posted January 25, 2008 10:52 AM         

Q= "we have met the enemy...and it is us."

posted January 25, 2008 11:10 AM         

I love this site!!!

Thanks again, I get so much from this site, I share it with all my friends, e-mailing and have posted on other forums also!!!

posted January 26, 2008 01:25 AM         

WE'VE ENTERED that dramatic period we talked about endlessly in the 90's, that turning time when everything we thought was solid has begun to melt, that birthing tunnel where the contractions of the process feels as if we're being crunched and pummeled. It almost feels like we're dying as the things (and psychological crutches) we've counted on to sustain us rapidly disappear. In some ways we are; what is old and no longer workable is certainly fading, even as it may seek to dominate our thoughts and actions and sweep us away for a last long ride.

Illustration by Annie Wilkinson.
I'm sure you understand that fear is born of fear -- the government has held sway with us by igniting our fears for years, and the reality of dissolution and decay has the very powers that created it running scared now, as well.

The economy is shifting unpredictably, although I'll predict right now that we've just begun to see it wobble and warp. As epidemics go, fear is on the top of the list to bring us to our collective knees, so we need to inoculate ourselves against it as best we can. The world doesn't need another panicked citizen -- and you don't need to become Chicken Little. Besides, that's redundant -- the sky IS falling, running around screaming about it was my old job, perhaps yours too. Now that we're ALL aware of it, we need to bite the bullet, go to the next level of activity and comfort ourselves that none of this is new -- we humans have been doing this since we first arrived on Terra.

Laying down our baggage, dealing with our old disappointments and wounds, has been a topic of discussion for awhile -- there was good reason for that. Our new challenges will require us to be stripped for action, unencumbered by coloration's from the past. Look at the logic of that -- the old notions of how to make life in 3D effortless and pleasant don't appear to be working anymore; ergo, decisions and rules we made for ourselves based on the old strategies are obsolete as well. For instance, if every mate you've ever had has run out on you, and you've made a 'rule' to never open yourself to trust on that level, you will handicap yourself in the new paradigm energies. Much of what we've learned about succeeding at life is passé now -- we can't enter the new by hanging on to the old.

The run-up to this energy change has given us all a highly sensitive internal gauge for what is real and what isn't -- I call it my 'bullshitometer.' It's become highly dependable for helping me punch holes in the smoke and mirrors that we get from government and news, for identifying those playing faulty self-esteem tapes at me, for allowing me to hear my own ego squeaking and rumbling. We need to learn to listen to this intuitive bit of hardware we've activated, not to make anyone wrong but to discover what is trustworthy. It's more a matter of functionality as opposed to the old concepts of "right" or "wrong" -- the question to ask is, does this work? I find myself increasingly impatient with those who insist on old paradigm discussions and solutions; I have to remind myself to be kind in my dealings with them, they just haven't realized that nothing they propose is useful anymore. Still, I have no desire to loop endlessly in dysfunctionality, I'm looking for the new skill set that will allow us to move forward. We're entering uncharted territory -- bringing old rules, old grievances, old rationales to a new game will guarantee confusion and lethargy. It's in our best interests to let go of what used to be, used to work, used to matter -- we're birthing a new thing and the more resistant we are, the more painful the changes will be.

To complicate that, this week the Venus Pluto conjunction may bring you a bit of reality that you'd rather not have. That's the thing about reality -- it cuts through our personal mythologies like a hot knife through butter. Since life is subjective to each of us, we behave as though what we think is true absolutely is, and when we're proven wrong we think we've failed, or been failed, on some level rather than understanding that we're just being informed. The stellium of planets in Aquarius may help us keep some detachment with that but it won't be ever with us, so take note of how that can help you now, to call upon again. Venus is our comfort zone, our intimacy area, and Pluto always brings up the shadows and underlying potholes so we can examine them. Since this potent conjunction is opposed to Mars retro'd into Gemini, I'd expect some relationship conflicts and considerable dialogue about it. Don't come unpinned -- try for calm, and renegotiate your social contracts to reflect any new discoveries.

If forgiveness is in order, get to it as quickly as possible. As Anne Lamott said, in her thoughtful book, Traveling Mercies, "Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die." Throwing the baby out with the bathwater may, or may not, be called for -- only you can know, but don't drink the poison and complicate the situation. In fact, let's make that broader still; like we sometimes "forgive" the debt of an entire nation, let's forgive the past, the list of grievances, the suppositions of failure, the self-judgment. That easily -- that quickly. Haven't we let them define us for too long now? Haven't we plumbed their depths by now?

The message we get from our old baggage is that life sometimes victimizes us, and what we brood over is destined to repeat. We drag this old junk behind us at our peril. Let's clear the table, forgive our debts and debtors, use our 'bullshitometer' to discern who's unable to let go of old thinking and surround ourselves with those who can help us move into the new energy. Everything around us appears to be vibrating at a high-pitched fear level -- switching our intention is a first step in changing our 'homing signal' and attracting the new possibilities and options we need.

There are other steps that I recommend as well. When I was doing spiritual training years ago, I was told that the most important thing I could develop was the ability to center myself instantly. I was to practice centering until I could accomplish it with a snap of my fingers. Centering is a bit different from grounding, which is another prerequisite for keeping you psychically sound. There are a number of traditions for grounding that align your causal bodies and bring those scattered portions of 'self' back into 3D; grounding is a basic skill required for dealing with overwhelm. I'm not much on ritual, so for me grounding is a matter of noticing I need it, eating something dense like a bit of meat and visualizing myself anchored to the center of the earth with a ribbon of light, or standing barefoot in the dirt, calling upon Gaia to pull me back into alignment with my physical self. The more psychic you are...and of course, you are...the easier it is to become ungrounded; in this remarkable time of constant Shock 'n Awe, we need to keep grounding ourselves continually.

Centering is different in that it moves you past your desires, your concerns, your conflicts, and aligns you with your Higher Self. Course in Miracles calls that energy Holy Spirit -- I call it HS, which is both and the same. Since Capricorn has taken 'worry' to an art form, I highly recommend that you develop this skill. At our center we are beyond ego need, attack/defend and judgment. The HS has our life path, our blueprint, in front of it and it has no worry that we cannot accomplish what we've set forth to do, it defuses fear because fear is an earth emotion based on old learning and experience; babies are fearless, aren't they? It takes us awhile to achieve our parental duty of making fraidy cats out of them. HS comes to us with calm and peace and a sense of confidence we may not recognize as our own, but it is our own; its the You who you actually are. We are so much more than we think we are, so much more important to the whole than we understand, so much more powerful than we dream -- and learning to tie into that energy with a snap will make your journey here less a nightmare of circumstance and more a celebration of possibilities and choice.

If you have to prove that to yourself before you can appreciate the power of centering, than drag out your paper and pencil again. Make a list of your achievements over the course of your lifetime -- you're going to surprise yourself. Review your skills, your talents, your strengths, your abilities -- note how often your ingenuity has assisted you, and look for those times when your intuition served you. We will be relying on all these things in the coming months, so knowing that we already have an impressive track record will make the prospect less daunting. Fear may swirl around us everywhere we look, but if we stay in our center, we can become part of the solution rather than adding to the problem, we can begin to turn the tide of the epidemic that threatens to drag us down into unnecessary levels of discouragement and despair.

In quiet time, in meditation, you will recognize that you've been in situations like this before, that you survived them, that you surmounted the challenges -- you may discover that this only seems so dark because we're healing our ability to trust ourselves, our essential goodness and that of our brothers/sisters. We're leaving 'should' and 'have to' behind as worn out concepts; we're developing new ideas about what life will look like. We're birthing that new thing that has no baggage to drag, that's fearless in its determination to create in beauty and peace and equality. It's asking us to lay down our old self-definitions and step into our power and potential.

By Planet Waves

posted January 26, 2008 09:32 AM         

Q= Even in the face of impermanence, Capricorn takes Pluto's intensity as a challenge; the Sea-Goat's nature is after all to endure for as long as possible, to establish structures that will long outlast the lives of their creators, and overcoming any obstacles to that purpose.

The part of the body under Capricorn's governance is the skeleton, that which endures even beyond death under the right conditions, and that which provides the solid structure with which the softer parts of the body hold their form and positions relative to each other. The social conventions and governments falling under the archetype of Capricorn serve a similar function in the body of a human society...................................................................................... Patterns from one Capricorn cycle to another can also be seen; at the time of Constantine, Christianity was a new and vital religion amidst many others. In 533 when Pluto next visited the Sea-Goat's realm, Justinian I was Emperor of the Eastern Empire that survived after the fall of the West to Barbarians. In a sinister flip-flop of Diocletian's reign, Justinian persecuted the last remaining pagans in an attempt to unify his Empire under the one religion of Orthodox Christianity.

In the 8th century Charlemagne began the first move towards re-establishing an Empire in the West in what came to be called the Holy Roman Empire. He was crowned Emperor by the Pope with Pluto in Aquarius, but established himself as one worthy of such honor during Pluto's Capricorn phase. Additionally, many of the writings from the classical world that we have available to us today are now with us due to Charlemagne's patronage of the copying of the ancient manuscripts. Between the fall of the Empire in the west and the reign of Charlemagne, book learning, fine arts and city culture were confined, hidden like seeds awaiting fertile soil in the monasteries. Charlemagne gave those seeds the soil they needed to grow, sprinkled with the blood sacrifice of the Saxons and others whom he converted to Christianity by his sword.

In the 16th century Martin Luther had his illumination that resulted in the Protestant Reformation, while Hernan Cortes was welcomed as a god by Moctezuma in South America and began the establishment of European dominance in the New World. Protestantism and the Conquistadores would uphold the tradition of blood sacrifice as they burned witches and slaughtered savages in the name of Jesus. In Asia, European merchants made first contact with China, and planted small seeds that would grow into vast colonialism by the 19th century.

Britain fell to the Romans who founded the city of London under one Pluto in Capricorn spell. By the time the next cycle occurred over a thousand years later, London was the capital of the largest empire in recorded history while its young colony in the new world threw off the chains of its rule. On the eastern edge of North America, the United States of America was founded, while on the western edge the wave given a push by Paul of Tarsus in the first century AD simultaneously hit California as the first Christian missions were established. This small colony would stretch "from sea to shining sea" in less than a century, and expand from nation to world empire in a little over two.

As Pluto nears Capricorn this time around, entering in 2009, we are approaching the celebrated end-date of the Mayan Calendar which concludes a count of time running 26,625 years. This is the approximate amount of time required for the points of the equinox to traverse an entire circle of the heavens. The Mayans begin and end their reckoning of time with the conjunction of the winter solstice Sun to the center of the Milky Way galaxy. On winter solstice 2012 this occurs with Pluto in Capricorn. Interestingly, by one reckoning, Mayan civilization was established in the 4th century of the Christian calendar with Pluto in Capricorn. Greg Foster--> http://planetwavesweekly.com/parallel/articles/pluto_capricorn.html

posted January 27, 2008 02:18 AM         

Celebrate

Then get serious.

Happy Pluto is finally freakin out of Sag day!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to Cap you life changer you....you little dwarf kick arse.

Now everyone.........

Back to work!

Reduce that debt!

Cut up those credit cards!

Make that emergency account!

The first time Pluto has been in Cap since the ride of Paul Revere and the R-EVOL-utionary war.

"Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy ride"

We've ridden thru the religous upheavals.........now it's time for business and personal issues to face The Borg.

"Hello, my name is Pluto and I'm here to change your life. Resistance is futile."

Wow! Bring on the revolution. I am ready for it!!!

I have about 5 or 6 pluto transits in my chart. It has only begun and so far it has been a bumpy ride for me. Is this going to be good or bad for me with all that pluto in my chart?

posted January 27, 2008 09:43 AM         

Plutonian themes while extremely challenging are always positive in the end game. Transformation. Out with the old, tired, worn out. Incoming! Duck!