Sunday, December 23, 2012

The Gift of Uncertainty




The Presents of Uranus-Pluto

Article © 2012 by Joyce Mason
All Rights Reserved


I have written for two decades about Outerplanetary (Extraordinary) People. We’re people with the outer planets prominent, and I also call our community of unicorns PUNCs, which stands for Plutonian, Uranian, Neptunian Chironics.

In general, PUNCs have an ear to the ground of impending change and bring back news of what’s coming from the leading edge. But when the natal job of Change Messenger is combined with personal transits of one or more of the PUNCs, being a lightning rod for rapid evolution can become almost so overwhelming; it’s hard to share what you’re experiencing when you’re mid-morph.

But share we must. It’s our job, our calling—the vocation of outerplanetary people.

These times are rattling and disorienting, even to the most metaphysically and/or astrologically aware. I just was part of a deep sharing among sister unicorns, and I’m bringing back my observations to share with you.

For over 10 years, I’ve belonged to a small spiritual support group. We’re five women “on the path,” and all of us are PUNCs. Our December meeting was a testimony to what people are going through as we each are being forced to face deeper layers of ourselves and our issues. We’re facing losses, letting go in ways we did not invite and do not necessarily appreciate—and at the same time, we’re sensing with excitement the inventive Uranian future that may come out of all this.

The biggest challenge is uncertainty. We are bright enough to have figured out that we don’t know what the flip is going to happen—today, tomorrow, even five minutes from now. This is amusing as an astrologer, because while most of us no longer do “parlor trick” predictions, we at least like to think we have some sense of what topics are coming down the pike for our personal growth curriculum. Nowadays, we’re lucky to be privy to which department of life will host the course. Three times in our conversations that night, the Tower card in the Tarot came up—either as cards several of us had literally drawn recently or the fact that we were feeling like we were living that very Plutonian, oracular image.


I saw my friends and I allowing ourselves to be in I would call “positive vulnerability.” It’s a kind of openness that’s not an invitation to victimhood but rather the bedrock of honesty. Nothing but another person’s truth can enter the space once this “truth of your being” is expressed. It’s an environment that catalyzes deep change, because it goes to the heart of your issues and how your own heart will deal with them. There’s an energy around it that is post-traumatic, the part where the pain or strain is “venting” off your body and spirit like a mist, leaving behind only a pure and empty vessel of new creation.

This place is sacred. 


Bedrock honesty with yourself and others is one of the gifts of Pluto. The gift of Uranus is to be inspired by it. As the five of us shared around the table our mostly intense experiences with life, death and rebirth, I felt a saturation of oneness I had not felt in a long time. It was intimacy, another of Pluto’s greatest gifts. Perhaps Pluto in Capricorn’s sign helped me to see more easily the structure, how our stories held a pattern of the human story itself. We climb, we reach the summit; it’s scary and precarious; there’s vertigo; perhaps we fall. We are reborn and climb again.

“I have no idea what’s going to happen,” could have been the lyrics to our Song of 2012. The gift of uncertainty is radical possibility. My own challenges at this time with transiting Pluto on my Moon (the apex of transitory T-square) has forced me to use my creativity to find new solutions and ways of seeing a number of important areas in my life. Uncertainty is the child of fear, yet every child, ultimately, must leave home in order to truly grow up. One of the biggest epiphanies I’ve had in my Uranus-Pluto transit is realizing how much fear I live in, even for an optimist. One of my decisions to come out of facing fear is that I don’t want to live there anymore. One by one, I watched my friends coming to the same conclusion.

Another gift of this Plutonian emptying is strength. This refers to of my favorite concepts from A Course in Miracles (ACIM): In my vulnerability lies my strength. While this channeled material is Christian in its orientation (through a Jewish medium/nonbeliever for irony), the principles of ACIM still hold for practitioners of what I call freelance spirituality. Many, if not most people who are “spiritual” see God, higher power or the universe as a loving energy or force field, a spiritual glue that holds everything and everyone together. When we empty ourselves, we allow that power to rush into us, unfettered by our “stuff.” We literally let go—and let God (in).

This is how can we be both strong and vulnerable at the same time. 

We seldom are willing to work on ourselves when everything is just fine. Reflection comes with the down cycle, with troubles, with worries—yet it is the foundation of future visits to the OK Corral or our Happy Place. Strife gets our attention in a way nothing else does. It activates our internal reset button and gives us the courage to press it.

The only thing certain about these times of uncertainty is that our future blessings will come from the inside out, as they always have. Everything we’ve ever valued is within us—love, respect and esteem.

Traveling together now with the emptying called for by Pluto is Uranus in Aries. In this sign, the gifts of Uranus—breakthroughs, insights, inventiveness—are concerned with self and self-image. From the place of vulnerable strength we meet ourselves in a sign of courage in a dynamic of radical personal makeover. This is our cue to visit that love, respect and esteem—and to apply it, first, to ourselves. 

When we do, we have authentic power and have tapped into the Second Coming of Awakened Consciousness. We are there for ourselves while at the same time knowing that others will be there for us, too.We will become the one-hearted people the Hopi prophesied, beating new life into the arteries and veins of Creation. We will become the “Hopey,” filled with hope for an evolving future. And as the Hopi tribe has long told us, we will know at last: We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.

~~~

Photo Credit:  © Pei Ling Hoo | fotolia.com

 



A blessed Holiday Season and 2013 from The Radical Virgo!


Postcript ~ The gifts of vulnerability are also featured in this article. Don't miss this this Ted Talk for more on this topic, twenty of the best minutes you'll ever spend:

Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability


7 comments:

Mads Elung-Jensen said...

Right on! When I woke up on 21 December my only thought was, That which we willingly let go, will come back to us in exactly the appropriate form, and whatever we cling to will either forcefully be taken from us or suffocate in our tight grip... And then I also drew the Tower...

Joyce Mason said...

Wise words, dear Mads. You have a great understanding of Pluto! The letting go for me starts in my mind, and then it seems that the universe adjusts the form. Often it doesn't mean literally chucking everything and everyone that is causing me distress, but the willingness to go that far--if necessary--causes some sort of malleability in reforming situations and relationships in "exactly the appropriate form," as you say. These are Tower Times, and it's comforting to know drawing that card is a trend among us outerplanetary types. The universal message seems quite clear. Thank you, as always, for your astute commentaries.

LB said...

Thanks for posting this, Joyce. These really are 'Tower Times', aren't they? Although not everyone seems to be aware of the choices and opportunities they're being faced with on a conscious level. What you wrote about letting go of fear really struck a chord with me. There are consequences for recognizing and then speaking the truth, and for trying to live a spiritual life put into practice each day, realizing, " . . . faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead."

It takes courage to step beyond our comfort zones and to be willing to give something up in order to embrace more fully who we're meant to become, just as it takes courage to see and to know. For my part, I want to focus my attention on what's loving, kind, compassionate and just, while not denying the fact that not everyone else is at this same place or is motivated by these same things. And of course, Pluto demands I be vigilant in my willingness to examine my own behaviors and motives.:)

In making the choice to be FREE, I feel as if I've stepped off a cliff and into a free fall, allowing God to shape the place where I land, if I ever do. I believe that's the nature of 'the gift of uncertainty' you speak of. Once we've embraced it, we can reach out to others to help them land safely.

Thanks again, Joyce. All the best to you, my friend!

Joyce Mason said...

Thanks, LB, for adding your wisdom to the mix, especially the important point about faith needing to be paired with works.

A blessed holiday season and season of uncertainty to you and yours. May you continue to discover its many gifts and the rebirth after the Tower.

The Natural Sage said...

Thank you for this... From 12-12-12 thru 12-21-12 I've experienced purifications from the early Pluto transforming days
(Pluto in Leo group) I'm also a PUNC! Funny. From 1991 to last year my work was a bit enigmatic. 2012 changed all that! I look forward to the future with eagerness as consciousness is raising more easily for folks making our job a bit broader and with more ease!!!
Peace and Merry Christmas.

The Natural Sage said...

Yes. Thank you for this....I'm a PUNC and Pluto in Leo person. Since 1991 to 2011 my work was seen as more enigmatic and esoteric. 2012 has changed all that! Yes, "We are who we've been waiting for!"
2013 and beyond will prove to be incomparable!

Peace & Merry Christmas

Joyce Mason said...

Thanks for taking time to comment, Natural Sage ... and a beautiful holiday season to you! As I like to say, the rehearsal's over. This is the time PUNCs were born for. All our years of metaphysical and astrological training will now make it easier to help ourselves and others understand how we're emerging from caterpillars to butterflies. I keep envisioning a healed humanity, freer than ever to explore all we can be. Blessings!