Trust and Love

Sacred and Useful Texts.

On Watchfulness and Holiness 

Written for Theodolous

Watchfulness is a spiritual method which, if sedulously practised over a long period, completely frees us with God's help from impassioned thoughts, impassioned words and evil actions.  It leads, in so far as this is possible, to a sure knowledge of the inapprehensible God, and helps us to penetrate the divine and hidden mysteries.  It enables us to fulfil every divine commandment in the Old and New Testaments and bestows upon us every blessing of the age to come.  It is in the true sense, purity of heart, a state blessed by Christ when he says: 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God' (Matt 5:8); and one which because of it's spiritual nobility and beauty-- or rather because of our negligence-- is now extremely rare among monks.  Because this is its nature, watchfulness is to be brought only at a great price.  But once established in us, it guides us to a true and holy way of life.  It teaches us how to activate the three aspects of our soul correctly, and how to keep a firm guard over the senses.  It promotes the daily growth of the four principal virtues, and is the basis of our contemplation. 

From the Philokalia:

The Philokalia is a collection of texts written between the fourth and the fifteenth centuries by spiritual masters of the Orthodox Christian tradition.  It was compiled in the eighteenth century by two Greek monks, St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain of Athos (1749-1809) and St Makarios of Corinth (1731-1805) . . . .(Introduction)

The primary value of these texts is that many of them provide personal accounts from monks who lived as ascetics in seclusion in the desert and got to know themselves very well.  Many of the texts give very practical instruction as to what one can expect to come up against after long and sedulously practised 'self observation' -- watchfulness.

The Philokalia helped give Gurdjieff valuable ideas about how to order one's inner life in order to observe it, and that by observing one's inner life (in an orderly way), it becomes more ordered.

As my teacher so beautifully said, turning on a light (the light of consciousness) to illuminate a messy room, (your psyche) does not in and of itself clean up the mess.  But that now you can see the mess. 

Much of the Philokalia must be read in as much cultural context as you can possibly imagine for the times.  The body is seen as being something of an enemy to the soul, when we now understand that the body and soul are intimately interwoven throughout our life on earth.  I haven't come across any women I can recollect in the Philokalia, they seem nonexistent and I wouldn't be surprised if they do surface (there are five volumes and I haven't read them all) I'd imagine it's in the form of some sort of  temptress.  Grain of salt time, but there are gems. 

As with everything my advice is to trust what resonates.  The above passage resonates for me.  I've emboldened the bits I have found to be true, if not as a crystallised state within me then certainly as a temporal experiential one.

There is no end point with self-observation.  You never 'succeed' at it.  You never finish.

There are very, very, few texts in the world that describe self-observation and accurately describe what arises from it and how to deal with what comes up.  Parts of the Philokalia do. 

When it comes to Christianity I ascribe to the Gurdjieffan view/truth, that we can only strive to become Christians.  There is a major difference between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Western Christianity in their major themes.  The Western Christian theme is one of salvation.  That we will be 'saved' by accepting Christ, whereas the Eastern Orthodox platform is one of deification. That we should strive to become more like the Divine.  Two quite different approaches.

The Ides of March~ Full Moon, Grand Trine, by Sign

Zena Holloway - Swan Song

Ill winds in the month of March, perhaps, but only if you're silly enough to be in Australian politics.

I truly hope politics in it's current MO does not survive a Pluto square without being rebuilt, reconfigured, and re thought.  It is beyond the Pale across the world.

I like what Richard Flanagan had to say about politics:

We need politics like we need sewerage and like sewerage we should want it to work properly and well, but we should not make too much of it. Not create of it a fetish, by glorifying it daily with celebrations and watching it incessantly on 24 hour tv stations. We make too much of our political leaders and their work, their failings their strivings, their successes, and we make too little of ourselves. For if we take our compass from power we will inevitably arrive in despair, but if we take our compass from those around us, we will arrive at hope.

Richard Flanagan~ Alan Missen Lecture, 2011

Meanwhile out in the Cosmos.

March is looking to be quite the month astrologically.

A few highlights :

• 5th March, Mercury conjunct Uranus in Aries.
• 6th March, Venus enters Taurus.
• 8th March, Full Moon in Virgo. The moon will pass over Mars ( still retrograde) about twelve hours before it is 'full'. This could add a little added angst to what promises to be a fairly intense full moon.
• 12th March, Mercury stations retrograde in Aries.
• 14th March, Venus and Jupiter in Taurus, will form a grand trine between Mars in Virgo, and Pluto in Capricorn. All three are at around 9 degrees of each sign from the 14th of March through until the 16th-17th at a stretch.

The grand trine between Jupiter/Venus, Mars and Pluto is a golden opportunity to examine your ducks who, I gather are supposed to be in a row by now. This trine provides a practical way in which you can get your mojo moving for the year ahead with the greatest of ease and elegance in the face of so much retro business.


If a dreamy, Piscean blur (or is that bleurgh) has over come you of late, tap into this trine to get your show on the road. It's in the Earth signs, (Virgo, Taurus and Capricorn) so is bound to ground (as in earth not ground as in coffee) our best potentials for the times into realities.


Retrograde planets mean difficulties with free flowing energy, but no problems with the 're' words--review, reinvention, reconsideration, redaction, reconnaissance and relaxation.


BY SIGN

♈  Aries

Full moon in your 6th House, scant days after Mercury conjuncts Uranus in Aries. Sorry Aries, keep biting your lip, bursting though you may be. Your time will come. Grand trine highlights areas of cash, health, and career. Recommended: long, thoughtful solitary, power walks at night and window-shopping for art, jewelllery, beautiful things.

♉ Taurus

Full moon in your 5th House of adventure, creativity, music and romance. Grand trine in your house of you, (1st), higher learning and broader horizons (9th) and house of children, romance, adventures music, art, (5th). Venus enters Taurus on (6th) and feels right at home here, you feel pretty darn nice really. Recommend: eating, gardening, reading. Sans guilt for best results.

♊ Gemini

Full moon in your 4th house, is a culmination of all 4th house activity. Venus moves into your twelfth on the twelfth, you could be a beautiful dreamer for a while-- literally. Your spiritual life informs, influences and supports the broad spectrum of who you are and/or how you appear. To do: observe, check career progress, stay calm and Trust.

♋ Cancer

Full moon in your third house of communications, siblings, and thinking. This could have you feeling a bit bogged down or overwhelmed. Don't be. The trine between Jupiter/Venus in Taurus, Mars (Rx) in Virgo and Pluto in Capricorn gives you a feeling of the lovely solidity of feeling you have within relationships, friends and how you easily relate. Surrender to the snafu situations. Study, read think about far off places and Chill.

♌ Leo

The full moon highlights your cash and resources area. With Mars here, you've undoubtedly been putting a fair bit of energy into getting this area of your life. A grand trine in Earthy neighbours suggests more work here with cash and resources; once Mars goes forward things should flow a little easier. Into the mix you need to completely (and continuously) transform your daily routine and health regimens but most especially, love and enjoy your career, public life and let it expand you beautifully.

♍ Virgo

The full moon is in Virgo the house of you.  Work-in a revolutionised approach to your need for, and the ways in which you create solely for your own sense of pleasure (!) and for the sake of expanding your horizons. Think ahead Virgo. Plan a trip or immerse yourself in the study of something beyond your current horizon.

♎ Libra

The full moon is in your house of dreams, mysteries and spiritual verities. The grand trine is an opportunity to see how the your 4th, (home, mother, origins) 8th, (death, taxes, sex, debts) and 12th (dreams, illusions, spiritual truths) can be integrated. Traditionally, Venus in the 8th house can mean cash from out of the blue. Think big!

♏ Scorpio

The full moon is in your 11th house of groups, friends, and humanitarian ideals. Bringing something to a head in relation to these themes or areas in your life. The grand trine of planets in Earth signs, gives you an opportunity to transform your communications with those nearest and dearest and most romantic perhaps in their relation to humanitarian or broader social influences.

♐ Sagittarius

The full moon is in your 10th house of career and public life. The grand trine gives you an opportunity to work out how your approach to cash and resources can be worked into your daily routine and how this may be made manifest with or through the involvement of groups.

♑ Capricorn

The full moon is in your 9th house of broader horizons and higher learning. The trine between Pluto in your 1st house, Mars in your 9th, and Jupiter/Venus in your 5th, suggests that someone of a serious disposition like your good self, needs to work more fun/adventure/excitement/creativity into their lives in order for Pluto to get on with the transformation. (I like that idea so much I've emboldened it.) Be emboldened in your quest to have a good time.

♒ Aquarius

The full moon is in your 8th house of death, taxes, shared resources and sex. The window of opportunity that the grand trine produces is for your spiritual life to be made more resilient, through your understanding of the element inheritance plays in your life. This is a grounding influence regarding mysterious or otherworldly things, which sounds quite contradictory in some respects, but you're up for that too.


♓ Pisces

The full moon is in your 7th house of close relationships. The window of opportunity this grand trine provides is through your outreach into the community via partnerships. Jupiter has been encouraging you to expand and test out your feelings and ideas even if that has mean't not necessarily communicating them. Check and double check this is the season for re-visioning all your associations.

Mercury Retrograde, Virgo Full Moon Prep

Larry Carlson, Astronomica 8, 2009.

If anything is going to give me cause to lose my grip it's a Virgo Moon.  I suspect this has something to do with my Pluto/Uranus conjunction in Virgo, which anyone born between 1964 and 1968 have as an aspect in their chart with varying degrees of intensity.   I.e, the 44-48 year olds amongst us.

Pluto conjunct Uranus is needless to say, a fairly powerful combination; I'm glad that for me it's in the fairly safe hands of sensible Virgo. IME, Virgo Suns however, born within these years promise to be a force to be reckoned with and it's not necessarily for being Uber Virgoan.  They can be Uber Plutonian, or Uber Uranian too, with all the calculated guile that a Virgo with these powerpacked buddies can orchestrate. 

Intuitively or simply because of their names, I've always regarded the energies of these planets as being nuclear in effect, and undoubtedly I'm not alone in this regard. Although I'm not so sure it gives either of these planets the full credit they deserve for also being mercilessly unrelenting. Pluto doesn't have the sudden flash of Uranus, his is a slow-burn kind of meltdown.

The nature of Pluto is similar to that of the Hindu god Shiva, the creator and destroyer.  Pluto usually begins by breaking down a structure; then it creates a new one in it's place.  This entire cycle of death, destruction and renovation is accompanied by tremendous powers for Pluto is not a mild or even very subtle planetary influence.  You can always see its effects very clearly-- from machines breaking down and needing repair to full-scale destruction or death.  Decay at one level or another followed by new life from the old is typical of the Plutonian process.  Robert Hand ~ Planets in Transit.

Exhibt A~ ⨁ Planet Earth,  where Plutonic energies are a part of life, in fact instrumental to it.

It's the psychology of these energies that makes them so interesting or alarming.

There is no real 'handling' of a tough Pluto transit, becoming a creature of constant and renewed adaptation is the best you can hope for. Accepting the inevitability and living with as much conscious awareness as possible through the processes of death, destruction and renovation is the best you can do to ease the passage of this distant but heavy hitter.

Uranus is an interesting catalyst for Plutonic activity.  In it's most helpful aspect (the one I'm primarily concerned with) the forces of Uranus manifest suddenly and without warning and jolt us into action thereby forcing change and hopefully through change or transformation--fingers crossed,  the out-growth of something beneficial to all. 

As with Plutonic energy, Uranian energy is difficult to control or suppress and so we are left again not quite helpless, but reminded that we need to be constantly transforming ourselves.  The transformation of energy on the planet is a given. For humans it's what we transform these energies into that makes the world of difference.

Escaping the influence of the energies of the Moon is an easier proposition, by understanding that on a minute by minute basis we have the ability to choose our thoughts and with insight and experience many of our feelings, will give us a measure of objectivity on the impacts of the Moon. The moon governs our emotional lives, it ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes and as the fastest moving planetary influence (bearing in mind that it's not a planet as such).  If we observe it's cycles we can wise up to it and exploit it's rhythmic regularity. 

The thorough going through of Mars' extended stay in Virgo is setting us up to handle the next few years of the Uranus/Pluto Square that's going to change our lives forever.

The full Moon on the 8th of March, will be conjunct Mars (retrograde) in Virgo.  I've got a hunch,  this could be another 'big' Moon.  Plan not to be inflated with nitpicking frustration.  Use this full moon to illuminate not inflame.  Mercury will be stationing retrograde in Aries a few days later on the 12th. 

 All is not as it seems and never a dull moment.

February New Moon Horoscopes

 

Aries ♈

A pile up of planets in Pisces this month in your 12th house of all things mysterious and deep. Neptune, the Sun, the Moon, Mercury,  and Chiron are all ganged up for good reason—extra oomph. In the next few days Mars your ruler, (who’s off on an extended 'quest' through Virgo) and Mercury in Pisces will be in opposition. Virgo is your 6th house of health, service, cleanliness, routine and order where there has been a burst of energy over recent months. Perhaps you are feeling a little rebellious? Pressured with Pluto’s transit of your 10th house of career, public life? A certain amount of chaos in this area or a sense of ongoing s.n.a.f.u?

P & Q is at hand, as this is the month for rest and reflection.   Earlier this month Saturn stationed retrograde in Libra, your 7th house of marriage and partnerships, giving pause for thought in this area of your chart and how this cycle of Saturn has eliminated quite a lot of the ‘fat’ from here. Now is the time to learn from mistakes and insist with some part of yourself that you will not make the same ones again.

Stirrings from your unconscious, whether through dreams or mysterious synchronous happenings have the power to heal on a profound level especially for the next month. Your soul is both healer and teacher.

Observe what arises from your unconscious, it might seem nebulous or it could be thwacking you between the eyes via an active dream life. This time next month, your annual new moon will be hotting you up considerably. Now though rest, dream, reflect. Don’t lash out at anyone, you will not prevail and don’t give your enemies, (should you have any) any ins at all. Oh, and don’t do all your dough on the gallopers!

Taurus ♉

Jupiter in your 1st house is giving you the unexpected boost of a much improved self-esteem, which is manifesting in the way you are dealing with newcomers into your life. You are in a great position to reinvent yourself. Added chutzpah and a change in vantage is drawing different sorts of people into your life and/or showing those already there a more confident, carefree, and happier version of yourself.  What a relief.

The February new Moon is in your 11th house of friends and associates, where you can expect with Mercury here too, a good deal of communication around a group or through friends. Some of the new people in your life will be quite unlike your more established friends. Indeed so different, that sparks could fly. Needless to say, don't get embroiled.  Some of these people can show you things that lead to the healing of old wounds. There could be a spat. Or is it a lover’s tiff?

Stay buoyant, hissy-fits weren’t made to last. But don’t let a hurly-burly social life impact too heavily on your recently reclaimed good health. Saturn stationing retrograde in 6th house of health and hygiene, routine and service is giving you an opportunity to re-implement and retweak your daily regimen. Re-visit and adjust your health and routine business and continue to thrive in an exciting, interesting new world.

Gemini ♊

The February new moon could have you feeling a little torn about needs to pursue career objectives or at least focus on the more public aspects of your life, versus the need to hunker down at home and attend to your place of origin, the foundations of your life, or more literally your actual house. With Mars stationed retrograde in your 4th house and a new Moon charging through your 10th, a push-me pull-you effect could have you contemplating some old fashioned hair tearing.  Don't let yourself be so torn up. Decide as best you can to leave the apparently unresolvable a bit of time to reveal itself more clearly.  Plenty of time for everything. This month take advantage of a welcome ease of communications in your career and public life and the impetus you have now.

Neptune has arrived to radicalise, deepen and make your public life a much better expression of who you are via what you do. Neptune can be a confusing influence, mystifying-up everything. But I have a vested in interest in you fellow air sign and don’t want such a great communicator and mind as yours to disappear completely into a Neptunian fog.  Keep in touch with your aims in life and schmooze like only you can. With Chiron here, also for ages, you have the power to do a lot of public healing and true is the adage, that by teaching others we learn ourselves.

Cancer ♋

Conversations and negotiations could be held up this month but the February new Moon and the arrival of Neptune into the area of your chart that rules higher learning and expanded horizons is being activated. (!) Anything that grabs your attention from far off, distant lands or is connected with mystical or spiritual truths will resonate deep inside your breast. Take notes. Plan to find the knowledge you seek as it will enrich your understanding. Expect a little resistance to plans to evangelise, even though there may be lots of temptingly revolutionary ways you can do this now.  With Mars retrograde in your comms sector now is not the time to do the head/desk routine.  Rest assured that this is tempting but a waste of precious neurons.

Study, travel, reading, ancient history and wider horizons all open up for you. Groups and friendships provide entertainment, good times and people who share similar interests with you in mysteries and distant lands. Appreciate the work you’ve done on your being over the last five years. Privately, the February new moon has you excitedly exploring a whole range of possibilities.

Leo ♌

The Pisces new Moon gives you the opportunity to start afresh with jointly held resources, perhaps in the form of the busting up of joint accounts and/or perhaps the establishment of one. Sexiness either accompanied with or without actual sex could also be a factor in your figuring as the new Moon illuminates the roots and wherewithal for issues of sex, death and taxes and the ways in which these things mysteriously materialise.

The things of your life, cash, possessions, stuff, etc and how you use them have probably been garnering more attention from you as Mars transits your second house of resources. This is a dawn of a new era in your life where a superficial take on things will no longer do.

You are able to make quantum leaps, Uranian leaps (even more spectacular) as your understanding changes with incoming information gleaned from unexpected sources or in sudden, unexpected ways. 

Don’t sweat the small stuff this month, keep powering on with a grand plan and the adrenalin rush of a new you. There could be residual things to clear up in relation property or debt and for some this will mean the distribution of an estate.

Lessons you have learnt regarding how you communicate could resurface. This is a lovely dreamy sort of new Moon, perfect for consolidation of what has been of benefit to you. Your career/public life is being promoted and expanded by Jupiter’s presence in your 10th—so go with this.  The energy that the Sun a new Moon and Mercury are bringing to bear on the deepest unavoidables of life will be gone this time next month, but Neptune and Chiron remain, to help you come to grips with such mysteries for a long time to come. Rejoice.

Virgo ♍

. . . . Everything comes and goes, pleasure moves on too early and trouble leaves too slow I’ll stop there, before I write out too much of this truly great song by songstress, poet and painter Joni Mitchell. A song which came to mind when I ‘cast’ the Virgo chart for the month. It all comes Down To You.
 

Mars is stalled in your 1st house where although you can still feel his presence, you’re thwarted perhaps in acting and with Saturn doing similarly  ie stationing retrograde in your 2nd, perhaps that’s a good thing for now. A Reprieve.

This is the new Moon to consider your relationships—all of them, primarily, the one you have to yourself. With a pile-up of planets in Pisces, but not for long, and the energy of Mars even whilst retrograde there is a certain amount of coalescence of energy in your relationship to another even if that 'other' is an aspect of yourself. You've been surprising yourself a lot lately. For the next month or so, regroup, relax and repair.

It’s undoubtedly an exciting time and now is the time to consolidate the most recent things you’ve learned. Uranus is getting underway for a fairly long transit through your 8th house which will be a game-changer in a major way.   Love and evaluate the one’s you’re with. Even though things have eased off a bit lately, the juggernaut of transformation hasn’t vanished.

Compare/contrast with an ideal in mind and think about how to act to realise it. This moon cycle is the one in which to do some serious thinking in the spirit of dispassion which you do so well.

Libra ♎

Mercury joins forces in Pisces with the Sun a new Moon, Neptune and Chiron in your 6th house of health, service and day to day routine.  The 6th house shows where you can expend your energies wisely for the month ahead. Saturn retrograde in Libra and Mars similarly, apparently, marking time in your 12th, indicate that you have more than enough to cogitate on in the realm of your unconscious, where you have been learning a great about yourself and issues of responsibility and denial. After Mars’ extended stay in Virgo we will all be relieved and Librans will get a welcome boost of the white hot energy that a newly emancipated Mars on the run, will bring to your fair sign.

Rumblings in your hidden worlds and the sometimes emotionally scarifying effect of Saturn in your 1st house all point to your effectiveness. These two planets are impelling you towards a re-evaluation of what’s best for you--your health and daily routines. Very practical renewal is the theme of this months’ new Moon in the light of information you have garnered over the last few years and recent months. You are learning about things that seem shocking and new and you’ve possibly been in 'stunned mullet' mode wondering how to integrate such mysterious and personal insights.

Getting your house in order will help these energies flow to their rightful place. This is the very practical step you can take right now. Don’t get mired down in blockages or where you simply have not been able to get your way. Focus on the practical aspects of daily living as there are some big hitters in these areas of your chart. Re-arrange your view to the day to day, one day at a time, for this month anyway.  The Libran who emerges in the middle of the year, will be wiser and more in control than she’s ever been.

Scorpio ♏

A water world of planets in your 5th house is playing on your romantic tendencies towards escapism, adventure and dealings with the little folk or possibly the children in your life. This is an easy flowing area of good times and prosperity in the sense of satisfying emotional experiences. Above the line on the surface, Jupiter is leading the way with romantic partnerships and the interactions you are having with intimates or potential intimates both business and pleasure. Mars in your 11th house, now retrograde, is giving you cause to reconsider your effectiveness amongst groups and friends and the effectiveness of these associations entirely. There’s plenty of energy for ‘society’ and lots of revolutionary energy for the ways and means by which you can communicate in your every day world. I dunno Scorp. Canyoning? White water rafting with a new vegan lover or similar unusual and unprecedented water type adventures while you communicate back to HQ via your waterproof ‘device’ . Such things are not beyond the realms. Chiron in Pisces means that all such activities of an adventurous nature are healing and will be an area you return to for some months to come, whether actually or virtually.

Sagittarius ♐

Your home and the foundations of your being are being highlighted and are up for renewal and a boost of energy with today’s new Moon. Saturn stalling in your 11th and Mars doing similarly in your 10th can seem suddenly, hugely, inconvenient just as you would be hoping to charge ahead full steam. It’s not that the cosmos is governed by some trickster, keen to thwart us in our tracks, although it might feel that way, but were we to proceed willy nilly with no checks or balances to our progress or the time to read the fine print, we’d all be in a right mess or some of us would. The philosophy being not to lament the slow downs and snarl ups but to make good use of the time for an evaluation of all you've gained and what you hope to gain. All the better to be well prepared for another run at it when the planets give the nod.

Activity at at ‘chez Sag’ is the area of greatest ease and elegance for you this month. Redecoration, renovating, Spring-type cleaning at home is a good place to work your charms, entertain and brighten up. Chiron in Pisces and Neptune suggest that this month could be a starting point where the greatest healing on the deepest levels will take place for some time to come. For you it is your 4th house. Perhaps a home literally, a source of beauty, ease and grace and a sanctuary in which you will delight and find your most beneficial renewal and/or revelations about your origins and who you are or could have been had you not been such a rebel.

Capricorn ♑

Renewed vigour in your ‘comms’ sector is more than keeping you on your toes this month. A demanding few years in your career with Saturn’s transit of Libra (your 10th house) is coming to a close—but not yet. A burst of energy, and an easy flow of communication is the focus you need right now and a welcome shot in the arm after a few years of hard slog. Interactions with immediate people in your life are set to gain more importance and will be a source of recreation helping to facilitate the power of Pluto in your 1st and ameliorate some of the harsher, shocking truths of this transit of the Transformer. A promotion may be on hold while you:

a) Go on holidays
b) take a sabbatical or
c) decide to leave home and join a team of researchers.

Anything is possible right now for you. The world sees you and hears you and will better understand you better by the end of this year.

Schmooze, talk and entertain yourself this month with the utmost confidence that this is in both your’s and other’s best interests and not some scary sign you turning into jelly, but are insanely sane.

Aquarius ♒

You know only too well not to emotionally or even sometimes financially invest too many resources into the ‘things’ of this world. By the same token you also know that somewhere you must fit into this world things. You, like everyone, needs to fulfill at least the basics of Maslow’s Heirarchy of Needs. And where for a long time you may have felt that the world of ‘stuff’ had nought to do with you, suddenly it’s become more poignant, more real, more attainable.
A ‘shelter’ is a place to grow from, to rest, dream, plot, to lick your wound, to read and think. Jupiter in Taurus brings about the Dragons for the most of part. This is auspicious for your world of new resources.

The conglomeration of planets in your 2nd house of resources in the slippery, watery world of Pisces is a place better known to you post-Neptune’s transit of Aquarius, as a place where lofty ideas and thoughts of an otherworldly nature could and will be landed on the planet. Jupiter in Taurus in your 4th wll help you land them.

Continue to cogitate on all you’ve learned. Excitement, wonder, and ideas continue to manifest in your mind at a cracking pace. Take the time to rest, to do nothing, but USE and MOVE the earthbound, food-requiring, blood-pumping, prana-breathing, organ of transformation, miracle of science . . your weird and wonderful body.  Jupiter in Taurus is kind of ravenous and e x p a n s i o n a r y . Very good metaphorically speaking.

Pisces ♓

Yes I’m looking at you little fishy, or maybe you're a tad more shark-like these days? . . . Just kidding. Yes, Pisces have egos too and your’s is getting white hot blasts of energy from all over--including from deep down as a chorus comes in- halleleujah!

This is not the time to go into panic mode under the gaze of so much expectation and hope. Your steele is stronger these days. Every fish deserves his time in the sun . . . er metaphorically speaking of course. You may need to buff and shine your scales to withstand the heat of attention.

 Jupiter in your 3rd is encouraging expansion amongst the immediate people in your life. They seem to expect things from you, these ever transmogrifying groups and contacts.  Pisces, right now you are the leading light on the planet and across it’s oceans deep. Sun illuminating  crystal waters.  Glow, enjoy and be brilliant! 

The monumental suck of a million miles away.

I spent a great deal of my youth in some otherworldly place, lost in daydreams.  Most of my youth was Piscean in flavour.  On my first birthday, my progressed Sun, lolled over into Pisces, where it hung around for the next thirty years before it and Mars moved into Aries.  Other influences of a nurture kind encouraged me to disappear into day dreams.  I understand the escapist mentality well.  This part of my brain is fairly well traversed. 


My very favourite thing to do as 3-7 year old was to follow around my father, literally, in his footsteps. This was not because I was thinking so much of him, I hadn't even begun to, but because when I did this I didn't have to actually think;  I could just follow safe in my own world guaranteed of protection.  It was pretty good really. 

This latest wave of all things watery & Piscean/Neptunian,  has reactivated in me big time, a strong pull towards spending many an hour lost in beautiful imagination and it feels a bit scary because I have had to have my feet very firmly planted on mother earth for a very long time.  This feeling I am being pulled off the ground by something wafty and weavy, floaty and dreamy tends to make me think I am or could be, being also pulled into, or further into a state of deep slumber. 

I think Pluto squaring off on my Sun Mars, Saturn Mercury etcetera,  (sometime in the early-mid nineties if my current day dreamy reflections serve me well), turned me into something more of a realist and brought me back to earth. 

Up until today I have been studiously avoiding my progressed chart.  Because I knew that Saturn had moved on into Pisces, and I wanted nothing at all to do with another Neptune conj Saturn scenario, having done it (alright) already most recently in my natal chart.

But now I see it as a good thing. (oh mercy lordy tanks Be!)  There is lots of activity there.  Progressed charts are interesting.  

Progressed Mars looks er... interesting.   Mercury in Taurus.  Looks like Neptune is going to be uppermost, constant companion.   

Soberingly, Saturn at 1 degrees of Pisces, something I'm eternally grateful for, or will be.  Lest I be sucked a million miles away and whilst I'm incarnate--organic, I think it best to be paying a certain amount of attention to life on Earth.

 

Weirded out and into the Unknown

Into the unknown (by Sverrir Thorolfsson)

This image reminds me of Jupiter in Taurus, patrolling vigorously, along a misty beach.
'Tis good in increasingly weird times to have Jupiter somewhere very practical. 

Moon dark in Aquarius;  I think everyone was happily weirded out today.  Happy just to drift off, happy to be able to drift off.

Continuous rain bucketing down non-stop, is also good for sleeping.  Sun in the morning's very nice.  Again please.

A welcome window of opportunity for Australian early boids

The Moon will conjunct Neptune about 5 hours before it meets the Sun (when it will become the New Moon). So technically it will pass over Neptune while it is the Dark Moon. These few hours will be potent, like holding your breath before you take the plunge.  A Dark Moon conjunct Neptune is ideal for releasing/letting go/forgiving. Then you can exhale into that Pisces New Moon with a light heart, ready to expand your horizons (Neptune can open things up just as effectively as Jupiter).

The area of your chart that Pisces occupies will tell you what area of your life is currently receiving this magic. You may be experiencing it as a persistent tug to do X (because you’ve always wanted to do it but it never seemed feasible. Until now). Pisces energy is not in your face. But it is a continuous whisper. So think about what has resonance for you and start it on this New Moon.

Continue reading at the very sage:
Ruby Slipper Magic Moment New Moon in Pisces

DARK MOON CONJUNCT NEPTUNE

SYDNEY - Wed-4:50

LONDON - Tue-17:49

LA - Tue- 9:50

NEW YORK- Tue-12:49

Moon Dark, Saturn Rx, etc. . .

Bog Standard Mac Issue Screen Saver

Spiritual beings are constantly breathing in a desire to know what is true, for the sake of constructive living. The Lord in fact sees to it that we love the constructive activities that suit our gifts.

Swedenborg Heaven and Hell 517

This quote was sent to me the other day.  I've been thinking I should  and indeed I will write about Heaven and Hell (the book by Emanuel Swedenborg.)  Because it is out of this world.   And the quote above I really like, for the sake of constructive living.  I don't want to waste my time down here wading through or having to deal with too much crap.  Word is, that life is short.  I believe it. I suppose.

 . . . .the moon dark vibe, without descending into a funk is a bit like above and below.

Always room for something better.  Will clean away some useless states and make room for something better, while I wait a bit-- For the cloud to lift, for energies to move on.  

Solar return for me today= a bit pensive. Sun into Pisces tomorrow. 

Three of Wands from: http://www.phantomwise.com/

SUN INTO PISCES
L.A. – Saturday – 22:18
NEW YORK – Sunday – 01:18
LONDON – Sunday- 06:18
SYDNEY – Sunday- 17:18

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces

Shack at Hinkle Farm.

Chiron and Neptune haven't been in Pisces as far as I can quickly research since 1862 when they were both in Pisces for roughly the month of Aquarius.*  This transit of Neptune and Chiron in Pisces is set to last until Chiron moves house in 2018. 

Ideally this is the time when old wounds hidden within our psyche or an ability to heal others gets churned up by Neptune and activated or birthed into practical awareness by Chiron.   Chiron ruled by Virgo can be either healer or teacher in relation to old injuries but does his job with subtlety if not thoroughly. With Neptune and Chiron in Pisces for some years to come, the opportunity to meet true healers or to become true healers really opens up.

Where serious disillusionment prevails, basically you're doing it wrong.

Here is a quick guide to how these two planets may make themselves felt and in which house.  

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces 
12th house

~Aries ♈ ~

Neptune is in his natural element in your 12th house of all things deep and meaningful.  This is an area of your life that can heal you.  Dreams, therapy, epiphanies--all the things that bubble up quite naturally from your unconscious are exactly the things that can heal you.  Go with the flow, this is a nice, easy, private placement for your at this time.  Trust yourself to know what is good for you.

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces
11th house

~Taurus ♉ ~

The 11th house is the house of friends, networks and organised groups of people and more contemporaneously, future-orientated revolutionary organisations. This is not as comfortable a place to host Neptune or Chiron where there are so many variables operating within the network. Healing energies need to be distilled from any crowd or group with all due diligence and expressed with all due care.  It could be as simple as a friend telling you something or meeting someone that helps heal your view of the world.  Be careful of evangelical or fascistic type ideologues or groups of similar disposition.  Keep it simple.

Chiron Neptune in the
10th house

~Gemini ♊ ~

Your house of public life, your career,  and issues related to your father are all governed by 10th house.  Governed seems so fascistic huh?  OK determined, coloured, housed, whatever.  This could translate over the next three or four years, as your career choices being inimical to your health and wellbeing. And should father issues arise, there's possible Pluto transits as part 'n parcel.  Perhaps an inconjunct (150 degree separation) is involved.  You must in the end, as you will discover be true to yourself.

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces
9th house

~Cancer ♋ ~

A hopeful, interesting and expansionary placement for these two planets, as in this house these two influences are less deeply personal and more shoot-the-breeze, philosophical.  It is through knowledge that we learn and it is through learning that we understand, accept and integrate new knowledge into our being.  Through excursions, trips, faraway places, reading and generally having expanding horizons especially in realtion to the more mysterious aspects of life you will be richly rewarded.

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces
8th house

~Leo ♌ ~

Neptune and Chiron in this house could bring some valuable lessons about death and dying. People who attend the dead,  consistently report  that death is a deeply affecting spiritual experience noticeable for the almost palpable sense of peace.  The 8th house also rules joint finances and sex, debt and taxes. Perhaps deep healing comes about through a more spiritualised sex life?

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces
7th house

~Virgo ♍ ~

Neptune and Chiron in your 7th house of marriage, open enemies and business partnerships, indicates some sort of healing to do with these things.  There is a very open field of possibilities here. Finally some good news as to these relationships actually benefiting you in real ways rather than  . . . well what's been happening to date.

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces
6th house

~Libra ♎~

The guaranteed way to transform yourself on this plane of existance is through your body.  It is through your habits, your daily life, your routine that you can most readily begin to change.  Such things can be lifesavers and indeed in many parts of the world, there is very little choice or leeway for anything other than the complete adherence to the cycles and rhythms of the natural world.  In the next few years Libra, mundane as it may seem, great good can come for you from establishing workable, healthy routines and habits.

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces
5th house

~Scorpio ♏ ~

Chiron and Neptune in your 5th house of children, adventure and romance opens up the possibility of being healed through some rhapsodic episode in nature or through your either healing or being made more whole via your relationships to young ones.  Oberve the moments your eyes fill with tears when you interact with children, or when likewise an adventure or a moment spent in the wilderness, touches your very core.  Drink it in, deep.  Taste those salty tears.

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces
4th house

~Sagittarius ♐ ~

My home is my refuge, my sanctuary a place where I store books and places to think and retreat from the demands of a mad busy world.   'Home' as such may be an ever-changing shifting sands scenario, or you might be lucky enough to find spiritual succour where you are-- and can stay.  You can always stay with  yourSelf, indeed ultimately you have no choice.  Healing comes from being at home in your heart.

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces
3rd house

~Capricorn ♑ ~

Communiques with siblings and close 'neighbours' and how you can use your mind and the brilliance of it, are the hallmarks of this house.  With Neptune here the risk of being misunderstood is much magnified.  Be flexible with your communications, but be clear.  Perhaps this is a time of thinking and listening but saying very little.  By thinking through more nebulous concepts with a trusted one or two you can gain great insights.  Healing will come either to you or from you via everyday modes of communication but you may not so easily express yourself as fully without confusing them or yourself, but you will benefit all the same.

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces
2nd house

~Aquarius ♒ ~

Cash and immediate resources i.e, the stuff of life.  It's hard to see how these things could possibly heal you.  Perhaps having your attitude towards the more down to earth monetary thingmejibbits of life, helps you get them in perspective. Perhaps you're not in the least spiritually attached to your things. Perhaps you are?  Either way (if that's at all possible) your relationship to your belongings, your stuff, your worldly acquisitions is set to completely alter and this will bring something that is healing and makes you more whole.  Even if it's a sense of belonging to the world because you are indeed  yourself a 'thing!'

Chiron and Neptune in Pisces
1st house

~ Pisces ♓ ~

Having Neptune dive into your house of self, the house that rules the realisation of one's potential can only be of benefit.  But it helps if you're prepared and Pisces~you are prepared. This transit can be confusing or clarifying,  you are no less anyone else than you are yourself, for you feel most things deeply.  Chiron is the ordering principle, who can help you integrate what Neptune uncovers and/or dissolves and make what's left over as of your world, made more Real. 

* Please advise if you have spotted otherwise.

A worthy worship

Make every molecule in your body vibrate with the pure, random, spontaneity of an unadulterated funky rhythm.  Dancing is a wonderful way to connect to something Real. Good. For. You. 

 . . . .  In the privacy of your own home, of course. 

I like this one it is particularly rubbery.  And I like that the big dude is so cool.   Dance is a really good way of taking in and releasing loads of energy transforming it en route.   

Virgo Moon VOC

What to do with a long void of course Moon in Virgo with a retro Mars?

Dance of course.

I ♡ Bobby McFerrin

Saturn Retrograde 2012 by Sign

Saturn stationed retrograde at 29 degrees of Libra on 8th February 2012 and will stay retrograde until 25th June 2012.  Roughly, 4 months.

Saturn as been in since October 29 2009.

Expect the pace in your personal relationships to slowdown.

Take this opportunity to reaffirm what you've learnt about the house Saturn has been transiting.  It's not a time of stagnation, although it may feel as though some of the wind has vanished from your sails.  As the saying goes, take the time to re-set, fine-tune and re-jig your thingamies.
 

Sailing Boat off Mutton Bird Island by Link.

 


♈
Saturn stations retrograde in your 7th house of marriage, business partnerships and overt enemies.(!)  Saturn retrograde here will give you a chance to digest and reflect on what you've learnt from and through your intimate partnerships. Where things are still in flux or relationships still unclear,  Saturn  retrograde will give you time to adjust your sails.

♉
Saturn retrograde in your 6th house of health and hygiene, routine, order--(Virgo rules this house), means a chance to get these aspects of your life cleaned up, established, re-jigged and/or organised. Follow-up tests for past illnessess may come come up as a matter of routine.  If you haven't dealt with these things properly or if your resolve is under pressure from elsewhere, take heart.  Things slow down for you to now deal with sanely.

♊
Your fifth house of children, fun, adventure has had Saturn trawling through since 2009, two steps forward and two steps back . . . well no.  Life is moving on rapidly, but still these things are on your plate.  So many different ways to have fun and adventure! Choices choices!  So little time.  Fortunately, on reflection, if you add up the steps, you'll be able to see real progress in these areas with the odd quantum leap thrown in. For the young ones in your life, five years is a long time and we have all grown up--a lot.

♋
Saturn has stationed retrograde or gorn retrograde as we say in Australia on home turf in your fourth house--a feeling of exquisite poignancy for you--almost. A quietening down on the home front time to reflect and check that all is as it should be where you're at.  It is.

♌
The fields of Communications has been where Saturn has been giving you some er . . . handy hints.  Many of the stuff ups in life seem to be caused by dodgy communications so it seems.  Brushing up here on more interesting and effective methods of communicating is probably the ticket. Even those held close cannot read our minds--yet so other means are still necessary.  Experiment now and test new means and styles of getting through.


♍
The pull of duty, duty, duty, subsides and you get a bit of a breather, such that you can with Mars in your first house.  Saturn retrograde at the end of Libra in your second house is giving a welcome opportunity to reassess your finances in light of the latest developments.  Things have changed, the pace and pressure has been pretty unrelenting for some of you. You've learned the lessons of what money can and cannot do for you and how to keep it . . . . orderly-like.


♎ 
You are well used to the influence of el Saturno, buddy, mate, chum.  So you won't be too surprised by the slow down of his influence and the time to bed-down what he's taught. Breathe Libra, your Librinian influence is being felt by us all and we are grateful for Saturn in Libra.  Five years is a long time to learn a thing or two or three.

♏
Saturn retrograde in your twelfth house Scorpio is a chance to see where you've got it right and where you've got it wrong about the more unconscious aspects of your life.  We are all led astray to a certain degree by our imaginations.  Saturn opposes this kind of nebulous otherworldly clap trap. Doesn't he Scorp.  Still it's a good place to sit and consider what is compelling and what is not so.

♐
Your 11th house of friends, and group association is affected by Saturn in this house and has been for some five years.  Time now to have these relationships not so much tested as perhaps verified or validated. It's a process of sorts.  You've got all the requisite information now.  Time to reflect on your new more real way of being able to interact wisely.

♑
Full steam ahead on the career front has been very exciting, it is still very exciting.  Saturn guiding   you along with your career and public persona has been a very good thing.  You may feel like you need only plough right on, but things you have overlooked will pop up in the next few months and give you a chance to fine tune your trajectory.  Take advantage of a certain amount of momentum gathered, you work hard and worry of nowt, Cap.

♒
Saturn is stationing retrogtrade in your 9th house of higher learning and distant places.  Your orientation has been completely transformed by all you have learned in the last five years, and it is has been a lot.  Incoming information about the world and what it's really like has changed your view considerably. You are no longer as naive as you once and are still and even more so hopeful about the future.  Time for you too to go over and reaffirm all new and useful knowledge about the ways of the world.  It will probably be on the news soon anyway.

 ♓

Saturn stationing direct in your 8th house of sex, death, taxes and shared resources could cause to double check the fine print to be sure to be sure, just to prove to yourself your house is in order. This is a grounding influence for your finances and your beliefs and approach to the eventualities of life. 

Self-Actualising People

Dr. Maslow summed up the concept of Self-Actualization as:

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This is the need we may call self-actualization … referring to a person’s desire for fulfillment, namely to the tendency to become actually what we are potentially …”

Characteristics of Self Actualizing People  
as defined by Abraham Maslow

Realistic.  Realistically oriented

A Self-Actualizing (SA) person has a more efficient perception of reality, and has comfortable relations with it. This is extended to all areas of life. A Self-Actualizing person is unthreatened and unfrightened by the unknown. He has a superior ability to reason, to see the truth, and is logical and efficient.

Self Acceptance

Accepts himself, others, and the natural world the way they are. Sees human nature as is, has a lack of crippling guilt or shame, enjoys himself without regret or apology, and has no unnecessary inhibitions.

Spontaneity simplicity

Naturalness Spontaneous in his inner life. Thoughts and impulses are unhampered by convention. His ethics are autonomous, and Self-actualizing individuals are motivated to continual growth.

Focus of Problem Centering

A Self-actualizing person focuses on problems and people outside of himself. He has a mission in life requiring much energy, as it is his sole reason for existence. He is serene, characterized by a lack of worry, and is devoted to duty.

Detachment: The Need for Privacy

The Self-actualized person can be alone and not be lonely, is unflappable, and retains dignity amid confusion and personal misfortunes, all the while remaining objective. He is a self starter, is responsible for himself, and owns his behavior.

Autonomy: Independent of Culture and Environment

The SA person has a fresh rather than stereotyped appreciation of people and the basic good in life. Moment to moment living for him is thrilling, trans-cending, and spiritual as he lives the present moment to the fullest.

Frequent Peak experiences

Feelings of limitless horizons, opening up to the vision, the feeling of being simultaneously more powerful and also more helpless than one ever was before, the feeling of ecstasy and wonder and awe, the loss of placement in time and space with, finally, the conviction that something extremely important and valuable had happened, so that the subject was to some extent transformed and strengthened even in his daily life by such experiences.

Interpersonal relations Identification

Sympathy, affection for mankind, kinship with the good, bad, and ugly are all traits of the SA person. Truth is clear to him as he can see things others cannot. He has profound, intimate relationships with few and is capable of greater love than others consider possible as he shares his bene-volence, affection, and friendliness with everyone.

Democratic values and attitudes

The SA person is able to learn from anyone, is humble and friendly with anyone regardless of class, education, political belief, race or color.

Discrimination: means and ends, Good and Evil 

The SA does not confuse between means and ends and does no wrong. He enjoys the here and now, getting to a goal–not just the result. He makes the most tedious task an enjoyable game and has his own inner moral standards (appearing amoral to others).

Philosophical, unhostile sense of humor

Jokes to the SA person are teaching metaphors, intrinsic to the situation and are spontaneous. He can laugh at himself, but he never makes jokes that hurt others.

Creativity

The SA person enjoys an inborn uniqueness that carries over into everything he does, is original, inventive, uninhibited, and he sees the real and true more easily.

Resistance to enculturation: Transcendence of any particular culture

SA people have an inner detachment from culture. Although folkways may be observed, SA people are not controlled by them. Working for long term culture improvement, indignation with injustice, inner autonomy, outer acceptance, and the ability to transcend the environment rather than just cope are intrinsic to SA people.

Imperfections

SA people are painfully aware of their own imperfections and joyfully aware of their own growth process. They are impatient with themselves when stuck and feel real life pain as a result.

Values

The SA person is realistically human due to a philosophical acceptance of self, human nature, social life, physical reality, and nature.

Resolution of dichotomies

Polar opposites merge into a third, higher phenomenon as though the two have united; therefore, opposite forces are no longer felt as conflict. To the SA person work becomes play and desires are in excellent accord with reason. The SA person retains his childlike qualities yet is very wise.

The full moon in Leo. A lovely excuse to post gorgeous image of Brer Cat.  Photo found here .  A site I'd recommend if you want to drift off somewhere brave, uplifting, funny, beautiful, sensitive, intelligent, wise etc . . . .

P.S.  No apologies whatsoever if have you arrived here through your own dubious searches. Suggest you try the site₦₰ above.

Big Moon

Strange how the night before a full moon can bring out the insomniac in you. Why is this? Does science know? Or care? Has it even noticed? One day, (well I think it's come already) I will give up entirely on concerning myself with the mindset of the mainstream. I am largely unaffected by it until such time as it impinges upon my freedom, or some bureaucratic twat starts banging on to me about reality, which hasn't happened either, I seem to have made myself immune. I felt a bit sorry for Stephen Fry on QI the other night when I heard him denouncing astrology, spiritualism and all manner of 'hocus' as bunkum. Poor terrified bastard I thought. I admire his elephantine memory, his love of language and his way with words. But his derision of astrology, spiritualism et al as bunkum, served only to illuminate a background state of mortal fear about the things he can and will not 'see'. Poor bastard. A good person, an intelligent person, a person who has suffered a great deal. I hope he has some sort of gentle and gradual epiphany. I hope he finds some solace somewhere.

That was Zen this is Tao

My four year odyssey taught me some lessons and I became a country person.  I looked like a country person, dressed like one, thought like one (sort of).  I blended-in visually if not really.  I found a beautiful place for me and the animals to live. 

Floating on my back in the cool clear flowing creek, gazing up at the hills in the distance all was peace and calm and bliss in my world.  But as I suspected it would end,  it did. The new owners wanted 'my' house to live in whilst they built their McMansion on the crest of a windswept hill (fantastic views, terrific winds, but ne're a bird about).  The causeway got cemented over and a huge snaking road was rollered into the side of the hill.  I was relocated to a cabin down the road and my beautiful home was defiled with rubbish.  Rubbish?  Yes.  Exactly that.  I didn't know whether to pick it up or not, the lolly wrappers that blew about the plastic bags the empty dog cans.  I returned every day twice a day to feed the dear old Luke.  Got fit walking the two and half ks, there, back and forth, and witnessing with some disbelief how the new owners treated my piece of sacred ground, my tenemos.  

I continued to care about it and spent many hours of many days hacking out Pattersons' Curse, which I did with good intentions, but which was viewed with some sort of suspicious resent. I was obliquely accused of being 'judgemental' in relation to another who was not, and so I watched the contents of the dog-raided rubbish bins blow hither thither into creek and paddock not daring to pick it up less I be judged as being judgmental.  I got invited in and was treated in a most friendly manner. I turned or tried to turn a blind eye to what I can only describe as pathological squalor, the stinking cat tray rarely emptied, the piles of stuff strewn everywhere, rubbish on the floor, piles of clothing everywhere, unmitigated chaos abounding. 

Luke died and overnight my interest in pasture management died with him-- it was uncanny.  It rained a bit that night the tears of heaven the first rain in ages and it was a relief to not be worrying about a rain-loathing animal standing out in the elements.  I no longer had to troop down the road twice a day, and so I stopped with my weeding, I was the only one putting any effort into it anyway, I had to admit it did seem odd. 

One day inside, having tea I was asked about the ant problem and whether I had had one?  Well not really I said, they used to eat the remnants in the cat bowls and if I left the lid of the sugar . . .  Ant rid was now being used liberally in the kitchen.  I was appalled and wondered whether 'she' knew exactly how Ant Rid worked?   I walked the long straight dusty road back to the cabin, tears streaming, fuming with rage and indignation, realising how futile and powerless I was there was absolutely nothing I could do or say.  I did not 'own' the property, if the new owners wanted to litter it up, live like pigs in muck and throw poison around on it's native inhabitants that was entirely their business. I kept my rage to myself as best I could and we continued on with pleasant if not duplicitous relations.  

The hospital paddock I had spent many an hour weeding, mowing, liming and caring for got trashed in three days when their four horses were corralled into it for the sake of convenience, with nothing to eat. And so they ate every skerrick of anything remotely green, rendering it a dustbowl. Again I walked back up the road raging, fuming and powerless.  The wind I prayed for to stir up the dust came and I hoped with dust swirling around their house from the now desertified hospital paddock, the penny might drop with these incomparably stupid and messy people.  

I chatted to the builder who had changed his tune after three months of battling the winds about their choice of location for the new enormously tacky pile on the hill, .  He came around to my way of thinking without acknowledging it as much. I heard second hand that his preferred building site would have been down along the creek a notion he had argued against when first I suggested it.  "When are you moving back in?" he asked.  "When they move all their stuff out" I said.  "Gee they've got some stuff" I ventured--  "and they're a bit messy".  "Un-be-fucking-lievable" was his reply "the owner of the place they rented before is still ropeable about the mess and crap they left behind". We smiled conspiratorially and I was glad to know I wasn't some sort of anal-retentive control freak. Other people found them hard to stomach too.

The cement causeway over the creek proved to be a bit redundant as the creek dried up to nothing, drained predominantly by their incessant pumping from it. The septic overflowed daily with five people showering and umpteen loads of washing--the place began to stink.  The ground water feeding the trough in Sheppie's paddock got tainted with Napisan and other anti bacterials and both Shep and the cattle stopped drinking from it, forcing me to move him into the paddock behind the house now dangerously overstocked by their four horses who lived in a state of perpetual hunger while they-- loving them all the while like spoilt pets were dumb to their suffering from hunger. 

They were kind, city, stupid, people, who through laziness and a complete lack of any common sense were reducing their expensive prize to a weed infested, stinking hovel. I soon realised I did not want to go back and have these complete twits as neighbours and landlords.  It was all too frustrating.  'Nicer' people you could not hope to meet nor perhaps more stupid.  . . . .

Transit of Neptune

http://blogs.abc.net.au

It’s fitting for the last day of Neptune’s transit through Aquarius that it should be so very wet.  Neptune consciousness only started to sink in for me as his departure became more imminent and I began to grow very weary of the state of total mystification (for better and for worse) that Neptune has brought into my life.  Since my twenties he's been making his way through my personal 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Houses.   Neptune moving house has been characterised by major life events. 

Neptune, King of the Deep. Trident bearing, bearded, muscly, old, bloke who charges about sometimes on a fleet of white horses riding the waves,  has become for me something of an eccentric and at times, Saturnian Father figure type.  Someone you know you ought pay attention to if you can understand what he’s getting at. Someone who seems a bit cryptic.  It’s quite a trip with Neptune, discerning the lessons within lessons of mysticism from the risk of getting caught or addicted and being glamourised by the idea of the mystic. 

The mystic seeks primarily to get back to her essential source. To mystics it’s abundantly clear that ‘life’ as is commonly known, the externals of life, stand primarily as a mysterious set of clues and keys and correspondences that signify a greater reality.  It’s almost the inverse opposite to what is considered the correct interpretation of reality.  The scientific interpretation of there being only a measurable reality and that abstract concepts of unseen linkages, and interconnections or spiritual ideas of a transcendent nature, unable to be quantified or ‘seen’ simply do not exist.  When it is these very things that hold the keys to understanding how we can start to approach what most of us want-- peace, well-being, the integration of ourselves and the ability to express our full humanness creatively and beautifully.

If you’re addicted to any mind-altering activity, however that addiction makes itself known, underpinning it is Neptune urging you to yes, change your mind, transform the way you think and not to limit yourself to the view that all you see is all there is. 

Neptune is a benevolent figure, and wants to make sure you have at least access to some of the more mysterious verities of the human psyche. He cannot be held responsible if you seek to alter your every day reality by becoming addicted to escaping from it, via drugs, gambling, sex, stupid television whatever. But it’s not what he’s about, not at all.  An altered state of consciousness, a greater state of consciousness is available to you any time you want it.  Neptune is there to impress upon you that a more abundant, more interesting, more meaningful, fruitful life is even if buried deep is there for the taking.