Venus/Pluto On: Love

~ EmpwrdDstny ~ Leave a comment

In honor of the approaching square between Venus & Pluto, here is the crux of about 90% of the issues that Venus/Pluto peeps (Pluto in Libra generation, pay attention!) typically encounter in partnerships:

People with this energy signature present in their nativity (and it can come in many different forms – Venus in Scorpio, Pluto in Libra, Venus in aspect to Pluto, Venus in the 8th House, Pluto in the 7th House) tend to attract power struggles in relationships. This happens because deep down individuals with this energetic “stamp” often feel threatened by a loss of control in relationships and do not yet possess the insight to see that real intimacy entails placing total trust in your partner; thus making oneself scary-vulnerable and “naked” in every sense of the word.

Frequently this may be the result of some kind of trauma attached to the word “love”; perhaps on an instinctual level we’ve had reason not to feel safe enough to metaphorically “disrobe” like this because trust was violated somewhere along the way. So we then become determined to always make sure we have the upper hand/ace up our sleeve/dagger in our boot that will keep us from being totally disempowered in the event that things go bad. Consequently what can happen in such instances is a subconscious attraction toward relationships where we’re not equally matched with a partner, because on a superficial level our psyche thinks this will allow us to stay in power.

Now it doesn’t always manifest this way; sometimes we’re forced to confront this “power differential” theme in other ways. And the reverse can certainly be true where we may be magnetized toward relationships where we tend to give our power away to a Significant Other and become submissive rather than dominant. But unless we look deeper and leave no internal stone unturned in understanding the propensity for this kind of dynamic and healing it, eventually one or both of the parties comes to resent this and the relationship sours; resulting in a negative feedback loop that affirms our suspicions regarding vulnerability and validates a subconscious desire to gain or keep control/power. In situations where there has been a major trust violation that deeply affected our ability to “expose & disclose”, it can be scary for the psyche to feel like it risks being subsumed by another via intimacy.

But the Hi-Fi version of Venus/Pluto love is about viewing relationships on a more psychological level so we can become truly empowered. Every relationship, no matter how bad, puts us directly in contact with our own “Shadow” one way or the other via involvement with a Significant Other so we can heal any dysfunction within that leads to be attracted to partnerships with built-in power differentials. The x-ray vision this energetic combination affords one when it comes love and partnership is second to none – once we let our eyes adjust to the darkness, we can see the layered subtext going on behind the scenes to get to the bottom of the issue(s). It’s a complex process and there are hidden entanglements to tease out, but Venus/Pluto natives come factory-wired with invisible illuminated mining helmets precisely for this kind of job.

In healing, what we might aim for in the future is to be intimidated by a partner in a *good* way. I don’t mean creeped out, LOL – that kind of thing happens all the time when you’re a Venus/Pluto person. But finding someone who puts us in our un-comfort zone in a positive sense; who has gone just as deep (or deeper) into themselves and mined their own love life just as intensely for insights, self-healing, and personal transformation to gain profound acumen. This energy signature is about learning – on a soul-level – how to figure out the balance of power in close intimate relationships; neither hoarding it nor giving it all away. The trick is we have to share it.

03/19/2018

Jupiter Retrograde In Scorpio

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As Jupiter in Scorpio puts it in park before shifting into reverse (retrograde) gear tonight, the next four months present an ideal time to put our psyche under a magnifying glass and root out any possible inclinations toward destructive excess. Jupiter in Scorpio can have quite the Appetite for Destruction; a real vice for “more, more, more” whether that’s sex, food, maxing out the plastic on a deluxe shopping spree, or anything else – hey, if a little is good then more must be better, right? But when Jupiter traverses Scorpio this philosophy has the capacity be taken to an obscene degree; almost like something you’d see on one of those TV shows about hoarding.

However Jupiter turning retrograde in Scorpio tends to shift our psychological perspective to help us understand that any kind of Gluttony is in fact a Deadly Sin. So from now until around mid-July it is entirely possible to find ourselves overwhelmingly disgusted that we’ve overdone it in some area; prompting us to eliminate whatever this excess is. This process can be metaphorically akin to a “binge & purge” kind of scenario, and as such it would be extremely important that we examine the psychological underpinnings of why we compulsively stuff any kind of Void with “more, more, more”. This doesn’t even have to be an actual hardcore vice, either – you don’t have to be hooked on heroine/blow, blackout drunk, or 600+ lbs to know that your appetite for something may have gotten a little out of hand. It could be something comparatively more “benign” like caffeine, chocolate, carbs, sugar, whatever; something we’re overdoing in a way that’s bad for us because it feels so good. But if we were to dig a little deeper, what’s really driving us to mainline endorphins like this; why do we need that dopamine hit?

Emerging From Your Pluto Transit

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After spending what seemed like an eternity in Hades ripped away from all you previously held dear and stripped naked of any pretense or false assumption about who you truly are at your core, you emerge from this prolonged Dark Period newly reborn.  The haters and those who once sought to subjugate you now crushed like dirt under your shoe as you come into your own and claim your power. Congratulations, you’ve just made it through hell and back – as the last vestiges of flame lick at your back, take a moment to fully appreciate the newfound strength this Razing has stoked within you.  Arise; you have just received the ultimate in astrological empowerment!

03/06/2018

Saturn Conjunct Pluto In Capricorn: Beware Of Toxic Teachings

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With Saturn now in Capricorn and gradually working its way toward a conjunction with Pluto in 2020, it’s becoming more important than ever to guard ourselves against “toxic teachings”. Though we have some time before this conjunction perfects, it’s definitely something we want to prepare for well in advance and the longer we give ourselves, the stronger the buffer. I’m putting out this caution now because Pluto’s energy tends to corrupt things gradually in Capricorn; it’s never an overnight process and with Saturn playing the role of Cosmic Teacher we do have to be very careful that any educations instilled in us aren’t twisted. This ranges from ancient lessons imparted by parents or mentors that were perhaps rather messed up, to rigid programming drilled into us by our leaders, or any kind of teaching implanted in us by anyone that we consider an “authority” – this includes spiritual and occult “leaders” as well.

It is this last item I want to discuss in particular, because it can be very dangerous when a toxic teaching takes root in our psyche or soul and metaphysicians work on these levels almost exclusively. Spiritual and occult leaders are often granted a form of absolute power due to the intense loyalty of their followers; nobody stops to question their authority, and those that do are often gagged and shunned. But as we’ve seen time and time again with every fall from grace since antiquity, being wise, perceptive, and in a position of prominence does not make one exempt from serious moral failings and character defects – it does not render one immune to criticism, nor let them off the hook from facing the consequences arising from any abuse of power.

When it comes to the psyche and the soul, we have to be more watchful than ever about substituting someone else’s authority for our own internal sense of authority. This is not an area where we should ever allow someone to usurp our power from us because dysfunctional constructs, programming, and conditioning can take root and bear poison fruit if we’re not careful; particularly as we get closer to the conjunction of Saturn with Pluto in Capricorn. We need to be particularly cautious regarding what we’re letting our teachers and leaders sow inside of us now – this especially applies to any toxic teachings regarding how we “create our own reality” , which may then used to mask forms of abuse. We need to watch out for any kind of teaching that could potentially infect us with Surrogate Responsibility Syndrome™; a condition where we psychologically take on responsibility/blame for something that frankly doesn’t belong to us and never did.

This is where certain New Age precepts can actually become dangerous – in reality, IMO it is a covert form of control fetish to buy into the false teaching that everything in life is completely within our influence and we’re 100% responsible for every (negative) circumstance in it, as in “I attracted the lesson”. Sometimes we do through poor choices and lack of good judgement, yes, but other times it has absolutely nothing to do with us at all – if bad things sometimes happen to good people (like pediatric cancer to an innocent child) or good things happen to bad people (Trump becoming president), we’re a bit out of line for thinking that we’re responsible for *everything*. We have no business trucking with this kind of control freakery when it actually has the potential to be very damaging – for example, toxic teachings that imply we’re somehow responsible for being raped or for being abused by our parents. This is an undercover form of Stockholm Syndrome – instead of placing the blame where it belongs (i.e. squarely on the shoulders of the abuser), we internalize this burden and make it about *us*.

On a psychological level, it’s understandable that one might subconsciously do this as a self-protective measure; convince themselves the circumstance was somehow within their control. But at the end of the day this is how we enable abuse to continue; by not holding it accountable – this is how we wind up with problems like teaching our girls how *not* to be raped instead of teaching our boys *not* to rape and it’s how we wind up with things like rape apologists. To put a stop to this corruption, we need to hold abusers accountable and stop manipulating our psyches with the covert power trip that we “create our own reality” and that everything is within our ability to control – it’s not. Get off the exit well before Saturn hits that conjunction with Pluto in Capricorn, because otherwise it’s a dead-end.

02/26/2018

Jupiter In Scorpio: Terminal Positivity

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I want to talk about the notion that “positivity” is always a good thing – we love being upbeat because it feels…good, right? But like all things Jupiter-oriented, it does have the capacity to be harmful when taken to excess and it’s this angle that I want to discuss today with Jupiter continuing to traverse Scorpio until November 2018. Any planet tenanting Scorpio has to face its Shadow side for proper psychological integration, and when we’re talking about uplifting Jupiter this naturally entails an examination of how it’s possible to suffer from terminal positivity.

Let me begin by stating that I am generally of the opinion that what people choose to believe is their own business – as long as you’re not going door-to-door trying to promote your life philosophy to others and “convert” them, vaya con dios. I prefer “Live and Let Live”, so provided you’re not bothering me or mine by “correcting” others and telling them they’re “wrong”, have at it. But please bear with me, because for the purposes of this post I do need to outline how certain beliefs have the capacity to turn dysfunctional on us and this includes Jupiter’s optimism.

There is a point where positivity warps into something pathological and one of the primary indicators we have of this is zealousness; especially regarding the promotion of it. Jupiter in Scorpio can be prone to fanaticism because Scorpio is a sign of extremes, so it takes the moral, philosophical, political, and spiritual beliefs of Jupiter and applies them with passion. Now there is nothing wrong with believing something very deeply; however when this crosses the line to where we seek to impose our personal truth upon others (no matter if we think it for their own good and do it with a smile), this is a problem. This kind of coercion or manipulation does not respect the sovereignty of the individual and is in fact an intrusion – recall the saying “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”.

Another important point to consider is whether or not the “positive” individual is open to discussing different point of view. Scorpio energy can tend to make things very black-and-white, all-or-nothing and one of the signatures of terminal positivity is negating the existence of all that does not fit within its paradigm. If one is very fixed in their doctrine and finds it threatening to contemplate or discuss other ways of seeing things, they may seek to kill off anything they perceive as “negative” or “low vibration”. The keyword is perceive, though; it does not mean that in raising bigger-picture (social, cultural, moral, spiritual, political) questions that may be challenging to the individual’s views, one actually is being negative.  “Positive vibes only” becomes destructive when it loses context – for example, when it denies the existence of things like racism, sexism, classism, and all kinds of larger socio-cultural issues because it’s too busy white-lighting its aura in a protective bubble because we magnetically “receive what we believe”. To insist a “poverty mindset” is at the root of someone’s financial insecurity when corrupt and very real things like wage inequality still exist in the world is rather messed up, IMO – it is a very first-world problem to be able to negate the things that huge segments of the global society have been deeply affected by just because one has supposedly ascended above it all and says they have reached a level where it can no longer affect them. While it may be all fine and good that it doesn’t affect *your* reality, what about everybody else??

Perhaps the most reliable indicator that someone is suffering from a case of terminal positivity, though, is when this has twisted from being a helpful tool in combating a negative default inner monologue and turned instead into a covert weapon of smug condescension directed at those one perceives as having “stinkin’ thinkin’”. If this really is about making your life and the lives of those around you better, surely there is no need to pervert this with the taint of arrogant self-righteousness? When lifting yourself up involves kneecapping someone else, re-evaluate your ulterior motives because this is a dysfunctional, poisonous, and power-trippy philosophy.

02/19/2018

Uranus In Taurus

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What is Uranus in Taurus?

It’s the vocal changes brought on by puberty as our throat chakras Awaken. It’s the voice of rebellion; an anthem of protest. And it is digging in its heels to use the voice of the collective to bring peaceful reform and revolution – screw “slacktivism”; our 21st century Indigo Ray neo-Flower Children are woke to all kinds of social, ecological, and environmental issues ranging from economic disparity, to awareness of GMO “FrankenFoods” effects upon on the body AND the environment, to a prescient and humanitarian concern for the sustainability of our Future. Uranus in Taurus knows the value and substance the vocalizations of the collective carry and yokes modern technologies like social media to network and influence people’s VALUES. It also inherently understands that the best way to create change is with your wallet and emphasizes conscious spending; particularly regarding social and environmental causes that align with one’s personal value system – if you want reform, nothing speaks louder in this corporatocracy than where your money is or isn’t being spent.

In technology, Uranus in Taurus signifies a graphics revolution – Taurus is aesthetic while Uranus is electric and I predict some gorgeous advances that change the way we see things. If history is any indicator, we might consider how a revolutionary new 3-strip Technicolor process gave us huge and visually stunning hits such as “Gone With the Wind”, “The Wizard of Oz”, and Disney’s “Fantasia” the last time Uranus visited this zodiac sign.  It’s exciting to think about the optical advances this energy may herald; not only for cinema and television, but regarding computers, software, gaming, and all of our modern digital devices.

Uranus in Taurus will also set textile trends – Taurus is a highly tactile sign and I predict there will be a cutting-edge fabric that comes out during the next 7 years that changes EVERYTHING. When Uranus previously occupied Taurus, nylon and polyester were invented; let’s hope for something more organic than synthetic this time around! Or if not, then perhaps novel and environmentally-conscious technologies will facilitate the (re?)invention of more sustainable textiles that help further the green revolution.

Uranus in Taurus also represents a sort of neo-communism vibe – I realize this word carries unfortunate political connotations that may be triggering for many, but I mean this in its purest philosophical sense. As in, living in hippie communes with people who all share the same ideals, sharing resources among the community to create a hedge against things like wealth inequality, and crowdfunding things and causes we feel are worthy; especially important social and/or ecological ones.

This placement also deals with the redistribution of wealth; Uranian energy reforms and re-arranges, while The Bull is a fiscal sign (it’s one of Wall Street’s two animal totems for a reason!) and as such there will be financial disrupts that change fortunes literally overnight. Perhaps a substantial portion of this may be precipitated by wild fluctuations in commodities and currency markets; digital currencies especially, which are now creating their own economic revolution. Uranus acts as a destabilizing influence and wealth can be made or lost in the blink of an eye – “Nouveau Riche” may no longer be such a dirty term after this 7 year transit. Retrospectively, the previous Uranus in Taurus era from mid-1934 to mid-1942 should ring some bells in an economic context; it was the era of FDR and his “New Deal” (both of them) so we see that financial (Taurus) reform (Uranus) is indeed a hallmark of this energy. Part and parcel of this included the founding of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on the *exact day* that Uranus entered Taurus in 1934!

Uranus in Taurus is coming – this momentous shift will be upon us in just over 3 months’ time and on May 15, 2018 we step into a brand new Uranian era that few people have ever experienced in their lifetime. Perhaps the most intriguing thing for me in contemplating the significance of this event is the fact that I see history repeating itself – Uranus last entered Taurus on the heels of the Great Depression and a Uranus/Pluto Square in Aries and Cancer. Today, its ingress will be in the wake of a global financial crisis and recent Uranus/Pluto Square in Aries and Capricorn. The 1934-42 version happened with a Uranian President of the United States of America (FDR; Aquarius Sun + Uranus Rising) while the current one will feature a Sun + North Node conjunct Uranus at the helm. Don’t get me wrong; DJT isn’t even a quarter of the man FDR was and the comparison ends there. However when we look things dispassionately and just consider the data, the correspondences between these two periods do seem uncanny for the above mentioned reasons.

I wonder, will Uranus in Taurus be the “hero” we deserve, or the one we need?

02/11/2018

Neptune’s Intuition

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With Neptune powerful in its Pisces domicile for the foreseeable future, I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss this planet’s considerable intuitive gifts and how to recognize them. Intuition is something that happens completely outside of the conscious rational mind – it is a non-tangible, non-logical sense of receiving information that we have no other reasonable explanation for. For some this expresses as “hearing” a voice that is often initially mistaken for their internal thoughts. For others, they may “see” things in their mind’s eye and blow it off as “just their imagination”. Others feel things on a visceral level in the form of physical sensations in the body that are “weird” or transiently mimic illness. There are many varietals – perhaps yours comes instead through dreams. Or maybe it’s heard through music, whether it’s the perfect timing of a song on the radio or the lyrics stuck in your head on repeat for no good reason.

Neptunian intuition is frequently quite hard to pin down; it is something prone to shapeshifting and behaves differently for each individual. Some are more connected to it than others, and it all depends upon how good we are at listening to it rather than judging it. Those who consciously seek a spiritual connection to Divinity and who have personal beliefs that hold space for the impossible and miraculous seem to have an easier time tapping into it, as there is less resistance to the flow and the ability to suspend judgement and disbelief is crucial in lubricating Neptune’s energy so it can stream *through* us. We’re just Receivers for the signal, that’s all – it doesn’t originate *from* us but is instead a god-given factory setting that allows us to tune in to the Source of all that is, was, and will ever be. The precise frequency that each one of us uses to tune into that information from Source varies, but the key is to put ourselves in settings that allow us to tune out more of the white noise of mundane life so we can pick up instead on the more subtle dimensions that might otherwise be ignored.

That last bit is crucial; the more distractions we have jamming up the input lines, the harder it is to decipher what’s what – that’s why solitude can be invaluable. Carving out time to rest, meditate, pray, sprawl out in shavasana, be still, or just get good sleep are all ways of making ourselves clearer conduits for intuitive messages to come through us. And perhaps the most important thing to understand about Neptunian intuition is how it often goes unrecognized by the Self because this planet’s energy is highly ego-effacing by nature. “Oh, that wasn’t anything; it couldn’t possibly be – I don’t have any ‘psychic’ abilities. I’m no Edgar Cayce,” is often what we tell ourselves, downplaying the significance of those nebulous impressions we shouldn’t be ignoring. The Neptunian vibe seeks no glory or recognition, being inherently self-effacing. Therefore it can easily remain a blind spot obscured from our view so that we don’t recognize it for what it truly is; a different means of understanding that comes not from the mind but from Spirit.


02/03/2018

Saturn In Capricorn: Mastering Delegation

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The 3 of Pentacles as depicted in the RWS Tarot.

Saturn in Capricorn is a lot like being the General Contractor of a jobsite; something is under construction in whatever area of your chart Saturn is currently transiting and YOU are the foreman overseeing this whole operation. Now as the GC you don’t do all the work yourself – perhaps you take on the work that you’re most qualified to do, but you hire subcontractors to take care of the more specialized jobs like the electrical, plumbing, HVAC, etc. because 1) You acknowledge these aren’t your areas of particular expertise and 2) It frees up your time so your considerable experience can be put to better use ensuring that everything is being done the right way and in the proper order. Every building plan needs someone to supervise its execution – that, my friends, is YOU.

Or, to use a different analogy, Saturn in Capricorn is similar to being the CEO of a major corporation; you’ve put the systems, proper framework, and hierarchy in place so you can concentrate on making all those high-level executive decisions. No matter how much of a control freak you are, you can’t possibly do *everything* yourself and have to rely instead on the organizational backbone you’ve established to support you/your business.

Saturn in Capricorn is an uber-responsible vibe, so often when it contacts one of our planets or visits a particular House in our chart we tend to put a lot of pressure on ourselves to TCOB. That’s all fine and good; we’re likely very ambitious and working toward some kind of monumental goal. But the weight of that burden may be heavier than expected, so it’s prudent to think about what labor can be delegated to others in order to make the load more manageable. This is not to be confused with pawning off our duties; rather it’s about orchestrating all the proper elements and putting the right support structures in place so we can reach that finish line. Mastering the Art of Delegation is important if we want to be successful during the roughly 2 ½ years that Saturn visits this sign, so by all means hire help, tag out and enlist the support of someone who’s more experienced/qualified at a particular task, and generally put people to work for you if/when possible. You don’t have to be a GC or CEO to do this; try it in any context that works for you/your situation.

01/25/2018

Chiron Trine Mars Redux: Healing Anger

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AngerIsNatural

NB: The following is an updated repost.

Mars in Scorpio sure has been bringing a lot of internal sludge up to the surface and putting it front-and-center for us all, serving it up raw-and-bleeding-style. It gets pretty hard to ignore our character defects under this vibe, as Mars in Scorpio is all about facing down anything grotty lingering in dark corners of the psyche.  Now with the Red Planet in contact to healing asteroid Chiron once again, let’s direct our attention to the tremendous healing potential afforded to us by this energy.

With Mars in Scorpio, what we are fundamentally looking at is the destructive side of anger and how it can implode on us from within if we don’t transform it. Before I go any further, let me just state that I strongly disagree with the general New Age mentality that entails automatically slapping a “negative” label on emotions such as anger – I don’t believe in judging any natural, organically-occurring emotion as being inherently “bad”.  All emotions serve a legitimate purpose, and our ire can also be a vastly effective motivational tool when channeled properly.  But for the purposes of this post, right now we’re going to be discussing the more pathological side of anger, as any planet found in Scorpio can easily corrupt if we’re not digging for the insight that allows us to turn it into a source of empowerment.  It is the nature of the beast after all; Scorpio is either the Scorpion or the Phoenix, as it is a sign of extremes.

So Mars through Scorpio (since Dec 9, 2017) has involved many of us getting face-to-face with our “demons”; anger being one of them.  But with The Red Planet now in harmonious contact with Chiron in Pisces, we start to heal this with things like compassion, acceptance, and forgiveness.  We come to an understanding that – underneath it all – anger is often just a reaction to pain, and we start confronting it instead of denying so it can be dissolved, released, and ultimately healed. Perhaps the source of this is frustration, or even deeply buried grief – if we’re into working with the metaphysical properties of stones and crystals at all, the energy of Apache Tears may be helpful to this end.  Regardless, this is a fabulous time to bravely face the REAL source of our rage: Our pain. The blessing inherent in Chiron/Mars contacts is they do tend to bestow motivation to “heal thyself”, where we are driven to seek wholeness rather than act from a place of woundedness. Along this vein, anger (especially the chronic variety) can take energy away from our individual healing process, so when we’re pissed off about something know the answer isn’t always the outward-based focus of having it out.  Sometimes it lies instead in retreating to look within so we can reflect upon the way(s) this emotion may not be truly serving us, and seeking to mend that which has been doing more harm than good.

01/18/2018

Saturn In Capricorn: The Era Of “No”

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Beginning on December 19th 2017, we’ve ushered in a new era: The Era of “No”. Whilst Saturn resides in Capricorn for roughly the next two and a half years, we are firming up our boundaries, ensuring that our time and work is respected, and turning down/away those who can’t grok this; especially so if they can’t get it together or generally behave like mature adults. This is the era of shutting shit down, folks – from the habitual line steppers, to the clueless flakes, to the chronically needy; there’s going to be a whole lotta “no” going on. As in:

Do not pass go, do not collect $200; go directly to jail – Gandalf has just become our steely new boundary-setting Saturn in Capricorn mentor  😉  No, you don’t get to take up someone’s time/energy/space free of charge. No, it’s your responsibility to be in charge of your own life, thank you very much. And no, you don’t get to suck on this teat anymore #SorryNotSorry. Saturn in Capricorn is the line-in-the-sand giving us the firm resolve to put a stop to the things that should be stopped.

On the other side of the coin, we also need to be mindful not to take this too far – we must be sure to check ourselves before checking others, because otherwise it can be easy to O.D. on this parental “enforcer” type of vibe and get too big for our britches. Saturn in Capricorn = knowing our role; what it is, what it isn’t, and staying squarely within the bounds of our own authority.