Photo by Wonderlane (cc)
Happy summer, everyone- it was official as of 4:30 this morning, when the sun moved into the sign of Cancer.
There’s been a lot of talk in astrological circles about this summer’s planetary conditions; big, BIG changes are afoot. And a lot of astrologers have really worked themselves into a lather: dramatic predictions, dramatic names—The Cardinal Cross, The Cardinal Climax—and a real climate of anticipation for big, bad changes coming down the pipe.
I think big changes are indeed arriving, but not in the doom-and-gloom sense. This whole configuration is lining up in cardinal signs. Cardinal signs are about beginnings, not endings. Things are ending in a make-way-for-the-new-stuff way, not in a street-corner-guy-with-the-repent-or-perish-sign-was-right kind of way. The question is, what are we making way for? What are we beginning?
Your answer and my answer are different from everyone else’s answer. But here are some places to start thinking about:
Outdated systems:
We all cling to the old and familiar, even when it doesn’t work anymore. That’s the essence of post-traumatic stress disorder and other trauma patterns: deep responses that protected you in old situations, but that don’t work anymore in your current life. These are the things that take years and years to change, the habits we struggle to unwind and rewrite. Pluto in Capricorn has been doing this on a societal level for a few years now… we are seeing it at work in once-venerated institutions that are now falling, and falling hard. The Catholic Church, Wall Street, political parties, educational systems, entire industries like oil, airlines, and banking are all being faced with the change or die ultimatum.
So now we’re beginning to really face this on a personal level. Some of the structures in your life have outlasted their effectiveness and are beginning to crumble… which ones? Are you ready to let them go so you can build something stronger from the remains? Or are you still fighting to hold onto the shells so far?
Boundaries:
Your relationships with people, and with yourself, have been taking the brunt of this one since last fall. We got a taste of it, and then the heat let up for a while; now we’re getting ready to return full-force to this task. Boundaries don’t mean walls, either, so we will be pushed to tear down the fortresses and let in the people we profess to love. Saturn in Libra is here to demand structure and respect in your close relationships– the outer ones and the inner ones.
Which boundaries of yours need to be tightened up? Which ones are too tight?
Your fire:
Change is in the air now, and it’s electric. Since the end of May everything has begun to crackle with the anticipation of change. Uranus in Aries is that raw, open start for everything we say we want; it’s here now, once in a generation. Everything in your life is primed for change, and it’s scary. What do you want to do with it?
What creative gifts have you been hiding? Which ones are finally ready for some daylight?
Your tribe:
Pow. Today. This one starts today. It’s time to find your tribe, or rediscover them again. Who do you belong with? Where do YOU belong? (It’s ok to not know the answer to this one yet. Or to know, but not know where to find them yet.) This is the brand-new piece of the puzzle, with the sun now in Cancer. Time to start venting all that previous energy and frustration that has been building up over the past year.
Who are the people you need to find? Where is the place you need to be?
We’re being pushed now to be creative. Not just with paints and words, although that’s part of it too… but to be creative with our structures, with solutions to our sticky problems, in the ways we respond to the situations that are thrust upon us.
Now is the time to experiment with things, to throw ideas at the wall and see which ones stick, to screw things up as we all try to build something new that works. Because the old stuff, the old power, the old fears? All that stuff isn’t working anymore. Maybe it used to… but that train has sailed, as one of my friends likes to say.
So go, get creative, throw some spaghetti at a wall, maybe paint on it too. Start tiny and see what happens.
Wow! I love it! Your approach makes far more sense to me than those who preach apocalyptic cr*p. Here’s to those of us astrologers who keep looking for the middle ground between those going la, la, la and those going on about the sky falling.
So go, get creative, throw some spaghetti at a wall, maybe paint on it too. Start tiny and see what happens.
Yes!!
diane~
Twitter: LibraSeeksBalan
Spoken like a true Libra! Yes, hail to the middle ground and a bit of pragmatism. Thanks for your comment!
Twitter: clover
Here Here Dianne…as an astrologer too I see people working themselves up into a lather everytime mercury is retrograde let alone a “GRAND CONJUNCTION”…they have been happening since the beginning of time and changes occurs whether or not you know anything about astrology or not so just do your life with love and balance I say..thanks for sharing your balanced view…jewdx
I’d wager it doesn’t do much for our collective professional image, either.
If change is afoot, why not explore how to flow with change instead of just bracing for it?
Twitter: clover
I hope you don’t mind that I sent this post to the Seers and Seekers Yahoo group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/seerseeker/
Thanks, libramoon! Just link back here to the site, in regular Libra fashion. Glad you enjoyed it
Twitter: clover
oooooooh, what Diane L. said!!
This is all uber exciting to me – and feels “right” — I know diddly about astrology and am (oh damn, I’ll just say it) pretty turned off by the dire predictions and stuff usually – but wow! I’m kinda breathing deep here and wondering about the questions you asked – what am I ready to let go forth, what am I ready to let go of — oooh, lots of pondering to do.
Thank you for this!
Oh, you’re welcome Karen!
Yeah, screw that noise. Dire predictions just aren’t useful… plus the track record isn’t that great. People have been predicting the fall of civilization or the end of the world for what, a few thousand years now? Although I don’t like the head-in-the-sand approach either. There’s something vaguely brainwashed about both, to me.
And you don’t have to know anything at all about astrology to know there’s something in the air these days… it’s time for something completely different.
Twitter: clover
You mean… the sky is not going to fall? And that a crisis is not the only thing left to experience?
Shocking, I know, Deb! It’s almost heretical.
Call me crazy, but I think astrology should be relevant for people, even if you can’t tell an Aries from an asteroid.
Our job as astrologers is to translate.
Twitter: clover
I loooove this take on it. Probably because everything you’ve pointed out is exactly what’s happening in my life. Very exciting. I’m off to ponder your questions – need to get my 800 in today anyway
Can’t wait for it!
One more week, Alana… and things are shifting for us all, in spite of ourselves
Twitter: clover
WOW. Just WOW. I got the email link to this post just as I was taking a break to breathe from writing the following:
Usually I ask all the big questions at St. Mary’s, prostrate in the garden at the feet of my cold-lipped angel.
So before dinner on Sunday, I drove there and took pictures of the construction going on behind it. They have moved (I assume) the angel statue; the garden and courtyard are covered in a big pile of grayish brown dirt.
Fences sag under warning signs and construction detritus litters the ground. The tiny footbridge across a miniscule stream (that I JUST discovered last year!) is gone; the smell of new lumber and dry earth cracking in the heat reduced me to tears.
The empty steel skeleton looming above me in the sunset covered the moons of stone that used to lead down a green path to a quiet bench; it will hold rooms, offices, angels dancing on the head of a pin, whatevs. I walked around sobbing, barely able to focus the camera.
Okay, Metaphor Mouse, this one is Pretty Obvious. Just reach in for my heart, grab it out of my chest, squeeze it like clay into a new shape, or compress it into a diamond if you want. But put it back carefully please, it is rather delicate.
Twitter: simonebernhard
And funny, because not very long ago I was reading your post in my RSS that described your garden, with photos, and was busy imagining myself there.
(And then I came back here to your lovely comment in the spam bin. Akismet has now been instructed that you are not, in fact, spam, but what a nice change from pharmaceutical ads in Russian!)
I’m not one of those wonderbread types that pretends this stuff isn’t painful. Your acceptance of it is refreshing, though… thanks for that.
Twitter: clover