Monarch Forecast: March 2016
Saturn Hanging in the Balance & The Shifting of the Divine Masculine
In the month of March, Saturn hangs in the balance – at a 90 degree angle to both nodes of the Moon. With Saturn hanging in the balance between both points of this Destiny Axis, plans do not go as planned – unless both sides of the balance beam (of which Saturn is the fulcrum) are worked.
An image to start with for this is the Emperor (of the tarot) and the concept of the inner-father. While the Divine Masculine is in cultural flux, it is up to each individual to bring forth their most illuminated inner-masculine. There is still much to the masculine experience (as I am able to observe) that is kept in the dark, quiet…. in the domain of Saturn’s suppression. Unfortunately “men’s rights” is not doing the work around this exactly, either. There is a quietness sometimes to that which is just and righteous… likewise a loudness to the brash and deprave. Ever heard that the wise one doesn’t speak, but only the fool speaks? As a writer obsessed with wisdom, I’ve had to grapple with that one my whole life. I don’t think it needs to be this way, but sometimes it is. What merits words, and what needs to be kept in the dark? What secrets are meant to be made public to liberate others? When is keeping it together – versus letting it all out – the most ethical choice? When does that become rigidity? These are the kind of questions a Saturn hanging in the balance would lead us to ask… and generally how do we go about organizing the very foundations or structures of our lives when so much seems up in the air?
Though this un-integrated yang energy of Saturn in Sagittarius does not come without a little help from its yin. The points of which Saturn balances through this month are both feminine points – a feminine axis between the archetypes of Virgo and Pisces. But to make the whole affair a little more complex, each node is in conjunction with a celestial body: the South Node in Pisces is conjunct Chiron (and this month that conjunction goes exact), and the North Node in Virgo is conjunct Jupiter in Virgo.
By transit collectively, the lunar nodes affect the evolutionary storyline on earth – what archetypes are being triggered or are triggering planetary evolution. With the nodes currently in Virgo and Pisces, we are learning to specify and specialize, to assimilate higher knowledge, to pull ourselves out of hazy, unclear, “mystery” and make it clear and scientific, orderly and expansive in that orderliness. Think for example in history of cities learning about sanitation, and how that naturally allowed development and expansion to occur in the cultures who practiced this.
Both Virgo and Pisces carry potentials of avoidance – when we think something is too complex or mysterious or complicated to even tackle it. Like a messy room that’s just too messy to clean. Or a person who feels so underwater in their emotional baggage they don’t see the point of swimming to the surface. When Pisces and Virgo work together, we learn that there is always order to chaos, order in the mystery. That we can develop practices to hone our awareness of things that were previously mystifying – like a yogi or a dancer who, after practicing for years, begins to have a magically enhanced awareness of the body. This person will be able to feel particular muscles working throughout the day rather than it just being an involuntary process of the body.
This month we may find our structural life tipping to either extreme in the balance. If we are too obsessed with order – the Virgo polarity – keeping things neat and clean, we may lose out on some fluid, ineffable insight that can only come to us in moments of repose or dissolve. Yet if we have no structure or boundary at all, say if we are practicing compassion or a concept of unconditional love that really involves not doing anything and suffering abuses; we find that we need the discernment of Virgo to lift ourselves out of the water. We need the practice and showing up of Virgo to keep from drowning in apathy. We need to dream, we need moments to dissolve, we need to get high. We need altered states of consciousness, we need to see behind the veil, receive sight to our third eye. This month as you find difficulty in the overall structure of your life, it is one of these points that is calling out for a little more attention.
Healthful activities and medicines in Virgo and Jupiter: Learning skill, expanding consciousness of the higher mechanics of an art or craft, working with our hands, crafting, honing craft, staying busy doing things that matter and are in our truth to attend to, showing up for the truth, not having time for bullshit anymore, learning about herbs and the Earth, learning about holistic health, making small adjustments that enhance our health in big ways, calibrating our sensitivity, honoring the process and not skipping steps of that process, allowing the process to be non-linear and discerning when this becomes procrastination or when the side-projects are part of the way back to center.
Healthful activities and medicines in Pisces and Chiron: playing pretend, expanding the imagination, healing through stories, getting real about our victim-mindsets where they exist and looking deeper or receiving greater spiritual clarity, practicing forgiveness, forgiving ourselves and others, seeing behind the veil – allowing the magic of the Universe to present itself, connecting to Spirit, meditative baths, meditative visits to water, wisdom of the ocean, wisdom of from which all comes and to all returns, finding true flow and the true Tao and not the manmade structure of time but finding a way to merge and reconcile them, strengthening the intuition, listening in, sharing spiritual knowledge or awareness with others who want to know.
New Moon Eclipse in Pisces: Turning Wounds of the Past into Wisdom of the Future
This New Moon eclipse on March 8 occurs on the South Node in Pisces, along with Chiron and Ceres, with Neptune and Mercury following behind. Overall this is a stellium pattern, meaning there is a chain of planets in conjunction to one another. There will be a clear illumination on what our past patterns are, especially past patterns of wounding – storylines we have found ourselves in time and time again. Something simple – maybe something huge. It is time to see the way out, which cannot happen without first identifying objectively what it is we are wanting to escape from. The way out is never really the way out though, just deeper in and through. Your guiding light for the New Moon Eclipse is the North Node in Virgo conjunct Jupiter: SEEK and you will FIND the answers to your most intense, all-encompassing questions. Seek systems of knowledge that demystify the chaos. Let go of hopelessness, but also let go of false hope. Either is an illusion. When we find ourselves feeling empty or disoriented, we are actually emptying ourselves of prior beliefs and orientations that gave us security. As Pisces rules the way – the tao – think of a river and how it does keep flowing, no matter the obstacle. Sometimes there is a lot of maneuvering, and sometimes there are big drop-offs. Even manmade dams are fallible- eventually the flow must flow. In deep quiet, in deep presence – or in celebratory and loud participation with it all – we find the flow. Don’t seek an escape. Allow life itself to be the fantasy that it is. Healing starts here. As you can identify and pinpoint the dysfunction in your realm, use the NN-Jupiter in Virgo to develop a practice that begins to shift your reality into greater health and fitness… all you need to do is show up for the work.
Jupiter in Virgo Trine Pluto in Capricorn: Big Gifts, Big Releasing, Big Change
Jupiter outgrows things in its process of expansion. We can experience more abundance this month as we let go of the things that are holding us back. Jupiter rules Sagittarius, the archer, and picture the release of the arrow here when it comes to “letting go” and being launched into a direction with momentum based on the choice of what we decided to let go (an energetic rebound).
A good way to work the Jupiter-Pluto trine would be to make a conscious list of things you are deciding to part with. Seems scary almost does it not? Like a little contract. Or maybe it’s so obvious to you, what you wish to part with. The idea of making it conscious though is that it mobilizes the process. This is an auspicious time for letting go of addictions and compulsions, mostly because the gifts coming through once something is released are highly emphasized.
On accepting gifts and accepting Abundance, and letting go of fears that arrive when one is receiving blessings – does it feel too good to be true? Luckily for us if that’s the case, it’s a sign that you are outgrowing an old limitation. Your world previously accommodated gifts to a limit. Like a ceiling. When life gets better; we’re so often scared of the ride coming back down.. but what if that’s a waste of time? What if it’s an upward-climbing spiral? We are going to have our rough times – however- how much do we hold back from the good times because of a fear of them ending? What if we could rewrite this story energetically?
I have a friend who rewrote stories of her past. She sat down with a pen and paper and thought about the themes in her life she didn’t like or want to experience anymore. Then she followed them to the root, a place in childhood she could identify where this story potentially began. And she took those early life stories and rewrote them as if they had just occurred, and she was a child again, but she rewrote them according to what her values are now. Try it out – how often are we attracting karma we’re just used to? Make the change, and get lucky with Jupiter-Pluto.
Full Moon in Libra: Grace & The Fool, Letting “Mistakes” Be Stepping Stones
I have grown to appreciate that Aries (where our Sun will be as it makes a full illumination of the Moon in Libra on the 23rd) is represented by the archetype of the Fool, while its opposite sign, Libra, is so oriented with grace. Polarities and opposites have nothing to do with not being alike – they are actually very similar energies existing on a spectrum together. I was dancing with someone who commented that they enjoyed that it was okay to be “foolish” in dancing, and suddenly the Aries-Libra axis shot to my mind. It then made so much sense that the path of grace included blunders along the way… learning through experience by freely making mistakes and discovering the self in this process.
The Sun in Aries is our foolish energy, shining and illuminating the Moon in Libra. The question for this Full Moon is then how does our foolishness, our brashness, our willingness to be bold and to take risks, make us beautiful?
The “Fool” archetype is not adored for his mistakes, he is loved for his innocence and his willingness to take the first step. In relation to Libra, think of how much innocence has charmed you… how someone’s willingness to extend themselves or speak plain and bold of how they felt toward you inspired you to build some kind of relationship to them, if it was in a passing moment or a longer series of moments.
This Full Moon is also accompanied by an exact square between Jupiter in Virgo and Saturn in Sagittarius. Jupiter in Virgo is where we experience the Guru through process – trial and error perhaps – and Saturn in Sagittarius speaks to the adventure in discovering the boundaries, our “rights” and “wrongs” however shifting and mutable they may be. Outside of human constructions… think of how you may have learned to interact and communicate with an animal. Here there are not our typical constructs – but just an interaction with what is – and it becoming ever and ever more skillful and attuned. Use your Fool to find the grace. Dare to be on new territory.
~Monarch
(Art: Jason DeMarte)
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