Cardinal T-Square – Part 2 – Uranus and Jupiter

So we talked over the last couple of weeks about what Pluto is up to and how it impacts all of us as it dances in the big Cardinal T-Square/Cross. To ‘revisit the bidding’ as they say in bridge:

<< – all the huge energy afoot as Uranus and Jupiter in Aries Oppose Saturn in Libra with all of them making a 90 degree angle (thus, the “T”) to Pluto in Capricorn.

All of this is occurring from about 0-3 of the aforementioned Cardinal signs. So if you have planets or points at 0-3 degrees of Aries, Libra or Capricorn you’re being directly impacted. What about the 4th cardinal sign, Cancer? Yer not off the hook – all those planets will be making stressful angles to YOUR planets too.>>

So now we’re looking at Uranus.

Uranus, ruler of Aquarius (thus near and dear to my heart) is the Change Agent. The Wild card in the deck. Akin to The Fool in Tarot, or Kokopelli - it’s Trickster energy. Uranus talks about where we are Uniquely ourselves – our own genius/quirkiness/rebelliousness. It’s the lightning bolt that you didn’t see coming. Is that “good” or “bad” – it is either! In my life
it was the divorce that was so far out of left field that 20 years later I’m still scratching my head (Uranus transiting the 8th). But it was also the book deal that fell into my lap out of left field (Uranus straddling the 9th/10th).

Uranus has been dancing between late Pisces and early Aries – it’s now drifted back to Pisces (28.41 Pisces today) and will continue retrograde til early next year.

As you know Aries is the beginning of the zodiac. It take Uranus 84 years to lope through all 12 signs. So Uranus starting a new cycle in Aries is a BFD. Expect big changes.

And friends, Uranus is a big enough change agent left to his own devices – but he’s got a pal in this venture – Jupiter! So I kinda sorta have to talk about them together as they are bosom buddies right now. As we speak Jupiter is at 28.29 Pisces. They’ve already conjuncted once at 0 Aries, now they’re both retrograde and they will be meeting again soon in Aries. They’re gonna rock this joint is what I think.

Jupiter is the planet the ancient astrologers called “The Great Benefic” – means “The major good guy”. Old Jove expands all he touches. So when he’s hanging with Uranus – the Change Bringer – expect BIG, EXPANDED change. Jupiter rules the collective, society, business – our walking around life in many ways – expect changes there. He’s the natural ruler of Sagittarius which relates also to the 9th house – so changes in publishing, law, religion could be more prominent now.

This conjunction which has been going on for awhile and will continue awhile longer is an odd one. Like Kokopelli hanging out with the Pope – they’re odd bedfellows. To my mind THIS is the part of the Cardinal Cross that will be ushering in the new age. Pluto and Saturn are clearing the path and sweeping up the detritus of the old order, but it’s Jupiter conjunct Uranus that’s gonna rock this joint and usher in the true New Age. And it’s upon us!

So now that you’ve met Quirky Uranus and Jolly Jove – where are they hanging out in YOUR chart right now??

How can you tell? Get your chart. Now find where 28 degrees of Pisces is. Find it?

HOUSE: The house Uranus and Jupiter are in will tell you what in your life needs to be totally transformed (for me, they’re in the tail end of the 10th  house – career, public standing). 

And – ‘bonus points’ if Uranus/Jupiter are going through the angles – the 1st, 4th, 7th or 10th houses -those are the major areas of life and when an outer planet transits those houses one expects to see big changes manifesting in the world (1= me; 4-=home ; 7 = partner; 10 = career).

PLANETS: What planets in your chart are at 28 Pisces, Gemini, Virgo or Sagittarius? The Pisces planets are being conjuncted by Uranus/Jupiter, the Gemini and Sagittarius planets are being squared by the duo and the Virgo planets are being opposed by them. I have natal Uranus at 26 Gemini, so these guys are just past that – they’ll retrograde back over the next little bit so that my natal Uranus is being squared by these guys. Squares are thought to be the most stressful angles – so what does this mean? I look to
the meaning of Uranus (our need to be unique, our own genius, our rebelliousness) and it’s house placement (1st, conjunct the ASC) – 1st is our self – body, sense of self. And I look at the sign placement of my natal Uranus – Gemini = Communications, short journeys, school, writing. So with transiting Jupiter/Uranus in the 10th house affecting my natal Uranus in the 1st I can expect changes in my work that affect my life. Which is exactly what I have right now – a new job that will mean commuting to the city, and a job that is likely to be somewhat stressful, though lucrative.

POINTS: If Pluto is making an aspect to your Ascendant (aka ‘rising sign) or Midheaven (called M.C.) you can similarly expect big changes. Ascendant is personality, appearance, YOU. Midheaven is your public standing, your reputation, your place in the world, the gateway to your career house. Right now Uranus and Jupiter are too far to be squaring my 23 Gemini ASC but it’s close! So look in YOUR chart – any connections there?

As we go through the rest of this whole lineup, we’ll want to also see how these guys blend together. What did you note in our last lesson on Pluto? Now what do you see with Uranus and Jupiter? Any overlap? How many planet and points in your chart are being affected thus far? Remember – we still have Saturn in our roll call – it ain’t over yet!

Okay – over to you – how about a roll-call, check. Ally-ally-in-free? Who is being affected now by transiting Uranus and Jupiter at 28 (more or less)Pisces? Anything from 26-30 mutable really counts on this one. Speak up!

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A new day IS dawning ~ and collectively we can expedite the goodness and beauty

For those of us who “lean left” to quote a friend of mine, it’s been an amazing 24 hours:  Proposition 8 overturned in California, only to be followed in mere hours by the seeming certainty of Elena Kagan being appointed to the Supreme Court.  Wow!

My dad, who will turn 87 in the fall, tells me “Diane, you never know what will happen in life. That’s why I get out of bed each morning – to see what will happen next.”

As noted here before, the astrology blogsophere has been more full of doom and gloom this summer than a Tea Party convention.  “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

What’s happening, I think is that the sun is setting and a new day is dawning.  We can keep looking longingly at the setting sun, wringing our hands and saying “ain’t it awful…” or we can wait, breathlessly and in prayerful, hopeful anticipation as the new day dawns and like my dad say “I wonder what will happen next?”

Whether you’re reading/listening to/watching the news and/or watching “the stars” or (best) meditating and tuning in to the Cosmos, you must surely see that “we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto”.  And yet, we’re not in Oz yet either.  We are most assuredly “on the road to findout” as Cat Stevens used to sing.

And if it’s true (as I believe it is) that what we focus on expands, then whatever our opinion of the current zeitgeist we’re best served by constantly looking for the good, looking for the just, looking for the beautiful and focusing on that.

Yesterday was President Obama’s birthday.  Tomorrow the Cardinal Grand Cross/T-Square has a big finale.  I must admit, even positive me had some not so positive fears as I looked at those juxtapositions and what the planetary ‘weather map’ seemed to be telling me (as I studied it months in advance).

But (for those who speak my language) Uranus is not only the Great Awakener, but also the Bringer of Big Surprises.  Teaming up as he is with Jupiter (the Big Expander) – well, that’s code for Big Surprises and Big Changes.

So I will continue to envision Big Goodness unfolding in surprising ways – not just “out there” but “in here”.  And the more of us that get on the Polar Express and BELIEVE – believe in the good, in God’s grace, in a beautiful world – the more quickly that goodness will manifest. 

Will you help us all to birth this new age?  I do believe it’s time.

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This changes everything

Wow.  What a day!

Gay marriage – Prop 8 overturned in California.

I got a new iPhone 4.

Two seemingly totally unrelated events.  But they are related in two ways:

- They both make me crazy happy.  I nearly wept with joy when I saw the verdict come down on Proposition 8 today.  Then, while hardly of the same global import, I was grinning like a little kid when I picked up my new iPhone 4 tonight at the AT&T store.

- “This changes everything” – in both cases, I think that’s true.

And on that count I think both are of importance to a broader demographic than me.

First, gay marriage.  I’m old enough to remember Stonewall, back in 1969, which was the kickoff event for what came to be known as the Gay Liberation Movement.  Four years later when I was realizing it was a movement of which I was a member (not in the sense of being an activist, but coming out) I don’t think I thought gay marriage would be possible in my lifetime.  Lo, these 40 years later, today’s ruling makes me believe that it IS possible.  I truly got teary eyed.  My friend Barbara said tonight that she is neither black nor gay but today’s ruling gave her the same sense of exhilaration and hope as she felt when President Obama was inaugurated – we didn’t grow up thinking we’d have a black president or that gay people would be able to marry just like their straight brothers and sisters.

Yes, I know as my childhood hero Yogi Berra used to say “it ain’t over til it’s over” and this one is likely to go all the way to the Supremes (and I don’t mean Diana Ross & co).  But —- WOW.  This changes everything.

Meanwhile, in a totally different way so does the iPhone 4.  Having been burned by being too early an adapter of technology before (I got one of the very first digital cameras, for instance – paid a small fortune for something big, clunky and quickly outdated) so I held out on the whole smartphone thing.  I kind of got the ‘big deal’ about it, but this part Dutch, part Scottish girl didn’t want to part with even more money per month to my second biggest monthly bill – AT&T. 

So I picked up the phone about 8:30 – got into the car and my other best friend Sue called me.  Realized the young man hadn’t shown me all of the logistics of calls – but I intuitively knew exactly how to do all the things I wanted to do – answer the phone, put it on speaker phone, hang up, then call my best guy friend Bill, chat, hang up.  Easy peasy.

Came home, loaded up iTunes and all sorts of stuff from my laptop onto my tiny computer aka phone.  Then I decided to check out apps – and quickly downloaded a bunch of free and very useful apps and even popped for $2.99 for Scrabble.

But here’s what really got me – the phone has more features than most laptops I’ve owned.  It’s small, light, truly beautiful and portable.  I can update my blog, check on your comments here (you will leave them so I can test that, now won’t you?), update Facebook, see what you had to say, shop, etc.

Oh I know –you’ve had your smartphone for 2 years now and this is old hat to you.

But have you really thought about how MUCH this changes everything?  We’re in the wee tiny infancy of constant connectivity.  I’m ‘dreaming a bigger dream’ because of this and I’ve had it all of 2 hours now!  There are just so many possibilities, so many enablers, so many new ways of doing things.

For my astrologically inclined readers, I’m seeing this entry of Uranus and Jupiter into Aries as truly new beginnings.  This day, particularly I am feeling like we are the verge of  a very new world indeed.

I think that’s what has our friends on the right so fearful and worried – the old order is quickly passing away and the new one is (finally) beginning to dawn.

The young man at the store was named Garrett.  That was my grandfather’s name, though he found it too Dutch and old-world-like and wanting to be whatever they called hip back in the 1910s, he changed it to George.  This Garrett tonight was so young and handsome and just whipped through setting up my phone.  I thought of what a perfect job that was for a young man now and I wondered as I drove home, what Garrett’s life would be like when he was looking back about 40 years from now.  I wonder if he’ll be as astonished at how things can change as I am tonight.

“It’s gonna be a bright, bright, bright bright sunshiney day….”

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And for my astro readers – on the current Cardinal T-square

I just wrote about how our view of life – puppets on a string? masters of our fate? – affects our experiences.  For my readers who are of the astrological persuasion, here’s something I posted elsewhere on the current Cardinal T-Square (Grand Cross for a day when Moon is in Cancer on August 6):

Transits are simply current energy afoot. Just as in life – we respond to what is presented to us partially in response to the stimulus (in this case, the transits) and partially due to our own patterns, predilections and ‘way of being’. So I have the Cardinal grand cross (when the moon is in Cancer on the 6th the current T-square will become (for 24 hours) a grand cross) right on top of my 0.38 Libra moon.

If I didn’t know much about astrology (been studying 35 years or so) or life (been studying that a lot of  years) I might totally flip out.  Moon is in 4th which exacerbates it all. Oh no! the sky is falling!

But back in the real world, how I am responding to all this pressure on my moon (mom, emotions, nurturing, the Deep Feminine, habits, women, the public) is to change (Uranus opposing it) my habits (moon itself) in a structured (Saturn conjunct it) active (mars conjunct) and big (Jupiter opposed) way that will transform (Pluto) not only my body (moon) and life, but also my relationships to others, especially potential partners (Pluto transiting the 7th) and my ability to stay employed in the workplace (Uranus & Jupiter transiting  the 10th).

Why am I reacting this way instead of the 10,000 other ways one could respond to the same aspects? I think it’s due to my natal Mars/MC/Sun conjunction – I tend towards action. I also think my Saturn in the 4th gives me an advantage of feeling routines and structures/restrictions to be grounding in some very deep way.

Of course my natal placements could play out totally different – Uranus conj ASC & Trine Sun = an extremely rebellious me.

My point isn’t “Me! Me! Me!” but to give an example that the planets aren’t “the deciders” to quote the ever so quotable George Bush – WE ARE. If you know astrology you can look at what is going on and make some choices.

I get that life will also choose for you – my friends recently diagnosed or re-diagnosed with cancer or friends losing parents, et al – but in that case we CHOOSE how to respond.

We are NOT helpless puppets, though, in a more spiritual cosmic way there are forces at play and we are both more able to respond and also more powerless than we ever imagine.

As Mary Oliver says “What do you want to do with your one wild and precious life?”

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Saturn opposed Uranus for the final time

My non astrologically inclined readers (those with no interest)  – go talk amongst yourselves for a bit.  Because today we had a doozy of an aspect in the heavenly dance and I wanted to write a bit about it for my astrologically inclined readers.

Imagine this.  The upstart young skateboard dude, covered in tats, his very demeanor showing his total disregard for any social conventions (“rules? we don’t need no stinking rules”) has been going up against The Man – the banker, the priest, the Corporate mogul.

Or better – legions of us who played by the rules – put off that European vacation to pump up the 401k, only to see it go careening – nosedive down, chug back up, churn and drop – where’s it gonna go?  And what happens if the bottom drops out again?  All of a sudden, perfectly “normal” middle class people are saying “Hey! We’re not gonna take it anymore!”

And meanwhile – the bankers, the priests, the corporate moguls, the politicians, the generals – as we said back in my day “the Establishment” – are being exposed on a daily (hourly?) basis.  It’s just a man behind that curtain and a very flawed man at that.

Suddenly you’re driving down a pretty normal road and – whoa? what is that in the Illinois cornfield? That would be a big industrial strength windmill.

Bob was right - the times they ARE a changing.

And these two Titans (for they were that in Greek mythology, as I recall) – Uranus and Saturn have been duking it out for a while now.

Saturn – Father Time; The Grim Reaper; The Great Teacher – the ancient astrologers referred to him as “the Great Malefic” (the major bad guy).  Saturn isn’t bad – he just wants a little order.  Some respect.  A solid (and serious foundation).

And you know what?  We need him – in our world, in our own charts, in our lives.  Ruling teeth and bones and corporations and establishment type values.  Structure.

Now, Uranus – The Change Agent; The Great Awakener; the Bolt of Lightning – in the Tarot it’s The Fool.  Uranus is that bolt out of the blue that changes everything.  The book deal that falls into your lap abruptly; the lover who walks in and says she’s leaving and takes your breath away with the surprise, the man who comes home from his wife’s funeral and lies down to rest and just dies.  Shocking.  Surprising. Unexpected. And sometimes – just the jolt that is needed.  The Awakener, to be sure, and just as needed as Saturn.

So these two have had 5 rounds in the ring since the fall of 2008.  Today is ‘last call’ – at least for a while. 

As Lynn Hayes says in her post on Saturn-Uranus “Saturn and Uranus have opposed each other twice in the past 100 years: between 1917 and 1920, and between 1964 and 1967.” – Lynn Hayes.

If you look at the other years when these two have danced – sitting uncomfortably next to each other on the couch in 1942 and 1988, and squaring off (not outright throwing punches, but taking jabs) in 1909, 1930, 1951, 1975 and 1999 you can recognize some times of big change in the culture (and for those of who’ve been around awhile, in our own lives).

Last year, looking at the planetary configurations for this summer I thought – wow, it’s going to be 1968 all over again.  I have remained shocked that the Great Robbery by the Rich in 2008/2009 did NOT result in mass demonstrations and upheaval. 

I’m hoping that the current zeitgeist will lead to an Awakening about the Establishment (why people don’t get that we are in a Plutocracy is way beyond me), will lead to a Revolution of the Heart about our values and the structures we’ve built and will lead us to a positive radical change.

It’s just terrible that so many turtles and fish and people in the Gulf have had to suffer and so many men, women, children and soldiers have had to die needlessly in Afghanistan to help expedite the awakening.

May they not die in vain. May we be jolted into consciousness - that we really really ARE the ones we’ve been waiting for.

The planets don’t proscribe, they describe. They don’t cause anything – like a clock, they describe.  Uranus (who is hanging out with Jupiter – the Great Benefic – the expander of things) is in Aries – the Child, the Pioneer, the Adventurer.  A fire sign.  Saturn is in Libra, which is all about relationships. 

Lots of energy afoot.  Me?  I’m betting on the young dude.  I AM betting on hope and change and optimism. 

And I’m hoping it will be gentle.  That’s my hope.

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We are the ones we’ve been waiting for (as Jupiter conjuncts Uranus in Aries)

“We are the ones
We are the ones
We’ve been waiting

We are the ones
We are the ones
We’ve been waiting

We are the ones we’ve been waiting for
We are the ones we’ve been waiting for
 .. Per Alice Walker “it was the poet June Jordan who wrote  “We are the ones we have been waiting for.” Sweet Honey in the Rock turned those words into a song.”

I was singing it tonight after hanging out with my friend Julie.  I’ve known Julie since we were both very young and we share many interests, astrology being one of them.  Tomorrow the planet Jupiter conjoins the planet Uranus in in the first few minutes of the sign Aries.  Means in English a Big (Jupiter) Change (Uranus) is coming that is Pioneering (Aries) and will affect us all personally (Aries).

We talked about the astro-blogosphere and the new age folk as well as the fundies on the right are all in an uproar about end-times and The Sky Appears to Be Falling – and FAST!

Julie is a big fan of the Dalai Lama – she follows him whenever he’s in the Midwest.  I guess he was also recently on TV and people were asking about all of this – what does it mean that we’re having
so many natural disasters, etc.  He giggled (I like that about him a lot) and said we’re doing very well, actually.  That we’re learning compassion – and its all good.

When I hear that great song “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for” my 60s hippie mind goes towards activism – get off your butt and make it a better world.  And I tend to think of the larger zeitgeist – you know
“you can change the world.  Rearrange the world – it’s dying…”

One of my most oft-used quotes is “Act or be acted upon!” – I cajole people with that somewhat regularly and remind my own self, too.

Well, tonight Julie and I were also talking about our love lives or lack thereof.  Ms. Pot over there said to Ms. Kettle over here that perhaps I could maybe unlock one of the 22 locks on my heart and be a bit more open to love coming my way.

and all of our words came together in a way that makes me very excited about Uranus conjunct jupiter in aries tomorrow:  “We ARE the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

Meaning not only “get off yer ass and into action to save the world.”, but also
- maybe what the world needs is more love and less Mighty Mouse bravado
- maybe what i need is more love and less bravado
- maybe it’s the John Hiatt lyrics running around my head the last few days:

“It’ll come to you
Don’t look back, it’ll come to you
In the middle of the night, with you covers pulled up tight
It’ll come to you”

So, whether “jupiter conjunct Uranus in 0 Aries” means something to you or makes you think I’m blipping nuts, don’t you think that We really truly ARE the ones we’ve been waiting for, in all ways, and this is as good a day as any
to wake up and know that – and let love (in all its ways) open the door.

Yeah.  I think so.

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