6th February 2011

It’s going to be hot again today, really hot.  And when it’s this hot my brain melts into something incomprehensible and I can’t think clearly enough to write.  It’s funny that the temperatures have only been in the low 30′s (celcius) but it has been unbearably hot, something to do with the added heat of Sun conjunct Mars I suspect.

Today I wanted to use the relative cool of the morning to write about the very significant Aquarius activations happening at the moment, plus Venus conjunct Pluto in the Gate of Joy on the 8th February.

Right now we have the Sun, Mercury, Mars, Neptune in Aquarius.  We also have dwarf planet Ceres (19.6), the Centaurs Chiron (30.6) and Nessus (49.2) plus a collection of significant asteroids including Eros (in 41.1) conjunct Mercury,  Urania (in 13.4) conjunct Sun  and Circe (in 30.4) conjunct Neptune and Chiron – all in Aquarius.

For 8 hours on 18th/19th February (commencing at 18.40pm on 18th UT), all four planets – Sun, Mercury, Mars and Neptune will be in Gate 30 in the Solar Plexus Centre!  Chiron is less than one degree away from the Sun, having slipped over into Gate 55.

Perhaps this month is the elusive entry to the Age of Aquarius we’ve all been waiting for since the 5th Dimension had it’s hit song – although we have the Sun rather than Jupiter aligning with Mars … sigh.

Aquarius

Aquarius is a quirky energy, not least because it’s an air sign with a water symbol.  Aquarius never likes to play it straight, likes to keep everyone guessing.  In Egypt this sign was associated with the time of the flooding of the Nile – when the Moon was in Aquarius and Sun in Leo.

It’s electromagnetic energy reminds me of the Tower Card in the tarot, but according to Aleister Crowley the Tower Card is Mars, but it is followed by the Aquarian major arcana card Star, which he describes as the goddess in manifestation in her human material form.  In the Tower card Crowley describes the will to live and the will to die – a classic Mars type hero dichotomy – and the need for periodic destruction of the structure of our lives in order to free us from the prison of outdated organisation.

This idea has been very strong lately, as I watched Cyclone Yasi decimate houses in Queensland, the crowds surging against the army in Cairo and forcing tanks back by dint of their pure passion for something new, earthquakes in Alaska and Chile, and massive storms in the US.   All have had the effect of shifting us suddenly and unexpectedly out of our normal routines and often out of our homes.  In the process we have been thrown back upon our community, unable to use the walls of normalcy to keep ourselves separate, our neighbours have become a lifeline to survival in many cases.  I’ve even noticed it in a small way in my own life, disaster free zone that it is.  I’ve had to call on my neighbours a few times recently in ways that felt unfamiliar and a bit uncomfortable.

Aquarius is about ‘brotherhood’, universality and the collective heart.  It’s about coming together without losing the Leo polarity of our own unique and special place of the heart.  We don’t want to be fodder to the machine (another Aquarian posibility), but valued and loved for the true quirky creative geniuses we are.  Stepping beyond the need to rebel, we grow into a new spiritual maturity and self acceptance.

Gate 30 – Illumination

I ask myself, why Gate 30?  What is it about Gate 30 that would warrant such a powerful line up at this time?

Firstly, it’s one of eight double hexagrams – in this case double fire.  It’s the  hexagram of Illumination, a spiritual energy that seeks to burn brightly rather than flare up and then die away.  Our light needs something enduring and reliable within it, a nourishing fuel.  This gate also represents the radiance of nature, released into our lives as we learn to surrender to the rhythm of the dance of earth and heaven.  Without that dance, we are simply burning the limited fuel of ego based desire, constantly in fear of ‘burn out’.

Once we have surrendered to the flow (Gate 29, double water hexagram known as The Abyss), we then arrive at Gate 30 to find our own enduring flame burning bright and true.

There is an integrative quality to Gate 30.  Master Huang talks about it’s correlation to Heaven and Earth and the Sun and Moon.  Yin within yang and yang within yin.  He sees it as associated with the Sun in it’s brightness, full of yang energy, strengthening all that falls within it’s influence.  The concept of brightness in this hexagram means the yang that is full of yin.

Hilary Barrett describes it as a flash of intuitive insight that we are able to take hold of and understand, creating lasting awareness.  With Saturn conjunct Haumea in Gate 57 – intuitive clarity – this indicates a partnership between our bodily intuitive knowing (gate 57) and the emotional wisdom of Gate 30 to turn it into something lasting.

Neptune and Chiron have been in Gate 30 since early 2009.  Chiron is about to shift finally into the next gate (55) but Neptune won’t be finished there till early 2012.  I believe they have been creating two profound shifts in consciousness.  Firstly, healing the wound to our ability to be here in our full blissful selves.  Secondly, a repairing of our ownership over our own desires.

Our emotional responses, so long regarded as little more than a nuisance, are being renewed as a natural and profound wisdom.  The old Saturnian structure is breaking down as we become more attuned to what we truly want, what makes our flame burn long and true.  In it’s place is a way of life that doesn’t feel like a prison, but more like an obvious extension of the truth of who we are in each moment.

The Moon

During those few hours on 18th / 19th February, when these four planets unite in Illumination, the Moon is in Gate 40 in the Heart Centre.  This gates brings us a recuperation of our ego selves.  It allows us to know our true value to our community, and in this place we realise it’s safe to rest whenever we need to, and to act from our unique selves knowing we’ll always be lovingly received.  Our actions – yin infused yang – become a sensitive fluidity rather than an ego based rigidity.  We release the concept of ‘no choice’ and see our options more clearly as the overbearing authority figure, the monster of Aquarius rebelliousness, melts away.

Venus conjunct Pluto

There’s a few important transits between now and the 19th February.  Venus joining Pluto in the Gate of Joy on 10th February  is one of them.  This is a significant step towards acceptance of our own joy as a tool for connection and relationship.

How do we release our attachment to suffering, struggle, ugliness and pain?  Is it possible to release ourselves from attachment to people and situations we have been told we are responsible for?   In this new reality we are simple, pure, free and filled with natural beauty and love.  There is no punishment, judgement or isolation here.

Coming open means looking expectantly for what you want to come to you, easily and on your own terms.   You try to dictate how things will be.  This doesn’t work.  The joy you seek can’t simply come to you from outside, but only arises from authentic exchange.  Joyful and outgoing expression that opens up communication brings people together and begins a lively creative process of sharing and exchange.

Hilary Barrett

This is your time to shine!