Thursday, December 24, 2009

Winter Gifts on the Cusp of Christmas



"Astrologizes" ~ Exercises to Review Your Year, Honor Your Achievements, and Dump Your Dross!

Get a taste of the fabulous Winter Solstice celebration I held on December 21st with my Solsisters friends. Two of the regular exercises we do each year—I call them “astrologizes”—are replicated on Spirited Woman blog, where I am a guest blogger. The articles are called Astrologize: Exercises for the Winter Solstice to Warm Your Heart and Light Your Way. Here’s #1, Ceremony of Recognition and #2, Burning the Old.

Your Winter Astrology Forecast

In case you haven’t noticed in the sidebar, I am now writing a quarterly astrological forecast for one of my favorite sites, Perrie Meno-Pudge. You’ll learn a lot about winter, what it is and isn’t good for, and find out what’s happening in both the General Sky as well as the Winter Outlook for your Sun sign. Check out what winter holds in store for you at Perrie’s Planetarium – Winter Solstice 2009.

I’d like to close with this quote from the Revels and my holiday wish for you:

And so the shortest day came
And the year died
An everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing
To drive the dark away.


Let’s all proclaim together—Welcome Yule, WELCOME YULE!
~~~

Photo Credit: CHRISTMAS © Rofa Dreamstime.com

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Winter Solstice Prayer



by Joyce Mason

God, Goddess, All That Is:
Help me see in the dark.

This longest night of the year
we celebrate the turning-point
between the Night Force and Day.

Meanwhile, hibernation.
We protect the seeds of our own creations
nurture them underground
until frost turns raindrops and each pod’s promise
bursts through dirt, darkness, and lack of faith.

And at long last, we see the value of the Night—
its part in the Perfect Plan—
to know You

and our part in it.



~~~

© 2009 by Joyce Mason. All Rights Reserved.


Happy Yule/Solstice on December 21st!

For more Winter Solstice and seasonal inspiration, read these posts on Hot Flashbacks, Cool Insights:

Turn on the Lights!  A "creation myth" that encompasses diverse beliefs and the spirit of the season.

Hug the Dark ~ Winter Solstice rituals and embracing winter.

Winter Solstice ~ Multiple traditions and rituals for celebrating Winter Solstice.
 
Vanity Fair ~ Surprises from spirit and discovering inner light.
 
Happy Holidays! Another Kind of Peace Sign ~ Honoring others' beliefs in the season of love and light.

Let It Begin with Me ~ Music-inspired tips on what you can do personally to promote peace on earth.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

New Chiron E-Book: A Healing Holiday Gift for You and Yours!




Get It While It’s Hot and Before the Price Goes Up New Year’s Day!


Dear Readers,

Don’t let the year and the introductory price for Chiron and Wholeness: A Primer pass you by! In appreciation for your loyal support of The Radical Virgo and to give folks a break during this challenging economy, I offered a pre-publication price of $3.50 and an introductory price of $4.95. These prices did not include the wider marketing costs of the e-book, which I now must incorporate into the regular price of $7.95. The new price goes into effect on January 1, 2010. You still have plenty of time to get this loyal reader, introductory rate through December.

Give yourself a holiday gift that lasts! Here’s what a variety of readers, including astrologer friends and colleagues, are saying about Chiron and Wholeness: A Primer.

It was absolutely stunning and beautifully done. Big Medicine! I really appreciated the phrase "Chiron is the place between Then and Now." Well said ! ~ LW, Pennsylvania, USA

It is beautifully executed, and its insights and gentle wisdom were EXACTLY what I needed, as it soothed me when I read it. ~ MD, Australia

It's a knockout! As ever, very well written, clear and easy to read. I like your tone, which is well pitched between breezy and serious. Writing about people's Chiron placements by sign and house is a tricky matter … There is a 'distilled' feel to the knowledge, which feeds the writing. In the presence of an effective therapist, the client senses that that person has lived their own pain and distilled a quality essence from it, without the therapist having to say anything about their own journey. Your writing about Chiron has that feel to it ~ AW, Scotland

Wow. I have to say I wanted more. I wanted to keep reading more. Give me more. I loved it. I felt like you had been watching my life! Great E-Book. Wonderful insights. Also, I couldn't stay in denial about some things. You had brought them up and gently waved them in front of me! Thank You. ~ KH, Ohio


Of all the astrologers who have written about Chiron, your work resonates most clearly to me. ~ SM, Hawaii


If you have astro-savvy friends and loved ones who would benefit from Chiron and Wholeness, you can now purchase the new Chiron e-book accompanied by a custom gift “card” that is attached along with the  e-book in a separate PDF file.  The gift card is replicated here. The  text of the e-mail includes instructions for download and contact information in case of questions.

Healing Holidays!
Joyce

Monday, November 23, 2009

Jumpin’ Jupiter! Happy Thanksgiving


© 2009 by Joyce Mason
   All Rights Reserved

No holiday could be more “Jupiter” than the typical American Thanksgiving. We overdo everything—food, football, friends, family and acid indigestion. We hunt and gather at our local grocery store until we have acquired an overflowing basket of ingredients, the makings of a feast fit for a king or queen. Don’t forget their royal relatives.

This bounty hunting got me wondering about the history of Thanksgiving. Long story short: In 1621, the Plymouth colonists and Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast. Today many consider that meal to be one of the first Thanksgiving celebrations in the colonies. This feast also became a symbol of cooperation and communication between the English colonists and Native Americans.

While many people consider this dinner party to be the very first Thanksgiving, it was actually part of a long tradition of celebrating the harvest and giving thanks for a successful bounty of crops. Native Americans had lavish harvest festivals long before Europeans arrived in America. This is one of the many gifts we owe to the Original Americans.

Thanks to a declaration by Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving in the USA is perfectly placed when the Sun is in Sagittarius, ruled by Jupiter—the pre-game warm-up to the most Jupiterian of all holidays, Christmas. While our Gregorian calendar, offbeat with natural cycles, places the birth of Jesus just after the Winter Solstice in the sign of Capricorn, all the lead-up is Sag to the max—tinsel and merry, journeys to the mall, buying too much, and more eating and drinking too much.

That Jupiterian spirit extends to the other winter holidays based on faith from pagan (Solstice) to Jewish (Chanukah) and the holiday spirit of more secular believers who simply enjoy cheering for peace on earth and goodwill to humankind. Although Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October, it’s still during the harvest season while the Sun is in Libra, focusing on our relationship with others and how interconnectedness is what really feeds us.

The expression “jumpin’ Jupiter” originated as a mild expletive, but I think it describes how the ancient god Zeus (also known as Jupiter) would have celebrated Thanksgiving. I envision him in front of a 72-inch widescreen TV, watching all the games, leaping up in excitement during the hot plays, drinking beer, and snacking till he falls off his recliner. Don’t cheer for the other team. He has been known to throw thunderbolts!

“Everything in moderation, including moderation”


Many of us know this old saw that supports our excesses, as long as they don’t become—well, too excessive. It’s easy for me, as a person with natal Jupiter trine Mars, to overdo things with a flourish. What a perfect time of year to look at Jupiter in your own chart, both its gifts and challenges.

“Jumpin’ Jupiter” is also used to express surprise. I hope that will be the result of your journey to your personal Jupiter. Let’s take a trip, a Jupiter and Sag specialty, to discover your relationship to this planet’s bounty and drawbacks.

A Few Questions to Ask Yourself While Packing

This part of the trip is contemplative. While the metaphor involves packing, the real essentials you’ll be taking are a pen or pencil or your computer to muse on some of the following:


• What is the sign and house of your Jupiter?

• What planets does Jupiter aspect?

• Any aspect patterns? (T-square, Grand Trine, Kite)

• What happened on your last Jupiter Return?

• What were the icky parts of this supposedly great time? When you overdid things, whether you ate too much, drank too much, loved too much? What did you learn when nothing exceeded like excess?


While the first three questions seem elementary, the Jupiter Return holds the key to unlocking your personal Jupiter bounty. The Jupiter Return exposes your customized Jupiter themes.

My last Jupiter Return involved a new spiritual odyssey. I let my cosmic tractor beam lead me. Something felt “missing” in my spiritual life. It led me back to my spiritual roots and the church of my childhood, where I needed much healing in order to move forward into full realization of myself.

My Jupiter is in the seventh house, so there was something to discover about spiritual beliefs in relationship to others. Essentially, I got quite a lesson on the continuum of people who are both alike and different from me in their beliefs. From that introduction, I had to figure out where I fit in and where I belonged. I also learned how to stand in my own beliefs with loving kindness among people who do not see spirituality or the world in the same way as I do. These were definitely jumpin’ Jupiter/surprising revelations! Ultimately, they fulfilled Jupiter’s promise of expansion and getting to know “foreigners,” those whose ideas, culture, or beliefs are different from mine. I was delighted to learn that despite those differences, we were much more alike than different and many friendships could transcend them.

Next step: Once you’ve gotten reacquainted with the themes of your last Jupiter Return, trace it back to your other Jupiter Return cycles. Jupiter returns to its natal position every 12 years.

A Jupiter Journal

Inner journeys beg for a travel diary, just as we create travel journals in the outer world. We take photos; we annotate what we saw. That’s why I suggest that you create a little Jupiter Return Journal. Don’t rack your brain wondering what is important to write down. Write what first comes to you. Just as we're told when taking a multiple-choice test, the right answer is usually what comes to mind first. This is just as true when you consider the date of any Jupiter Return. After all, what you remember pops out of dozens of things that happened around that time. It must be important!

Using myself as the guinea pig (no permissions to obtain), here’s what I found out about my Jupiter Returns in reverse chronological order:

2006 – As already stated, this Jupiter Return brought me a literal spiritual journey back to my childhood religion and a journey in holding my core beliefs while honoring those who believe differently.

1994 - Chironicles newsletter was at its peak. It was my first foray into writing and publishing in a very personal way, where I was navigator of creating and disseminating information created by myself and others. I served as a teacher and mentor to those who wanted to learn more about Chiron during its early discovery years. It was higher education at its most practical, drawn from the laboratory of life. I also went on my first trip abroad to an astrology seminar in Greece. It was so loaded with blessings; this journey changed my life forever.

1982 – I was studying astrology and heading the production of the annual holiday party entertainment at my government day job. I was the team leader of a group that wrote and orchestrated a live show, personal to the audience, with countless belly laughs.

1970 – During this Jupiter Return, I enjoyed the blessings of my first professional job. It was more fulfilling than most people find at the peak of their careers. My work had a large teaching component. I played Jupiter to families of children with developmentally disabilities. Often devastated with little hope, I brought them resources, information and training. They spoke of me as a godsend, and I truly felt like Santa Claus.

1959 – We moved across town just as I entered adolescence, which may as well have been across the ocean for me when we left behind my happy childhood home. However, this journey kicked off all the inner growth expansion in my life and other surprises, such as meeting my first boyfriend. Little did I know then that 39 years later, as adults, we would marry. (For more on that story, read My Three Minutes of Fame.)

Putting It All Together

When I scan the very Jupiterian topics of my five Jupiter Returns, they involve love, inner expansion, teaching, astrology, international connections, entertainment, writing and publishing, and spirituality. These are the gourds, veggies and fruits in my cornucopia. If Jupiter brings joy and happiness, the ultimate joy for me must involve these topics, at best blended together in a big Thanksgiving feast. You’ll find the content of yours in your life review, too.

Guess what I discovered? My work now blends them all! I write and teach about love, expansion, astrology, and spirituality. I publish it on the Internet, the biggest long distance travel venue on earth. I do it in a way that’s entertaining.

When I’m down or blue and don’t feel the love, by Jove? Then it’s time to look to the configuration of my Jupiter by sign, house, and aspect for hints at how to feel in the flow of divine blessings. Trine Mars: Do Jupiterian things—give to others, act funny, write or publish something. Conjunct South Node: Find the blessings in my past, such as my reconnection with my childhood church and reunions with birth mom and my two most significant boyfriends/lost loves, one who became my husband. Your Jupiter configuration and cycles will tell you what makes you happy, too.

But don’t forget what gave you indigestion. It’s a compass in another direction. My excess is “all or nothing.” I don’t do anything half-way, and this takes its toll on me at times. The upside is that I “cycle through things” quickly, reap their benefits, and move on. However, I still overeat—literally. A work in progress!

Following my own Jupiter compass for expansion has brought me enough bounty for a lifetime of Thanksgivings. This holiday gives homage to my favorite feeling—gratitude. I invite you to take some introspective time after your big feast to do this exercise.

You may discover, as I did:




Happiness isn’t getting what you want; it’s wanting what you have.



~~

Photo credit: CORNUCOPIA DETAIL © Achauer | Dreamstime.com


Thanksgiving Note from Joyce: At this grateful time of year, I want to thank the readers of The Radical Virgo for your part in making this blog such a success from its very inception this past Spring Equinox. A reader of my original article, “The Radical Virgo,” inspired me to return to writing about astrology. I actually didn’t think I had much left to say on the subject after a seven-year hiatus. Apparently, I was wrong! I never cease to be amazed that I’ve been able to recycle old articles to new audiences and continue to find inspirations for many new ones. Your support and reports of how this information helps you is what keeps me going. I welcome your feedback in our continued adventure together at becoming better versions of ourselves. Boundless blessings!

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

A New Timepeace


Bending and Mending Time

© 1995-2009
by Joyce Mason
All Rights Reserved

There are many ways people handle the artificial construct we humans have created to organize ourselves—linear time. While the Great Kreskin bends spoons with his psychic powers, I bend time. I pack more into an hour than most people do in a day. Then there are laid-back types who would rather do as little as possible and put off until tomorrow anything that doesn’t have to be done today.

On the opposite end of stretching every hour beyond its limit is psychiatrist Carl Jung’s principle of synchronicity or meaningful coincidence. Synchronicity has nothing to do with squeezing the last second out of each hour you are living, therefore exercising control over it. Synchronicity is being at the right place at the right time—ignoring linear time altogether and simply being present, living your life, and minding your own business.

When we step out of linear time, we are in the realm of the gods and all the beings or forces that can create miracles.

In order to bring you just the right “coincidence,” these “people” can’t be bothered with clocks and calendars. They’re too confining.

My friends call me the Queen of Synchronicity. My stories are so fantastic; you’d think I made them up. Since I both stretch time and ignore it, I play both ends of the opposition between linear time and perfect timing. If this sounds like doublespeak and a bit confusing, think about how all great truths have some element of paradox. We need time so we can make the most of our experience on the planet, to bring ourselves together often and long enough (and at regular intervals) to accomplish certain things. But real magic can only happen if we step out of time...

...and you guessed it. Today’s world demands that we learn to do both.

Cracking Clocks & Calendars: Saturn, Chiron, and Time

You can say good-bye to time as we knew it. In the 1980s and ‘90s, we kept hearing about a paradigm shift, that time would accelerate. You’re not just imagining it, if you feel like you’re about to take the leap into warp speed and hyperspace. What in the world is going on? It’s something outer-planetary, but before we can make that jump to the trans-Saturnian planets, let’s start with Saturn itself, the ruler of earth, order, clocks—and endings.

Traditionally, Saturn rules time. Culturally, we know Chronos (Saturn) as Father Time bringing out the old year. He is in charge of calendars, watches, and clock-watching. The image that leaps to mind for me is from the wonderful adult fairy tale The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In that book the Prince, a naive boy from asteroid B-612, is perplexed in his space travels by a planet full of accountants where all they do is live by the second hand of their stopwatches, obsessing over efficiencies, thinking all this is terribly important. (To the boy, who just doesn’t get it, things like love and friendship are what counts). The parody isn’t even thinly disguised. We know which planet he was on!

One of the most brilliant and mind-boggling book I have ever read is Barbara Hand Clow’s, Chiron: Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets. [1] If Chiron is the bridge between Saturn (time) and what’s beyond it, we need to know Chiron’s relationship to time itself in order to understand what’s going on with this speed-up we have begun to experience since Chiron’s discovery in 1977.

“Chiron...explicitly focuses into Saturnian time higher dimensions ruled by Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto,” [2] according to Barbara Clow. Further, she introduces the concept of Chirotic time—being out of linear time—and states that Chiron rules synchronicity. In other words, to bring multi-dimensional consciousness down to earth—channeling, cosmic advice and direction, inspiration from beyond the limits of our own minds—we must be run (not walk!) out of time. We have to slip between the cracks of the clock.

We are running out of time. In 1995, theologian and cosmologist Matthew Fox said scientists calculated that “our ecological crisis will be irreversible if we don’t change the down-spiraling pattern within the next 16 years.” [3] Timing is scary stuff.

When asked how we can circumvent global disaster, Fox said the shortcut to healing the Earth is through ritual.

The shortcut to healing the Earth is through ritual.


Ritual involves taking time to honor the sacred—to honor turning-points (also connected with Chiron [4]) such as solstices, equinoxes, the Sabbath, and planetary ingresses, as well as personal turning points like birth, death, and everything in-between (Solar Returns, “coming of age,” marriage, divorce, and menopause). Time brings us together, but within a sacred ceremonial circle, time as we know it ceases to exist. It becomes Chirotic time, where we relinquish being controlled by clocks and calendars to let in other realities. In myth, Chiron was abandoned by his Father, Chronos (Saturn), so to tap into the great teacher/healer archetype that Chiron represents within each of us, we must let Kronos leave. We must become “time orphans.”

This is how we must learn to live in order to survive—and to have a future. Now I am going to use another”c” word (besides clocks and calendars) that makes some people cringe—and that’s channeling. If you think people are hokey who bring in entities from the beyond, I invite you to retain your skepticism, while at the same time, opening your mind to the concept that there’s more than one style of channeling. In the movie, Oh God!, George Burns as the Divine One says, “I don’t do miracles. They’re too flashy.” Professional channelers may be too flashy for you, and as Gertrude Stein said, “Style is everything.” Beyond making divine direction too “Hollywood,” anyone can have a personal link to All That Is, or any particular part of It, including your own Higher Self. Channeling has nothing to do with drawing crowds. That’s simply one style of delivery.

To tap into the great teacher/healer archetype that Chiron represents … we must become “time orphans.”



The act of opening to information beyond the physical is what Chirotic consciousness and being “in a state of Chiros” is all about. What I’m really talking about in this article is akin to learning the e-mail address of God/Goddess/All That Is (however you perceive heavenly help and helpers) and having a personal pipeline to Them any time you want. Who would argue the need for divine direction any time, but especially in these times? (Or the relevance of Chiron as a bridge between Heaven and Earth?)


Why Time and Perfect Timing Are Opposites

Saturn, which rules time and everything to do with it, is the planet of control. To bring in information—to channel it—requires surrender and a very open mind. Same goes for bringing in meaningful coincidences and experiences (synchronicity). Some people learn to do this for 20-30 minutes at a time in meditation, or perhaps create an altered state of consciousness while running; however, what I am talking about (here’s your Future Shock) is living in this consciousness most of the time.

I do not advocate throwing out Saturn and all our timepieces, right this minute, in favor of something totally new. Chiron rules evolution—organic change that happens a step at a time. As the leading planet in Time Evolution, Chiron is the bridge between Old (Saturn) and New (Uranus), between that which is stuck and unchanging and that which is revolutionary. Chiron’s role, in time and all things, is to help us synthesize the opposites within us. Barbara Hand Clow connects Chiron with the point in the brain where both sides merge—the corpus collosum. In that physiological midpoint, we weave the countless polarities within us: masculine/feminine, light/dark, old/new, and time/timelessness.

Going from the personal to the planetary, perhaps you remember talk, around the Harmonic Convergence, that from that day forward, time would speed up. José Argüelles is the Father of the Harmonic Convergence, where people did exactly what Matthew Fox prescribes—ceremonies at sacred sites to heal the earth. Argüelles described the August 1987 event as the “corpus collosum of history,” leading us to “the Armageddon Bypass.” If we’re lucky, the Chirotic chain reaction set up at those sites is like a time-release capsule of light that will cause a continuous chain reaction of healing. It started in time, but the effect is not linear at all. It went way beyond what happened that weekend, maybe even this lifetime.

We can learn and be healed (mythical Chiron’s main jobs were astrologer, teacher and healer) in direct proportion to our ability to get out of our own way and let information come through us. Good channels are only as good as they can surrender to being a conduit. This is not an ego trip. Good readers are good because they put aside their ego and let the information come through them. It is the epitome of open-mindedness. Because humor is healing, I share the crazy things I channel, as they alight, sent by (I am sure) many muses that enjoy playing with my mind. To have synchronicity—to know things—to get good cosmic direction—takes “cannelloni consciousness.” You know, that big tube-shaped pasta, open on both ends. It takes a big macaroni mind, where one end opens to the cosmic and divine (the outer planets) and the other end opens to our Saturn-bound minds and bodies, here on earth. Chiron is the pasta planet—the tube-shaped noodle in our “noodle.”

Saturn/Chiron Opposition and Chiron’s Perihelion

For over a decade, Saturn and Chiron opposed each other in the sky as a prelude to Chiron’s perihelion on Valentine’s Day 1996. This pair of phenomena—the Saturn/Chiron opposition and Chiron’s pass closest to earth—brought time down to earth in a whole new way. Time and Timelessness danced, each stretching itself to its farthest point on the continuum away from the other. We found ourselves living in a new world where time was concerned. The Internet was starting to catch on. One month, a few cutting-edge friends had e-mail, and within a few mere months, “being online” caught on like wildfire.

Time and technology were mating at warp speed! Soon our lives were overtaken by voice mail, faxes and e-mail. Communications that used to take days or hours now take minutes. We can virtually talk to anyone around the world, just like that link-up to God/ Goddess/All That Is, I keep claiming anyone can do. With telecommuting catching on, we have traded Saturn time-clock punching for a more independent, Uranian style of blending home and work—which is potentially Chironic for its balance (and synthesis of the best of old and new). We have clocks everywhere. We keep stretching time—doing more. We save even more time, taking classes on the Internet and shopping there more often than real malls. (Who has time?)

Saturn/Chiron Opposition: Time and Timelessness danced, each stretching itself to its farthest point on the continuum away from the other.

For a second time in recent history, Saturn opposed Chiron in 2003-04. By then the technological and resultant time changes that had begun in the mid-‘90s had quickened in more ways than one. The Speed-Up had become both the upside and the downside of the Communications Revolution. The better the tools, the more messages waiting, the more work we get done—the more work we make, because we have time for it.

Feel like your head is going to burst? If we don’t learn to get off the linear time merry-go-round and regain respect for life and its seasons, including a lot more downtime, we’re going to have a collective nervous breakdown. What we need to do is shrink our workweek and realize that there’s only so much any one person should do in a given time span, and that replenishment keeps workers fresh and creative, and their lives in balance. The prescription was in the sky as these changes went from breakthrough to commonplace (Saturn opposite Chiron). We, too, need to learn to do the dance between Time and Timelessness.

On the practical level, we would virtually solve our unemployment problems in the US if everyone worked four instead of five days a week. It would take some adjustments and re-evaluation of priorities to live on 80 percent of our salaries, but with the 20 percent leftover, there would be money to hire those out of work. The financial loss is really a myth. Calculate your costs to go to work each day, along with the money you could save with the extra eight hours—clipping coupons, calling around for the best price before your chronic time crunch causes you to buy things quickly, for convenience. You’d have more time to cook instead of that expensive habit, eating out. What if we each spent that day in nature? Playing? Imagine the clear-headedness you’d get by stepping off the treadmill and being close to the Earth, and the new respect you’d gain for Her and knowledge about how to do your part to ensure the “Armageddon Bypass.” (Think of the new and improved decisions you’d make, relinquishing the spur of the moment.) Our Protestant work ethic is responsible for the sad fact that Americans take fewer days off than virtually any other civilized country. If you are dying for a vacation, you’re probably right (the health implications of what we are doing to ourselves are frightening. Just think of the thing we have too many of and what’s the root of the word deadlines).

As Chiron reached its February 14, 1996 perihelion, we reached the climax of the time acceleration on Valentine’s Day. In its highly elliptical orbit, Chiron comes closest to the Sun in the sign of Libra, where it sojourns only 15 months. This event happens, roughly, only every 50 years—ironically, last time, when the United Nations was formed as a means for global peacemaking. On the 50th anniversary of the UN, it was time to make peace with time itself...

“A Culture of Peace through a Calendar of Peace”

...or so José Argüelles believes—the creator of that Ritual in Time to Save the Earth (Harmonic Convergence), co-founder of the first Earth Day, and the researcher who decoded the mysterious Mayan calendar system and the galactic nature of the Mayans’ reckoning of time (The Mayan Factor). In 1992, Argüelles, with his wife Lloydine, created Dreamspell: The Journey of Timeship Earth 2013. It contains the proofs and mathematics of using fourth-dimensional time, utilizing the root knowledge of the Mayans combined with information from the future. They are offering a completely new concept of time to benefit the biosphere and humankind. [5]

The Dreamspell Calendar is an alternative time-keeping device, in place of the unnatural Gregorian calendar. Based on a timing frequency, aligned with the cycles of nature and the galaxy, Dreamspell works as a 13-Moon, 28-day Solar calendar. Its proponents claim it enables us to tap into the solar and galactic frequencies of fourth-dimensional time, the same channels for tuning into déjà vue, synchronicity, and telepathy. Argüelles explains the time/timelessness puzzle this way: “Telepathy has everything to do with being synchronized in time which is, paradoxically at the same time, being synchronized in timelessness. That’s why telepathy can work so fast.”

Argüelles says, “Timelessness is all there is. It’s what we mean by the ever present here and now.” [6] He took his campaign to the UN to convert the world to the new calendar on its 50-year anniversary of the world peacekeeping organization—on the UN’s first Chiron Return. Not only is that timing synchronistic, but just about the time Chiron (timelessness), finished its long opposition with Saturn (time), Argüelles and his supporters were burning their calendars in a commitment to moving into the new time consciousness. In the Mayan prophecies, July 25, 1995, began a new holtun. A holtun is a 5-year cycle in which a planetary shift is expected to take place. He considered events around that time—Waco, Oklahoma City, the OJ trial, and the war in Bosnia--all to be the products of a techno reality where machines run rampant, wars continue, and we have a complete inability to control them. From his viewpoint, he Gregorian calendar promotes a mechanical, false time that is killing us.

Timelessness is all there is. It’s what we mean by the ever present here and now. ~ Jose Argüelles

“The biosphere is in red alert,” according to Argüelles, who believes the Gregorian calendar is connected to the concept “time is money.” We have to realize instead, “time is art,” so we can begin operating creatively and as one toward global social change. “We can actually take our lives back on this planet and put them into a much more benevolent, harmonious form.” It makes perfect sense that this would require being in touch with, in tune with, and in sync with nature. The Dreamspell advocates call this “living the rainbow.” (Chiron as the rainbow bridge.) [7]

Taking Your Time

I am both obsessed with, defiant of, and sick of clocks and calendars. Lately, I am more and more resentful of Saturn’s time limits. Like any person with a strong pull on her personal planets by the trans-Saturnians,


I feel evolutionary change ahead of many others, where I live (and lately in the pit of my stomach as my stress level rises from “too much to do” and playing Beat the Clock around the clock).

How’s your relationship with time? Is it time to rethink
 it?


I know something has to give, and I don’t want it to be me. I have this image of a paddleball, being whirled above someone’s head. (Could that someone be Chronos?). Each of us is like the rubber ball on the end of the elastic string, whirling faster and faster, until finally, we break off into a new orbit—one I pray goes slower. (Sometimes I think this is the real purpose of the time marathon, to break the time barrier and leap into less hyperspace!)

In Sedona, Arizona, where I spent many a Solar Return, Chirotic time is the normal state. In Rainbow Bridge, Barbara Clow connects Chiron with spiraling energy, so perhaps the well-known vortexes of invisible swirling energy (that put Sedona on the map) make it so Chirotic—so timeless. I bend time there better than any place I go. A day seems like a week.


When “something told me” to go to Sedona for my birthday in 1993, I knew there was more to it than avoiding a Solar Return chart that was too 12th-house for my taste. After years of experience, I trusted I should just go, and the reasons would come forth, in their own time. The opportunity came up to write about Time just before I left, long after my reservations were made. It seemed important to see my friend, practical mystic Kadea Megara, who had recently begun to work with José Argüelles on promoting the 13-Moon calendar. (My watch was broken, and apparently, I found out, so was my calendar.)

Writing this article really got to me, in ways I have only hinted. For one thing, I convinced myself to drop my time base at my day job, sooner than later (before I drop myself). Now I am wearing a new and improved timepiece less often, and have both the Dreamspell and Celestial Influences calendars on my wall. I’m working on weaving the opposites—in my own way, trying to rectify the long Chiron/Saturn opposition that is still struggling within me—trying to make my own peace with Time. Chiron is winning...

Ultimately, out of the ashes of our burnout, synchronicity will rise as our truth. According to the Celestine Prophecy, that’s the sign of the times—and for many of us, of the new time. [8]

~~~

Author’s Update: Since writing the original version of this article in 1996, I have retired from my long government career. I sleep until I wake up most days, and I have reduced my watch wearing habit by at least 50 percent. Someone also wrote a book that makes a great PS to this article in its title, Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now.


NOTES

[1] Clow, Barbara Hand. Chiron: Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets (Llewellyn: 1987).

[2] Ibid., p. 2.

[3] “Reinventing Work,” lecture by Matthew Fox, July 1995 in Sacramento, Calif., sponsored by Evolving Times.

[4] Brooks, Chris. Midpoint Keys to Chiron (AFA: 1992), p. 5-6.

[5] “The Return to Natural Time,” an interview with Dr. José and Lloydine Argüelles, The Planetary Wavespell newsletter, Vol. 1, No. 1 (Electric Moon 1995), pp 1-3.

[6] Ibid.

[7] For information on ordering Dreamspell calendars visit http://www.13moon.com/.

[8] Redfield, James, The Celestine Prophecy (Satori Publishing: 1993). On p. 15, describing the prophetic manuscript, the subject of this book, one of the characters states: “The First Insight occurs when we become conscious of the coincidences in our lives.”


Photo Credits (top): Twisted time © photobar - Fotolia.com; “How’s Your Relationship with Time?,” Soul Collage card created by Joyce, called Blind Trust.


The original version of this article was published in The Mountain Astrologer, Feb/Mar 1996

Monday, November 2, 2009

Tools for Saturn in Libra















© 2009 by Joyce Mason

Oct. 29, 2009 - April 7, 2010 
July 21, 2010 – Oct. 5, 2012


Astrologers consider Saturn to be exalted or best placed in Libra. When you see Saturn coming, if you cross your index fingers and hold them out in front of you as if to ward off a vampire, this article is your chance to put away the garlic, reconsider and discover some ways to make the best of Saturn’s upcoming transit through in Libra. Libra is the sign of relationships, legalities, politics, artistic refinement, “niceness,” and peace and harmony. Besides structure, discipline and testing, Saturn also brings wisdom, practicality, and order to these areas of life. I wouldn’t mind seeing a little tidying up, especially in my government and legal system. Relationships always need tinkering and tune-up. Later in this article, I’ll suggest some tools.

Who Is Most Affected

If you have planets in Libra or the other Cardinal signs in your chart (Capricorn, Aries, Cancer), you are likely to feel the Saturn in Libra cycle the most. During this time span, Saturn will form a conjunction with planets in Libra, square Capricorn and Cancer planets, and oppose those in Aries. Traditionally, these aspects can be considered “stressful.” I’d like to say that in a different way. Saturn will be nudging you to change, to break patterns that don’t work, and to establish new ones that do. Whether or not this is stressful is directly related to whether you resist your personal growth curriculum, as hinted in the sky, or if you decide to go with the flow.

My Perspective

In the High Signs series, I advocate living on the upside of the astrological signs. We can aim for the same goal with any planetary energy. Granted, getting the goodies out of every planet’s mixed bag is likely to be an evolutionary process.

You don’t just wake up one day, kiss Pluto on the lips, and expect that the enchantment will be mutual and that from now on; all your Pluto transits will be a steamy love affair. Or hug Saturn and do everything a good little boy or girl should and expect that you’ll now have the ultimate Good Cosmic Daddy each time he rounds a connection with your personal planets.

The gods must be honored, and transits are the figurative gods of change. They reflect the various aspects of the One Spirit in which we’re all joined as souls on a human journey. We need to do our inner growth homework in order, ultimately, to live on the high side of any planet’s influence. Any transit is easier once we learn to get with the program of that planetary influence and its mission to catalyze growth.

Transits happen. Our choice is to cooperate and make it easy or resist and make it hard. Transits from certain planets might not always be pleasant experiences, but when we respect them as teachers and trust the process they present, any planet’s transit ultimately is positive. It just takes the eyes to see—sometimes the eyes to see ahead to where you’re going rather than just looking at what you’re dealing with now. With time and cooperation, transits just get easier and the results better as you grow in the direction the sky is pointing you in.

Capricorn Credentials and Game Plan

I have a good relationship with Saturn. Saturn rules my Capricorn Moon, and I realized somewhere along the way that my emotional life would be miserable if I didn’t start appreciating Saturn’s positive contribution. My poor Moon is besieged with squares to the Sun, Venus and Neptune—aspects I had to learn to revision and appreciate as constant invitations to morph toward a new and more whole version of myself. The Neptune influence, in particular, makes me so sensitive; I feel that if my Moon weren’t Saturn-ruled in the solid sign of Capricorn to compensate, I’d probably have no emotional control whatsoever. I’d be out emoting on street corners and making a fool of myself.

With that personal example in mind of coming to terms with Saturn’s energy, read on thinking about how you’ll make the most of Saturn’s trip through Libra. We’ll explore some major areas of life Saturn will influence while it’s in The Scales and how you can help “massage” how these transits will influence you by using tools such as affirmations, meditation, journaling, and flower essences.

Tools of the Transit Trade

Affirmations. If you really want to reset your thinking about a planet’s influence and help it to be the most positive, given your need also to learn from it, affirmations are the way to go. Find your favorite list of Saturn key words and form affirmations based on them. Focus on those issues with Saturn that are most personal to you. Here’s an example of some I use:

Affirmations for Saturn Cycles

My urge to build is backed by Divine Resources.

I set limits and boundaries with others and myself in ways that are appropriate for me.

I like being responsible and mature: I am my own authority.

A caution on using affirmations: Most people do not use them in the most effective way. Affirmations were originally designed to include a step for acknowledging and releasing negative internal dialogue. Without this step, it’s like sweeping dirt under the rug. It’s hard to “set” the new intention for that big lump of old garbage that has not been taken out. For details on how to make your affirmations virtually foolproof, read my article, Affirmations: Part 2, Column 2.

Meditations. Add structure to your meditation whether using a guided meditation tape or Buddhist mala beads to count a simple mantra, or any type of meditation system with a format, such as Centering Prayer, a Christian contemplative type. New or just returning to meditation? I suggest starting with an article on types of meditation, discovering the category that you feel fits you best. Then search online further with that category and meditation, such as “mindfulness meditation.”

• Create your own structure by putting together a list of positive Saturnian characteristics you’d like to develop. Use them as mantras. (Stick with 3-5 to keep a simple focus.) Alternatively, you can envision yourself in your daily life operating as if you already have these qualities. This can be the opening visualization and bridge to your meditation. Examples: wise, realistic, grounded, responsible, disciplined.

• Listen to Saturn themed music when you meditate. Examples: Echoes from Saturn by Michelle Costa, Saturn Returns by Alex Theory, or the Saturn track from Holst’s The Planets. (Visit Amazon and search for Saturn under Music for more options.) What does this music evoke in you? Journal your thoughts and feelings afterwards. Within these observations lies guidance for the restructuring Saturn is asking of you now. That brings me to the next suggestion …

Journaling.  Keeping a journal is an invaluable guidebook to your own life. (Check out my article, Journals: The Sort-It Detail.) When Saturn touches our horoscopes by making a significant aspect, order is one of the hallmarks of this particular growth nudge. I like to think of Saturn as the force that helps me get my act together. Journaling indeed helps you with those sort-it details.

Flower Essences.  If you aren’t already familiar with these small-but-mighty tools for transformation, there’s no time like a Saturn cycle for an introduction! My article, FLOWER ESSENCES: Emotional First Aid, Boomer-Plus Edition  may be geared toward those born between 1946-64, but since Saturn is connected with aging, saging, and maturing, this perspective works great for anyone who wants to derive wisdom from their Saturn cycles.

If looking at flower essences by planetary influences, it is as important to consider the planet transiting Saturn is aspecting. That means there are many possible choices of flower essences. Here are some specific essences and/or articles to consider during Saturn cycles:

Plants and Planets Formulas by Desert Alchemy give you the opportunity to take its Saturn Cycles blend with the formula for any other planet in aspect to Saturn by transit: Sun, Venus, Mars, for example.

• This article also contains tips for Saturn’s aspects to specific planets: Mallow and Other Remedies for Keeping Mellow Under Saturn Cycles by Kathleen Douglas.

Sage by FES Quintessentials may be the most generic “positive Saturn” essence anyone can take during these cycles. Wisdom is the ultimate Saturn characteristic. This remedy helps us discover the inner wisdom within our life experiences. It helps us find inner contentment and life’s meaning. Who wouldn’t want a dose of that good medicine?

“Out in the World”

Whether or not Saturn is lighting up your chart in particular by its transit through Libra, it will be doing its work in the world in general. Here are some areas of influence with the kinds of changes we can anticipate:

Relationships. Relationships tend to solidify with Saturn. No long-term relationship is likely to survive without a strong Saturn link in the synastry between two people. With that in mind, Saturn in Libra tends to make people want to put their relationships into more solid form, to make commitments. At the very least, they will want to define relationships—or redefine them. Partnerships that don’t have Libra’s loving kindness or fair balance are likely to hit the rocks. They will either perish or restore themselves through the hard work of picking up the pieces to rebuild on a firmer foundation. Commitment and cooperation of both parties will be mandatory, as they are the sole reconstruction crew—add a counselor, if they use one (and it’s a good time to do so). These comments apply to all kinds of partnerships, whether business, personal, or organizational. There may also be lessons to learn and past patterns to right--the consequences of being too nice or indecisive at the expense of the quality of the partnership. In this case, a stance of “no more Mr. or Ms. Nice Guy” will benefit the relationship by pointing to the nitty-gritty issues that need to be resolved to make it work.

Aesthetics and Art. Saturn in Libra brings the desire to organize and bring order and beauty out of chaos. If you’re artistically inclined in any way, this is a great time to put your concepts into form, especially if you have planets in Libra in your chart. If you are a busy modern person whose personal space has suffered from collected “junk” for lack of time to attend to regular pick-up, Saturn will urge you to get things in order and give you an injection of Taskmaster to get it done. It’s not like a Virgo housework tizzy; it’s about creating the safe and orderly space where your creativity can cut loose. This is applicable to personal space in the most literal sense (scungy garage, yard that looks like a natural disaster struck, home office in shambles) to your inner space (a desire to clean negativity out of your energy field and invite in higher thoughts and interactions). You may find yourself wanting to redecorate and hang more pictures that reflect an oasis of beauty and inspiration in your home or office.

Legalities. Since it’s so topical to Libra, I expect there will be changes in same-sex marriage laws that reflect a fairer solution for all concerned that are motivated from upholding civil rights not religious opinion. In general, I expect clearer delineation of what the separation of church and state really means, and where it needs to evolve to support people in the 21st Century.

This goes for balancing other aspects of the relationship between the government and its citizens, such as the health care debate. (Libra loves debate! With their ability to see both sides of an issue, they can even have great arguments when talking to themselves.) While health care is a very Virgoan subject—the sign Saturn has just transited, reflecting why the issue has been stirred up of late—the crux of the matter is fairness and the intrinsic value of human life and a country’s citizens. Affordable health care is an inalienable right. I watched my sister die because of decisions she made (actually didn’t make) based on her lack of health care insurance. An estimated 22,000 Americans die annually for the same reason. [1] This is unconscionable in a supposedly progressive nation. This aspect of “government for the people and by the people” needs fixing, if we’re to hold our heads up as a “humanitarian” nation, first to our own citizens.

I expect that whatever the outcomes, we will begin to remember during the next two years that Lady Justice wears a blindfold and the Scales are balanced impartially.

Politics. In case we haven’t seen enough political scandals yet involving “unsanctioned relationships,” we may see even more, but ultimately, during this cycle, I suspect we’ll balance the way we view this “dirty laundry.” Many people around the world think Americans are completely out of touch with reality to place so much emphasis on the personal lives of politicians. It’s tragic to think of how many careers have been ruined or seriously tarnished by marital infidelity or other sexcapades among fully functioning leaders who are often, otherwise, out there “doing good.” Will we use Saturn’s maturity to separate a politician’s public and private life? Or become even tougher on offenders, insisting that private/public life be joined in holy deadlock? Perhaps we will get out of other people’s bedrooms and tend more to our own. After all, they say politics makes strange bedfellows.

Peace and Harmony. As of this writing, headlines read “Obama Peace Bid Flounders,” referring to attempts at Middle East peace negotiations. The U.S. President’s win in wartime of a Nobel Peace Prize was ironic on the cusp of Saturn in Libra. As pointed out in the New York Times editorial, The Peace Prize, U.S. President Obama has yet to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s a long way off from an orderly withdrawal from the Iraq, and has not yet set a strategy for Afghanistan. Still, he has denounced torture and made a good start on climate change. Less than a year in office, his commitment to make change is being noticed and encouraged—at least by the Nobel Peace Prize committee. While President Obama himself felt he did not deserve the prize, it sets a high bar for achievement in an administration that has already taken on change head-on.

There is an additional factor that comes into play. In the U.S. birth chart, Saturn is at 14 Libra. The country is coming up on a Saturn Return. [2] Saturn returns, retrogrades, and then returns again to its own place in the U.S. chart from December 2010 until August 2011. When individuals experience a Saturn Return, it is a time of forming new structures and commitments. Same with countries. In fact, when a young man or woman reaches his or her first Saturn Return at age 30, we often think of it as a time for “settling down.”

It will be fascinating to observe how things “settle down” in the area of war and peace. At least as far as President Obama is concerned, he has already gotten a large vote, if not nudge, of confidence in the Nobel Peace prize.

We can only hope that the outcome proves, once again, that Saturn is exalted—at its best—in Libra.
~~~

Photo credit: ABSTRACT SATURN | © Soldeandal... Dreamstime.com

NOTES

[1] National Coalition on Health Care

[2] There is much debate and variance among astrologers on the chart of the USA. I use the Sibley chart (named after the man who first proposed it, Ebenezer Sibley, 1751-1789). Data: 4-Jul-1776 at 5:10 pm, Philadelphia, PA.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Chiron: The Shaman Centaur















© 2009 by Larry Williamson, Guest Blogger

Centaurus is one of two constellations said to represent the centaurs, mythical creatures with a human head and torso on top of a horse’s body. Centaurus was the name of the first centaur. The constellation Centaurus is primarily associated with Chiron, a wise, immortal being who was the King of the Centaurs. He was renowned for his healing skills and a wise teacher and mentor.

Chiron was the Son of Chronos (Saturn), ruler of the vanished golden age, where men lived in harmony with nature. His mother was the nymph Philyra, whose name means both “the love of music of the lyre” and “sweet-scented linden tree." Philyra gave birth to Chiron, was horrified by his appearance, and abandoned him. Chiron’s initial wound was the rejection and abandonment by his mother.

Apollo, the Sun God and Diana, Goddess of the Moon became Chiron’s foster parents—and along with the wild animals, his family. Chiron would become their first pupil and, in turn, he would teach humankind. Apollo and Diana taught him the art of healing, medicine, science, music, war, archery and all survival skills. All the greatest kings and heroes were taken to him as children to be raised in his cave. Some of his students were Jason, Achilles, and Hercules. Chiron taught Orpheus, the great musician, how to play the lyre in a way that made trees weep and rocks melt. He taught Asclepius, god of healing, the arts of healing and medicine.

Chiron’s healing powers were so great, it has been said that he cured those who suffered mortal wounds during the Trojan wars. Below Chiron’s cave lies a sacred valley where he grew powerful medicinal herbs, which he shared with his pupils, along with how to turn them into salves and potions. Chiron was the only centaur able to maintain his higher self. The centaurs were known for their rude, drunken and rowdy behavior, but Chiron was above the fray.

But, unfortunately, Chiron was not above harm. A stray arrow from the bow of Hercules accidentally wounded Chiron. The accident occurred during a wedding feast near Chiron’s cave. Pholus was the keeper of the jar of wine that belonged to the centaurs. He had been had been told not to open the jar. However, when Hercules arrived, he coaxed a reluctant Pholus into opening it, stating that the jar had been placed there generations ago waiting for his arrival. When Pholus opened the cask of wine as Hercules requested, the wild centaurs could smell the aroma from miles away. They sped to the scene, drank all the wine, went berserk, and tried to rape the bride. All mayhem broke out and Hercules tried to stop them. Elatus is the centaur associated with the woodlands and his name means “Fir Man,” because he used to pull up whole fir trees and use them as weapons. Elatus was killed by one of the poisoned arrows of Hercules, dipped in the blood of the many-headed Hydra, a poison from which there was no cure. This same arrow from the bow of Hercules passed through Elatus’s arm and continued its path to wound Chiron in the knee.

Hercules ran to him, pulled out the arrow and dressed the wound with a salve Chiron handed to him. Because the wound was incurable, Chiron moved to his cave yearning for death, but could not die because he was immortal. Ultimately, he passed on his immortality to Prometheus. Zeus saw what a grand and noble gesture this was, and then placed Chiron amongst the stars. In another version of the myth, Chiron offers to trade places with Prometheus who was chained to a rock for all eternity because he discovered fire—or as gods saw it, stole fire from them. Prometheus’s liver was being pecked out nightly as punishment, growing back each day for his vicious cycle of suffering. Since he was suffering himself without let-up, anyway, Chiron offered to take Prometheus's place. Both versions have the same ending. Zeus recognizes Chiron’s altruism, releases him from the bonds of his immortality, and raises him up in a constellation of stars.

In some versions of the story, in spite of his own pain and suffering, Chiron continued to help, heal and serve others. The term Wounded Healer seems to have emerged from this aspect of the myth. Others claim Chiron cured his wounds with the plant Centaury, the sacred herb of the centaurs, and never died. The best definition I ever heard of the Wounded Healer is “the ability to do things for others that we cannot necessarily do for ourselves.”

The kicker of the story is once Chiron was transformed into a constellation, it was not the archer centaur (Sagittarius) but actually the shaman centaur (Centaurus). The brilliant shamanic astrologer Daniel Giamario revealed this to me during an interview. Here the Shaman Centaur is dancing with a She-Wolf (Lupus) holding not a lance, or spear, but a magical and sexual Thyrsus, a staff of wild fennel topped by a pine cone, held by the centaurs. There is a region below the southern ecliptic including, Centaurus, the Shaman Centaur, the original constellation of Chiron. This area of the sky was far more elevated in the southern sky, and due to the precession of the equinoxes, it was all but lost to view in northern latitudes. Because the ancients Greeks couldn’t see the constellation Centaurus, they transferred it into the centaur of the archer, Sagittarius.

Before Chiron was discovered, astrologer Dane Rudhyar predicted there would be a new planetary body found between Saturn and Uranus that would act like a higher Moon. This is interesting, as both, Apollo and Diana, Goddess of the Moon, raised Chiron. One of the greatest paradoxes about Chiron astrologically is in our wounding lies the key to our healing, and it all has to do with feelings and emotions. All healing needs to begin with emotional healing.

This same paradox applies from an astrological interpretive point of view. Wherever Chiron is placed in the natal chart points to an area of possible woundedness, but it also indicates the area in which we can awaken the healing process for ourselves, and how we can best help, heal, and serve others towards integration and transformation. One of the first steps to accelerate the healing process is to “own our wounds.” You can’t change or transform anything you’re denying. Chiron, like Pluto, can serve as a powerful attachment breaker. “De-nial” isn’t just a river in Egypt!

Many astronomers believe Chiron is not an original member of our solar system, but rather came from outside it as a maverick, temporary visitor. They believe, in time, that Chiron will eventually leave. This is a symbolic parallel to the idea of the Bodhisattvas, who voluntarily return to the world of suffering to help assist others on the path of enlightenment. This clearly serves as a powerful metaphor of the Chironic themes of healing, helping and serving others.

It is this astrologer’s humble opinion that the connection between Chiron and Virgo seems clear. Both are associated with healing and service.

The humanistic astrologer Dane Rudhyar states that the trans-Saturnian planets owe allegiance to the galaxy, not the Sun! The former seems to imply “outside help,” the latter relates to “inner work,” or the power of change, transformation inherent in each of us. I feel it is incumbent for all astrologers not to become locked in or fixed solely on the principle of wounding with Chiron, but to cultivate and celebrate the teaching, mentoring, and meaningful service function. We all need someone in our lives at times to serve as a teacher, mentor and act as a bridge between two worlds.

Finally, let us honor our Inner Shaman, inner Teacher to help guide us on our journey towards healing, reconciliation and wholeness. The next time you need healing, go and heal someone else, and ask where have I failed to give? Out of the place of our wounds, will come our greatest gifts.

~~~


Laurence Williamson is a practicing astrologer with over thirty years' experience. While maintaining his steady practice, Larry served as the resident astrologer for Sagittarius Books store for over six years. He also teaches classes in astrology and mythology. Listen to Larry's New Moon Podcast at his Skybear Astrology website. Contact him at skybear2@juno.com.

Photo Credit: CEREMONY OF THE SHAMANIrbis769 |Dreamstime.com

References

Catherine Tennant – The Lost Zodiac

Tim Lyons - Astrology Beyond Ego

Daniel Giamario – Reflections on being 52



COMMENT CONTEST WINNER!  Congratulations to Sandra Moseley, second and final winner in our Mercury Direct Comment Contest. Sandra is an astrologer and Radical Virgo. Sandra and husband David Mosely have a wonderful website, Zodiac Arts, a visual feast and delightful to visit! Sandra has won a free copy of Joyce Mason's new e-book,  Chiron and Wholeness: A Primer.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Quotes for the Signs #4


© 2009 by Joyce Mason

I keep finding them—or they find me! Here’s Round Four of the latest zodiac quotefest.

ARIES - Patience is the ability to count down before you blast off. ~Author Unknown

TAURUS -  There is deep wisdom within our very flesh, if we can only come to our senses and feel it. ~Elizabeth A. Behnke

GEMINI - I keep six honest serving-men,
They taught me all I knew;
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.  ~Rudyard Kipling

CANCER: Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson:  you find the present tense, but the past perfect!  ~Owens Lee Pomeroy

LEO -  Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. ~Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943

VIRGO - We are the products of editing, rather than authorship. ~George Wald, "The Origin of Optical Activity," Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 1975

LIBRA - Endurance is frequently a form of indecision. ~Elizabeth Bibesco, Haven, 195

SCORPIO -  Man stands in his own shadow and wonders why it's dark. ~Zen Proverb

SAGITTARIUS -  Every one of us has in him a continent of undiscovered character. Blessed is he who acts as Columbus to his own soul. ~Author Unknown

CAPRICORN - The leadership instinct you are born with is the backbone. You develop the funny bone and the wishbone that go with it. ~Elaine Agather

AQUARIUS - Rabbi Zusya said that on the Day of Judgment, God would ask him, not why he had not been Moses, but why he had not been Zusya. ~Walter Kaufmann

PISCES - Learning how to operate a soul figures to take time. ~Timothy Leary

~~~

Photo credit: AND I QUOTE © Zitramon |Dreamstime.com

Crave more Quotes for the Signs? Visit these previous posts:




NEWS! The winner of last week’s drawing in the Mercury Direct Comment Contest is Susannah of The Lion and the Lightning Bolt blog. Susannah won a free PDF download of my new e-book, Chiron and Wholeness: A Primer. A new contest drawing period starts today and runs through next Monday, Oct. 19, at midnight PDT. Comment for a chance to win in the second and final drawing.  People who commented last week but did not win will be rolled over into this week's drawing, in addition anyone making a new comment between Oct. 13-20. Next winner will be announced on or about Oct. 21.  Good luck!



Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Your Two Cents Worth! A Mercury Direct Comment Contest


Mercury has gone direct and the Sun is in Libra, the sign of relationship. What nice timing for friendly communications. To celebrate, I’m encouraging more talk amongst ourselves via Comments. I have met several great new friends who have commented on The Radical Virgo. It could happen to you, too!

Prizes! While friendship and shared ideas are the real prize—a nice combination of Venus and Mercury—let’s have some traditional prizes to sweeten the pot. Each person to comment over the next two weeks will be entered into a drawing to receive a free copy of my new e-book, Chiron and Wholeness: A Primer. There will be a drawing each week, so two free e-books will be given away worth $4.95 US each. Winners for the previous week will be announced at the bottom of the next two posts.

The comment contest applies to any post or article on The Radical Virgo. The only “rule” is that your comments be constructive and substantive—responses to the content of a post or sharing a related experience. More than, “Hi, nice post.” Good luck, and have fun!

-Joyce

~~~

Photo Credit: © Tomo Jesenicnik - Fotolia.com

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Chiron & Wholeness: A Primer by Joyce Mason

Announcing a new, lushly illustrated, 40-page e-book that brings you the basics and key insights about Chiron in a tightly woven package.

Here’s the what’s inside:

Chiron for Better or for Worse - If you resonate to Chiron or your astrology chart is “Chiron prominent,” what can you expect?

Chiron in the Signs and Houses – A starting point for exploring your personal Chiron placement.

Chiron Cycles and Life Purpose – How transiting Chiron’s cycles to your natal Chiron tell you about your personal quest for fulfillment.

Modern Find, Cosmic Question Mark – A brief history of Chiron’s modern-day find in 1977, how its uniqueness—and many unanswered questions about it—still captivate astrologers.

Symbol, Cosmic Characteristics, and Cultural Connections – Chiron’s symbol or glyph is a skeleton key, the kind that opens all doors. Its astronomical characteristics suggest a whole-making function, and cultural changes around its discovery marked dramatic shifts in relations between men and women—and many other themes of balancing complementary energies.

Myth of Chiron – What does the ancient Greek story of this mentor of heroes and multi-talented healer—the one who can heal everyone but himself--tell us about ourselves?

Chironic Characters Show Us How to Become Real Heroes – Famous people who embody Chiron and what they tell us about holism and heroism.

Wholeness, Inner Marriage, and the Chiron Sector – Why Chiron is associated with the Virgo to Sagittarius sector of the zodiac.

Suggestions for Further Reading & Further Resources


A specialist on Chiron for 20 years, Joyce is the former editor of the international newsletter, Chironicles (1992-95), and the creator of the Chironic Convergence in 1996, a journey of discovery to the Mt. Pelion region in Greece, Chiron’s mythical homeland. Back to astrology after a long hiatus, Joyce blogs here on The Radical Virgo, a repository for her many articles, both old and new.

Will there be a longer book? It’s only a matter of when. Meanwhile, this is both a primer (as in an introductory, first-level reader) and a primer (with a long i, as in the first coat of paint or something to get you primed!).

Delivered in PDF format via e-mail. Pre-purchase discount applies through September 29 ($3.50) at midnight PST, then $4.95 US introductory rate through December 31, 2009. This lower, initial price is being offered to Radical Virgo readers before more massive marketing requires a price increase in 2010.

To purchase, see the sidebar on The Radical Virgo or order on joycemason.com.  Here is some sample reader feedback.


For more information, e-mail Joyce. joyce@joycemason.com.

~~~

Photo credit: CIRCULAR DANCER © Elenaray | Dreamstime.com

Monday, September 21, 2009

Fully Seasoned: Astrology and Ritual


© 2009 by Joyce Mason. All Rights Reserved

Happy Autumn Equinox! What’s not to like about this time of year? The Sun moves into Libra, the sign of love, relationships, and beauty—in gorgeous, breathtaking color. This is the time of crisp air and abundance in the Northern Hemisphere. In the US, we celebrate Thanksgiving and our gratitude for Earth’s plenty. It’s a time I relish.

As I’ve shared in other posts on both my blogs, I’ve been celebrating the solstices and equinoxes for over 20 years with a groovy group of women known as the Solsisters. I cannot begin to tell you how much these rituals have enriched my life. Celebrating these seasonal changes brings astrology, spirituality, and the cycles of life down to earth for me where I can hug them in community.

I have a special resonance to the Autumn Equinox, because I was born on the cusp of fall, less than 24 hours before the Sun moved into Libra. My first Autumn Equinox was part of my first day on Earth. What a way to get off to a good start in an incarnation!

Harvest time is the reward of a life well lived, the goodies we get out of all the work we do. Astrology may help us to understand ourselves, others, and even world events. Ritual does even more. It brings the dancing sky down to earth where we can dance with it. In that dance, we can feel, discover and show our gratitude for the magnificence of creation by offering our awe at these times of shift. If you don’t believe me, try it! That’s the point of this post--to tempt you to create ceremony under the stars in thanks for the cosmic symphony.

Getting Started

All it takes is a few people who are interested in exploring the idea. The Solsisters were born out of the annual candlelighting ceremony at our largest, local Unity church. Inspired by the Season of Light, several of my friends wanted more. I was the astrologer, so soon we decided to create a Winter Solstice ceremony in addition to attending the candlelighting service. I had never done anything like it before. This was in the late 1980s, so I was still high from the Harmonic Convergence. I had the spirit of peace on earth all year ‘round and a Catholic background. My religious roots ingrained me with ritual, ceremony, and liturgy from my head down to my toes. This kind of worship permeated my soul.

We ad libbed a lot, and I’m sure we had our share of divine direction, the ritual equivalent of automatic writing. Our celebrations were so satisfying, after the first couple of years, we began meeting quarterly at all the solstices and equinoxes. There is no right or wrong in rituals that celebrate the cosmic clock. You could just as easily celebrate any major event in the sky or the ingresses of the Sun into the various signs. Do as much or as little as you like. Do what feels good and raises your spirits. I often give a quarterly astrological overview as part of the process. For us the solstices and equinoxes offer just the right number of get-togethers and spacing to see progress in our lives. To spin off a quote by ‘70s pop poet Rod McKuen, “Love is a season and holidays (or solstices and equinoxes) like signposts mark the time.”

Evolution of Structure

Even the most Uranian of us all needs a little Saturn and structure for life to tick like the cosmic clock itself. Over time, a natural framework evolved in our ceremonies—the bones that hold them together with differing things that feel right in the moment to flesh them out. We borrow from every tradition you can think of: Catholic, Jewish, earth religions, Native American, Buddhist, and a multiplex of cultures. After nearly two decades, my friend and I who act as primary leaders wanted to encourage more women to try their hand at creating these soul parties. We came up with this outline by simply writing down what had already emerged naturally:

Basic Elements of Our Solstice and Equinox Ceremonies

1. Smudging – Purification of each person participating in the ceremony by sage or incense smoke. Alternatively, especially when we’re out of doors in high fire hazard areas, we use sound—bells, chimes, or rattles. The concept is to clear the energy field and help each participant let go of worry and concerns and come into the celebration with a clean slate. One person starts and each person then smudges the next person after being smudged until smudging is complete around the circle.

2. Casting the Circle – Calling in the Directions to create a sacred and safe space for ceremony. The circle is a space defined by the raising of energy. It replicates the zodiac and division of the year into four equal parts by the equinoxes (spring and fall) and solstices (winter and summer).

3. Opening Prayer

4. Opening Remarks on the Meaning of the Season – If there is a theme, this is the time to share it. For example, last Winter Solstice, our theme was The Magical Child Within.

5. Optional additional prayers, special blessings, or discussion of seasonal holidays and/or astrological overview.

6. Activity reflecting seasonal theme, e.g. preparing seeds of our growth in Spring, going into the “river of life” or play in Summer, harvesting seeds in Autumn, candlelighting affirming our inner light in Winter

7. Meditation – usually on the theme

8. Praying for Ourselves and Others - After a general prayer for all present and absent members present in spirit, anyone in the circle can put forth a prayer request for others.

9. Optional Oracle – We love drawing tarot cards or other oracles and use various decks to reflect the theme of the particular ritual. With last year’s inner child theme at Winter Solstice, we used Isha Lerner and Mark Lerner’s Inner Child Cards (A Fairy-Tale Tarot).

10. Communion – Sharing recent growth or our experience in any other part of the ceremony, such as what tarot card we drew. The card or inspiration we received in meditation often reflects what's been happening in our lives. These parts of the ceremony help focus our sharing updates.

11. Optional parting poem, prayer, or remarks

12. Releasing the Four Directions, Opening the Circle


Tips for First Timers

Here are the tips we share with Solsisters who are creating the ceremony for the first time:

Order. While the beginning and ending rituals such as casting and closing the circle need to be in those positions, the rest of the steps can be reorganized, if they feel more comfortable in a different order.

Extras. Don’t hesitate to add an extra step or swap one out if it feels right to the flow of the ceremony you are creating. This is a basic structure so we have the comfort of repetition that helps us reach the relaxed altered state of consciousness for getting the most out of a ritual. Within those minimal boundaries, the more creativity and variety, the better. Music always enhances. We do many of our celebrations at the river with the natural sounds of water rushing and birds singing.

Resources. The Solsisters celebrate our oneness with all creation, the reason we often use material from many faiths, paths, and sources of inspiration. When it comes to material, you’d be amazed at what you can find at the Pubic Library, often your library’s online resources. The Internet is one of the richest sources of material for ritual available to humankind. Plug words like ritual and a season name such as spring into Google and see what you get. The more words you try, the more you’ll find. As you do ceremonies over a period of years, your previous ceremonies become part of your resources. Most people barely remember what we did last year. Go back two years, tweak it a little, and you’ve got a brand new ceremony with minimal effort. I keep copies of everything in files that are easy to sort and access: ceremony outlines, different options for calling the directions, prayers, poems, and meditations. You can create a file of your most helpful links online.

Co-creation. The most important ingredient in designing a ceremony is letting Spirit flow through you and with you in its creation. Allow yourself to be “led” from one idea or resource to another. You’ll be amazed at how the ceremony creates itself once you merge into the mental and spiritual place where all things are joined.


It Only Gets Better

Even though I was born on autumn’s doorstep, my big ritual every year goes back to where it all started for the Solsisters—Winter Solstice. I lead this one solo and hold it at my home, including a potluck following the ceremony. I go a bit crazy with creativity on this one because I love the winter holidays and I resonate to the season of love, light, and giving. Our winter solstice always includes a candlelighting ceremony and many surprises. Most of the Solsisters met in our environmental work for the State of California. If you love the earth, you have to love the sky above it.

Honoring the earth/sky interface—and interplay—is part of a philosophy where everything is holy, infused with the gifts of the Creator. I know of no other time when I feel more alive—or luckier to be.

~~~

Photo Credit: Lovely Autumn © Шпорт Олександр |Fotolia

For more solstice and equinox inspiration, check out these posts: Autumn EquiKnocks  and Happy Autumn Equinox; Spring: New Beginnings, New Blog; and Summer Solstice – “Let the Sunshine In.”