(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

As we move into the last weeks of 2022, I thought it would be help­ful to look ahead and see what 2023 holds for the Astro­log­i­cal con­di­tions we will be expe­ri­enc­ing. Although there are no major out­er plan­e­tary align­ments to one anoth­er, no Sat­urn square to Jupiter, or Uranus with Plu­to, there are major shifts that we will be encoun­ter­ing in the months ahead. These include Plu­to begin­ning to move into the Sign of Aquar­ius after hav­ing been in Capri­corn since 2008, and Sat­urn mov­ing from Aquar­ius into Pisces. Before we exam­ine these longer-term shifts, let us look at the year­ly phe­nom­e­na of the Lunar and Solar Eclipses, the Mer­cury Ret­ro­grades as well as the next Venus Ret­ro­grade too.

Eclipses
Typ­i­cal­ly, we expe­ri­ence two Lunar and two Solar eclipses in any year, and this year we will that two of each type in the months of April, May, and Octo­ber. The Solar eclipses are always to be con­sid­ered as more sig­nif­i­cant, and Astrologers often con­sid­er their influ­ence to be in effect for the next six months (until the next Solar eclipse). The Lunar eclipses are much short­er in influ­ence and pre­vail for the next lunar month typically.

Eclipses hap­pen twice a year when the orbital plane of the Earth around the Sun, and the orbital plane of the Moon around the Earth align in such a way that one body or the oth­er cre­ates a shad­ow that is vis­i­ble to us. In a Solar eclipse the New Moon pass­es exact­ly in front of the Solar disc form­ing a shad­ow on that part of Earth, (when at oth­er New Moons the Moon is either below or above the Sun’s posi­tion), and a Lunar eclipse occurs when the Earth comes between the Sun and the Moon and the shad­ow of the Earth falls upon the Moon.

The first eclipse is a total Solar eclipse on April 20, 2023, at 29 degrees, 50 min­utes in Aries. It will be vis­i­ble par­tial­ly or whol­ly in Aus­tralia, Indone­sia, Tim­or, Papua, and Papua New Guinea. To under­stand the sig­nif­i­cance for one­self, you would look to the house that has 29 degrees of Aries, and/or any plan­ets you may have in your chart very close to that degree. Typ­i­cal­ly, the house where an eclipse is locat­ed would be a very impor­tant realm of activ­i­ty in your life for the next six months or so. But you must remem­ber, plan­ets or an align­ment like this do not cre­ate some­thing good or bad, they just elic­it ener­gy-forms that you will need to be aware of and need to work with. The expe­ri­ence will be deter­mined by you, giv­en your past actions and your present spir­i­tu­al awareness.

The next eclipse is a Lunar eclipse on May 5, at 14 degrees, 58 min­utes in Scor­pio, at around 1:34 pm EDT, and not vis­i­ble in the USA. Again, the sig­nif­i­cance of this Full Moon will depend upon where 15 degrees of Scor­pio is in your chart, and whether you have any plan­et near to this as well. But this is also a rather spe­cial Full Moon, which is because for many this is also known as the Bud­dha Full Moon or Vesak, as it is said that the Bud­dha was born, achieved enlight­en­ment, and passed at the Full Moon in Scorpio.

The next eclipse is a total Solar eclipse on Octo­ber 14, at 21 degrees, 58 min­utes in Libra, at around 1:55 pm EDT, and will be vis­i­ble from Ore­gon, Neva­da, Utah, New Mex­i­co, Texas, Yucatan and into South Amer­i­ca, and par­tial­ly through­out much of the USA. Con­sid­er where in your chart you have 22 degrees of Libra, or any plan­et near to that degree to under­stand the sig­nif­i­cance of the area of life being acti­vat­ed for you for the next six months.

And here is some­thing to note, there will be anoth­er very sig­nif­i­cant eclipse six months lat­er on April 8, 2024, that cross­es the mid­sec­tion of the USA from the South­west to the North­east. I men­tioned this eclipse in 2017, because the August 2017 total eclipse also went across the mid­sec­tion of the USA from the North­west to the South­east, and it seemed sig­nif­i­cant that these two eclipses in effect have formed an “X” where the two eclipse paths meet in south­ern Illinois.

Final­ly, the last eclipse of 2023 will be a Lunar eclipse on Octo­ber 28, at 5 degrees, 9 min­utes of Tau­rus at around 4:24 pm, and not vis­i­ble in the USA. Look to what house has 5 degrees of Tau­rus in your chart and that will be the area of your life that you will expe­ri­ence a les­son in the com­ing month.

Mer­cury Retrograde
Next up are the Mer­cury ret­ro­grades for 2023. For each ret­ro­grade, it is impor­tant to note what degrees of the zodi­ac it revers­es through and to see what house (or hous­es) of your chart it is acti­vat­ing. For all of us, the Mer­cury ret­ro­grade peri­od affords an oppor­tu­ni­ty to become more self-crit­i­cal, more reflec­tive, and more deeply intro­spec­tive; it is a spir­i­tu­al gift so that we may cor­rect our errors of per­cep­tion, cog­ni­tion, and communication.

Typ­i­cal­ly, we have three Mer­cury ret­ro­grades a year, and this is true this year, but with an excep­tion. That is because we will begin the year with Mer­cury in ret­ro­grade already, and it will have begun on Decem­ber 29, 2022, and will end on Jan­u­ary 18, 2023.

The first Mer­cury turn­ing ret­ro­grade in 2023 will be on April 21 and will end with Mer­cury direct on May 14, mov­ing from 15 to 5 degrees in Tau­rus. Behind all reflec­tions and recon­sid­er­a­tions for this peri­od we will be need­ing to focus our under­stand­ings with regards to sub­stance and val­ue, of which the ulti­mate truth being that the uni­verse is made of Divine Love.

The sec­ond Mer­cury ret­ro­grade in 2023 will begin on August 22 and end on Sep­tem­ber 15, with Mer­cury mov­ing from 22 to 8 degrees in Vir­go. For this peri­od, we will have to recon­sid­er our under­stand­ings about order and peace, with our need to strive to find our way to the source of ever­last­ing peace, which is found in our own hearts, as it is at the heart of Creation.

The third Mer­cury ret­ro­grade of 2023 will begin on Decem­ber 13 and end on Jan­u­ary 1, 2024, with Mer­cury mov­ing from 8 Capri­corn to 22 Sagit­tar­ius, and this will help us to bring togeth­er our need to not only know the truth (Sagit­tar­ius) but to embody it into our roles and respon­si­bil­i­ties too, (Capri­corn).

Venus Ret­ro­grade
We will also have anoth­er Venus ret­ro­grade in 2023, from July 22 until Sep­tem­ber 3, mov­ing from 28 degrees to 12 degrees Leo. Much like Mer­cury ret­ro­grade, Venus ret­ro­grade is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn inward, to heal and repair. Mer­cury ret­ro­grades rough­ly three times in a year, but Venus ret­ro­grades about every 18 months. Rather than a focus upon the mind as with Mer­cury, Venus ret­ro­grade encour­ages us to appre­ci­ate the com­plex hier­ar­chy of val­ues that shape our lives. It is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to bring forth a more insight­ful under­stand­ing about how we are held togeth­er or drawn apart by what we share or do not share with one anoth­er, of the val­ues we share or do not share with one anoth­er. The house that Venus moves ret­ro­grade in your chart will pro­vide the par­tic­u­lar focus for you with regards to the nature of the val­ues you must recon­sid­er dur­ing this 40-day period.

Major Plan­e­tary Shifts
Now we will con­sid­er the two big shifts that lie ahead in 2023, which is Sat­urn mov­ing into Pisces and Plu­to begin­ning to move into Aquarius.

Sat­urn into Pisces
The move­ment of Sat­urn through the twelve signs of the Zodi­ac forms one of the prin­ci­pal shapers of our expe­ri­ence of real­i­ty. Since Sat­urn is the plan­et known as the “Teacher”, and rules Real­i­ty and the hier­ar­chy of insti­tu­tions in the world, its pas­sage through the signs pro­vides the focus for our fac­ing our respon­si­bil­i­ties and devel­op­ing our expe­ri­ence and wis­dom from year to year. Since 2020, those lessons have been expe­ri­enced in the realm of Aquar­ius, (the pre­vi­ous times for Sat­urn in Aquar­ius were 1991–93, 1962–64 and 1932–35), but start­ing on March 7, 2023, Sat­urn will focus its influ­ence through the last sign of Pisces until 2025–26. We should note that the pre­vi­ous times for Sat­urn in Pisces were 1993–96, 1964–67 and 1935–37, and though the con­tent of those peri­ods is very dif­fer­ent from our present day, the basic mes­sage of Sat­urn in Pisces remains the same.

As much as Sat­urn in Aquar­ius will always be a time of test­ing and teach­ing for our social con­scious­ness and con­science, a tester for the strengths or the weak­ness­es in our com­mu­ni­ties, for the integri­ty of our social net­works and the depth of our essen­tial human­i­ty, Sat­urn in Pisces brings us into the final realm in the Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones, which is to the very ques­tion of our Faith ver­sus our Fears.

Every pas­sage of any plan­et through a sign is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to rise to the chal­lenge, and we can either move high­er or fall back­wards. Hav­ing wit­nessed the chal­lenges that the world has encoun­tered since 2020, we can cer­tain­ly see how well or poor­ly our com­mu­ni­ties met the many crises of cli­mate change, of a pan­dem­ic, of the many crises and cries for social jus­tice and sim­ple human togeth­er­ness ver­sus our divi­sions from one another.

So, it does seem espe­cial­ly time­ly for Sat­urn to turn our atten­tion to the foun­da­tions of our jour­ney, to the very essence of what dri­ves our human sto­ry which is also the sto­ry of Spir­it. The peren­ni­al ques­tion of spir­it is before us which is this: will we find the way to restore our faith and face our fears, or will we suc­cumb to those fears and fall fur­ther from the path of Truth and Light? What do we mean by this essen­tial nature of Truth, of the Light that makes “all things shin­ing”? What is the Foun­tain-Source of our Faith?

Behind the whole of Cre­ation, encom­pass­ing and per­vad­ing every par­ti­cle of being and every vibra­tion of ener­gy-forms, it is there that we find the mon­ad of Spir­it, the divine spark of Cre­ation. And every par­ti­cle and ener­gy-wave of cre­ation is its own hier­ar­chy too, descend­ing from the mon­ad, the most sub­lime root essence of divine spir­it, on down through the dimen­sions and realms to the most phys­i­cal. That means that with­in each par­ti­cle or ener­gy-form, each of the mon­ads in these realms or dimen­sions of being is striv­ing to rise in its own spir­i­tu­al devel­op­ment too.

That is why the whole of Cre­ation can be seen as a great Jour­ney, of the Invo­lu­tion of Spir­it into Mat­ter-Forms, and then the Evo­lu­tion of these forms as they move up the Spir­i­tu­al Lad­der of Light, for all are inspired by the essence that is the One which is omnipresent and all-encom­pass­ing. Behind it all, the whole pur­pose of Cre­ation is for the One, for the One Spir­it to be and to become, to unfold, through all the hier­ar­chies that are Cre­ation, and that is why we are all here to be the One made Manifest.

This hier­ar­chy of cre­ation is what makes us Divine and human, it is why the very core of us nev­er left (what we might call) “heav­en”, and this is why we say that “heav­en is with­in us”, because it is tru­ly at the root of one and all. But because we are a hier­ar­chy of ener­gy-forms, rang­ing from the most ethe­re­al down to the less evolved, we are each indi­vid­u­al­ly, and as a host of beings, on our own human jour­ney to become more aligned and guid­ed by the light that is with­in our high­er self. It is by this Light that is Love that we will lift our own indi­vid­ual hier­ar­chy and our fel­low humans into ever high­er dimen­sions of a Liv­ing Faith. We humans began our jour­ney as sparks of the divine, we came from a star, and we will even­tu­al­ly return one day to become our very own star too.

Our human self, our human con­scious­ness, ris­es and falls day in and day out, it ris­es or falls from year to year and in life after life. Some­times we are filled with the most lov­ing and self-for­get­ful inten­tions and actions, and some­times there are more trou­bling thoughts and feel­ings that shape our actions and lives. This is what dri­ves the jour­ney of our self-becom­ing, this is what forms the path­way to Per­fec­tion framed by Kar­ma and Dhar­ma. We are on a jour­ney to per­fec­tion, and we learn that we have a choice to do and be bet­ter from expe­ri­enc­ing the con­se­quences of our thoughts, words, and deeds.

Ever inspir­ing us to move high­er on the path of light is our own inner light, our high­er self or spir­i­tu­al mon­ad, our essen­tial link to the One that is Cre­ation, the One that is pure Love. When we lose sight of this or feel alone and apart, we fall down into dark­ness and despair, and when we lis­ten to the gen­tle lov­ing spir­it that is with­in us all, we rise and shine brighter for one anoth­er too.

This is what we must remem­ber every day, and espe­cial­ly now as Sat­urn moves through the Sign of Reap­ing and Redemp­tion, of Kar­ma and For­give­ness. This will be the ques­tion behind the mes­sages of Sat­urn while in Pisces. The Ques­tion is, do you know and live with some form of this under­stand­ing, with this Liv­ing Faith, that you are here to learn one thing, which is how to be a bet­ter human, which means to know how to equal­ly have more self-under­stand­ing and self-mas­tery, yet to live and act with ever greater self-for­get­ful­ness. That your jour­ney is to work with your own com­plex host of hier­ar­chies and ener­gy-forms, to bring them into align­ment with Truth and Love; that your true work is this Great Work, which is to lift your­self and one anoth­er high­er. You will have moments of tran­scen­dence, and moments when you fall. But if you are to climb high­er you must for­give your­self and one anoth­er too. Your path of Light is a path of Love, it is the Path of Wis­dom which is revealed by your Humil­i­ty and Grat­i­tude, and it is this under­stand­ing that you have and will always make your future that will form your Liv­ing Faith and over­come your fear.

This is also one the prin­ci­pal lessons of Pisces, to know why you must, how you should, and when you will make a sac­ri­fice, because this is how you live a sacred life, a tru­ly lov­ing life. A mea­sure of any per­son or soci­ety to which they belong, is how much they reveal the love that they are, and they do this by how they hon­or those who came before them, how they con­duct them­selves with their con­tem­po­raries now, and most espe­cial­ly how they con­sid­er with love those that will come after them. Pisces is the time of Reap­ing; it is equal­ly the time then of the Sow­ing of the Seed.

Pisces is the last Sign, it’s mean­ings and mes­sages con­cern the entire­ty of any cycle, how in these fields of the One we har­vest the spir­i­tu­al gifts of under­stand­ing and love, which are to be held and passed on to the next cycle, to the next gen­er­a­tion, and beyond. You are the fruit of those who came before you, and your gifts to those who come after are formed by your ded­i­ca­tion to make pos­si­ble a bet­ter world for one and all. This is Pisces, this is the Cir­cle of Life; this is the Love of the One. With Sat­urn in Pisces, we must under­stand that we are mak­ing the future for those who will look back upon us, because our thoughts, words, and deeds will have formed their Real­i­ty, their fate.

This will be the heart of the Test with Sat­urn in Pisces, to face our fears and hold to our faith. With our under­stand­ing that we are the mak­ers of our fate, that we have noth­ing to fear but fear itself, we can remain in the light that is love, with our Liv­ing Faith of being co-cre­ators of Cre­ation and we will see the shad­ow that is fear fade.

When we con­sid­er all of the gifts of Life, of all the many lives of all the many crea­tures who form this Cre­ation, we see in the end that the Sto­ry of Cre­ation is about the Light shin­ing through the whole of this Cre­ation. It is your light; it is what is called That. In Pisces we remem­ber that All Things are Shin­ing, and that Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness forms the full­ness of Space.

This full­ness that many call empti­ness of space is the Plero­ma of Cre­ation, it is the Light that is Love.

It is the One.

It is you.

I had hoped to have time to talk about Plu­to begin­ning to enter Aquar­ius in 2023, but I see that our time is too short for that now. I will do anoth­er show this year but giv­en the cal­en­dar I will have to do it on anoth­er day of the week, so per­haps on Sat­ur­day the 31^st of December.

I will say this how­ev­er, that as much as Plu­to in Capri­corn was the time (once again) for an End of an Age, the pas­sage of Plu­to in Aquar­ius will be a time when we will be asked to begin to build a new world, to begin a New Age. Though it has been painful (and at times good) to see the end of an age, it will be an even greater chal­lenge to cre­ate a bet­ter world for us and our descen­dants. But this is our respon­si­bil­i­ty, this is our duty and our sac­ri­fice to make.

This promis­es to be a very sig­nif­i­cant shift in the ener­gies inform­ing and shap­ing our jour­ney through the stars, and I look for­ward to being with you all as we move into the New Year.

Sol­stice at Stonehenge

The Hier­ar­chy of Light and Love

There are Four Cor­ners in your year­ly jour­ney around the Sun, Four Turn­ings of the Earth as she majes­ti­cal­ly sweeps around and tilts towards and away from our Star, a great dance of Light and Dark which forms for us the sea­sons of birth, life, death, and rebirth year after year upon Earth.

Today we reach the final turn of the Astro­log­i­cal Year, today we move through the Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones from Sagit­tar­ius and into Capri­corn. At this time every year, and for­ev­er some­where in your very own chart, you may enjoy this gift of the Spir­it as you con­sid­er the mean­ing of your jour­ney through the stars.

You will always have the space of Sagit­tar­ius, where you stretched your under­stand­ing for your­self and one anoth­er, as you told your sto­ry and lis­tened to the sto­ries of oth­ers, as you trav­elled in body or mind, find­ing new sen­si­bil­i­ties through the expe­ri­ences of oth­ers, delv­ing into the libraries of nature and sci­ence, of cul­tures and the arts, of great authors, com­posers, philoso­phers and wis­dom keep­ers, the wealth of expe­ri­ence hand­ed down from ages past and by your con­tem­po­raries too. All of this is the true wealth of human­i­ty, a part of the Divine Light to help you bet­ter under­stand your­self and your world, to know the who, what, when and why of Creation.

And what you real­ized then, was that the truth that is “out there” is what forms and holds you too. The only rea­son you can feel the truth, and see the truth, and know the truth, the only rea­son you can come to under­stand who and what you are is because the Truth is the “Pri­ma Mate­ria” behind the whole of Cre­ation, and so it is part of every fiber of your being as well.

But now as you enter the realm that is Capri­corn, you under­stand that this is not enough. No, it is not enough to find the truth, or know the truth, or even to share the truth. No, the whole pur­pose of Cre­ation, the whole Truth that shines from with­in as your Spark of the Divine is for you is to live a life whose whole pur­pose is to BE this very truth; you are here to shine like the star in wait­ing that you are.

Yes, as much as Sagit­tar­ius is the keep­er of Wis­dom, in Capri­corn you become the ves­sel of Truth, as you form your truth into your pur­pose and con­duct, as you assume your respon­si­bil­i­ties, as you “per-form”, forg­ing your path­way of per­fec­tion in duti­ful actions and con­se­quen­tial cre­ations that are your lega­cy. In Capri­corn, you move ever clos­er to the grace and humil­i­ty that is the true sign of a “wise one”. You are here to be you, to live for Self-Ful­fill­ment, to real­ize your true pur­pose, and forge your des­tiny by being the truth that makes you, you.

The path­way to mas­tery is not easy, and there will have been many expe­ri­ences that brought you pain and shame in what you did, or what you failed to do. But the greater part of your wis­dom and self-mas­tery has been earned by this, as you have come to real­ize that all those strug­gles, all those stum­bles, falls and fail­ures, that all these tri­als and tribu­la­tions of this life (and of your many lives) have brought you to this high­er place, to this self-made moun­tain of your man­i­fest des­tiny. For it was by falling and get­ting up, by learn­ing what not to do, and to how to do and be bet­ter, it is by your refusal to give up and your ded­i­ca­tion and deep­en­ing of humil­i­ty that you have earned your place in the com­pa­ny of those who came before you.

Mas­tery is earned by you, by the immutable law of Cause and Effect, which ensures that you “reap what you sow”, and that by learn­ing to do and be bet­ter, by your efforts to lift your­self beyond shad­ows and fears, you are made the cre­ator of your future full of sub­lime spir­i­tu­al bril­liance. And you also know and feel this truth, that you have equal­ly grown in stature by the deep­en­ing of your com­pas­sion and car­ing too. Because you have learned from your own strug­gles, you can tru­ly feel the suf­fer­ing and pain of oth­ers, and your heart will shine ever brighter with self­less love to help them too.

Because you also know this, that you could not, nor could you ever have done this “Great Work” by your­self. You are part of a host of souls, some here with you today and many, many more stretch­ing back­wards into the mists of your dis­tant past. Like a great rib­bon of light, all the souls who helped make you who you are, they are with you now, they are part of your char­ac­ter, part of your wis­dom and live on in your com­pas­sion too.

This is why we give thanks to those who came before us, to those with whom we jour­ney now, and to those who will con­tin­ue this work after our time is done. You are part of a Hier­ar­chy of Love and Life, and so we reach up to those above to ask for their help­ing hand, as we extend our hand to those who fol­low behind us too. Because this is the way, the way of human­i­ty, the way of Love. This is the pledge and pur­pose of Capri­corn, that our path of Self-Ful­fill­ment is made pos­si­ble by the spark of the Divine with­in us, and that the great work of Cre­ation is made by us all through love.

At this moment of turn­ing as the Earth bows to the Sun, as we move through one of the Four Sacred por­tals of Ini­ti­a­tion in the Cir­cle of the Liv­ing Ones, we bow our heads and go down on bend­ed knee, and pledge once more to be what we came to be. We are part of the Light that is the One which shines in the dark­est places, and we will fol­low the path of Light that is the Hier­ar­chy of Love and Com­pas­sion to our des­tiny in the stars.

That is why, at this sacred moment when the Light returns, we give thanks and ask for guid­ance one once more:

THE GREAT INVOCATION

From the point of light with­in the Mind of God

Let Light stream forth into our minds

Let LIGHT descend on Earth.

From the point of love with­in the Heart of God

Let Love stream forth into our hearts

May LOVE increase on Earth.

From the cen­ter where the Will of God is known

Let pur­pose guide our wills

The PURPOSE which the mas­ters know and serve.

From the cen­ter which we call Humanity

Let the Plan of Love and Light work out

And may it seal the door

where evil dwells.

Let Light and Love and Pow­er restore the Plan on Earth.

In my ninth show of 2022, we will begin to con­sid­er the plan­e­tary indi­ca­tions for 2023 (and beyond). Among the more sig­nif­i­cant fac­tors we will look at are the shifts of Sat­urn into the Sign of Pisces and the tran­si­tion of Plu­to from Capri­corn into Aquar­ius, along with the more repet­i­tive phe­nom­e­na of the Mer­cury Ret­ro­grades and the Lunar and Solar Eclipses.

If you wish to sug­gest a sub­ject or top­ic for a future show, please email me as I would be hap­py to hear from you. My email is: billattride@gmail.com.

Here is the main link to Astrologer Bill Attride Radio:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride

Here is the link to the show on Sun­day Decem­ber 11^th @ 2 pm EST:

https://www.blogtalkradio.com/astrologerbillattride/2022/12/11/astrological-musings-2023-preview-a-look-ahead

The phone num­ber to call if you wish to ask a ques­tion dur­ing the live show is: (516) 531‑9638

Please join me on Sun­day Decem­ber 11^th @ 2 pm EST as we look at the cur­rent astro­log­i­cal indi­ca­tions and what they mean for you.

If you miss the show, it will be avail­able as a Pod­cast short­ly after on BlogTalk or my Apple Pod­casts.

The Stair­way to Heaven

It is in Scor­pio that you face the heart of Truth, the burn­ing bright seed which is the Foun­tain Source of all the Truths. In the Alchem­i­cal Space that dri­ves the becom­ing of Spir­it, in the beat­ing Heart of Spir­it where the many ones com­bine to form ever greater ones, it is here at the cen­ter of Cre­ation that you expe­ri­ence the Joy and the Pain, your Ecsta­sy and your Agony, of being an Immor­tal mov­ing through mor­tal realms, which is the Jour­ney of Spir­it we know as Birth, Death and Re-Birth.

But while in that realm of sac­ri­fice and self-tran­scen­dence, you found your­self in a space beyond com­pre­hen­sion, beyond your present-day words and under­stand­ing. So, you had to wait, you had to let go of your cer­tain­ty and expe­ri­ence what is beyond your­self; you had to accept with humil­i­ty, grace and rev­er­ence what lies beyond. And with this gift of spir­it, you moved along the path of awak­en­ing into what is always before you, you went across the thresh­old to a Greater Understanding.

At this time of year, and for­ev­er some­where in your very own chart too, we cel­e­brate the realm that holds our Tem­ples of Truth, today we begin the month of Sagit­tar­ius. Whether by Reli­gion, Sci­ence, Phi­los­o­phy or Art, in realms of ordi­nary but nec­es­sary prac­ti­cal knowl­edge or in the most sub­lime heights of Divine Truth, all that you may under­stand is pos­si­ble because you are made of these very same Truths too. What is you, well that also sur­rounds, holds, and embraces you too; for what is above is also below, and from the most infin­i­tes­i­mal to the great­est, all of Cre­ation is the Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness of the One. You can see the Light Divine because it is you and all around you too. That is why the youngest and old­est of us can see it too, that every­thing and every­one is “shin­ing”.

You stand upon the shoul­ders of great souls who came this way before. And by their efforts and through their love they left for you the pre­cious trea­sures of wis­dom and truth to help you walk the path of Awak­en­ing. The great­est of these that are known to us we hon­or as our wise ones, Con­fu­cius, Bud­dha, Lao Tzu, Zoroast­er, and Pythago­ras, and so many more whose names remain unknown but who lift­ed the veil for one and for all.

For this is how we made our­selves “human”; we told our sto­ries to one anoth­er and lift­ed a lit­tle more the veil of Isis to reveal the won­der of Cre­ation. Whether by pic­tographs on cave walls, in songs and by dance, or in poet­ry and prose, formed into sculp­tures, paint­ings, and held by sci­ence and phi­los­o­phy, by what­ev­er medi­um and by what­ev­er means we tell one anoth­er our sto­ries; we add to the sto­ry that is Cre­ation which is our sto­ry too.

That is why it is so impor­tant for us to share our expe­ri­ences, to com­pare our find­ings, sto­ries, truths, and beliefs. We seek to under­stand the world with­in and around us, and we can only do this if we approach one anoth­er with open­ness and love. We can only dis­cern what is truer from the less true by shar­ing with one anoth­er, by com­par­ing, con­trast­ing, cor­rect­ing, and affirm­ing what is clos­er to the light of the Divine.

So, at this time of Thanks­giv­ing, let us gath­er togeth­er and share with one anoth­er our expe­ri­ences and our dis­cov­er­ies, let us restore our hope and lift one anoth­er out of fear. Let us be a light for one anoth­er as we push beyond the shad­ows to reveal the light that is shin­ing through one and all. Let us tell one anoth­er our sto­ries, and may we laugh and cry and move into our greater understanding.

Let us walk the stair­way to the stars.

Let us shine with our love for one another.

And may Light and Love and Truth be our gift to one anoth­er now and for­ev­er more.

(If you wish to lis­ten to the show instead, here is the link on BlogTalk or Apple Pod­casts)

In my pre­vi­ous show on Octo­ber 2^nd, I had hoped to talk about both the Plu­to return to its Natal posi­tion in the USA chart and Neptune’s oppo­si­tion to its Natal posi­tion too. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there was not enough time to do both, so we should con­sid­er today’s show as part two of that pre­vi­ous show.

But we will need to keep in mind, that in order to dis­cuss and under­stand any one of what I call the Tri­ad of Spir­it, “The Three in One” of Plu­to, Nep­tune, or Uranus, that we will only under­stand any one of them when we also see that each one is nec­es­sary to the oth­er two, as they are prin­ci­pal Avatars of the Inte­gral nature of Spir­it in our system.

Tri­ad of Spir­it – Plu­to — Nep­tune — Uranus
I like to think of these three in this man­ner. Plu­to is the hold­er of the Will and shapes and molds every Ener­gy-Form into a def­i­nite or defined Con­tain­er of Spir­it, (whether that be a mon­ad, atom, cell, organ­ism, plan­et, or star). Nep­tune is the hold­er of the Uni­ver­sal Ener­gy-Form of Uncon­di­tion­al Love, which is the Ener­gy-Sub­stance at the root of all or the One. This Love of the One is the root source of the Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness for every par­ti­cle of Cre­ation. And Uranus, is the hold­er of the Quin­tes­sence of Spir­it, because each and every par­ti­cle of Cre­ation is also an Indi­vid­ual. By this we also know that all of Cre­ation is formed by the innu­mer­able indi­vid­ual sparks of the Divine, every one of which is fol­low­ing their Swab­hā­va to be and become a unique instance or expres­sion of the One Divine Light.

What we have been dis­cussing (for quite some time) is that two of these Avatars of Spir­it have made crit­i­cal align­ments in the USA chart. Plu­to has reached the end of its first cycle of 245 years around the Solar Sys­tem and has returned to Pluto’s Natal posi­tion in 2022. The USA is expe­ri­enc­ing its first ever Plu­to return, and this is most impor­tant as we dis­cussed last time. Mean­while, Nep­tune is oppo­site to its natal posi­tion, as it was only once before from 1858–1859. The com­bi­na­tion of these two align­ments, (along with the influ­ences ema­nat­ing through Uranus), can illu­mi­nate and guide us through the moment we are in now.

For today, let us look at the impor­tance of Nep­tune in the USA chart, and the cycle of its mes­sag­ing for the past, and how that may guide us here today. What we need to appre­ci­ate is that Nep­tune has one of the most sig­nif­i­cant place­ments in the chart of the USA, being close to the mid­heav­en (the realm of des­tiny) and locat­ed in the 9^th house of Law, Truth, and Belief, what I like to under­stand as the house of Storytelling.

Nep­tune
Nep­tune is the avatar of the ulti­mate and uni­ver­sal ener­gy-form, which is Spir­it-Life-Con­scious­ness, and it is this which forms the most infin­i­tes­i­mal of par­ti­cles on up to the heav­en­ly hosts, and that is why we should under­stand and expe­ri­ence the Cre­ation as quite lit­er­al­ly the Body of the One. There is but One Spir­it, there is but One Life, and there is but One Mind, and it holds the whole of Cre­ation as one, (all the innu­mer­able ones held as One), and every one of us is made of this Ener­gy-form that you know and feel as Divine, Uncon­di­tion­al Love. It is by this Ener­gy-Form that the bound­aries between the hier­ar­chies and ranges of enti­ties becomes translu­cent, tran­scend­ed, and ulti­mate­ly dis­solved. By Nep­tune you come to your spir­i­tu­al heart, as you walk the path of awak­en­ing to expe­ri­ence the bless­ings of cos­mic con­scious­ness, which is made man­i­fest as love, com­pas­sion, and empa­thy between one anoth­er and real­ly between all life-forms in the cosmos.

But just as we have seen that the Will of Plu­to can be mis­ap­plied and lead to the vio­la­tion of sacred spaces, lead­ing to the sin of tres­pass­ing and great harm done to oth­er souls, Nep­tun­ian ener­gies may trig­ger and form, (by the mis­un­der­stand­ing or mis­ap­pli­ca­tion of this dissolving/transcending ener­gy-form), a cacoph­o­ny of fan­tasies, illu­sions, delu­sions, and decep­tions. We have had his­tor­i­cal peri­ods of a greater shared under­stand­ing, where what I call our “Bub­bles of Belief” align and agree with one anoth­er. And we have expe­ri­enced times of con­fu­sion, doubt, and greater mis­un­der­stand­ings too.

But the divi­sions we are expe­ri­enc­ing in the present day, the break­down of com­mon under­stand­ings and the grow­ing divide between var­i­ous peo­ples with­in com­mu­ni­ties, between regions and coun­tries, has cast a shad­ow of fear, doubt, and con­fu­sion upon our world. We have reached a yawn­ing abyss where we can­not seem to agree on what is fic­tion and what is fact, of what is “real­ly real”. What we are expe­ri­enc­ing is not a local but world-wide break­down, and this does hap­pen peri­od­i­cal­ly, espe­cial­ly when­ev­er Nep­tune moves through the sign of Pisces like now.

And though this might seem whol­ly neg­a­tive, again there lies part of our delu­sion and con­fu­sion. There is a very spir­i­tu­al pur­pose that dri­ves this moment in Neptune’s cycle, and it is this: we are being inspired to move into a more inclu­sive form of con­scious­ness. But the path to this greater under­stand­ing requires that we have to go through a peri­od where we are con­fused, because it is only then that we will let go of our lim­it­ed under­stand­ings, so that we might per­ceive beyond the dark clouds of fear, and so be able to see revealed a new and high­er and more inclu­sive and lov­ing way to under­stand our­selves and our world.

Nep­tune in Mun­dane Astrology
For our pur­pos­es today, we need to con­sid­er Neptune’s role for Mun­dane or World­ly Astrol­o­gy, which is that Nep­tune is the chal­ice or ves­sel for the dream of any nation, it is the Avatar for the sto­ries and myths that inform and explain the char­ac­ter of that polit­i­cal-cul­tur­al order. For the USA, one of the most dis­tin­guish­ing fea­tures of its found­ing myth is the claim that it is spe­cial or excep­tion­al. In the Nation­al Seal for the USA, we can see that the founders believed that they were engaged in an enter­prise that was unique­ly dif­fer­ent, and they declared to the world that the USA was to be a “New Order for the Cen­turies”. Unlike oth­er nations, the USA would be a land for peo­ple from around the world, and that it would be found­ed upon a new type of polit­i­cal order­ing, it would be a “covenant nation”.

The Nep­tun­ian ide­al for the USA was estab­lished upon Uni­ver­sal Prin­ci­ples, in that it would be unique and not like any oth­er nation. His­tor­i­cal­ly, nations were found­ed upon parochial or lim­it­ed deter­mi­na­tions, whether of being made of one par­tic­u­lar peo­ple, or by one her­itage or eth­nic­i­ty, or by one faith. The USA claimed that it would be a land where Free­dom, Tol­er­ance and Com­mu­ni­ty would be pro­claimed and pro­tect­ed for all peo­ples; it would be a new type of nation formed by the many creeds and by the many cul­tures of humanity.

USA – A Covenant Nation
The heart of this cre­ation of a new type of nation was the prin­ci­ple of a covenant com­mu­ni­ty. The USA would be found­ed upon the truth that each individual’s self-ful­fill­ment is depen­dent upon, and real­ly is only made pos­si­ble by being a mem­ber of the com­mu­ni­ty. This prin­ci­ple was stat­ed in our first doc­u­ment, The Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence, which says that we, “Mutu­al­ly Pledge To Each Oth­er Our Lives, Our For­tunes, And Our Sacred Honor”.

This dec­la­ra­tion was a forg­ing of a new covenant. The prin­ci­ple enshrined by the Dec­la­ra­tion, and lat­er by the Con­sti­tu­tion, is that in order to cre­ate this new space of indi­vid­ual free­dom and self-ful­fill­ment would require that the mem­bers of this sacred com­mu­ni­ty would have to agree to work with­in a social-polit­i­cal sys­tem of mutu­al con­sent. This would cre­ate a space of free­dom and jus­tice for every indi­vid­ual, but to do this we would need to forge an inte­gral bal­ance between our indi­vid­ual lib­er­ties with our com­mu­nal respon­si­bil­i­ties. Our free­doms would be pro­tect­ed, but we agreed to cir­cum­scribe our indi­vid­ual free­dom to pre­serve our com­mu­ni­ties too. In the USA, all pre­vi­ous priv­i­leges would be removed, so that we were not behold­en to any lord, king, or mas­ter; we were cre­at­ing a freely formed, self-deter­mined soci­ety based on equal­i­ty of all before the law. In the USA, only the Law would be our King, and all would be equal before the law.

The Promise Broken
But of course, what was held up as the found­ing ide­al of the USA was nev­er made real at that time, or even now some 250 years lat­er. From the moment of “first con­tact” by Christo­pher Colum­bus in 1492, to the final mas­sacre of native peo­ple at Wound­ed Knee in 1890, the near extinc­tion of the native peo­ples was one part of the bro­ken promise of equal­i­ty and jus­tice for all. The oth­er orig­i­nal sin for the USA was the enslave­ment of African peo­ple until 1865, and their denial of full cit­i­zen­ship by one means or anoth­er even down to the present day. The Karmic Ques­tion the USA faces today is quite sim­ply this, “How do we make right over 500 years of Geno­cide; how to we make right over 400 years of Racism?”

Yes, we are at a turn­ing, and Nep­tune, the hold­er of dreams and myths, of illu­mi­na­tions and delu­sions, has returned to the posi­tion it held as the Unit­ed States faced its great­est exis­ten­tial and spir­i­tu­al cri­sis formed by the divi­sion into two visions or myths of Amer­i­ca, whether to be Slave or Free, in the Civ­il War. The ques­tion was then and quite remark­ably but not sur­pris­ing­ly is also the same now, “will the fun­da­men­tal spir­i­tu­al truth, that all humans are cre­at­ed equal, and should be treat­ed as equal with love and com­pas­sion be made our real­i­ty or not”?

Neptune’s Turn­ing Points

In order to frame our under­stand­ing of what we are faced with today, we need to exam­ine our his­to­ry, and the oth­er turn­ing points in Neptune’s cycle through the chart of the USA. Neptune’s orbit is about 163 years, and it will align with the USA Nep­tune every 40 years or so for the more sig­nif­i­cant or so-called “hard” aspects, the dates for which are: 1816–17, 1857–58, 1897–98, 1938–39, 1980–81, and now 2021–22. Most impor­tant, are the Oppo­si­tions and Returns to the natal place­ment. The first and only return of Nep­tune to its natal posi­tion was 1938–39; and the two oppo­si­tions in USA his­to­ry were 1857–58 and the oppo­si­tion we are expe­ri­enc­ing in 2021–22.

Oppo­si­tion of Nep­tune to Neptune
The oppo­si­tion should be under­stood as the rev­e­la­tion and out­come of that vari­a­tion of expres­sion from the first or natal imprint­ing and then any suc­ceed­ing returns. The seed plant­ed in 1776 of Neptune’s “Dream of Amer­i­ca” became ful­ly revealed in the first oppo­si­tion (like a Full Moon) of 1857–58. From Neptune’s embod­i­ment of the dream of Amer­i­ca in 1776, “That all men are cre­at­ed equal…”, a polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tem formed in which a very small num­ber of white, prop­er­ty-own­ing men would hold and wield pow­er. And it would turn out that a great many of them had secured and main­tained their wealth and pow­er through own­ing oth­er humans as prop­er­ty. But an ever-grow­ing divide of the ways of eco­nom­ic life, and in cul­ture and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, between the planter soci­ety and the rest of the USA forged an exis­ten­tial cri­sis in the USA, as two very dif­fer­ent Nep­tun­ian dreams of Amer­i­ca came to a cli­mat­ic con­fronta­tion dur­ing the 1850’s over a fun­da­men­tal ques­tion: Would the USA con­tin­ue as and for­ev­er be a “slave labor coun­try” or not?

The Oppo­si­tion of 1857–1858
The Nep­tune Oppo­si­tion of 1857–58 laid bare the ever-advanc­ing pow­er of the slave­hold­ing states in the Con­gress and over the Supreme Court. This was most clear­ly revealed in 1857 by the Dred Scott deci­sion of the Supreme Court. This deci­sion deter­mined that for­ev­er more the USA would be a slave coun­try, because a white man’s prop­er­ty was more impor­tant than human lives, and so the law of the land would be that “slaves and descen­dants of slaves were nev­er, nor would they ever be cit­i­zens, and that they would remain the per­ma­nent prop­er­ty of their mas­ters”. Slav­ery would be forever…

As a con­se­quence of this clear divi­sion of the two America’s laid bare by the Supreme court’s deci­sion, and by the Leg­isla­tive pow­er of the slave­hold­ing states, Lin­coln spoke of this divi­sion with­in the coun­try, between the slave states and the free states, when he declared, “that a house divid­ed from itself can­not stand”. He pro­posed that this divi­sion would be solved one way or anoth­er, and that the US would either become a nation where in every state all humans would be free and equal, or that in every state there would be slav­ery and inequal­i­ty forever.

Of course, what hap­pened was the Civ­il War, and the abo­li­tion of slav­ery and amend­ments to the con­sti­tu­tion to estab­lish a more just and equal soci­ety. But the peri­od known after the Civ­il War wit­nessed the ever-increas­ing ero­sion of that more just order, until by local laws and com­mon prac­tice the dream of a more just Amer­i­ca was denied again.

Neptune’s Return 1938–39
Astrologers con­sid­er any plan­e­tary return like a “New Moon”, a seed­ing of a new vari­a­tion of the ener­gy-form that for that plan­et, Nep­tune for us now. This would mean that a new begin­ning was formed dur­ing the pres­i­den­cy of FDR, with his efforts to restore the USA econ­o­my after the Great Depres­sion, while he equal­ly led the USA to pre­pare for the exis­ten­tial con­fronta­tion with the rise of Fas­cism in Europe and Asia in World War II.

What is quite remark­able about this moment, as it will be in the next two Nep­tun­ian align­ments, was it was at this time accom­pa­nied by the Plu­to oppo­si­tion to Plu­to; the remark­able syn­chronic­i­ty and mes­sag­ing for the USA at this time led to a restate­ment and rebirth for the promise of the USA, so that a renewed effort and strug­gle was begun to extend equal­i­ty before the law and have a more or less equal oppor­tu­ni­ty for self-fulfillment.

Dream Renewed – The New Deal
Roosevelt’s New Deal was sup­posed to be a Fair Deal for all Amer­i­cans, but of course this was not at all true for the South, and for many com­mu­ni­ties through­out the coun­try, where local laws and cus­toms con­tin­ued to dis­en­fran­chise a great many peo­ple. But it was true that dur­ing FDR’s term, and for many years there­after, the gen­er­al growth of pros­per­i­ty in the Unit­ed States was more or less fair­ly shared by the entire pop­u­la­tion. The com­mit­ment to a Lib­er­al State form of gov­er­nance, from the 1940’s into the 1970’s, cre­at­ed a lift­ing tide of eco­nom­ic pros­per­i­ty, where that ris­ing tide was seen as, “lift­ing all boats”. It cer­tain­ly was not per­fect, but there was a gen­er­al feel­ing that there was more equi­ty, bal­ance, and fair­ness in how we cre­at­ed and shared our well-being with one another.

But some­thing began to change in the 1970’s and then most cer­tain­ly in the 1980’s. You might won­der, what changed? What hap­pened to the New Deal and the Dream of America?

Nep­tune Square, 1980–1981
There had been a gen­er­al con­sen­sus in the 40’s and 50’s for both major polit­i­cal par­ties that the mod­ern lib­er­al order was the answer. But as the strug­gle for civ­il rights in the 1950’s and 1960’s led to the pas­sage of the Civ­il Rights act, which over­turned the local and state laws deny­ing full cit­i­zen­ship to many, there rose up a counter-rev­o­lu­tion to the lib­er­al con­sen­sus. It came under the guise of an eco­nom­ic the­o­ry, called neo-Lib­er­al­ism, and its main thrust was artic­u­lat­ed by the pres­i­dent-elect in 1980, Ronald Rea­gan, who ran on the slo­gan that the prob­lem with Amer­i­ca was the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment. Once again, Amer­i­ca was a at a turn­ing, and once again the plan­ets were at a turn­ing too.  If fact Nep­tune squared Nep­tune, and Plu­to squared Plu­to at this time. Remem­ber, a Square presents a choice; it holds both an oppor­tu­ni­ty and dan­ger. The oppor­tu­ni­ty is to rise to the chal­lenge with love and faith, or to react with fear and lit­er­al­ly fall backwards.

This Nep­tune-to-Nep­tune square of 1980–81 should be seen as the reac­tion or counter-rev­o­lu­tion to Roosevelt’s New Deal for Amer­i­cans. But what was the result of fol­low­ing the poli­cies of neo-lib­er­al­ism, of less gov­ern­ment? How can we see or mea­sure the ben­e­fit or the cost? The rise of neo-lib­er­al­ism led to a dra­mat­ic shift of income and wealth in the coun­try. The dis­tri­b­u­tion of the growth of wealth from 1940 to 1980 is stark­ly dif­fer­ent than that from 1980 to 2022. If you look at the eco­nom­ic pic­ture of these two peri­ods in USA his­to­ry, it is like you are view­ing two com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent coun­tries. The rea­son is that choic­es were made to turn away from fair­ness for the many, and to pro­mote ram­pant self-inter­est­ed beliefs and actions that led to self­ish­ness, greed, and great wealth for the few, and the result was the dec­i­ma­tion of the mid­dle class and the poor. Today, we have a coun­try that is divid­ed into the very wealthy few, a shrink­ing upper and mid­dle class, and final­ly the rest who are just strug­gling to survive.

2021–22 Nep­tune Oppo­si­tion (and Plu­to Return)
We find our­selves at the next great turn­ing of Nep­tune (and of Plu­to) here in 2021 and 2022. We are most cer­tain­ly expe­ri­enc­ing great divi­sions between var­i­ous mem­bers and sec­tors of our coun­try. It is quite remark­able that just like in the 1850’s, when Nep­tune was oppo­site to itself, and when Plu­to was squar­ing Plu­to, that we can see that the very same exis­ten­tial ques­tions are before us once more: Who is an Amer­i­can, who gets to decide, and are we equal to one another?

As I spoke of in my last show, we are at this moment in order to address the ques­tion of the Plu­to return, which is “what is the essen­tial val­ue of the USA”? I stat­ed then and would reit­er­ate here that the heart of val­ue for our nation (and real­ly any nation) is the people.

And we are also at a “Full Moon” for Nep­tune, just like in the peri­od of 1857–58. Nep­tune is pos­ing the ques­tion, “what is the Dream of Amer­i­ca”? With Nep­tune once again in Pisces, the spir­i­tu­al inspi­ra­tions of Uncon­di­tion­al love are resur­gent now, and many are work­ing to meet the chal­lenge of this moment by their com­mit­ment to increas­ing social jus­tice, of try­ing to build new bridges of under­stand­ing and care for one another.

But we are also, just like before, expe­ri­enc­ing the veil between realms becom­ing much thin­ner now because of Nep­tune in Pisces, and as much as we can hear the call­ing of our bet­ter angels when we turn to and are guid­ed by our gen­tle, lov­ing high­er self, we are also wit­ness­ing that for many the images and feel­ings that are being evoked, that they are found­ed not upon faith but in fear, and from these dark shad­ows we are con­front­ed with the mount­ing dan­gers of con­fu­sion, mis­un­der­stand­ings, delu­sions, and deceptions.

We are divid­ed in so many ways, but prin­ci­pal­ly it is because our Amer­i­can Dream of equal­i­ty and jus­tice, which is the foun­da­tion for self-deter­mi­na­tion and self-ful­fill­ment, has become increas­ing­ly unreach­able for more and more Amer­i­cans. We can­not live our Nep­tun­ian dream with­out a func­tion­ing democ­ra­cy. We do not have that, we can­not have that, when wealth and pow­er are con­cen­trat­ed in the hands of so very few indi­vid­u­als, fam­i­lies, and com­pa­nies. As many have not­ed, the USA is an Oli­garchy, a polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic sys­tem that is ruled by Plutocrats.

We are going through a spir­i­tu­al cri­sis, and the strug­gle by so many to try and under­stand, to try to do what is lov­ing and good, well that is what gives me hope. The chal­lenge is for each and every one of us to remem­ber where our true wealth lies, it is found­ed in our love for one anoth­er. If we can under­stand that the secret to our hap­pi­ness and well-being depends upon every­one being enabled to real­ize their fuller poten­tial, then we will rise togeth­er into a bet­ter world.

The ques­tion at the cusp of our Civ­il War is the same ques­tion we face today, “will the fun­da­men­tal spir­i­tu­al truth, that all humans are cre­at­ed equal, and should be treat­ed as equal with love and com­pas­sion, will that be made our real­i­ty or not”?

Let us face this moment as we must, with the faith, love, and wis­dom that is held by the eter­nal truths and light of the One, whose cen­ter is every­where and whose cir­cum­fer­ence holds us all as one.