Outerplanetary (Extraordinary) People Part 3 of 5

Neptunian Survival Tricks and The Magic of Dis-Illusionment

   

©1996 - 2010 by Joyce Mason

All Rights Reserved

I confess: I've had more trouble with Neptune than any other outer planet. According to my own theory in Part I of this series, that means I have a bigger obligation to share my learning with you on Neptune than all of the other PUNC planets put together. [1]  Expect it to be nitty gritty and, in parts, not pretty.  After all, Neptune is where we kid ourselves — and the most positive Neptunian skill we can acquire is learning to burst our own bubble.

At first, it isn't fun. I disagree with Mae West.  ("Too much of a good thing is wonderful.")  I have learned the hard way that a person can be too nice. Let's face it: you were most likely drawn to astrology because you want to help people and believe in our oneness in spirit.  You’re compassionate and all those other nice Neptunian things.

This is what's so insidious about Neptune.  "Nice" can actually be very bad for you, beyond a point. A boundary is always the point — knowing when something is too much or when have we gone too far.  It's the point, beyond which we ruin our effectiveness to help others and ourselves.  If Outerplanetary People are groomed to lead others into a better future, we have to become masters of dis-illusionment, especially with ourselves.  (What's so hot about illusions?)

Before I can speak to the most positive potentials of the Otherworldly Planet, I really have to get my five least favorite negative Neptunian archetypes out of the way:

   

Negative Neptune

 

Problem is, every Negative Neptunian (N-Nep) needs a Positive Neptunian (P-Nep) to operate. (I'm sorry to say, every P-Nep is part sap.) Even the positive/ negative is an illusion, because P-Neps are nice to a fault.  In the end, this is not a good thing.

 

P-Neps are so busy being nice to people, compassionate, and caring, we neglect ourselves—our need for limits, clear communication, and to respect ourselves as much as we do others. How can we help others—that thing we thrive on—if there’s nothing left to give? After awhile, this behavior is not only foolish, it drains us of the life force we already pour out too liberally to help others.  It's a one-way ticket to burnout.

We all know the substance-addicted N-Nep.  That one's easy to spot, even if it takes you awhile to pick up on the trend. These are the more beguiling N-Neps you'll meet, and you'll soon see why it's so important to recognize them. [2]

N-Nep # 1:  Mr. Nice Guy.  Mr. Nice won't own his own darkness. You sense all that underlying hostility.  Soon you're the one getting angry. (It wasn't your anger to begin with). He fails to contain his rage on a nonverbal level, despite surface appearances. What he denies and won't express becomes your compulsion. Since you are also Neptunian and don't like conflict, you resent having to be the heavy.

N-Nep #2:   The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing. The French play by Moliere, Tartuffe, represents this archetype in the extreme: a religious fanatic gets taken in, steals a family blind, and hits on all the women. This person is insufferably nice, cleverly manipulative, and often unconscious of, or in denial about, his underground shenanigans. You feel like evil incarnate for suggesting he is really jerking you around. Who would ever believe you? Everyone tells you how wonderful so-and-so is, and you feel like the only person on the planet who really knows he's a so-and-so of another kind). Like the character in the old movie, Gaslight, you start to think you're the one who's crazy.  One of the most insidious things the wolf does is to make a big deal out of how he doesn't kiss and tell, gossip, or share your secrets, whether you're having a sexual affair together or some other intrigue. This seems discreet and considerate, but it's actually a potent admonition for you to keep your own mouth shut. Eventually, it might occur to you, it's because he doesn't want you comparing notes with his other victims!

 N-Nep #3:  The Projection Artist.   This person is often PluNeptunian, a PUNC with a lot of emphasis on the P and N.  She tells you who you are (even if she barely knows you) and what you feel.  Actually, she is using you as a mirror.  Except for feeling fragile, you feel less like a mirror and more like her garbage can, because she has dumped a twisted, often hostile image of you onto your sensitive psyche.  (This mirror is distorted--the Not-So-Fun House variety.) You trigger something she dislikes about herself, and you'll pay!

N-Nep, #4: Queen of DeNial.  Everyone knows this is a feature of the addict,but there are many sober royal pains out there who will tell you some of the most ridiculous things, like "I never feel anger, I just let it go."  This individual could teach Berlitz classes in metababble, using all the right astrological or metaphysical buzz words.  She has no concept that one must honestly process unpleasantness, that unresolved pain and immobilizing traumas can’t be fluffed off by talking mystical nice-nice. Any time someone or some ism, ology, or ologer refuses to deal with matters at an emotional level, it is a red flag that you have entered the kingdom of the Emperor with No Clothes another character in the Court of Royal Pains.

   

N-Nep #5: The Intruder.  This person breaks and enters into your personal psychic space, but it's so subtle, she has stolen your personal power before you can even call the cops.  She's the colleague or professional who starts reading and making pronouncements about your chart without permission, crossing all kinds of lines that only rightly belong to much more intimate relationships such as close friend or therapist (or astrologer in a professional reading where this sort of deep level of interaction is stated upfront and agreed upon). She asks inappropriate, personal questions—or doesn't ask questions she should, like "Do you mind if I...”  It is so under the table, even if you bust her, she'll deny any ill intent or inappropriate behavior. ("After all, we’re all astrologers...," psychics—whatever). Don't be fooled! This is clearly mind-rape, as real as if you were molested. It is breaking into your mind or chart information and using it for her own purposes. Some possibilities are to “cut” you, seduce you, or show off her predictive skills. Like most of the N-Neps, you can only detect this by the “zing” or “ick” factor. If you feel gut reactions that are painful or unpleasant, you’ve been intruded.

If you don't recognize yourself, either on the giving or receiving end of the above descriptions—this is not necessarily a good sign!  We have to be ever vigilant about our own Neptunian characteristics.   

Here is where we lack clarity about others and ourselves.  Neptune cannot always be grasped easily. Busting yourself and your Neptune is hard work. But bust yourself, you must, because as a PUNC, you will draw these archetypes to you like a magnet and enable them—or be one without realizing it.  Most awful of all, N-Neps often leave you asking, Can I trust myself?

If we can't rely on our own Neptunian skills, e.g., intuition, how can we help others or ourselves? 

The Neptune in Libra Generation

 

The baby boomers make up a large percentage of our population, those born between 1946 and 1964 who have Neptune in Libra, the relationship sign. Wethink relationships are supposed to be nice. That's why this generation has so much difficulty with them, because real intimacy can neither be acquired nor maintained without healthy ways of expressing conflict (Aries, the opposite of Libra).  We have blown anger all out of proportion.  We make it “bad."  (Anger isn't bad, it simply is.)  Watch a couple of birds in a conflict sometime.  They squawk, ruffle their feathers, and posture wildly, and when the fit is over, it's over, and they fly off on their merry way.  We could learn something from them.

The fear of hurting others is often the foundation of Neptunian behavior that   undoes both you and the other person.  Why are we are responsible for the feelings of the entire world?  (Doesn't the receiver have some responsibility if or how she takes it?) And what about our own feelings?  The lack of healthy ways to express them is probably the single most evil thing on this planet.  Yes. Denial of your feelings is evil.  It creates a pot of seething negativity that comes out in ways that hurt others far more, in the end, than dealing with what you really think or have to say.

For me, this is why Neptune is even more difficult, at its worst, than Pluto. Even though negative Plutonians are also subterranean, there is usually no hiding their vibes.  They don't cloak them in niceness. When we're so worried about hurting others, the other person isn't as fragile as we think.  We are the fragile ones, unable to deal the other person or the stuff inside us we have labeled bad.  The good news: If we named it, we can also call it something else.

Even if Neptune were not prominent in our charts, nice is the way the majority of the population has learned to relate, even if it's phony.  We grew up believing Rock Hudson and Doris Day were the ideal couple.  In fact, Rock was gay and Doris was an abused spouse.  Things were not as they seemed.  An entire generation is still trying to get over it: Life isn't Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, or Donna Reed.  (I actually believe it's a lot better.  That's the magic of dis-illusionment.)

Violence exists primarily because we don't have culturally approved ways to express or ritualize anger, so it erupts in ways that are horrible. Imagine a world where we have permission to say all that ugly stuff we feel in a protected environment, among friends, where we're encouraged to get it out and no one thinks much about it? Where our skin is tough enough that we don't mind looking at ourselves?  Where we view feelings as an energy and learn not to target them so much at others (even if someone triggered them in us), but to work with them as our own creations.  Express them.  Not be judged for them.  Be done with it.  Next thing.

Examining Your Conscience/Consciousness

I have dwelled much longer in this article on the "negatives" than usual, because Neptune is where we kid ourselves.  And speaking of kids and Neptune in another way, I can remember Sister Mary Stoneface making 50 squirming kids in puberty with Pluto in Leo and Chiron in Scorpio sit still for 10 minutes daily to "examine our consciences." PUNCs would do well to consider an updated, nondenominational version of this practice. The next section is a checklist to help you prepare to make a good confession to yourself and learn to burst your own bubble. 

 Positive Neptune – Ways to Get a Grip on Fog

1.   Get over being 100% "nice." Too nice is too much.  It hurts others and yourself.  Chronic sweetness is phony. If we can't be a good example to our children, clients, and friends for handling conflict and avoiding mistreatment, we are perpetuating a world of doormats and violence.  We can live in a world without victims. Standing up for yourself means setting down boundaries and learning these simple words of emotional ownership: "It's not OK with me when . . .” These words don't name, blame, or shame.  They instruct.

2.  Know your own Neptune.  Look at how Neptune or Pisces influences your   personal planets or angular houses. For example, if Neptune is conjunct Venus, you usually don't have a clue for a long time when it comes to love and money. This is not your most lucid area.  Be aware of it, wherever that fog-zone lies in your chart

3.  Find a Reality Chuck (or Charlene).  Cultivate a friend you can trust who will listen to what's going on for you in the touchy areas identified in #2, preferably not someone with the same afflictions. Give them permission to be your fog lifter, to tell you the truth when you're so gooey in love or impractical about money, they bring you back to earth. Or if your Neptune aspects Mars, when you're acting too wimpy (delusional, hysterical, or irrational for Sun, Moon, and Mercury).

4. Examine your own silence.  Why can't you bring out into the open what's   going on, under the table, between you and another person?  Be honest with   yourself.  Share your rationale (more like rationalization) with Chuck or Charlene (#3).  I discovered that I had very clever Neptunian excuses for why I couldn't declare my feelings in man-woman relationships: I didn't want to be too forward (he's "too sensitive"); I didn't want to hurry love; I didn't want to destroy my  relationship with the person on another level (e.g., colleague or healer).  The truth is I didn't want to hear the truth: how he really felt about me. (As long as I didn't know, I could fantasize it my way.) Underground relationships are less risky. They are cheap thrills potent on the level of chemistry, without dealing with the real issues or truth of the other person's feelings. (Sexual feelings almost always are mutual. They keep the game going, along with the unspoken rule: Don't talk.)

5.  Feelings are real and important.  Don't deny them—ever.  When you feel something is going on between you and another person, no matter how much he or she denies it or ignores your attempts to clarify, if those feelings persist, they are real. Continued denial on the part of the other person is crazy making behavior.  Make "I" statements: "When you do this, I feel that." If you can't come to a positive resolution or clarity, consider if you need to continue having a conversation with a cloud. You have the right to choose to what, to whom, and how much you give your precious time, love, attention, and resources.  When someone chronically drains you, it's a flashing neon light that says this is not a good place to put your energy.

 6.  Know the red flags.  Reread the descriptions of the Negative Neptune archetypes in this article periodically.  Anyone you know?

7.  Learn the Converse Golden Rule.  The Golden Rule is Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you. Most Neptunians already do that to a fault. Instead, we have to learn the Converse Golden Rule: Do unto yourself as you do unto others.  I finally learned to stop being a victim-type Neptunian by tricking myself in this way. Start with a negative, think positive, and do a little alchemy to turn it into something helpful.

Being good to others, I had down.  What if I started treating myself the way I did my friends and clients?  Even more dramatically, what if I considered myself as important? After all, I can't help others if I'm wrung-out.  If I really valued helping others, I saw I'd have to put self-care first, not last.  Over time, I became a new person by starting with what I'm good at—consideration of others—and simply applying it to myself.

8.  Learn About the Psychic Realms. These include issues such as psychic cording, feeling emotions that aren't really yours, and keeping in your own   energy space, which is enhanced by meditation and yoga.  Keeping your psychic space also can be boosted by the use of certain visualizations and flower essences.  People really can "do stuff to you" on a psychic level, if you don't know how to protect yourself.  An article on the subject, which has been  invaluable to me and my clients, contains a veritable cookbook of helpful hints to protect yourself from negative Neptunian influences: "How to Keep Your Intuition Without Losing Yourself," an interview with Marcy Calhoun by Dio Urmilla Neff, Yoga Journal,  July-August 1986.[3] The essentials of this material are also in Marcy Calhoun’s book, Are You Really Too Sensitive? Another excellent resource that I’m just digging into myself is Cut Cords of Attachment: Heal Yourself and Others with Energy Spirituality by Rose Rosetree.

Keep Your Sense of Humor

I often call this planet Neptoon, because if you don't see some of this stuff for the Loony Toon it is, you’ll go crazy (the ultimate in Negative Neptoon!). Neptune, at its best, is spirituality, vision, and some of the most wonderful things in life.  It is romance—the hunches that make us so good with people—the sensitivity that allows us to be a good friend, parent, and astrologer.  Yet its downside is so tricky, we have to be ever vigilant to guard against letting what is intrinsically good become warped.

The two extremes of Neptune's down side-rose colored glasses and unconsciousness its many forms (manipulation, denial, etc.)—often co-exist in the same person.  We are the people who see the world as it could be and say why not?  That potential makes busting the nebulous side of our own Neptunes so important.  We need to bless the world with these gifts. If we don't learn to navigate these sometimes-murky waters and bust out of the fog standing upright, collective evolution loses out on its next stars.

Speaking of busting Neptune, busting up is essential, so we don't blame ourselves and get into a negative down spiral of self-hate when we have become a sap or a victim in some form of Planet Fog.  These are the times I like to think of the most exaggerated Neptoon image I can conjure up, so I feel less crazy, by comparison. Probably my all-time favorite is the ending of the British comedy, The Life of Brian.  As a large group of martyrs is hanging around together at their collective crucifixion, the victims burst into the song, "Always look on the bright side of life."

When you're wondering if you're too far flung from reality, if your glasses are too rosy, think of this scene.  If the cross fits, bear it.  (But grin at yourself, first.)

 

~~~

Photo Credit: Female bowing a Kiss Good-Bye © Donnarae | Dreamstime

Next - Part 4 of 5, Plutonian: Putting Passion to Work

 

Related Post:  Boundaries 101: A Course for Neptunians

NOTES

---

[1] In case you are joining this series in progress, that stands for Pluto, Uranus, Neptune, and Chiron, and PUNC people are Plutonian, Uranian, Neptunian, and Chironic.

[2] Although I use he or she with specific archetypes, this is simply for variety.  These types do not favor one gender over the other in my experience.

[3] To explore availability of reprints or back issues, visit Yoga Journal or phone (415) 591-0555.

Have you joined the New Moongram Mailing List? The monthly New Moongram complements the monthly Moonwalk feature with additional information and special offers. This month’s coupon is a $50 Chiron Reading by E-mail, an average two-page, single-spaced, typewritten and completely personalized report. Joyce will comment on how your Chiron and its house, sign and aspects fit into your chart; how your Chiron configuration may help you identify and overcome your personal stumbling blocks toward wholeness; and your vocational potentials. Sign up on the sidebar to get details, coupon, and purchase link. This offer is currently running through Dec. 4 only!

Moonwalk: Scorpio

© 2010 by Joyce Mason

All Rights Reserved

Get naked under the New Moon! Even though the Moon in this photo is Full (New Moons are almost invisible and hard to capture), the idea’s the same. The Scorpio Moon is time for emotional and physical intimacy. To see yourself, warts and all. To become comfortable with your own vulnerability.

Scorpio Moon people are not usually open to exposure in public, even in the moonlight, unless they’ve got some other more exhibitionistic signs in their chart to support such abandon. (Hi, Leos!) The compulsion to be secretive, jealous, possessive, and keep intimacies between you and one other are more what Scorpio Moon craves. People tell me you know your own dark side and suspect others of having a shadow as big as yours. Our Scorpio Moon model is not looking at her own reflection in the water. It’s hard. She’s busy trying to hide her nakedness.

Yet under Scorpio Moon, self-reflection is called for. Have you been gloating on hurts? Fantasizing vengeance? Trust and openness are difficult for natal Scorpio Moons when their feelings are hurt so easily. Like all the water signs, Scorpio Moon lives by feelings and sensations. This New Moon, it’s time for all of us to go deep sea diving in our own psyches to see what’s down there. Be sure to bring plenty of air in your tank, the air element corresponding to your mind and ideas. Take your most objective and positive thinking so that you will be able to sustain a good analysis of what you find. Later under this Moon cycle, you can decide what to do about feelings that may need some work, release, or rehabilitation.

Moonlore: Touch a silver coin when you see the New Moon. It will bring you luck.
~ Moon Wisdom by Sally Morningstar

One of the most important things to embrace, if you have a Scorpio Moon natally or are just experiencing this Scorpio New Moon with the rest of us: This Moon sign is extremely intuitive, even psychic. Suppressing this tendency can cause all kinds of physical and emotional ailments. Learning to work with your sensitivities and finding the right mentors to help you harness them for good are vital. If you’re not a Scorpio Moon native, could be this New Moon lights up your chart in just the right way. You, too, may find yourself having unusual experiences. Don’t run. Don’t hide. Get yourself to someone who knows what it’s like, someone who uses their highly sensitive skills on a regular basis. Ask your trusted friends for a referral, and if it feels right, see an intuitive, a shaman, or a dream interpreter. Many useful visions come in our sleep. Before you go to bed, ask for guidance in your dreams to make the most out of this deep, watery and truth-telling Moon.

The Dance of Dark and Light

All this talk of dark and our own reflection helps us prepare for winter. Even though this New Moon comes in the middle of autumn, the Scorpio turf of darkness and examining your interior foreshadows winter. Now that we’re past Autumn Equinox, we are in the waning time of the year. Light decreases. Dark increases. If we are living in harmony with the earth and sky, our activity levels also need to come down a notch. We need to spend more time on introspection and less on “running around.” Take this patch before Thanksgiving to practice, because as soon as the biggest part of the holiday preparation and whirlwind is over, this inner place is where you want to return and spend important spiritual growth time during winter.

Click to enlarge

This New Moon

First, I’ve decided to make our Moonwalk charts more universal and less geocentric to myself as author of these articles. Now we’ll be viewing the New Moon from a theoretical 0^o Aries Rising, Equal House chart and from Greenwich, England—the central point from which we measure our worldwide time zones.

Second, while I cover the Sabian symbol in depth in the monthly Moongram to my e-mail list subscribers, it’s too important in the scheme of this New Moon not to mention it to everyone.

Scorpio 14:
Telephone linemen at work installing new connections.

This month’s Sabian speaks to receiving information and networking it. All the more reason for us to tune into our psyche and psychic messages—and to learn to live by them.

An aside and personal share: I have an over-emphasized Moon in my chart including a close sextile with Chiron in Scorpio. My first spiritual teacher, Betty Bethards, used to credit her Scorpio planets as the source of her psychic gifts. While it has taken many years to develop, I am finally learning to trust my lunar information—a cumulative “arrival.” Here’s the part I want to share as my testimonial. I cannot believe how much easier my life is and how much better it  works now that I listen to that inner voice with barely a second thought. It probably sounds corny and like a big metaphysical platitude, but I invite you to try it just for this Moon cycle. Tell us what happens in the Comments!

Back to the sky, you may notice that the Sun/Moon conjunction in Scorpio stands alone in a sense. The pair makes no major aspects to other planets in the chart. That fact gives this New Moon no “extra coloring” and emphasizes the direct Scorpio meanings mentioned above all the more. (If you want to add the asteroid Vesta, not shown but at 15 Scorpio, you can increase the feminine and intuitive influence. Are we having group visions yet?)

Other things in the chart are quite significant. Chiron and Neptune station and go direct within a day of the New Moon. Chiron and Neptune have been retrograde since spring, and they are also planets that symbolize the psychic and intuitive realms, as well as those of compassion and caring. Chiron’s mother, Philyra, was a sea nymph or Oceanid. The sea nymphs were very psychic, and this is Chiron’s maternal lineage. With his father as Chronos/Saturn, Chiron had the gift of bringing intuitive information down to earth for practical application—something we might all want to emulate. Mercury trine Chiron/Neptune in this chart is yet another symbol for trusting inner wisdom and our Higher Self when it taps into All That Is—easy under this Moon cycle.

As Chiron and Neptune move forward into Pisces, they will become additional symbols of the Oneness Consciousness predicted by the Mayans and others, the real way the world will end and start anew. Pluto conjunct the North Node in Capricorn in this chart continues to give us a heads-up that where we’re headed is a major tear-down and reconstruction of our institutions and the structures that no longer function well and keep us stuck.

This New Moon is no small potatoes. It invites us to align our sensory perception to the changes that are coming and to hone our inner rudder for a world where this kind of inner communication is the norm and our new way of life.

~~~

Photo Credit: Reflections in Water © René Valenta | Fantasy Art Visions

René Valenta was born in the Czech Republic and moved to the US when he was 19, not knowing he would stay here. Always fascinated by the inner human soul and motivations, René captures his observations in his art. He studies acupuncture to heal the human body, mind and soul. How to help people grow in a positive direction and bring healing to our world is what motivates him most. René is a devoted fan of The Radical Virgo and notes that with his “RV” initials, he’s obviously in the right place!

Have you joined the New Moongram Mailing List? The monthly New Moongram complements this monthly Moonwalk feature with additional information and special offers. This month’s coupon is a $50 Chiron Reading by E-mail, an average two-page, single spaced, typewritten and completely personalized report. Joyce will comment on how your Chiron and its house, sign and aspects fit into your chart; how your Chiron configuration may help you identify and overcome your personal stumbling blocks toward wholeness; and your vocational potentials. Sign up on the sidebar to get details, coupon, and purchase link. This offer is currently running for one month only!

Outerplanetary (Extraordinary) People Part 2 of 5

  

Uranians Spread Stolen Fire with Their Fingers

      

  © 1992 – 2010 by Joyce Mason

   All Rights Reserved

 

The reality is that “the Gods” no longer control the sacred fire—we control it, now, as shown by Prometheus.  It is simply power, and what we do with it will determine our fate. [1] 

—Barbara Hand Clow

Astrology is Prometheus’ fire. [2] We carry the torch now. So now what?

In Part 1, we explored the unique role of evolutionary pioneers—people who have the outer planets prominent. (That means one or more—and especially all of the outer planets—in close aspect to personal planets and/or placed near the angles.) [3]  We started with Chiron, the “bridge” between the inner and outer planets; now we’ll stop to explore Uranus.  Of all the outer-to-inner planetary contacts that make  a person astrologically unusual, those to  Uranus often keep an individual the most committed to the process of inner growth and spreading their enlightenment outward to the world.  (If the end result were not freedom and heaven on earth—two of the choicest gifts of Uranus—why bother?)

Uranian: The Paradox of Group Needs and Individual Freedom

 

What on earth it does it mean to carry a torch for the collective?  For starters, just what that expression implies—to be in love people in general—to look to group needs, and paradoxically, individual freedom.

It’s not really such a convoluted concept.  Uranus rules Aquarius, by modern rulership—but Saturn is its traditional ruler.  Before Chiron was on hand to   bridge the gap between the two planets, positioned between them, there was already a dual flame heating up the Promethean torch.  (Prometheus was bound to be free.)  Puns aside, there is no freedom (Uranus) without restriction (Saturn), or what is there to be free from?  These two energies are forever intertwined.  They do an endless dance, like light and dark. Each is meaningless without the other.

Freedom within society—or any quality, for that matter—exists only to the degree that it exists “for the least of our brethren.”  Police, ruled by Saturn, must uphold the law, the foundation for all freedom. When basic rights and equal treatment are legislated, then society is free, at least in theory, if not always in practice.  This is a simple demonstration of the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm and the fact that we live in ecosystems, where the actions or restrictions of one individual affect everyone else.

The Age of Aquarius and Chiron‘s Perihelion: The Uranian’s Time Has Come

The Age of Pisces is giving way to the Age of Aquarius. The controversy is still raging about just when this earth-shaking change will take place, if it hasn’t already. Because astrology is ruled by Uranus, we need to know, love, and use Uranian energy with great reverence, for as Barbara Clow states so well, it is power; and how we handle it will determine our future. As astrologers, we are in a position to access that power on behalf of others. We must do it with the highest code of ethics or reap the karmic consequences.

This was no accident: As Uranus finally moved forward into its home sign of   Aquarius after a six month retrograde on January 12, 1996, the Internet was catching fire at breakneck speed, doubling annually, showing signs of growing faster than the system could handle. [4] Now a couple of Saturn cycles later, can any outerplanetary person or “proper” PUNC [5]  imagine how they lived without it?

What could be more Uranian than an electronic forum where people can network with the whole world without a formal hierarchy?  This is the Promethean fire at our fingertips.  The Information Revolution promises to have more impact than the last major paradigm shift, the Industrial Revolution.  In today’s world, information is power, and the power is in our fingers.  The Uranian’s time has come, and s/he touches the power to change the world every time s/he strokes the keyboard.

Here’s where Chiron comes in.  As the go-between Saturn and the outer planets, Uranus being the first, the one it  figuratively “touches” on one side of the bridge, there is a close relationship between Chiron and Uranus.  Before Chiron, the extremes of Saturn/Uranus were without an archetype to blend or mitigate them. Since Chiron, we have a hot pad to handle the Uranian fire—to absorb its intensity, so it’s not too hot to handle.  It is also no accident that less than a month after Uranus went forward into Aquarius came Chiron’s perihelion on Valentine’s Day 1996. The events were not only momentous in the cycle of each planet, but their proximity tells us of an important relationship between these energies at this turning point in history.

While we have long held Uranus as the ruler of astrology, I believe Chiron rules the astrologer, just as it does the Tarot reader. [6] The astrologer is the Chironic bridge, the go-between the Uranian wisdom, insight, and brilliance and the Saturn (Earth)-bound being in the counseling room. Chiron is the lead planet, the synthesizer, of the intense energies lived daily by all outerplanetary people. In one way or another, these extraordinary people channel change.

The close proximity of the Uranus ingress into Aquarius and Chiron’s perihelion has incredible implications on how we do astrology from now on. Chiron rules channeling and those who channel information through their physical vehicle, particularly through their hands. The root of Cheiron (ancient spelling), cheir, means hand. Astrologers have always “worked with their hands.” 

Before computers, we drew charts by hand and interacted with them in a very tactile way before meeting the client behind the chart.  We still do, but now, the primary tool is very Uranian—our computers.  (I do charts with a program called Solar Fire. If the Uranian information is the fire and the power, think of the metaphor for personal empowerment at the heart of this well-named software! [7] I believe rather than requiring hand-drawn charts in their testing procedures (at least the skill comes in handy during power outages!), schools and organizations that certify astrologers should assess computer literacy. To refuse to recognize the composite strength of our hands (Chiron) and electronics (Uranus) is to remain in the Astrological Dark Ages. It’s to relinquish our power and potential—worse yet; it’s to refuse being a conduit to the cosmic energy and information flow. Fortunately, the role of electronics in astrology has been more fully embraced now, compared to when I wrote the original version of this article. Still, there’s still room for growth. I’d vote for increased educational opportunities for the everyday astrologer to make the best choices and use of the astrology software that fits his or her needs for touching and transmitting the Uranian fire.

 

Mythical Keys: The Chiron/Uranus Relationship (Prometheus Unbound)

 

Prometheus is the mythical representative of Uranus or the collective.  Chiron caused the dramatic resolution of the story—Prometheus Unbound. It was Chiron who traded places with Prometheus, who was chained to a rock for stealing fire from the gods. Chiron put poor Prometheus out of his misery, whose liver was pecked out nightly by an eagle and grew back daily for an indeterminate sentence of suffering.  As a reward for his act, Chiron was released from his immortality, died, and was raised to the heavens in a constellation. [8] This was a win-win solution. Chiron and Prometheus were both miserable, and Chiron’s trade released them both from pain and suffering.

Chiron, then, is the key—the shape of its glyph, actually a skeleton key, the kind of key that opens all doors.  Prometheus Unbound—the best of Uranus—is personal freedom, collective progress, and win-win solutions.  This is what’s “behind Door #1,” the amazing door we have opened in these Years before and after the Millennial Shift.

If Chiron represents the astrologer, how do we figuratively “trade places with Prometheus” and get to Heaven?  (You are an astrologer whenever you use the fire, either personally or professionally.)  The secret is in the Potholder   Principle—tempering the Uranian fire with Chiron’s mentoring skills. Chiron was a composite being and he suggests compound solutions. The following discussion of the extremes of Uranian expression pivots on tempering Uranus with Chiron and focuses on Uranus in today’s world where information is power.  

Negative Uranus—Cold Science, Head Without Heart

 

Some astrologers say Uranus is the “higher octave of Mercury.”  Yet, there is a low-down way of conveying Uranian information.  The delivery is Fire with Ice.  The style is bolts of so-called wisdom given without the context of the person’s life experience—or delivered without personal warmth and openness to the full range of possibility.

There are thousands, maybe millions of ways any astrological metaphor can play out in a person’s life.  Although the meanings are related, there is no way short of becoming God to know which one belongs to a given individual at a specific time. If we did—if life were 100% predictable— we’d not only be stealing people’s fire, but taking away the magic in their lives. Astrology is both a science and an art, and when we err on the side of science, we steal their fire and people’s most precious gift—freedom to choose—what we Uranians are supposed to be all about.  Oddly, this is one of those areas where the other extreme— Saturn—can slip in.  It’s authoritarian astrology.

Astrologers are linguists who translate celestial metaphors.  Not only can sky poems lose in the translation; they are also highly archetypal with multilayered meanings like dreams.  We must check ourselves constantly for the Sin of Pronouncement—presuming to have the ultimate interpretation of the image.  The exaggerated scenario: A cloud hangs over the client, darkening, and with a bolt of Uranian lightning, the astrologer declares, “Saturn is in your 1st house. You might start to feel your age or lack self-confidence.” These are possibilities, but some others are a time when the client restructures an ailing self-image; a period she lays new foundations for the way she interfaces with the world; or becomes her own authority for the first time in her life.

I don’t believe we should give overly Neptunian, upbeat and glossy readings with no regard for the possible hurdles in any given transit or natal configuration. But it is unconscionable to wield such power without showing the client at least some representative examples of the universe of possibilities.  Talking in ranges of meanings helps, then asking, “Which of these seems to be happening—or has happened most for you?” Put the client in the driver’s seat. (Whose life is it, anyway?)  Let him or her tell you his or her experience with this Pluto Square or that Venus conjunction. You are together to dialogue about action and archetypes in the Play of Life.  You are not a critic.  (Critics talk about how they interpret a play—what they get out of it.  What’s more important here is what the client gets out of it or could get out of it with a broader perspective the astrologer can hopefully offer.)

Granted, this approach makes you less of a guru and more of a guide.  Back to Outerplanetary (Extraordinary) People, Part 1: You are Chiron mentoring this hero and freeing the Uranian fire to be expressed in its full potential. The penalty for ignoring this most basic tenet of conscious practice for keepers of the Uranian fire is the self-fulfilling prophecy.  You put the idea in your client’s mind that he or she is doomed in some way, and s/he lives to tell you about it.  This is scary stuff—mind rape at its worst.  The power we yield is the life force itself, and we must treat it with extreme respect. Prepare people to deal with challenges, but better to err on the side of the potential positive outcomes than the other way around. Then your worse self-fulfilling prophecy will be a happy ending. The first rule of mentoring people toward all they can be is to cheer them on toward making a home run or a touchdown—or finishing the race first, choose your favorite sports metaphor.

The hardest part of avoiding negative Uranus is constant self-vigilance. After all, channeling lightning bolts of information from the sky, we sound omniscient—sometimes even to ourselves.  For many people, all this goes without saying, but knowing the ideal and living it are often two different things.  When you see eight out of ten Saturn transits to the 1st House expressing in a variety of difficult ways, it is easy to emphasize the trend and not the tremendous variables, including the positive possibilities.  (Besides, it’s shorter and easier, and you only have an hour or so.)

If we are truly to mentor clients to fulfill themselves, they need a lot more than the negative implications of an astrological energy.  They need to know the most positive expression they are aiming for. This also goes for ourselves as when we’re acting as astrologers to ourselves.

 

Positive Uranus—Humanistic Astrology

 

The positive expression of Uranus is the flip side of the previous discussion, where an individual’s freedom and potential are at the heart of applying astrological information.  It is astrology reached via Chiron, the bridge between Saturn and Uranus. Chiron was discovered at a time when we were ready to shift to a more humanistic astrology, championed by Dane Rudhyar and others. 

Chiron’s naming for the mythical, wise centaur suggests a composite approach where the parts of the centaur merge: head (the human half) and instincts (the horse half). The practical application of this merger is an intuitive astrology. We sense how astrological metaphors work for people and share data from both heart and head, admitting we don’t always get our signals right, even if openness and humility combine to make us on target more often than not.  We rely on the client’s experience as the ultimate authority.  This is astrology from a fallible mentor, one who is not yet completely healed him- or herself, like Chiron. 

It is the astrologer’s humanity combined with wisdom (having been there) that makes him or her so believable and helpful.  If one expression of Uranus involves erratic blasts of enlightenment, we also need Chiron’s earthiness to ground the charge.  As already hinted, this astrology is, above all, practical.  It uses the Uranian talent for networking to refer people to all sorts of resources—acupuncturists, psychologists, past life regressionists—and so on.  The astrologer who expresses Uranus positively isn’t into competition, but rather lives by cooperation.  S/he knows there’s more than enough work to go around, and s/he knows that each actualized individual increases the quality of his or her community.  S/he supports other astrologers and practitioners of the helping arts and is willing to contribute to the collective by writing, speaking, referring, and generally making a good impression for astrology in the world.  

Uranians, the Internet, and Astrology’s New Image

The Internet is distributed by nature . . . no single entity is in control, and its pieces run themselves, cooperating to form the network of networks that is the Internet. [9]

 --Robert Orenstein

The Internet is the most Uranian thing on Earth.  All you need is a computer and an e-mail address, and you can write directly to anyone, anywhere in the world, from the powers-that-be to unknown new friends who share a common interest who find you on a bulletin board or social networking site.  The Internet has expanded my world beyond description. It would be easier to say where The Radical Virgo blog does not have readers (Greenland, China and much of Africa, but just about everywhere else!). I have cyber friends all over the globe and often wake up with a message from Australia, where it’s already tomorrow. How leading edge is that?   

Astrology magazines and organizations have joined the Information Revolution communicating with their readers and members online in the form of web sites, blogs, and e-mail marketing. There are hundreds of astrology bloggers, and we “talk amongst ourselves” constantly on Facebook and Twitter. The day I was updating this article, I was invited to an astrology bloggers group on Facebook.

 

This is our opportunity to spread the freedom fire all over the world and personal empowerment we have gained through astrology. There is no time like the present for putting our best foot (fingers?) forward and hot-wiring our knowledge and integrity to the global communications highway.  How we do astrology is no longer strictly private.  Word has never gotten around faster!

 

Our time has come, and the tool is here to make astrology so accessible, in a few years, the Astrological Report could be on CNN with planetary positions cited just like atmospheric conditions in the Weather Report. (Can you envision it on the scrolling text at the bottom of the screen? Glyphs and positions?) As much as we complain about Sun sign columns not being “real astrology,” thanks to them, nearly everyone on Earth knows his or her Sun sign and some basic key words about it.  Imagine something a million times more powerful than the old newspaper horoscope column, accessible by the touch of a finger all over the world and growing rapidly. My latest vision is a cable network that runs astrology classes, talk shows, astro-drama and astro-comedy 24/7. If you’re a Jeff Dunham fan, imagine a ventriloquist with 12 puppets representing the signs and their interactions. The Sesame Street puppets did so much to teach kids; why not use them to teach astrology to the inner kid in newcomers to the subject?

 

In this series, I emphasize that outerplanetary types have been groomed to lead global change.  It is up to each one of us to join the Revolution, tempered by Chiron to be Rapid Evolution (slightly less scary). We need to jump in whatever way we can, and to make sure that someday soon, astrology magazines, websites and TV shows will be read and understood by the general public. Imagine this material as faithfully watched and read as your neighbor checks his horoscope in the paper.

And by the way, we’d better hurry up. Newspapers are going the way of the dinosaur, as are paper books. Amazon sold more e-books than hardbacks for the first time this year! It’s predicted that e-books will outsell paperbacks, too, by year’s end. Start putting those program proposals together for TZN, The Zodiac Network.

It’s closer than you think.

~~~

Photo Credit: Candle in Hand © Oriontrail Dreamstime

Next -- Part 3 -- Neptunian: The Best of All Possible Worlds (and The Magic of Dis-Illusionment)

We’ll be taking a short break from the OPP articles for some other posts, including our Moonwalk: Scorpio. The OPP series will be back in mid-November.

NOTES

---

[1] Barbara Hand Clow, Chiron: Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets, Llewellyn (1989), p. 218.

[2] Richard T. Tarnas, “Uranus and Prometheus,” Spring 1984, p. 84. This groundbreaking essay has appeared in a number of places, most recently in the book, Prometheus the Awakener (Spring Publications: 1995, 2008). In it Rick Tarnas clearly establishes the link between Uranus and the myth of Prometheus, rather than Ouranos for which the planet was named. This is unusual, as the other planets we know so far have mirrored the characteristics of their mythological namesakes. Just like Uranus to rebel!

[3] I would also consider outerplanetary anyone with four or more planets in the signs the outer planets rule: Aquarius, Pisces, and Scorpio. If you resonate to my theory that Chiron is associated with the transitional signs from Self to Others (Virgo through Sagittarius), that would also include an emphasis of the signs Virgo, Libra, and Sag. (See Wholeness and the Inner Marriage.) That’s the entire second half of the zodiac! Why? Because outerplanetary people are more focused how they relate to others and society. The first five signs primarily focus on self-development. Virgo is the transitional sign of self-to-other with its focus on service.

[4] Robert Orenstein, “Internet Statistic Generator at Anamorph,” Internet © 1995.

[5] If you’re just joining this series in progress, PUNC stands for Plutonian, Uranian, Neptunian and Chironic.

[6] Clow, p. 10.

[7] Solar Fire is produced by Esoteric Technologies and sold by most astrological software vendors.

[8] There are two versions of this part of the myth: one places Chiron in the constellation Centaurus, the other in Sagittarius. I believe the variance on these points allows different people to identify with the story. The Centaurus version is for people with strong Virgo resonance, the other for people who relate more to Sagittarius.

[9]  See Note #4.

 

.

Outerplanetary (Extraordinary) People Part 1 of 5



© PopArtDiva.com

Living with the Outer Planets Prominent

© 1996 - 2010 by Joyce Mason

Author’s Note: This is an update of a five-part series originally published in the 1990s in Mark Lerner’s astrology magazine, Welcome to Planet Earth. The Outerplanetary (OPP) People series has been a timeless favorite that has been housed on the wonderful Australian archive, A Place in Space, for most of the intervening years. I’m ever grateful to Candy Hillenbrand for making me such a vital part of her magical website. With the posting of the OPP articles, I will have completed the migration and update of all my articles to The Radical Virgo that still remain on A Place in Space in their original forms.



Extraordinary Times

We live in extraordinary times. I call them Outerplanetary Times, marked by the discovery in 1977 of a new outer planet, Chiron. Chiron is trans-Saturnian. It acts like any other outer planet with a similar level of impact.

Chiron’s discovery heralded a helping hand for human consciousness. (Hand is what the “chir” in Chiron means. I love that someone whose birth name is Hand introduced me to this fact. As Barbara Hand Clow declared in her book title, Chiron is the Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets. [1] In its orbit between Saturn and Uranus, Chiron signifies transitions and the process of evolution, both as individuals and as a collective. The rainbow refers to the seven colors of our invisible energy centers or chakras. Evolution at the personal level takes place in the etheric or energy body. As the kundalini life force rises, it causes amplification of energy. As we grow, we literally get a "tune Up." We vibrate on a higher frequency. The goal, ultimately, is to be on the same frequency with All That Is—why people have chanted Om for millennia. Chiron’s discovery, complemented by other major planetary alignments in the years since, kicked off a major evolutionary cycle in human consciousness.

Chiron’s transitional role is marked further by a common thread in its mythology and astronomy. For years, astronomers could not definitively classify Chiron as either a comet or a small planet (asteroid/planetoid). They kept changing their minds. Eventually, Chiron was determined to be both. Like the mythical centaur after which it was named, Chiron the planet was half-comet and half-asteroid. This dual nature parallels mythical Chiron’s makeup as half-man and half-horse. During the what-is-it period, some of us used the composite term cometoid. Ultimately, the American Astronomical Union came up with a new classification for Chiron and objects like it. The AAU called them centaurs in mythical Chiron’s honor. (I call Chiron a planet when speaking of it in generic terms, since planet means wanderer.)

Astronomers subsequently discovered that Chiron is the first of perhaps thousands of similar centaurs beyond Neptune, previously unknown to us, thus the need for a completely new class of planetary objects. Clearly, Chiron became the precursor of what was beyond our grasp and astronomical knowledge at the time of its discovery. Chiron gave us a glimmer of deeper space, literally and metaphorically, in terms of our own capacity for inner growth and evolution.

Prophets like Nostradamus and Edgar Cayce foretold that the cusp of the Third Millennium would be a major turning point. Since the outer planets are traditionally linked with major cultural shifts, understanding the planets beyond Saturn has never been more important. As a huge hint of the important role Chiron would play in these turning-point times, there was an exact conjunction of Chiron and Pluto at the Turn of the Millennium. Symbols of pain, healing, death, and rebirth merged like conjoined twins at 11+ Sagittarius on January 1, 2000. The conjunction took place on the Sabian symbol for 12 Sag: A flag turns into an eagle, the eagle into a chanticleer saluting the dawn.

After much study of this Sabian, I feel the flag refers to our traditional allegiances to country and intimates, those people we’re willing to fight to defend. The eagle is known for its larger view, its ability to see the big picture from high up. The eagle expands the scope of our loyalty to all humanity. The chanticleer is a kind of medieval rooster whose loud cry heralds a new day. This Sabian and the powerful pair of Pluto and Chiron on it portended a new and larger perspective, the evolving Oneness consciousness. (For more on this planetary pair and their similarities, read Chiron and Pluto: The Comet Brothers)

Most recently in 2010 Pluto and Uranus have aligned in a T-square including Saturn. And outside the T-, Chiron and Neptune have been traveling as a pair, essentially making all the outer planets and their ambassador Chiron prominent in the sky shouting, Change!)

For the past several decades, there has been one agenda—rapid evolution. Chiron was discovered, and we became aware of it, when the time was ripe for us to see the personal influence of Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto, the outer planets for which Chiron is a go-between. Chiron came to our consciousness to give us the heads-up on how the outer planets will change us at a cellular level to become, quite literally, a new species. This is why I call Chiron the harbinger of homo improvement. The improvement we’re called to make is to mirror Chiron’s composite nature—to merge our intellect and instincts, which Chiron’s human and horse halves respectively symbolize.

Saturn is a heavy energy, and, therefore, represents dense substances, like the Earth and the physical body. If Chiron is the Bridge to the Beyond and its discovery heralded our readiness for change, the Neptune/Uranus conjunctions of the early 1990s further signaled the time for a quantum leap in consciousness, as the Earthbound crossed the Bridge to new dimensions.

While Neptune and Uranus were in Capricorn (1988-95), we were preparing for this change of consciousness in our institutions and day-to-day reality. When the Saturn/Pluto square overlapped during this period, added to Chiron’s decade-long dance of opposition with Saturn, this brought all the trans-Saturnian planets into some form of dialogue with Saturn, Capricorn, or Scorpio. Symbolically, structural transfiguration was being set up on a grand scale. When everything familiar is yanked out from underneath us (the economy, the American dream, the family as we’ve known it, old encrusted forms of government, the patriarchal health care system), at long last new paradigms have room to move in.

Next the energy shifted (1995-2004) with Uranus is in its home sign of Aquarius and Pluto in Sagittarius (1994-2009). Changes from the Saturn/Capricorn groundbreaking and the Pluto square Saturn ground shaking prepared the reconstruction site. (The metaphors of excavation and demolition teams are only too real, remembering the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, when Pluto stationed before its retrograde dip back into Scorpio.) [2]

As individuals, we may have tense aspects to any one of the outer planets that make their meanings very personal to us, but being an "outerplanetary person” means much more than that to me. It means that through our individual struggles and victories with these archetypes, we experience microcosmically, usually just one step ahead of everyone else, what's coming in the macrocosm of changes in awareness. I call this "channeling the outer planets."


Extraordinary People

I finally realized "why I am the way I am" and the source of my own complexity the day I got the implications of having a close square between each of the outer planets and my Big Three: Pluto square Ascendant, Neptune square Moon, and Uranus square Sun. Add to the configuration Chiron’s sextile to my Moon and square to Pluto. In astrological circles, I am hardly alone with this type of contact with “outer space.” More likely than not, if you are reading this article, you have intimate natal chart contacts with these planets. We are what I call outerplanetary people. We channel change.

Not long after my own epiphany about the outer planets, I heard a woman with Uranus conjunct Ascendant say that the outer planets were personal to her. She couldn't understand her Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, and Mars until she studied Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. This makes sense, for people with these planets prominent are the ambassadors for the collective to these exotic places. (They go where others dare not tread.) Outerplanetary people are the ones who directly experience and take Chiron, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto personally. They are not only in constant change, unlike their “normal” change-resistant counterparts; they are also messengers, running ahead to get information. People with strong outerplanetary emphasis bring news from the fringe, back to the rest of the community. They also hold out their hand to others as they cross from Old to New over the deep abyss of the Unknown.

Being outerplanetary is not an easy job (it's lonely out-front), but someone has to do it. The good news for OPP types: Our time has come and our life’s purpose is to act now on the knowledge we have gained by constantly interacting with tomorrow. If we do, we will literally change the world.

My sense of humor revolves around word play. For years, I’ve was unable to resist calling myself and others who share a powerful and close relationship with the outer planets PUN people (Plutonian, Uranian, and Neptunian). Once I got into Chiron, outerplanetary people became PUNCs with both a healing and healer dimension. Considering how Saturnian fogeys often criticize “young punks” with their far-out ideas, and the PUNC pun has always seemed perfect to me.

Of course, evolutionary consciousness can happen for anyone who is one outer planet prominent, but my observation is that the PUNCs—people with close aspects to them all—are hanging off the leading edge— out on a limb.

PUNCs have the strong accent on change and an assignment to catalyze it.

Any close aspect to Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto could mean a tendency to sense the tide of the times. I am sure that trines, sextiles, and minor aspects "count," but the tension of squares, the awareness (like it or not) of oppositions, and the sometimes overwhelming power of a conjunction between the inner planets and the outers tend to produce the most extreme cases.

What's it like to live on the edge when the whole world's on edge and on the brink of change? Just what are we precursor types to homo improvement supposed to be doing to ease these transitional times and offer that helping hand?

The Chart of HAIR ~ Why We Should Care

The American Tribal Love Rock Musical

© 2010 by Joyce Mason

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius!

—From Hair by Gerome Ragni and James Rado

Have you noticed? The peace sign is back—and not just on The Radical Virgo logo. The peace sign celebrated its 50th anniversary and Chiron Return in 2008, the same year as the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. The psychedelic movement has weathered its midlife transits!

That’s not all. October 17 is the 43rd anniversary of Hair: The American Tribal Love Rock Musical. After attending a local production in Sacramento of Hair three years ago, just as I was working on a book about my own experiences during the tribal love rock era, I felt compelled to write an astrology article about the musical. I’ve been cobbling together this article, off and on, ever since.

In a larger context, there is a huge synchronicity in the maturation of the peace symbol and these events. History has repeated itself. Dissention against an unpopular war, the topic of Hair, drew the same placards and picketers in recent years to my city. The protestors flashed the two-fingered peace sign to onlookers as they did in 1967, the year in which this musical debuted. Rebellion was the fabric of my own coming of age in the ‘60s at the University of Wisconsin, the “Berkeley of the Midwest.”

Much has been written about the Pluto/Uranus conjunction in Virgo in the late 1960s. I want to write about what happened when people started singing about its themes. During my two hours at Hair, living astrological symbols flashed in front of me in the characters and action. The overall astro-awakening made up for the technical inaccuracies in the lyrics of The Age of Aquarius. While the Moon in the 7th House and Jupiter aligned with Mars are unlikely signatures of the turning of a new astrological Age, by seeding awareness of its “coming,” Hair is profoundly significant as a cultural and astrological icon.

The first time I saw Hair was in 1970 in Chicago. I was 23. The most recent time on the other side of the country, I was 59 rounding 60. In fact, the original Broadway production, which rocked much more than the sensibilities of the day with its four-letter words and nude scene onstage, is of great currency. Not only have we had recent unpopular wars, but the baby boomers, who flocked to the performances and played the grooves out of their vinyl LPs of the music, are undergoing another rite of passage. In the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, it was the transition to young adulthood. Now baby boomers are in transition to elderhood. Some of us are already collecting Social Security; others aren’t far behind. Hair has something to tell us as our generation’s theme song—even as many of us lose our “long, beautiful hair.” Hair is an astrological awareness vehicle, even an instruction booklet. And let’s not forget Biblical Samson and the pairing of hair and power as a metaphor. Our hair may fall, but our memory of Hair the musical, and all it stood for, lives on in all its power and glory.

One last note before I launch into the chart. Why is music so important? In one way, the answer’s obvious. Music is rich with images of its day—cultural history in song. But there’s an even more important reason. As a chronic sufferer from earworms, those songs that get stuck in your mind and won’t stop singing themselves, I finally did a little research to find out how songs “bore” into the brain. The answer explains the potency of a cultural icon that’s musical.

I have been bewildered for years by how the most innocuous word or experience could trigger the full memory of a carpet company’s commercial I first heard when I was five years old. Or for Hair, Godspell, Tommy, or Jesus Christ Superstar: How can I still remember the lyrics of an entire rock opera at a time when I’m sometimes starting to forget what I ate for breakfast yesterday? The answer is simple. Rhyming song lyrics act as mnemonic devices, formulas or rhymes that assist memory. They tap into the power of rhyme, which imbeds itself and becomes unforgettable. The lyrics of most songs rhyme.

Rhyme is a fierce teaching tool. The Hair musical is upfront about its astrological orientation with The Age of Aquarius as its opening and closing number. Hair turned on an entire generation to astrology and planted the seeds for astrological awareness to continue growing.

The chart I use for Hair is the first Broadway performance on October 17, 1967 at the Public Theatre. A review in the New York Times mentions the 8:30 PM start time and gave the musical its first mention in print. That moment represents the birth of Hair in our consciousness.

Click chart to enlarge

Peace Will Rule the Planet

Hair has a Mercury-ruled chart with Gemini rising. I think that shows how the music “spoke” to so many people at the time. But I want to go straight to Mars in its position at the Galactic Center (GC) at 26 Sagittarius. (The Galactic Center was actually discovered in the late 1960s.) Mars, the God of War, got a lot of attention in this era. Then there’s the Martian connection with sexuality, action (activism), and trailblazing. Mars sits at the focal point of a T-Square in this chart, squaring off with Pluto/Uranus on one side (sexual rebellion) and Chiron on the other (wounding, healing, and wholeness). Mars also completes a Grand Fire Trine with Moon/North Node and Jupiter. Mars is the centerpiece in this chart, the T-square pointing to action in the 7th House of relationships, cooperation, and justice.

Some astrologers consider the GC the second most important point in any personal chart, next to the Sun. Focal in the chart of Hair, the GC points us beyond a planetary perspective to a galactic one. No wonder this musical carried to the cultural consciousness the “dawning of the Age of Aquarius,” a galactic event. Hair set the alarm clock, even if no one was sure just when it would go off and the dawn would arrive.

The galactic perspective reminds me of the distant, big picture that our first astronauts would get, less than two years after Hair’s debut. What a sight they were soon to behold, coming and going from their first Moonwalk on July 20, 1969. We can’t see what we’re too close to—or what we’re too much a part of. Once we can get a distant perspective, we can see the beauty of our Earth and the interconnection of everything on it. If you can see that from the Moon, imagine the view from the middle of the Milky Way Galaxy.

Mars, the God of War, is transformed by that Grand Triangle of Fire. The fire trine represents expansion (Jupiter) through doing what’s new and what’s now (North Node and Moon in Aries), sparking a bonfire that ultimately tempers Mars with a passion for peace. While squaring Pluto/Uranus speaks to a period where war and sexuality created social tensions, ultimately, the sexual aspect of Mars, too, would burn itself out from a blaze to something smoldering and somewhat tamer. Sexuality would never again be as repressed as in the Victorian era—nor is it likely to be taken as casually as it was in the ‘60s.

With Uranus and Chiron tightly square (minutes) to Mars in the “T”, these things were inevitable: sudden, radical, and ultimately healing and integrating changes. The songs carried the seed energy. If you literally knew the score then, chances are, you “know the score” on these topics now. This is especially true if you can still sing the tunes near-perfectly. Imagine those messages working in your mind all these years. You may not remember the names of some of the characters, but you’ll probably never forget the messages in the songs they sang. I would be hard put, personally, to say how deeply those songs changed me, because so much of Hair lives in my subconscious. I do know from the way the music keeps playing in my head; the impacts were profound.

I suspect Hair influenced me to become an astrologer. My natal Uranus-Sun square resonated to it! I knew next to nothing about astrology back then, but within two years of the opening of Hair, I was throwing zodiac-themed costume parties. You can see me “in the day” in my Virgo get-up on the left of the Radical Virgo masthead. Even people who knew little about astrology learned that the Age of Aquarius had something to do with “harmony and understanding … sympathy and trust... no more falsehoods… and the mind’s true liberation.”

I’ve never met an astrologer who believes that relatively frequent occurrences like a Jupiter/Mars alignment, much less the Moon in the 7th House (of what chart?), would have anything to do with the momentous turning of a new astrological Age. (The recent ingress of Uranus to the 0 Aries point earlier this year is a better candidate.) [1] Yet, the writers of Hair had an intuitive hit. Mars and Jupiter were temporarily aligned by trine at the debut of this amazing musical. Jupiter, the great teacher with his global perspective, was in harmony with Mars aligned near the center of the galaxy, making the curriculum of this cultural university in song “bigger than the sky.”

If Hair ignited a mass cultural awareness of the of the “dawning of the Age of Aquarius,” the Jupiter aligned with Mars words were accurate to the role the musical played, even if it wasn’t predictive of the arrival time of the Age of Aquarius. Hair was a time capsule that carried an entire cultural shift within its haunting yet, at the same time, upbeat music.

There is much “teacher” symbolism in the focal Mars T-Square of this chart. Mars is in the sign of Sag and higher education. Sagittarius learns through interactions and experiences with “foreigners” (the Vietnam War). Chiron, the planet, was named after the mythological teacher who helped heroes find and hone their true vocations, developing their unique talents that others would rely on in crisis. Heroes save the day, and by mentoring their special skills, Chiron made sure that those abilities were available to his tribe (society). In this chart, Chiron is putting pressure (square) on the Mars in Sag teacher to find balance and educate though high principles in trying times.

Just like college, Hair “graduated” many individuals in its baby boomer audience from the naïveté of their Happy Days childhoods to a more sobering reality. Many of them went to the other extreme as rebellious, counterculture twenty-somethings. A good many of those emotionally hybrid baby boomers (Chiron!), who were raised conservative and came of age as bleeding heart liberals, are only now finding and integrating the lessons of those contrasting times in their youth. They are becoming “cool sages.”

Foundations

Hair’s four planets in the 4th House suggest this musical had a large impact on the collective consciousness. Here is where the Pluto/Uranus conjunction resides—the aspect that defined the baby boomer generation arguably as much as those born under it by coinciding with its coming of age. Venus and Jupiter join Pluto/Uranus, doing work of the heart and educating the masses in a very Jupiter in Leo way with this dramatic yet life-affirming musical as a generational calling card. Astrologer Eleanor Buckwalter writes that “patriotism is a fourth house matter” and that the 4th represents “the tribe.” Hair helped bring to public awareness the idea that true patriotism isn’t necessarily defined by the military or powers that be. For some people, burning a flag could be just as patriotic as saluting it. Hair provided my first aha that questioning what my country does might be more loyal, caring, and patriotic than blind allegiance to it.

Let the Sun Shine In

The chart of the musical has Sun in Libra in the Fifth, inviting us to partner and shine our love in a circle that’s a living peace sign. Libra Sun in the 5th is an invitation to balance our self-centered Aries Moon feelings (Moon opposite Sun) by being ourselves (fifth) in a way that encompasses our concern for others (7th House Mars, 11th House Moon, Saturn and North Node.) Together we could join our individuality toward new creative expressions of all kinds. During this time, the subject of birth and creativity was expanded to include creations other than children. For the first time, to be single and childless was no longer “weird”—or to be single with a child. These options simply became other relationship choices. Libra Sun likes many choices and has a hard time making just one. Variety is the spice of life and giving birth/rebirth to ourselves became the work of the only generation with “baby” in its name, the one born with Pluto in Leo, a symbol of fiery regeneration.

The Work of the Love Generation Rocks On

I have such a deep affinity to Hair, I wanted to share my thoughts, get your feelings about its influence—and celebrate its Solar Return with you. This article doesn’t begin to say all that could be said about this chart and Hair. I’d love your ideas, so please comment!

While this is more intuitive than astrological, I feel that the work of the Love Generation Hair represents has only just begun, as its original audience takes its rightful place in society as tribal elders. This is an indigenous concept that needs reclaiming. The way modern society treats seniors, overall, is shameful and needs radical reorientation if we are to become whole as a people.

"The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members."

~ Author uncertain, sometimes attributed to Mohandas Gandhi

In my own life, I see amazing integration occurring of everything I have learned up to this point from living through times that are so “strange” in spots, someone landing here from another planet might think we were making up the stories behind our history. My highest values still involve peace, harmony, understanding, freedom of self-expression (“the mind’s true liberation—Aquarius!”) and the power of the media of all kinds, especially entertainment, to help us find who we are.

I can’t close without mentioning what’s perhaps my favorite song in the entire show, the one where the earworm bored in and planted a taproot. That’s Frank Mills. One reviewer felt that the song doesn’t really fit in with the other songs in the show, which, on the surface, is true. Crissy sings about meeting Frank, falling for him, losing his address, and wanting him back. One of my favorite lines, which embodies my feelings about being a suburban young American who espoused hippie values is, “I love him but it embarrasses me to walk down the street with him.” Frank looks like a Hell’s Angel. The song is a sweet, melodic ballad with the final heartstrings punch line, “Tell him Angela and I don’t want the two dollars back—just him.”

I think this song says what the ‘60s were all about—an openness to encounter, experience, and perhaps even love people very different from ourselves. By extension, we’re offered the possibility of making peace with those opposites and diversities inside us. This part is very Chiron in Pisces, the cycle we are in the process of repeating that played out last in the ‘60s. [2] My own inner integration involves my Doris Day/Ding Dong School childhood coming to terms with my college days where I couldn’t leave home for the tear gas and protestors surrounding my apartment building.

Crissy loved Frank for who he was, not for what he could give her or repay her.

If that isn’t the Age of Aquarius, I don’t know what is.

~~~

Photo Credit: Senior Man Making Peace Sign © Scott Griessel Dreamstime.com


NOTES

[1] To get a sense of just how much disagreement there is on the arrival time, read the Overview in The Age of Aquarius in this Wikipedia article that cites research by astrologer Nicholas Campion.

[2] Chiron entered Pisces on April 20, 2010 but is currently retrograde in Aquarius until late January 2011 when it returns to Pisces to complete a nine-year transit of the sign.

REFERENCES

Buckwalter, Eleanor, The Fourth House

Hair the Musical Official Website

Hewitt, Paul O., The Galactic Center

Libra Rising, The Galactic Center

 

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