It’s so fascinating to have found myself suddenly and unexpectedly thrust into the world of business at this time.  I am up at 6.30 every morning and off to work rather than sitting in the sun with a cup of tea writing my blog.  How did that happen??

It’s not a permanent thing. A friend asked me a few weeks ago to be on the Board of a local not-for-profit organisation and it turned out that it was in crisis and I was “johnny on the spot” with the skill set needed to steer it through the worst of it and out the other side.  I hope it will only be about another week.  The synchronous thing is that this organisation has the potential to dovetail neatly with some wonderful plans I have been nurturing for the expansion of understanding of Human Design!

But now it’s Sunday morning and here I am sitting in the sun (well glimpses of sun anyway) with a cup of tea writing my blog.  What an extraordinary time it’s been and will continue to be.  As I write this, the Moon is passing over Mercury which is activating a channel with the North Node and the Galactic Centre.  If you’re having trouble thinking straight, remembering things or talking, that’s why!  The Moon will be exactly conjunct Mercury at 23.56 UT today (2nd July).  It’s a chance to slough off any ideas about who’s in charge of your life and feel more at home in the big picture.

I expect the next week to bring something of a showdown between what we might call the old order and the new way of being.  It’s not so much the old order that’s being dismantled, as the dissolving of the groupthink matrix that allowed it to operate largely unhindered.  All the big planets are getting a run just now and the effect is to lift the veil on the abuses that have been considered acceptable ‘collateral damage’ to a way of life that has proven ultimately to be designed to feed prosperity ever upwards to those at the top while leaving those further down devastated.

I’m just reading a series of articles by Mikio Kaku on the issues facing three nuclear plants in the US,  While we’ve been told that nuclear energy is very safe, a fire is threatening the reactor at Los Alamos and now we find that “In 2009, the Department of Energy issued a report, stating that fire fighters are not well trained to handle the sophisticated equipment and radioactive waste stored at Los Alamos in case of an emergency.” It also turns out that radiation is being found way outside the expected area around Fukushima and tens of thousands more people are now being advised to evacuate.

The underlying issue here is that these power plants were never safe, just safe enough.  As Mikio Kaku points out, they were not designed to withstand the sort of weather events we are now experiencing.

This is scary, right?  I mean, if we can’t rely on our governments to make decisions that keep us safe, where does that leave us?   Well truly, it leaves us a whole lot better off.

Because what’s happening now is that a significant mass of people on this planet are no longer giving up their power to those who are not using it wisely on their behalf.

Of course I’m talking a lot about Pluto here – plutonium, nuclear power, personal power, underhanded dealings.  I’m not surprised that fire is threatening the Los Alamos plant, since fiery Mars is bringing Pluto to the Throat for expression just now.

As for the flooding that is threatening the Nebraska plants, look no further than Ceto (deep sea monster), Decaulion (the Greek Noah) and Poseidon in the Spleen Centre in the Scorpionic Gate 44, meeting minor planet Quaoar (new forms of creation) in Gate 26.  These planets are all connecting to Saturn and Pluto.

I just want to mention Ophelia again, because I think she is so very significant just now.  She is sitting in the Gate of Correcting Family Patterns (18). Right now, this gate is the bridge between transiting Saturn and Pluto.  I’ve been watching Ophelia very closely lately and my feeling is that she is the daughter who holds the potential for new life.  But she gets ignored by the apparently powerful men who are busy politicking, desperately trying to find a short term solution.  And because they are controlling the agenda via the groupthink matrix, no one sees the obvious way out of the difficulties, and Ophelia dies, carrying the child who represents a new start.

Sedna carries a similar story (see The Whale Rider video clip at the end of the page) and as she is in the Throat Centre, Sedna is also a part of this activation.  The difference now is that we have made huge leaps in our ability to see clearly, to resist the mesmeric quality of groupthink, and so as if by magic, Ophelia’s solution is showing itself to us.

But for now, what I really want to focus on is the astrological bad boys, Ixion and Nessus, both of whom are very active in the chart at the moment.  Ixion and Nessus both tell us something about traditional use of power against others.

Ixion

Currently transiting in Gate 5.6, Ixion is generally considered to be a tyrant, the first mythological figure to spill kindred blood and a man with a tendency to treat women badly.

What strikes me most strongly about Ixion though, is that everything he did wrong was met with another wrongdoing by those in power.  He failed to pay the brideprice for Princess Dia and so her father stole Ixion’s horses.  He lusted after Hera and so Zeus tied him to a fiery wheel until he repented and was able to show gratitude to his benefactor.  While Prince Dia’s father and Zeus were certainly wronged benefactors, I find it fascinating that their retribution is usually interpreted as ‘karma’ rather than an act of power against Ixion to punish him for transgressions against them.  There’s a bit too much moral high ground here for my liking, and the mesmeric quality of personal aggrandisement by those in power being cleverly disguised as “fate”.

There’s another fascinating idea held within Ixion, and that is the inner and outer struggle between the civilized aspect of self (the Lapith’s in the mythology) and the wild and unruly and ultimately wounded self (the Centaurs).  It is reflected in the relationship between the civilized patriarchal world and the wild natural world. This is a theme I’ve also seen arising in Makemake’s sphere of influence.

In keeping with Ophelia’s themes turning up in the Gate of Correcting Family Patterns, Ixion deals with very long standing family feuds. In fact, it’s likely that it represents the history of all humanity in terms of it’s ongoing struggle to find a way to apply our own power and get along with each other. There is a resolution here of ancient ways of masculine relating. Ixion was from the family line of the god Aries, and so is strongly linked with soldiering and concepts relating to the warrior, as well as hotheaded action.

I should just mention that when it was first discovered in 2001, Ixion was in the Gate of Great Power (34.6) in the Sacral Chakra.  This is a gate that tends to push forward before thinking or feeling things through, like a goat butting it’s head mindlessly against a hedge that is blocking it’s way.   Venus moves into the adjoining Gate 15 today so I’m watching to see how that might affect the archetypal energies of Ixion.

Nessus

Nessus is a Centaur, who’s orbit links up Saturn and Pluto.  Interesting connection to Ophelia again, she who is currently creating a bridge between Saturn and Pluto.   Nessus was another nasty creature who tended to rape and murder, reaching even from beyond the grave to exact his revenge.  Like Ixion, Nessus also has a link to the use of  power, in this case physical power.  His revenge against the strong man Hercules led to Hera granting Hercules immortality.  Nessus is currently in Gate 49.5 in the Solar Plexus Centre, in a channel with Pallas (19.6), Vesta (49.1), Damocles (49.3) and Icarus (49.5).  This is the Gate of Revolution  - a revolution that comes from allowing our true emotions to inform our relationships with others in our community.  More on Nessus.

I could go on and on with details, but I think I’ll just sum up what I’m seeing here.  We are looking at the underpinnings of the power of the global masculine.  On the surface it can still pass as self assured and in control, but only just!

Ceres has just moved into the Gate of Innocence.  On 12th July it will pass over the Aries Point (0 degrees Aries) in gate 25.3, completing a cycle that began back in March 2007.  There are two significant factors here.  Firstly this period has been a time for the relationship between mother and daughter to heal, allowing the archetypal daughter to reclaim her true creative potential, and the archetypal mother her power.

Secondly, we are cracking into the very heart of the wounded masculine here.  As the feminine has gradually regained her power, the exhausted and deeply frightened masculine can put down the mantle of the illusion of being the sole creator of life and rejoin humanity.

I was watching one of our Australian politicians being interviewed on television about the dangers of gas fracking a few weeks ago.  He was parroting the oil and gas industries line that the chemicals they are pumping into the water table are safe.  When asked if he knew what they were he replied that it was a commercial secret. So, said the interviewer, oil and gas companies are pumping chemicals into our precious water supplies and none of us know what they are.  Are you really comfortable with that? A look of sheer panic passed over the face of the politician.   As well it might!  Saturn, that bastion of patriarchal power, is in the Gate of the Well.  This gates invites us to drop deep down within ourselves to find our true nourishment and power, represented as clear, clean water.  For some it may seem easier to externalise that process by fracking, but that is not the truth and Saturn no longer supports that old rigid paradigm.

I’m expecting this last remaining aspect of the old masculine power base to put up a struggle over the next few days and it might look like things are getting really bad for all of us.  But the true power has shifted, the group think matrix is dissolving, and all you and I need to do is stay on course with the purity of our own heart (Ceres in the Gate of Innocence) and tune into grounding the energy of the big picture that is being revealed to us just now (Mercury joining the Galactic Centre).