he cannot help but stand there and watch as the world tragedy
unfolds before her. She steps way back inside monitoring the track
of collective trends at their worst. She feels responsible to view the
darkest, grimmest truths without fooling herself into making her
experience such that she could be at ease with the trend of events. In
reality, she is deeply identified with the difficulties themselves.
Her position is a precarious one, in that she assumes the worst,
is consistently confirmed in her presuppositions, and can take this
whole line of critical perception quite far. What motivates human
beings to stay with the process of life unfoldment is a positive trust,
a confidence in something redemptive; and here this is hard to come
by. In order for her to break through to an upbuilding and life-renew-
ing sensibility, she will be compelled to follow out the track of every
bitter sequence until she eventually comes to realize that she is load-
ing the entire picture with the poisonous assumption that certain
patterns are inevitable.
Ultimately, she will need to reverse her course, from creating ever-
sharper pictures of what is most deeply discouraging about the world
to making way for the dawning of a greater cosmic awareness that
every dread pattern is inwardly part of an extraordinarily well-orches-
trated and perfectly-in-place divine design in which the very worst
therefore opens the space for the very best, in the paradox and mys-
tery that turns life from thankless task to exquisite revelation.
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Juno
Juno in Cancer
H°: vision stretches to include heights and depths, ins and outs,
and every side of the world. She knows that she will meet dur-
ing the course of her life something from every part of experience,
and that she will be required to step beyond the masks to find the
common chord of humanity beneath. Her part is to allow all that is
to impact her to find its place within her spectrum of possibilities.
She is ready to take up her main task and to see it through, what-
ever it takes. What she cannot do at first is become closely attuned
to any single segment of life. She bypasses the special shadings, and
sticks with the archetypal dimensions. This means that her personal
touch with intimate depths is almost missing. Slowly and reluctantly,
she must come to realize that what she is missing is substantive, piv-
otal and indispensable.
Ultimately, she is called upon to return to the human circle as one
individual, distinct voice, and to be willing to trust herself to the emo-
tional and physical disclosures and susceptibilities without pulling
back into sweeping overviews. Her care and concern can do much
deeper good if she can persuade herself to forego the privilege of always
being somebody special, and strip down to being simply herself in
the living moment, with no ideology to cloak herself in for safety.
Juno in Gemini
he is as one immune, above the fray, unaffected by the tiny frag-
ments that preoccupy others. What she ventures into is taking
every situation further, and making this stretch appealing and per-
suasive. She dissents from the status quo, and leaps beyond assumed
limitations. Her approach is to stay with ultimate possibilities, and
shake loose apparent barriers to free becoming. In future worlds, her
vision will be the norm. But in situations where difficulties persist
and mass consciousness holds sway, her viewpoint is perceived as
“going too far.”
Her one greatest struggle will be in where she goes with this reflec-
tion. Most souls will be in accord with the voice of caution. There-
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fore, it is likely that she will step down from her greater convictions
and leadings, and attempt to make her peace with lesser levels of
experience. ae
Ultimately, she must come back time and again from extended
episodes of compromise, to quicken her pulse of life involvement
with the spark of limitless horizons. Each time the strétch will be fur-
ther, her tread more certain, and her further attémpts [Link] down
less precipitous and protracted. As she evolves, it becomes extraor-
dinarily clear that she is out there in the name of everybody, and that
even those who gruffly deny her far-flung ways are secretly rooting
for what she is furthering to be the way it really is. *
Juno in Scorpio
he responds to collective currents as all of life. Enveloped by the
thought processes of each and all, she takes upon herself the deeper
echoes of common fears, doubts and dreams. This occurs instanta-
neously and pervasively. As she lives into the undercurrents and calls
them her own, she takes up the task of living them through until they
have lost their sting or their wonder. She will then be ready to move
onward to further levels of collective karmic patterns.
She is merging her lifestream with all that is moving through the
world, yet her path is progressive and evolutionary. Each layering of
shared experience and anguish releases her into a further one, lead-
ing into the core of world dilemma.
Ultimately, her agreement beforehand to pierce to the heart of
the matter of collective stoppages will be fulfilled. When she comes
into the subtler facetings, she will be granted a feeling for not only
what is fundamentally wrong but how to turn it around by moving
so deeply into it that all disguises fall away, revealing a tunnel lead-
ing to radically fresh departures that could never be found unless
someone perseveres in uncovering the secret depths behind all that
does not come together in the world as it is.
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Juno in the Houses
Juno in the First House
Se is coming toward herself in piecemeal stages, yet shying away
from herself whenever she comes too close. Her instinctive pic-
ture of herself is formative, and never solid. When others see her as
a firm presence, she is startled and cannot imagine how they could
hold such a solid and definitive picture of her. She has a welter of dif-
ficulties and issues around the personal presentation of herself as a
distinct entity. She would prefer to be anonymous, and an integral
link in events.
She finds instead that something is expected of her, and that the
only way she can fulfill this demand is by placing herself outside her-
self, and putting as much emphasis upon the immediate overt impres-
sion she makes as she possibly can. Whenever she does succeed in
becoming fixed in place as a readily identifiable personal style, she
senses herself as empty and abandoned inside instead of reaping grat-
ification or a feeling of fullness.
She plays this theme out in so many variations, from so many
angles, that whenever she appeases the appearances she disappears
for herself. Because others key on their own and each other’s overt
presentation, she finds herself faced at every juncture with a choice
between making sense to others or making sense to herself. Making
sense to others leads to worldly recognition; but making sense to her-
self leads to a genuine basis for uncovering the roots of selfhood, and
tapping these roots as her cherished lifestream, as a matter of course.
Juno in the Second House
he lives in many places at once, and comes from every side toward
the elusive center. Each one of her many worlds claims a solid
chunk of her consciousness and allegiance. One of these is the sheerly
external calculation of personal advantage and strategic edge. A sec-
ond is keeping track of each way in which she is carrying through on
her intentions, or is failing to do so. A third is keeping a sharp eye
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on her relative position to each other mind, with a sharp, clear grasp
of what is happening and how to deal with it in hard-headed terms.
A fourth, hidden from view as much as possible, is being brutally
intent upon controlling each situation so that it yields maximum
security against threat or excessive dispersion.
Each of these four, together with a host of others, are constantly
working to maintain their coolly distinct sphere“of operations, and
to avidly and systematically perpetuate their special claims. Her main
deeper troubles stem from the sometimes unavoidable conflicts of
interest among her many selves. When a particular dispute between
two of them dominates her attention, it can bring considerable anx-
iety, tension and defensive edginess. Unfortunately, there are few
times when such flare-ups are absent. Worst of all, the more intelli-
gent, well-adjusted and outwardly productive she becomes, the fur-
ther these internal battles rage, to the point that her main ongoing
struggle tends to be keeping herself going while she is mentally torn
apart by conflicting voices.
The only way she can handle this in a sound, life-affirmative fash-
ion is to learn how to consciously track with each of her voices, and
let go of its animus each time it becomes outrageous, until every voice
learns it cannot bully her into submitting to its mania. Then they
will back off and find their rightful place in her body of real concerns.
Juno in the Third House
he is susceptible to each passing current in her world, as though
it contained all the world inside of it. She is rampantly stimulated
and fascinated by those immediate phenomena that claim her atten-
tion and consume her energy. Among her favorites are any entic-
ingly, exotically hot and spicy dish that wanders along; the modes of
sense intoxication that fill up her senses in predictably and familiarly
engaging fashion; perfectly ordinary everyday sequences that promise
and deliver a complete circuit of self-confirmation; wide-ranging
exercise and play scenarios that lead her away from dullness and rest-
lessness into momentary brightness and seeming aliveness; and ways
of communicating that move between the startling and the common-
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Juno
place, thereby lighting up the commonplace while keeping the star-
tling within the bounds of regular shared discourse.
She moves rapidly among her favorite diversions, and keeps them
humming in resonance with each other. She is brilliant at keeping
every facet going, and making the entire enterprise buoyant, resilient
and irresistible. Her inclination is to spin along this merry way with-
out ever stopping.
Among the various hitches in this plan, two stand out as perpet-
ual annoyances. One is that she must have vast space, multiple impres-
sions and complete freedom of range in order to keep this going
optimally. And she will draw to herself such conditions only at inter-
vals, while the rest of the time she becomes discouraged and tries
anything to make it all magical and incredible again. Secondly, and
much more problematically, she is constantly stretching her own sur-
face connections and capacities so far that her rubber band must
periodically snap back on her. When it does, her contraction can be
as extreme as her much-desired continual expansion.
She will eventually tire of spreading herself so utterly in so many
directions, and when she does, something of the subtler range of life
impressions can begin to get through to her, and to bring her a far
more sustaining fare than special effects and dazzling virtuosity ever
could begin to supply.
Juno in the Fourth House
he engulfs herself in world dilemma, and loses herself inside the
undercurrents that envelop her. She feels best when everything
is wrong. She draws maximum mileage from each given overwhelming
situation, drinking deep from the cup of self-forgetfulness. Her path
in life is so thoroughly and intensively obsessed with factors that can-
not be dealt with that her biography is a sequence of major and minor
crises.
Several characteristic crises return over and again, to be entered
upon from yet another new angle of difficulty. These are: conspiracy
of the world as it is to exclude or minimize whatever she is most deeply
aligned with; a battle-to-the-finish with psychological influences and
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conditionings, geared toward taking upon herself the core drama of
ancestral karmas and experiencing intimately its most destructive
tendencies; and remaining a minority of one, holding out for immor-
tal values in a world with no use for those values. She is deeply com-
mitted to a fortress mentality, surrounding herself with a moat of
hypersensitivity and self-martyrdom. She is convinced, both ultra-
reasonably and irrationally, that her only survivat option is to dig in
for the duration and throw off alien, unsympathetic factors.
The hardest part is that these enemies, these disruptive forces,
seem to be everywhere. The undersoul ritual behind the scenes that
she is playing out is tenaciously recalling every chronic dilemma while
surrounding herself with a mantle of secrecy and immunity. The net
result of this combination is that she insists on dwelling upon each
and every probable negative factor, while making light of influences
that might shift the balance toward positive outcomes.
She is condemning herself to repetitive cycles of mute isolation.
She will commute her own sentence only when she radically sees
through this entire syndrome, and resolves to take off the layered
veils of fondly remembered distress, revealing an equanimity and
spaciousness that allow the events themselves to speak, and wel-
coming the imprint of fresh experience without any longer super-
imposing onto it all the things that have ever gone wrong in the
history of the world.
Juno in the Fifth House
he is equipped to make her own way in the world, and to fashion
for herself a durable vehicle of self-embodiment. Her strength
and consistency of determination to move with her inner direction
is unsurpassed.
She has several problem areas that will keep bringing consider-
able pain and distress until they are successfully moved through. Each
one of them represents a blind spot, a point beyond awareness that
she cannot see until she suffers it so many times that her ego at last
ceases to fend it off. The three worst blind spots are:
1) A deep-rooted confusion and disorientation concerning her
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Juno
status in ongoing events. She can, when her life forces are flowing
harmoniously, instantly convince herself that she is unlimited and
cannot possibly fail. When her life forces are dammed up and she
feels up against herself hard, she can easily, totally believe that she
lacks all resource, and that no matter what she does she is doomed.
Both of these extremes are static, fixated pictures blanketing self-
expression.
2) In selecting the areas in which she flows forth out of herself
into form, she typically gravitates toward both ideal set-ups and hope-
less messes, whereas she will discover her range of capacity far bet-
ter between those extreme poles. When she takes on the most
polarized situations, she only reinforces old pictures of fantastic
heights and miserable depths.
3) Most radically of all, she takes these two divergent polarities of
self-capacity and world-context, and fills her entire world with them
from every side, to the point that she knows no other context than
either optimal or wretched, both internally and externally. This ulti-
mately leads to being addicted to feeling great about self and world,
and feeling terrible about self and world, in alternating cycles.
This entire syndrome stems from having the most recognizable,
all-absorbing self-experience in complete expansion and severe con-
traction, and being desensitized to the subtle points between. She
must gradually introduce herself to a viable life that weaves among
all polarities, and no longer melodramatically imagines any of them
to be the stuff of life, learning to move amongst them as parts of her
world—never all of her world.
Juno in the Sixth House
he thrives on the most complex and multifaceted oflife spec-
trums. The multiple intricacies of contemporary existence chal-
lenge her, appeal to her, and keep her going endlessly. She delights
in tackling situations that might look to others to be impossible, and
when she tackles the impossible, something happens in her makeup
that is remarkable in every way.
If her work in the world is stressful and overwhelmingly problem-
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atical, if her health is at risk and her body fighting to stay afloat, if
her mind is saturated with cross-currents and proliferations of extreme
issues to resolve—and if all of this is occurring as a daily staple—
instead of being devastated she becomes elated, exultant, and ready
for more. In fact, she does best to move directly toward the bom-
bardment ofsocial needs and collective agonies, so that she can
develop what she is best at—troubleshooting and emergency inter-
vention. She lives to serve, to work, to sweat, to suffer, and she does
these well.
When she momentarily finds herself in a relatively relaxed situa-
tion, she usually shuts down. This is a lifetime of taking
on the worst,
and effectively transmuting it. For her, all other activities seem tame,
and devoid of abiding interest. That is her self-chosen fate, and she
can draw from it the profound lessons and tremendous wells of mean-
ing for which she lives.
Juno in the Seventh House
he enters into interpersonal relationship with a backlog of pre-
vious experiences that precondition her every move. She finds
herself compulsively and automatically doing the same things she
did before. The other person in the connection reacts on cue, as
before, and the story continues.
The role she sets herself is complex, in that she is riding the edge
between being completely there for the other person and not being
there at all. Her mind is there, her attention is there, and her inter-
est is there. What is not there is the rest of her being. Because her
focus of immediate interchange is so sharply tuned, she can gener-
ate a quite engaging and challenging interpersonal dynamism. But
because her being is kept distant, quite far back, she fails to weave
the strands of encounter into real self-revelation. Instead, she fosters
an intermediate sphere, a meeting-room in which beguiling sequences
of events come to meet her on her own ground.
This particular pattern is far more frustrating and stagnant than
it seems. It eventuates in rather extreme situations of a host of out-
ward varieties, all of which come down to one thing— she misses
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Juno
herself, she misses the other; she is lonely, and rendered at a loss by
so completely missing everybody.
If she can feel the impact of relationship leaving her so cold, she
will have a chance to redeem the situation. But a fiery pride will post-
pone such a reckoning, until moving into yet another variation on
the theme of wonderful semblances and unfertilized depths no longer
sparks her curiosity or escapist propensities, Instead, there she is with
her sorrow and her regrets, and without any way to throw them off,
make light of them, or pretend that none of this is really happening
to her. It is happening, it does matter, and it will not change until
she learns that being truly vulnerable and open is a far cry from the
ritual gesture of eager responsiveness and surface preoccupation with
what the other person triggers in her and what she triggers in them
so sharply, immediately and noncommittally.
Juno in the Eighth House
he flickers through changes and total experiences— and stays
right where she is. Her passion is for diving into experiences that
have an extra dimension of color and tone, and something unknown.
She arranges her life so that an endless round of remarkable experi-
ences come her way. Each time she enters the stream of something
extra, she feels inside that this is what life is about.
There is a destructive side to this vibration. It so exults in taking
things all the way that it can easily binge on a consuming merging
with the depths of whatever one is meeting. She has many cycles to
move through, and may find her way into every side oflife's equa-
tion.
The two deep pains that haunt her are the ravages of anger and
of fear. Anger here involves frantic reiterative efforts to assert her
own primal will blindly. This has so many repercussions that some
of her cycles will be permeated with the rude consequences of anger
on the loose.
The fear part goes much deeper. It involves a reflexive instinct of
pulling away from the impact of others in the nick of time, before
they can lower the boom of taking her over. This fear tends to be her
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underlying condition, and to tug at her as a survival instinct the
moment she pushes too far.
The circuit of angry outpressings and fearful recoils is itself quite
a complete way of life. Her inner task is to penetrate the disguises of
both sides of her self-generated cycle, to move toward a vital depth of
soul experience that has discovered how to enjoy and suffer without
clinging to either, and especially without pushing either away, but
encompassing both as phases of the cycle and parts of the journey.
*
Juno in the Ninth House
he knows she is here to evolve, and evolve she will. Ruthless with
herself, she makes certain to move through each and every les-
son and reckoning, and then some. Her tempered-steel will never
abandons her and never vacillates. She brings upon herself personal
and collective karmas and ultimate issues. She relishes the chance to
take on illusion and make her way through it to truth.
Her greatest temptations lie in the domain of misuse of aware-
ness, and these happen to be the central currents of contemporary
times. Therefore, she marks out an archetypal path, a representative
journey of pitched battles with the false gods of a fallen Earth. Often
it is very hard to tell which side she is on. She identifies with every
side at some point. The most fervent misuse of awareness she must
conquer is becoming an enforcer of ideology or systematic truth
indoctrinations. Whenever she falls for a true-believer syndrome,
substantive lessons are at hand.
Her extended journey through the world’s battlefield can even-
tually give her a perspective on the universal human journey that
does not judge, does not persuade, and especially forgoes completely
all attempts to make the world over in her own image. On the other
side of fanaticism and dogma, however well-disguised, there is abun-
dant open territory, within which the true nature of Earth existence
is implicitly revealed. Most remarkably, when she sees from there, all
critical perception will dissolve, and she will honor and support all
others in their journey through the Earth, knowing the one inside
the outer husk as a unique and awe-inspiring living being.
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Juno
Juno in the Tenth House
H: task in the world is foremost in her consciousness. She fills
the screen of awareness with an objective personal survey of
what the pattern is and what can she do about it. Her skill is finely
honed and readily available. When she mobilizes herself to meet and
bring her vision into what is there, she can be commanding, mas-
terful, and just what is needed. When she follows her calling, she does
what she is here to do, and all is well.
The difficulty that faces her along this path is that the world’s siren
call in contemporary times almost always drowns out the inner call
of true stewardship. When she becomes attuned to this siren call, she
does so with the same total dedication that she would bring to the
true inner call. This means that she gives herself, body and soul, to
conditioning factors, conformist demands, and especially consensus
versions of what is most popular and successful.
Each time she makes herself into a vessel of collective folly, it leads
her nowhere fast. Gradually, she must move through many varia-
tions on the theme of becoming the personification of what every-
body expects her to be, until something inside urges her to meet the
deeper need of the times from a place of readiness and steady pres-
ence. Her odyssey from “what seems” to “what is” reveals to her much
of what others are dealing with. She then uses this body of life wis-
dom to form an encompassing awareness of what is asked of her by
the gods and by humanity. She will emerge as seed bearer in the end,
but along her way every manner of rotten fruit must be eaten until
she has no further appetite for getting lost in the world.
Juno in the Eleventh House
er way in the world is split down the middle between where she
IRE going and where she has been. Her path is to leap from the
known into the vast unknown. She is minutely familiar with every
least contour of the known. Yet it is the unknown which stands before
her, vibrant and unavoidable.
In order to make the great leap, she must try on for size each lit-
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tle familiar facet, but none of these can hold her. She is moving
through and throwing off more jeweled facets of existence than most
others will ever know. As she does move on ahead, the hopes and
the dread projections of the whole go with her. The most fervent
hope is that she will empower herself to be entirely free and alive,
and to cut the cords of mind. The most dread projection is that she
will lose her bearings and be swept away by remote infinities and
pipe dreams.
She herself also carries the hopes and the dreads within her. She
lives and moves in the polaric tension between what can be pro-
gressively and what might be retrogressively. The hot current of so
much riding on her choices and instincts gives her drive and moti-
vation, and quite a bit of anxious underlying push-and-prod, which
can override the real impetus of evolution or keep her honest, to
break through the spell of urgent criticalities to the healing place of
union among all polarities, which is true freedom.
Juno in the Twelfth House
he is elusively yet unmistakably in her own way, and she cannot
seem to shake herself. Chronic ancient patterns keep on circu-
lating through her and her world. She is slain daily by her uncon-
scious places, which have roots so far back that they seem to have no
beginning and no end. She must witness herself almost hopelessly
bound up within ways of operating that serve her not at all, and cut
her off from others.
Deep down inside, she reacts violently to this nauseating view.
However, something in her knows that her only way through this
painful ordeal is to see it, to know it and to bless it even when she
curses it. In order to do so, she must cultivate the finest of human
arts— becoming steadily present within the external experience of
being at the mercy of events and, by staying in there without turn-
ing away, unfolding the regenerative gift of liberating oneself from
the very syndrome one is witnessing.
This takes courage and perseverance, and then deeper courage
and further perseverance. It leads to the most radical karmic purg-
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Juno
ings and inner renewals. The best part of it is that the vast bulk of it
is for the sake of everybody, and leads the human condition out of
its thickest swamp, toward a faculty of love that is the abiding hope
of the world, and is not accessible by any easier route than entering
and redeeming the suffering of the world by seeing through it at last.
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CHAPTER 8
Ceres
ERES IS THE CENTRAL ASTEROID, and the core of the matter
of the asteroid belt. She fashions humanity as a whole into
obedient citizens of a brave new world. Her emphasis is upon
making palatable and popular a way of looking at life, and then form-
ing life in that image which, if it could be seen as a whole, would be
rejected outright by any sensible creature. The persuasive presenta-
tion manifests the benefits and improvements that follow when the
world of the mass media becomes the Mother Force, taking care of
her brood by turning them into avid and addicted consumers of her
images.
Ceres stands above the human scene, and takes hold of appetites
and weaknesses to make each and every person dependent upon and
hooked into the world system. It is not yet possible to present the
full dimension of what Ceres is doing in the human mind. However,
the two areas where the damage is most acute are the family and the
group.
In families, Ceres speaks as a violation of all family structure, plac-
ing each family member in egoistic separation from every other mem-
ber, with their common ground being the shared level of plug-in to
media and social images. The group seeks to gather those who have
common interests and ideas. It becomes riddled with strife and com-
petition under Ceres, as each member perceives each other member
as preventing what needs to happen and standing for what is arbi-
trary and personal. The collective life becomes under Ceres a patch-
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work quilt whose only cohesive force is distorted images of every-
thing in an abstract way, that prove in the midst of life to be devoid
of meaning or real application.
The overcoming of the vast Ceres panorama of propaganda and
population control begins when anyone breaks through to a life-affir-
mative vision of the shared reality that intuits a greater order of exis-
tence and its power to re-weave the shared fabric.
The mockery inherent in calling this asteroid after the Great
Mother, Ceres, is in imagining somehow that the Monstrous Mama
of squelching human initiative has some fertility and Divine Mother
attributes. The rediscovery of the true mother energy in Ceres keys
on quickening the imagination to a larger vision in which a Femi-
nine Presence stands there, in loving regard for each human soul,
fostering the best in what she sees and never exploiting or abusing
her children.
Ceres in the Signs
Ceres in Taurus
he takes upon herself those collective ideas and currents which
make good sense to her instinctively. She fixates upon many of
these, and forms them into a containing vessel of characteristic, pre-
dictable thoughts and ways of keeping her world manageable. Her
favorite flavors of phrases and repeated injunctions tend to accord
with rural commonsensical standards of a past time, earthy and com-
forting ways to convince herself that everything is running smoothly
and life is good.
It is very hard to throw off this web of half-truths— if she should
ever begin to awaken from them. They have a particularly seductive
and deep-rooted hold upon her. In fact, if she does attempt to pick
her way through the more obvious socialized truisms and homilies
to which she has been adhering, there are so many further layerings
of more ingrained, subconscious ways of seeing things that she may
easily give up the attempt almost before it starts. It seems she is filled
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Ceres
with almost nothing but curdled mother’s milk, having circulated
through her so continuously that she would not know how to carry
on without it.
Nonetheless, she can overthrow the oppressive burden of the myr-
iad thought streams that are truly not her own, as soon as she rec-
ognizes that it is really a lifelong task to undo the damage of having
permitted herself to be a gullible victim and consumer of superficial
notions and sentimental pictures that leave, when they are lifted away,
a fresh, open soul who can begin to see for herself at last.
Ceres in Virgo
he is thoroughly habituated to her daily diet of fragmentary ideas
and passing snips of myriad subselves telling her what is hap-
pening. She delights in her odd company of anonymous compan-
ions, who keep her informed of what she should do, how she should
look at it, and how others would see it. Her propensity for an end-
less sequence of detailed instructions holds her firmly in place. It
grants her an outward stability and apparent continuity, which she
clings to with a great hunger for external substantiation.
Because her set of mass pictures is so mentally cohesive and mis-
cellaneously reinforced by so many subselves, her entrenchment
within the social forms and commonly agreed-upon ways to oper-
ate is very full and substantive. If she should at any point start to real-
ize what she has done to herself in drawing to herself such a
well-equipped, perfectly-contained trap of confining ideas, she will
be faced with an extended and arduous excavation job, which in its
initial stages seems overwhelming and thankless.
Nonetheless, she has ample ability to take off what she has put on
herself. Her perceptual apparatus is finely tuned enough to observe
how each piece of social armoring masquerading as an expedient
pragmatic approach to life, when overturned and given back to the
master machine of the societal lies, allows her more room to breathe,
and more possibility of experiencing herself as a living being, no
longer a socially useful object.
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Ceres in Sagittarius
he has a great time moving among an infinite supply of received
Se and pet notions. The immediate reinforcerhent she gets
from her environment for having such self-evidertt and ‘fluent grasp
of how to think the way everybody else thinks gives her little snips
of pleasure, which she savors and then seeks more of." *
Because all of this is so diverting and fascinating for her, it can go
on to incredible elaborations and refinements of courting social
approval and instant popularity. She is highly adept in keeping her-
self surrounded by a wrap-around world of taken-for-granted and
up-to-date collective ways to keep surface life in lively movement and
spicy variety, to make everything even more delicious. If she does at
some point in her life’s unfoldment stir out of the nightmare world
she has been so busily, happily deluding herself about, she will dis-
cover a fantastic scheme of subconscious currents working in tan-
dem, mutually reinforcing a systematic extinguishing of human
freedom.
Worst of all, she will find that her addiction to seeming to be one
of everybody and to making sure that the wheel of fortune keeps
spinning is so skillfully hooked into her personal makeup and even
her physical form that counter-programming her dizzying array of
elaborate contraptions to keep her in social gear can occur only by
a diligent, across-the-board, wide-awake scanning of her conscious-
ness field, moment by moment for an extended period.
Nonetheless, she is gifted with a number of talents for becoming
aware of what a given way of seeing things does to the energy on the
spot. She will have magnificent insights as she becomes present within
her world for the first time ever, and as the cynicisms, sardonic com-
ments, and array of tricks and gimmicks give way to a lively interest
in and genuine concern for what is concretely taking place all around
and through her.
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Ceres
Ceres in Pisces
he feels currents of collective doubt, fear, and denial unconsciously
flooding over her. Each one of these streams directly into her
unconscious depths, barely mediated at all by any buffering con-
sciousness. Because she is so intensively driven by shared negations,
all of these seem to be a given fact of life. She goes about carrying
these scourges of self-defeat almost proudly, and with very little sense
of any other way it could be.
Especially potent at keeping her down are panic and terror that
steal over the population when catastrophes, crises or foundational
disturbances either occur or threaten to occur. If she should at any
point find some way to deeply feel the destructive impact of all that
she has assumed for so long, she will have a vast, intricate and quite
absorbing path to follow, unplugging and inwardly defusing those
collective undersoul supercharges that have made themselves so thor-
oughly at home in her unconscious.
Nonetheless, she has one great advantage in such a task: She knows
so intensely and unforgettably how demoralizing these stark nega-
tives are that she is very motivated to pull them out of her at any cost,
and with gratitude all along the way that she is becoming freed from
being one of the living dead.
Ceres in Leo
he has taken on a very special prohibition against following the
leading of her own individuation process. She has replaced the
rewards and struggles of coming to self with a personality-reinforc-
ing, surface-self-promoting, dazzling sequence of ideas about who
she is, who we all are, and what we are doing here. She falls for a thick
barrage of propaganda aimed at identifying her, consciously and as
a matter of course, with her apparent external expression, and mak-
ing her into a perfect specimen of social graces and attractive ways.
She comes to live for the vibrational respect and admiration that
grant her a central place and special privileges.
If she should ever tire of this set-up and start to look deeper into
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the social structures and ways in which everyorie keeps each other
framed in appearances, she will encounter multiple levels of self-
delusion, self-manipulation and, underneath, self-estrangement.
Because these revelations will hit her her hard and keep coming, she
may indeed feel at first that she was much better"6ff fooling herself.
Nonetheless, her way through the masks of illusion is straight and
clear. For the first time in her life, she will begin to find that when
she shows to others some given form of expression, she can actually
feel deep inside herself a resonance with what she is giving forth, in
the conviction that grounded moving toward selfhood and breaking
through to integrity are priceless treasures that endure. .
Ceres in Aquarius
he subscribes to the world’s most elaborate, interlacing network of
fixed ideas and prescriptive standards. The entire vast machinery
of what she places before herself as the design and specifications that
suit her is taken from the coded messages of the supersystem directly
behind all major collective societal structures. Thus she is right in the
main power station that fashions behaviors and mental bindings cease-
lessly, brilliantly and ultra-effectively. The pride of her ego-mind is
continually flattered and strengthened by her implicit awareness that
she is on the inside track of world forces and influences.
If she does at some point start to question these structures that
have held her previous allegiance, she will stumble upon a virtual
conspiracy, or extraordinary contrivance of programmings and con-
ditionings, hedging about every inch of life. Her mind may at first
swoon with the implications and ramifications of what she is begin-
ning to discover.
Nevertheless, she is optimally equipped to ferret out the entire
terrible scheme, and to fearlessly call it as it is. She will eventually be
quite clear that a remote-controlled intelligence and operative skill
is strictly hedged about by the tightest of controls and procedures,
and that stepping forth from such a clever curbing of real intelligence
is immensely liberating and can open the door to truly knowing what
she is doing.
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Ceres
Ceres in Aries
he is sharply attuned to the pulse-beat of the times. She craves
being in on every major trend, every wave of what is happening.
Her attention is riveted upon every nuance of social gesture as she
memorizes the way she is supposed to look if she is to be a pace-set-
ter, an influential force. The package she is purchasing has in it a host
of hidden clauses, each one featuring a compulsive and outwardly-
driven strand of self-betrayal.
Her intention is to make the best of whatever is available to her.
Her reality is that she is instead amorally using social images and
questionable ideas to further her own ability to make an impact and
have her way. If she should at any juncture start to go further than
her previous camouflage in the latest social current, she will come
up against a stark series of major ordeals, involving an ever-intensi-
fying realization that everything she has taken hold of as a social prop
has been forming her into a drone, serving the hive blindly and heed-
lessly, and that all her vaunted social positionings have actually drawn
her far down into subordinating her real drive to quick, apparent
competitive edges.
It will take the first spurt of genuine perseverance she has ever
mustered to reverse this pattern and cut away all the self-serving col-
lective ideas. Nonetheless, she can leap forward into radical revi-
sioning of her entire way of operating in the world as soon as she
fully realizes what it has been like to try to use the system and instead
end up being the one who was used throughout.
Ceres in Libra
he creates for herself an enchanting world, imbued with friend-
ship, beauty, and social rewards for being so accommodating. She
follows this up by broadly circulating a continual sequence of pet
phrases, charming observations, and whatever forms of social rein-
forcement gather an automatic consensus of agreement. This does
even more toward making her world into a model world, as perfectly
status-quo-fulfilling as can possibly be arranged.
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If she should eventually outlive her own cloying tendencies, she
will find herself smothered in layers of social insulation, so emo-
tionally given over to these that a tremendous force of self-transfor-
mation will be needed to give her any chance to explore a life that
feels inwardly meaningful. Nonetheless, when she does catch on to
how utterly naive she has been, she can go through a miraculous shift
from conformist timidity to a concerted drive to find again her orig-
inal self, long-lost and greatly missed, although she had previously
never really noticed.
Ceres in Capricorn
he tells herself whatever will further the line she is on. She comes
up with an impressive array of exquisite rationalizations to prove
that everything she is doing is in tune with her inward purpose for
being. However, all of this effort is in vain. She is merely talking her-
self into a super-tight corner, viewing it all the while as open and spa-
cious. She has caught the social disease of self-propaganda, expertly
schooling herself in the most sophisticated ways, convincing herself
that everything is congruent and moving toward essential places.
The truth is that she is programming herself on the extreme end
of doing what the world machine dictates, and learning to like it. If
she ever wakes up out of this subtle nightmare, she will look around
and see that the web of lies that has had her entirely enclosed has also
taken deep root in her fundamental outlook in every way. It will take
awakening after awakening to dislodge that superstructure, which
has talons in her hide and refuses to let go. Nonetheless, the very skill
with which she previously took herself by storm now serves her in
finding the will and perseverance to take off the layers of programmed
false vision, and supplant them with free, unlimited truth inquiry.
Ceres in Cancer
he believes in what she is told, in a way which subtly undermines
her entire existence. A certain acquiescence in following author-
ity and what is considered to be socially acceptable marks her as one
who receives the general program and then enforces it as self-evidently
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Ceres
rightful and necessary. She does all this in such a way that neither
she nor others can detect it, and she can perfect this to the point
where there is virtually no connection between what seems and what
is. She is mainlining the entire package of what has been deemed
appropriate and intelligently adaptive, and she is utterly unaware of
the flaw in the program.
If she does begin to shake herself off from her social daze, she will
be astonished to behold that an entirely different world is going on
outside the official social parameters. She will take steps toward being
able to open to greater worlds, instead of standing pat in a world that
denies all that lives beyond. It will be rough going to change her ways,
as every inch of her mind has been saturated with a broad social over-
lay. Nonetheless, her chances are good if she can link directly with a
greater cosmic reality, and thereby be pulled upward into a truly
encompassing view that honors the whole human drama, penetrates
into every side of life and unconditionally fosters the independent
conscious process of each and all.
Ceres in Gemini
he can extend the shared social currents so far that they almost
cover the entire territory of the world. She has boundless confi-
dence in the intelligence behind the common mind, and draws from
this intelligence a tremendous variety of ways to keep herself mov-
ing in a direction that will make perfect sense to everybody. This pat-
tern tends to hype itself on magnitudes and infinities, to the point
of a sparklingly persuasive presentation of the fondest collective fol-
lies, in multiple arrangements leading toward spectacular vistas.
If she should begin to see through the semblances which she has
so lavishly enjoyed, she will be forced to break the mold in all direc-
tions. Her difficulty will be that beyond the social images there seems
to be an infinite emptiness, a great void. Only when she moves into
this void will she find that it is a creative and future-fertile, potenti-
ating sphere. Nonetheless, even though it will take courage and vision
to make the leap, there will be considerable assistance from those on
the inside who serve the living future. The expansion from the fool’s
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paradise of surface self-gratification to a true wonderland of living
forces will be a great adventure and a blessed relief from the repeti-
tive patterns of filling the world with hot air.
Ceres in Scorpio wl ey
he karmically draws to herself severe conditions in which her own
being is drastically subordinated to compelling outward forces.
She becomes her own worst enemy, doing the precise opposite of
what she knows inside, and feeling deeply mortified and lost in the
pattern. She buys into a deep undercurrent of massive power, which
says to her that who she is inside has no social currency, and that
only a complete counterfeit version of herself can be acceptable. As
she forces herself to comply with this survival program, she fades far
from her own expression, even as she ever more sharply fakes the
appearance.
If she should push herself up through the engulfing levels of self-
oblivion, she will find that her inner self remains intact, and that
nothing she has taken on ever really touched or penetrated her. Her
difficulty will be that it has been so long since she has felt inwardly
connected and whole that for an extended period she will need to
keep learning entirely new ways to be, and to keep throwing off a
strange edge of feeling doomed and forsaken. Nonetheless, she has
inner strength to burn, and her ruthless dawning awareness of just
how strange her life has been will push her hard and long, through
any steps that are needed, toward the realization that her own inner
gifts are perfectly synchronized with all-that-is, once the buzz of the
great lie has been tuned out.
Ceres in the Houses
Ceres in the First House
he thinks of herself in a way that binds her to her most charac-
teristic and ingrained habits and patterns. She knows herself
as she makes an impression upon the immediate situation in self-
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Ceres
evident and graphic fashion. Then she forms her further expression
to follow up these most readily identifiable patterns and styles, empha-
sizing and perpetuating what is most acceptable and predigested.
Even though this usually seems to be a sensible, workable way to
come across to others, she is, in this process, thoroughly weeding out
the subtleties and formative possibilities of her makeup, and sup-
planting them with whatever can be shared without involving any
depth or substance of self-expenditure in anybody present.
There will come a time when this easy approach to selfhood begins
to reveal gaps where maintaining the solid front of personal conti-
nuity is more and more impossible. As she progresses toward self-
hood, she will discover that many levels of internal process have been
germinating deep underneath her blithe facade, and that each one
of these is part of a world of its own, which can lead forth into a much
richer and more satisfying way oflife and form of self-expression
than any matter-of-fact habitual style could ever allow.
Ceres in the Second House
he is susceptible to the most planned out, self-controlled and
tightly contained of mental sets. Her natural bent, when faced
with the staggering complexities of a contemporary world, is to nar-
row and concentrate her outlook, to be capable of dealing with what
is right at hand, and skillful in taking it further. This necessitates an
astounding number of autonomous subselves, working busily to keep
track of each given strand of developments and to closely and com-
pulsively monitor the endless ways in which the factors interact with
each other and the world around them.
The only way she can keep all this going effectively and stay on
top of it, at least minimally, is by delegating virtually every ongoing
function to a particular subself, and by default depending on the
authority and expertise of all the subselves for orientation and struc-
tural coherence. Eventually this takeover can become so extreme that
she virtually rubber-stamps the on-the-spot assessments of her many
subselves, thinking all the while that their many voices are her own.
There will come a time, however, when this entire sticky arrange-
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ment starts to sicken her, and to leave her feeling empty and barren
in having become so enveloped in bureaucratic consciousness. When
this occurs, her task will be to take apart what she has previously put
together all around her. This breaking-down and disintegration of
her supersystem will involve every part of her shifting frequency from
automatic pilot to active engagement. This amounts to a complete
reversal of internal instructions, from having always been asleep and
passively floating off while the subselves ruled, to stirring and quick-
ening her every fiber to come to life and participate actively in the
unfoldment of each little bit of what occurs, in the delight that accom-
panies being present and the relief that follows when one has been
so long away and then returns into attentive awareness.
Ceres in the Third House
he is drawn in every direction at once, and cannot imagine how
to stretch herself far enough to be everywhere she needs to be.
Her way of handling this predicament brings chaos and great agita-
tion into her world. Most often, she places her consciousness lightly
upon each stretching impulse that is calling her, and then subcon-
scious elemental forces come in to take care of the bulk of the process.
At the end of the loop she brings it to completion.
When elemental forces are granted free rein to do their utmost
in stretching capacity much farther than it would otherwise go, they
permeate the atmosphere with their energy, which is for human taste
tumultuous, capricious and wild. She ends up becoming infected
with the ever-spreading wraparound field of the elemental beings,
and she herself loses any steady, driving momentum, finding herself
all over her world in excitement, anticipation and multiple aspects
of seeming to be spread out everywhere.
There will come a time when her enchanted condition starts to lift,
and she will detect signs that her world is populated with everything-
but-her, and that she has been relegated to the sidelines in her own
lifestream. As she suddenly recognizes those forces that run her life,
she will for the first time assert her own dawning consciousness, and
livingly explore what it is like to energetically savor the sense impres-
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Ceres
sions that flood her, to let them flow right through without clenching
or going numb, thereby making way for the subtle beings to take over.
Her path through the thicket of assuming she cannot meet what
is there will bring many challenges, as she gradually realizes she does
have it in her to remain alert in present time. Even when her long-
dormant will feels magnetically pulled back into hibernation, and
everything around her says, “you can go back to sleep now,” some-
thing in her will respond, “I’ve done that forever. It’s time to explore
wakefulness.”
Ceres in the Fourth House
er point of reference is thoroughly unconscious and unknown.
What brings her through the world-as-it-is is the racial under-
soul, streaming through her and fashioning her into a pawn of col-
lective forces. It is very hard for her to inwardly know anything that
can truly guide her. Instead, she is swept away, and sleeps deeply
through it all.
Even this pattern has a limit, which must eventually make itself
known. When it does, she will for the first time start to feel the
anguish, the uncertainty, the longing and the profound self-nega-
tion she has been in. At this juncture, tremendous cosmic forces come
to her aid, as everything in her world must change.
Her part in the changes is to make herself willing to release what
has unconsciously held her so far down. Any measure of trust and
surrender greatly furthers the process of arising from the nightmare
of a world devoid of true selfhood and claiming the first bits of her
own internal experience slowly, painfully and with gratitude that she
can be truly touched by life.
Ceres in the Fifth House
he has blocked wakeful self-awareness in a blanket fashion. The
power and strength of her own deep self has been the one terri-
tory she avoids and denies. This has left her outward surface per-
sonality completely on its own, to operate on the terms of shallow,
meaningless reward and reinforcement.
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Her own self-revulsion at witnessing deep itiside this grotesque
performance has been the most systematically suppressed of all. Yet
its vapors have escaped into the open, at the worst possible time sab-
otaging her impersonation of empty celebrity. There will come a time
when the role she has put on rattles its chains foo loudly and too
long, and she must overthrow her false self system at last.
When she does s0, her ill-tended weeds of true individuality will
come up all over her world, and she will need to develop her dor-
mant ability to cultivate what is most essential within herself. She
will need to pull out that which quickly overshadows what seeks to
embody itself through her form as the one great missing ingredient,
the core of selfhood, the authentic origin point of creative forces in
tune with the whole of life. She can then recognize her own image
where before she had always made one up.
Ceres in the Sixth House
he lives in a world made up of diverse groups of major ingredi-
ents that do not combine into any viable pattern whatsoever.
Under these circumstances, she takes upon herself whatever way of
operating will appease and pacify the external requirements of all
sides of her world, while leaving alone the deeper and more funda-
mental underlying patterns of existence. She makes herself into an
adroit agent of mental forces and conscious, manageable fragments.
This kind of adaptation to necessity and complex tasks is given
considerable recognition and reward. Her surface intelligence exer-
cises itself, and synchronizes with all the most technological and col-
lectively-oriented modalities. Meanwhile, however, this leaves her
deeper self cold and removed, and quite alone.
There will come a time when such a rigidly controlled pattern of
making herself into sheer surface intelligence at the service of the
master machine reveals its dark, strange undercurrents, and causes
her to look again at what she is doing. That within her which has life
wisdom, a feeling for the many worlds she has been missing, will
erupt with what previously seemed irrational and irrelevant. A series
of battles may follow in which the blind lucidities of the outer mind
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Ceres
yield quite slowly and reluctantly to the light-filled depth probes of
the intuitive awareness, at first somewhat unruly in its coming alive
where death had been all-pervasive.
Even though these battles rage on, she will be granted glimpses
of meaning and value. And when machine logic has been all one
knows, any movement toward meaning or value is breathtaking, and
something miraculous to behold.
Ceres in the Seventh House
he seeks within interpersonal relationship whatever will bring her
conscious attention away from her own immediate reality. She is
convinced that whatever is most “other” contains within it great mar-
vels, and that what lives inside of her is already a given, of no par-
ticular interest. As she enters the arena of what comes to meet her
from and through the other, she is drawn ever further from her old
familiar self, into exotic ports-of-call with mystery upon mystery
enticing her.
This entire mode of quasi-romantic self-escapism becomes thor-
oughly addictive for her, a complete way oflife—and ultimately
banal and absurd. There will come a time when the much-adver-
tised, intoxicating aura of elusive otherness can no longer find in her
a naively eager and self-betraying customer. When she does start to
notice that going as far away from herself as she can is no longer grat-
ifying, she will come up against self-reckonings galore, in which every-
thing she has previously projected outward as infinitely desirable or
dreadfully revolting becomes a real issue in her own living relation-
ship between the self she rejects and the self she embraces. Where
previously the tumultuous waves of passionate embrace and stark
pulling-away left her wildly unfulfilled and insatiably restless for
something more, now at last the polaric play between the image of
perfected desire and the image of what is most unwelcome becomes
alive, cross-fertilizing, a conversation with candid back-and-forth
disclosure that carries vital impact.
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Ceres in the Eighth House
he desires instantaneous, ongoing positive energies and warm
feelings to carry her aloft as her entire world. She pushes this crav-
ing into the center of every situation, and insists, pon, dramatizing
it to a point of saturation and eliciting some reaction. This program
is so loaded and persistent that it dominates the concerns of every-
body around, so that her sense of what she needs becomes every-
body’s preoccupation. It then becomes evident that this very spiral
of each and all being caught up in these desire currents is what she
really wants, and that the vibrational atmosphere of what could be
and might be drives her much more than the deep conviction that
it will be and must be.
There will come a time when taking everybody over and swirling
them about in suggestive possibilities can no longer fill her inward
emotional spaces with total experiential juiciness. It simply occurs,
in her cycle of development, that insensate emotionality begins to
fade from center stage, and much deeper needs come forth to be
known. These riper currents involve those changes that are desper-
ately necessary when the spicy variety yields to subtle flavorings of
striving for “somebody home.” As she pursues the track of coming
to meet herself and to discover what she is made of, her need to draw
everybody else in on it to make it real will disappear, leaving in its
wake the ritual enactment of life’s most engaging dance, which moves
between the greater self and that self which previously assumed that
no real partners could be found.
Ceres in the Ninth House
hwarting her own forward progress seems to be her way. She
finds so many excuses, infinite avenues to block her deeper path
and her ultimate quest. Among her favorite devices for keeping her
purpose and her vision at a distance are extended enterprises that
seem vastly important, and fascinating enigmas of destiny that keep
her enthralled in ponderings, broodings and following out clues that
lead everywhere and nowhere.
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Throughout these diversionary tactics, she is committed under-
neath to holding herself back, and being able to prove to herself that
she is perfectly justified in being taken over by her substitute pur-
suits. Nonetheless, her scheme is unconvincing to the part of self that
observes all this with the penetrating gaze of one-who-knows.
There will come a time when the flagrant, feverish flight from her
own selfhood stands before her as what it really is—a strange, pro-
tracted attempt to endure anything but direct, steady self-awareness
and entering into the process of aligning once again with a greater
truth. As a consequence of ancient memories, she has been steering
clear of the dread power that comes with knowing who she is. Yet
the maze of running away goes in circles, and keeps returning to the
point where she catches a glimpse of that deeper selfhood. Gradu-
ally, that image prevails over those false pictures she tried so hard to
fill her head with in order to stay blind and immune.
Ceres in the Tenth House
he generates a shared reality that does not require anybody to be
themselves. Instead, she persuasively provides a feeling tone and
an awareness space that implies in many subtle ways that “all we need
to do here is pretend, and put in a good appearance.” This message
comes across loud and clear even through the intricacies of grasp of
the situation. In granting permission for the shared social world to
be conditioned and non-threatening, she herself gets off the hook of
needing to be more than an ideal archetype of perfect semblance.
There will come a time when she begins to see through her own
ultimate alibi and beautiful disguise. All efforts to keep everybody
happy and in place will then be put behind her. She will instead feel
drawn to inquire into what is truly needed, and what is essentially
the meaning and value of human life in an evolving Earth. When the
deeper questions and issues insist upon a much more open-ended
consciousness field, she will be granted the opportunity to uphold
the shared reality with such power of core conviction that what once
were ceremonial presentations become regenerative seeds of plane-
tary awakening.
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Ceres in the Eleventh House
he delights in drawing everybody toward magical places that may
someday be real. Her fantasy is that if everybody gets into the act,
new worlds can manifest now. What she actually engineers is decep-
tive occasions, featuring remarkable combinations of factors that
carry a current of hope and wish. In heightening the-shared aware-
ness toward the infinite and the fantastic she leads the gang off the
deep end, into bright horizons not yet substantiated. If she falls com-
pletely for the personal charisma she musters, she can keep herself
going by exaggerated self-images of the most fabulous range and pre-
tense.
There will come a time when her own self-awareness and the col-
lective changes converge into moving toward a thoroughly different
world. Then she will need to throw off her hype and her bright insis-
tencies, and be one of the first to enter through the portal into a world
built on an active awareness of the shared lifestream that is so pro-
foundly felt that nobody need rally the troops, as that which had been
long anticipated and frantically searched for becomes the basic spring-
board into abounding life.
Ceres in the Twelfth House
he pictures the surges of total intensity she is caught in as heroic,
incredible, the very stuff of life. She heads into them with great
determination and bravado. She has a peculiar brand of self-con-
sciousness that poisons the situation and threatens to send her under,
into terrible states of self-negation.
Her situation is critical. What she knows and senses is just enough
to make her feel what is missing as indispensable, and sorely lack*
ing. She picks up on the outstanding dramatization of collective
changes, but is cut off from the core levels of the change itself. This
leads her to an hysterical condition of feeling something overwhelming
and playing it back to herself in limited mental terms.
There will come a time when the level of awareness where she has
been stuck will recognize deeply that pervasive doubts, fears and old
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Ceres
pictures render her in much greater danger than if she could let go
and allow the direct impact of all that is coming her way to stream
through her. It will take some doing to come to terms with the dif-
ference between blowing everything up into a simultaneously incred-
ible and horrendous false vision and being willing to face all that is
occurring, in the terms in which events themselves speak.
When she does fathom and follow this shift, the world’s most
intense melodrama will metamorphose into a potent, timely, and
fully engaged collective journey that reveals to her many mysteries
she will need to know as she comes ever closer to the heart of earthly
existence.
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CHAPTER 9
Pallas
ALLAS GETS INSIDE each one’s unconscious survival pictures,
and turns them into a collective survival crisis fueled by mas-
sive doubt and fear. Pallas insinuates that there is, deep down
underneath the carefully-crafted asteroid world, a realm of mon-
strous proportions at work, engorged with destructive and inevitable
collective karmic emotions and currents. Pallas says strongly that in
order to keep these at bay a little while longer, the mental construct
of an ideal social arrangement formed by the other three asteroids
must become all-powerful and all-pervasive. The result is intimida-
tion by terror, keeping everything down in desperate denial. This
even extends to alienating each one from the core of selfhood and
stranding them in mutual delusion on the most brittle surface of
shared pretense.
In order to overcome the Pallas siege, there must arise such a depth
of rebellion against being held down so hard that the regenerative
power of the inner core of selfhood is called up afresh, rallying to
find once again its inner gifts and creative wonder.
The mockery of naming this asteroid after the visionary goddess
Pallas Athena somehow conceives that a plastered-over world can
match the visionary acuity of the one who says “yes” to human poten-
tial. The reclaiming of this asteroid to honor this Great One involves
following her confidence in the human capacity to overthrow all
obstacles, and to reverse the belief in keeping everything back, by
tapping the exquisite undiscovered riches within — those riches that
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await their time and their place to remake the world and know the
Earth as a chamber of miracles.
Pallas in the Signs.
Pallas in Taurus
he is tempted by the collective norms to form a shiny, polished
and consistent world in which there is ample room for person-
ality to play itself out endlessly, and no room for anything that might
disturb that scene. If she falls for this pattern of behavior, she will
design the contours of every inch of her world to emphasize surface
goodness, ease and flow, while inwardly becoming ever more choked
on everything unacknowledged.
If she goes all the way with this extreme polarization between sur-
face and depth, she will eventually find herself captivated by thin,
smooth surfaces, while feeling very little and having nothing of her
inner self there.
At some point along this journey, such brittle arrangements must
self-destruct. When they do, she will be plunged deeper into all that
she has previously suppressed. Even though her initial experience of
what she meets there will be overwhelming and thoroughly differ-
ent from anything she has been in touch with before, as she perse-
veres in exploring the hidden reaches of core selfhood she will
gradually discover that along with the pent-up undercurrent of emo-
tional anguish there is the treasure of her first direct touch with who
she really is. Directly contrary to what she has always been told, the
real beauty and fineness is inside, ready to come out when the sur-
face crystal has shattered, and when what lives within is at last given
its chance to unfold its charms.
Pallas in Virgo
he is sorely tempted by the combination of common mental and
emotional prohibitions to tightly keep back any deep internal lev-
els of experience and to go instead with a clever, frantic attempt to
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Pallas
keep everything moving around her and distract attention from all
subtle planes. If she falls into this insidious current, she will become
ever further carried away with minute surface trivia, and have less
and less idea that anything else really matters.
If she goes all the way with these common anti-self patterns, she
will become so thoroughly entangled in contradictory fragments of
experience that wholeness becomes a remote abstraction, and all she
knows is how to cope with each little piece of experience that forces
itself upon her. This entire scheme must eventually fragment so far
that it cannot hang together anymore. Then there will come a
sequence of steps back toward the living.
Her first step must be to begin to feel what she has been doing to
herself, and to contact the deep wells of resentment and frustration
there. However, her second step will show her that underneath the
cumulative negativities a virginal place exists, a true-to-self region
untouched by all the compromises and pretense. Her third step will
then be to draw forth this jewel of unknown selfhood, which can
then reveal to her that in extreme contradiction to popular belief,
the inner self is essentially upbuilding, affirmative and clear, and
knows how to live if given its chance to open deeper into a rooted
and Earth-centered lifestream.
Pallas in Sagittarius
er pervasive temptation is to throw herself out on the surface
Hin cling to the flotsam of everyday experience for all she is
worth. If she falls into this fascinating, deadly, socially-agreed-upon
way of life, her inward self will become entirely subconscious, and
she will no longer miss it or realize what she is lacking. If she goes all
the way with this escapist trend, she will scatter her forces so ran-
domly that she becomes convinced that she is alive strictly when her
immediate world reflects back to her that she is coming across with
sharp impact.
Such a destructive course must at some point lose all proportion
and sense, and blow apart. When it does, she will have a long way to
go to begin to imagine where she left her lost self, down in there
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par
somewhere. Basically, her journey toward self-recovery will involve
fostering a eagerness to encounter, layer-by-layer, an extended series
of missing pieces of her inner self, each one with something special
to show her. = e
Even though the first message of each rejected piece is inevitably
hurt and estrangement, as she gets to know each one it will lead her
toward its deeper mysteries and its wondrous qualities in great mea-
sure. Ultimately, she will find that all that she had assumed previ-
ously was far off the mark, and that the subconscious reaches of the
inner self have much more life in them than any conditioned surface
world can ever muster through semblances and manic sequences of
keeping it going out ahead of the inevitability of self-reckonings.
Pallas in Pisces
he is tempted by the collective undersoul to deny her inner expe-
rience altogether, and to convince herself that only a completely
adaptive surface existence has any chance of seeing her through. If
she falls under this fatalistic condition, her capacity to feel will become
unconscious in fullest measure. She will replace it with an innocu-
ous way of manifesting virtually devoid of individual characteristics.
If she goes all the way into the overt demonstration of being every-
body’s favorite victim, she will take on an ever more numb and impas-
sive style, even to the point of emulating the world’s most anonymous
and absent way of seeming to be the ideal citizen.
This entire drastic self-negation package must some day spring a
huge leak and deflate rapidly. When this occurs, she will be cast down-
ward into the abyss beneath her artificial personality decoy. Down
under there, in the collective and personal unconscious, she will meet
everything she has feared and so assiduously avoided.
However, anything she does go down into, whether collective or
personal, will prove to be lit up from inside with a regenerative power
previously unsuspected. As she ventures further, she will be greeted
by a host of marvels in the ocean deep, and each one of these will
starkly overturn the terrible conditioning assertions that “the deeper
down you go, the more uncontrollable and destructive everything
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Pallas
gets.” Instead, she will know that the further down you go, the closer
you are to union with totality.
Pallas in Leo
he is coaxed and flattered into emphasizing ever more bland,
socially recognizable and attractive personal characteristics devoid
of individual substance. If she falls under this beguiling pattern, she
will force herself to present optimal charm and grace, and to push
under all traces of who she really is inside. If she goes all the way with
this syndrome, her popularity, overt success and general bright rep-
utation will call her, like a moth to a flame, to sell herself as the best
possible version of fulfilling the common standards.
As seemingly gratifying as all this is, its structural coherence is so
tenuous that the bubble must someday burst, and she must tumble
far downward. When she does, she will confront her shadow and
meet the reverse image of every superficial deception. As she gath-
ers the courage and strength to grapple with her real issues, she will
be blessed and graced with spiritual assistance, in uncovering as well
the truly bright and shining inner core of selfhood. And as she explores
the many dimensions of embodied individuality, the grotesque social
lie that only surfaces are safe will be overturned, as she finds real sus-
taining presence in direct attunement to the Living Christ.
Pallas in Aquarius
he is magnetized toward an extreme and radical temptation to
corral all of her surface intelligence, and empower it to go out
into the world and completely take her place. If she falls under the
spell of this terrible bargain, she will manage to inundate herself with
lower mental factors and tasks so successfully that she never thinks
for herself or picks up on anything being wrong. If she goes all the
way with this sharply limited pattern, she will fashion her expression
into a machine-like form of superfunctioning that leaves human
emotional depths out of the picture as devoid of interest.
This supremely adaptive way of life, so synchronized with com-
plex and intricate collective demands, nevertheless cannot carry
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onward indefinitely. It must eventually hit up against a massive wall,
and bounce off hard and far. When this occurs, a flood of subtle
impressions will rush into her, reminding her ofall that she has for-
gotten and lost.
Most of this process will initially be painful anceoppressive, in
that she has lived so long denying and scorning depths of emotion;
yet gradually there will come remarkable gifts through the hardship
of awakening. Many of these will disclose the incredible dawning
truth that right down in those places she had trained herself to flee
from at all cost, profound truth and all the missing keys of existence
are held, available to those who care to search for them and who can
appreciate what they have to say.
Pallas in Aries
he is sharply up against a temptation that will not go away. All
around her, she meets the power of the outward surface self to
do as it pleases when sufficiently far removed from core levels of self-
hood. If she falls under this casual style of getting away with mur-
der, she will begin to manifest a vast number of tricky and evasive
ways to get her point across, while exposing nothing of her deeper
self whatsoever. If she goes all the way with this popular game, she
must end up caricaturing and becoming supercharged with an ever
more strident pushing of the limits, to see how far she can stretch
outward without snapping.
Inevitably, sooner or later, this brazen performance must come
to rude consequences, as she pushes it one provocation too far. When
this occurs, she first draws down upon herself the very exposure and
harsh collision with herself that she kept pushing away. But as she
deepens her ability to meet with herself regardless of the struggle and
strife, she finds underneath that her hidden core of selfhood has far
more going for it than the extravagant pretend self could ever muster.
A gut-level process of self-reckoning yields for her extraordinary
glimpses of an infinitely generative individual ability that is thrilled
to at last have a chance to emerge into expression in a genuinely vul-
nerable, candid way.
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Pallas in Libra
he is enticed to the social surface, to dance and sing with brightly
colored shadows and ghosts. If she falls for this socio-cultural
wraparound nightmare, everything will come across as the best of
style, the finest of form and the juiciest of beautiful appearances. If
she goes all the way into this never-never land, she will end up host-
ing the party all night long, and perpetuating the shared delusion
with rare finesse and skill.
This fabulous fakery must some day grind to a sudden halt. When
it does she will reverse her field and draw toward the very depth places
she had always shunned. Much of the early going will tend to be her
worst fears come true, as she meets every rejected part in full mea-
sure. However, as she stays with the changes and the deeper layers of
coming to selfhood, she will, to her infinite delight uncover her long
lost self, sitting there calmly waiting for her to value its subtle
dynamism. And as she learns to dance from the inner to the inner,
she will find time after time that the ironclad social standards, which
dictated that heavy depths are forbidden territory, precisely reversed
the truth, and that inward places are the rewarding and fertile ones,
and outer places the barren and forsaken ones.
Pallas in Capricorn
he is marched into service to the commonly-held standpoint, and
commanded to represent it for everybody. If she complies and
falls under this tight constraint, she will insist on those around her
being obedient to outward values, at the expense of all inner devel-
opment. If she goes all the way with this militant program, she will
earnestly and darkly enforce the code of outer-over-inner, in such
fashion that no one around her will dare to evoke deeper currents at
any point.
This juggernaut of totalitarian fervor must some day, by grace of
destiny, realize its error, and come tumbling down. When this hap-
pens devastation will follow, requiring her to deal with the karma of
misleading others. Even this terrible burden of having so fundamen-
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tally distorted the truth gradually unveils deep d6wn inside one who
seeks the truth, and who is as wakefully present as her former alle-
giance was contrived and contorted. Ultimately, when the record is
cleared, this can become a place of knowing the ravages of power
politics, and stalwart championing of the path offree individuality.
Pallas in Cancer
he is tempted to oversee collective situations in such a way that
everyone is “one big happy family’—and none are themselves.
If she falls into this trap, her tenacious insistency upon common
assumed surface ways of life will grant her special status as the arche-
typal representative of the way things should be done. If she goes all
the way inside this marvelously appointed position, she will drive
everyone as far out of themselves as she can possibly manage, and
usher them all into a perfect world together, in sublime and com-
plete alienation.
This social role must some day consume itself, yielding to some-
thing more alive and creative. When it does, she will plunge into all
the places she had previously tried to pave over. When the lid pops
and everything comes out, the worst and the best will tumble at her
and demand to be recognized. As she agrees to go further with the
process, the inner life will reveal its sparkling mysteries for the first
time. She will be stunned to see that her carefully contained, out-
wardly fixated former existence was missing life’s point altogether,
and that everything vital and meaningful is in the deeper levels that
she had assumed to be a chamber of horrors without redemptive
qualities.
Pallas in Gemini
OM and again she is tempted to give herself away to the momen-
tary, fragmentary and wishful sides of life. If she falls for this
surface-thin layer, she will lose herself altogether in stimulating and
exciting far-flung places, and go nowhere fast. If she goes all the way
into these places, her life will take on frantically heightened events,
multiple directions, amazing possibilities and everything being hyped
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Pallas
to infinity, without any real fruition or long-range movement into
self-discovery.
This ultra-trendy, ever-further-out world must eventually crash
and expose its lies. When it does, she will spiral downward level-by-
level, and arrive eventually at a place where experience has direct
impact for the first time. She will meet the dark side, and be relieved
to find within it as well a brightness that does not immediately wear
off. She will, as she adventures and penetrates, come upon future
possibilities that can come true, as she realizes that surface manipu-
lations yield only apparent victory, and that being there with herself
is a way through the maze into new life.
Pallas in Scorpio
he is desperately tempted to make the surface world her sanctu-
ary and her castle. If she falls under this intense pattern of total
self-avoidance, she will dig a deep hole for herself, and bury in it all
that she truly is, then carry onward as though everything were in
place. If she goes all the way in this severance-from-herself, she will
be compelled to put huge amounts of energy into maintaining at all
costs a well-formed, optimally functioning and socially guaranteed
picture-perfect world.
This magnificent charade must one day expose its true colors,
and become in her own vision deathlike and alien. When this occurs
she will pierce to the core of her world, and confront her hidden parts
wholesale. The further she goes in the process of self-reclamation,
the more potently will she come upon those parts of self she has des-
perately needed to contact.
Amidst the agony and the ecstasy of at last getting down to it, she
will wake up to grasp ever more firmly the karmic lesson that the
world illusion is calculated to turn each one against self. And as she
defies the old standards, she can unite with herself, beyond self-sting-
ing, and free from fear.
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Pallas in the Houses
Pallas in the First House Fike
he prefers to come into an optimal situatiofi, in which her self-
presentation is given the red-carpet treatment. She attempts to
form her world around the effortless grace of exhibiting those qual-
ities in the best of taste and the finest of styles. The world-at-large
makes way for her self-absorption, and in many respects all goes
according to plan.
The one factor that gradually exposes this arrangement as a fraud
is the massive discomfort everyone feels inside when one person is
set up to look good so very splendidly. Eventually, the very fibre of
the shared life underneath can no longer support prefabricated images,
and she will come tumbling off her pedestal with a thud.
It is only then, after her ideal world has shattered, that she has a
chance to enter into her own inward depths of self-discovery. When
she does, there will begin an extended sequence of remarkable expe-
riences keyed into assuming nothing about herself ahead of time, but
instead being guided to meet herself afresh in her life as it unfolds,
with no guarantees, and no fixed roles in which to become frozen
and lost.
Pallas in the Second House
he controls her world with a firm and steady grip, and she makes
sure that a well-maintained, neat-and-clean sequence is contin-
uously operative. Her capacity to take care of the details and fill every
inch with sensible and productive consciousness is exemplary. She
is expertly skillful in molding each situation to work out precisely
the way it should.
All of this is done from a place of self-command, upbuilding good-
ness and the best of intentions, yet its very structure is counterfeit.
There are built-in here a great number of assumptions which, when
examined, are seen to come from a strict, stern determination to steer
clear of any depths of personal experience. As a result, she comes to
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Pallas
a critical juncture where she cannot go on deceiving herself and dis-
tancing others.
When this occurs, the real gifts of life begin. She uncovers bit-by-
bit the worlds she has been missing in her security and control fetish.
As she grants herself permission to investigate without bias these sur-
prising new worlds, she finds locked away within each of them one
silver key to penetrate her own thick disguise, so that walking the
Earth as a well-protected stranger is no longer necessary. At last she
learns how to let down her guard, and to respond to what is in the
situation that can assist her in knowing herself ever more truly.
Pallas in the Third House
he is accustomed to moving freely about and skirting the edges
of realms that might drag her too far into routine or familiar
sequence. She knows how to sustain the perfect edge of tension, so
that everybody in her world will grant her free space and a light level
of involvement. She designs a magnificent vehicle for staying afloat,
no matter what. This style draws to itself an intricate array of special
means of riding the surface, without being compelled to emphasize
one side over another. She is so talented at equipping herself with
the latest models of surface smoothness that no one notices anything
likely to go wrong or to drag her down.
As she prances in the moment’s freedom, she is secretly and sub-
consciously polarizing the very forces that will in ripe timing flood
her tight ship with the deep waters of everything she has kept under.
It will take a total crisis to pull her down, as she is the world’s most
resilient bouncer to the surface. Therefore, a total crisis she will have,
leading to an open-ended journey right toward the churning waters
she has so adroitly skipped around.
It will be a huge relief when the “keep it going” way of life is taken
over by chaos, confusion and an inability to stay in high gear. Her
navigational gifts previously exercised in staying afloat, away from
the life dynamic, now grant her a sparkling adventure in steering her
depth vessel with subtle faculties of body know-how. When she feels
the breeze and the watery currents through her deep body urging
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her forward, she will know the joy her previous surface pattern was
mocking and simulating so hollowly.
Pallas in the Fourth House =
he gives herself over to a citadel of minimal threat and complete
safekeeping. She wraps herself about within layer upon layer of
immaculately sealed-in ways to live her life without worry or con-
cern. She inhabits this sphere with quiet persistence, staying inside
it as an incubator for growing and developing rightfully. Unfortu-
nately, her specifications are so completely based upon unconscious,
automatic and unacknowledged feelings of being intensively at-risk
that no matter how tightly sealed she becomes her innermost sensa-
tions are anguish, longing and the flicker of myriad subtle memo-
ries. This does not discourage her from insisting upon walling herself
in, in the best possible version she can muster of apparent immunity
and stability. Her efforts yield just enough ease to allow her to keep
going on a relatively even keel.
When this entire precarious hold on seeming to be safe and sound
eventually proves too much to place all her hopes in, a subtle, sub-
liminal, slowly building revolt arises through her and eventually sur-
faces as a stab in the dark at emergence from what is getting to be
self-evidently claustrophobic and powerfully inhibiting to life, As she
pushes off from everything she has known, those beings who serve
radical evolutionary life-leaps can work with her to tap within her
soul and body the strength and purposiveness that reaches out to
create a different kind of surrounding atmosphere in which there is
room for breath and expansion. She finds herself at home further up
than she ever would have imagined.
Pallas in the Fifth House
he custom-designs a life for herself, featuring her own outstand-
ing performance as the center of the world. She sees to it that her
starring dramatization of superlative qualities is given top billing,
made way for by one and all. She is adept at devising comprehensive
strategies for spectacular results. Best of all, she orchestrates and
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Pallas
choreographs all of this quite naturally and as a matter of course.
The trouble in paradise is that the actual performance, on an
ongoing basis, becomes ever more ritualized and formal until the
entire scenario leads to a form of victory that fails to feed her ego or
make her happy. Instead, she is captivated by her self, and ends up
dependent upon flattery and false praise.
Overthrowing this magnificent trap is not at all easy. Usually, it
will take catastrophe and extreme crisis to open fresh territory. She
must somehow witness the destructive undertow of her theater of
narcissism before she can be motivated to seek something more sub-
stantive and inwardly formed. When she at last puts behind her the
roar of the crowd, she will start out upon a modest, pretense-free
creative quest whose intended destination is developing a form of
self-expression that rings true, embodying individual uniqueness so
that it empowers others and inspires what needs to happen inside of
each of them.
Pallas in the Sixth House
he takes up a life task, and becomes whatever it takes to fulfill that
task consummately. She virtually eliminates whatever factors in
the environment might draw her away from what she must do. On
the other hand, she trains herself to become a sharp expert in the
technical proficiencies and myriad facetings involved in her given
track.
As she narrows and hones her targeted focus of functioning and
obsessively supporting that functioning, her surface intelligence seizes
upon everything she is doing and drums it into her as the one ide-
ally-justified and most earnestly-conceived of social masks. As she
ever more impressively gets on top of her superbly marshalled skills,
she is unwittingly painting herself into a snug corner of self-identi-
fication as the one who does it right. This pattern gains such broad-
scale recognition and support that dislodging its fanatical grip is quite
another kind of task.
Gradual loosening of her hold on her perfect form must occur,
undetected for quite a while so that her omnivorous mind cannot
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neutralize it. Stone wears away under slow water pressure, and thus
she will one day find herself stunned to confront a world beyond her
clever and stalwart impersonal self-justification scheme. When she
faces the Great Unknown, she will be compelled to admit that she
knows not how to proceed, and needs assistance from Cosmic Intel-
ligence. This intervention will make all the difference between a rigid
mental compulsion to keep on the straight and narrow, and a broadly
encompassing and universally relevant way of serving that honors
and opens to individual uniqueness in the spontanedus moment,
liberated from all formulas and ways of keeping everything at arm’s-
length and coolly professional.
Pallas in the Seventh House
he is fond of setting other people up to be there for her, in striv-
ing to make her way free and unimpeded. Her human relation-
ships are supercharged with her push to get everything moving, and
keep it moving, full speed ahead. She contrives to divert all available
energies quite commandingly and presumptively, and she can get
away with her manipulations because in no way does she allow her-
self to come up against any negative feedback. She forges a total mobi-
lization crew, to take the journey of self-fulfillment where she pleases.
This entire mode of operation is devoid of complication or obstruc-
tion by any possible otherness competing with it. Thus her momen-
tum carries the day, and she is in the driver’s seat.
However, this approach is so blind and insensitive that the very
thing she has pushed off at a distance a thousand times eventually
comes back at her when least expected. The message is that she des-
perately needs to course-correct in the direction of becoming aware
and in touch with the arena of actual give-and-take. Because of her
colossal selfishness and its long-established habits, almost all the
making-way will be on her end, in starting to value and selflessly fos-
ter what is living in the other. It will take self-mortifications to enter
this stream willingly. But when she does, the terrible burden of forc-
ing everyone to go along with her will be handed over, and she will
emerge truly free.
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Pallas
Pallas in the Eighth House
he saturates the immediate atmosphere with her emotional issues
to keep her life ongoing and dynamically full. She is utterly intent
upon drawing from others whatever they can possibly contribute.
She is herself a multi-faceted enterprise, with an amazing conglom-
eration of ways to heighten the sheer vital edge she is on. Every sit-
uation counts. Every moment means the difference. She has so many
hot irons that there is no end to her ingenuity and her fantastic emo-
tional artillery, aimed forward and onward.
Unfortunately, the main fuel for all of this massive propulsion is
juggling appearances and forcing everything to run on raw desire.
No matter how dressed-up it is, desire fused with making-it-look-
good equals headed-for-disaster. Even this one can keep all those
balls juggling in space for only so long, and then they all go flying
every which way.
Underneath her vast schemes, she is waiting for the inevitable
crash. When it comes it will be a blessing in disguise, for beyond the
machinations of socialized desire lies fertile territory for real change,
where she will no longer load the situation between-and-among, but
instead enjoy heartfully what can happen when no one has strings
upon them, and the interactive flow is toward mutual growth.
Exploitations will no longer seem worth keeping up the pressure so
relentlessly.
Pallas in the Ninth House
er ambition and drive point her toward whatever goals she is
|RiGaaee will gain her total authority and recognition. She
steadily keeps before her inner eye what she is after, and pursues that
track as though all other matters were minor and mediocre. She has
tremendous abilities going for her, and much of her world backing
her up without question or doubt. She herself has questions, doubts
and hold-back places, but these she fiercely overrides. Her greatest
ability is a defiant pushing upstream against the current, with heroic
pictures in her head of her courage and virtue.
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Inevitably, shortly before she reaches the top,“destiny must inter-
vene, and save her from her ultimate danger, which is success. When
she is stopped cold, and forced to turn around and face herself, she
will awaken to see clearly that the basic thrust of her great ambition
was to outdistance her unappeasable internal critics. She will realize
that continuing in that way can lead to only one thing—the terrible
tyranny of external goals dominating and distorting who she really
is, and the nature of the journey. When she realizes fully that she is
here in the Earth to come to herself truly, the real striving upward
and onward will commence.
Pallas in the Tenth House
he is nominated by unanimous acclamation to stand out above,
to lead the procession into shared worlds of beautifully main-
taining the status quo. She is from an early age conscious of her impact
upon others and the common need to be protected from harsh truths.
She puts most of her emphasis upon overt presentation of the per-
fect congruence, which allows each and every one to carry onward
as always. She reassures, appeases, encourages and in dazzling fash-
ion removes the sting of pain and struggle.
However, this sterling willingness to serve as group watchdog will
prove in the long run to be misplaced, unwise and suppressive. It
fashions invisible yet strong attachment and adherence to false pic-
tures and propagandistic ways of keeping the population under con-
trol. Eventually, she will be compelled to face the sad, empty fact that
she is leading everybody astray. Then, when she has no further pro-
gram to enforce, much more interesting levels of truth can be tapped
into, as soon as she drops her skeptical stance and opens her being
to what is there to be revealed—so that others can begin to move
forward in a meaningful direction that calls upon individual initia-
tive and draws it further, instead of insisting upon past forms and
pre-individual ways of life.
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Pallas
Pallas in the Eleventh House
he is lively company, stimulating action and movement. She likes
nothing better than catalyzing common endeavors. She gives her-
self away to whatever energy is moving amongst the crowd, her eager
responsiveness to the passing current unchecked by inward factors.
She is quick and sharp, jumps in and stays in, hoping and expecting
that all will have fun and that high spirits will flow so freely that the
occasion will bring release into open spaces and light-filled possi-
bilities everywhere.
This entire dynamic is almost viable in bringing everybody for-
ward. The missing link is any measure of grappling with pain, limi-
tation and mortality. The vision here instead craves euphoric and
casual delights. When youth is past and more of the whole picture
of life looms into view, she will begin to meet up with what she has
rejected and denied, and as she becomes a little less superficial in her
perceptions she can bring the other side through as well. Then, what-
ever arises, she will go with it all the way, even if it leads her down
into those places where the energies humanity has yet to embrace
compel attention, interest and real involvement.
Pallas in the Twelfth House
he casts about everywhere for any available way to keep the heavy
depths of experience far away, and to maintain a world devoid of
undertow. She can freely and endlessly gather subworlds that are
bright, easy and quite wonderful. Her journey takes her to every cor-
ner of the world, and she runs and flies and stays untouched through-
out.
However, she is treading on exceedingly thin ice. There is always,
just underneath, a vast realm of dark depths and collective karmas
threatening to catch up with her, and she is frantic to push onward
and stay above the monsters of the deep. Her efforts are half-suc-
cessful and half-unsuccessful. She succeeds beyond her wildest dreams
in postponing the inevitable reckoning, drawing to herself massive
support for her drive to stay light and free in every apparent sense.
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But she is far more unsuccessful than she can acknowledge, in
that unconsciously she is plagued by the exceedingly strong presence
of everything she pretends is not there. She thus lives in a split level
world. When eventually the surface pretense collapses, all will flow
together. And as she acknowledges all of her experience, she can at
last begin to find wholeness and integration, being with herself in
the thick of collective karmas, and never again backing off.
*
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CHAPTER 10
Jupiter
HERE IS A BRIGHT, vast and astoundingly beautiful planet
called Jupiter, which graces this solar system with future
breath. Consciousness becomes in Jupiter a force to be reck-
oned with, a palpable, creative instreaming of what is really beyond
conception. Jupiter now stands before humanity, knocking at the
door, seeking entry. The circumscribed material awareness of mod-
ern times is cracking open. The kind of knowing that Jupiter brings
expands the self and fashions intelligence to resonate with totality.
Why is Jupiter so large, and so grand in every sense? To restore
perspective, to stir into life seed pictures, nuggets of rediscovering
what we are doing here, and who we shall be when we have come
back to ourselves. Whatever sign Jupiter passes through opens wide
and becomes quintessentially itself. Whatever house Jupiter is placed
in is made into the primary focus for coming to know self and world
in an open expanse.
In order for contemporary humanity to fathom the Jupiter prin-
ciple, there must be a fresh imagination of wisdom, thought and the
purposes of being aware. As it now stands, the influence of Jupiter is
refracted through the asteroid belt, broken up into dissociated frag-
ments. Therefore, most Jupiter impact in life is watered down to
become thin, abstract and wishful. Any approach toward the mag-
nitude of Jupiter, however, must reckon with stretching the fabric of
previous ideas to conceive what a life-giving, upbuilding, full-bod-
ied stream of lucid intelligence can mean in this world.
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The very first change that Jupiter orchestratesis taking the nar-
row slits of subjectively colored ways of looking at things, and intro-
ducing compelling evidence that there is more here than meets the
jaundiced eye. However, the full flowering of Jupiterian génius bestows
a relation between true selfhood and the living environment in which
the one inside becomes a vessel of light that co-creatively brings what
is most needed into the situation, by a truth sense trained to recog-
nize implicitly the difference between what furthers whole momen-
tums and what keeps possibilities from becoming actualized.
Jupiter consciousness is qualitative, substantive and texturally
sound. It works from inside life’s formative forces, and draws forth
what is trying to emerge. It blesses and redeems, in hardworking
application of vision into form. Most of all, Jupiter does this as a free
gift, not tangled up with self-serving vantage points in any measure.
This is the planet that calls everyone onward to the next level, the
next point in the spiral. The golden-red of the physical planet Jupiter
reflects the perfection of the design of creation. For those with Jupiter’s
mark on their brow the truth shines clear, and the future embraces
the present moment with open arms, saying, “Come confidently for-
ward. Your way is prepared. Each step is rightful, and steady-on.”
Jupiter in the Signs
Jupiter in Taurus
e participates in a creative process quite instinctually. He senses
from birth that he is at his best when he allows what is all around
him to penetrate his consciousness and speak intimately to his soul.
This means that his ongoing conversation with existence involves a _
responsive clarity that seldom says much but usually receives quali-
tative sustenance beautifully.
He is taking his world through him, and digesting it slowly. When-
ever he finds himself in a relaxed and natural situation, he moves to
the center of the circle and makes himself at home. Then he can
receive optimally. However, in overheated and conflictual worlds, he
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Jupiter
tends to pull back hard, thickly protecting himself against confusion,
chaos,and self-estrangement. Essentially, he knows how to make the
most of whatever is for him sensible and real; anything else comes at
him as outside his range, and devoid of creative human interest alto-
gether.
Jupiter in Virgo
H: can be finely tuned and on the beam, or he can be immensely
and incredibly at odds with himself and his world in a jumble
of distortion. These two sides are thoroughly familiar to him, with
virtually no transition or middle ground between them. His positive
mind operates when trust and confidence in his world and in him-
self are simply, self-evidently called for.
However, this is a fragile and hypersensitive condition, suscepti-
ble to a multitude of voices and influences that can quickly turn it
negative. When he succumbs to critical or pragmatic intelligence, he
finds himself caught in a world where everything is at odds with
everything else, and it seems there is very little he can do about it.
When he passively views his world as enveloped in difficulty, every
imaginable proof comes his way to confirm and elaborate his worst
suspicions.
He can easily turn this around at any juncture, by placing his focus
of awareness on constructive activity, and keeping it there long enough
to throw off doubts and fears. This grants him a clean slate to begin
to see what is possible once again, when the goodness of life com-
bines with his inherent intelligence to generate a field of encourag-
ing, life-giving forces leading toward whatever needs to happen next.
Jupiter in Sagittarius
is imagination opens wide to admit the light of a living future.
He is leaning forward, hopeful, eager and excited with the imme-
diate prospects. Just underneath this enthusiastic vantage point, he
has the exact opposite point of view operating subconsciously as well.
This subtler strand of awareness is primarily geared toward seeing and
knowing everything that is likely to go wrong, and being prepared to
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INSIDE PLANETS
grapple with it. The strategy that is most appeating to the subcon-
scious mind is holding strong, expecting the worst, and making sure
he can survive it and its impact by being thoroughly realistic. Mean-
while, the conscious thrust is vigorously and relentlessly forward and
onward. 2 ae
This combination is excellent for double-edged situations in which
something good is trying to emerge, while a great bulk’of inertia and
retrogressive forces operates underneath. When a truly bright open-
ing is there, he will tend to fly toward it, but inwardlyhe will also
doubt and pull back. And when a pervasively difficult situation arises,
he will tend to adapt to it tremendously, and then compensate with
an insistent, manic, powerful seeking of positive outcomes.
Overall, he is ideally equipped for contradictory contemporary
situations, as soon as he is able to recognize his subconscious skep-
ticism and his ironic assumption that whatever seems to be hap-
pening in the first flush of hope and eagerness is almost inevitably
not really supported underneath. Both the amazing stretch and the
insidious negation, therefore, are in dialogue within him, permeat-
ing his awareness with ambiguity and contradiction.
Jupiter in Pisces
H: wishes to get down to it, but he cannot. Barring his way are
emotional and physical abrasions and unconscious memories.
These haunt and surround him with a nagging feeling that there is
no way to find peace of mind. The vast bulk of his efforts go into
finding myriad ways of coming to terms with his predicament. Promi-
nent among these are reassuring trance-like phrases and notions,
intensely busy ways to keep going in high gear regardless of anything,
and a fabulous supply of dreams, schemes and yearnings that fill his |
screen of awareness to overflowing with magical ins and outs to cap-
tivate the imagination and fertilize the whimsical side of mind.
He dwells in secondary worlds, and treats the primary ongoing
world as a combination prison and hunting ground. What he is hunt-
ing for he is rarely clear about, but it includes on the surface any lit-
tle thing that has in it a familiar note or tune. Deep underneath is an
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Jupiter
insatiable curiosity about the alien, the bizarre and the perverse, even
to the point of a submerged yet potent fantasy of what it might be
like to journey through divergent and exotic worlds which, by very
definition, feature total escape from himself.
Ultimately, his surface craving for basic reassurances and his gnaw-
ing need for untapped riches from elsewhere combine to produce a
consciousness defined by paradox and enchanted with the flickering
movement between self and not-self, which breeds the world’s most
complex mix of blind confidence and creeping dread.
Jupiter in Leo
e knows himself, and he meets his reflection wherever he goes.
He stands strong and steady, and asserts as a matter of course
that his way of looking at things is central, pivotal and unavoidable.
He freely shares his purposive dynamic of coming to selfhood through
every sequence of events. His gift to the world is his empowering and
enlarging viewpoint, which is impressive and sharply formulated.
His very best quality of expression is that he does not waver, nor does
he second guess himself in any way.
In most situations he will be the central pillar of reference and
perspective. His own life philosophy will go as far as his individual
path of development brings him. With such a foundational integrity
and consistency he will be, at whatever level he comes to focus on,
in direct touch with ground-level visions and simple truths that pro-
vide everybody in his circle with sufficient grounding in deeper wis-
dom that they can go forth with self-respect and righteous tread, to
take up their life challenges with a conviction and know-how that is
bracing and catalytic in coming to self straight-on.
Jupiter in Aquarius
or him, the lines are already drawn. The task is already given. All
he must do is carry through. Extensive lessons and testings fol-
low. The issue throughout is thematic and archetypal: Can he follow
the track of what is socially productive and humanly viable, amidst
the elaborate sophistication of clashing factors? His resolve is strong
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INSIDE PLANETS
and his intention lucid, but he comes upon such massive, oppressive
needs and demands that for the most part his intelligence is preoc-
cupied with threading the needle moment by moment, banister stress
and pressure.
His efforts are resourceful, and he is backed up bya Heerous and
attuned mode of awareness. The one gigantic trap that always threat-
ens to stop him is discouragement and disillusionment with his thank-
less task, and the seemingly endless nature of the problems and the
dilemmas. . ;
His best course always is to understand and witness society-in-
transition; to grasp the larger picture behind the flurry of events; to
grant himself a firm and comprehensive enough base of truth to be
able to observe dispassionately each particular symptom of the dread
disease called hypercivilization; and then to apply himself to meet
that symptom from the combined force of penetration and spa-
ciousness of vision that cannot cloud over with the proliferation of
examples of what has gone wrong.
Jupiter in Aries
H: is quick, sharp and clever. His conversation with himself spills
over into a quite fascinating dialogue with his world. What is
being transmitted back and forth, both internally and externally, is
charged messages that attempt to make sense out of experience from
a thoroughly dualistic point of view. His world is bipolar, divided
between the true and the false, the right and the wrong, the pro-
gressive and the retrogressive. He is determined to come out on top,
on the side of the right and true and progressive, and he is deter-
mined to let the other side know how wrong it is.
Because both sides are intently active inside of him, oe Ante
moment of apparent heroic victory for “the good guys” is followed
by a reversal, or some manner of defeat. Therefore the dialectic of
mixed argument, competition and friendly play becomes riddled
with humor, frustration and bittersweet self-mockery. He knows
ahead of time, all too well, that instead of clear-cut domination and
championing of the good for the good, he will end up with a hope-
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Jupiter
lessly mixed bag of contradictory forces leading to ever-further
attempts to dramatize the importance of his chosen side, with the
predictable further experience that his razor-sharp vision deceives
him, obscuring as much as it reveals.
Jupiter in Libra
H: is wracked by uncertainty, met again and again by irrecon-
cilable factors, which he attempts to compose into a workable
form. His path in life is marked by many crossroads of decision, major
and minor, in which the more he ponders and evaluates, the less he
can be sure which way to go. Mind is here rendered almost useless
on its own terms, and must give way to the uncertain territory of
sympathies and antipathies. Mental analysis, that is to say, yields no
clear guidelines whatsoever, and the only thing that does lead for-
ward is ingrained feelings of what feels right and what feels wrong.
Even this way of reconciling his multiple uncertainties is a shot in
the dark, but it does yield significant results when held to faithfully.
His deepest struggle is to protect his innate sensibility from the
pervasive encroachments of social standards and assumed values.
What everybody knows turns out here to be consistently misleading.
His own feelers can move with the phenomena, and make their way
quite effortlessly whenever he can strip himself of all conditioned
beliefs and presumed limitations and meet his world with a nonra-
tional, inexplicable yet forthright readiness to combine forces with
what speaks to him on the spot.
Jupiter in Capricorn
e is approaching operative wisdom, and as he does so he meets
lal series of significant hurdles. Each one of these can be passed
through successfully if mind yields to intuition. However, his men-
tality is aggressively stubborn and proud. When his mind recognizes
that something in him knows better, it usually contradicts that infor-
mation. This exasperating pattern is quite something to witness and
behold. The closer he gets to a living truth, the more likely his mind
is to resist and deny what he is coming to know. How can this be?
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yon
The issue he faces is squarely that of control. Whenever his head
is “on” and he follows it, regardless of how misleading it might be,
he is thoroughly convinced that his ego-mind grants him supreme
command over the situation whereas the moffient he goes with
the crystalline clarity of his deeper knowingness he is implicitly work-
ing for everybody, and has almost no say over which direction events
move.
He is blessed with a remarkably forthright choice between
power/manipulations and being in tune with the whole. If he can
ever genuinely convince himself that what counts here is the true
destiny of the Earth, then he will make himself into a representative
of the highest good in such a way that everyone will benefit from his
abiding wisdom.
Jupiter in Cancer
H: touches the heart of the matter, and tenaciously holds to that
position for all he is worth. He knows little about the many
sides of the situation, but what he knows is what counts. His course
through life demands that he stay with this perspective through the
thickest and the thinnest of phases.
Even though much of the time he will be missing far too much
and emphasizing one facet to a point of mania, he cannot approach
his truth-path any other way. He is restricted to an endless reitera-
tion of what amounts to a commonsensical position, yet offers authen-
tic, relevant life wisdom and incisive commentary. He gets to the
point, stays on the point and becomes a lodestar of stable and con-
sistent understanding that can teach, heal and show the way from
scattered, distracted multiplexities to the human equation, taken as
the one determining factor and the only reliable yardstick for align-
ing the laws of intelligence with the rigorous requirements of objec-
tive form. It turns out that these two—mind and world—were made
for each other.
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Jupiter
Jupiter in Gemini
e has ideas and impressions that go off in every direction, and
lead far afield. He is an inveterate experimenter and innovator.
Every possibility lights up before him, and he glows in response. He
is challenged by a wide-open destiny to cast a broad net, and to con-
sciously encompass the multidimensionality of experience.
Such a journey quickens the pulse, but asks something which few
can stretch to meet. He must be flexible, fluent, nondogmatic and
most of all ready and willing to stretch his world view in whatever
direction presents itself, without losing his bearings. An expanded
self can move this far while staying radiantly present throughout.
However, a less imaginative and free form of selfhood finds itself
pulled wildly in a chaotic cacophony of desires and impulses lead-
ing to an overstimulated and overheated mentality with boundaries,
no priorities and no way of forging a clear and focused path forward.
Jupiter in Scorpio
he core of existence urges him to awaken to its mighty voice. An
elemental power surges through his consciousness field, over-
throwing every fixed idea and personal notion. Totality capsizes all
self-contained worlds, and liberates vast forces for planetary regen-
eration. Whenever he resists this flood of revelation, he seizes up and
becomes a caricature of defensive rigidities.
He has chosen the one path through the world that never lets up,
that always pushes, prods and insists. There is no place where he can
stand and form an ego identity based upon what he knows. His mode
of awareness sweeps him away with it until he is nothing but a truth
vessel for the collective.
Great delusions and overwhelming deceptions mark his path at
every winding. His way to truth is through the molten flames of false-
hood, and his realization of innermost being comes in a highly
unorthodox and unpredictable fashion. He may burn up, and he may
flee in fright from his relentless search, but whatever he does a truth
beyond truth pursues and hounds him, saying to him, “You are noth-
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ing without me, and you are nothing with me—but oh, what a dif-
ference there is between those two nothings!”
Jupiter in the Houses
Jupiter in the First House
e hosts the world in his own living room. There hg is available
fale the flow of existence as it arises. The quality of his interest
or attention is unique. It is as though whatever comes in were meant
for him, and he is gracious enough to receive it accordingly.
More than any other participant in the human drama, he has all
options open at every juncture. If his focus of inward purpose is dim,
he can remain stranded at the gates, having little basis for selection
and emphasis. If instead he knows what he is about, he is gifted here
with an open mind, a fluent grasp of what can be and, most of all, a
contemplative spaciousness that can beautifully hold open and poised
each facet, and the unfolding relationships among the facets, until
the story has clarified itself.
He is standing at the dawning-place, and gazing out from there
upon a world which has all futures germinating within it. In such a
situation, the only thing to do is to keep looking, to question, to won-
der and to remain accessible, ready for surprises and for the web of
experience to weave itself from the skein of life wisdom.
Jupiter in the Second House
oth sides of the situation are equally present before him, and
both sides insist upon his allegiance. The right side is thoroughly
rational and registers a straightforward, commonsensical and busi-
ness-like approach to experience. The left side features the pervasive
idea that not enough is yet known, that the evidence is still coming
in, and therefore that the appropriate stance is to wait patiently and
refuse to jump at straws.
These two sides are continually active, and thoroughly convinced
of their priority in being rightfully present. The right hand is much
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Jupiter
more verbal and overt. It precipitates ongoing projects, enterprises,
and concerns, and avidly gives itself over to each and all of these. The
left hand says less and does little, but is emphatically and firmly there,
inside, musing upon the life process, and quite content to ponder,
study and probe into structural foundations and motivating factors.
It is not feasible to combine the right and the left into a magnif-
icent synthesis. Instead, the path here involves nurturing and devel-
oping both sides of the mind on their own terms, and gradually
strengthening and harnessing both of them to fulfill their own sphere.
The right-hand side is geared toward concrete accomplishment and
intelligent daily expression. The left-hand side is designed for worlds
yet-to-be, and it bears a treasure chest of inner faculties seeking steady
and slow cultivation. It is difficult to retain two such disparate
approaches to experience, especially since, if both sides are right,
every situation is quite mixed. Yet any attempts to go with one and
minimize the other are far more stressful, and return him quickly to
his peculiar destiny of living in two worlds and placing great stock
in both.
Jupiter in the Third House
he dam has burst, and his immediate world gains total access to
his internal process. Stimulus, rapid-fire impressions and a wild
torrent of insights and perspectives cascade through his mind. He is
helpless before this deluge, and must succumb. This means that he
cannot in any way place his personal stamp upon events and expe-
riences, and instead must agree to partake in the full flood of radi-
cal process, and take his chances on learning how to ride these waves
by sheer necessity.
The two poles of madness and shutting down keep tempting him
to either become intoxicated with sheer flux and chaos or to arbi-
trarily choose apparent self-preservation by severely restricting him-
self to what he can straightforwardly deal with, moment by moment.
He tastes these two extremes and many others, and must carry onward
through it all by closely observing every side of his experience and
working out ways to optimally move with the changes.
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His consciousness field is so eclectic, ragtagand turbulent that
his only realistic hope is to take hold of every mistake, every over-
sight, every failure of judgment that he makes and that those around
him make, to begin to fashion a coat of many colors that is both
durable and Protean in its on-the-spot adaptability. When he wears
this coat and has the courage to keep coming back for more object
lessons in how to get through, he will at last know the way, and be
the way, in the thick of world dilemma, navigating the mind fre-
quencies with the knack that comes when he has seen it all and rec-
ognized truly that there is no monopoly on truth or know-how—that
every phase is equally revealing.
Jupiter in the Fourth House
e is faced with a dense reality frame that takes him over unless
he can burrow under it. The natural course of events molds
him into a passive receptacle that becomes filled to the brim with the
chronic and enduring struggle of existence. Getting under this ter-
rible weight, and becoming able to breathe freely at all, represents a
depth initiation in multiple stages featuring extreme predicaments
and perpetual severe hardship.
What he must do, if he is to carry forward at all, is to memorize
the ways of the world and then outsmart the inconsequence con-
spiracy at its root. Most in this position will stop far short of this
mark, and will be forced to witness their own mute, hopeless entan-
glement in the world as it is. In such an eventuality, he is prone to
vast wells of self-doubt, and a form of alienation that feels as if it has
been growing solid for aeons. His basic plight is that the syndromes
and assumed patterns that dominate his mental landscape in every
direction have about them such a tone of ingrained inevitability that
the only way out is under. And the only way under is by such war-
rior awakening of will that no prudent reasons and considerations
whatsoever can hold him in place any longer.
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Jupiter
Jupiter in the Fifth House
H: is on a mission, and his destiny forces his hand. He is pushed
from behind, impelled forward, everything in him seeking to
find a way to be true to himself. His crusade is to demonstrate value,
to embody integrity and to emanate core persistency. His is the way
without compromise. Conscious character development takes up
every inch of his awareness. He can throw all of this off to encour-
age others to fulfill their own dharma, but he is fiercely concentrated
upon the demands that come with holding steady in a world rocked
by the unconsciousness of the vast bulk of its inhabitants.
During the course of his realization and adventure in finding his
true way, he comes upon the lost key of free individuality, the fire
path. His innermost calling is to be awake and aware within himself
upon the terms of his own becoming, without apology to the stan-
dards of others. Such rude insistency makes its mark and does what
it intends, but in the process forces others into a bind. His example
is so compelling, and his conviction so potently invoked, that any
other way of knowing and being may seem partial and fragmentary,
an unsuccessful attempt to meet the standards of the worlds’ hard-
est-to-impress human being.
Jupiter in the Sixth House
o put thought into effective use requires dedication and sacri-
fice. He is convinced that there is no cost too great when what
is promised is becoming a worthy vessel for the shared good. He thor-
oughly and pervasively gives himself over to whatever is required. A
fervent enthusiasm craves rightful harnessing into such a skillful and
perfectly executed way of doing things that nobody can question or
doubt his intentions or his results.
One vast area tends to be discounted and virtually denied, but
will not cease hounding him—that he is setting up a controlled
experiment in coming down to Earth with commitment and a steady
tread, but leaving behind those parts of himself which do not fit the
plan. These parts will surface through outward circumstances, pains
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and disabilities, and an extraordinary number of minor disasters,
which all add up to a coded message from his hidden self saying, “I
am still here, and there is far too much of me to be pummeled into
shape by the needs of the situation. I too must be taken into account.”
oe
Jupiter in the Seventh House
e has so much to offer to the other person that he generates
lake. full and very exciting relationships. Their initial stages
often feature a remarkable recognition and acknowledgement of what
is there in the other. He can take this initial thrust quite far, if he
learns how to recover from the incapacity of the other person to rec-
iprocate in kind. Indeed, pivotal to his entire life story is what he
makes of disappointments, disillusionments and what is missing
from encounters.
The massiveness of what he puts out confronts absence and insen-
sitivity time and again. He knows somewhere inside that it is simply
not possible for most others to have the same magnitude of both
motivation for and understanding of what is possible in relation-
ships. He must penetrate to the core level of this predicament in order
to get though it. Essentially, he is emerging out of himself into the
shared consciousness sphere, and has a freshness and attunement in
always coming upon the thrill of meeting and mixing ingredients
into more than they were on their own. But by and large, those he
draws to him will be somehow further removed and also more accus-
tomed to the shared ground.
Therefore, his rightful path is to initiate and move toward emer-
gent possibilities in human sharing, with large doses of humor and
acceptance toward the less-than-inspiring responses and reactions
he is likely to receive. If he can follow his own dawning sensibility of
meaningful sharing in free self-permission, the doors will remain
ajar, and the great winds of life wisdom and loving presence will flow
through his consciousness field with great power and a sparkling,
contagious spread.
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Jupiter
Jupiter in the Eighth House
e is privileged to be an integral link in a chain of events lead-
ing everywhere. His awareness is aflame with visions, and edges
of startling clarity and serendipitous revelations. His world is chang-
ing, and he is carried forward irrevocably.
With so much occurring, he can choose one of two directions. If
he limits himself to status-quo imagery and attitudes, he will play all
of this out as a golden opportunity to enjoy himself and others
immensely, and leave it at that. If, on the other hand, he becomes
alive to the deeper ripplings of human consciousness expansion, he
will be granted a pivotal role in fostering what is bright and expan-
sive in cutting-edge situations. The choice between escapist fun and
mutual fertilization is made in terms of allegiance to common val-
ues of surface or depth orientation. The surface version will end up
with a book of fascinating photographs. The depth version will keep
coming upon ever more fascinating and inhabitable worlds, even to
the point of seeing an entirely different basis for existence unfold in
and around him, with completely unlimited prospects.
Jupiter in the Ninth House
is foremost priority is becoming aligned with the greater worlds.
He is blessed with a highly discriminating intelligence, which
is intent upon reaching upward as far as it possibly can. He is car-
ried aloft by his eager investigation of the laws and patterns of exis-
tence. Best of all, he senses intuitively that there are higher forces at
work reaching down toward him and drawing him toward his
intended destination.
Such a path elicits the very best from those who take it up. He
aspires and endeavors to attain to truth, in ever further measure. The
one possible short-circuiting of this way of being is that there are
very few social models of such a path, and the world has substituted
power and personal reputation for linking with the greater reality.
Thus, a sequence of temptations will manifest, with a classical moral
choice to be made between worldly self-importance and moving out
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~~
beyond the ego-mind and its machinations.
In this drama the key distinction is that proud glory leads to loss
of proportion and extreme ultimate blindness, while seeking first the
kingdom of heaven leads to a force of consciousness thatsosuperbly
serves the whole of existence that everyone becomes able to see fur-
ther and to grow higher because someone has stayed with what their
soul reveals to them as inwardly bright and warming.
*
Jupiter in the Tenth House
e leads his fellows forward. The target is there before him, and
he shines the light of inward understanding upon the path
ahead. The scope of his concerns is broad and extended, and he is
taking all he surveys and reducing it to essentials for the sake of all.
His particular expertise tends to be in transmitting or disseminat-
ing what needs to be spread. He has nothing else to do with his con-
siderable gifts. He wishes others to light up with some trace of what
he is accustomed to being in touch with as a matter of course.
His gesture is outward and spreading, and he lives for public and
universal applications. His finest abilities develop in work that has a
consciousness focus. He works hard and long and selflessly. This entire
pattern has very little emphasis on intake or inward development.
Instead, it says, “This is my chance to give forth whatever will further
what needs to happen here, and I need nothing more than the sim-
ple, straightforward opportunity to be there for my world completely.”
Jupiter in the Eleventh House
Imost everything that means anything is yet to occur. He knows
this, and must wait, prepare, hope and pray. He is one link, one
vital part of a process that stretches out far ahead, and many virtues
must be cultivated along this path. The first is faith—the faith that
moves mountains and honors the unseen. The second is persever-
ance— holding steady while great changes find their rhythm, and
unflinchingly becoming ready for the long haul. The third is a bright,
surpassing willingness to venture further, to seek beyond, to risk all
on what can be.
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Jupiter
He carries a linking message, and is so inwardly in tune with the
significance of his mission that he can in the meantime work within
existing conditions without compliant. His course is visionary and
unknown by most. The way there is woven between collective rhythms
and individual free movement, which is most expansive and unhin-
dered when it stays deep down inside, and cannot be prematurely
held back by those who have yet to realize just how far the world is
going and just how vast the vision needs to be.
Jupiter in the Twelfth House
H: looks within, pierces veils, searches further. The deeper dimen-
sions of collective consciousness draw him into their stream-
ing. The irrational, the strange, the unacknowledged and the
absolutely incredible all swim to meet his penetrating gaze. His great
lesson is to put all fears behind him and to keep witnessing and
beholding whatever reveals itself.
Often he loses all bearings, and becomes submerged inside worlds
which he does not know how to navigate. At the worst, he forgets
himself altogether, and helplessly gives over his awareness to the great
underworld. Even then he comes back afresh, and is cleansed and
purged by every level of experience.
Facets of experience that others cannot meet are his to process
and overcome. He does all this instinctually, barely knowing why.
Ultimately, this quixotic weaving of depth consciousness leads through
every imaginable world, arriving over and again at a point of new
departure. If he can strengthen and deepen his feeling for that depar-
ture point, he will eventually dwell there, and be a sourcespring of
renewal in unexpected ways that are agonizing, ecstatic—and right
in tune.
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CHAPTER 11
Saturn
HE ORIGINS OF THIS SOLAR SYSTEM are still reverberating
through the sphere of Saturn. Each individual’s previous
karmic patterns meet him in Saturn. The backbone of Earth
existence is held fast in the Saturn forces, and the law that Saturn
serves is the strict and vertically hierarchical injunction that no false
images replace the original true image of the human being.
Saturn calls everybody back in order to provide a sound basis for
moving forward. But the asteroid belt twists and distorts the Saturn
imprint into a prohibitive and suppressive force from the outside,
seeming to have no real connection with the vital concerns of imme-
diate selfhood.
Saturn has become perceived as the asteroidal tyranny, stamped
into totalitarian curbing of all spontaneous unfoldment. The true
Saturn, however, is the direct reflection of each one’s prenatal resolves
and self-chosen commitments. Much of the misunderstanding and
slander of Saturn comes from a trivial and shortsighted view of karma.
Whenever karmic law is invoked, reflexive associations of punish-
ment, entrapment and terrible guilt arise. The molten core of real
karmic process is a special gift to humanity, insisted uponby the
highest beings, in order to usher each human being safely through
the maze oflife’s abundant lessons and difficulties. By Saturnian
authorization, every soul can stick with its original plan and keep
coming back to it when they lose the way.
It is true, however, that the style or feeling tone of Saturn even
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when it restores perspective is heavy, insistent and. somewhat uncom-
fortably austere and stark. Because the Saturnian dimension of expe-
rience has been terribly abused and overdone by self-appointed judges
and morality guardians throughout the ages, there is some justifica-
tion for cringing and backing-off when the heavy tread of Saturn
comes close.
Each sign that Saturn moves through takes on its‘most sharply-
etched and firmly resolute form. Each house that Saturn lands within
anchors and forges life direction with stalwart fervor. The primary
manifestation of Saturn in those who are not too heavily asteroidally
influenced is to cut out a path that respects and honors all one has
ever gone through previously, while also applying the lessons of past
experience to steady the way ahead.
There are also fragments of unassimilated past-life karmas that
have remained chaotic and disturbing, and come through Saturn as
critical factors at times drawing each one off course, in order to insist
upon being metamorphosed from jagged points caught in a tight
pattern to modest beginnings in remaking oneself a viable, reliable
member of an evolving society. Nonetheless, the central thrust of
Saturn is to keep each and all carrying through on what was intended
in the beginning. Where intentions are clear and one’s record is rel-
atively balanced and harmonized, Saturn means perseverance, deter-
mination and immensely admirable ability to follow one’s nature
closely, consistently, and in self-recognition as one who serves the
highest in the very fiber of their being.
Saturn in the Signs
Saturn in Taurus
is task is to form himself, and to allow his world to form him
further. This process is a weaving back and forth between his
inward individuality and substantive world forces. He stands in the
midst of his becoming, and can only take hold of it as it forms.
Nonetheless, he is uncovering himself in such a way that he is fasci-
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Saturn
nated and absorbed in the pattern. There is real grace and guidance
from beyond, and true dignity and uprightness from within, that can
together forge a viable selfhood in form.
He faces a world outside that is far more complex and extended
than he finds himself to be. His strong instinct is to stay within the
matrix of his own familiar and steady sphere of understanding and
reference. When he does so, he can make good use of the materials
at hand. The most disruptive element he will meet along his path is
the reality that whenever he steps outside his stronghold of personal
power and simple ways he is quite lost. In a complex contemporary
civilization, he is at a competitive disadvantage.
His minimal capacity for fluency and flexibility and adapting to
fresh situations compels him to limit the sphere of his challenges. In
most instances, this represents a clear karmic situation in which he
has been following a single consistent line of development and con-
tinues to take this further. What cannot be expected in his striving
is an embrace of the dynamics of change. Instead, he knows how to
be true to himself in the way he always has been. That is his stance,
emphatically and resolutely.
Saturn in Virgo
e knows how to enter upon each particular facet of what he has
lal himself, and to carry it through. His interest and involve-
ment are entirely inside of these special tasks and endeavors. When
he is at work and in his element of skillful functioning, his attention
is a steady beam of conscious intent, and this satisfies his inner being.
He attempts to make his world into an endless sequence of such
discrete efforts. This is a hopeless cause, and turns his life into a tense
battleground. His great fear is to let go of his clear track and become
submerged in everything-but-that. He will experience many lessons
geared toward dislodging him from his one pivotal error— failing
to grasp how the flow of life really goes. The missing element is whole-
ness, and being available to the multiplicity of experience willingly.
However, in the thick of this painful and seemingly endless
sequence of thematic lessons, something arises that is invaluable and
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profoundly character-building. Each separate sphere of his life expres-
sion, as it becomes bit-by-bit more conscious, more flexible, more
rightfully brought into context, reveals all of existence through it.
This means that he has been sitting on a wondrous secret, which
becomes more blessing than curse as soon as his life impulse expands
a notch or two, opening the way for his conscientious particulars to
become microcosmic jewels of fully-lived-into experrence.
The karma here is that of taking a leap, at first tentatively and
reluctantly, and then ever more readily, from a rather limited domain
of experience into something more in tune with life as it is now form-
ing, offering experiences never before possible. This entire pattern
is excruciating when each phase of development first begins, then
becomes ever more tolerable, and eventually proves to be just what
was needed to draw him forth from a small and circumscribed exis-
tence into being fully there, in ample measure.
Saturn in Sagittarius
e is attempting to bring himself back from a scattered and frag-
mented pattern. In order to do so he imposes upon himself
austerities, master plans and rigorous disciplines. Although his wildly
rebellious spirit chafes and seethes under constraint, he persists in
taming his own errant impulses. He grows accustomed to tension
and the sensation of working against himself, and can accomplish
remarkable leaps forward in this mode.
He cannot ease off on himself. He cannot stop pushing and pulling
and insisting upon extending his own capacity for keeping with the
track of environmental requirements. His nature remains volatile
and self-indulgent, but this is a lifetime keyed into overcoming his
own nature. His task is never finished, but he becomes so adept in
fulfilling it that as it expands, so does he. Thus he is yoked to a
sequence of challenges, each one carrying him further down the road
toward optimal capacity. The karmic backdrop to this pattern is hav-
ing come up short of late, so critically that he has decided to turn a
corner and come again to life from a fresh angle. This at first demands
arduous efforts at discovering how to work with it.
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Saturn
His is an heroic quest, with sharp intentionality and extraordi-
nary perseverance. He will let himself down a thousand times, and
then recover his forward momentum a thousand-and-one times,
until he has the knack of moving through a way of being in the world
that for him is brand new.
Saturn in Pisces
| |e takes the suffering of the Earth through himself, and trans-
mutes it into his own deepest stream of coming-to-selfhood.
He feels, throughout his being, resonance with the hidden depths of
the human soul. In order for him to find his way, he must embrace
all the inward experience that streams through to him from others.
He is able to do this quite magically. Instead of becoming overbur-
dened with subtle, intense emotions and impressions, he is brought
into the Earth and enabled to work wonders by what he picks up on.
The world of dreams, the reaches of the unconscious, the mysteries
of other realms—these and more are for him integrally central to
existence in the Earth. He is most at home in peeling away layers of
what seems, to get to what truly is in there.
His way is unworldly. There are many sides of life that do not
reach him and cannot generate his response, especially those which
the conditioned mind takes as the compelling business of the world.
He navigates timelessly in the watery realms, attuned to what is reveal-
ing itself between and among the recognizable conscious fragments.
His task is barely recognizable as being a task at all. Instead, he places
himself in with what is speaking to him, and merges with its inner-
most messages.
His most sorrowful and distressing missing part is that he has no
idea what to do with his depths of experience in an outer sense. It
takes tremendous faith and courage for him to stay within his right-
ful domain. Any attempts to surface into ordinary discourse invite
massive misunderstandings. The karma accompanying this track is
a fierce resolve to plumb the depths of experience, after having not
quite gotten down there before, and having instead gotten marooned
on the desert island of civilization.
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He is tapping into those dimensions of experience which he knew
long ago, to provide an inward basis for a whole new karmic sequence.
In a life that does not make arbitrary distinctions, his own individ-
uality treads a delicate verge between being one of everybody and
being utterly oneself, in a form that never quite |looks like contem-
porary selfhood but which, when viewed deeper down in, is thor-
oughly and genuinely the epitome of true selfhood as the vessel for
a greater life, to be received and met by one who can appreciate the
way the mysteries feel inside the soul and the body. |
Saturn in Leo
is purpose shines before him as free deed. He has chosen the
|alent he walks with clear intent. His only possible way to con-
tribute to the common destiny is to become aligned with the core of
his own essential individuality. He knows this well; it never leaves his
sight. He seeks himself everywhere he goes, and he finds himself
reflected back from every side. He is especially notable for the dri-
ving force of his singular path. In every way, he sticks to his inten-
tions. There are no strong or lasting questions or doubts in him
concerning his own life impulse.
He does have significant and extensive challenges and dilemmas
concerning the rest of the world. Because he searches in vain for oth-
ers’ comparable fiery depths of self-commitment, he inevitably stum-
bles over the propensity for egoism and making others wrong.
Humility, emptiness, or standing aside from himself is not where he
stands. His path becomes socially and interpersonally thorny even
while it remains crystal-clear inside. He must learn the hard way to
give entirely free space to those who are less well-founded than he.
Only then can he proceed to fulfill his prenatal resolves to master the
way of self-embodiment.
The karma forging such a resolve is having taken a number of
preliminary steps toward being now ready to enter the greater stages
of awakening to who one really is. The final hurdles are the tough-
est of all. The most rigorous demand along this path is to penetrate
behind the contemporary misunderstanding of what individuality
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Saturn
is all about, by himself becoming fully alive to a greater source of self-
hood that wishes to bring a sacrificial or consecrated flame of Christ-
filled selfhood into the earth. This stream of light and warmth and
surpassing love can best incarnate through those who have found
their own mark, and then can yield all self-importance to the macro-
cosmic self of being more than just another bright light, and instead
being inside the heart of the world.
Saturn in Aquarius
e has such a sharp and definite sequence oftasks and tests that
his path is marked out ahead of him as for no other. All he must
do is to take up earnestly and completely whatever proves to be the
next point of reckoning. These hurdles are huge, medium-sized and
tiny. The huge ones involve foundational change in his entire pat-
tern of manifestation, through intensive self-examination. The
medium-sized ones are cyclical —rhythmic maturing of inward and
outward range and facility in meeting life rightfully. The tiny ones
predominate, as a vast proliferation of instances in which he must
choose to be either clever and outwardly fixated or awake to the
deeper messages coming to him.
His path forward asks him to conquer all tendencies to internalize
pragmatic expediency as a guideline for how he functions. Instead, he
is called upon to find what is objectively true and meaningful, and to
represent its cause consistently. The karma upholding his willingness
to meet his life on such high terms is extensive training in relevant
skills and ways of life, each of which can now be a touchstone of know-
how and conviction concerning what is intended and what does serve.
He is knocking at the gates of a universal level of attainment, and
by his actions is revealing to everybody around him a clear example
of which way is forward from here. Anything less than this will be a
tight, closed circle of holding himself back and marking time.
Saturn in Aries
e is up against himself, and must be there in self-confrontation.
What he is looking for is character development and becoming
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honest, genuine and vibrantly present. He knows that this is a great
deal to ask of anyone, but he must have this rallying of strength of
selfhood to get anywhere at all.
His road is rugged, his wounds are many. He sets a pace that is
formidable. The dynamics involved are whatever it will take to starkly,
uncompromisingly meet what is in his way, and to vahquish it. He
has so many pitfalls along such a path that sharp, undeviating atten-
tion to the present moment is vital to his psychic survival.
His pervasive worst enemy is his bone-level doubts and secret ter-
rors. Usually it is almost impossible for him to explain to himself or
anyone else where the dark, unconscious material he meets inside
comes from. Karmic factors are not among those he tends to look
for, as his gaze is set on present timing aimed toward the future. But
the karma involved here is vast and extraordinary. At the least, it con-
tains the world’s most varied experiences, and a long, involved
sequence of terrible events, each of which would have discouraged
and devastated just about anybody.
His path is to come back from the jaws of defeat and the abyss of
dark passage, and to become forcefully assertive of the primal ground
of the journey itself, devoid of any secondhand trappings. He is a
pioneer in whatever realm he traverses, and he has the constitution
and the mental toughness that befit one who walks on ahead and will
not look back.
Saturn in Libra
e must change or die. At every major crossroads of his life, he
faces widely divergent options. The retrogressive path initially
and seductively looks good, feels fascinating, and has many social
agents advertising its irreplaceable value. The progressive path looks
unpromising, feels desolate at first, and has few advocates, with most
of those who do point the way in that direction being half-crazy or
half-repulsive.
All signs point downward toward self-betrayal, yet he has some-
thing going for him that makes the higher road appealing and likely:
He comes into this life knowing full well that surface appearances
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Saturn
and beautiful packages are likely to be deceptive and misleading.
What he is dreaming of is becoming somebody altogether different
than he started out being. He begins this life in a haze of dim mem-
ories and tentative probes into unknown territory, but he aspires
toward full-blooded, soundly embodied willingness to come to life
and rise to the challenge of self-recreation.
It is a long and winding journey from wishful gropings to bold,
imaginative measures. The karma that led to this path is having come
to the end of a very old road, and often that end has been more than
traumatic. This karma breeds immense wells of sheer determination
to keep breaking through to fresh life-territory. If he can strengthen
himself by making the hard choices over and again, he will find that
it becomes perfectly natural for him to be living on the cutting edge
of evolution, and going with that edge no matter where it leads.
Saturn in Capricorn
H: has been around, and he knows the way. His consciousness
is aflame with the will-to-be. He sees himself as he intends to
become, and spurs himself onward by that vision. Essentially, his
path through life is classical, archetypal and well-formed through-
out. His greatest ally is his own high self, which stands close by, boost-
ing him into readiness.
The shadow phenomenon of this path of ascent is heavy-duty.
Most of all, he is haunted and enveloped by an almost bizarre sequence
of events which seem to deny everything he knows to be true. Rightly
taking up his way through these soul trials requires a tremendous
effort over an extended time. Pivotally and crucially, he must cut
through the overwhelming evidence presented to him, and arrive at
an awakening of higher faculties that reverses the polarity of what he
has previously seen.
When caught in the net of maya, he sees darkly and grimly. When
still, clear and steadily grounded in soul-knowing, he sees with bright,
stalwart revelation encompassing the whole of manifest existence.
His karmic past features vast heights and precipitous depths, with
little in-between. In this lifetime, he has a very long way to go—and
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the finest instruments of awareness to get there, He will then reside
upon the peaks of human attainment, for all to know it can be done.
Saturn in Cancer ©
e enters the field of complex social relations, and-attempts to
meet that field with elan. He is called upon at every juncture
to become ever more adept in handling himself in the midst of every-
one else. His training for this begins early, and lasts late. His life
between is thematically woven in spirals, as he takes on each next
rung of meeting the world as it is.
One tremendous skill is his carte blanche into any appropriate
situation. That is a consciousness field that enables him to focus upon
what is essential, and then knowing his way and carving a path
through the maze of the world. This gift never fails him, and it is
basic equipment for his task.
His difficulties are legion, stemming from the fabulous number
of issues raised by any attempt to bring renewing forces into the social
arena of these times. The worst part is that he rarely distinguishes
between the issues at hand and his own responsibility. Almost
inevitably, the two become one, and he single-handedly becomes the
one person accountable for everything that goes wrong.
The karma standing behind his entire life pattern is an exceed-
ingly asocial life-stream that has placed him everywhere except in
the center of unfolding outer events. Now, in this lifetime, the glar-
ing missing piece is sought with a vengeance. His way forward is
heavily bound up with the shared good and the collective plight. Yet
his greatest breakthroughs come at intervals apart, when he instinc-
tively re-links with his far-flung larger journey and then brings to his
world the illimitable treasures of all he has come to know and cher-
ish in living beyond the reach of ordinary consciousness and basic
delusions generated by overfamiliarity with outward existence of a
surface thinness.
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Saturn
Saturn in Gemini
H: is the most contradictory of all souls. Two extremes stand
side-by-side in his makeup. One is an adventuresome, ex-
ploratory and fantastically wide open field of forces. The other is a
total magnetism into whatever situations or life dilemmas are tightly
contained and systematically controlled in order to keep everybody
in line.
The spacious twin is on a journey through and beyond the world.
The timid twin is keenly intent upon a journey down into the ongo-
ing continuum of ordinary life. He as a whole is forever moving
between these polarities, in a dance that is both fruitful and abortive.
The fruitfulness is lavish and infinitely gratifying. It features moments
of supreme insight, and phases in which seemingly widely divergent
factors come together in sparklingly eye-opening fashion.
The abortive part of the journey decimates dreams and supplies
undertones of immense threat. It has to do with a fundamental dis-
location and agitation, with occasional ordeals in which he is at at
times elsewhere and quite utterly lost. The karma looming behind
this peculiar destiny combination is a radically divided sequence of
lives; either between different lives or within the lives themselves
there was a split focus between the highest vibrational realization
and heavy, tenaciously resistant obstructions to alive presence.
This is the lifetime of synthesis, integration, and overcoming of
his own and the world’s strife and extremism. Because such an even-
tuality is so promising and worthwhile, he has agreed to meet the
necessity of every extreme showing up again in an abbreviated form,
in order to see it, know it and gradually find a path that takes that
particular facet as one strand among many, and moves onward toward
a bright horizon.
Saturn in Scorpio
e knows himself through intensive and drastic experience—
and no other way. He draws to himself a sequence of shatter-
ing events, and each time feels convinced that everything he has
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attained before is at stake. His need to come to himself inside the
flames of destruction is overpowering. Nothing must stop him. He
dies and lives again, only to die once more.
He truly is burning up a tremendous concretion of old karma. At
the same time, he is creating new karma. What stands behind this
pattern is a karmic sequence in which he has lived below his right-
ful level of awareness, and now must find a way to rise unto his true
stature through massive episodes of being swept up in lesser patterns
and seeing them through. :
His will to emerge from his old habits and limited patterns is tire-
less and uncannily persistent. It needs to be that way, because the
moment he succeeds in moving through a given life-or-death strug-
gle, the next one is upon him. Anybody else in this predicament
would fall apart; yet he hangs together, feeling invigorated and quite
thoroughly in-tune with his chosen path of radical self-overcoming.
Saturn in the Houses
Saturn in the First House
H: makes his way in his own timing, and comes in slowly. As he
arrives in a series of stages, each cycle becomes a way of life ush-
ering him forward and onward. Within each cycle, he musters his forces
to be as completely there as he possibly can be. It is not in him to keep
pushing onward within a given context beyond the point where he has
fulfilled that phase and completed that lesson. However, because he
places such substantive emphasis upon full-bodied participation in
his current situation, the aspect of pulling-away and shifting from one
world to another can prove to be complicated and difficult.
He is living a sequence of openings, and he is not truly held within
any fixed allegiance. The karma he has tapped into is that of begin-
ning a dramatically new destiny stream, while still having a number
of fateful patterns hanging over him. This motivates him to do every-
thing he can to push through each old carryover, and even attempt
at times to get done with it quickly and ruthlessly.
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Saturn
To a unique and quite extremely felt extent, he is pursued by ghosts
of the past while also sensing open and fertile territory ahead of him.
Thus, he is the most sharply motivated of souls to get on with what-
ever is next. This gives him a distinctive edge of attention and will-
ingness that can overcome many centuries of loose ends, and gradually
forge a fresh path into a new world.
Saturn in the Second House
[ is self-evident what he must do and who he must be. He is pre-
sented with an intensely challenging situation in which his path for-
ward requires steady, persistent and dedicated steps in the right direction
at every juncture. It is more than tempting for him to become dutiful
and martyred to his heavy, demanding situation, even to the point of
identifying so completely with it that he becomes simultaneously its
stolid maintainer and its victim. Then, in reaction to this pattern, he
may at times attempt to throw off his weight of compulsion, and pre-
tend to be carefree and almost devoid of deeper necessities.
His task is to uncover a way of being that can take on what he has
agreed to work with, while also remaining ready to move and shift
with a wider circle of concern. Being flexible and spontaneous is not
at all an instinctual given here, but cultivating this side of experience
balances out his exaggerated propensity for boxing himself in and
throwing away the key. He has immense wells of internal resource to
back him up and see him through, and he can be, when vitally stirred,
the most tireless of workers, capable and adroit in fine ways.
The karma he carries is that of having developed considerable
gifts and abilities, but not yet having learned how to effectively bring
them through into the Earth. The only way to optimize this frame-
work is to release himself into his appointed tasks while clearing away
all mental strife and internal dissension. Unfortunately, he will find
that it is never sufficient to have previously cleared away mental sta-
tic and irritability, and that he is called upon to keep cleansing, releas-
ing and making space on an ongoing basis, so that he can crisply and
rightfully enter into what is there before him, free of residues and
projections, walking with grace into radiant presence.
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Saturn in the Third House
In every direction, he finds the exact same reality. He cannot escape
it. The world he meets is in flux, and quite pervasively problemati-
cal. It cannot be put back together. His path is to become.a sobering
force in a chaotic world, and he must do this in a way ‘that honors
every inch of the chaos.
As situations dissolve and energy fragments, there isi a regenera-
tive component directly within the raggedness and the dissipating
momentum for him to grasp. If he learns how to link with the core
value within the ferment, nothing can then tear him away from his
vibrant sphere of involvement in the phenomena. Most urgently, he
must come down into the tensions and stresses of everyday existence
without being swept away in the turbulence himself. When he suc-
ceeds for a moment in holding this focus, his entire world becomes
empowered to shine and potentiate freely. When he fails, which he
must do time and again, everything flies apart, and he with it.
Intense karma stands behind this situation, a karma of having
been himself an agent of retrogressive patterns and tempting momen-
tums; and he must reverse field on his familiar ways by meeting the
fruits of his mischief and penetrating into what is possible now. His
personal desire runs counter to what he knows he must do, and the
process of changing his ways will be lifelong —but rewarding at every
stage as he frees himself of his own errant impulses, and the world’s
multiple reverberations of nothing mattering and surface factors
being taken as a given, in a field of forces that go rapidly nowhere.
Saturn in the Fourth House
he groaning of the Earth permeates his subtle impressions. He
must meet up against dense, resistant, chronic conditions. Most
painfully, he cannot do anything to turn conditions around, and
instead must recognize and endure the worst. His task is to stand
under manifest physical-emotional currents, and redeem them by
upholding core truths amidst folly and delusion.
He brings to this imperative a deep, foundational strength of pur-
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Saturn
pose and inner resolve. He knows that he must dig ever deeper and
that he can and will. His dedication is for the long haul, and his deter-
mination becomes firmer and more grounded over time.
His greatest struggle is to vanquish voices of doubt and denial.
There is a vast proliferation of discouraging and disillusioning fac-
tors to be cut through. The karma that has placed him in this predica-
ment is quite involved and hard to reach, but it features a motif of
downfall leading to unavoidably taking on the heaviest loads and
tempering his character through suffering and sacrifice.
Inside this bubbling-over cauldron of karmic forces, there resides
one who is developing tremendous perseverance and resiliency. He
draws to himself staggering accumulations of whatever he fears and
seeks to avoid, but this is in no way punishment or damnation. It is
his chance to begin to rise again, to come forth from within himself
in such a way that his ability to be fully embodied will be his most
unique attribute. He is going a long way, from turning away from
innermost truth to turning toward deep Earth allegiance and a com-
passionate making-way for whatever seeks to unfold in heartful, warm
fidelity to the soul of existence.
Saturn in the Fifth House
e is coming to himself as he comes into all of the world. His
burden is that he cannot in any way bring forth surface layers
of selfhood while holding back the deeper substrata of real selfhood.
Instead, his self-expression must be genuine, from the inside, and in
tune with his original intentions. This means that the thrill of get-
ting away with the semblances and fantasies of the ego-mind is here
absent, conspicuously out of reach.
The deeper journey of selfhood into uncompromising priorities
of incarnational intensity is here the only way to go. He has agreed
ahead of time to come through, and to do what he must to come
through all the way. His karmic backdrop has set the stage for full-
blooded embodiment by granting him seasoning and tremendous
lessons in staying true to self. In this lifetime, the will-to-be comes
on stronger and stronger, as experience reveals the necessity of a fiery
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impassioned totality of commitment into the living Earth.
The single great pitfall along this particular journey is that of fail-
ing to acknowledge and come to terms with the more dispersed and
fragmented energy fields of others. Essentially, his truth can never
flourish by standing superior to others’ falsehood. But ifall self-right-
eousness is uprooted, the beam of his path of destiny-will radiate
forth, without preconditions, for all to bask in and benefit by, in the
surrender of the lesser self to the greater self that regenerates the fallen
Earth. *
Saturn in the Sixth House
H: takes up one specialized track, and sees it through to the end,
and his entire life forms around that task. He places his con-
centrated intelligence upon the altar of form requirements. He knows
no other way to be.
A number of distinctive character traits accompanies this pattern.
Most outstanding is a near absence of individual expression in any
freely unfolding stream; it is supplanted by the precise functional
skills he gathers in order to fulfill what he came here to do.
The karma here is quite impersonal and objective. Because he has
been caught up within collective currents, he has vowed to serve
whatever cause will set things straight. The vast bulk of his motiva-
tion and impetus remains hidden, even while the overt intent is plain
and straightforward. There are many forces playing themselves out
through this selfless adherence to what is vitally needed. While this
steadfast manner of aligning himself with a larger view in an imme-
diate compass refines and fashions itself, many parts of his individ-
ual soul constitution are allowed to rest and recover for another day,
and another try at fashioning himself as a living being into a vessel
of light.
Saturn in the Seventh House
H: seeks himself through the other, and what he finds there is
one facet of himself. Then he seeks himself through still another,
and meets a reflection of a different facet of himself. He loads the
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Saturn
stream of interpersonal connections with a question, a longing and
a need. The question is, “What do you make of me?” The longing is
to be granted total acceptance permeated with empowering love. The
need is to be leveled with, confronted from various angles with how
he is actually coming across.
The longing for perfect praise and the need for authentic, candid
disclosure are pitched against each other, in a cross between a sport-
ing competition and a deadly argument. Underneath these quarrel-
ing polarities he sits all alone, separate from the entire drama,
searching unconsciously for the self that dwells beyond dualities.
His karma is that his past record features tremendous attainments
and glaring failures. Both sides are in this lifetime very strong, and
both sides deny the existence of the other. Very rarely does he get
down to the place inside that encompasses all of him. For the most
part, he splits his world drastically down the middle, and plays out
the impeccable and the provocative in alternating waves of blind self-
dramatization.
His ultimate destiny is an open question, as he tests himself in the
arena of interpersonal dynamism, trying on for size endless masks
and roles. His most difficult challenge is to sift the debris of exteri-
orized personality and find himself somewhere inside, peeking out
at him and saying, “Where have you been? I’ve certainly missed you!”
Saturn in the Eighth House
is impulse is to become, during the course of his life, something
he has never been before. His drive is to make sure that he gets
there, and that he makes the most of every stage of the journey. He
is responsive to the entire spectrum of human experience, yet is grad-
ually selecting out those facets of life-as-lived that can carry him for-
ward toward exploring and discovering further dimensions of self
and world.
His abilities in engaging and drawing forth what is possible are
superb, and he does enjoy and feel in tune with the central dynamic
of the journey itself in every winding. The karmic counterpoint to
this life’s main point is a gradually evolving search for what is most
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worthwhile in Earth existence. In this life, that search is coming
together into a potent ray of ardently desiring more.
Quite often, such a soul disposition places one directly in the
midst of pivotal events, on the cutting edge of where everyone is
going. The greatest pitfall along this journey is his tendency to avidly
rush out into external events and remarkable experiences, and in the
process to neglect his inner life. There will need to be away-times of
periodic renewal and radical transformation in order for the cosmic
and Earthly forces working behind and through the human scene to
come through into his lifestream, providing the extra spark that
makes all the difference between being overextended and carrying
through on his resolve to partake fully in the bounty of life’s exquis-
ite beauty.
Saturn in the Ninth House
his is the lifetime for awakening and realization. This is his time
to leap beyond the shadow of the lesser self. He has worked hard
to come to a place of inward ripeness. His high selfis challenging
him to the arduous path up the mountain. Every greater stream of
wisdom and spirituality calls to him in a language he intuitively
understands.
His path treads the edge between the broadly universal and the
highly particular. The karma of previous lifetimes has crystallized
into a one-pointed final reckoning with good, with evil, with truth
and with falsehood. He is attempting to come to know himself as he
truly is. Any facet of his nature that remains unregenerate becomes
a distortion chamber that can draw in great tests and huge lessons.
Whenever anybody strives toward such a goal, his entire soul’s
record will be brought forth for final reckoning. There are some who
come to this point and then back off at the last moment. If he should
be one of these, the greater truth quest may be supplanted by an
ironic or skeptical viewpoint, which reiteratively states in many dif-
ferent ways that there are no greater worlds and there is nobody home.
In such a fate of ignorance, a precarious plateau is reached that is
held together only by the power of doubt and self-judgment.
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Saturn
Saturn in the Tenth House
H: stands for the greater good, and aligns himself with what he
perceives to be the collective need. He lives beyond himself in
what he can do and in which role he can incarnate. He cannot be
held to fact and personal limit. Something calls him further, and he
must respond. Greater worlds pour through him, and fashion him
as a vessel of truth; a transpersonal dimension takes him over, and
turns him inside out.
His karma is suspended, so that he can meet the times. Such a
path demands a great deal of cultivation in the art of putting self
aside. If he falters in this, there quickly comes a crushing sensation
of unworthiness. He is under strict orders, forbidden to indulge him-
self in false limitation, for he has volunteered, this time around, to
be fashioned into whatever is most deeply needed, most critically in
short supply, and whatever his karmic background prepares him for.
His eye is on the great work, and everything must be part of that
direction and way of life. Even his own individual substantiality is
placed utterly at the service of this evolutionary moment, in one par-
ticular form, approached as the only thing in the world.
Saturn in the Eleventh House
he doors are open wide, and he walks through them. What to
others are thick barriers are to him wafer-thin and permeable.
His journey moves among many worlds, and pierces through to ulti-
mate dimensions. There is no ceiling, no floor, and no fixed form to
his world. In solid Earth situations, he brings a message from beyond.
Very few souls can remain alive and in tune with such a total exis-
tence. It stretches ego, and places one outside all norms and shared
patterns of perception. Most souls who move through this place will
drop down one leap, into contenting themselves with being one who
implies and points toward there being far more to life than meets the
eye. In this guise, he can play the edge between the worlds, and not
be forced to be out on his own.
The karma preparing the way for this stage is having come through
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all sides of the human drama and having recognized that there is fur-
ther to go than repetitive circles of familiarity. "The greater realm of
this expression becomes a sphere of communion among all levels of
consciousness, to the point of visionary attunement to the ultimate
destiny of humanity. This realm touches the stars, asking suspension
of disbelief and the courage to journey onward fo the furthest hori-
zon.
Saturn in the Twelfth House
e has always dwelled within, and now he dwells even deeper.
His task is to keep the inner worlds a living part of human expe-
rience. His leaning is toward the contemplative and the profoundly
introspective. He is searching out his many lives, and living time-
lessly. Soul memories and future probes loom up before him. He
finds his way through all sides of them without preference, and with-
out attachment to any one as all-important.
The karma he is part of has almost no boundaries, no contain-
ing time markers. All flood together; pasts and futures are with him
now. He feels compassion yet distance in relation to every human
pattern. He is looking into the void and sensing the invisible pres-
ences. Utilitarian necessity and personal melodrama are equally for-
eign to his nature. He stands apart from himself, musing upon the
infinite journey. In crisis, he can draw down miraculous interven-
tion. In subtle realms, he can navigate instinctively and knowledge-
ably. He dwells in the magical atmosphere and the inward tone of
what is behind nature and the karmic wheel.
Much is open to him that he can never reduce to separative dis-
course, but back in there where the light-lines converge, that which
will become the heart and soul of the future is being worked upon
inwardly. For those of worldly inclination, all of this is like a sentence
in prison, and many treat it so. For those who travel gladly in the
mystic ways, this is the one place where one has no strings. He does
not fall for the appearance of outward manifestation, as he has felt
and known between and among, and no stark idolatries can satisfy
the inner traveler.
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CHAPTER 12
Alpha Omega
N 1977, a tiny yet pivotal new planet or planetoid was discovered
by science. The name that was given to this new body was Chi-
ron. This name fit with the hyper-materialism of the 1970s, as it
suggested a life-renewing impulse in a way that was accessible and
obvious. However, the invoking of centaur energies is a cutting-away
of the power of this new planet. It brings it down to the same liter-
alistic approach to greater energies that characterizes the interpreta-
tions of the asteroids by astrologers who can think about planets and
asteroids, but cannot live the power of the cosmos.
The true inner name of this planet so recently discovered is Alpha
Omega, which essentially means the place of linking between the Sat-
urnian origins of this solar system and the Jupiterian future con-
sciousness being powerfully seeded in these times. The new planet
changes time. The conceptions of time that have frightened and sub-
dued human free initiative in modern experience have always insisted
that time moves one way— from past, through present, into future.
Alpha Omega directly brings in a time current flowing from future,
through present, into the past.
This time current has been called various names, such as the
dream-time, but it is best understood as a power from a future world,
sending back a living impulse to assist the present-time world to
organically open toward the future. The primary purpose of Alpha-
Omega is to restore the balance in timing and rhythm, so that the
much livelier and more deeply energized future currents can bring
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their gifts into present time, thereby significantly heightening the
active will of humanity. .
What it takes to open into this extraordinary opportunity has
already been discovered by thousands since 1977. Most pivotally, one
must clear one’s past record, clean up one’s present- time energy
stream of life involvement, and set sail for the future with confidence
and vibrant responsiveness to the prevailing winds of collective des-
tiny. For those who do this, what they are finding is that who they
had previously seemed to be now changes at root, and a stream of
future karma so counterpoints the stream of past karma that they
can at last be completely here in present time, with an immediate
bodily feel for what is coming next. For the few who take this all the
way, Alpha Omega delivers a much greater punch than the 1970s or
1980s could allow.
The three outstanding characteristics of a total Alpha Omega
experience are: 1) One bonds closely with guiding beings who bring
a concrete, Earth-affirmative, body-centered way to live life with great
joy and freedom; 2) A multidimensional awareness seeps through
more and more, encompassing all sides of existence and uncondi-
tionally loving, in a grounded fashion, the essence in everyone; and
3) One’s sense of self leaps into a permanently expanded condition,
fluent and entirely independent of external conditionings and lower
mental asteroidal rumblings, and knowing oneself to be linked directly
and indissolubly with one’s greater self beyond time, which becomes
a palpable force in everything one does.
The new planet is a tremendous course corrector, allowing the
dark depths of human fear and doubt to yield to a vision that can be
entirely actual. It radiates future presence and says, “We have much
further to go on this journey of Earth discovery. Let us catch our sec-
ond wind, and be on with all that is here.”
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Alpha Omega in the Signs
Alpha Omega in Taurus
nce before when Alpha Omega moved through Taurus, Pluto
was discovered. When Alpha Omega moved through Taurus
more recently, between the mid-1970s and early-to-mid-1980s, this
planet itself was discovered. Here we have the aspect of fresh begin-
nings toward the civilization that will be in full swing when Alpha
Omega next moves through Taurus, a quarter of the way through
the 21st century.
The fiber of the new civilization began to be felt by those who
were searching far in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This fiber has a
quality of formative plasticity for all of existence, nothing already
fully formed, and the inside design of life quickening the pulse within
the Earth to draw forth a yearning within the human body and soul
to become much more open, pliable and responsive to something
unknown and yet fragrantly familiar.
This exquisite vital force can only be accessed by those who sense
life as a whole coursing through them. Nature’s bosom yields mater-
nal seeds that sprout in the ready soul. These can then grow and
unfold deep inside, and produce all the while a feeling that “some-
thing in me greater than myself is drawing me toward an ever-greater
willingness to receive, to allow, to let be and to enter within experi-
ence in my world, sensuously yet without attachment.” This current
generates in those who carry it most strongly a stalwart conviction
that a collaboration between the heart of creation and the innermost
nature of the human being will radically renew the Earth in the full-
ness of time.
Alpha Omega in Virgo
uring the turning tide of World War II, and then again from
Dt; to 1995, Alpha Omega plowed through the deep furrows
of Virgo. While in this sign, Alpha Omega challenged the Vesta
assumption that “everything in life is such a struggle that only by
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mobilizing an army of subselves can we function successfully in the
world of today.” ray
As a counterpoise to this grey perspective and taken-for-granted
critical negativity, Alpha Omega in Virgo brings such miracles as the
defeat of the Fascists or, in the 1990s, the putting behind us of per-
sonal and private depths of denying the call of Eafth existence. Alpha
Omega in Virgo is a fine-tuned, intricately woven discovery and
exploration of the world beyond dualism. It is a quite delicate and
subtle entering within Earth’s inward places, and finding there an
intact memory of all goodness that has ever graced our beautiful
planet.
A conviction wells up in those who strongly carry this current
that being clear, available and ready to do one’s part opens a space
for constructive endeavors and “doing-things-right” to prevail. There
is in this particular dynamic a re-fertilizing of the common ground.
Especially between 1993 and 1995 there is a cutting-through of doubts
and the denials to draw forth the pearl of great price, the place within
each one that is self-renewing, vibrantly true and so in tune with the
Mother’s design, that there comes a perfect fit between what wishes
to emerge in each one and what needs to occur in the whole envi-
ronment for life to flourish rightfully.
Alpha Omega in Sagittarius
Fe" 1948 to 1951, Alpha Omega streamed through the sign of Sagit-
tarius. In this sign, creative interest is born, an interest which sur-
veys all that is around and wishes to participate actively in making it
possible for joy, spontaneity and free play to liberate the human spirit.
Such an impulse does face initial obstacles, in that human history
has been full of the misuse and distortion of life forces for person-
ally indulgent, wayward impulses. A seasoning and maturing there-
fore needs to take place in this realm, so the emergence of a genuine,
free Alpha Omega-in-Sagittarius vibrancy comes more after moving
into one’s forties than before.
The most characteristic quality of the mature Alpha Omega in
Sagittarius is a wondrous delight in both witnessing and partaking
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Alpha Omega
in that which arises when the shared lifestream is devoid of arbitrary
preconditionings or skeptical inhibiting factors. It is a matter of imme-
diacy, a jumping in to the middle of total experience. For those who
carry this current strongly, there develops in the mature form a cel-
ebration of shared livingness that honors as well all aspects of pain,
struggle and striving, even to the point of welcoming into the human
mix every side of life experience from the most ecstatically high to
the most prolonged, obdurate, long-fixed patterns, which will yield
slowly to the good news that “we really are all in this together.”
Alpha Omega in Pisces
hroughout almost all of the 1960s, Alpha Omega went down
under the subtle waters of Pisces. There, startling revelations
began to make themselves felt wherever human souls were able to go
deep. Many of these profound stirrings were timeless and spread out
from there, way back and way forward in evolution. All times and
all places converged at the point of realization.
This energy wave has become freely and openly available ever
since that time, whenever individuals or groups dive to the bottom
and search for those inspirations and awakenings that appear in the
deepest regions oflife in the Earth. Those who carry this current
especially strongly dwell outside of time, inside that place which sus-
tains Earth life from aquatic levels. Their imagination is permeated
with a certain mystic rapport with totality, and they contain within
themselves a complete and viable antidote to the poisons of time
encasement and mentality stasis. They will bring this bounteous trea-
sure to the surface when their inner voice says, “The tides are shift-
ing; we must now share the great secret, and hold nothing back.”
Alpha Omega in Leo
n the early 1940s, and again in the early 1990s, Alpha Omega became
|Fee of itself through the sign of Leo. With Alpha Omega in Leo,
a potent presence began to permeate nature’s ethers with fiery Christ
vitality. This quickening majestic spark is so striking and at-the-very-
center-of-it-all that individuality itself becomes overwhelmingly
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empowered. The Christ within craves embodiment and full access
to the core of Earth experience. "
This incarnating stream can only express itself at peak creativity
by free individuals following their vision wherever it leads, with con-
fidence in who they are and faith in their world to work with what
they bring and to take it further. Those with this current strongly
coursing through them will carve out a place of honor in their biogra-
phies as beings who can bear the weight of their true ‘P in such a way
that others around them feel mightily encouraged to go further in
their journeys. At their very best, they will be a vehicle or grail-cup
of Christ Living Waters, evidencing in their bearing, and in what they
know inside, what it really means to be a God-sent human being, a
child of the universe, a forerunner of the divine multitude who will
redeem the Earth.
Alpha Omega in Aquarius
Fe" the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, Alpha Omega looked toward
the New Era, the Aquarian Age, as it gathered momentum in the
sign of Aquarius. The mind of Juno has, throughout the 19th and
2oth centuries, forged an ever-tighter band around the human grasp
of form’s requirements. By the mid 1950s, this rationalistic mania
had convinced everyone that scientific progress could replace deeper
human values. Alpha Omega in Aquarius is geared up to turn prag-
matic intelligence back upon itself and, underneath this blanket denial
of a broader lifestream, to again come into alignment with Cosmic
Intelligence.
Those who have this current strongly have a fascinating and
extended journey to take up. They must first investigate how far men-
tal approaches can take them. Then, when the barrenness of the iso-
late mind comes through to them loud and clear, they will commence
a different journey altogether, that involves breaking new ground
toward a consciousness that will set the stage for the Aquarian Age.
This consciousness counters all compulsive technical Juno orienta-
tions with a way of observing and fathoming phenomena that endows
everything one looks into with inherent properties of being connected
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with the entire web of life, revealing in itself the Great Mysteries in
such a way that whatever one sees is a microcosm of universal law and
evolutionary possibility simply waiting to be matched by a human
intelligence freed from blinders and ready to be surprised.
Alpha Omega in Aries
Re" the late 1960s through the mid-1970s, Alpha Omega became
supercharged and prepared for its discovery as it passed through
the sign of Aries. This was the time when the pioneering current of
Alpha Omega first permeated in full-on fashion the husk of the as-
usual world. A spectacular, bold, and quite direct energy dynamic
began to shift the way in which humanity viewed the earth dance.
Especially strongly, this was a body awakening and an energy acti-
vation, strong enough to take hold of people from their roots and
turn them completely around.
In the last years of this period, there came to the fore, in those
who were ready, visions, dreams and seed-impulses toward an
absolutely different future. For those who carry this current strongly,
there is a passion for fresh beginnings, for what can be between peo-
ple, and for the vision that comes when the soul is stripped bare and
one presents oneself before the creative powers and asks to be shown
the way forward from here. This is ultimately the co-creative mas-
tery of skills and ways of life that grounds cosmic currents through
the body into Earth-relevance, with a liberating impact upon all
notions of limitation or assumptions that there is no way for full
power to be accessed. This one says, “I am the way.”
Alpha Omega in Libra
riefly during the mid-1940s, and then again briefly during the
mid-1990s, Alpha Omega discovers the edge of change in the
sign of Libra. This dynamic catalyzes transformational and meta-
morphic human emotional crossroads. It generates an encompass-
ing field that says plainly and unmistakably, “We can do it. We must
do it. We shall do it.”
This is the great rallier, the one who spurs changes. The feeling
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here is that everything is opening up rapidly and, if we dare, we can
and will break through to the other side. For those with this current
strongly manifest, an open-ended, full-dimensional journey through
the world draws them ever closer to becoming freelance artists who
spread opening-into-the-new everywhere they go. They sense that
greater levels of reality are right there, if only they [Link] from the
social circle of shared vibrational fears and hesitations to the greater
circle of living beings who together uncover true community—a
way of life that begins from the previously existing shared currents,
and uses them as a springboard to catapult into a new world where
change is the constant.
Alpha Omega in Capricorn
rom the early 1950s to the mid 1950s, Alpha Omega climbed a
high mountain in the sign of Capricorn. Those with a need to
see further found ample support from deep inside the Earth to under-
take a great and extended journey.
Only after one’s mid-forties does this journey come all the way
through into its true destination, and only the few can take up this
arduous track. It involves looking hard and long at everything one
does, and all that everyone else does, persistently probing and ask-
ing where it all is meant to lead.
The great difficulty of this journey is that it must topple all idols
and every side of self that stands in its way. For those with this cur-
rent strongly motivating them, a stream of firm guidance brings tests
and initiations into the higher reaches of vision and coming-to-self-
hood. If they take up each of these points of ring-pass-not, they are
ushered into a supernal realm inside of which they can work, at a
distance, to keep the links alive and bring to the world a level of wake-
ful truth sufficiently far-ranging to foster and inspire the very finest
in each and in all.
Alpha Omega in Cancer
Ren the late 1930s to the early 1940s, and then again from the late
1980s to the early 1990s, Alpha Omega formed a fresh lifestream
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Alpha Omega
within the catacombs of Cancer. The asteroid Ceres, the most pow-
erful of the asteroids, had in the 19th and 2oth centuries a strangle-
hold on the sign of Cancer. This produced an ever-more-pressing
force field, invading all home, family and community-containing
vessels and pushing upon these previously protected realms a hyper-
mental current of atomized intelligence, fragmenting and devastat-
ing the matrix of human connection.
Alpha Omega in Cancer draws in a resurgent Divine Mother
energy, enabling the healing, restorative side of life to recreate a basis
for future family and community. This current manifests as vital
reawakenings within previously dormant nations, ethnic groups,
group endeavors of every kind, and family atoms, in such profusion
that just about everybody is pulled into closer allegiance and involve-
ment with their roots or their vision for the world.
For those who carry this current strongly, a generosity, helpful-
ness and life-generative impulse takes charge and leads them far into
intimate regions of shared care and concern. They feel committed
to and stretched to encompass the real needs of others and what needs
to occur in their human and natural surroundings. Most of all, they
know with inner certitude that they are the ones chosen to lead the
parade, out of the thicket of ancestral karmas and into the budding-
toward-brightness of what is meant to happen when people gather
together and cradle amongst them the child who will bring abound-
ing joy into the fertilities of Earth.
Alpha Omega in Gemini
rom the mid 1980s to the late 1980s, Alpha Omega came home to
F its own most extraordinary expression in the sign of Gemini. The
greater twin, the one who lives within and remains linked directly with
worlds and dimensions beyond human conception, is here given its
most ardent and compelling call to aid the lesser self who has gotten
carried away with a world of delusion. This urgent call comes again
and again, from so many places that one cannot escape the inevitable
step of bringing one’s divergent worlds into closer alignment.
The single most restorative of all human impulses is one that seeks
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to reconnect surface and depth from a place of vision, and a light-
filled presence of “showing up” for the first timé. For those who carry
this current strongly, there is much more that can be attained in this
stream. It starts with breaking one’s world open, and insisting upon
believing in one’s own first-hand experience. It follows this up by
daring everyone else to heed their furthest dreds, their core striv-
ings, and their embodied desire for more. It can even lead to enter-
ing the living future, scouting out ahead and finding out for oneself
and everyone else that the greater lifestreams are fully accessible, and
that the visionary future can be lived into now, if the intrepid ones
suspend disbelief and take the plunge into the open spaces, welcoming
the weary Earth travelers to come home into the place where their
deep self has always dwelled.
Alpha Omega in Scorpio
rom the mid 1940s to the late 1940s, and again from the mid 1990s
IP the late 1990s, Alpha Omega takes its most drastic leap in the
sign of Scorpio. The asteroid Pallas has been turning the Scorpio
stream against itself during the 19th and 2oth centuries. This most
potent of depth energies has despised and destroyed itself because
the places it has gone have been too much for anyone to deal with.
The worst of this self-stinging, manifested in the atomic bomb,
spurred those with Alpha Omega in Scorpio to find somehow a way
through the terrible dilemma of humanity’s deepest creative forces
becoming a basis for death and destruction of humanity and the
planetary organism. Alpha Omega in Scorpio throws all available
forces into a full-scale attack on the barrier of negative emotion and
the collective shadow of memory endlessly pulling backward.
Those with this current strong in their veins are compelled by
irrevocable prenatal resolves to give their all to the cause of “total-
breakthrough-or-bust.” They feel with intensity and desperation that
anything removed from this pivotal issue is somehow quite secondary.
Those with courage and vision in this group will break the spell of
negativity, and come upon a realm devoid of limitations—that very
world which, all the ancestral memories and dark voices murmur, is
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forbidden and cannot be found. When they get there, they will bring
with them the deep-driving evolutionary edge of human karma,
streaming forth into galactic awareness and allegiance.
Alpha Omega in the Houses
Alpha Omega in the First House
W: are given an invitation to place our own personal, special
qualities at the service of an extraordinary shared process. We
do this by making available what lives within us whenever it is called
for, as soon as we can recognize the call. When we respond by bring-
ing all that we have directly into what is forming on the spot, some-
thing arises that is simply not possible without our particular presence
and participation.
Yet, because our level of involvement is integral, woven into the
fabric of the moment’s threshold, neither we nor others will give
much attention to how crucial our part is. Instead, we provide a bowl
of receptive readiness for free interchange, and instinctually we know
to refrain from loading our finely crafted bowl with predigested ideas
of what might need to appear there.
We are committed to setting into motion a living design, which
can be formed whenever all who participate are willing to put aside
preconceptions and focus awareness upon the still point in the mid-
dle, which is a presence of love as beholding and cherishing the fresh
gifts and treasures that are all around. Thus we place ourselves on
the line to assist in a loving circle discovering its own uninhibited
way of giving freely of itself to the whole of existence.
As we learn to partake in such fragrant wonders of beautifully
opening the circle, whenever the circle can be called, we gradually
realize, despite our own reserve toward self-consciousness, that the
ready will we carry instinctively is the one indispensable ingredient
to bring the focal point into manifestation in right timing, and in
ever-deepening ability to grant full power to this subtle way of just
being there.
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Alpha Omega in the Second House ~
e stand as ourselves, in the middle of the formative matrix of
WAVE worlds. We surrender the part of mind that stays on top
of phenomena in order to begin to develop a new dimension of mind
that has as its primal ground an already existing, totally shared real-
ity. The separative arena of a personal intelligence keeping its world
in working order is being metamorphosed into a telepathic band of
shared awareness that maintains what lives between and among with-
out staunch attachment or any past-fixated ways to cut the energy
and narrow the focus. As a result, we become avid first-stage partic-
ipants in truly understanding what is needed for outward material
existence to reveal its mysteries and its intrinsic fineness, in such a
way that there inevitably follows a clear recognition of how to fol-
low through on what is asked.
In order to enter authentically this grace-filled way of thinking
and living, however, we must put behind us the suspicious instincts
and doubt-oriented mentality of the decadent phase of civilization.
In the early stages, we must most sharply and decisively uproot the
racial pattern of clenching and tightening when change is rapid, and
when the details of how the next step will make itself known are not
yet clear. Such a threshold, where the next step is on its way toward
clarification, will become a place of expectancy and glad respon-
siveness as we repolarize our life forces from a self-controlled and
needing-to-be-kept-strict-track-of world to a seed revelation stream
inside the Mother’s Earth workshop, which needs workers who can
listen and heed the signs faithfully.
This is the entry to a way of fathoming life’s mysteries that brightly
trusts what is coming into view, and leaps beyond insistence on guar-
antees and previous proof. It turns out that a circumscribed and self-
referential intelligence base can only spin on its own axis, whereas a
confident way of seeing that stays with what reveals itself permits the
wholeness of existencetocome through at every point and to carve
out a living space for itself that is sustainable and viable from the
within to the without, in a fashion that the human mind finds com-
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Alpha Omega
pelling and satisfying, whenever that mind is attentively yet restfully
mobilized to notice the way the world is meant to be.
Alpha Omega in the Third House
A: soon as we come to terms with the inescapable reality that the
sense world is totally alive all around us, we also commence our
striving to rekindle that total aliveness inside our body and our imme-
diate energies. We take our cue from the magical, vibrant impres-
sions of nature in the raw as we open our being to take in what is
rising up to restore joy and vitality.
Our path here is simple and straightforward. All we must do is
to strip away any negative assumptions or binding habits in the way
in which we interpret and evaluate our fresh experience. As we do
put behind us expectations, demands and characteristic poses, we
enter the flames of what is happening in this very moment. Instead
of being burned, we are cleansed, purged and deeply revitalized. A
surge of power comes through and takes us away, breaking our shack-
les and forging a new world, and the adventure returns.
The very moment we contact this welcome relief of being there,
everybody around us catches the drift of what we are experiencing
and pulsates to this rhythm as far as they are able. What we are doing,
in a larger sense, is inaugurating the rituals of an awakening human-
ity. These rituals present their radically healing, catalytic force in such
a way that the abstract and dutiful phases of ritual enactment are
supplanted by our astounding ability to uncover directly what the
coded messages of subtle worlds are pointing toward.
At the molten core of this magical, ritual existence, we become
the obvious choice for shining a bright beam of enthusiastic intent,
to optimize whatever wishes to play itself out in the shared situation
in free spontaneity of ecstatic wonderment. Thus each moment
becomes a celebration chamber for playful exchange and open dis-
covery of each other and the whole. Suffering and anguish make way
for unlimited vistas of mutual activation, which can then go back
down into all the sad and sorrowful places and draw forth the life-
force inside them, until centuries of loneliness and deprivation are
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lifted, and the free spirit can at long last experience the range and
magnificent variety of its expressive possibilities.
Alpha Omega in the Fourth House
n places removed from view, the undersoul of all living beings
| ee: as one the depths of the planetary lifestream. Humanity
is the potentially conscious organ of this living ocean of beings. We
can, if we stir ourselves from the nightmare of what has gone wrong,
strengthen ourselves to become responsive to what is now sending
forth sonar messages of entirely different biological ‘developments
within this Earth into manifestation. We then function as carriers of
profound depth messages into surface realms of commonly agreed-
upon form manifestation.
We stay within the electromagnetic ocean of infinite potential as
we overtly release what we are asked to bring out. Always, the vast-
ness beneath holds us and gives us our being. Out of the timeless
into time, bubbles on the surface form and dissolve; yet we can pro-
ject ourselves far into particular bubbles and make them our world
for a time. Our real contribution, although quite subtle and elusive,
is to echo totality in the particular. We are microcosm-voyagers and
focus-specialists, who keep myriad dimensions moving through us
as we come alive.
If we do sound the depths, and if we do keep tuned into the core
taproot of existence, redemptive housing for humanity’s orphans
becomes our special charge. The forgotten, the not-yet-seen, and the
missing parts find in us the one who knows how invaluable they truly
are. We insist upon allowing the x-factor of the unknown to keep
coming up from beneath, making itself felt as that which disproves
and even shatters the consensus world view.
We are revolutionaries of the deep, intricate restorers of the web
as originally given, messengers of the unwelcome. That which causes
everyone else to pause and ponder is our occasion. Thus, in ways that
may not be encompassed until worlds have shifted, we do everything
in our power to hold open the subtle spaces, so that the strange crea-
tures of the unfathomable deep can haunt and swim under and through
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Alpha Omega
the fixed world of surface appearance. We thereby quietly yet persis-
tently provide access to the other ninety-nine percent of existence,
with which we feel so ultimately identified that to us the magnifi-
cent, ever-preoccupying one percent on the surface seems only one
of many worlds that claim our inward allegiance.
Alpha Omega in the Fifth House
e are out on a limb, exposed, naked, the only individuals who
have already given over their substance into new worlds. We
barely know that we have done so, yet we experience the repercus-
sions of our position in every situation. This is awkward in the
extended transition from everybody else at first making us wrong to
everybody else acclaiming us for the very thing of which we previ-
ously had been accused.
Because the entire pattern is universally misunderstood and mis-
perceived, we are a distinctly problematic presence, in ways which
almost nip in the bud our extraordinary gift. However, the single
most outstanding characteristic of the creative mutation we are incar-
nating is its hardy persistence. Deep inside, we are forging a physi-
cal vehicle that is exquisitely responsive to future energies and
not-yet-manifest ways of life.
We are forerunners and seed-carriers; yet most of us will fail to
blossom. If the ravages of history and personal story drag us far
enough back, we will lose our bearings and be submerged. It is our
otherness, our differentness, our organically unique innovation that
marks our way forward. Thus, in a way that defies previous mental
categories, we represent the chrysalis stage of re-embodiment of the
human species into a more advanced and cosmically whole stage of
evolution.
It will take everything we have inside and more to see this unlikely
and even uncanny situation through. But our cells are aflame with a
quality of being so inwardly alive that, given any chance at all, the
sheer exuberance of being an integral link toward a much brighter
future will carry us beyond even those parts of ourselves that can-
not fathom what is going on down there.
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Alpha Omega in the Sixth House
e are transported on a streamlined journey from one world
WE an entirely different-one. The world we come out of is
characterized by solidities, continuities and consisteneies, which hold
us tightly as long as they possibly can. The werld we are moving
toward is fluent, multidimensional and nonexclusive, and can make
way for absolutely any facet of existence to emerge. - .
We are given one particular ticket from the containing past to the
blown-wide-open future. That ticket is whatever consciousness stream
can bear us across in such a way that in its early stages it reproduces
virtually every chronic attitude of the world we come out of. In its
middle transitional stages, it keeps presenting us with startling evi-
dence that our entire way of looking at the world is hopelessly small
and dark. In the later stages, we breathtakingly view the entire
panorama of our experience self-disclosing worlds upon worlds that
lead us ever further into free cognition.
The middle stages of this great journey are often quite extended,
complex, and so constituted that we are able to keep our previous
conscious mental set until the last possible moment. Nonetheless,
directly underneath this stubborn adherence to order and principle,
a wild and raging tumult of incredible revelations is drastically refash-
ioning the infrastructure of our worldview. When our surface com-
posure finally blows its cover, we will see what we see and know what
we know, and no longer ever again deny any particle of the simulta-
neous splendor. Thus, we are ushered upon a magic carpet into new
worlds-to-be. The tired cloth of that which we always knew will be
our keepsake, as we awaken to the signs that totality is born in the
pulsing of the mind that can bend to all that is.
Alpha Omega in the Seventh House
@= way forward is rugged, but entirely open and compellingly
near. In order to walk forward, we must meet each person in
our path, and empower as genuine and complete an interchange as
is humanly possible. We have two outstanding qualities going for us
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Alpha Omega
in this endeav—or one of awareness and one of energy-quickening.
Our gift of awareness is an amazing knack for on-the-spot recog-
nition and acknowledgement of what is most alive and potentially
worth fostering in the other. The energy gift is an immediate ability
to spark what we see trying to emerge, actively assisting such quali-
ties to find their way, with generous encouragement. Thus, we are
twice-fortunate in both sensing and being able to act upon what we
sense in human interplay and dynamic relationship.
If we harness this double gift into a fully-available readiness to
meet and to strengthen what is most valuable in the other, we will
be walking agents of optimal encounters, who themselves become
tremendously furthered in their own free becoming as they draw out
the other. For we are so interconnected that whatever we do for
another, we do for all including ourselves, in the miracle of raising
energies to the point where all can discover far more than could pre-
viously be known.
Alpha Omega in the Eighth House
W: are being directed to risk everything, to head out into a ter-
ritory that knows no bounds. The only thing we can be sure
of about this voyage of free discovery is that nothing we have ever
been a part of before can in any way prepare us for what we will meet.
The map of the land we are navigating through is held in our bod-
ies, so distinctively and accessibly that at each juncture we can move
forward out of uncertainty by tapping our body wisdom instinctu-
ally and in visionary ways.
The destination out ahead that pulls us toward it is consummate
self-mastery. This is our obsession, and represents an end in itself. We
are not seeking answers, reasons, other worlds, or a state of pure being.
Instead, we are hot on the track of fully-embodied capacity to meet
our existence, in total willingness to move with whatever is there.
A great passion surges through our cells, lighting up a blazing
pioneering trail. Thus, we head out into a vast unknown completely
devoid of familiar properties and yet precisely synchronized with our
nature and the full range of what we are capable of. Such a journey
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is so worth taking that anything tamer and more predictable becomes
for us a prison house. Our way of being is wild and venturesome,
and there are no hiding places that feel very snug for very long when
we are built this way.
Alpha OmegaintheNinthHouse | __.-
hat we know we share, what we are coming to know spills out
all over, and what we need to know motivates us completely.
We are avid to break through to living wisdom, and to assist others
in doing the same. Our life is built around the search for truth and
the dissemination of truth. Every time we are able to see what we
have not seen before, or reveal to another a missing piece that lets
them see what they have not seen before, we come into an exquisite
combination of vibrant attention and surpassing interest.
We have no preference for either the solitary side or the socio-
cultural side, as both carry equal and quite similar value. There is
one tremendous boon along this path. Because we refuse to fall for
any arbitrary distinctions between self and other, we are granted a
truth-eye that is dispassionately, unblinkingly there to see whatever
is to be seen. Thus, we come to a place inside where we see ourselves
in a virtually identical way to how we see others.
This vision is the cornerstone of the planetary civilization of the
near future, in that such a vantage point sooner or later arrives at its
inevitable conclusion, the point to which it was built to come—
beholding each and every point of light, including one’s own, in its
true place within a galaxy of lights, all of them linked by light-lines
of gossamer consistency, and all together forming a vast colony of
living beings, each one phosphorescent with its own truth-striving,
giving it a unique stature and its own rightful place within a total
light organism in the eye of God.
Alpha Omega in the Tenth House
W: are tapped upon the shoulder. It is whispered in our ear that
we are chosen to transmit to everyone the tidings of the Un-
limited Way. In every situation, there is a point, a resting place in the
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Alpha Omega
eye of the storm, where what is essentially, ultimately true can be
brought through in ample measure. In order to be available to that
point in unfolding events, however, we must be at all times vigilant,
on call, and willing to remain steady and clear at the heart of every
situation.
This is a high and demanding path. Its one major obstruction is
that it is the one way of being that the mass mind has come to deny
altogether. It is broadly believed, as an article of faith, that each and
all are out for themselves, and that impersonal, objective needs and
factors are hopelessly abstract and removed.
We are mobilized here to disprove this terrible lie, by ever more
sharply and intimately fusing what lives in the encompassing whole
with our own most cherished values and concerns. Thus, we leap
forward into representing what is truly needed for everybody to evolve
further, and we do this from our innermost being, devoid of received
notions of duty or altruism. Instead of martyring ourselves to a corpse
called “public opinion,” we consecrate ourselves to the living body
called “the real good of the whole.” When we do so, every gesture,
every step in that direction, is inherently satisfying and whole. To
serve a living whole breeds fullness and resonant chords in even the
slightest move toward heeding the species need that touches us so
profoundly.
Alpha Omega in the Eleventh House
circle of light enables us to walk the Earth while bringing the
heavens livingly into the Earth. We belong to a greater stream,
one which encompasses the universal human destiny. This stream
has no entangling strings, no special beliefs, no partisan insistence.
Instead, one simple credo links those who follow the multicolored
thread of planetary sisterhood and brotherhood. That credo is instan-
taneous solidarity and support for the free becoming of each and all.
This credo, when applied, becomes graphically concrete and quick-
ening in its influence. What we do here is move right into and go
with potentialities as they come forth. Thus, we experience coursing
through our blood a vast forward motion that is entirely willing to
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channel itself through any open streams headed toward the place
everybody is going. -
A surplus of love and joy accompanies this track, so much so that
at times those less lit up from inside than we are may question what
we are doing beaming so brightly, and what in this‘world we could
be so eagerly looking forward to. In this strearh, we have no words
to answer such a question, but we do keep beaming, and we know
quite clearly that there is everything to be eagerly looking forward
to in this world.
Alpha Omega in the Twelfth House
W: are living in two entirely divergent worlds. When function-
ing in the surface world of the as-usual currents we are incog-
nito, and operate innocuously, without causing a ripple. When we
are down within the sacred precincts of our hidden chambers, we
become an entirely different being. On the inside, we are completely
given over to greater forces, and feel as though we have always been
in here, navigating the subtle waters like a dolphin of the deep. In
truth, we are streaming through a realm that has always been here,
has for a long time been a secret, and has for a short time been entirely
unknown in surface existence.
These underground chambers harbor radical currents of plane-
tary regeneration, which must work undisturbed, without generat-
ing controversy or conflict. Thus, from a mysterious and magical
level inside of sublime knowingness, we find ourselves working in
the nighttime, between lives and in altered states, to bring through
peace and restoration of wholeness and sanctity. It may even be that
our own surface self forbids us to realize ourselves what we are doing,
but the telltale sign of dwelling much of the time underwater is that
the further in we go, the less alien we truly feel, when our subtle being
is one of those that journey far into the dark night, where all is stun-
ningly bright.
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CHAPTER 13
Uranus
VER SINCE 1781, Uranus has been a pivotal factor in all greater
initiatives launched with cosmic blessings. It was clear in the
bright early days of the new American nation that this was a
new world, the beginning of an entirely different stage in human evo-
lution. Many of the visionaries who participated in founding the
United States of America were granted life-changing, new and
immensely different ways to see the world they were forming.
The effects upon the Earth of the Uranian awakenings into broader
spatial consciousness have been beyond all human conception. Uranus
takes hold of the most highly evolved part of someone and leads it
further, so that it can then bring the rest of the person along. It does
this by expanding the scope of consciousness in quantum leaps of
seeing further and knowing more.
Uranus is light-filled, pioneering, and audacious. It does not honor
previous boundaries or assumed limitations. It heads out for open
space, and does not look back. This planet has been the single most
potent influence in the heavens during the 2oth century. It has given
sufficient access to greater realities to neutralize or minimize the
brain-bound sides of human intelligence. Telepathy, clairvoyance
and a previously unheard-of clear-seeing are among the faculties
greatly stimulated by Uranus. However, much more importantly, this
planet leads into an awakening to who one is, in a much more lumi-
nous and life-giving vista. Through this coming to oneself afresh,
unhindered by tight, constricted notions of selfhood, Uranus acts to
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bring truth back into the world, at the same time that falsehood and
delusion threaten to take over all consciousness.
Unfortunately, folly and exaggerated images also work in the
Uranus sphere to counter this brightening influence. The dark power
operates through this sphere to take hold of magnificent visions and
turn them in various distorting directions. These include grandiose
pretensions, proud exclusivity, wild speculation and, most of all,
abstract ideas that deny altogether the common shared realities and
their intimate contours.
This attempt by the dark power to keep Uranus away from trans-
formative capacity was largely successful from 1781 into the 1970s.
When Alpha Omega was discovered, the Uranian possibility was
given a huge lift, and is starting to come through in a much more
effective fashion now. By far the pivotal thrust of Uranus is to take
the cutting edge of human knowing and seeing, and give it food and
space for growing further. Whenever a given individual consciously
enters the Uranian domain with sufficient balance and integration
of character already developed, that individual is welcomed into a
place that cannot be talked about afterwards but which offers, with-
out strings of any kind attached, a lucid and absolutely open dimen-
sion of consciousness that recharges everything in that person and
says, You can be all of yourself”
The part of this Uranian journey that very few people yet under-
stand is that, for all its expanse and spaciousness, its essential qual-
ity is implicit and intrinsic, and really a recollection or restoring of
what has always been known but recently forgotten. Thus, Uranus
reintroduces human awareness to one’s many selves, one’s true core,
and those beings with whom one is ultimately connected. In its cos-
mic, inspirational way, Uranus makes it possible for an unfallen,
high-voltage realization to strike often enough, and from enough
sides of the spectrum, to stir anyone out of the doldrums of sleep,
and keep at it, until at last they break through the husk of shared
negations and say yes to the universe, yes to the Earth, yes to them-
selves, and yes to each other, with an exultant release into recogniz-
ing and acknowledging what is really going on here, and what it
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Uranus
means for these who are willing to enter experience with open eyes
to gaze upon the wonder that is creation.
Uranus in the Signs
Uranus in Taurus
Re" the mid-1930s to the early 1940s, Uranus shook the cobwebs
off of the sign of Taurus. Collectively, this was the forming time
for a new planetary culture that will come in fully when Uranus comes
full cycle to Aries again. The first stirrings of the Aquarian Age man-
ifestation involved a much deeper penetration of the Cosmic Christ
into Earthly depths of grounded experience.
An extraordinary fertility of visions and quickenings toward worlds
yet-to-be characterized this time in its higher stretches. The con-
certed effort by darker powers was to bombard the collective imag-
ination with pictures of terrible impending events, so that intimidation
and fear could grip everyone and keep them back from recognizing
what was being seeded from above, and from living into it fully.
Those born with Uranus in Taurus are the ones who contain within
themselves the original, naive roots of an entirely different sensibil-
ity. They have a concrete, palpable involvement with humanity’s
future condition. Those few in this generation who follow this through
all the world changes will eventually be the faithful upholders of the
driving necessity that all be made ready to receive and affirm the
goodness and beauty of an expanded lifestream that honors the essen-
tial gifts of each one unconditionally, and opens a space through
which there can arise a culture that blesses and fosters the awaken-
ing individual, in such straightforward terms that no one can any
longer deny the formidable presence of a new human becoming.
Uranus in Virgo
hroughout most of the 1960s, Uranus did spade-work of tremen-
dous variety in the sign of Virgo. Collectively, this was the
moment in history when the 21st-century way of life briefly came
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forth and revealed its nature and extent. Most especially, this fea-
tured an ability within each participant in ecstatic circles of discov-
ery to reach down inside, to find worlds within worlds that had no
past-centered social currency, and had as a result to begin forming
a different world system, even if it would take forty or fifty years to
make it possible. ” :
The dark power made significant inroads into each one’s mind,
filling the darker side of mind with a nagging idea that “I am the one
person here who cannot really make it through.” Because this self-
concept was all-pervasive, this doubting mind snatched away the
promising seed-buds when the collective going got rough, and
replaced them with a long sequence of trials, testings and temper-
ings that would eventually season and mature the hardy ones.
Those born with Uranus in Virgo are granted one great gift, which
will find its placement in the 21st century—an immediate awareness
of what can lead forward and of what will pull everything backward.
This awareness, when cultivated, refined and distilled, becomes in
the most daring individuals an exquisite, intuitive knowing of how
to forge practical steps into the new world, as well as how to step
aside from pitfalls of every description. There will be a few, born
under the Uranus-Pluto conjunction in Virgo in the mid-1960s, who
have been around at every critical juncture of civilization, who rec-
ognize clearly and can draw forth quite lovingly in each one what
wishes to emerge toward a viable future.
Uranus in Sagittarius
hroughout most of the 1980s, Uranus catapulted and careened
throughout the sign of Sagittarius. Collectively, this was the most
dangerous period in the 2oth century. It was the last time when the
dark power held almost complete sway over the entire culture. When
this came to its fullest extent throughout the mid-1980s, there was
present in the world a feeling of abject defeatism and that everything
was out-of-control. The dark power strove to take hold of every poten-
tial spark of consciousness in everyone, and to invert it into a self-
mocking and externally-driven compulsiveness.
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Uranus
The hope of the times lay strictly in exceptional individuals who
found themselves terribly alone and unsupported, and who were pushed
to the wall in seeking what inside of them could be reclaimed from the
nihilism of the times. These few became undefeatable, profoundly
committed to bringing the dim light on the far horizon closer in.
Those born with Uranus in Sagittarius have a dual nature that
allows them to stretch between vastly opposing polarities and grad-
ually find their common ground. Most of them experience the final
ravages of the old civilization in such a way that they will be slow to
come out of the shared sensation of shock at the impact of all that
has gone wrong.
Those individuals who spring forth out of this bleak discourage-
ment will be clearly characterized by an avid enthusiasm for enjoy-
ing and participating in the edge between the old world and the new,
throughout the first quarter of the 21st century. The leading figures
in this generation will have a brightness, quickness and fluency of
rapport with every side of existence, free from judgment and parti-
sanship. They will thereby be the first full-fledged citizens of the
expanded humanity stream of the Aquarian Age.
Uranus in Pisces
rom the end of the teens into the late 1920s, Uranus overhauled
Fie ancient, deeply unfathomed realm of Pisces. This was a time
when much that had been brewing and building up inside the col-
lective undersoul began to seep into external manifestation. Ghosts
and echoings of myriad pasts swam into contemporary relevance
with a vengeance. The individuals who had the capacity to meet with
tragedy and suffering and keep going into it became charged with
prophetic currents from ancient past to far future. This was a time-
less time, a stretching watermark phase in which every possible force
was altogether there, and the inner soul of the human being was filled
to the brim with the ritual drama of humanity evolving.
Those born with Uranus in Pisces carried a current that weighed
them down with melancholia, and a sense that all good things were
ending. The dark power takes hold of the Pisces experience and turns
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it into dread lamentation and a bitter feeling of life-slipping-away.
The individuals in that generation who had the depth of soul to feel
what they felt and wake up within it—these rare few went on to stay
in touch with all the subliminal humanity currents to such an extent
that they could, whenever called upon, witness and feelingly evoke
what everyone was going through. What had irf the dld Pisces been
passive, fatalistic overwhelm became transmuted through these few
into a poignant yet inwardly steady identification with the hidden
reaches of human experience. Even in the most terrible and neglected
corners of value erosion, this combined with tireless hépe for the col-
lective body to regenerate itself at the core.
Uranus in Leo
rom the mid-1950s to the early 1960s, Uranus founded a new
world civilization in the sign of Leo. Collectively, free expression
of innovative individual qualities began to be first permitted, then
encouraged, and ultimately championed. There was a tremendous
burst of new life in astounding ways.
The dark forces instigated a formidable reaction to this flower-
ing of individual vision by reducing all sharply-etched levels of cre-
ative discovery to media cartoon caricatures, which became a cult of
celebrity. This then virtually destroyed the work of spreading what
was freshly beginning inside the human heart.
Those born with Uranus in Leo are graced with one particular
strand of knowingness that can be a keystone of the new era. For this
to come through, however, it must be carried in the face of scorn and
slander, and rediscovered over and again regardless of discouraging
voices all around. Those who emerge at the turn of the 21st century
with intact Earth-worthy sparks of the future will then be able to
plant these as genuine crystal matrices that contain within them-
selves such brilliant Christ-attunement that, wherever they are planted,
life blooms joyous and free.
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Uranus
Uranus in Aquarius
Tea most of the second decade of the 20th century, Uranus
became emboldened and empowered through the sign of Aquar-
ius. Collectively, this was a time of the whole vision expressing itself
with revolutionary fervor and long-range evolutionary potency.
The counterforce was equal to the task, and instituted a system-
atic program of infiltrating the ranks of every emergent stream with
the accuser, who turned everybody against everybody else with
supreme cleverness. This was the greatest triumph of the anti-force
ever in history. It spread confusion and disarray, where there was
meant to be clarification and renewal.
Those born with Uranus in Aquarius have an unblinking ringside
view of epochal events unfolding before their eyes unforgettably. Their
task is to record and take heed of all that occurs and then, after they
die, to give all that they have seen to the angels, so that the angels can
bring Earth-viable inspiration for the Aquarian Age. A rare few in
this generation reap in their late years an initial harvest of what they
have beheld, and give everyone a glimpse of the thematic grandeur
of the 20th century experience, when all that was disappeared some-
how, somewhere— and everything unknown and uncharted started
looming into view in uncanny and utterly fascinating ways.
Uranus in Aries
rom the late 1920s to the mid-1930s, Uranus blazed a trail of
F entirely new initial impulses in the sign of Aries. Collectively, this
was a time of reckoning, when the battleground of old and new forces
reached a fevered pitch in every sphere of life. It was exhausting and
consuming to be part of such drastic times. Few could stand the heat.
A dark power experienced a great upsurge of dominant strength.
This became a total onslaught upon the human will, even to the edge
of attempting to engineer a radical, complete takeover of humanity
by searingly demonic energies.
Those born with Uranus in Aries forge the path of putting every-
thing they have into one specialized impulse toward the future. They
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live and die by the fortunes of their particular focus of possibility.
The few within this generation who outlast their own considerable
youthful wildness and rawness become harnessed to great stars in
the heavens, and steer by cosmic navigational guidance from an ini-
tial driving force of personal enthusiasm to a full-on alignment with
the galactic reorientation. This brings them in digect touich with vast,
sharply-pointed forward impulses that are vitally continuous and
steady in bringing out what is utterly new and different, from the
greatest heights into immediate life application.
Uranus in Libra
Re" the late 1960s to the mid-1970s, Uranus enjoyed a season of
cultural renaissance in the sign of Libra. This was collectively a
time unto itself, during which many wondrous worlds could be
entered upon freely and imaginatively, and taken for an extended
time wherever they would go. Most prominently, this became the
one time in the 20th century when radical visions found broad col-
lective currency.
The counterforce avidly brought into play the emotional atmos-
phere that none of what was happening seemed lasting, rooted or
suitable as an authentic life-stream. Instead, each and every mar-
velous world was ephemeral yet, within itself, while it lasted, quite
timeless and inwardly restorative.
Those born with Uranus in Libra have an unlikely combination
of incorrigible idealism and starkly unsentimental realism. They are
the ones to germinate and gestate a permanent cultural renaissance
in the early 21st century. Those among them who have a talent for
sharing of themselves that overwhelms the shared reticence of their
generation can audaciously and unapologetically breed vibrant visions,
and send these visions in radiating circles outwards as harbingers of
what is just beginning to come true, and is considerably furthered
by their feeling for a romanticism fused with an uncompromising,
true realism.
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Uranus
Uranus in Capricorn
|Cag the late 1980s to the mid-1990s, Uranus triumphed com-
pletely in the sign of Capricorn. Collectively, this time is the sur-
prising and hard-to-track-down rallying around the destiny of the
Earth as a living being. This single current is so urgently needed that
all the many progressive currents became channelled through this
point of vision and concern.
The anti-power of the times had in this period a great work to
accomplish, and a show of power to push into operation, its main
intention being to take over the progressive programs and seedings
of planetary vision and turn them into totalitarian, fanatical, or divi-
sive, atomized fragments.
Those born with Uranus in Capricorn are ready to dwell inside a
new Earth in large numbers. They are equipped with subtle faculties
that defy previous known categories and give them an integral vision
of all that is occurring both near and afar. They will be the totally
committed Aquarian-Age Earth dwellers. Those among them who
are great ones returning will become open vessels of cosmic under-
standing coming through to Earth undiminished, undistorted and
so sturdy and stalwart that what had seemed to be insoluble long-
standing problems become food for crash programs in turning every-
thing around, inside and outside, as humanity does at last prevail.
Uranus in Cancer
rom the late 1940s to the mid-1950s, Uranus carved out pockets
F of new life in Cancer. Collectively, this was a family time, when
within personal families and larger families, even within communi-
ties and nations, there was being born that which would eventually
overthrow and permanently demolish the family and community
structures inherited from a rural time. Each individual was held
within, and bursting out of, forms and structures that simultane-
ously kept them safe and protected and squelched the free initiative
that could no longer be denied.
The counterforce became invested in one cause—to make the
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families and communities so rapidly and radically dysfunctional that
budding individuality would be crushed befor€ it could develop on
its own. With the aid of television, this task was virtually accom-
plished. ;
Those born with Uranus in Cancer have a personal and inter-
personal life impulse trying to burst out of extrémely hard and tight
ego limitations. Broadly speaking, this task is proving to be extremely
arduous. For the few who can recover from personal'and collective
multiple deaths, without becoming deeply self-distrustful, there
comes a rare opening into a world that disappeared many centuries
ago, and here metamorphoses into a vision of what is right and true,
that bows before no set of expedient factors, and stands together with
all future-fertile lifestreams in perfect recognition of what they are
trying to move toward, willing to speed them on their way with fer-
vent conviction and consecration.
Uranus in Gemini
Throughout most of the 1940s, Uranus potentiated chaotically and
flagrantly through the sign of Gemini. Collectively, this was a time
of such flux that each new development took everybody by surprise.
Events kept escalating toward destructive extremes— and recreative
response in those who could see.
The anti-force made a grandstand play for rapt worldwide atten-
tion in quivering anticipation of ever-worse things to follow. The
inroads made in human initiative and free expression were so deep
that the vast bulk of reinvigorating currents either went underground
or dried up altogether.
Those born with Uranus in Gemini have one great hurdle to over-
come. Having been born in a time of terrible threat and poisonous
emanations, they have a built-in sense of having been somehow
messed-with early on, damaged in their life forces. Regenerative phys-
ical energies must be sought out and fully taken in, over concerted
periods, for them to come to life afresh. For those who defeat the
grim reaper of the bomb, there arises a pristine vision, one that can
both reinstate the origin of this Earth and move out toward its final
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Uranus
destination. Those few who can carry this utopian current livingly,
and with sparkling future-sensing, become absolutely bright, high
vibrational seers who live their seeing, and unequivocally delight in
the total process.
Uranus in Scorpio
Re" the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, Uranus scorched a drastic
path through the sign of Scorpio. Collectively, a sudden and heavy
attack by a dark power brought the various renewing visions and
awakening initiatives to a screeching halt. There then followed an
eerie time of silence, emptiness and, deep underneath, a doom-and-
gloomy atmosphere.
The only signs of something altogether other than terminal cur-
rents began with the discovery of the new planet, Alpha~-Omega, in
1977. Because of this planet’s extraordinary forces of resurgent uni-
versal momentum, there came through a number of fresh cosmi-
cally-oriented streams, including a vast number of groups and
individuals becoming alerted to the possibilities that could be tapped
by heeding inner guidance and opening channels into greater worlds.
These, then, became much closer and more energetically there for a
struggling humanity.
Those born with Uranus in Scorpio are a cauldron of destructive
and regenerative facetings. They contain within themselves every side
of human karma, and will live out many lives in one. The few among
them who are courageous enough to outlive personal and collective
karmas and keep evolving will be the warrior spirits who cannot be
destroyed, nor dissuaded from carrying through with their mission,
which is to feel their way through to that quality deep inside the core
of the human body that can mutate into a fresh species cellular release.
They will be the ones who leap into the void, and come back to life
drenched with such utter aliveness that everywhere they go the world-
dryness will be overthrown and inner sourcesprings will arise.
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Uranus in the Houses
Uranus in the First House
e are charged with a living awareness that will not let us go.
Our nervous system is on fire with the ‘urge to know and to
be. Our world offers us myriad opportunities to discover and unfold
this truth-capacity in whatever directions are most needed.
The full development of this dynamic is something to behold. When
free and clear and unentangled in limited reference points, we are
immediate inquiry-into-truth carriers and orchestraters, even to the
point of drawing forth far more of what is essential and real than any-
one would have thought possible. We do this by starting out afresh in
each situation, stripped of preexisting limitations. This makes our level
of participation high, wide open, and tremendously empowering.
When this influence becomes captivated in the net of self-intox-
ication, we find instead a presumption or haughty taking-it-for-
granted that we are very special people who play by our own rules,
move to our own drumbeat and know something that makes us
immune to shared parameters of commonsensical guidelines of right-
ful expression. At its most extreme, this means that we flaunt our
unique personal flag of being one of the elect, and impose our sta-
tus indiscriminately upon each and every situation. Whether free
and clear or self-intoxicated, we have here the striking focus upon
individual uniqueness, and gifts of consciousness that can bless and
redeem or tyrannically assert arbitrary personal authority.
Uranus in the Second House
W. hide our inner light under the bushel of ordinary affairs, and
keep it there. Working within the manifest details of everyday
events, we fashion ourselves into an effective and anonymous truth-
donor who can work unobserved and unimpeded. It is quite likely
that we will ourselves forget we are in disguise, and end up mentally
figuring ourselves to be just what we seem. If that occurs, our own
essential awareness works strictly under cover, and we do not know
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Uranus
ourselves. When this insulation from direct exposure to the heat of
living awareness becomes extreme and multi-layered, we are sus-
ceptible to picturing ourselves as an object of use or an agent of end-
lessly compounding surface factors. This fragments and trivializes
our vantage point and our Capacity to serve any measure of truth.
The greater path here begins with small and seemingly insignif-
icant serendipitous events, in which a radically sharper beam of aware-
ness cuts through the haze of every day, just where one would least
expect it, and throws an unaccustomed light on what is occurring.
It gathers momentum through our looking for and responding to
the unexpected and the unknown. Eventually, it can build to an
exquisite beholding of the extraordinary, right there within the ordi-
nary, springing up all over.
Whether tapped or untapped, the intended capacity here is to
honor and cherish what is revealed when we had come to assume a
two-dimensional picture of existence and are shown, despite our-
selves, more of what lives inside of self and world than we had thought
we deserved or were ever going to receive. This remarkable sequence
can be either postponed indefinitely by opacity of customary vision,
or brought through in ripe timing, when it really did look as if the
cupboard were bare, and there was no inner food to be found in such
a world as this.
Uranus in the Third House
e wrap ourselves about in the flavors and sensations of the
world in which everybody is hiding. We busy ourselves with
activities that fill us up with what is familiar, comforting and, most
of all, stimulating without calling us to bring anything of our own
inwardness to meet it. We delight in the ruse, and gradually dream
into it quite snugly, together with everybody else.
However, underneath the social roles each one is a living being,
and underneath the plastic and the concrete, the world around us is
bursting with vibrant, wide-open exploration chambers. So we hap-
pen upon repeated variations on the theme of our immediate envi-
ronment suggesting that there is much more here than we yet know.
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This makes us excited, restless, and craving for release into ways of
uncovering life’s hidden treasures. Mg
If we follow this call to where it truly leads, there arises a sponta-
neous and full-throated enthusiasm for life’s journey at every bend
and winding. If we turn away from the risk of adventure and stick
with what has always been there as the common mold; we become
clever and sharp, ready for anything, but only willing to take what is
presented by our lives to socially conditioned and predictable places
of characteristic response and reaction. We become caricatures of
regular people, doing things in exaggerated versions of shared pic-
tures and beliefs concerning what is possible and attractive.
Whether we go into the brightness or see it as on a television
screen, this is the golden opportunity. The flow of existence spreads
out before our eager eyes a great variety of ways to explore and dis-
cover the full spectrum of what is there in nature and in human liv-
ing. Each and every world contains within it ever greater levels of
meaning and value, all depending on how far we are willing and able
to go with the free flow of the abundant stream we are living in.
Uranus in the Fourth House
hen we can see amidst the darkness of shared unconscious-
ness, we usually keep it to ourselves. What we are seeing is the
motivating source-spring behind limitations, avoidances and inward
splits. As we see these terrible dynamics all around us, we sense far
more about what we are perceiving than we are willing to follow out.
A subtle yet pervasive battle is being fought over our inward direc-
tion from here. One side of the battle takes hold of the inertias, the
stopping places, the infinite fears and doubts that bind the human
soul to tight, self-repetitive worlds, and makes them eloquent wit-
ness to the necessity that we pull back from the abyss of knowing too
much. The other side of the battle searches out whatever is most
strong, courageous, and willing inside the true human being, and
invites us to rally our strengths into seeing and knowing.
The vast bulk of this battle is being played out underneath our
ability to consciously track with it. But the sparks from the wheel of
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Uranus
this great struggle keep pressing our immediate atmosphere until it
seethes with much more than we can control or ever stay on top of.
So we attempt to create for ourselves an intact world of safety, secu-
rity and everything-making-sense while in truth, just below this
thickly-maintained surface, every manner of polar force is at work,
either tearing away at our foundations, or awakening us further from
the nightmare and helping us feel and sense a few of the infinite won-
ders that can be fathomed by those who will.
The battle is ultimately decided by the extent to which we fear the
monsters at the gates and decide to enclose ourselves in false reas-
surances, or instead open our being to become tuned in to the way
of the world, in its deeper reverberations and essential value, as the
one place in this universe where the deepest lessons can be moved
through in the fullness of time.
Uranus in the Fifth House
@ life wisdom is mobilizing us to throw off the outward per-
sonality standards, and to become ourselves. In order to make
this driving force the center of our lives, we must cultivate the intu-
itive arts, and concentrate upon creating a space within which greater
truths can manifest their beauty. At the very core of these arts and
practices, we seek to unite with our own true being and to come from
there as genuine self-expression.
Standing directly in our way is the image of a false selfhood, which
has the power to test us, to tempt us repeatedly into substituting its
easier ways for the austere path of inward reckonings and overcom-
ings. We spend repeated vacations in remote places, far removed from
source truth, yet self-convinced that we are right on. At its worst, our
pride builds around itself empty citadels of self-reinforcement and
blind self-adulation. We must over and again see right through our
own miscreations, and begin to grow a life closer to our inner home
and our ultimate destination.
This is a challenging journey, demanding ever-greater wakeful-
ness. It is a rewarding, joyous venture from the sad regions of pre-
tending to be what we are not to that utterly satisfying place where
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there is a match between what is perceived and what is lived. When
we dwell in that place, we can bring abounding life to those around
us, and it is at last a free gift.
Uranus in the Sixth House :
W: are intrigued and obsessed with the issues, the plans and the
opposing forces we meet everywhere in a mentally-fixated civ-
ilization. We are forcefully driven to take up a position, and to be one
of those who decide the common fate. Our advocacy, and the many
interests and activities we form around it, make us emphasize and
insist upon our foremost ideas and visions.
The trap inherent in this life pattern is self-evident, and monu-
mental. In the name of the need, the reality, the urgency of events,
we select and filter and narrow and specialize and polarize. This
results in a self-reinforcing and self-rationalizing spiral into seeing
what we see, knowing what we know, and denying what is at vari-
ance with our ideology and partisanship.
If we follow this track further down the line, we adapt the world’s
most sophisticated and manipulative mindsets toward insistence
upon pragmatic, external, mental mechanisms as all of reality. Even
in a more modest form, we tend here to talk and act as though we
are the experts and our special knowledge weighs heavily and mer-
its an authoritative position. This syndrome is generally considered
to be more than justified.
However, our truth consciousness becomes so enveloped in
thoughts, explanations and endless applications that any integral
vision 1s overturned and supplanted by a fascinating piece of reality.
It is vital that we gradually come to realize that a broader human fac-
ulty of light-filled direct perception is just beyond the prison walls
of our compounding intelligence, and wants in. We can leap forth
to meet it when the business of the world has played out sufficiently
that a more essential form of service appears as the road leading to
life-giving insights and perspectives that regenerate the world.
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Uranus
Uranus in the Seventh House
he arena of interpersonal relationship has become for us the sin-
gle most direct path from self-oblivion to finding clues along
our path to selfhood. Relationship is the fast track, the immediate
way, because our being and the being of the other stand before us,
and we cannot successfully disguise where we are and the places where
we are stuck.
Authentically taking up the sphere of interpersonal relationships
is the most demanding of paths into true selfhood. The false way is
heavily advertised, socially approved, and a very attractive escape
hatch from deeper self-confrontation. The vast bulk of human rela-
tionships involve insidious reversals of what is intended to happen
between people.
In order to tell the difference between the progressive and the ret-
rogressive versions of relationship, there are three basic evaluation
guidelines: 1) In avoidance relationships, great attention is given to
roles, appearances, expectations and demands; in honest relation-
ships, the main focus is upon allowing room for and inquiring into
who is there and what it is that they can reveal of inner truth. 2) In
avoidance relationships, the interactive dynamism becomes hyped
on mutual stimulus and keeping each other as busily engaged as pos-
sible in fascinating diversions; in honest relationships, what moves
between the partners is an ever-unpredictable, always-fresh wonder
and interest in the destiny stirrings coming to birth in the other. 3)
In avoidance relationships, our sense of ourselves is given an egois-
tic slant that magnifies all we are going through, and dramatizes our
personal makeup; in honest relationships, we meet ourselves as an
ongoing mystery that is both inquired into in a deep sense and faith-
fully held as an open-ended path of discovery that cannot be reduced
to characteristic patterns or personal predilections.
We are thus faced here with an ongoing choice between falsify-
ing ourselves for the sake of immediate ecstasies and agonies, and
the emergent alternative of persevering in radical self-inquiry, which
is best furthered together with those who are willing to accompany
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us, but which can never be made into a shared melodrama, or a way
of life that substitutes shared rituals and routities for clear, focused,
naked reflection in the shared human journey.
Uranus in the Eighth House :
ransformation is the current of the times‘that draws us most
Ee. We recognize in our already given nature an incom-
plete, not yet self-knowing creature. Knowing this rnuch spurs us
toward attempting to break through to evolutionary paths beyond
customary limitations. ;
The species we are part of is entering upon an entirely different
phase of shared development, and the new phase is sharply charac-
terized by four awareness issues that open the door toward direct
experience of being part of a renewed species. These four issues are:
1) Can we imagine ourselves as living beings who are naturally in
harmonic resonance with that living being called the Earth? 2) Can
we penetrate our old biological disguise as Earthbound creatures,
and rediscover our original, unlimited vital awareness? 3) Can we
balance our masculine drive to be somebody with the heartful and
exposed feminine participation within all of us, as our central life
gesture? 4) Can we enter upon the visionary tracks of radical self-
overcoming being presently discovered, which ask us to surrender
all previous personal ideas of what was not possible, and to embrace
a version of ourselves that is at first startling in its wakeful, unin-
hibited, full-dimensional individuality?
When these questions and issues become a springboard to tak-
ing up the universal human path of self-realization, all the infinite
possibilities and facetings in which we had previously gotten lost
become minor miracles accompanying the central miracle ofwit-
nessing ourselves making way for the next stage in evolution, in our
heart and body, in full awareness.
Uranus in the Ninth House
W: have been this way before. We have seen many external scaf-
foldings rise and collapse. We ourselves have risen quite high,
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Uranus
and come down again. This time, we mean to take the greater path-
way to the end. We will make sure that every side of self that needs
to be cleared will strongly come up before us, just when we are ready
to move into the threefold dance of first falling for it, then witness-
ing what happens to us, and then unburdening ourselves of that ves-
tigial veil.
Our karmic sensibility is acute, and hovering just over our shoul-
der. Each limited version of ourselves to which we succumb is taken
on, preserving a certain inner distance. Our greater self is in com-
mand.
The one significant and enduring final obstacle, besides these
masks and overlays themselves, is the temptation to seize upon the
closeness of ultimate breakthrough, and use this for the last great
stand of the insensate separative ego. In this position, we are defi-
nitely impressed with ourselves, and we have an underlying soul
memory of how far we have come and of what it has cost us to attain
to this point in the journey.
However, it is imperative that we refrain from premature cele-
bration or self-congratulations. In fact, the final point of reckoning
is in shattering the image the self holds of its great journey, and step-
ping away from all magnitude visions, to arrive at a virginal vantage
point as free of selfhood as it is able to pierce the enticing semblances
of any external form whatsoever.
Uranus in the Tenth House
umanity is asking for some measure of meaningful leadership
ele guidance. We can respond to this call when we steadily
know our own ground. Until we do, we keep to ourselves, and attend
to the final touches of an extended sequence of preparatory steps.
These finishing touches often take a long time, and prove to be the
ultimate challenge.
Until this point in the journey, we have been at root unto our-
selves, but now we come up against the cumulative picture of what
is missing in the shared human arena, and what it will take to bring
through the missing part. We discover, in waves of ever-deeper pen-
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etration to the core of the matter, that the world around us is virtu-
ally devoid of any wakeful participants. 7
We must somehow become sufficiently centered and grounded,
within wakeful clarity of seeing and knowing, that we can speak our
vision and then resolutely stand our ground when the-dark element
in human consciousness does everything in its power to push us away
from those places where we can get through to those who need to
begin to see. “a
The strongest and most tenacious attempt to divert us from ful-
filling our dedication and commitment to humanity“awakening is a
dazzling ongoing sequence of sudden last-moment reversals, destiny
shocks and seemingly unavoidable chains of events that push us out
of direct view. We are here compelled to become so entirely trans-
parent in our truth consciousness that eventually the most frenzied
attempts to throw us off only earn a hint of a smile, as we intensify
the embodied depth of our presence in the situation whenever the
lies begin to fly. In the thick of the storm of world-becoming, we lose
all self-justifying, self-proving edges. We come in now with bottom-
less trust in both the greater reality we represent and in the human
evolutionary surge that we serve.
Uranus in the Eleventh House
hen we enter the first plateau of the free zone of human con-
sciousness, we are given a complex series of initiations. Most
of us stay a while in the first of these, which involves the ground being
taken out from under us, the walls being removed from around us,
and all ceilings as well being lifted from above us, so that we are in
free space and must learn to navigate here without reverting to mem-
ory pictures.
Such a challenge may detain us a very long time, and in the process
reveal to us many cues that point the way toward the free human
consciousness liberating itself completely from the shackles of author-
itarian world-views. Among these cues will be an energy-intensive
way to bring to life in the body that aspect of awareness which aligns
with worlds beyond our own, and has no self-thwarting clauses built
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Uranus
in, no blind spots taken as a given.
Iwo further initiatory stages are open here, and can be taken up
when we have become synchronized in all our senses with a condi-
tion unbounded by standard human assumptions. The second ini-
tiation keys on coming into continuous communion with divine
intelligences. The third initiation keys on bringing back to human-
ity, directly into the human circle, a witness-consciousness free from
all specific angles of perspective.
At any stage of this initiatory journey, the primal urge here is to
divest the self of all the dark energies that accompanied the limited
consciousness of the past, and ultimately to put in the place of these
dark energies the multicolored garment of that selfhood-beyond-
selfhood that has so pervasively haunted the far horizon of human-
ity’s vision.
Uranus in the Twelfth House
|Die inside every point of human awareness that is self-ignorant,
there resides an accompanying force of self-negation. The cor-
porate body of these points of self-negation emanates a subtle poi-
son, which surrounds each single point of awareness with a thick
consistency of doubt and fear.
Almost everybody crashes into the doubt and fear as an impass-
able barrier, then goes back to the apparent safety of self-ignorant
consciousness. However, a few among us are selected to do what we
can in moving more freely under and through the collective under-
soul points of crystallization. Most of us, even in this select group,
will become discouraged by seeming to be the only ones with any
deep feeling for either the specific gravity of what is preventing all
forward progress or, more importantly, the exquisite release and
supreme clarity involved in breaking through the gravity barrier.
The hope of the world resides in one very special grace that accom-
panies this otherwise overwhelming situation. Those who persevere
in navigating the deepest waters under all surface constraints will be
granted aquatic inner companions who can show the way, and who
can give such profoundly warmth-saturated recognition and behold-
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ing that the previous oppression of loneliness and strangeness will
give way, yielding to ecstatic acknowledgement of the treasure that
lies within. Tears of gratitude will flood the world as we recall what
it means for that treasure to be intact, unpolluted by the history of
the world even in its darkest and heaviest self-destructive powers.
fog
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CGOAP TER 14
Neptune
HEN NEPTUNE WAS DISCOVERED by science in 1846,
Europe and America were heading directly into a colli-
sion with the modern condition. Ever since that time,
there has been a dual Neptunian influence, in radically divergent
directions. The life-strengthening side of Neptune has been inwardly
regenerative for those who are sensitized to subtle realms. The pos-
itive Neptune has mightily assisted those on the inside of life to get
their bearings and hold steady upon their path.
This side of Neptune has encouraged artists and the spiritually-
oriented to feel with conviction that they belong to a stream of those
who share their sensibility. At its best, this side of Neptune has evoked
an earthy mysticism that links with the whole from source, and can
move between source and the extended whole with total feeling for
the entire journey as it unfolds. A certain selfless dedication and
poignantly loving quality accompanies this exquisite journey.
The other side of Neptune has been more outwardly in evidence,
and has been a major factor in destroying the last remnants of ancient
psychic faculties and atavistic spiritual leanings. The dark side of
Neptune, however, never puts anything new in the place of the old
psychism, but generates an oppressive emptiness, a void in which no
life can stir. This is primarily a subconscious current, sabotaging all
rightful inward organization of life forces.
The negative Neptune chaoticizes and devastates the formative
design, and brings out wild confusion, self-dissociation and abandon-
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ment to the fates. Most pivotally, the negative Neptune taunts, tan-
talizes and tricks human beings into inversions, reversals and acts
against self and world for which no one would fall if awake and clear.
The dark side of Neptune has been working ever more strongly,
attempting to fend off the next stage in human evolution before it
can really begin. Many souls have been so susceptible to the negative
Neptune force that they have all they can do to feel ea living link
with the world around them.
In viewing the two sides of Neptune, it is crucial that these two
sides be sharply differentiated from each other, and that the broad
astrological idea of Neptune as the planet of illusion and confusion
be shifted into a recognition that the positive Neptune is virtually
unknown in astrological views of Neptune. How could this be?
The most insistent, rabid endeavor of the negative Neptune forces
is to blanket the field, and make the true regenerative Neptune a neb-
ulous rumor. To counter this propaganda blitz, let us say clearly that
the genuine Neptune force is highly structured, intensively real and
fully connected, from root to crown. The essential Neptune impulse
does bring everything together—not pantheistically and wishfully,
but with heart open, feet planted in the ground, and soul knowing-
beyond-knowing the multiple, far-reaching ways in which one is syn-
chronized with all of existence in the pulse of the now.
When anybody unites with a rightful Neptune stream, they will
emanate a permeating, healing, restorative presence that opens the
doors into worlds beyond this solar system, and brings us vast laugh-
ter, cascades of tears, and the poet’s instantaneous entering within
the phenomena of life, with that mixture of gratitude and ecstatic
discovery that is, for all who can allow themselves to surrender so
completely, the most rewarding place to be, and the innermost value
of life in this wide, wide world.
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Neptune in the Signs
Neptune in Taurus
Ru" the mid-1870s to the mid-1880s, Neptune formed the matrix
of planetary civilization through the sign of Taurus. There was
an extraordinary current being born in this time— one that inspired
and encouraged new spiritual movements, new cultural initiatives
and a fresh feeling of hope and of faith in the invisible.
A poignant beauty marked these initial stages of the modern age.
There was a conviction being seeded that the Earth is much vaster
and more fertile, with living forces everywhere, than could ever have
previously been imagined. The Great Mother, the Divine Sophia,
began to sing the Earth’s praises to the heart of humanity. The counter-
movement from the retrogressive side was quite sturdy and implaca-
ble. This generated an insistency upon business-as-usual, human
intelligence convincing itself in its final phases that it could force
Earth to submit to the arbitrary human will.
Those born during this period carried close to them one partic-
ular fertile seed for the new world to blossom, and they met the most
set-in-lead established forces the world has ever known, which tried
to ridicule and push back any innovative currents on the basis that
science and technology were at long last fulfilling their task of human-
izing everything that had been previously alive. Therefore, only the
most persistent and the most well-guided of souls could outlast the
fullest victory of dense denial, and bring through hardy, Earth-wor-
thy seed impulses that could never be made light of once they emerged
through the trial of terminal materialism.
Neptune in Virgo
rom the late 1920s to the early 1940s, Neptune wove an intricate
web of formative structuring, leading eventually to a clear design
for worlds yet-to-be. The Virgoan upbuilding forces operate quite
slowly and gradually. The long-term process that began during these
years bears fruit in the end of the 2oth and beginning of the 21st cen-
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turies. It involves a delicate, virtually intangible but etherically steady
fiber of allegiance to the truth of Earth existenge.
This multi-colored thread reveals itself as an underlying sensi-
bility that makes inroads without becoming overt and bound-up
within the prevailing dualities. This force, which truly is the heart of
the feminine, saved the world in the Neptune-in;[Link], through
the power of prayer, meditation, healing intentions and the resur-
recting power of the Living Christ force coming again into Earth
through the subtle ethers.
Everything that mattered in a deeper sense in these years went
unnoticed by external history. The counterforce became, through
the Great Depression and the various Fascist movements leading into
World War II, so insensately the only thing preoccupying the human
mind and attention that any renewing streams had to work under
cover. The intention of the counterforces was to overwhelm and take
by storm all human initiative. But all the little things they overlooked
became stronger by far than the headline-grabbing beast of destruc-
tion itself ever was.
Those born with Neptune in Virgo usually have the bulk of their
conscious attention absorbed in the external appearances and in
minute bits and pieces of practical functioning. The chosen few in
this generation who are blessed with a sense of wonder and a feeling
for the subtle, inward levels of existence carry a consciousness suited
to hold steady and firm in the thick of swirling forces, and are oddly
incapable of being intimidated or diverted from what they know to
be essential. Their basic task is, quietly and within their chosen sphere,
to bring forth the divine design, in one particular facet of forming a
limitless future where inward fidelity to truth will count for every-
thing, where blustering destructive behemoths will be stripped of
their fascinating semblance, and where all that is behind the sup-
posed power and magnificence will be the clatter of a death mask.
Neptune in Sagittarius
Re" the beginning of the 1970s to the middle ofthe 1980s, Nep-
tune did its utmost through the sign of Sagittarius. These were
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Neptune
the years in which the life current, which will be itself the future age
at full power, became present, mobile and free, directly in the thick
of the most sluggish and fear-struck of collective times.
Virtually all regenerative impulses that are set to change the world
were born in this period. Prominent among these are the movement
to save the Earth as a living being; the full manifestation of the fem-
inine search for a different style of shared living; and the springing-
up all over of direct linkings between the human consciousness and
greater worlds within.
The counterforce became complacent, overtly dominant and
skilled in advanced conditioning methods in this period, even to the
point of experimenting with small groups of isolated fanatical beliefs
self-destructing by nefarious means. The stench of anti-life was upon
the land, and the decadent phase of blind technology was rampant,
almost bringing a “Brave New World” into operation.
Those born with Neptune in Sagittarius quiver to the pulse of that
which is emerging in its initial stages. They are swept up in an energy
tide that will culminate in sweeping away all corroded structures of
a lingering past. These ones are on fire. They are feverish with the
desire for a viable life to be theirs. On their way to the new, they will
fall for every detour and counterfeit as they learn the difference
between easy promises and vitally engaged streams of evolution,
which are marked by steering clear of eager promises, and which
instead deliver the goods of discovering ways to move forward into
freedom that are authentic, irrepressible and limitless in their scope
and ability to encompass all worlds as one.
Neptune in Pisces
rom the late 1840s to the early 1860s, Neptune stirred up the deep-
eee collective undercurrents toward radical revaluation of the
direction the world was going in. There was a crying need for the
inward human being to be once again included within the world-
unfoldment. This could occur only if there were a sounding of the
depths by those who could make their way inside the world.
The counterforce at this juncture sealed off access to other reali-
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ties, proclaiming the shallow waters of shared assumption to be safe
and devoid of ancestral specters. Never was there an official ideol-
ogy more deceptive and out of touch with the déeper core of human
existence. This primitive form of humanity oblivion became so deeply
embedded that all divergent realities seemed for a time toeats leelects
and leave the surface world to itself.
Those born with Neptune in Pisces were world- weary with the
ending current of all that had previously been organically woven and
sensed as indissolubly linked. It was as though the freshly discovered
planet Neptune had to sink down below all previous levels into a vac-
uum of dramatizing what the world would be like without it.
A rare few in the Neptune in Pisces generation escaped from the
tired and anguishing soul condition into which they were born, and
brought into manifestation distinctive glimpses of everything miss-
ing and forgotten, in their first-stage surge of stalwart refusal to allow
any further negation of the unconscious and the Greater Worlds to
be perpetrated upon the solitary and stranded inward being, who
deserves better treatment than total exile.
Neptune in Leo
Eee the mid-teens to the late 1920s, Neptune initiated the cen-
tral core of human individuality rediscovering itself through the
sign of Leo. This was a time when those who dissented from the mod-
ern mass-consciousness indoctrinations became visible, vocal, bold
and even popular, championing myriad versions of the overwhelm-
ing insistency and value of the individual in prevailing against all that
would deny the human “I.” Never was there a time more vibrant with
creative innovators and defiant mavericks. They came from every
side, and brought their own spark, which would ignite the world
toward the 21st century.
The counterforce, the retrogressive power, was having a great time
in this period, insinuating a number ofingenious ways to use the
individual discovery momentum against itself. All of its blows to the
human being keyed on hyping the personality level of self-expres-
sion while undercutting the inward core of embodiment of selfhood.
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Neptune
These efforts were quite successful in derailing and diffusing the many
source-springs of deep renewal, often making them into a travesty
and a gross caricature.
Those born with Neptune in Leo often carry foundational pieces
of fresh vision and creative possibilities, but it is truly remarkable
how thoroughly the vast bulk of these have been turned back. The
precious few whose strivings can overcome the personality sweep-
stakes and stay true to origin are characterized by unique and breath-
takingly different ways of re-imagining and re-conceiving the who,
what and why of humanity being here, and what it will take to rekin-
dle the flame of the immortal self.
Neptune in Aquarius
rom the last years of the 1990s to the first years of the second
decade of the 21st century, Neptune streams and soars through
the sign of Aquarius. This is the end of the Piscean Age, harkening
to the Aquarian Age.
The primary current that will manifest in this period is a broad-
scale, startling, quite effective universal human impulse to make
everything over and completely release the old. Down deep, this cur-
rent becomes a searching out of the roots of human consciousness,
and an insistence upon permitting the human consciousness to do
its real work. On the surface, this current becomes an overwhelm-
ing, contagious desire to serve the Earth and to cease partisan strife
and destructive practices.
The counterforce will bring a candidate to run the world, and this
candidate will be the greatest human being ever to be fueled by strictly
human intelligence. The brilliance and the flashing charm of this
being will attempt to usurp the power of the collective conscience in
its awakening, and to use it against itself. However, a circle of future-
inflamed individuals will expose the sham and redeem the world.
Those born with Neptune in Aquarius will master intelligence
and lead it over to truth consciousness again. They will see through
all objective mechanical systems, and revision every aspect of exis-
tence toward the Aquarian Age. Amongst them shall be many great
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ones who are awake within the depths, and know unblinkingly who
they are, from the moment of birth to the moment of death.
Neptune in Aries
rom the early 1860s to the mid-1870s, Neptune became radical-
le through the sign of Aries. There was a-‘hunger, a longing, a
sharp need for new worlds to explore. A feeling surfaced in many
places that what had been before was fast losing all power to hold
people under. A restless urge sought to break through to the future,
and hoped to do so straight-on and without stopping for anything.
The counterforce had open season through this influence, to turn
brother against brother, innovative current against innovative cur-
rent, each force against every other force. The result was an atmos-
phere of strife, a turbulent and disturbing sequence of events, and
in many ways the confirming of the most drastic sides of Aries to
become ever-further convinced of themselves. The overall issue was
revolution and evolution, and the relation between them.
Those born with Neptune in Aries often became advocates, pas-
sionately standing for a fiery set of beliefs and convictions and reit-
erating and reasserting these at every opportunity. Most of all, they
attempted to select out one special strand, and to challenge their
world to rise to meet the beacon light of that special strand, and fol-
low it all the way. At their best, these were the great forerunners who
fashioned a unique vision and fearlessly wedded their destiny to it.
Neptune in Libra
BF: the early 1940s through the mid-1950s, Neptune stretched
and stretched, and inaugurated a cultural awakening in the sign
of Libra. This influence was dramatic in emphasizing, across the
board, the issue of the destruction of human community, juxtaposed
to the regeneration of the shared human stream.
An astounding series of events highlighted the ability of the coun-
terforces through World War II, the bomb, and the Cold War, to make
absolutely evident in mushrooming profusion drastic, frightening
attacks upon any possibility of human groups, nations, and even
279;
Neptune
humanity as a whole staying linked with each other, themselves and
a higher power. The rapidity of destructive momentums was unprece-
dented.
Meanwhile, the force for good was tremendously active as well.
| Throughout this period, there was uncovered ever more strongly a
feeling for all the missing levels of existence among particular groups
of shared vision, and an enthusiastic gathering toward generating a
cultural renewal that was miraculous given the level of tension and
anxiety in every sphere. Among these currents, most outstanding are
the multiple waves of interest in the intricacies of the human psyche,
and the fervent idealism of groups of artists and desperate young
souls finding new ways to express themselves.
Those born with Neptune in Libra breathed the air of evolution-
ary urgency and criticality from birth, and felt inevitably called toward
entering upon some kind of brotherhood-quickening at all costs.
The generation reputed to have leisure, advantages and every kind
of good fortune was cursed with the overwhelming emotion that the
end of the world was at hand and there was no time to waste. Thus,
the pressure-cooker generation seethed with every force in the world,
and gradually learned to use these heavy strains and suspicions to
fuel an open-ended path of transformation and perpetual restirring
toward a living future. This will prove to be the group that discoy-
ers how to grow and develop throughout the lifespan, and to survive
the most dazzling sequence of youthful-folly excesses on the road to
wisdom.
Neptune in Capricorn
rom the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, Neptune climbs the ardu-
F ous peaks of Capricorn. This is the “truth-or-consequences” time,
the period in which all progressive and retrogressive influences are
at their peak. The progressive forces are orchestrating an impressive
series of earthshaking turning points, with full outer-world impact
every time.
The pervasive theme of these epochal events is of each deep self
being asked to gather its innermost vision and drive toward an
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absolutely lucid observation of what is going on, thereby fathoming
what it will take to change direction by staying tuned. This stream
of consciousness-alerting and conscience-renewal is working its magic
despite the world’s most massive campaign ever launched against the
inner human being. ;
The terrible show of strength by the anti-force’ phen and builds,
fumes and hisses quite visibly and premeditatedly, in a way that looks
like the end. Essentially, the battleground involves the onslaught
against the roots of humanity versus an extraordinary rallying of
human truth-consciousness in tireless pursuit of a way to bring every-
body out of the mid-2oth-century doldrums and prepare them for
an entirely different world..
Those born with Neptune in Capricorn can be characterized most
sharply by their determination to witness the end of the old world
order as alertly as possible, and further their even deeper will to be
in on the ground floor of the triumph of humanity against all oppres-
sors. This particular generation contains within it many souls who
have seen every pivotal stage of collective-destiny turning of the tide
before. This time, they are ready to view— and partake in—the great-
est spectacle the world has ever known.
Neptune in Cancer
Fv" the early years of the 20th century into the middle of the
second decade of the 20th century, Neptune made a farewell jour-
ney through the sign of Cancer. These were the final years of an intact
and liveable social situation for those who were living in the most
advanced places. Even as these years progressed, events folded back
upon themselves in memory, sentiment, and the prevailing of the
final stages of human measure.
The counterforce was marshaling huge antisocial forces for the
future. Most of these remained hidden beneath the social surface in
this period, but continued to haunt dreams and the inner side of life.
Consciousness pressed to the surface, where everything was secure
and as-usual. Allegiances held to traditional patterns, in fond embrace
of what was fading fast.
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Neptune
Those born with Neptune in Cancer were pulled backward, even
while in truth being exiled from the i9th-century dream. The excep-
tional ones in this group ran in the precisely opposite direction to
that of their peers. Where the others saw something to cling to, they
saw the last vestiges of fabulous delusions. A corrosive and unspar-
ing vision uprooted them from the mass, as they gave voice to the
first full-scale view of what it meant for all containing forms to shat-
ter at once. For the rest of the Neptune in Cancer generation, an
incomprehensible, ever more extreme series of collective disasters
pushed them ever further back into a wish and an echo of lost worlds.
Neptune in Gemini
Ren the late 1880s through the 1890s, Neptune streaked through
the multiplex sign of Gemini. This was the time when the cross-
roads of the world featured every possible current going in every con-
ceivable direction, which made stretching to meet the outcome
impossible. The progressive currents looking toward the new cen-
tury of light featured an expectancy and an excitement that almost
could not wait for the next great scientific discovery or vivid event
in some corner of the world. All oflife was pregnant with infinite
scope of what could be.
The retrogressive forces of a dark power kept a tight lid on vision
and consensus opinion, and turned the social arena into a worldly-
wise and cleverly critical way of viewing the world. This ploy was
hugely successful in driving the greater inspirations back, and per-
meating the atmosphere with surface currents to stimulate the mind
and orphan the heart.
Those born with Neptune in Gemini were the great carriers of
contradiction and ambiguity—simultaneously bright and dark, awake
and asleep, alive to the future and cut off from much of what would
be needed to make any future possible. They were impatient to throw
out any baggage that would impede progress, and often lacked the
discernment to recognize what was most vital and pick it out from
the rest. The true visionaries among these carried an eloquent and
multidimensional perspective upon whatever they spotlighted. At
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their very best, they caught the hot pulse of the whole new view, and
moved with it a vast distance from tight and closed worlds to a charged
and uncannily on-the-mark, light-filled mobilization of being to the
furthest horizon.
e
Neptune in Scorpio «
rom the mid-1950s to the beginning of the 1970s, Neptune pierced
lei the subterranean caverns of the sign of Scorpio. A depth view
of these years yields a vastly different picture than that from a sur-
face survey. Overtly, the picture was the intensification, to the point
of obsession, of each polarizing tendency in humanity. This led to a
dramatization, in the later years of this period, of every. social force
moving into diametrical opposition to every other.
The negative counterforce was hyperactive in these years, and
flooded the popular awareness with ever more alarming and hor-
rendous images of a world being torn apart. Deep underneath this
repulsive image arose everything in radical contradiction to the offi-
cial presentation. Something was coming to life inside the human
soul, with total regenerative potency streaming through it. This under-
ground movement burst through the surface insistently and tri-
umphantly. Its emphatic message was that the core of the human
being would, and must, in the long run, throw off the yoke of false
appearances. In the short run, the power of the inner self would keep
coming to itself in darkest nightmare and in the underbelly of a world
that denies its most vital progeny.
Those born with Neptune in Scorpio are living in two worlds,
each one choosing what proportion of their interest and involvement
goes into either side. For them, the surface world into which they
have been unceremoniously herded as the only world, tends to be
barren, starkly void and breeding of despair. The depth world, with
which they feel so close and linked, yet which officially has disap-
peared, tends to be for them hugely full-to-overflowing with places
to explore and discover. Yet it takes immense courage and strength
of will to take up the inner journey, especially since most of the first
layers of plunging-deeper yield horrendous realizations and agoniz-
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Neptune
ing confrontations with the collective shadow and all hidden kar-
mas, which must be plumbed by someone who is willing.
Neptune in the Houses
Neptune in the First House
W: hold to the place of entry, and we retain the naive willing-
ness to meet whatever comes along as though for the first time.
Our existence is poised at the verge of infinite worlds. Every one of
these is equally part of the fabric, calling us toward participation and
identification within the whole of life. We are flooded with grace in
subtle variations, each one allowing us to cleanse the doors of per-
ception regularly and rhythmically.
We are exempted here from becoming heavily bound up within
the pattern of life-as-usual. Instead, we stay open and available in such
ample measure that our most vibrant impulse is to find a way to come
back freshly into experience. We are part of a greater current that can
be brought into the immediate situation only fragmentarily.
Despite the abundant blessings we are given, much of our atten-
tion focuses on the one great blight of our lives, which is that the ves-
sel we are forming ourselves into is so cracked that we cannot bring
through us the full power of what we sense within. Worse, the situa-
tion dilutes it further. Afterwards, time and the human mind and mem-
ory diminish whatever impact did momentarily break through. We
find ourselves captured in a web of vibrational fade-out, which so
haunts and threatens the subtle wonder-world in which we truly dwell
that there rises up on every side a sense that our island of destiny-swept,
grace-saturated, wide-open being is not capable of being spread to oth-
ers in anything more than a faint echo of the original overwhelming
potency of surrendering into the life-wave in each moment's pulse.
Neptune in the Second House
W: are inherently and thoroughly braced for the many steps we
will be called upon to take as we step down into the world-
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as-it-is. We are well-equipped, prepared to endure considerable inter-
nal and external clamor and clash around each further step.
The greatest turbulence we encounter is external. As we bow low
before the altar of the next denser level toward embodiment, we come
up against a thicker consistency of forces and impreSsions to field.
Each time the lesson and the process are quite sirfiilar, yet each time
we forget what we had to go through at the threshold of the previ-
ous stage. It involves a quite subconscious sequence‘in which we
adjust our sphere of impressionability to absorb the poisons of greater
density vibrations, and then neutralize them by recognizing their
pattern and their meaning.
We find gradually that we are superbly capable of becoming fully
operational in the next mode we are brought into, as soon as we know
the laws and requirements of that level in our sensitized, responsive
life-sphere. However, the internal clamor and clash persists all the
while, so that, even though we stalwartly grasp the concrete chal-
lenge of whatever we meet, our own subliminal mind is filled with
chatter. These reverberations from the impact of the density field we
are entering so permeate our consciousness that an organic hesita-
tion frequency cuts through the astonishing clarity of our ability to
meet the objective phenomena, and consistently minimizes and dis-
torts our own strength in observing and acknowledging just how
capable we are to do what we need to do at every critical juncture.
Neptune in the Third House
e stumble upon a gift that is a fabulous wealth for the kind of
world we must meet. That gift is a flexibility and mobility that
can always stretch further, persistently finding new ways to meet any
challenge immediately and actively. This magic wand serves us well
in opening doors, and in allowing us to walk through those doors
and make ourselves entirely in tune with what lives there, no matter
what its form.
We venture freely and at will through the intricacies and oppor-
tunities of a staggeringly wide-open world. Best of all, we are so reflex-
ively, spontaneously, easily there with each and all of the gradations
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Neptune
of impressions that we can even simultaneously link fields with sev-
eral different worlds all coming at us from different angles, and do
full justice to every one of them.
This brand of elasticity in meeting anything that arises on its own
_ terms is virtually a mutation in collective evolution, in that the absence
of such a fine measure of ability to engage has been the great block
to individuals’ and groups’ ability to link and combine forces. There-
fore, we are here crafting a newly-dedicated planetary lifestream, one
that accommodates a pluralism, a multiplicity of ways to be; one that
has a great knack for bending with any breeze, without snapping. We
viscerally sense that every energy we come upon has its part in us,
that nothing is alien, and that we are called to place ourselves directly
in the midst of events and enjoy what happens when someone knows
how to be truly transparent and to steer clear of arbitrary ego-fixi-
ties of any kind.
Neptune in the Fourth House
e receive the total impact of all that is moving through this
world of ours. We take it in, deep and far, losing ourselves in
the midst of it all. We find ourselves again washed up on the beach
of collective cycles. Our special quality is that of making ourselves
available to be flowed through by anything and everything.
This experience becomes so much to take that we pull our con-
sciousness out of it completely, which leaves us radically divided
between what is happening to us and the many ways we tell ourselves
about what we can manage to deal with. These two tracks diverge so
consistently that they operate almost without reference to each other.
This leaves the unconscious yet deeply felt, ongoing experience of
being very much at the mercy of impressions from every side, in full
profusion. It also leaves our conscious process in the bind of filling
awareness with plausible renditions of what would be happening if
we were in control and unto ourselves.
This foundational split, at its worst, means delusion and a world
walled in by fantasy. At its best, it means that we take upon ourselves
the full suffering and profound meaning in the depths of Earth, main-
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taining all the while sufficient mental distance to give leverage and
orientation to the mind at the very moment when energy and emo-
tions are intensely processing everything in life that seems too much
to think about. va
Neptune in the Fifth House «
W: have a very large, wide base for coming to melincdl Our
individual striving is a gathering of common ingredients into
a concentrated form. Each stage of coming closer to being fully pre-
sent is sensed as archetypal, representative and exemplary. We feel
almost no distinction between the world we are part of and our own
core of strength of being. This breeds generosity, affirmation and
free-flowing of self-giving.
We have the golden opportunity to be a unifying, positive force
for making evident what is most constructive and furthering. We
smile upon our fellows, and see in them all that they can be. We con-
ceive in ourselves a form of expression that encompasses and hon-
ors all of existence, with a characteristic flair for making inward
contents accessible and appealing. Most vitally of all, we fashion self
and world into co-creative partners, in an ongoing exploratory process
without boundary.
We do all this so effortlessly and naturally that it might seem at
times that all we are doing is being ourselves, instinctively and straight-
forwardly. But truly, when being oneself is inclusive and devoid of
separative emphasis of any kind, what we have is a loving influence
that does its best by its own shining presence, which makes it seem
that the way to be is given. It is just creatively expansive in the way
selfhood was of course intended to be—and what could be so remark-
able about that?
Neptune in the Sixth House
hat we must do is emphatically, consistently placed before us.
To carry through on the task at hand requires us to put aside
what we would like or prefer, and to concentrate instead on what we
are given to do. We have agreed before birth to take upon ourselves
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Neptune
impersonal necessities, and to do everything we can to work them
out.
This position does not change or grow easy. Whenever we com-
plete a phase of work, the next collective need comes to meet us. Tak-
ing up these difficulties is thoroughly engaging, absorbing all of our
interest and attention. However, for most of us, a part of self looks on
at this pattern, shakes its head, and says, “I live for all, but I cannot
forget about my own needs. Where do I fit in with this world I am
serving so conscientiously?” This dangling question hovers over each
task, bringing the dangers of resentment and martyrdom, and per-
haps leaving an opening for the realizations and reckonings that are
possible when the personal self seems to be left out of the picture, and
a more enlightened point of view is the only way to peace of mind.
Neptune in the Seventh House
ach human connection contains the very same cross-currents we
meet in our entire environment. The special meaning of karmi-
cally intense human sharings lies in their dramatization and evoca-
tion of the broad arena of what moves between and among people
in a heightened, inescapable form. Thus, what draws us so deeply
and irrevocably into fostering key karmic connections is our acute
pervasive sensation that here we have everything we need to perfectly
highlight our pivotal life lessons.
Unfortunately, this way of keying into relationships does have a
considerable shadow side that is at times unendurable. The shadow
side clusters around one pivotal strand, in many variations, which
is, “What happens if this other person is not there for me?” Such an
eventuality seems to be infinitely devastating. In order to head off
such a possibility, we redouble our efforts on the side of emphasiz-
ing whatever the charge is with the other person.
Ultimately, this combination brings us to the brink of being able
to go forward into the interpersonal relationships that call us most
urgently, while beginning to acknowledge that we must find a way
to activate a non-attached, unloaded stance if we are ever to carry
these fateful encounters through from desire, need and fascination
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to being there with the other person and with oneself, in mutual
reflection that genuinely does justice to both poles.
Neptune in the Eighth House
here is so very much that can and will happen when we make
ourselves fully responsive to life’s cycles and changes. A dynamic
orientation plunges us into the risk, to the edge that is there when
we hold nothing back. Most especially, we develop a capacity for inti-
macy, and for sending events much further along than they would
otherwise go. :
The ways in which this fertile energy can express are fantastically
variable, depending on what is generally agreed upon as permissible
or attractive, or where everyone wants to explore. If we find ourselves
in an externally-fixated world, we become the most compulsively
outside of ourselves of anybody. On the other extreme, if we place
ourselves in a social context that puts a premium on a lively, free,
open-ended world of sharings, we can imaginatively bring forth the
most generative of life-streams.
We are remarkably socially impressionable here, for better or for
worse. We are so much our world that our individual destiny and the
collective destiny are hand-in-hand, leading forward, backward, side-
ways, every-which-way, or into whatever is next for everybody, in
one body who lives for everybody.
Neptune in the Ninth House
he spiritual-cosmic dimensions of experience can be as central
to our life as more basic levels are for others. In fact, they can be
much more so. When we key our sensibility upon what is ultimately,
essentially real, we have a rudder to steer by that effectively centers
our entire existence. The navigational skill we seek to master is to be
so synchronized with totality that our every movement becomes har-
monically rightful, clear and in-phase.
Such an ability is worth any and all effort to attain. It demands
mature character development and an inward purposiveness that
only grows ever more resolved and committed. But to what here are
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Neptune
we resolved and committed? The fusion of individual destiny with
what is intended for all. That means making ourselves into an instru-
ment of a greater will.
This path is a lodestar for any who come close. It sets a tone that
is high and true. It if goes all the way, it even becomes an uncondi-
tional willingness at every juncture to rise to the top of what is needed
for everybody to awaken to what they are really doing here, in a liv-
ing and exceedingly well-put-together Earth school graced by those
who recognize the abiding value of such a world.
Neptune in the Tenth House
AAA are called upon to fulfill what we are here to do, as our cen-
tral focus in every situation. This means that there is always
something to shoot for, a standard high in the breeze. We are aware
in some measure that our example reaches through to others and
orders the common existence.
There is a sense of urgency to carry through upon what we have
been given to fulfill. Our task speaks to us from every side, and will
not permit us to ignore it in any way. This destiny situation can lead
to a vast sense of falling short and letting everybody down if we are
not at our best. It is so demanding, so insistent, so pointed that we
are virtually overshadowed by the greater need and its claims.
If we do dedicate ourselves, and harness our forces to this urgent
call, we are here given a tremendous protection, guidance and open
sphere within which to work. We then find that our way is plain and
straight, and that the buzz of complications and contradictions can-
not invade the sacred precincts of the task that is ours. We form our
lives around the need we know we can meet, and there follow fruition,
wholeness and intrinsic rightful steps leading steadily forward in a
progression that has upon it the mark of consecrated service, unre-
served and dispassionate.
Neptune in the Eleventh House
7 surge of excitement, a groundswell of vast momentum fuels our
journey. The common body comes to a head through our activ-
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ity, moving toward the furthest horizon. Each and all sense that we
have what it takes to stick with the edge of possfbility and never pull
back.
If we follow the destiny surge wherever it leads, we are granted
the great boon of free passage anywhere and everywhere. All worlds
stand open, and welcome our tread. If we cannot stretch our imag-
ination and vision to the free spaces beckoning toward a limitless
future, we will instead wrap ourselves about in the fullest drive of a
single given stream of allegiance.
Depending upon the scope and texture of this circle, we can then
move forth into anything, from being the sparkling representative
of progressive evolution in this particular group form, down to being
the one person most likely to succeed in a hypersocial framework of
the common standards dominating all individual initiative. At
whichever level we respond to this current, we surf with great power
and are authorized to show others what it is like when we go all the
way with what we believe in and feel connected with.
Neptune in the Twelfth House
W: feel the undercurrents of the collective existence so keenly
that we form our entire sense of our world around what is not
apparent to others. We miss the surface and its dramas, but we pen-
etrate to the other side of life. There we are surrounded and enveloped
by vast incomprehensible forces leading downward into darkness.
Our deepest urge is to carry the unknown deep as our own inward
allegiance, and implicitly bring it to everyone else.
The dangers here are monumental. We risk becoming a scape-
goat by stirring the collective unconscious and disturbing the sur-
face pretense. We are also skating close to every form of madness and
distortion. Worst of all, we have almost no defense against becom-
ing swept up in extended cycles of taking on the worst of what every-
body is busy denying.
Nonetheless, we have little choice, and backing off from this level
of experience leaves us high, dry, and empty. We are the ones to
become sensitized and accessible to the world-within-the-world. If
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Neptune
we should make it through to places of inward resolution or realiza-
tion, we will bring along with us the worlds of which we are a part.
Indeed, each salvaged bit of essential reality will feed right into the
common reservoir of shared sustenance. It will feed life with the
regenerative substance that can only be accessed by those who dive
deep and far and keep on searching no matter how murky the water
seems.
285
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CHAPTER 15
Pluto
N 1930, WHEN Pluto was discovered, there was in the collective
unconscious or undersoul an apocalyptic atmosphere of strange,
uncontrollable events springing up everywhere, forcing every-
one to pinch themselves and ask whether they were dreaming, or
whether instead something very strange had gotten into the way of
the world. Ever since that time, many people have been forcing them-
selves to grow accustomed to this apocalyptic flavor in contempo-
rary events.
The planet Pluto has the kind ofinfiltrating force that grows
stronger the deeper down you go into the hidden places of shared
feelings and physical densities. Therefore, the outer, surface impact
of Pluto is only the tip of the iceberg, and it is most appropriate to
follow Pluto downward to the bottom of the world, in two stages—
first following the negative Pluto downspin and then, on a separate
journey, tracking with the positive, penetrating force of Pluto.
The negative Pluto is awesome, and dreadfully, terribly big. It
involves an Anti-Christ power gathering deep under the Earth in a
concerted attempt to petrify the human being into a shell of utter
negation. This force operates on conscious, subconscious, personal
unconscious and, most of all, collective unconscious levels. Overtly,
it functions by turning consciousness into an extraordinarily manip-
ulative, controlling worldview, and then commencing an operational
dissemination of that worldview.
Subconsciously, negative Pluto generates a debilitating tension and
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strain that, when made constant, becomes the basic shared current
in decadent civilization. It sows seeds of suspicior; violence and paral-
ysis of will. In the personal unconscious, negative Pluto turns the self
against itself, in a drastic sense involving the bone-deep conviction
that one is oneself the problem making everything miserable for all
others around. This force has become of late alm®st universal.
Finally, in the collective undersoul, negative Pluto is operating in
its own element. There it forms a crystallized power network that
attempts to take over all pivotal governments, businesses and cul-
tural forces, and to turn them into insensate power-grabbers who
are deeply tugged to devour all that they contact and instate hatred
as the law of the Earth. That level is truly chilling, satanic and beneath
description.
The positive Pluto is almost unknown in astrological circles,
thrown in pell-mell with the negative Pluto. Yet it comes from the
opposite side, and operates in a totally regenerative direction. On the
conscious, overt levels, it is only beginning to make itself felt, man-
ifesting as a holding of each one to purpose and inner will, directly
in the thick of the collective chaos and suspicions.
Subconsciously, positive Pluto forges a physical barrier to destruc-
tive invasions, and renders one impervious to all negative influences.
This shamanic initiation into the durable strength of staying-with-
oneself is a remarkable power when mobilized, especially in build-
ing up reservoirs of unpolluted life-force. On the personal unconscious
level, positive Pluto becomes a distinct, palpable, utterly substantive
remembering of who one is, why one came here and, most of all, pre-
cisely how to get on with one’s core of destiny, regardless of condi-
tions. This level is going to be much more powerful in the late 20th
and early 21st centuries.
Finally, in the collective undersoul, where Pluto is at home, posi-
tive Pluto is a linking in to galactic powers that counter the negative
Pluto Earth-takeover attempt with a rekindling of the inner life, just
when it was about to become extinct. But this inner life is not merely
contemplative or meditative, or even apart unto itself at all. It is, rather,
a core energy linking with evolutionary dynamics that recreate the
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Pluto
human form, making it future-ready and inwardly alive in a way
never before seen in the Earth.
This deepest level of positive Pluto working will inaugurate the
Aquarian Age in the second decade of the 21st century, and is already
in place, on tap for those who can believe in and yield into the muta-
tional stream that is, through Pluto, preparing humanity for the
planet beyond Pluto—the one that will take hold of the Earth her-
self and reweave the human world in perfect harmony with She of
the Earth.
Pluto in the Signs
Pluto in Taurus
he Earth roots of the modern condition stream through the 1850s,
the 1860s and the 1870s, when Pluto was in Taurus. The impulse
here is to form a new Earth, the first stages inside the soul of each
individual being who can imagine and foster a living seed deep inside
that seeks to come forth into the world. The conception involves
lengthy stages, protracted delays, and the impossibility of conveying
to others with sufficient intensity what is sensed and known inside.
Those who take up this mysterious force become held within the
matrix of the Great Mother’s potency of re-emergence into direct
access to human consciousness. She enters the innermost soul by
profound and soul-rending crises and experiences of what a world
devoid of the Mother’s presence means. Those who burn through
existing societal structures and then meet the nothingness looming
behind them prepare for refertilization of the deeper ground. Each
one of them strives alone in strange solitude, yet accompanied by
bands of angels.
Those born with Pluto in Taurus can receive and respond to an
entirely new world, bringing visions characterized by exquisite grace
and encompassing allegiance to the whole of Earth evolution. Here
the future worlds are ripened toward later fruition. Those with the
courage and the perseverance to link with the Mother in a time when
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anti-life predominates are granted poignant, unforgettable glimpses
of all that is to be, beyond the grip of a world that has forgotten itself.
Pluto in Virgo
etween 1957 and 1971, there came a wave of souls who incarnate
B right in the midst of the great struggle, when the Cold War heats
up into extraordinary space probes and vast extensions of the battle
into all the corners of the world, colonizing through consumer images;
and technology is everywhere. Only then can the mind witness the
precise nature of what human beings do to one another when they
swear by false gods.
Here we have the generation of conscience—the bad conscience
and the good conscience. All aware members of this generation can
conceive every possible mistake and wrongdoing in the contempo-
rary world, to the point that they find themselves living so many lies
they cannot count them all.
Those few who find inside themselves the counterpole of the good
conscience will link themselves tenaciously with the Divine Mother
inside the Earth, with her call and her cry. They will know in body
and soul that truth which can answer the deception of false security
and seeming containment offered by those with the tongues of vipers.
Most characteristically, these are the ones who cannot be fooled by
words and suggestive pictures. They have seen them all and heard
them all, and now move out beyond the mental fragmentation of
endless mutually contradictory persuasions.
What they move into is a virginal realm of fresh life-forces,
unscarred and unpolluted, where they will thrive and renew the Earth.
These are the ones who will live to tell the story of the greatest change
the world has ever known. They will remember what it was like in the.
1970s and the 1980s, when nobody was living in tune with the Mother,
and the Earth was almost lost to the forces of denial and resistance.
Pluto in Sagittarius
If;the middle of the 1700s, Pluto entered the sign of Sagittarius. At
the end of the 2oth century and beginning of the 21st century, Pluto
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Pluto
stands in the sign of Sagittarius. The primary power of this influence
is creative mutation of the cells of the human species, from life-negat-
ing to life-affirmative ways of being. Taking William Blake as repre-
sentative of the previous historic cycle at its best, what emerges here
is the leap beyond the shadow of previously assumed limitations and
patterns of conditioning and coercion.
Free humanity blazes in the visions of Blake in epic scope, and
free humanity shall restore the Earth through tens of thousands of
those born in the ending of the 20th and start of the 21st centuries.
These follow the path of the Morning Star, and they shall go all the
way. They are born in the most extreme of times, and the arc of their
bow extends into bright radiance in the mid-21st-century, when heal-
ing and generosity will prevail. Many great souls will choose to come
back through this way, especially those who have exhausted their
curiosity and fascination with the baubles of external desire.
The single most unavoidable aspect of Pluto in Sagittarius is instan-
taneously recognizing what will serve the New Earth, and drawing
it forth from its encumbering conditions to place it where it belongs,
showing the way forward by the inherent extraordinary vistas in its
makeup. Those who come through Pluto in Sagittarius will have a
sharp eye for the true gems in this living Earth, as they have inside
of them the same vibrant stream aching to warm and lighten the
weary world.
Pluto in Pisces
n the first two decades of the 1800s, Pluto dived into its innermost
home in the depths of Pisces. A planetary civilization was cradled
and fostered down under there, in spiritual gatherings and in Earthly
births of souls destined to dramatize and epitomize all that had gone
wrong in humanity’s flirtation with its own extinction.
A certain mute despair at the vastness and all-pervasiveness of the
destructive industrial/technical juggernaut arose in those souls sen-
sitive to the inward reverberations of the times. Springing forth out
of this despair, each one plumbed an extreme, seeking sanctuary or
answers. In most instances, they kept to the mass sea of collective
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impressions, looking for resolution within that ,sea itself; and what
they found was a host of fragmentary ways through.
The first four asteroids were scientifically discovered during this
time. Because these tiny planetary bodies are physically insignificant,
and because the mind of science swept over the world in this time
period, denying subtler levels of perception positivistically, the aster-
oids have not been given their due. They represent the shattered,
atomized pieces of mass consciousness which, during the first two
decades of the 1800s, became the dominant motif in England, Ger-
many, and the United States, and later spread everywhere. In these
three nations, there were born those who would intensely suffer the
consequences of the island unconsciousness of the seductive masses,
and would then reflect that suffering in every molecule of what they
produced, revealing drastically what a false civilization does to those
in it who can feel what it is really like down under.
Pluto in Leo
Fe" 1938 to 1957, the decisive years of the 20th century, Pluto
stormed through Leo, without any moments of ebbing or reflec-
tive counterpoint. The tempest was front-line war between good and
evil. Those born in these years have a unique historic perspective on
polarities and their dynamic interplay. The heights and the depths,
heaven and Earth, above and below, are fully activated from both
sides in this influence. It represents an unceasing, lifelong struggle
to come to oneself, and to bridge heaven and Earth within one’s own
creative individuality.
It takes tremendous maturity and stouthearted courage to take
up this path meaningfully. Those who can become so thoroughly
committed to the destiny-striving of the free individual that all of
hell cannot undercut their way forward.
The powers of the deep have been unleashed, and cannot be
denied. The true goodness in the human heart has yet to be heard
from. It contains a power greater by far than atomic energy, totali-
tarianism and the Anti-Christ rolled into one. This is the generation
that meets in the Earth the Living Christ, and finds that outward
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Pluto
Christianity has not yet touched the outer hem of His garment. They
meet the Christ most profoundly and unmistakably in the flery core
of their own individual becoming. Then they encounter reflections
of the same love throughout the Earth, beyond conditions and woven
through all time.
Ultimately, this generation selects out representatives who embody
this ever more passionately as they evolve ways of seeing and being
that transform the very fiber of the world. These hardy individuali-
ties know who they are. The therefore endow the future with the
essentialized message of all cultural pasts, transmuted through indi-
vidual sensibility from decadent, stagnant forms to a grail-cup of
shared revisioning that denies nothing and acknowledges all.
Pluto in Aquarius
i most of the late 1700s, Pluto sparked the deeper vibrational
regions of the sign of Aquarius. During that time, the planet Uranus
was discovered, beginning the modern era on the note of revolution.
In the United States and in France, the attempt was made to over-
throw monarchy and absolutism, and to bring in the new world order.
Both attempts were premature, and led to a damming-up and hard-
ening of the revolutionary impulse.
However, the true revolution broke out in the form of the Roman-
tic movement, and that current fulfilled the inner vision of Aquar-
ius. One pivotal insight made Romanticism so relevant and quickening
to the pulse of human evolution that it has remained the single coun-
terpoise to all raw materialisms ever since. That insight was that every
kingdom of nature is lit up from within itself by a regenerative life-
current that defies quantitative analysis.
The human response to that wondrous discovery was ecstatic,
celebrational and marked by a sense of inward satisfaction and ful-
fillment in being allowed to walk the living Earth freely. At the very
center of this breakthrough was the startling event of a new planet
appearing before humanity’s eye, named Uranus to indicate that a
totally other reality was looming into view.
This new planet refocused the cosmic dimension of human expe-
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rience in the Earth by opening wide the scope of humanity’s knowl-
edge-frontier, and challenging the bold ones to awaken unto total-
ity once again, to investigate objectively all the known world with
the understanding that once material existence couldbe compre-
hensively mapped, more central worlds would gpen up when Pluto
next streams through the sign of Aquarius in the second decade of
the 21st century.
Pluto in Aries s
rom the mid-1820s to the early 1850s, throughout the second quar-
te of the 19th century, Pluto scorched a trail through Aries. The
result was an exaggerated emphasis upon personal life against the
backdrop of a world that seemed full of opportunity and possibility.
Those born into Pluto in Aries stand as beacons of personal and
interpersonal dynamism in the instances of those who had a strong
enough pioneering instinct. Primitive conditions, elemental forces
and a driving necessity to generate overt results combined to pro-
duce stark, somewhat out-of-context figures, each with his or her
own ideas about which way was forward.
Fierce conviction, intense drive and wild restless notions catapult
Pluto in Aries pioneers toward doing the impossible, or toward daz-
zling representations of the human journey in living on the edge of
many worlds. This position is maddening, provoking, incendiary.
Only moving forward counts for anything; the past is burned up,
and the future idealized.
The best of this influence is to demonstrate character and that
special sensibility that comes with rough, hard-headed human char-
acter testing itself in the crucible of urgent critical events and cross-
currents, and discovering that there is vast territory still lying out
ahead for those bold enough to claim it.
Pluto in Libra
Re" the early 1970s through the early 1980s, Pluto wandered
through the many chambers of Libra. This was a time with great
promise, but little to show for that promise at the end. In the middle
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Pluto
of this time, the new planet Alpha Omega was discovered, and this
became the pivotal influence in turning the tide from indolence to a
renewed yearning toward wholeness.
Those who incarnate through Pluto in Libra have about them a
question mark, a sphinx-like quality of destiny-riddle. They feel every
old current, and every new current as well. All sides of human expe-
rience live in them, and the question is, which will they choose? Most
dramatically, will they attempt to reconstitute the 20th-century image
of “the good life,” or will they gravitate more toward a 21st-century
quickening of deep feeling for what will serve the Earth?
Those amongst this generation who grab the backward way will
find themselves eventually slipping ever-further backward. Those
who leap beyond promises and pretty pictures will become catalysts
of shared attempts to live progressively in a fast-changing planet. A
few of these will make a great leap of quantum dimensions, into revi-
talizing the very basis of human connection with cosmos, nature and
other human beings.
This group lives between the cataclysms of societal breakdown
and the opening into an entirely different shared reality. Their true
life-stream forms itself by selecting the most relevant of the old forms
and then infusing these with a future ray that can penetrate wher-
ever courage has outdistanced fear and a new kind of love has put
behind itself the enmities and strife of partisan points of view, on the
way toward identifying one’s being with the entire journey of human-
ity, lovingly formed and appreciated as a consummately beautiful
manifestation.
Pluto in Capricorn
rom 1764 to 1778, Pluto spoke eloquently in the sign of Capri-
F corn. Those who were born into this timing were compelled to
fall short of what they envisioned looming above them. For exam-
ple, Coleridge and Wordsworth, each individually and together, could
lucidly and straightforwardly see an extraordinary pinnacle of human
attainment standing just beyond grasp. Their true task was to point
toward that vista in breathless awe.
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The greatest member of that generation, Beethoven, could as well
dwell upon those heights in his moments of inspired creation. Where
did Beethoven find himself at home when he heard the music of the
gods? It was that place which the 21st-century generation of Pluto in
Capricorn will inhabit together, the way life was,alwaysintended to
be. As Beethoven’s greatest works such as the Ninth symphony wit-
ness, upon those peaks the most supreme exultation 4s a constant.
Those who incarnate through Pluto in Capricorn seek to come
to self-mastery in the full of their powers. They are the great awak-
eners, stirring human consciousness and establishing new precedents
and paradigms. Their finest efforts go toward relinking the greater
worlds with the lesser worlds, in such total conviction that nobody
can miss the centrality and magnitude of humanity’s eternal aspira-
tion to bridge all worlds within itself, so that the fallen human king-
dom can regain its rightful place and inherit the Earth.
Pluto in Cancer
Fe twenty-five years, from the summer of 1913 to the summer of
1938, Pluto devastated the foundations of the sign of Cancer. The
fabric of society was torn, and revealed to be retrogressive and fixated
upon ancestral karmas. Those who were born in these times found
themselves to be placed in impossible conditions—wars, economic
collapse, and the entire world being threatened with imminent destruc-
tion. Fear and doubt became commonplace, and trust and confidence
seemed more and more misplaced and inappropriate.
This was the generation that suffered the dissolution of the old
world order, outside and in. Most of them felt fated, swept along
helplessly in the destructive tide. A rare few were called to recognize
and unflinchingly say “yes” to this flood of collective death and being
right up against the infinite unknown. Their greatest test has been
to resist the temptation to fall back upon a smaller compass of con-
cerns as shock absorber, and to keep meeting the onslaught of events
with willingness.
For the rare few who carry this current all the way, the path for-
ward involves breaking through to a direct spirit connection and then
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Pluto
becoming teachers, showing the way toward tapping into spirit and
totality in order to recreate human culture from the next octave on
the spiral, the point beyond self-sufficiencies, the reconciliation place,
where the worlds converge and fear is extinguished by communion
with source.
Pluto in Gemini
n the late 1800s and the early 1900s, Pluto moved through the ultra-
kinetic sign of Gemini. A tremendous shift in world outlook was
precipitated by a host of societal currents, especially keying into inven-
tions, innovations, huge endings, and overwhelming beginnings. Vir-
tually every sphere of human life shifted utterly.
Those who came to the world in this timing carry the new wave
so irrevocably that they barely hesitate in putting behind them thou-
sands of years of history and trying something new. They push off
from what has become remote and deadly, and enter upon whatever
arises in their path.
Their contribution is to turn their gaze forward and to go onward,
ever onward. They are excited by the first dawning of a multidi-
mensional spectrum of life-experience. They die young, even if they
live to a ripe old age. These are the forerunners, the ones who sense
what can be, what can no longer be kept back on the farm. They are
both victims and at times joyful exponents of modernism and every
kind of “ism” imaginable. Ultimately, they cannot live any longer in
caked-over worlds. They can only harken toward worlds to be, which
they sense are so different that, whatever it takes, they must ride the
wave from snug familiars to something down the road which, once
glimpsed, can never be forgotten.
Pluto in Scorpio
rom the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, Pluto pierced into the hid-
den realms of Scorpio. This influence heralded both the final phase
of the old world hanging on and the initial phase of the new world
being revealed. Both fire and ice are there in Scorpio, in fluctuating
phases. The fire part is cycles-upon-cycles of absolutely incredible,
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instantaneous and overlapping changes. The ice part is the ever-fur-
ther uncovering of deep hidden wells in which aliveness has been
suspended and the inner soul frozen over.
Those who come to Earth during these years bring with them rad-
ical urgency and mobilized intensity of will to redeem the Earth. They
know their task is monumental, and they are convinced that they
cannot fail. They burn with strength of purpose, and ruthlessly hold
to an icy resolve that becomes stronger yet whenever challenged.
Theirs is the depth charge. They oversee the collective parting of the
ways.
Many souls clamor to be born in this turning time, for they know
that they will be empowered to individual and collective repolariza-
tions of miraculous hue. These are the ones who signal by their very
presence that the false aspects of the world-as-it-has-been are
absolutely doomed. What will follow from there is open, and can
only be determined by those who get underneath collective follies
and navigate inside the Earth’s fluids until the secret Being of Earth
shows forth her yearning and her renewing breath. The lost wisdom
of Sophia will then flood Earth’s parched souls, in something-else-
altogether proving to be what the Earth is all about.
Pluto in the Houses
Pluto in the First House
@iae in to the innermost aspects of life in the Earth is a jour-
ney that involves radical measures. We meet every current of
evolution that has failed to fulfill itself. We come upon the unfin-
ished business of the world.
Inside ourselves, we encounter a similar story of jagged edges,
everything in midstream, rough and unfinished. Whether outside or
in, we are met relentlessly by crystallized patterns, fundamental dif-
ficulties and impossible dilemmas, and our part is to be willing to
feel and experience what has been wrought, and then to move on.
Our greatest struggle here is to encompass that which has become
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Pluto
stuck, frozen or fragmented, and to support ourselves through the
process without throwing blame or judgment upon self or world.
Whenever we gather around ourselves a pattern of accusation or
antipathy toward what has gone wrong, our auric field becomes sat-
urated with harsh and obstructive densities. Whenever we instead
release and open and forgive, no matter what, our subtle bodies
emanate a deep and full message that we are available to partake in
the ongoing shared process of searching the soul and clearing the
record, without forcing those involved to feel endlessly weighed down
by the heavy repercussions of the collective legacy involving pro-
found currents of anguish and difficulty.
When that which must be met and moved through is so inher-
ently painful and disturbing, it is helpful to take an attitude of uncon-
ditional support for the searching process and those who agree to
participate in it. When that is the position taken, we provide a tremen-
dous service in opening the doors and admitting light into the dark-
ness, for all to begin to emerge out into the open at last.
Pluto in the Second House
e understand, and know what to do with, the divided mind
Ws self and world when we approach its strife-field carefully
and without presuppositions. When an endless story of disputes, dis-
tortions and mental rationalizations of fixed positions has already
been built up, it does no good whatsoever to perpetuate these by
forming and insisting on further opinions and biases. Rather, we are
called upon here to change that tune, to imagine and identify with
a rightfulness and a wrongfulness from every side, and the possibil-
ity of a more integral point of view after vehement partisan insis-
tencies have been put behind us.
Clarifying the consciousness sphere here involves a minute exam-
ination of every side of experience that, at its best, values truth so
completely that no special pleadings, no preferences, no control mech-
anisms can block the inquiry track for long. We seek here to break
through to a life-sustaining perspective on which we can build toward
the future.
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We are beset by what the human mind has made of the world
whenever it assumes a special, local vantage-point as appropriate for
everybody. This is the breaking of the spell of all attempts to force
existence to align itself with human ignorance dnd self-deception.
Many stages of moving out from long-assumed, privileged perches
will follow.
At each juncture, the question is: Can we see through the veil of
assumption and find underneath that veil a living truth that redeems
the world? Can we admit we were wrong, without cycling backward
into neurotic patterns of guilt and regret? What needs to be seen sets
forth ever-further spirals of grappling with a broader vantage point
than ever before, so that lingering over what could have been other-
wise is self-indulgent. What matters is to stay with the forward track,
stripping away falsehood as we go.
Pluto in the Third House
e have a real challenge here that will extend us to the limit and
beyond if we are ever to meet it. From birth to death, we are
inundated with multiple impressions that cluster around the theme
of decay, dissolution, and stagnation. We meet vivid evidence, com-
pelling indications of patterns everywhere that seem to extend for-
ever and obstruct all forward progress. Especially strongly, we
encounter collective currents of escapism, superficiality and never
getting down to the real guts of life experience.
Discouragement and disillusionment are rampant here, and must
be fought through to some measure of reconciliation with the worst.
Our greatest challenge is to stretch ourselves into such fluent, will-
ing members of society that what at first seemed a hopeless admix-
ture of chaotic problems becomes through our own agency a
springboard to fresh perspectives and returning into immediate par-
ticipation in unfolding events. We must radically simplify here, relent-
lessly let go, and find in the body grace, motivation and health-giving
organic perseverance.
Our greatest temptation in this sphere is to make excuses, to run
away further, and to feel at the mercy of external forces at every turn.
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Pluto
Turning this syndrome around is far less difficult than we convince
ourselves it must be. The cutting edge of the shift is throwing off the
endless complications of previous engorged impressions, and head-
ing directly into the spontaneous flow of what reveals itself now, with
a bright hopefulness that can take further issues that arise as food
for growth rather than further proof that nothing can be done.
We are called upon to turn, and turn again, from caked-over
worlds into sparkling, revitalizing touch with life as it reveals itself.
This is a tall order, against great odds, but for those who delight in
sharp and drastic edges, this one is tailor-made to go all the way from
despondency to alacrity, by discovering which moves further pile on
the load of loose ends and trailing edges, and which moves free up
space and time, making energy available for the collective current to
be liberated into engaged activity and joyous, free moments that are
such a relief after centuries of bondage.
Pluto in the Fourth House
e are thoroughly drenched in collective pathos and tragedy.
From our earliest years, we find ourselves at the bottom of the
well, and we cannot get away from this placement. Our task is to find,
directly within the darkest depths of interior reverberations of human
downfall, a genuine basis for moving forward from here. This can
be won by refusing nothing, and denying no facet of what we meet.
We must get under the heartache and the longings, and come to pri-
mal resurrection.
Whenever we enter the dark night of the soul, it is for everybody.
Our ancestral stream calls us into it. Our previous karmas provide a
basis for it. And the common experience of humanity as a whole asks
that those with the inner strength lay themselves down to redeem
and regenerate the racial unconscious.
The vast bulk of our experience here takes place on levels we are
mostly unaware of. Most particularly, we are up against a retrogres-
sive power that refuses to budge, and sends forth signals that it is use-
less to struggle and strive. This power has made deep inroads into our
own foundational outlook, and must be subdued. The most effective
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steps here are small ones that take up a specific, sharply-limited area
of chronic stoppage, and work within it patiefitly, tenaciously and
slowly until the worst resistance gives way. Absolutely vital are humil-
ity, sobriety and steadiness.
We are tackling a huge set of long-brewing collective conditions,
and this mode of working requires tremendous ‘tonstiaint and self-
less approaches. However, it is not grimly dutiful and thankless unless
we are caught in the subtle seduction of justifying our feelings of loss,
loneliness and strangeness by codifying them into a prohibitive,
oppressive sense of inevitability and martyrdom.
What is asked here is to bear the burden lightly, to foster and instill
the underlying conviction that mountains can be moved, and that
the most extreme situations are the most fertile for self-overcoming
and permanent metamorphosis, in welcoming the weight of the world
to lay itself down and leap beyond the shadow of everything going
on as it always has. This position says that absolutely nothing is fixed
in place.
Pluto in the Fifth House
e pull ourselves together, and gather strength of purpose and
determination to go forward. We unite with those who have
the staying power, and together we strive. Delving into the profoundest
roots of human individuality, we bring up from beneath whatever we
need. The course we take is to target one or two areas of desperate
need for a rallying and reforging, and to make ourselves completely
and utterly available for helping make those areas inwardly realigned.
A warrior’s stalwart courage propels us into the thick of the bat-
tle. We do not count our wounds, or stagger back into self-pity. Con-
centrated will is demanding adherence. Our one great pitfall is
hyper-individualism, which so emphasizes dramatic events and heroic
overcomings that the rest of life is cast into shadow.
We also must learn to welcome guidance, grace and source-springs
of inspiration from greater levels of being. These cosmic forces are
meant to penetrate into intimate depths of co-creative partnership.
We are focal points of vision, relentlessly driving forward. We know
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Pluto
what must shift, and we feel ready to be pivotal figures in turning the
world around from a sick and tired nonbeing to a way of life that is
infused with fresh forces and can make the Earth again a jewel-like
planet inhabited by a thriving, worthwhile species.
Pluto in the Sixth House
AVA are assigned here one special task, to be fulfilled in a defi-
nite, firm fashion. Our life is the preparation for and then the
fulfillment of this task. A great finger steadily points us into our ser-
vice. In one sense, we have the good fortune of being protected from
endless casting-about. However, the carrying-through of what we
have agreed to do is an immense job. It involves exquisite refinement
of skills, intensively fine-tuned application of intelligence and, most
of all, reliable, reiterative going further with what is needed, without
looking back.
This means that we implicitly acknowledge such rightfulness in
our endeavor that we do not compare it to other modes, nor egois-
tically insist that it be to our liking in its outworking. Instead, we give
of ourselves completely into purposive drive, and learn in the process
the satisfaction of placing ourselves in a position to be rightly used.
There is nothing for us to say about what we are doing; we simply
take the steps indicated. What results will be a precise translation of
greater intentions into finished form, with a certain completeness
and elegance of doing it well and with conviction, simply because we
are clearly the right person for the job.
Pluto in the Seventh House
e have made relationships between individuals into a farce, in
which each participant attempts to outmaneuver the other.
Here we are at the crossroads of shared destiny in the realm of inti-
mate, soul-to-soul connection. We are faced with a series of choices,
preconditioned by massive collective memories of war, mutual nega-
tion and subsequent fear and mistrust. We see the encounter with
the other, therefore, through the filter of everything that has previ-
ously gone wrong in collective relationship.
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Not only does this place a handicap on the sjtuation at hand, but
it generates even more strongly its own ritual enactment of distances
pushing one away and magnetism pulling one too close. We end up
playing out every side of the equation, until we begin to become capa-
ble of honesty, candor and vulnerability. P 2
The movement from self-guarding to accessibility and openness
brings with us all human beings who have ever loved and lost. To
break the barriers, to be naked and to unconditionally value what is
coming to meet us through the other—these overcomings carry huge
charge and remarkable life-changing catalytic power. This is the point
where all human beings confront our best and our worst as one, in
creative partnership with a loved one, an adversary or whoever is
standing before us saying, “Can you meet me freely in this moment?”
We are meant to answer, “Yes, I can, directly through all my mixed
emotions—yes, I can.”
Pluto in the Eighth House
W: no longer have much choice. The stakes are too high, and
the edge of change is too urgent to back off. The primary issue
facing each and all is, “Can you become an effective agent of deep
transformation?” Our training in this direction is across the board,
and runs precisely counter to collective conditionings at every sin-
gle point. The most pivotal example of this polarity is living in touch
with the heart and the deeper layers of the soul, as against the con-
ditioning to completely hide and cover over heart and soul.
The path here is to unlearn every possible commonly agreed-upon
way of staying back from the flow of change, in order to make one-
self over from the roots. This is the most exciting, stimulating and
rewarding of paths, but few will take it up. It requires great courage,
forthrightness and irrepressible force of intention to be the one who
initiates the evolutionary shift at its central point of issue.
Those who have what it takes will manifest a distinctive brand of
resiliency, resourcefulness and sheer visionary intensity of self-assur-
ance that hits the mark more and more sharply, and keeps on com-
ing until the walls fall down and we are all here as we truly are, inside
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Pluto
the dazzling love that fuels creation and sparks development from a
bottomless regard for humanity.
Pluto in the Ninth House
W: tackle here the steepest segment of our shared journey. Insist-
ing upon awakening to who we really are, we take every hur-
dle as significant, with the intention to go all the way. Our most
immediate and pervasive obstacle is the racial concept of what is pos-
sible and what is likely. From the point of view of long-standing expe-
rience, few can go very far in the direction of mastery and attainment;
most will inevitably fall back.
What is seldom made clear is that those who heed this counsel
are the ones who will fall back—and that they will fall back as a result
of this counsel. The rightful way to go in these regions, therefore, is
to strive, and strive further, without looking back or down. We are
exceeding our limits in this stretch of the journey as a matter of course.
We live to go further.
This great adventure captivates our attention. We know that we
must go onward, and that seeing the total view is worth all efforts.
Ultimately and essentially, we are nominated in this realm to be the
ones who take the final step of radical self-overcoming by pursuing
the most direct, incisive track we can possibly find. If we do succeed,
what had seemed to be an impassable barrier dissolves, and the world
is given more light. Then anything is possible, and tremendous events
are quite likely.
Pluto in the Tenth House
here are many levels upon which we can fulfill the stream of con-
secrating selfhood to the need of the whole. Among these levels
the base, the easiest to attain and most commonly expressed, is sim-
ply to take into consideration the deeper needs of one’s circle of alle-
giance, and become a vessel for those needs. However, pervasive
pitfalls accompany such a level of operating. In a corrupt society,
there is an unavoidable, extensive bleed-through of this dedication
to deeper needs into appeasing, pacifying shared desires and images.
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Much more consequential and safeguarded is the rarer attain-
ment of enterprises that assist others in recognizing and coming to
terms with what they truly need. There follows teaching, healing and
drawing forth of people’s best. Even this, however, is subject to the
vagaries of the marketplace and the ingenuity gf presentation and
packaging. The quintessential fulfillment of this stréam is being,
within oneself, a genuine fulfillment of the collective needs and cur-
rents that must be furthered in order for shared development to occur.
When we come to this higher fulfillment level, we meet a unique
situation. We are here cut loose to embody an archetype that is yet
to be commonly prepared for or understood. There is no limit upon
this streaming forth into fresh possibilities, because we are leaders,
pace-setters, tone-ringers specifically thrust out above to remind oth-
ers of the path ahead and to restore a shared feeling for the open-
endedness of the human stream of individuation. Few will take up
this highest calling, as it requires one special quality that requires
considerable initiatory background—a dauntless courage, fused into
unapologetic and absolutely forthright indwelling of the next stage
of evolution in its first bright dawning as an unquenchable thirst for
the meeting of heaven and Earth within.
Pluto in the Eleventh House
he ways here part between those swept up in collective dreams
and those who dream a greater dream. The first group pre-
dominates, producing here the one who is more like everybody else
than everybody else is themselves. This is the popular, successful and
quite fascinating figure who is larger-than-life, and just what every-
one is looking for.
Those in this group have complete free rein to go anywhere and
do anything as the opportunity arises. Glorying in this abundance
and permission, they lighten the shared load and endow the world
with hope, ease and release.
The other group has a quite divergent destiny. Their strongest
impulse propels them out ahead of the common stream altogether.
They work with greater circles to set future prototypes into motion.
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Pluto
Most often, they are granted a few core allies as they leap beyond col-
lective shadows and find worlds yet to be. Most characteristically, they
sense a future current pulling them onward all their lives, speaking to
them and forming inside of them a seed vessel of the unknown. What-
ever keeps most people back from full-dimensional development can-
not touch those who follow the celestial ray into that place where all
worlds meet, where timelessness is everywhere and taken as a given.
Pluto in the Twelfth House
ee level of human experience has its part in this sphere. Every
extreme is enacted in its fullest power. We find ourselves in the
belly of the whale, and the churning everywhere is total collective
upheaval. We go down into the cauldron, consuming whatever still
stands between ourselves and total world process. No separations,
no distances, no binding distinctions hold. Instead, we must learn
to swim in the innermost waters.
The possible journeys here are infinite. In every one of them, emo-
tions are ultra-intense, sensations and impressions come at us with
undiminished strength, and the connection with individuality is ten-
uous and variable. Ecstasy swims into agony. Few can imagine this
level of experience, as all times and places are simultaneous. The task
here is to meet every bit of it, and to cultivate a capacity to meet ever
more of it. Rare gifts abound. We can here take anything through us,
filter out what is false, and deeply support and reinstate what is true.
We can even take previous karmas of any kind, and turn them around
completely.
We will get as far as faith can carry us. Unlimited confidence in
the divine worlds here breeds a world devoid of racial limitations.
The doors between the worlds are open. The subtle interflows are
coming through, and the horrors and wonders are all there, accord-
ing to our own subtle magnetism. In the core of this level of experi-
ence, we meet the Divine Child, open to all, partial to none, and in
a rapture of participation without boundaries that ends and begins
the world with every breath. All we need to do is to conceive the
inconceivable, and we are totally at home in this multi-realm.
307
Afterword
etween the writing of this book and its publication I became Ellias.
In 1990 the book had catapulted William and Sara Lonsdale, later
to be Ellias and Theanna, into full time karmic self-confrontation.
For us, this material had to be lived, embodied. We received it from
cosmic sources, immediately fed it to our souls, and could then accel-
erate our destiny journey tremendously.
The previous twenty years in astrology had prepared for this. Always,
it had been experiential, urgent, a way oflife. I was called upon to
bridge between what we did in Atlantis and what the near future
demands. And not the least of this path was to be given a dream in
1975 which opened up the floodgates of cosmic memory. I was inside
a golden throne room at the peaks of Atlantis. And I was asked to medi-
ate a dispute between two sisters, which one was to claim the throne.
I took from my cloak the etheric time piece, placed it in front of
each one, and there could read the living ethers moving and dis-
tributing themselves into their destiny patterns. This was a disk of
inner light, glowing with streaming colors, and I knew how to read
it with a total conviction. The one sister was exposed as darkly over-
shadowed, and led away under protest. The other sister was as golden
inside as out, and became the reigning feminine presence.
This dream compelled me to spend twenty years researching and
investigating at every level possible how to recover the etheric time
piece and activate this in star work. It has now led me to inaugurate
Star Genesis, the fusion of Atlantean Star Wisdom with Near Future
Awakening Seeds.
Inside Planets is the basic text of Star Genesis to be followed by
several others. The one most obvious indication of its new zodiac is
309
INSIDE PLANETS
the unusual order or sequence of the signs. As I,researched the dif-
ference between the ordinary tropical zodiac and the direct starry
influences, I came upon a startling discovery. Chaos has scattered
and reformed the signs into a different pattern. -
The houses remain the same and form the fundamental basis for
the Life Streams Zodiac. Taurus corresponds with the ist House,
Virgo with the 2nd, and so on as indicated.
What matters the most is to experiment with these new visions
and see if they clarify destiny workings. They have for us and for
clients consistently and thoroughly. So it is time to share these find-
ings with everybody.
I am tempted to update the text, but will not do so. It was forged
in a definite time and reflects perfectly the power of the start of the
1990S.
Let me just say a word of the astrological background I came out
of and finally about where all this is going now. When I started out
by picking up the books of Dane Rudhyar and Marc Edmund Jones,
I was able then to read as well Jones’ Sabian Lecture Lessons, and to
meet with him several times. I also got to know Rudhyar a bit, with
a few conversations and questions answered. Later on, I studied Rudolf
Steiner and worked intensively with a man who followed out his
inspiration into star work, Willi Sucher. And I met with and felt
deeply transformed by Ann Ree Colton, who could read the stars
etherically out of awake clairvoyance.
Eventually, from the mid 1980s onward, I was guided to tune in
to cosmic sources and to receive the direct new star work visions and
their applications. Yet always, this was a co-activity, lively, engaged,
fully interactional. I never channel, go into trance, go somewhere
else. Instead, I am part of a network of spirit which is intent upon
making the stars alive again, beyond the astrological ideology of con-
temporary times.
In recent years, this star work has been tempered and rewoven by
death and rebirth in radical terms. Theanna and I have shared this
aspect of what we do in her first book of letters.
Knowing death’s power has allowed me to speak the star language
310
Afterword
far more fluently and with inward feeling for the whole of life.
Tam thrilled that Inside Planets can now come forth. And I only
hope that each one can enter a deepened destiny process by taking
truly seriously what is here in these pages. The journey to the inside
of the stars, the planets, the signs, the houses, and the aspects is our
common experience— deep rooted, redemptive and extraordinary.
Ellias Lonsdale
311
. ISBN 1-55643-212-7 Astrology
“To be a true astrologer you must never know what Aries or
Virgo means, but find out all over again what it means in
this new person who sits before you.”
AKING THE SEVEN CLASSICAL PLANETS, the three galactic planets
discovered in modern times, the four main asteroids, and a small
new planet which is ushering in the future, Ellias Lonsdale intro-
duces readers to the realm of inner astrology. Never before has it been
excavated with such adroitness, authenticity, and depth.
For centuries, spiritual seekers have turned to astrology to dis-
cover humans’ deepest connections with the Earth and the cosmos.
But too often, astrology devolves into meaningless clichés or imper-
sonal newspaper horoscopes. In the early part of this century Marc
Edmund Jones and Dane Rudhyar liberated astrology from the fatal-
istic approach of the medieval world. They took power from the high-
and-mighty archaic planet gods, and offered it back to human beings.
Here, at the end of the century, Inside Planets goes further, invoking
each planet as a mighty full-bodied organism with a character and
a soul of its own, a living breathing force with passion and humor
and purpose that changes as it moves through the houses and signs.
_ Each planet grabs you by the imagination and drags you to the camp-
fire of The Greatest Story Ever Told. Far more than an astrology guide,
this book resuscitates from the ancient mystery temples of Atlantis
an elegant and inspiring pantheon of wonder, terror, and creative
solution to the problems that plague the soul.
Ellias Lonsdale received his early astrological training from Marc Edmund
Jones. A practitioner of astrosophy and Rudolf Steiner’s mystical cognition,
Lonsdale apprenticed in New Hampshire, Vermont, and the foothills of the
Sierras. For the last twelve years he has lived in the Santa Cruz mountains in
California, studying, teaching, and developing a school and training pro+
gram. He is the author of an earlier anthology, Star Rhythms (North Atlantic
Books) and, with his wife Sara, the forthcoming Book of Theanna in the Lands
that Follow Death (Frog, Ltd.).
21695
North Atlantic Books
Berkeley, California
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