3rd May 2011 ~ New Moon in Gate 24 line 6 at 12 Taurus 30 at 6.51am UT.

This New Moon brings the new masculine into alignment with the earth so that there are no more obstructions to us moving forward to express our potential.

It connects our creativity with the earth, and represents an embodiment of the Planetary Matrix.

 

This really marks a watershed for the end of the patriarchy.  It is a reclamation of our own personal yang energy – taking back responsibility for our own potential, our creative energy, and our own personal sense of knowing and soul direction.

I’m glad I gave myself permission to be imperfect in a recent blog post, because this is the most imperfect blog I’ve ever written.  I’m writing about a reconnection, an alchemy, that I have had to integrate as I have been writing. It’s as if I’ve had to hack this post into stone!  Nonetheless….

I hope you enjoy it.  :)

 

Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus

I want to start out by pointing out a few home truths about Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus.   Since September 2009, these three planets have been dancing around each other and messing with global politics and the lives of ordinary people.  It’s not surprising.  They are named after Greek and Roman Gods who considered mortals to be nothing more than pawns in their personal larger than life dramas.

There is a family pattern here of son’s killing fathers to protect mothers.  Not a very healthy family dynamic.  They buried or swallowed the children, effectively creating a “stillbirth”.  Whilst Uranus the Sky God came down each night to cover the earth and mate with Gaia he found his children monstrously ugly and buried them under the earth causing great pain to Gaia.  Saturn killed Uranus by cutting off his genitals, an obvious statement of emasculation – at the request of the mother. Jupiter did the same thing to his father, Saturn.   There is then almost a karmic completion, when the son turns against the feminine as a way to assert his own masculinity.

A devastating war that nearly destroyed the Universe ensued between Saturn and Jupiter.  Jupiter was able to make use of the weapons of thunder, lightning and earthquake and was victorious.  Some of this may sound horribly familiar to you just now.  Are we, in fact, sitting amidst a not so mythological war between Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter as they attempt to destroy creation to prove their masculinity?

Stillborn

One of the main issues in this chart is the way in which our potential as humans is stillborn, our ‘creations’ destroyed.  Many of us have the experience of trying again and again to get our lives to make sense!   From birth – even before birth – we are being interfered with in ways that prevent our natural growth and development as powerful sovereign beings.  At this moment my focus is on the 2000 year old lie that men give birth, and women don’t.  That life comes solely from the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.  There is an underpinning here of hatred and fear of women (see this), that they have been blamed for the sins of the father, so to speak, for so long.  Men suffer equally, under a system where they are disconnected from the earth, the mother and their own femininity.  Our babies, our potential, our creativity, is swallowed up in the war to prove who’s boss.

New Moon in the Gate of Returning

Today’s New Moon is in the Ajna Centre in Gate 24.6.  This hexagram is made up of Thunder and Earth.  Thunder is the eldest son, the yang returning after winter darkness when the old yang completed and died away. Earth is the mother, responding to the new yang energy of the son so that he can move forward without obstruction.

“Things cannot go beyond the extreme.  When they reach the limit, they turn back to the origin.”

The old yang has gone to it’s extreme and the new yang now turns to the earth to begin again.  In the Uranus, Saturn, Jupiter story the son supported the mother against the cruelty of the father.  It was only when the son grew to be a husband and father himself that he took on the mantle of the fathers actions and repeated them.  He had learnt that the way to be a man was to destroy creation, to bury it deeply within the earth in the hope that it wouldn’t rise and destroy him in turn.

Pan, Eros and The New Masculine

While Uranus, Saturn and Jupiter have played out the old masculine dynamic, the new masculine energy has been quietly making inroads.  Two asteroids in particular – Pan and Eros – have been turning up at auspicious moments to show the way forward.

Pan is in Gate 45, so he is bringing the whole Channel of Initiation to the Throat, including all those extremely important activations in Gate 21. Also, for those of us born between approximately 1941 to 1963, our natal Eris is in Gate 21.  Venus is there now, taking on great responsibility in the old order, rather than flowing with the new and as yet unknown.

Gate 45 represents the lord, the king, the one who owns everything and lets us use it.  But Gate 45 – the gate of money – is about gathering the pieces together in a shared destiny, a shared purpose.   It’s about aligning your effort with your purpose and in this way gaining access to the resources of the community.  It’s scary to let go and flow with the collective energy, mixing in and releasing our need to distinguish ourselves in some way and in a sense that is the core of this New Moon.

Eros (22) is making a connection with the South Node (12), suggesting a transformation, letting go of something from the past.  Eros represents the cosmic masculine’s desire to create.  Demetra George sees Eros as a higher octave of Mars, refining and transforming the instinctual sexual energy.   We will feel blocked if we accept the idea that we have to compromise ourselves (South Node is in the Gate of Blocked/Standstill).   This is an emotional energy, so allow something shamed or guilty (disgraceful) to rise up and inform you, to clear the blockage.

My son has been offered a deal by his school today, he can only stay if he abides by certain rules – like wearing a uniform and attending 100% of classes – that he finds offensive to his dignity.  The school can’t understand why he won’t compromise himself, they don’t hold his soul knowing in any place of value compared to the smooth running of the system.  I suspect we are all experiencing a similar choice somewhere in our lives today.

I explained to my son that the school system believes that the bubble it lives in is the totality of reality.  In fact it makes up only a minute proportion of reality and it’s time for each one of us to step out of that bubble, to take the challenge and prove that we do believe in what we know to be true.  Enough to step out and live it.  The I Ching says there’s no need for fanfare here – your honest presence and commitment are enough.

I declined to get into a philosophical discussion with the principal about the nature of reality .  You can imagine that conversation!

Eris and Terrorism

This New Moon comes on the heals of an exact conjunction of Jupiter with Eris, and Mars a whisker away from them. Eris has much to do with war – she is significant in the chart of Joan of Arc.  Generally I see Eris as being the one who is blamed when things go wrong.  Everyone else forgets what they added to the drama, and points the finger at one person.  Take Osama Bin Laden as a topical example.  I’m not saying he was a great guy and someone you’d want in your neighbourhood.  But he does strike me as a bit of a fall guy for terrorism just now.  His death certainly takes the heat off questionable US behaviour over the past decade or so.

Eris is shifting our focus on who is actually responsible for what – holding people accountable for their actions within the group matrix. It can be very, very difficult to sift through complex situations like the Global Financial Crisis, but Eris has been supporting us to begin that process and point clearly to those places where we can see that blame has to be attributed, even if we can never understand the big picture completely.

Eris may need to act in ways that seem chaotic and “blameful”.  Eris shifts us from one era to the next, but sometimes the beginning may not look pretty or even make sense to those watching from outside of us.  Remember Eros in the Gate of Grace who is being called to act ‘disgracefully’.

Philip Sedgwick has this to say about Eris:

Her astrological signature implores each person to make highly individualistic decisions regrading status, money, success, visibility and compliance or disregard for all social norms. Together with Jupiter and sparked by Mars, personal reversals of fortune can be conceived and created.

From my observations I’d say that Gates 13 (Seeking Unity With Others) and Gate 49 (Revolution) are the main gates that have an effect on terrorism and political unrest.

On this New Moon these two gates tell a significant back story.  Well, not so far back really.  They are side by side in Aquarius, and there has been a parade of important players moving through them in the past weeks, cleaning up the mess of the old in the wake of the Aries rush for the new.  (We had 7 planets in Aries last week!).

Nessus

Nessus has been in Gate 49 since early January 2011. This is important because Pallas, Vesta and Kassandra have been moving through the adjoining gate 19 over the past 2 weeks, facing off over our need to be in touch with our feminine wisdom (Pallas), to have control over our life, including our sexuality and creativity (Vesta), and to effectively share our intuitive knowing with others (Kassandra).

This channel is extremely emotionally sensitive – the reason for much of the anxiety people have been feeling over the past 10 days.  It feels keenly when others hold different views and perspectives.  With Lilith and Vulkanus in the 17/62 channel, we can let loose if our opinion or world view is threatened.  I want to weave back into the Mental Projector issue held within the heart of this New Moon further on.

Nessus is about how men use their sexual energy without regard for others. Nick Anthony Fiorenza says this about Nessus:

Nessus inspires our need to radically sever from the conformity of the past and pierce our veils of illusion, to relinquish our denials, and to enter new realms of vision and creativity. Aiding in creating greater awareness around issues associated with tyranny and sexual abuse, suppression and denial.  Inspiring a perspective from the incarnational purpose of the soul.

Melanie Reinhart relates Nessus to issues surrounding sexuality, death, revenge and jealousy. Although Nessus may appear to have a disrespect for morality, a bit on the wild side, it also seems to teach us about embracing our sensual and sexual nature, to enjoy this abundance in life, rather than denying it or shutting ourselves down to it due to righteous or erroneous beliefs of wrongfulness or emotions of unworthiness.

As a centaur, Nessus connects Saturn with Pluto, and that’s very significant because right now Saturn and Pluto are working together, separated by only one gate – the Gate of Repairing Family Dynamics (18). Ophelia has been in Gate 18 recently but has moved on now – one aspect of Ophelia is that she was used as a pawn in a political game and was invisible on a personal level.  See here for bin Laden apparently using a woman as a shield to protect him.

Again we find the idea of disconnection from the feminine – her very existence is as part of the earth, to be owned and used for power and status.  Her value as equal partner in the divine dance of creation is still barely a blip on the screen.

Keep in mind Eros and the South Node, and Eris’ need to create change – both point to acting disgracefully!

Pallas and Kassandra

On the New Moon, Pallas and Kassandra have moved on to Gate 13, which is about universality – we are all one and can learn to live in harmony with each other.  The message in these gates is to see how we can blend our unique contributions to find common ground.  As we discover common ground and the alliances it creates, we find strength in each other and can take further risks, entering new territory.

This is the opposite of the logical ‘one reality’ universe that says there is one truth, one reality which we can all subscribe to if we just get the facts.  This reality requires that we shut down on our embodied wisdom and listen only to what is going on in our heads.  We don’t share, we line up and march in one single direction.  Just back to the school system for a moment, we are all familiar with the single concept of intelligence and the disregard for a huge chunk of human perception and conceptualisation that’s taken for granted in most schools.

Here’s a great quote from astrologer Dan Rudhyar:

‎”Facts” can be used to destroy the integrity of the human person, even if they are correctly ascertained; because when presented to that person by another individual (or in a book stating them), the knowledge of these facts may utterly confuse or even kill as well as heal and make whole.

Facts have no value except in relation to the consciousness which perceives them.

Return of the Mother – Metis and Haumea

One of the things that tipped me off to what was going on in the so-called “back story” was when I realised that the asteroid Metis was travelling very close to Pallas throughout 2011.  The story goes that Pallas was born from the head of Zeus, but digging deeper we find that her mother was Metis, Goddess of Wisdom.  With these two travelling together we can expect a shift in Pallas from being an upholder of the patriarchy, to being more in touch with her feminine wisdom.

This is a big deal.  A really big deal.  Women are so well trained to stay within the rules of patriarchy that some aspects of government and religion have been able to get away with major abuses of women, children and the planet.  (Remember Lilith is in 17 and Vulkanus in 62 – you may have noticed the volcanic anger about abuses against women being expressed lately).  Much of the abuse goes completely unseen, because it is literally woven into the web of the ‘one reality’.  Anyone who speaks out against it is treated as bonkers in some way.  Today, in my discussions with the school,  I was very politely labelled as ‘alternative’ and thus sidelined completely.  A wacko who’s views are outside of the agreed reality.

Pallas in Gate 19 over the past 10 days (adjoining 49) has been a pivotal energy here, showing the shift in emphasis from a purely masculine perspective to a more balanced view of the world that includes and values feminine knowing.  This runs very, very deep as there is much about birth and creation in this New Moon chart.

The Mental Projector

Another thing that triggered my ideas about this blog post were my observations over the weekend of women desperately seeking the approval of a few different men in discussion groups I’m involved with. It seemed very obvious and I was getting that tingly sense that here was a major clue … to something!

I watched these women discount themselves and what they knew in favour of earning kudos for ‘getting’ the intellectual aspects of the issue under discussion.  I could actually feel the ‘hit’ in my body – the addictive rush of approval from the male teacher as they got a pat on the head. This is what we are taught – to do what’s necessary for approval, to give up anything for that hit.  To answer the question right, to do well in exams, to come up with a great proposal at work, to write a popular blog post.  Even as I write this my body says – yes this is a huge addiction in our society.

The fear of activating the subterranean violent hatred of women/the feminine is ever present.  We have not really been conscious of this fear as it operates at the collective, as opposed to the personal, level.   We are supposed to be scared of authority, our entire system of government is based on that premise!

I’ve felt that energy in women’s groups over and over – the Pallas Athene need to be useful, to be good at what we do, to succeed in a man’s world.  I have observed that it goes much, much deeper than we realise, and with 2000 years of patriarchy behind us that is not really surprising.  Imagine how much of our energy is going into this almost invisible need for mental recognition.

Both Pallas and Minerva point to the desire for approval of the father – especially at the mental level.  Pallas I’ve talked about.  Minerva is in Gate 39.6, lining up with Neptune, Chiron and Snow White in 55.   Metis and Pallas will be exactly conjunct on 28th September 2011, and both will be in Gate 60.1 on the September equinox.  I mention this particular date because Saturn will also be conjunct Haumea on the September equinox.

Some conclusions

The New Moon in Gate 24 shifts us out of our mental prison, the place where we are only true if we can prove ourselves with facts.  It lets us know that we can trust ourselves to move out into the world with our ideas, our intuitive sense of what is true, and we can return safely, again and again.   This is the Gate of Return.

Like a small child toddling out to explore the world and then returning to the safety of his mother’s lap, this New Moon represents our ability to experiment with life. It is a critical gate in establishing the meaning of our own lives within the context of our own personal big picture. This constant returning to the mother is very different to the straight line forward motion we have become accustomed to.

With the support of those with common vision, we can share, act and play in alignment with our own truth and return to the safety of our own bodies, to our mother, to the earth. We take our ideas and then we act to embody them.   In this way we move way beyond a purely mental understanding (imprisoned in the mind and unable to align with reality) and into the realm of pure physical manifestation.

In this way we draw on the support and synergy of our community.  In this way we act and return, act and return, allowing birth and creation once again to arise naturally from the coming together of feminine and masculine in loving embrace.  It seems very, very important to go slowly enough to untangle the bonds of hatred that have kept us imprisoned.  The son and the mother are creating a new world and we want to ensure the karma is complete.