The 2014 Creative Question - The Cardinal Grand Cross

Winter Retrogrades Melt into April’s 

Cardinal Grand Cross

© 2014 by Joyce Mason

All Rights Reserved

In Stillness: Our Retrograde Winter 2014, I focused on the sky’s call for turning inward. Big rewards will come to those willing to take cosmic direction about self-reflection. This winter is about reassessing values, goals, and desires while the personal planets do their retrograde stints.

Much action focuses on the I/Thou continuum with Venus Retrograde and Mars Retrograde in Libra. How are your relationships going with others? Then there’s the ultimate question when we’re talking about Libra, how’s your relationship with yourself? One of the major Libran issues is to lose yourself in others. Do you identify? Or are others losing themselves in you?

One of my favorite New Age albums is Winter into Spring by George Winston. This year, it’s good to look ahead toward the next season, even in the middle of winter. Begin to imagine snow melting and a gradual shift from one emphasis and energetic to another, one that’s completely different. We’re heading toward a Cardinal Grand Cross. Winter 2014 asks us to pause and reconsider what’s important to us—what’s working and what’s not in our personal lives. Spring 2014 emboldens us to take action in an even bigger way than the usual Aries charge into the natural New Year, as the sap rises in the trees rises and human energy starts picking up with it.

The Cardinal Grand Cross at the US April 2014 Lunar Return

*(See note)
23-Apr-2014, 10:09:07 pm EDT, Washington, DC +4:00
38N53’42” 077W02’12”
Geocentric - Tropical - Porphyry - True Node

The Cardinal signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn are the turning points that mark each new season; therefore, they represent points of visible, discernible change. We associate them with changes in weather. They are the markers for shifting astrological weather, too. A Grand Cross consists of four squares joined at the crossed oppositions where the bottoms of the triangles overlap. Planets in square create a tension of initial incompatibility that nags to be worked out in some way to bring a workable energetic mix to the person or situation it represents. Better said, squares evoke creative tension. It takes creativity—the God stuff, if you will—to find your way out of the standoff. When the squares make a Grand Cross, you have to find your way out of an enclosed box. Whew!

Let’s look at what each of the Cardinal signs calls us to do in order to see how we can think “out of the box” to find our way beyond the tensions and into the most creative manifestation of this opportunity to evolve.

Aries asks us to create. It’s our purest power of new ideas and actions. Cancer nurtures our creations. Libra helps us involve others in whatever we design from art to work projects to human relationships. Here’s where we learn that partnerships and sharing our creations in an equitable way fosters peace on earth and beauty all around. Finally, Capricorn helps us put our creations into solid form, even to the point of leaving them as a legacy. These are four noticeable stages of manifestation.

Before you apply this personally, time to consider the tight way the Grand Cross clusters on the 13^th degree of the Cardinal Signs. In considering this Cardinal Grand Cross, let’s look at the Sabian symbols on its four points. Sabians are read “one up” unless they’re 0 on the dot, i.e., 02 Cancer 00 is 2 Cancer, but 02 Cancer 01 is 3 Cancer. Given that, we’d look to the 14^th Sabian degree, where the planets Mars, Jupiter, Pluto and Uranus land on each of the points forming the Grand Cross in Cardinal signs. The Sabian Symbols may provide some deeper insights.

These are the Sabians and planets involved:

Aries 14 (Uranus): A Snake Coiling Next to a Man and Woman in an Embrace.

Cancer 14 (Jupiter): An Old Man Faces a Dark Space to the Northeast

Libra 14 (Mars): A Rich Landowner Takes an Afternoon Siesta

Capricorn 14 (Pluto): A Mayan Bas Relief.

There’s a certain mystique involved in each of these symbols. 

• Aries 14 conjures an image of the Garden of Eden and the snake, tempting the Original Couple into “something more.” It reminds me of an episode of Twilight Zone, where things go on almost to the end of the hour, perfect and light. The story is about an idyllic little town that’s like living in Happy Days with frosting. Only at the end, you find out this place is actually Hell. Divine discontent and human boredom are probably the age-old reasons for evolution itself, both individually and as a species.
• Cancer 14 is a man looking into the distance and the dark. It’s the void from which all things are created and born in the symbolism of the biblical Creation story. It may be a portrait of someone yearning to manifest more—or at least opening to more creative possibilities.
•  Libra 14 is a man who has worked hard to create his surroundings and is ready for rest, to return to the dream state where we co-create with our subconscious. Many of our creative ideas and solutions come from such downtime when our minds are on autopilot and our psychological needs become characters in complex dream dramas to bring us information about what we need to do or resolve in our lives. 
• Capricorn 14 involves a cultural artifact, perhaps digging it up. It has something to do with what we leave behind and what that symbolic object means.

From my free associations with the Garden of Eden, the Creation story, dream time and cultural symbolism, these four symbols complement the process of birth, nurturing, sharing and putting into solid form what we create in the world that we see in the signs of Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn. They just further touch on the longing and natural need for stimulation, creation and legacy that goes with the turf of co-invention with All That Is.

You can delve deeper into the planets on each point and their astrological meanings—how the expansion and worldview of Jupiter plays in, the sudden insights or changes of Uranus, the passion and conflict of Mars, and the call to let go and transform completely from Pluto. You can see where these points fall in your own chart for another layer of insights.

I've heard that a Cardinal Grand Cross can make accomplishing goals challenging because we want to accomplish everything at once. This lack of focus often leads to achieving little for the "shotgun" approach. That's why we're so lucky to have a retrograde winter for sorting out where our spring energies need to be channeled.

Once focused from too many scatter shot goals, I envision the tensions of trying to do it all, represented in this Cardinal Grand Cross, as building to a creative explosion of new birth. It's much like the Big Bang "in the Beginning." Here’s an invitation to make things simple. If you have planets in or near 10-16 degrees of Cardinal signs, what you create, how you support your own creative process—and how you share and make it permanent is up for an extreme makeover.

Don’t have planets close by? It doesn’t mean you don’t need this reassessment and creative resurrection. You just may not feel it quite as intensely or the tension quite as acutely. The call for creative overhaul is in the sky and in the air.

What do I want to create in the world and what do I want to leave behind?

These are the beginning and ending points of one big question. As you do your winter retrograde contemplations, knowing that you are building up to answer perhaps the largest question in life, it may help you get more out of this winter’s review process.

Don’t forget to laugh and involve your inner child. Creation is like a big Etch-a-Sketch. Twist the dials, erase and start over. Play with it till you’re ready to do it in ink.

This spring, you’ll have that opportunity.

~~~

Photo Credit:  Earth Creation © macropixel - Fotolia.com

* Note: The Grand Cross will be in close orb over several days, often cited to peak on April 22. Since most Radical Virgo readers are American, casting the chart at the US Lunar Return the following day seemed the most significant date and chart to choose, providing a sociopolitical context to whatever we’re experiencing personally.

Want more on the Cardinal Grand Cross and mundane/world events? Here are some articles you might find interesting as a start to explore:

·       April 2014: A Cardinal Grand Cross and a USA Lunar Return by Jude Cowell

·       War of the Worlds by Lorna Bevan

·       The Grand Cross of 2014 by Cinzia