© Terry Lamb
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. . . and keep the energy flowing.
We enter February under a cloud of confusion. What does the future hold? Who will travel the road with us? What is the next hill to climb? Meanwhile at least one thing in our life is on hold while something unexpected is in development. We may be disappointed in what isn’t happening, but at least there’s something that is moving ahead, and it provides a distraction from what isn’t in motion.
While the Sun is in Aquarius, we get a break: from our emotions, from the sturm and drang of what challenges us most. It gives us a chance to develop an objective viewpoint, to disentangle ourselves from emotions we didn’t know we had. We can let go of fear and uncover the joy that can’t come out while fear is present.
We now know these things, and for those who don’t know the planetary rhythms, what isn’t arriving may seem unendurably hopeless. But for we who know that all things change with the cycles of time, we experience a constructive interlude. All this is happening as we enter two new planetary playgrounds being brought by Mars’s and Saturn’s retrogrades.
Mars commenced his retrograde on January 23, at the time of the New Moon. Saturn’s begins on February 7, infusing the Full Moon with its vibration. What is curious about this timing is that both these planets place higher emphasis on individuation, the process by which we differentiate ourselves from the people and things around us. And they come to us during the time when Aquarius is the dominant sign, the quintessential sign of individuation in balance with group affiliation.
So how do we take advantage of this opportunity to grow, and what will come of it? In the context of our current shift in consciousness, we find it necessary to let go of situations from the past. Yet, we may find that some of them linger on in our lives. Now is a good time to let go of another layer of not-self, masked behavior, and the situations that go with them.
Most of the time, we will craft new ways of behaving and engaging with life, and the parts that don’t fit will sort themselves out. However, now we have a golden opportunity to see this process with exceptional clarity and to say no to what belongs in the past. Often, Mars and Saturn are about saying no to what we don’t want. Often, all the things we don’t want clutter our lives so much that they block our view of what we do want — we don’t even know. Saying no to even a few circumstances, behaviors, people, or inner attitudes loosens up our head for new ideas and people to pop through, like hitting the refresh button.
Mars is retrograde for almost three months (through April 13), and Saturn is retrograde for about five months, until June 25. Each provides a platform for growth. Mars emphasizes self-development and finding balance in asserting ourselves with others. Saturn emphasizes responsibility and building the structures we need to sustain ourselves in the world. Each of them is about setting boundaries, whether physical, psychological, or spiritual. There is no doubt that we will feel their energies in the foreground during this time.
Mars is also felt through how, why, and where we go after what we want. It ties to relationships through courtship ritual, love-making/sexual interaction, and physical activity of all sorts. In our psyche it is often expressed as anger, irritation, aggressiveness, although we find it as well in how we assert ourselves and hold our space with others. Some people will feel an abundance of energy available, while others will feel more drained than usual.
Saturn is the long path we take toward stability as we interact and find ways to take care of ourselves in the world beyond our aura — work, bill-paying, eating, sleeping — all the trappings of living in a physical body. It emphasizes separation and philosophically is associated with the process of forgetting our unity with all consciousness.
Just Say No — For Starters.
When we experience an emphasized Mars or Saturn, we usually notice. Mars often comes to us in the form of anger, irritability, impatience; Saturn is most noted for a “down draft” in our energy field, a feeling of heaviness. These feelings are neither inevitable nor permanent, and when they occur they indicate that we have old, dead energies in our energy field that don’t have to be there, can be released. Saying no to what we don’t want is an effective and satisfying way of doing that.
The process of saying no invites us to say yes to what replaces the old energy, a natural part of the sequence by which we can transform ourselves. The yeses may not come right away, and the manifestation of changes as a result may take time, patience, faith, and trust in the process in order to complete them. The hard part is the time in between, when we have neither the old energies to comfort us with familiarity nor the new energies to prove to ourselves and others that we’re on the right track. It takes time to shift our energy field into a new vibration, and the bigger the shift the longer it can take as we systematically remove all that obstructs our path in that direction.
Our Current Quantum Shift Provides the Context.
That’s where we are now as a species and as a planet, forced by survival needs into making a quantum shift. When we add our own personal challenges, it may seem like more than we can take. Yet somehow we come through. Mars retrograde emphasizes the urge to act and gets us to examine our impulses. It also gives us a time-out from the forward motion of things, and after it is over, we will see what good it has done for us — just right now we’re probably not appreciating the apparent delays, frustrations, impetuous acts from ourselves and others, etc.
With Saturn, there is also a feeling of being held back but there’s a constructive process taking place as well. With Saturn in Libra, this is happening in our relationships in some arena or another: They must deepen or die (or be allowed to end because they were already dead). Saturn’s retrograde begins at the last degree of Libra, giving the psychic impression that we had to take care of it all now, but we actually get until October 5 to complete the task. We just can’t let an undermining relationship keep us from fulfilling our path and making the most of the challenges we face outside our front door. It feels like survival.
Individuation Meets Manifestation.
So with this scenario, we are primed perfectly to accomplish a big transformation — the “2012” one that will occur over the next six years — in a number of small steps. We already completed a number of them last year, even if we weren’t aware of them. Now we get the Mars retrograde to do final earthbound preparations, after doing mostly internalized work to this point. The internal work will never stop as long as we’re alive, especially now, but the role we’re going to take, the shape of our future, will become clearer with each day, because the energies of manifestation are at work through the planets in the Earth signs (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn). For more on how to use the Mars retrograde process, with specific info for your sign, get the report.
Neptune Re-Enters Pisces: The Final Portal to Tomorrow
Neptune enters the ethers of Pisces on the 3rd, where stillness and unity, image and mythic reality rule. Energies that move in swirls and spirals are more emphasized than the laser-like (curved) linearity of Aquarius. Healing comes from that stillness, as we write our own mythic reality, each a unique expression of the Creative/Universal Spark.
Neptune remains in Pisces (and each sign) for about 14 years. It is helpful now to take some time to look back at the transit of Neptune through Aquarius, which started in 1998. Wherever you felt it in your life, it asks us to dedicate ourselves to something beyond our personal gain, to make a sacrifice and then surrender to the process that ensues. We can feel remarkably unsure about the path we’ve chosen as we encounter the obstacles that ensue as we work to manifest our vision. What did you take on in 1998? This will give you an idea of the flavor of Neptune in your life. What is your new vision?
Neptune’s new yearly cycle begins on the 19th when the Sun catches it at 0̊36′ Pisces, a degree that participates in last year’s transformation. Its significant range of motion this year is 0̊22′ – 3̊09′ Pisces. If you have placements in Pisces, Virgo, Gemini, or Sagittarius in this range, you will feel Neptune’s energies with more poignancy in the coming year. Key dates are February 19, May 23, June 4, August 24, November 10 and 21.
This is the final of the outer planets to change signs in a remarkable series of shifts that have occurred in a very short time (four years), with planets that stay in a sign as long as 16 years in their current pattern. This phenomenon is as much a part of the feeling we have of being thrust into the future as anything else out there right now. It moves us firmly in the direction of the new. Whatever you took on in 1998, you’re done with that now!
And in Our Ongoing Relationship Saga . . .
The Mars and Saturn retrogrades will have a direct impact on our relationship life. Both planets take us into a process of recovering gems we lost on the way to creating the bonds we are building now. It’s as if we didn’t see them glimmer in the sands when we went by the first time, due to distraction or distortion of our perceptions. Now we get to sift the sands again and see the events we’ve already experienced with new eyes, as if for the first time. We have the chance to recover the warmth that we felt before the learning process started that brings us into mutual harmony, a year or two ago.
On the 1st we have a challenge in Venus’s opposition to Mars, that of fuller awareness of what’s real, and really important, to us. Whatever happened on January 31 – February 2, it was as if the universe was bringing the “feeling truth” to us. This new understanding gives us a direction with the remainder of the Mars retrograde.
We have more in store: This year is a time to “get it right” (= in harmony), as Venus also has a retrograde in late spring to help us iron things out. Gemini is the featured sign for this event. The combination of factors gives us a series of openings via which we can take small steps that bring gradual progress. This is the way to circumvent the huge emotions that often surface as we simultaneously bring a relationship into our lives and deal with the emotional blocks to it that we’ve been carrying from childhood and past lives.
The 2012 Transformation
We’ve had a break from the deeper issues surrounding us January 28 – February 8. They’ve been there, but we haven’t had to deal with them directly, except as part of an ongoing process of change with known factors. This change son the 9th when Venus enters Aries, one of the signs in the Cardinal Cross (with Cancer, Libra, Capricorn) that are featured in the changes. This opens the door to making more adjustments in our connections with others. For the next three months, our relationships will stimulate the processes of transformation. Surprises are afoot.
Let the Healing Begin (Again)!
Chiron gives us a boost of healing energy this month as the Sun hits the refresh button on its yearly cycle at 5̊09′ Pisces. Until the 24th, the old cycle is ending with all the attendant rush to complete what has been left unsaid, undone to clear our energy field. In Pisces, it is all about the unseen world, and it has acquainted us with this reality in two steps to warm the waters for Neptune’s final advent into this sign of the great oceanic consciousness that we all swim in.
Chiron played with Mars at critical points in its 2011 cycle, and now we speed toward the culmination of the processes triggered last year. If you have “leftovers” from last year (especially in relationship or health/injury/illness), chances are good it ties into this interaction in some way. With Chiron in Pisces, our healing process cannot be complete if we ignore the role of the spirit in the healing. Our woundedness is welling up from the deepest levels of beingness now, more likely tied to past lives and early in this lifetime than to current experiences, which only act as the trigger to bring these to the surface. It is a good process. Without it, we will continue to carry burdens that we are scarcely aware of, so adapted are we to the habitual distortions they create in our daily experience. Freed of these burdens, we feel like we’ve just gotten a new pair of glasses on the world that appears brighter and more colorful. The sky is a deeper, limitless blue.
Shooing the old energies from our field is rocket-boosted along by a connection with Jupiter, the third of three, on the 14th at 4̊32′ Pisces/Taurus. The first two contacts were on July 2 (5̊13′ Pisces/Taurus) and December 6 (0̊59′ Pisces/Taurus). These times were potentiated by eclipses and planetary stations, so resolutions that occur now are multi-layered and complex.
Mutability Rules.
On the 18th, the Sun enters Pisces to bring out the Mutable energies again (Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, Pisces). From that date through the end of the month, every significant planetary interaction involves one or more of these signs. (See Chart B.) We get a chance to really work through the situations that began to take shape in early November. This is an opening, a doorway, but it is not the only one; this tells us that there are many stages to developing the situations we find ourselves in now, and that a missed opportunity will return if we do not find it part of the flow to act now. There is a higher pitch of volatility in our circumstances now, by grace of the intensity of the planetary in-flows to Earth. At such times, small steps bringing gradual progress prevent overreactions due to moving too quickly.
The Mutable energies rely on flexibility to achieve their goals. They move around objects and obstacles, wait things out, and focus on wholeness and completions. They are the signs that “put out fires”, dealing with existing circumstances rather than starting new ones. Their first response is often to agree or avoid, even though they will not stay in this position. In fact, the Mutables do not hold positions, or hold onto things — sometimes giving up before fruition is achieved. To use the Mutable energy well, we need to stay in touch with what’s in our heart, and often stay with something longer than we think is wise.
It’s Time to Ground.
The energies of the Earth Grand Trine (Chart A) are coming together again, giving us the precious gift of being able to add form and abundance to our life. This is a process that began last June and comes to us in multiple steps and stages. This stepwise process is the way through the quantum leap in consciousness that we are embarked upon now. If you are alive now, you are meant to be here and experience this. There is a way through with more joy and miraculous experience than you can now see, but your imagination can take you there.
You will be amazed. ♥
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© Terry Lamb
All dates are based on Pacific Time.
As light-workers (or however we want to think of ourselves), we have a responsibility to ourselves, each other, and those less aware than us, to spread light — to remove fear and redirect its energy toward the light. Every time we give in to fear, we cede our individuality to the cultural institutions and authority figures that feed on and foster it. We can take a stand against fear.
Part of becoming beings of light involves casting out these fears, and once encountered this Pandora’s Box may seem bottomless. In a way it is, because once we cast out our personal fears, the fears of the collective begin to come out of this box-with-a-hole-in-the-bottom as well. This is when we begin removing fear for humanity.
Learn more about Terry on her website.
