Monday, January 29, 2018

The 500th Post: The Radical Virgo—So Far



© 2018 by Joyce Mason

In 1990, after I wrote an article for The Mountain Astrologer taking a new look at the sign of Virgo at its evolutionary best; readers started referring to me by the name of the article, The Radical Virgo. “The Radical Virgo” went on to appear in several other publications. It was an article, as well as the person who wrote it—and on Mar. 21, 2009 The Radical Virgo also became the name of this blog. This is our 500th post. A lot has happened.

But before I run down the blog’s history on the cusp of nine years running, I want to share how big an omen it was that The Radical Virgo came to symbolize both a major piece of my astrological work and me. After all, there are few Virgos, radical or otherwise, who don’t identify (more likely over-identify) with their work. “Radical Virgo” also became a term to apply to a certain kind of Virgo, who can be described as a Uranized Virgo, whether or not she has specific Uranus to Virgo Sun aspects. (I have Uranus square Sun, but anyone with a relatively strong Uranian influence and Virgo Sun might express these qualities more than others.) That means a Virgo whose modus operandi spans from inventive or shocking to a reformer or humanitarian--and lots in-between. I knew the term had made its way into the astrological vernacular when I began seeing articles that referred to people in the spotlight, who fit the description, as radical Virgos.

These Virgos are not the old fussbudget stereotype—no Felix Ungers or Adrian Monks here. Radical Virgos have the potential to change the world through their ability to discover their unique pattern, becoming true human beings—not “human doings.” Radical Virgos give service in a whole new way by contributing to their community and world what they were designed to give. When we each do that, we have made heaven on earth. It’s like having all the cogs in the great wheel of creation turning like they were just oiled.

Surely, anyone of any sign has this potential, but what makes the more radical Virgo so well-equipped to make the leap?

First, Virgo is self-contained. With Virgoan inner reliance, there is ultimately less need to bend to accommodate others. This quality helps the journey toward accepting and projecting one’s own uniqueness.

Second, if you subscribe to the theory that Uranus is the higher octave of Mercury, Virgo’s ruler, a Virgo would grow more Uranian than Mercurial with time and life experience.

Third, the workaholic Virgo can either have a heart attack or evolve past the need to justify his or her existence through service that too easily can turn into servitude. Once “enough” is reached, the natural consequence is to learn that who you are is even more important than what you contribute. That’s because who you are is what you contribute. 

The Original Vision

Like many if not most people, I have been highly influenced by Hollywood and pop culture. I’d always counted on having at least 15 minutes of fame, and with Jupiter trine Mars, I have a hard time thinking any way but big. As it says in the sidebar:

This blog is a place where all signs—not just Virgos—learn how to express their star map and are encouraged to do their best for the evolution of the planet.

If being you is your work and calling, that idea is the logical outcome of evolution. We grow. As a result everything we touch or everyone we interact with, including our environment, community and planet—they grow, too. Big thinking. I even thought that maybe we might get into conversations here leading to group service projects or at minimum, try mind-melds of prayers and intentions for healing the earth.

Like most ideas that come down to Earth, the blog took on a life of its own. I can say that most of what I have written over the years is mostly about being the best you rather than joining forces to change the world, largely in response to readers’ interests. There has also been a lot of humor, because I don’t think modern times—or any time—is survivable without it.

RV in the Middle

The mid-years of the blog covered an array of topics, ones where I thought I had something to share or contribute. A sampler:
  • Planets in retrograde (how to thrive during Mercury or Mars Retro)
  • Major cycles (Neptune in Pisces)
  • How the signs work in depth
  • Live reports from the United Astrology Conference in New Orleans, 2012
  • Astrology and aging, tarot and other oracles, flower essences and many other healing-tool combos
  • Readers’ personal healing stories from an astrological perspective
  • Outer Planetary People and outer planetary influences
  • Inspiration: poems, quotes for the signs and humorous takes on the Tribe of Twelve
  • Psychological aspects of astrology
  • Revisioning Chiron as the “wholeness weaver”

With Chiron and the outer planets my specialty, these topics have been highlighted with tools for working with your own planetary configurations. Often these were experiential processes. To have some real fun and discover anything you might have missed, click on Blog Archive low on the sidebar. There you can click a year, and then a month and, one month at a time, see all 500 offerings.

The Radical Virgo Now

Regular readers already know that The Radical Virgo blog has been on occasional post status for some time now. Since my husband lost his mobility in 2015, the adjustment to being a 24/7 caregiver has consumed most of my energy, especially since I’m far from a kid anymore. Nurturing two aging boomers, one with significant disabilities, is the hardest work I have over done. My biggest take-away is that caregivers need to be fierce about their own self-care. They are the planet around which family life orbits. Their insights, strength and coping skills create the quality of life for both care giver and receiver. As long as we both have various medical needs compounded by the changes that come naturally with aging, our care and keeping is seldom as easy as tea for two. I do my best with our challenges when I realize that our current adventure is yet another place to apply my creativity.

I am not complaining about this major change that keeps my healing skills at home and less in the limelight. To my surprise, it has allowed me to own my true nature as an introvert with frustrated nesting instincts. What I have noticed is that day-to-day life is where the rubber hits the road on all we have learned from astrology, various other oracles and spiritual systems and metaphysics in general. I think I am applying many things I have learned unconsciously. There is more on my plate than any other time of my life. For the first time, my responsibilities and concerns are bigger than I can handle without help of various kinds. This is humbling, especially to a Virgo with or without the radical modifier. Figuring out how to make it work for now within my resources of money, time and energy, draws on every mental, spiritual and physical skill I’ve got. I also know I live in a shifting landscape. We aren’t get any younger and there’s a slowly degenerative disease involved on my husband’s part.

While I don’t want to say we live in the first chakra in total survival, we definitely are not in our heads—something I’ve oft complained that astrology in general can make us prone to. Quite honestly—and this may sound sacrilegious to some—astrology has been of minimal help at this stage in my life, which is probably why I’m not feeling as much like writing about it. (I check my transits every few weeks instead of every day.) In the broad brush, for example, it has helped to know its position as Pluto contacted each planet in my Cardinal cache. There were some hints on duration and subject. Knowing the last planet he is visiting is Mercury sensitized me to my need to change my mind about some things and to let my old view blow up with new ideas yet to arise from the ashes. (We just rewatched the Harry Potter movie where Dumbledore’s phoenix explodes and is reborn in the ash pile as a bird chick. It really hit home.)

This blog isn’t dead or dying; it’s just changing. I admit it sometimes feels a little like it has narcolepsy, but I trust, at worst, that it’s semi-comatose working up the energy for a vivid resurrection.

Along with retiring from personal consultations, I have retired from any sense of being an authority, which I never really owned anyway. Rather than an astrological teacher, I see myself as a perpetual student of life and the stars and anything else  that guides us back to the One. I love writing with my whole self in the PsychKicks posts from the full spectrum of my spiritual and astrological learning. Perhaps I am becoming the Wholeness Weaver, taking all the threads of what I know and weaving them into new tapestries. What I finally “get” is surrender. To use energy for faith and not worry. To know that whatever is happening will lead to a better Self. Figuratively, I married Chiron and am learning that no matter what our physical and emotional wounds, we need to turn them into medicine for ourselves and others.

Where this blog will go in the future is also a matter of trust—and most likely, surprise. I’m sure I’ll always have my two-cents worth to give about living life to its fullest, just as long as anyone wants to read those pennies for my thoughts.

Since I have become a daily meditator, I realized that “inspiration,” derived from “inspire” or breathing in, says it all. Meditation involves deep, mindful breathing—the source of life. Our opportunity on Earth is to breathe in all of it we can. I love to inspire and inspire myself as much as others in the process.

I hope you’ll join me in celebrating the energy of The Radical Virgo in all her forms. If you’ve found comfort or insights here, visit me on Facebook on my Joyce Mason page for near daily shots of more inspiration and better you/better world thinking. You might also want to like the Radical Virgo Facebook page where I post more things relevant to an astrological audience, while my Joyce Mason page is geared to everyone. 

I can’t close without sharing my reaction to watching that helpless new phoenix bird as he cheeped his first hello from the ashes in Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets . He reflects the vulnerability I feel as so many aspects of my life have gone up in smoke. I like to think I’ve got my personal Dumbledore, a godlike but invisible mentor, always behind me as I step out in faith yet again.

And as soon as I know where I’m going next, you’ll be among the first to know. Meanwhile, I hope you’ll continue to enjoy and be part of The Radical Virgo adventure whenever I’ve got a chance to send a “post”card.
~~~

Photo Credits: 500 candles - © vladvm50 - Fotolia.com. Joyce as Virgo by Sara Fisk, NCGR-Sacramento Open House, 2012.

Monday, January 1, 2018

Happy New Year! Don’t Resolve; Review Your Relationship with Saturn




© 2018 by Joyce Mason

In our Gregorian calendar, every New Year starts in Capricorn, one of the four Cardinal signs of the zodiac.  The Cardinals represent turning points and are the beginnings of each new season. January 1st marks not just a New Year. With every New Year starting in the sign of the Goat, new years activate the Capricorn principles of hard work, responsibility, endurance and self-sacrifice that morph easily into those dogged resolutions.

2018 starts out with four planets in Cap: Saturn itself in its home court where it’s comfiest, Mercury Sun and Pluto. That’s quite a herd of four-legged mountain climbers. It’s enough to make two-leggers feel like they might not be fully equipped for this Everest of potential achievement. That’s with a backdrop of other goings-on, Mars in Scorpio with its power and might square the nodes and Uranus still square Pluto before it shifts into Taurus. Chiron is on the cusp Aries. Venus and Mars will be retrograde with an opportunity to review and revise relationships. That’s just a sampler. For most people I know, 2017 was a very difficult year. By making Saturn an ally rather than a mean taskmaster, 2018 is bound to improve. And don’t forget Saturn’s purview over certain body parts: knees, bones, teeth and skin.

This year I challenge you to have some guiding principles you’d like to live by and review them often. Instead of driving yourself to death at the gym or going skeletal on a Spartan diet, consider reviewing your relationship with Saturn’s principles. It may work out for you far better than difficult-to-keep and often unrealistic resolutions. This exercise will help you use this planetary energy for its better possibilities. Saturn’s charms are rarely touted for its less likable principles of seriousness, control, authority, severity, restraint and rigidity. But don’t forget these:

 Some Key Words for Saturn at Its Best 
  • Wisdom
  • Good timing
  • Down-to-earthiness
  • Being grounded
  • Good foundations or structures
  • Being dependable
  • Being efficient
  • Ability to control yourself when the situation calls for it
  • Success in politics or government
  • “Adult spirituality” rather than dogma
  • Getting better as you get older

You don’t have to have trines and sextiles between Saturn and your other planets or your Capricorn/Saturn-ruled planets to get on his brighter side. My Cap Moon squares four planets. My life’s work has been learning to overcome anxiety to let in the Saturn and Cap positive principles. The choices are (1) fight tooth and nail against what you’re “supposed” to do, beat your head against brick walls, get nowhere and be miserable, or (2) find how to integrate the best of Saturn into your life with minimal bodily and psychological injury.

Who couldn’t use things like grounding, earthiness and efficiency? And for a bonus, people with a lot of planets in Cap or aspects to Saturn have what I call a Capricornball sense of humor. Because of the tendency to be uptight and proper, when they cut loose, the most ultra conservatives among them blast open their stuffed shirts; and they are hilarious. One of the guiding principles of comedy is the unexpected. You don’t expect the otherwise loyal, buttoned-up office secretary to blurt out a pointed joke about the boss out of his earshot to most of the staff. The prohibitory nature of the conspiracy is what makes it so funny, along with its unlikely source.

Don’t belittle yourself. Be-big yourself.”   Sister Corita Kent, Artist

The Inside Out Method to Get to Saturn Light

This is both the easiest and most difficult exercise to improve your relationship with Saturn. Stop judging yourself and others. If you want to experience Saturn Light, be Saturn Light.

For most of us, starting with others might be the easier jumping-off point. Go a whole day without thinking negative thoughts or judging others with Saturnian authority or austerity. Be the best father they ever or never had. After one day, go for two … then more.

When you’re got your courage up, do this for yourself. Not a thought or a negative word. I live with someone who curses himself on a regular basis. It used to spin me into a knot of judgment about what he was doing to his self-esteem. I finally gave up my lectures that fell mostly on deaf ears. Now when he damns himself I bless him in my mind. If everything starts with energy, maybe I’ve at least canceled out the worst effects of shoulding on himself. Besides, his growth rate is none of my business.

Other Saturn Resources

The have been a number of articles on Saturn on The Radical Virgo. Here are some that might help you become that loving dad to yourself.

Although this two-part series focuses on Saturn in Libra and its implications in relationships, the exercises will still be helpful to many people, especially if you have Saturn aspects to Venus … or just want to learn about the structure of your relationship history, which is often full of revelations.



On Saturn's Relationship to Time
A New Timepeace (11-Nov-09)



Happy 2018! “Friend” Saturn this year.

~~~

Photo Credits: Saturn cartoon - © corythoman; 2018 - © Iveta Angelova, Fotolia.com