Whence – Where – Whither

Part 1 – Whence

As our civ­il cal­en­dar turns the page to a New Year, it seems most fit­ting to look back upon the year just past so that we might bet­ter under­stand from whence we have come; to con­sid­er where we are now; and to look out ahead and see if we might dis­cern more clear­ly whith­er we are going.

Regard­less what the plan­ets and stars may pro­vide, we must always remem­ber that although they are the Avatars of the ener­gies that inform and guide our lives, it remains for us to deter­mine what use we will make of these “Gifts of the Spir­it”. As the great bard, Shake­speare wrote in his play Julius Cae­sar:

“The fault, dear Bru­tus, is not in our stars,
But in our­selves, that we are underlings.”

It is upon each of us to do our part, to lis­ten for our “voice of the silence”, our high­er self, our spir­i­tu­al com­pass, and choose how we shall strive to make our­selves bet­ter and so cre­ate a bet­ter world for those who come after us. How these ener­gies play out, as they sur­round, inform and hold us as one to one anoth­er, depend upon the devel­op­ment of our spir­i­tu­al tri­ad, our Wis­dom-Love-Will. It is by our self-unfold­ment or spir­i­tu­al growth that we may more grace­ful­ly embody these ener­gies, and find our way to their best appli­ca­tion and most benef­i­cent manifestation.

The most con­se­quen­tial Astro­log­i­cal align­ment for 2016 was the square between the plan­ets Sat­urn and Nep­tune. Their cycle, from con­junc­tion to con­junc­tion, is about 36 years in dura­tion and they will form their most chal­leng­ing aspects, (con­junc­tion, wax­ing square, oppo­si­tion and wan­ing square), rough­ly 9 years apart. Their most recent cycle began at the con­junc­tion of 1989, lead­ing to their wax­ing square of 1998 and to their oppo­si­tion of 2006-07, and final­ly to their wan­ing square this past year, (they will start a new cycle at their con­junc­tion in 2026).

Their ser­i­al rev­o­lu­tions artic­u­late the rela­tion­ship between Order (Sat­urn) and Dreams (Nep­tune), or Real­i­ty and Fan­ta­sy, or Respon­si­bil­i­ty and Sac­ri­fice. In the realm of Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy, of Polit­i­cal-Eco­nom­ic-Cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­na, it is inter­est­ing to note that the three most recent con­junc­tions of Sat­urn and Nep­tune, per­fect­ly align with the birth of the USSR (1917), the Cold War (1952–3) and the col­lapse of the Com­mu­nist order (1989).

For Per­son-Cen­tered Astrol­o­gy, for you and I, when­ev­er we expe­ri­ence these align­ments of Sat­urn and Nep­tune, we should see it as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to exam­ine how close­ly we are hold­ing togeth­er, in a mean­ing­ful and respon­si­ble man­ner, the del­i­cate and inte­gral bal­ance between our dreams and our real­i­ty. There are pre­cious moments in any one life, or in the lives of a peo­ple, when their dream becomes real­i­ty. But there are those despair-filled times too, when the chasm between real­i­ty and the dream is (seem­ing­ly) unbridgeable.

There are those pre­cious moments in time and space when what we believe and what we expe­ri­ence are in greater res­o­nance, so that what we imag­ine our world should be like is what we indeed encounter. And there are times, such as this past year, when what is “real­ly real”, what is unde­ni­ably a “fact” and what is fic­tion­al (or false) become hope­less­ly confused.

What are we, (or what were we sup­posed), to do when faced with such con­fu­sion and mis­un­der­stand­ing? The square aspect between two plan­ets quite lit­er­al­ly calls upon us to face this these two Avatars, in this case Sat­urn and Nep­tune, not with fear or appre­hen­sion, but with a renewed and Rea­son­able Faith com­bined with a Com­pas­sion­ate Real­ism. We need to bring the two Ener­gy-Forms togeth­er, for that is the path of Spir­it, the Inte­gral Path, for it is by this that you will find and forge a new or bet­ter way. We should embrace this and every such turn­ing as a nec­es­sary chal­lenge and oppor­tu­ni­ty for growth.

If all the Great Teach­ings are true, then the entire­ty of Cre­ation is Spir­it. If so, then the one con­stant of this Uni­verse is Growth. Then it fol­lows that the oth­er con­stant of this Uni­verse of Spir­it is Change too. We need to con­sid­er how we can find a Path­way that helps us to con­tin­u­al­ly clar­i­fy our Dreams and to fold them into an ever more mean­ing-filled Real­i­ty. We need to find a way through both our inter­nal divi­sions and the divi­sions between one anoth­er, so that we might heal the divide between our present Real­i­ty and our Hopes and Dreams for a bet­ter world.

Since Nep­tune is the dom­i­nant influ­ence, (being the out­er­most plan­et), the challenge/opportunity was for each of us to allow Nep­tune to help us to slip beyond our assumptions/certainties about the nature of our real­i­ty and at least imag­ine (if not come to under­stand and believe) that there were oth­er dreams and real­i­ties that are co-present and co-exist­ing. That all of these sub-real­i­ties, from the small­est to the largest “Dream-Real­i­ties”, are part of the One, the Greater Real­i­ty in which we tru­ly abide.

Part of Neptune’s way is to dis­solve or eat away at the fab­ric of our per­cep­tion of real­i­ty so that it can be re-formed, re-shaped and trans­formed into a more encom­pass­ing expe­ri­ence of what we tru­ly abide in, that Greater Real­i­ty. Typ­i­cal­ly, we move from a peri­od of cer­tain­ty about our assump­tions about our world into a peri­od of doubt and mis­un­der­stand­ing. These will begin to grow and cre­ate greater dis­so­nance lead­ing to greater doubts, claims and counter-claims as to what is true or false. Final­ly, many if not most will find them­selves in a state of great con­fu­sion and mis­trust, doubt­ing them­selves and one anoth­er, as a com­mon­ly accept­ed dream-real­i­ty gives way because the bonds of affin­i­ty between indi­vid­u­als and groups dissolve.

With­out a shared under­stand­ing, with­out an agree­ment as to what are the dreams we share and what is the real­i­ty we face, with­out this wide­ly shared Dream-Real­i­ty, the shad­ows of fear and blame are unleashed. This break­down in a shared Dream-Real­i­ty erodes our trust in one anoth­er, and under­mines our shared sense of com­mit­ment to, and will­ing­ness to sac­ri­fice for, the good of one another.

But do not “blame” the Plan­et Nep­tune. This Nep­tun­ian fog of dis­so­lu­tion is not here to bring about harm to you or your world. It is mere­ly there to reveal what was and is becom­ing more and more appar­ent. That for­ev­er and always you and your world were chang­ing, and you had reached a time which required a let­ting go of your lim­it­ed assump­tions so that you might find a way to cre­ate a more encom­pass­ing Dream-Real­i­ty for your­self and your world.

These Illu­mi­na­tions of Nep­tune are stronger now than they have been for a very long time, and that is because Nep­tune is cur­rent­ly mov­ing through its own sign of Pisces from 2011 until 2026. The last time Nep­tune was in Pisces was from 1848–1862, and it was a time of great Spir­i­tu­al, Artis­tic and Social transformation…and it will be so in our own time too.

Then as now the par­a­digm of beliefs shift­ed, and for a time the mean­ing and pur­pose of what should be the foun­da­tion of Dream-Real­i­ty was con­test­ed by indi­vid­u­als and groups. Cer­tain­ly, it was no acci­dent that here in Amer­i­ca, it was when the awful crime against Spir­it at the found­ing of our nation, the abom­i­na­tion of slav­ery, was con­front­ed and ulti­mate­ly abolished.

May you find a sim­i­lar courage to face your shad­ows and fears today.

You can find your way for­ward by remem­ber­ing to hon­or and to hold to the fun­da­men­tal teach­ings that have guid­ed you through the best and the worst of times.

May you find com­fort and guid­ance in the great teach­ings, sto­ries and lives of those who have walked these same paths that you must fol­low too. Their exam­ple of Wis­dom, Love and Cen­tered Will is there for you:

Be guid­ed by the Wise Ones, who know there is no reli­gion high­er than Truth.
Walk the path of the Great-Souls, who prac­tice the Wis­dom of Love.
Find inspi­ra­tion in the Lone­ly Ones, their Will­ing-Sac­ri­fice hon­ored by
the Angels and Devas above.
Lis­ten for the Voice of the Silence, attend the gen­tle whis­pers in your Heart,
And you will find “The Way”.

 

Next, “Where are we now?”