A CAUSE WORTH FIGHTING FOR
AUGUST BEGINS with a tense-yet-enlightening Uranus-squared full moon in Aquarius on the 3rd. This Moon asks disturbing Aquarian questions:
What values, beliefs and world views (if any) must I share with someone in order to call them my friend? Can I feel deeply connected with a soul whose politically encoded synaptic activity doesn’t match my own?
More importantly:
Is “friendship” a troublesome and unnecessary preconception that blinds us to the karma and chemistry we have with whoever God places directly in front of us? If “The Friend” is peering out from the eyes of everyone, why the rush to subdivide? Is not all personality play transitory? Don’t we deserve something more reliable?
As Pluto/Saturn continues to crumble our world and life becomes increasingly disorienting and unpredictable, insecure egos seek solid ground by taking sides and polarizing against whoever seems to embody the beliefs that gave birth to the mess. In the face of so much chaos, with no clearly defined causes or solutions, frightened minds dogmatize and tribalize. Families splinter. Friends are flushed down the toilet.
Look out! Here comes the Aquarius Full Moon marching down the streets of our psyche screaming,
The world was always crumbling! Why get so melodramatic about what is simply speeding up? Would you prefer a frozen river? Without impermanence, would any of us ever return to the ground of being?
For the ambitious and the visionary, August is a time of rugged commitment and the overcoming of repeated obstacles and limitations. For the less patient and more entitled, it’s a time of frustrating delays and intense egoic friction.
Better to channel our risk-taking fire into a project. A lot of hard work can get done this month before Mars goes retrograde (Sep 9-14) when our efforts are best confined to projects already begun.
Most of all, August is a time to eat humble pie as we keep tipping our hat to the huffy Mars square for exposing all the adolescent, identity-grabby ways we assert personal will. Who, but the red planet, has the nerve to keep outing our orphaned bravado, so we can take refuge in The Tao?
Note for Fridge
To the speed of grace, mind says “faster!”
Perceiver-in-chief, my lord and master.
Three Hot Zones
1) On August 4th, when Mars squares Jupiter, we have the courage to start a new, visionary project. Beware, however, of making hasty decisions and overestimating your strength, health, and resources.
2) On August 10- 13th, Mars squares Pluto. Beware of using excessive force or becoming the victim of same. In some countries, this is when we may see the resumption of lockdowns, exacerbated by violent protests. Foreplay for martial law?
3) Later, on August 24th, Mars in Aries squares Saturn in Capricorn. The harder we fight against an adversary, the stronger it becomes. Best to live to fight another day rather than get drawn into in a battle that can’t be won.
A Cause Worth Fighting For
August is a crash course in how to channel the Aries archetype. Why? Because, for the next six months, Mars in Aries will be forming a tense, confrontational square with the Saturn/Pluto/Jupiter conjunction. Your mission (should you decide to accept it) is to peek underneath the trendy positionality and groupthink on the streets to the frustratingly vague, unnamed yearning that’s fueling all this bravado:
How do I effectively confront someone with their true nature as awareness, itself, having a personality?
Ah, now there’s a cause worth fighting for. Questions like these are truly revolutionary and dangerous to the established order. Why? Because the simple truth is that we can’t motivate compassion and self-inquiry in another unless we are lost in the throes of it ourselves. It’s 90% transmission, 10% ignition. Here’s a few pointers to get you started.
How to talk to an opinion-stricken soul
First step: rest into not-knowing who you are, who they are, or what the truth is. Next, wonder out loud:
So, if we were ruled by conscious beings who enacted laws that create a level playing field that serves everyone equally, what next? Is that the endgame?
Of course not.
Over and over, keep asking, What would that give you? As we peel away the layers of the wanting mind, it usually becomes clear that the core of what is desired is the space to relax more deeply into our wisely loving hearts and feel into the true meaning of life.
At this point, you might ask, “Can we do this together, right now?”
Of course, some will balk, insisting that gooey oneness is premature. What is needed now is direct Aries action, they say, and until we have a society that takes care of the earth and provides all beings with equal rights, a secure job and sufficient space to relax and inquire, meditative self-inquiry is irresponsible and self-indulgent because it leaves the keepers of the status quo unchallenged.
At this point, we best concede:
Yes, sadly, meditation is sometimes used as political numbing agent.
On the other hand, it’s unrealistic tho think we can socially engineer awakening, right? Me-stories die hard and self-reckoning is difficult under the best of circumstances, no?
But enough of the inner life. Let’s talk about what’s actually happening our there on the streets. Again, ponder out loud:
Surely there’s a soulful, yet effective, form of dissent that doesn’t add to our own and other’s trauma. What might that look like?
I mean, if everything we say and do stains the atmosphere of our inner life, isn’t it just a matter of time before the anger we display in the streets spills out onto our family and friends?
You get the idea.
Bottom line: Don’t be “Aries stupid.” Instead of going Mars-to-Mars, be the water-warrior they’re secretly looking for by staying true to the higher symbolism of the Saturn/Pluto/Jupiter conjunction. Namely: Be the Saturn hermit arising from the Pluto underworld holding a lantern of Jupiter light.
Here’s a visual aid from my book, Twelve Wheels of Karma: Astrology as a tool for meditation and self-inquiry, to help keep those polarizing Aries impulses in check.
Aries Wheel of Individuation:
Pioneering Presence to Dispirited Dupe
Every ego strays. The question is, Will we return to the timeless presence that we truly are, with nobility and minimal stress, by breaking the momentum of the wheel at the window of sanity: self-conscious sovereignty? Or will we get dragged all the way around the wheel, crawling back into timeless Being in a state of humiliation and ego exhaustion?
The message of the Aries Wheel of Individuation is simple:
Sovereignty is an illusion on load from the Divine. It was given us so we might learn how to walk the somebody/nobody tightrope– to be mad enough to be mortal, sane enough to disappear. The result? A healthy interpersonal synapse across which to send the Divine spark. Standing at the witnessing center of the Aries wheel gives us the ability to manage our Divine heat and aim it at full-spectrum intimacy.
Notice: At “self-conscious sovereignty,” we still have a choice to circle back up to “Instrument of Divine Will.” Will we continue descending into the myopic thrill of personal will, or circle back for a swig of the storyless presence that interpenetrates and connects us all? Will we remember that sovereignty is an illusion on loan from the Divine and allow this humbling realization to infiltrate our day-to-day actions, or will we claim ownership of will and allow our divinely endowed courage to devolve into ego-pumping friction and spirit-severing defeat?
Aug 18th New Moon in Leo
Heroic activation of our most honorable selves
Trine to Mars, this confidence-inspiring New Moon in Leo inspires us to take leadership in ways that honor our deepest heart. Taken together with the approaching Mars/Saturn square (Aug 24-26) the end of August bodes well for working hard within a specific set of Saturnian limits so we can put the cherry on a project that culminates before September 9th when Mars goes retrograde.
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