“On a spiritual path, we can learn to embrace a spirit of discovery, to see life as a dynamic meditation through which the chaos we find around us can be woven into a new approach, a new perspective, and at the transpersonal level, a new reality.” Alan Clay on Quaoar
These words from Alan Clay struck me as great wisdom for these chaotic times. He spoke them about a recently discovered planet in the Kuiper Belt called Quaoar. This body is mysterious and even more elusive than its pronunciation, but I’m coming to understand that it is purely an energetic essence and has no form. It isn’t an Archetype. It precedes Archetypes. That makes it very difficult to define. We cannot access it through our left brains, and must learn to sense it, intuit it and slip into its flow. I will share more at a later date, but for now, simply open to Quaoar’s energy. Feel its power in your core and let it carry you forward. Quaoar feeds our inner strength.
At the New Moon we had an influx of spiritual energy, a heightened potential for awakening, opening the heart, shifting perception and evolving consciousness. The last two weeks have been about inner growth. As the Moon’s light waxes, we gain more understanding. What was seeded comes to bloom. At the Full Moon, we can see in the dark. How perfect, then, that it happens in Virgo.
Full Moon in Virgo
The Full Moon occurs on March 18 shortly after midnight. The Moon will be high overhead at 27 degrees of Virgo. The last decan, or 10 degrees of a sign carry mature frequencies. Virgo is related to the digestive tract, to the process of transforming food into nourishment. Metaphorically, Virgo helps us digest our experience through the gifts of analysis and discernment. Virgo energy focuses on the details, capturing what is of value and discarding what doesn’t serve us. This is a chance to peek under the bed and into shadowy corners and refine our evolving consciousness.
As we close out our Zodiacal year, we are gifted with extraordinary cosmic alliances to support our spiritual evolution. As the Moon is full, there are two Grand Trines, nine quintiles and a Mystic Rectangle! We’ll look at these one at a time, but first I must acknowledge our 3-D reality.
The people of Ukraine are suffering a brutal nightmare, At the moment this young nation is the stage for the battle to preserve Democracy around the world. President Zelensky stood up to the world’s biggest bully, and the bully went whining to China for money and munitions. In a fit of pique, Putin sanctioned the Biden administration and Hillary Clinton. Her exquisite response was to thank Putin for this Lifetime Achievement Award. The good news is that Putin is now willing to negotiate. It feels to me that he knows he can’t win this war but he needs to save face. He needs some concession to appease his ego.
This Russian despot is using all the strategies he taught our former president – stirring up hatred for the “enemy,” spreading lies and fake news, instilling fear in his people, projecting his own aggression and sinister plots onto the Ukranians and of course, the USA and all democratic countries in the NATO alliance. But Putin hasn’t stopped there. He has shut down all legitimate news outlets, taken over the airwaves, spreading mendacious propaganda and is now threatening his people with imprisonment if they disagree with him. Using Fascist rhetoric, he spoke of cleansing his nation of subversives – people who attempt to tell the truth. Right now the Russian people are bewitched by “alternative facts” and even when their Ukranian relatives tell them the truth, they refuse to believe it. Sound familiar?
This war erupting just as Pluto returned to its place in the USA natal chart, is a reminder that we too were an infant nation, struggling against an oppressor. We too suffered death and loss to fight for a nation we had not yet built, inspired by a dream of freedom. We can open our hearts with compassion for the Ukranians, we can open our eyes and see our own past, we can be inspired by their courage and devotion. We can rededicate ourselves to the principles upon which our own nation was founded and we can honor our social contract.
Grand Trines
A Grand Trine occurs when three celestial objects form an equilateral triangle. This always occurs in the same element. The first trine is in Earth planets. Moon in Virgo, Pluto in Capricorn and Sedna in Taurus. Trines are positive, harmonious relationships. The elements involved support one another. We have the Full Moon empowered by Capricorn Pluto while Sedna at 28 Taurus completes the triangle to bring our focus back to our spiritual path.
We have the opportunity this month to sift through our consciousness and discover the subtle ways in which we sacrifice our Higher Selves to our lesser selves. We can approach our experience with a spirit of discovery and weave our inner chaos into new perspectives which ultimately shift our reality.
The second Grand Trine is in Water. Hygeia at 14 Scorpio, Mercury at 13 Pisces and the USA natal Sun at 13 Cancer. The health of our identity as a nation is severely compromised at the moment. This trine reminds us that we enhance our spiritual health by opening our minds to more possibilities. Fixed opinions are neither creative nor supportive of growth and change. Now is a great time to open to the wonders beyond our ken. Mercury is fast approaching a conjunction with Jupiter at 18 Pisces only 5 degrees away from Neptune which is opposite the USA natal Neptune.
I told you at the beginning of the year that these first three months would be rather idyllic, notwithstanding war. That is because we are bathed in the frequencies of harmony, wholeness, unconditional love, faith, optimism and joy. Let those energies sink in, take them to heart because they will soon shift and we will have some challenging months ahead.
I had a conference with a panel of homeopaths this morning. We talked about pressing forward through fear and they asked what image arose for me. I remembered a scene from a movie in which an African boy had to safely pass through a pack of hyenas. His father had told him to make himself appear bigger and the hyenas would fear him. So he placed a large object on his head which doubled his height and even though he was terrified, he passed through safely. It’s a beautiful metaphor. How to face fear? Embody our Higher Selves. Grow bigger than the fear.
The energies at this Full Moon support our growing bigger. When Mercury reaches Jupiter, our minds can expand, we can see a much bigger picture. We can dream big dreams. We can see our world healing through love, we can envision the Ukranian refugees returning home to their loved ones and rebuilding their cities, we can foresee a future of peace and good will and we can visualize a healed Earth.
The Quintiles
A Quintile is considered a minor aspect, but as we evolve our consciousness, we are tuning in to subtler levels of awareness and can pick up these more oblique relationships. Quintiles seem to have the ability to turn creative inspiration into concrete end-products. This aspect is frequently found in the charts of geniuses. According to a website called Practiced Ignorance, author not named, quintiles “fuse a driven restless energy with intense creativity to organize or arrange something that’s usually tied to earthly reality.” Quintile energy is related to joy and play.
Here are thumbnail sketches of 9 quintiles:
Moon quintile Hygeia – the health of our collective psyche is featured at both the New and Full Moons. How can we organize our experience in a creative way that fosters mental and physical health. Our emotional bodies have been assaulted over the last few years. Hygeia points out the need for self-care.
Mercury quintile Eris – can we find a joyful way to become more authentic? Can we spot wrong thinking, self-sabotaging beliefs and attitudes that separate us from one another? Can we allow resentment to draw us inward to heal our pain rather than acting out and harming others? This quintile speaks of clearing our minds from negative, repetitive thinking.
Venus biquintile Neptune enabling us to lift our mundane love into the realm of unconditional love. We begin by tuning in to the wisdom of the heart and suspending our judgments. This is a great time to practice heart/brain coherence.
Mars biquintile Jupiter teaching us how to respond with hope and faith rather than exploding with anger or aggression.
Saturn biquintile the Sun – maturing through stepping into greater responsibility and integrity. We are an adolescent society with superficial values. Saturn has worked us over since its conjunction with Pluto all with the aim of maturing our values and empowering our growth. We are being initiated into Spiritual Adulthood.
Uranus biquintile Mercury sending us creative bursts of insight.
Pluto biquintile Mars – empowering the transformation of our toxic masculine energies. Pluto always asks us to go deeper.
Sun quintile Ceres – can we wake up to the fact that we are deeply embedded in nature, that we are one with the Earth, symbiotically enmeshed? We have plundered and polluted our planet oblivious to our complete interdependence with her health, ignoring the increase in cancer, heart disease, autoimmune conditions and finally a pandemic, while watching more and more TV ads for pharmaceutical drugs. We can make a start by nurturing ourselves and appreciating the healing effects of time in nature.
There are actually more quintiles because many of the ones I mentioned are also quintile each other. These energies are subtle yet perfect for the detail-oriented function of Virgo. We are evolving on subtle levels that most of us won’t recognize for years. I want to point out that Uranus is transiting the USA 5th House inspiring innovative solutions to stagnant problems. Just begin opening to these aspects and allow them to work in your inner world. These are exactly the kinds of details that Virgo loves. Can we see how the heavens are opening portals and saturating us with spiritual opportunities?
Mystic Rectangles
Mystic rectangles are formed by two oppositions, two sextiles and two trines. In other words, we have transiting Neptune in Pisces sextile the North Node in Taurus and trine the South Node in Scorpio opposite the USA natal Neptune which is sextile the South Node in Scorpio and trine the North Node in Taurus. The Nodes obviously form the second opposition. All four points are at 23 degrees. When we work with all the elements that form this rectangle, we create a sacred space.
Dane Rudhyar called this configuration “practical mysticism” since it involves “two potentially awareness-revealing, illuminating oppositions that can creatively reach idea or inspired fruition through intelligent, innovative utilization of energies.”
The key is in the polarities. Can we find the midpoint between past and future which is the present moment? Can we resolve the pain of the past and reclaim its gifts as well as embrace the inevitability of change as we move forward into the future? On the Neptune axis, can we see how we have separated spirit and matter? Can we see how far we have strayed from our humanitarian ideals as a nation? Can we use transiting Neptune’s energy to reconnect us? The polarization of the opposites is reconciled by the sextiles and trines. Neptune is infusing this rectangle with cosmic love.
Neptune can dissolve our differences and awaken awareness of our Oneness with all of life. It brings the wisdom of the enlightened heart. It is this shift in consciousness that enables our initiation into spiritual adulthood. When we outgrow our self-absorption and shift our focus to the welfare of others, when we learn to appreciate and honor diversity and recognize our planet as a living soul, when we embody the humanitarian energy of Aquarius we will have arrived at a new stage in our spiritual evolution. We will have the maturity and wisdom to restore the paradise that is our planet.
I know, this is pretty esoteric stuff, but Virgo loves to tackle a mystery. To make the most of the weeks to come, we can let this energy infuse us. It will strengthen our will, purify our hearts, open our minds to new vision. We’re going to need this inner strength down the line.
Don’t try to memorize all this information. Instead tune in to yourself and be willing to receive. Pay attention to what is going on in the moment. Meaning is in the moment. Greet each moment with curiosity and gratitude.
The Spring Equinox is March 20th. We’ll examine that chart next time. Astrologically we begin a new year as the Sun ingresses into Aries. This Pisces month helps us align our energies in preparation for rebirth. Virgo helps us decide what to carry forward and what to leave behind.
Here’s a list of benchmarks for the next two weeks. Each of these aspects can manifest in multiple ways, but here are a few possibilities:
3/19 Venus square Uranus in Taurus – wanting independence
3/20 Sun moves into Aries – Spring Equinox, astrological new year
3/20 Mercury conjunct Jupiter in Pisces – expanding perception
3/22 Mars square Uranus – could bring surprises, be alert
3/23 Mercury conjunct Neptune in Pisces – let yourself dream big
3/26 Mercury sextile Pluto – where does your power lie?
3/27 Mercury enters Aries – fresh start, quickened mind, impulsive
3/28 Venus conjunct Saturn in Aquarius – maturing relationships
3/31 New Moon in Aries – see you then
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