Here we go again! This is the third and final sex­tile of Mer­cury to Nep­tune in a lit­tle over 40 days. This “three­fold” align­ment came about from Mer­cury pass­ing over Nep­tune in Novem­ber, then turn­ing ret­ro­grade and align­ing again in Decem­ber, and then turn­ing direct so as to align to make the same aspect now. In oth­er words, the ret­ro­grade of Mer­cury gave us three dis­tinct chances to work on how we com­bine Mer­cury with Neptune.

Mer­cury rules our con­nect­ed­ness; it is the net­work with­in, (our ner­vous sys­tem, mind, con­scious­ness, thoughts), and the net­work with­out, (radio, tele­vi­sion, phone sys­tems, inter­net). The myth­ic sym­bol of Mer­cury is Her­mes, the mes­sen­ger of the gods. With Nep­tune, the plan­et of dreams, inspi­ra­tion and imag­i­na­tion shap­ing Mer­cury through this man­i­fest­ing sex­tile aspect, we can beau­ti­ful­ly appre­ci­ate and express our intu­itive mind now.

It is our imag­i­na­tion that is the true foun­tain source of our future; but we must lis­ten to it, and speak from it, if we wish to make it so. The gifts of spir­it are often sub­tle yet pro­found. So take some time today to appre­ci­ate the beau­ty with­in and with­out; remem­ber to lis­ten with your heart and speak through your dreams.

And here we go again, again. This too is the third and final square of Mer­cury with Uranus in this rough­ly 40 day peri­od. Just as with Nep­tune, this align­ment took place near the end of Novem­ber and again in Decem­ber. But here we are deal­ing with the chal­lenge thrown down by a square; we need to face some­thing and use this oppor­tu­ni­ty to change. Here spir­it is call­ing again, but it is not sub­tle whatsoever.

Uranus rules the forces of indi­vid­u­a­tion, inven­tive­ness, ingenuity…of think­ing “out­side the box”, instead of fol­low­ing the easy path of what­ev­er is con­ven­tion­al or accept­ed. The square presents us with a chal­lenge. Mer­cury wish­es to speak now from the “voice” of Sagit­tar­ius through which it is mov­ing. But Uranus is chal­leng­ing that from the per­spec­tive of Pisces. Mer­cury in Sag. is con­vinced that there is one truth, one law, one true way to see the sit­u­a­tion. Uranus reminds us, often through some shock, and here from the Pisces per­spec­tive, that there are many real­i­ties in this world and that we should there­fore accept, with humil­i­ty and grace, the fact that our point of view is always lim­it­ed by our emo­tion­al, intel­lec­tu­al, and spir­i­tu­al development.

When you receive the shock from Uranus do not retreat in fear, nor lash out in anger; rather, always see it as anoth­er chance, anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty, to take the path of under­stand­ing, the path of spir­it, which frees you from a more lim­it­ed point of view and expe­ri­ence of life.

Shocks occur, stuff hap­pens, con­stant­ly. The mea­sure of your soul is tak­en then, right after the event, in the man­ner of your response to it. Be cre­ative, show intel­li­gence and move through the shock by ques­tion­ing your own assump­tions. Share with oth­ers your insight so that they may move more freely too. Then thank Her­mes, the mes­sen­ger, for bring­ing you into the light of a greater understanding.

We’ve reached the wax­ing square of the Sun and Sat­urn; and, oh boy, do we have a prob­lem with author­i­ty! We began a new phase in some task, job or project at the end of Sep­tem­ber; but now we find our­selves at a crossroads.

We have to make a choice; what do we keep, and what do we cut? It seems as if an author­i­ty fig­ure is chal­leng­ing us now. Or, maybe the very thing we have been build­ing up is block­ing us. Or, is it our own self-doubt about our author­i­ty that is get­ting in the way? No mat­ter how life seems to present us with this choice, the true chal­lenge of this or any sit­u­a­tion is always to be found in the spir­i­tu­al strug­gle with­in each of us.

With the Sun rep­re­sent­ing pure poten­tial, (it is undif­fer­en­ti­at­ed and so unlim­it­ed but it is not real, yet); and Sat­urn rep­re­sent­ing real­i­ty, (it is lim­it­ed because it is what we had to put some part of our poten­tial into in order to make it real), what we will find is that what­ev­er we have so far poured our self into may be the very thing in the way of our fur­ther growth now.

Yet not every­thing in our real­i­ty is in the way, we need to keep some or most of what we have built up, but we have to let some­thing or some­one else go. We need to face the sit­u­a­tion square­ly and with courage. The chal­lenge of a cri­sis is to see through it to the oppor­tu­ni­ty that is there wait­ing for us. We can­not be attached to the tem­po­rary form of the real­i­ty; instead, we must hon­or the essence, the spir­it behind it.

So ques­tion author­i­ty, but ques­tion your own espe­cial­ly. Hon­or what you have become, but do not be impris­oned by your present form. When the ground drops away from beneath your feet.…it is time to spread those wings.

Yes­ter­day’s post was an exam­ple of what astrologers call “Mun­dane” or “World­ly” Astrol­o­gy. That is the astrol­o­gy of cul­ture and soci­ety, of nations, cor­po­ra­tions and oth­er insti­tu­tions. I plan on mak­ing more obser­va­tions like this in the com­ing weeks as I speak to the major astro­log­i­cal themes for 2011. I will com­ment on the con­di­tions affect­ing par­tic­u­lar nations, world lead­ers, oth­er insti­tu­tions, the econ­o­my as well as oth­er top­ics. And, as events unfold, I will from time to time make com­ments that reflect this more world­ly per­spec­tive dur­ing the year ahead.

But, I will most often be mak­ing posts that focus upon per­son­al mat­ters; to help us under­stand the forces at work that guide each of us on our indi­vid­ual path of spir­i­tu­al growth. That is because I pre­fer this more inti­mate focus upon our lives; and, it is also because my per­son­al belief is that the real hope for our future is found with­in the spir­i­tu­al strug­gle for greater under­stand­ing with­in each of us.

To bal­ance the scales of inter­pre­ta­tion regard­ing yes­ter­day’s post on the Jupiter/Uranus con­junc­tion, I wish to add the fol­low­ing more indi­vid­ual or per­son-cen­tered point of view:

With Jupiter rul­ing the prin­ci­ples by which we relate to the world around us, and Uranus rul­ing the forces of indi­vid­u­a­tion, inde­pen­dence and trans­for­ma­tion, 2010 was to be a year that “shocked” us into new forms of rela­tion­ship, both to our­selves and with one another.

The oppor­tu­ni­ty of their con­junc­tion was in the cre­ation of new forms of relat­ing by “shock­ing” or break­ing up old ones. So, look back on the year, espe­cial­ly when they aligned in ear­ly June, mid-Sep­tem­ber, and right now, and see if you were sur­prised or shocked in some rela­tion­ship. Chances are you were and what you were being offered was a chance to re-set your­self and that rela­tion­ship; and, to re-set your assump­tions about how and to whom you should relate to.

We are here to grow through under­stand­ing. Some­times this pro­ceeds more gen­tly because we are in touch with the changes with­in and around us. But some­times we are sur­prised, shocked and stunned, not in order to stop us, but to make us stop, think and move into the oppor­tu­ni­ty to relate to our world with a freer, more expan­sive and inclu­sive under­stand­ing. Make it so.

Today was a very busy day. Not only are we enjoy­ing the New Moon Eclipse, but sev­er­al oth­er align­ments are also in force. The most sig­nif­i­cant, Jupiter con­junct Uranus was the sig­na­ture aspect for 2010. Now we expe­ri­ence their third and final con­tact. What have we expe­ri­enced in this align­ment; and what can we expect?

Jupiter and Uranus come togeth­er in a con­junc­tion (like a New Moon) about every 14 years. Their rela­tion­ship com­bines and releas­es the Uran­ian (unusu­al, inven­tive ener­gies) with the Jupi­ter­ian (expan­sive, boun­ti­ful ener­gies). 2010 was a year that “seed­ed” new ideas and inven­tions in the sci­ences and tech­nol­o­gy. We will see these dis­cov­er­ies and appli­ca­tions become more wide­ly expe­ri­enced and trans­form our lives over the next many years.

If we go back and look at their align­ments, we can see this rhyth­mic release of inspi­ra­tion play­ing out in our per­son­al lives, cul­ture and econ­o­my. For exam­ple, their con­junc­tion in 1983 was accom­pa­nied by: The dis­cov­ery of the virus that was the cause of so much con­cern, AIDS. The change of some­thing called Arpanet into what we now call the Inter­net. Com­pact discs are released, we’re going dig­i­tal, say good­bye to vinyl records. The FCC autho­rizes Motoro­la to begin test­ing some­thing called “cel­lu­lar ser­vice”. Humans “leave” the uni­verse; Pio­neer 10 becomes the first object to move out beyond our solar system.

In 1997 we cre­ate life for the first time; through cloning Dol­ly, a sheep is made through genet­ic engi­neer­ing. IBM’s Deep Blue defeats Gary Kas­parov; for the first time a com­put­er bests a human in a chess match. Mars Pathfind­er lands on Mars; we have a rov­ing explor­er on anoth­er planet.

In 2010, we expand­ed our def­i­n­i­tion of “life” beyond our car­bon mod­el, find­ing evi­dence of arsenic based life forms. We crossed the thresh­old from manip­u­lat­ing life to cre­at­ing it; researchers cre­ate the first total­ly arti­fi­cial and func­tion­al genome. We stare into the mys­tery of cre­ation itself, and to the abyss posed by the mir­ror-image of our uni­verse; sci­en­tists cap­ture anti-mat­ter for the first time.

But that is not all, for Jupiter and Uranus com­bined togeth­er also speak to the quick­en­ing in oth­er impor­tant aspects of our real­i­ty too, like social and cul­tur­al changes. Since Jupiter rules our prin­ci­ples of rela­tion­ship, its con­join­ing with Uranus releas­es new forms of social and cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­na and there­by cre­ates new realities.

In 1983 the US Embassy in Lebanon is bombed and what has become the so-called war with rad­i­cal Islam is said to have begun. The first woman and first African-Amer­i­can are launched into space as more bar­ri­ers to equal­i­ty fall.

In 1997 parental frus­tra­tion with the decline in read­ing by chil­dren is thwart­ed by a lit­tle boy wiz­ard name Har­ry Pot­ter. The more gen­er­al acknowl­edge­ment that the nations of the world need to coop­er­ate to address our very sur­vival is wit­nessed by a com­mit­tee at the UN in the Kyoto Pro­to­cols on Glob­al Warming.

And, what have we expe­ri­enced in 2010? For the first time in human his­to­ry, the num­ber of humans who are in a state of star­va­tion are matched by those who are over­weight or obese, (we know that we have to do some­thing about how we take care of our self and one anoth­er). A sin­gle indi­vid­ual and his web­site shake the foun­da­tions of insti­tu­tions and gov­ern­ments around the world; Wik­ileaks lifts the veil of secre­cy in mil­i­tary and diplo­mat­ic realities.

Tru­ly, we will only know in ret­ro­spect how and in what ways Jupiter and Uranus moved our sto­ry along this year…but they did, and do and will always be one of the means by which we grow beyond our mere con­di­tion­ing. We are not human beings.…we are human becom­ings, and the future is in our own hands and writ­ten in the stars.

Now it “begins”… this is the real start for 2011. A New Moon and a Solar Eclipse! Wow! And yet, at the very moment of the begin­ning, we are remind­ed that we can­not go for­ward with­out tak­ing care of what has come before…

Each New Moon presents us with the theme for the next month. So, the Capri­corn New Moon means our focus this month should be upon the word of Capricorn.…Responsibility. The word is derived from Respon­dere, “to under­take in return, to per­form one’s part in a solemn engagement…and to be respon­sivus or answering.”

The rev­e­la­tion of the true mean­ing behind a word pro­vides a greater under­stand­ing of our cul­ture and con­scious­ness. We can turn this word around and see that respon­si­bil­i­ty means lit­er­al­ly our “abil­i­ty to respond”, our “abil­i­ty to answer”. Respon­si­bil­i­ty is the call we must answer to per­form our right­ful part in the life of our soci­ety; our ful­fill­ment is sim­ply to per­form our duty.

Our duty, our respon­si­bil­i­ty is to ful­fill our­selves, to be what we were meant to be. This is the Capri­corn moment, to reach the apex of our poten­tial and so ful­fill our­selves in the man­ner that is made avail­able and deemed wor­thy by our cul­ture. But what is our duty, what is at the core of our ful­fill­ment, what is it that we are being respon­si­ble for?

We are humans and we have needs which we can and must ful­fill with and through one anoth­er. We are not alone; we are social beings and to be respon­si­ble means that we must be able to respond to the needs of those around us, those we are respon­si­ble for. That is our duty; and that is our true path to fulfillment.

We stand in a great chain of cre­ation, each gen­er­a­tion tasked with the care of those that fol­low, as those who came before cared for us. We are guid­ed by prece­dent, we hon­or our tra­di­tions and we pre­serve and pass down what has been achieved thus far. This is the mes­sage of this month, this New Moon of Capricorn.

But this New Moon is a Solar Eclipse, the Earth, Sun and Moon are aligned again and a shad­ow races across the face of the Earth this time. The Past (Moon) is blot­ting out the Future (Sun) so that we on Earth (Present) feel more strong­ly the bur­dens of our past. We have some unfin­ished busi­ness to attend to. A New Moon rep­re­sents a fresh start, a new begin­ning, but the eclipse is say­ing you need to fin­ish what you have left undone. You can­not “see” your Future (Sun), if you let the Past (Moon) get in the way.

So each of us, and all of us col­lec­tive­ly, need to look with­in and take some time to see what we have left undone, where we have not been respon­si­ble to our­selves or to another.…and fix this before we can go forward.

Some­times you have to take a step back before you can take the next step for­ward, the next step in the ful­fill­ment of your destiny.