Jan

27

How I Spent My Solar Eclipse

Filed Under Astrology trends | 2 Comments

dreamstime_12284938My hard drive crashed on the solar eclipse—just as Mercury was stationing, directly into the Saturn/Pluto square. The next day, the hard drive on my new laptop–the one I’d purchased in December and had just taken out of the box–also crashed. There was no receipt in the box. I’d bought it online and my only record of purchase was on the other crashed hard drive. My feeling of being awash in rubble and utterly helpless was nothing compared to the horrific devastation of the Haitians, and yet I felt a kinship. So this was how the archetypes were visiting me. My loved ones were still alive, my house was standing, I had a warm place to sleep and food to eat, but my psyche was running helter skelter through the streets of Pompeii. Aaaaaaiiiiieee! I work with symbol, intuition and soul as an astrologer, but the nuts and bolts of my profession are all computerized. I was panicked; for days I was too emotional to fully learn what I’d backed up and what I’d lost.

Of course this was a gentle disaster. I’ve heard from many in real difficult circumstances this past month. The massage therapist living in her car, unsure about whether to give up her cat in order to enter a woman’s shelter. The mother whose son has disappeared. The widow who is materially doing fine, but wanders lonely and without purpose through the rooms of her large house. I cannot watch the news anymore, the stories are disappointing and sad. As Saturn and Pluto square, I sense a lot of us standing at the pebbled wall of destiny, running our fingers over its cold stones and wondering… so this is where we are? Yet when we can peel the gloom away from it, there is something else: the very mystery and awe of what we’re being called to do. For if we are to pray properly to the archetypes of Saturn and Pluto, we must remain open. We must awaken and respond to the very structure of reality, however it appears right now. Even if it’s beautiful.

I discovered I’d been clever enough to back up most of my data files, but not clever enough to have invited a smart techie into my life, so the business of setting up my computers again has been mostly left to me. I am not good at this, so it goes slowly, with many hair pulling moments when what is supposed to work just doesn’t. Am I blessed? Absolutely. Between Saturn/Pluto and the Mars retrograde, I’ve been utterly slowed down. I am fully here. Not even wondering what comes next.

Jan

11

Take Down the Should Master

Filed Under New Moon | 2 Comments

pink barbell
It’s crazy out there. The traffic jam of transits, retrogrades, and eclipses make this the wrong time for pushing your little boulder up the mountains of the world. But the Capricorn New Moon is an exquisitely appropriate time to rearrange your inner world–dynamically, dramatically. It’s an especially fine time to take down your inner know-it-all. Capricorn is home territory for your inner “should” Master, the one who knows what you should and shouldn’t be doing, the one who cares what other people think and keeps your personal rulebook up to date. Sometimes this is a good thing, a wonderful thing. My poet friend calls this voice “the coach in the head,” and sorry are those lacking a strong one. They never wake in the morning to do a hundred sit-ups or recite 108 mantras after a half hour of meditation; they always leave the last knob unpolished on the rail; and they never close the big deal or in any way dazzle the boss or co-workers.

Since we’re in late degrees of Capricorn, you may have been hearing from your inner coach these past few weeks. Ask to see the rulebook he’s been clutching. Take a good look. The Capricorn New Moon is an annual event, which means that every year it’s worth reviewing the rules you use to judge yourself. Do you really need them all? What I’m proposing is the opposite of a New Year’s Resolution. I suggest that the Capricorn New Moon is the perfect time to review your expectations and toss out all the ones that have been ruining your happiness. They’re irrelevant—if, like me, you’re not anywhere near the life you thought you’d be leading when you first dreamed them up. This is not about failure. As Byron Katie says, “Reality is always kinder than the stories we tell about it.” My New Year’s Resolution for 2010? Just one: To get rid of all those negative stories I’ve been telling myself for far too long.