THE DEMON OF EGO AND THE ANGEL OF PRESENCE
October is littered with lurid leaks and daring disclosures.
It’s a muckraking, calm-before-the-storm kind of month– a time to strategically reposition, stock-up and spirtually prepare for the scruffy tug-o-wars of November/December when Mars in Scorpio starts triggering the Saturn/Uranus square and the mechanisms of control are laid bare, mounting an urgent, collective response during this year’s final, culminating eclipse season.
In the mean time, Mercury retrograde in Libra (Sep 26-Oct 18th) showers us with introspective blessings. I suggest three themes:
1) Confession
During the first two weeks, Mercury is conjunct both the Sun and Mars in Libra. Think: “the risk to communicate your true heart.” At the same time, this planetary pile-up forms a trine to Jupiter (pattern-seeing truth) and squares Pluto (taboo truth). Taken together, this is a time for intelligent, heartfelt forms of confession that deepen our authenticity and re-ignite (or entirely reform) our Libran relationships.
2) Middle Path
We’ve all felt the sting of isolation, masking and quarantines. October is a time to reunite and repair, together.
If the lockdowns have taught us anything, it is this:
Egos need daily flushing feedback from community to stay sane and well-managed. Without “soul-mirrors,” mind goes crazy with self-absorption and our me-stories harden into dangerous spiky things that don’t belong in our system.
October is a clarion call to stop polarizing and start finding harmonious “middle path” solutions. Should we fail, polite Libran discourse may soon erupt into a spine-tingling Scorpio scream:
Wake up! Wake up! The tyranny is spreading faster than the virus!
3) Addiction
No one escapes. Every birth chart points to some kind of addiction. But what, exactly, is addiction? Johann Hari nails it:
The opposite of addiction is not sobriety; it’s connection.
Let that sink in.
At the heart of addiction is a festering, normalized and unattended-to sense of orphanedness and it is the Libran art of relationship that makes those 12-step meetings work. Without daily meditation, prayer– and some measure of merging with the agelessly innocent souls we call our friends, family and community– some kind of all-absorbing, communion-replacement will, over time, take shape.
Said another way, humans need devotional embrace. Without it, it’s just a matter of time before they chase after flickers of carnal absorption that, over and over, fall depressingly flat.
Not sure what your addiction is? Let’s talk.
October 20th Full Moon in Aries
War Zone
From the moment we first opened our eyes, innumerable factions of the world have been warring for our attention. The battle extends inwardly. Our mind, all minds, think nothing of beheading the divine pause and seizing the ego-hardening narrative. These inner and outer war zones are, in themselves, not tragic; they are exactly the motivation we need to take cover in the arms of the Merciful Witness.
The problems arise when we think the war is over. When we lay down our sword of attention in apparent peacetime. Thats when gladiators, like this full Moon, rush in, shouting, The enemy is at the gate! Don your armor and man your sword!
Yes, the Sun is still in the peace-loving sign of Libra, but it’s conjunct Mars, the god of war, and opposed combative Moon in Aries. More importantly, both Sun and Moon are square Pluto.
At the outermost edges of our solar system, Pluto prowls the boundary of the known and unknown. Battered and pocked, it’s built to survive the dark void and it empowers us to do the same.
During this Full Moon, Pluto’s message is clear:
November approaches and the stakes are high. Will we out-picture the power struggle between the demon of ego and angel of presence or will we contain and transform it?
The choice, in the end, is between reverie and depression.
Depression is what happens when all we have and all we know is this world, governed by a sterilized, secondhand concept of god.
Reverie is what happens when all we have and all we know is timeless presence- the shapeless One animating all the shifting shapes.
With gravelly voice and menacing grin, Pluto growls,
Don’t be A Shape-a-holic.
Note for fridge
Attention is our worship
Bowed deep to god of awful
The cathedral aisles of I AM
A church turned into brothel
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