Today is the first day of Spring! With Venus as a beacon in the night sky, beaming her beauty and tenderness for all to claim, the Sun will move into Aries. We can think of this as New Year’s Day archetypally. The Sun begins another trip of evolutionary experience through the Zodiac illuminating new truths, insights and transformations for Mother Earth, her Moon and her children.
When Light and Dark are perfectly balanced in their Yin/Yang cycle, we call it an Equinox. The hours of daylight equal those of night. The active energy of day, illuminated by the Sun, shifts to the tender night with all its heavenly splendor. We can bring ourselves into harmony with this balance. We can focus on balancing our own energy, alternating and equalizing the hours spent in activity and those, not counting sleep, in which we are open, receptive, quiet, still; when we are connecting with nature, or our pets, or with one another.
Spirituality is connection. It’s all about relationship. It’s not about belief, or worship, or ritual. Those things enhance our experience, but spirituality is about love in action. How we relate to ourselves, each other, the other kingdoms in our conscious world and beyond. How we relate to the Great Mystery.
Right now most of us are in quarantine. I saw a funny video in which a guy demonstrates the 5 stages of quarantine from shock, to resignation, to enjoyment and finally meltdown, after which he experiences his desperate need for connection, to feel alive, to be outside breathing fresh air, to feel freedom, to expand. His real values emerged as he exhausted every other diversion.
On the one hand it was funny; on the other illuminating. How are we going to spend this time-out? What would bring us the best possible outcome, create the most transformation for all of us, have the most positive impact on our world? The Heavens are showing us right now the unlimited, profound potential of this time. What a perfect time to wake up and get to know ourselves intimately! Because this is what needs to happen. Transformation of our world only happens through us. As we transform, one by one, our world reflects that and transforms along with us, because our consciousness – the space within which we create our reality – will be clear, open, free of debris, able to apprehend Truth, and we will be empowered by self-knowledge and choose to allow the Truth to evolve us.
So let’s look at the Heavenly Map. The Sun enters Aries. This Archetype is similar to #0 The Fool in the Tarot deck. This is the innocent. If you recall I wrote about Innocence in January as one of the great qualities we can adopt to allow our spiritual growth to flow. This is a whole new cycle. We don’t know what will happen and if we can relinquish the need to know, the need to control our lives and our reality, we can surrender to a much greater wisdom and let it guide us. Knowing makes us feel safe, but it is an illusion, first because we really can’t know the future and second, there is no such thing as safety. Anything can happen and we will have less anxiety if we make peace with that truth.
We need to release our complacency and admit that we really do not know and decide that we want to find out. So, empty of concepts, agendas, goals, we step into the Unknown! This is The Fool – beginning a cycle of growth in pure innocence. This is also Aries.
Aries is about courage, curiosity, the desire to act and the will to be effective, to have an impact. Aries is ruled by Mars and has a reputation for aggression. When this masculine energy is in the hands of ego, it can become a bully, a manipulator, a dominator. So here’s the connection with the Spring Equinox. This is a time of balance. Aries arrives when there is an equalizing energy to keep him in check. Aries is exuberant. He likes to take risks and leap into life, or put his head down and butt his way in. But when he is in harmony with compassion, beauty, love, creativity, he can be magnificent – powerful and effective.
We need powerful and effective people right now who are in harmony with nature, with the feminine energy, with the cycles of our Solar System and beyond to the Center of our Galaxy. We need gentle power, clear heads, willingness to do the work. It is not a coincidence that our world is taking a break from routines, habits, ruts. We can look at this as a crisis or we can view it as an opportunity.
I am not discounting the threat of the virus and at the end of this message, I will share the advice my Naturopath gave me about mitigating, if not preventing, illness. But for now I want to focus on what the Solar System tells us about this moment in time and how we can make the best of it. This could be a golden pause.
When the Sun enters Aries in the USA chart, it falls exactly on the IC – the very bottom of the chart on the vertical axis. This point is the cusp of the 4th house which is all about the home. It is associated with the sign of Cancer which is about creating a safe space for yourself, a nurturing environment. It’s about the safety and intimacy of family which is our childhood experience. It’s about building a foundation of confidence as you experience life within the safety of a family. Not all of us had that, and those that did probably had some dysfunction going on. Families aren’t perfect, but then again they are, because they provide us with the challenges and feedback we need to grow. We can’t come to know ourselves in a vacuum. We learn about ourselves from our relationships. So the 4th house is about one’s intimate, emotional, experience of self and home.
Just a few degrees away from the Sun, are Chiron and Black Moon Lilith. In fact, on the upcoming Aries New Moon, which we’ll look at next week, the Sun will be conjunct these two. The whole next month is going to be about getting to know the natural feminine energy and healing our relationship to it. This very healing is what will create our safety, our foundation, our inner strength. It will empower us to be effective in our world.
We could spend this quarantine watching Netflix, playing games, escaping into distraction – all of which we need to do to stay in balance – but we could also work on our Presence. How to bring our full presence into the moment and experience life raw and real right there in our homes. We could treat this as an archeological dig. Get a journal, reflect on our lives, what we can dig up regarding our values, the truth of who we really are and what we came here to do, what we envision as an ideal future, how we could make a contribution to it. What are our gifts, our passion, our heart’s desire that also just happen to be the gifts we can give to each other and our world.?
And this brings me to Saturn. On Friday he leaves the heavy energy of Capricorn and enters Aquarius. Another beginning. A fresh new energy. Aries brings fire, passion, aliveness. Aquarius brings mental energy, a fair wind to blow away the cobwebs and see through clear air. Aquarius poses a big question for us all. We are entering an Age of Aquarius and there are potentials beyond our dreams, as well as pitfalls to avoid. But the big question that Aquarius poses is this: How can we fully express our unique individuality and be one with all humanity? This is a paradox. We experience it with spouses, lovers, close friends and family. How do I feel part of my family and remain myself? How do I reconcile my need for relationship without sacrificing my individuality? For most of us we probably have had to suppress or deny parts of ourselves to be accepted by others. Or at least we thought we had to.
Aquarius is about awakening to the reality that we are truly all one. About coming to peace with that, learning to celebrate that and explore the potentials of a super-consciousness. Saturn is the great manifester. This Archetype teaches us through our experience what works and what doesn’t, how to take responsibility, to grow up, to develop integrity and contribute to our world. Saturn rules Capricorn, but he also co-rules Aquarius. He is asking us to take responsibility for our thoughts, to mature our mental processes, to not turn our minds over to our egos to run their constant chatter, but to focus our awareness, become fully present and aware. The other ruler is Uranus, another awakener. Uranus will deliver wake-up calls and Saturn will teach us how to grow in response to them.
Other Aspects
While the Sun is activating fire energy, after her journey through Piscean waters, and Saturn is making a visit to Aquarius, to which he will return on the Winter Solstice, other players are making suggestions.
Vesta is conjunct Sedna in the USA 6th house. Now the 6th house is about daily life and health. Voila! Vesta is heating this area up. And the sky’s the limit, or rather Sedna’s the known limit of our Solar System. Our daily routines are being disrupted and our health threatened. We are isolated from others, if not downright afraid of them. Vesta is about devotion, tending the hearth, keeping the sacred flame of spirit lit in our depths. These two suggest bringing quiet, alone time into our daily life. Taking time to connect with our depth, with what is sacred, holy and divine within us.
The second house is full of planets in Capricorn, as it has been all year. This is the area of our assets, our self-worth and our values. The Stock Market has lost 1/3 of its value and the shutdown of many businesses is threatening a recession. Pallas Athena joins Mars and Jupiter, all three within two degrees of Pluto. This is one of those moments! Pallas is a female warrior goddess who sprang from the head of Zeus – from the mind of the god. She not only lends us her fierce courage, she counsels wisdom to be gleaned from standing up for what is right and true, fighting the good fight.
Next week Mars will perfect his conjunction with Pluto. Mars activates. Something will be triggered. And at the end of the month Jupiter and Pallas will cross overs Pluto’s position. Jupiter makes things bigger. Pallas brings us strength. I don’t know what will happen, but it is possible that this period may bring an intensification of the virus epidemic. There are many indicators for healing, however. Chariklo is conjunct Saturn as he moves into Aquarius. She is the feminine companion of Chiron, another centaur healer. Pholus, a third centaur, is in the USA 1st house conjunct the transiting South Node of the Moon. The South Node holds the unintegrated experiences of our past, the unfinished business, unreconciled relationships, unhealed wounds as well as the unclaimed talents. Both Pholus and the Node are conjunct the USA natal placement of Eris. Pholus brings our focus to healing discord, both within ourselves and with others, and reclaiming power we left in the past..
I know this was a long post. I offered much to chew on, but I also promised you a list of things you can do to mitigate the Coronavirus. These are from my Naturopath who is a fully licensed doctor as well as holistic healer. She recommends:
1. Double your intake of probiotic. If you aren’t taking one, start. Your gut is a big part of your immune system. You want the right microbes in there ridding the system of invaders.
2. Take extra Vitamin C and D. I take D3.
3. Take 30 mg of Zinc every day until this crisis is over.
4. Stay away from sugar. Viruses thrive and multiply on sugar.
5. Take an alternating hot and cold shower every day. She advises 5 minutes of hot water, 30 seconds of as cold as you can take it (don’t be heroic), and repeating this cycle for a total of three times. This increases circulation, keeps the lymph system active so that it can cleanse toxins. I still haven’t figured out how to tell time in the shower, but wing it.
6. When I had the flu she recommended dry brushing my skin twice a day gently moving from extremities toward the heart. This too circulates the lymph and clears out congestion.
7. Finally, release grief. She claims that grief weakens the lungs and this is where the virus is most dangerous.
I will write more next week about the New Moon in Aries. I thought it might be helpful to track the lunation cycle this Aries month, taking a look at the various phases of the Moon’s orbit and what each has to offer us on our journey.
Stay well, take good care of yourself – it’s step one in self-love – and when fear arises, transmute it into love through your heart. You might want to check out the heart/brain coherence technique I wrote about last year. It’s a great defense against the debilitating effects of fear.
Leave a Reply