Transit Lab: Saturn in Virgo and Mercury in Scorpio on Ceres - What Did I Just Eat?
Saturn in Virgo is squaring my Sagittarius stuff in the 3rd, and Mercury is in Scorpio in my 1st, on Ceres and my anti-Vertex.
Today, therefore, it was time to learn and accept that my favorite strawberry jelly contains high-fructose corn syrup. How did I fail to see this before? Am I not ruthlessly self-defined for these last many years as “hypervigilant food label reader?”
A portion of my satirical writing at one time was devoted to exposing everyone as “corn eaters,” unwittingly consuming the nation’s #1 secret food ingredient. If you can’t say your food is made from corn or isn’t loaded with corn syrup, corn has somehow found its way into your life as one of the major nutritional elements, I insisted.
I wrote that you have no idea how much corn you actually consume, and that the government wants it that way for its own secret corn-elevating purposes. I privately labeled everyone unconscious of what they put into their bodies corn eaters, and would laugh out loud when someone started talking to me about eating corn. I was finally able to laugh at the trillions of corn kernals I consumed (consciously) while growing up, as corn was for many years my father’s favorite vegetable. It is the only vegetable that my GI tract is fundamentally opposed to and rebels against, however, so I spent many years of my youth clutching my gut in clueless misery…all due to the eating of corn. Part of me suspects that it’s not actually a vegetable at all but is some cruel manufactured joke, some spontaneous, after-market addition that the Creatrix unleashed on humanity to make unsuspecting children everywhere dread dinner, or develop all manner of senseless aversions to various foods, or think that all food is probably out to get them.
But now that Saturn’s in Virgo, and with that Mercury on Ceres, I get to be a little humbled because I didn’t actually read the labels on the foods I bought last week.
The peanut butter I consume with the strawberry jelly in question, for the record, contains peanuts and salt, and no corn whatsoever, which pleases me deeply.
Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.
September 29, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
Profile: Film Director David Cronenberg
I was drawn to see Cronenberg’s new film, “Eastern Promises,” yesterday. After noting my reactions to various aspects of it, I thought to look up his list of films on IMDB. My suspicion was correct: I’ve been drawn to his films for years, and always have a major discomfort when watching them, even as I know I need to watch them.
It’s something like 8 of his films that I’ve seen, not that many, really. But the impact they’ve had on me has been deep, and brought me to look up his chart (March 15, 943, Toronto, ON Canada, no time).
The first thing that jumped out at me from his chart is retrograde Chiron in the same degree as the Leo North Node. It tells me that his own unique brand of creative expression in the karmic past had no outlet, or was not supported or possible (given the circumstances of the situations in which he found himself), and that its expression may feel like an imperative in this life. Pluto is also retrograde and in the sign of Leo…and directly opposite Mars in Aquarius. This tells me that his conscious and unconscious desires (Mars and Pluto, respectively), have an argument running, and that the product of the argument will be an outward expression of Martian stuff that can shock and disturb, but that will support the needs of the Rx Pluto in a way that perhaps only makes a clear sort of sense to Cronenberg himself.
South Node ruler Uranus is in Gemini, conjunct Saturn in Gemini, the former being square the nodal axis. Uranus therefore represents unresolved issues from the karmic past this time around for him. From Steve Forrest I’ve picked up a great phrase for when the South Node ruler squares the nodal axis: He was his own worst enemy. In Cronenberg’s case, it looks like he achieved status as his own worst enemy by what he communicated and how he did it.
The asteroid Lucifer is also square the nodal axis, from the last degree of Scorpio. This tells of the perception in the karmic past that he did things that were bad, wrong - or, if you prefer, evil. Given the relative nature of right and wrong, the perception of having done wrong is enough to have this asteroid square the nodal axis. In Scorpio, we’re talking about intensity, probing the depths, telling difficult truths - we’re talking about the use of power. The dialogue between Lucifer in Scorpio and Uranus in Gemini, the opposition squaring the nodes in Aquarius/Leo, centers on the right use of information for the right reasons, the right expression for the right reasons. One read on them is just because you can surprise the stuff out of people with your message and how you deliver it doesn’t mean that you should. The opposition can serve to keep both energies in check, as they’re having a conversation and can offer each other the differing perspectives (the signs they’re in) they each understand. If they do serve to keep each other in check, Lucifer will ask Uranus if the message needs to be as explosive as Uranus wants it to be, and Uranus will ask Lucifer if anything out of the ordinary is automatically wrong to express.
When going down the list of films yesterday, one of the big ahas was when seeing “Dead Ringers” there. I’ve been hypnotically drawn to see that movie twice (forgetting between viewings everything about it), and each time felt my skin crawl, and my resolve to remember my own version of sanity dissipate…and I couldn’t just quit it and move on to something else. For me, Cronenberg’s work offers the opportunity to see this kind of Mars-Pluto/Chiron expression in action, and I seem to be hooked. And fully disturbed. In the end, I objected to the fact that the film was even made (yes, I can laugh at myself for this now), and understanding the Uranus/Gemini-Lucifer/Scorpio opposition in square to the nodes offers the energy I was responding to with my objection.
The last thing I’ll mention is the true Black Moon Lilith (listed as “osc.” in the embedded chart). With the messages we can/I do variously assume Cronenberg offers us, the data I’ve mentioned so far can come into play. With his true BML, however, I offer that understanding his reasons for his own expression (taking the content of the work out of the picture) are helped by understanding this placement. It’s retrograde, and conjunct Jupiter in the sign of Cancer. What I see with true BML when conjunct other bodies is that there’s a specific dependence on the expression of that other body and the willingness to experience, be, view or meet Lilith. Conjunct Jupiter, his sense of bigness, his ability to risk optimism and fulfill his natural human need to develop a sense of largeness within and for life, is tied to admitting (and perhaps being) Lilith.
This tells me that when he risks sharing his vision, he risks being treated as a Lilith figure. That he’s a man makes no difference to this story; when you bring Lilith, you run the risk of being labeled and treated as dangerous, a malcontent, deserving of abuse for what you brought. (One of the giantly needed teachings surrounding Lilith is that each of us, male and female, has her as part of our makeup.)
When we have conjunctions to Lilith, it’s natural to avoid knowing or expressing the energy of the conjuncting planet, because we’re taught to fear Lilith and avoid learning who she is and what she has to offer. When I see Lilith with Neptune, for example, the typical, default orientation is to avoid knowing the direct connection with God/Goddess/Spirit that we each as humans on some level crave. When Lilith is with the Sun, being seen is the issue; creative expression of ourselves as a cohesive unit (the job of the Sun), is what’s avoided…until, of course, it isn’t.
It makes me curious about Cronenberg’s sense of Jupiter, his willingness to Jupiter, in his early days (he clearly has no problem exploring this energy now). I guess I’ll add that to my Lilith homework list.
And I didn’t even mention that the Mars-Pluto opposition is actually a t-square between Mars-Pluto-Eros, the Sun-Arjunsuri conjunction in Pisces, or the square from Venus in Aries to Moon-Jupiter-true BML…
Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.
September 27, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
New reading offered: Personalized, Satirical Chart Analysis
These written, 1,000-word portraits take an absurd look at your chart and life, making all manner of stereotypes, baseless assumptions and predictions drawing on the stereotypes of astrology. It’s different from any other humorous look at astrology because it’s tailored to you and your chart, drawing on the actual placements in your chart. There’s nothing else like it out there.
The entertainment value is independent of a knowledge of astrology, making them a great gift for anyone you know who retains the capacity to laugh and/or enjoy things.
Details
What: A unique, personalized 1,000 written satirical astrological analysis of your chart
What’s needed: Name and full birth data of the person to be read for (day/month/year, time of day, location of birth) – include this in the notes section of the PayPal payment or send me an e-mail just after the payment
Investment: $30 introductory price ($35 after November 1st), payable via PayPal (payment address is tom at tdjacobs dot com)
When to expect it: Allow two weeks for e-mail delivery
Excerpts from actual readings:
1.
Your Pluto is in Virgo in the 10th house. Uranus in Virgo in the 11th is conjunct it, indicating that the deepest desires of your soul center on helping prepare society for the coming devastation from the invading alien hordes that are now but a few light years from earth. With Sun in Libra/11th, you will be chosen as the human ambassador to the alien force. This Sun is sextile Mars in Sagittarius in the 2nd house, a clear indication that your greatest allies in your preparation for your future role are fundamentalist farmers, from whom you can learn key agricultural tehniques that will come in handy when the alien invaders enslave the rest of humanity and unrealistically expect them to farm diamonds and mine corn.
2.
The North Node is in Leo in the 5th house, indicating that your most significant avenue for growth in this life is to get louder and louder, to make as much as noise about yourself as possible. Its ruler is the Sun, in Aries in the 1st house, conjunct Mercury. This means that the way to do this will be to develop and create your own multilevel marketing scheme, one that’s based on how wonderful you are, on letting people know in a variety of ways how spectacular a human being you offer the planet the benefit of being exposed to. This conjunction is square the Cancer Moon in the 4th house. This means that when your family stages interventions at your televised birthday parties to beg you to give up your explosive, viral megalomania (which at that point will be spreading like wildfire over the globe), you must fight them tooth and nail until they leave you alone. You must at all costs be victorious when the enormous size and radical expression of your ego is in any way challenged.
3.
Your Sun is in Virgo in the 6th house, opposing Pisces Moon in the 12th and square Neptune in Sagittarius/8th. This t-square is a clear indication that all the time you spend being down on yourself for the lies you insist in telling yourself about your made-up faults could be infinitely better spent lying to others about their faults. You have the unique ability to see the faults of others, and maintaining sanity in this life for you is to learn to acknowledge your perceptions of others, inflate them beyond belief, and then abuse others with them.
===========
I’ve been practicing astrology professionally for over three years, and writing satire for almost a decade. I’ve done these readings for friends now and then for a few years, and people loved them so much that I’m offering them as a service in addition to the karmic, soul-centered readings I do. If you’re curious about that work, see http://tdjacobs.com.
September 24, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
Transit Lab: Saturn in Virgo square Black Moon Lilith/Neptune
I’ve been organizing by thoughts on Lilith as they’ve come through the last couple of months, organizing them into something useful (Virgo) that I’ll use for teaching in the future (Saturn’s transiting my 11th house).
As Saturn’s still on Arjunsuri, which natally squares BML/Neptune, accessing my own ideas about Lilith via determined, focused work is a plan for the week. Saturn squaring it has also manifested as a few clients the last few days who are ready to hear their Lilith stories and begin to heal the debris surrounding their experience. Actually, two clients yesterday were intimately familiar with Lilith (one on SN and the other in the 1st). Oh, hey, wait a minute: Work (Saturn) came to me in the form of other people very focused on their goals (11th house) and seeking healing (Virgo).
Colleagues have reminded me repeatedly re my own chart that Sagittarius is the sign of focus, but I seem to have developed a habit of being all over the place with my Sag energy. It’s true that I often surprise people by being able to return to my original thread after exploring a substantial tangent, but I observe myself as actually unfocused. Saturn squaring the Neptune I feel as a little less room to maneuver freely the totality of creation; I’m readily aware that there are things that need to be done.
And while the transit through the 11th highlights what I’m doing now to support future realities, I admit to eagerness coursing through my whole being to share what I’m developing. But isn’t Jupiter in my 3rd at the same time? Where Jupiter is natally? Why, yesss, it is…
Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation
September 21, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
Transit Lab: Saturn in Virgo conjunct Arjunsuri
Yesterday I returned from a 10-day Vipassana meditation course, having learned this technique recovered by the Buddha 2500 years ago. The ultimate aim of it is the end of suffering, and it’s possible for every person to do this, given a commitment to patience, ardent work, awareness, perseverance and persistance.
Sound like a list of keywords for Saturn in Virgo, doesn’t it?
This is the kind of thing most of think we could never do, but each of us can choose to do it. I heard about it from a friend who has in common with me a strong mental and communicative energy (Mars-Mercury in Leo in 11th-12th, with a 10th-house Gemini stellium I totally jive with), and a desire for progress that shapes a work ethic that keeps one going going going, that keeps one driven. She told me she’d done one of these courses a while ago, and I was inspired that if she could cause herself to do it, I could cause myself to do it.
Each of the things I knew about it before going in were entries on my well-established and -entrenched list of not-to-dos: sitting still, focusing the awareness on only the breath, following the ethical code central to the technique (read: someone else’s rules), refraining from any communication with other students for the duration of the course, no exercise other than walking, and - here’s the big one - no reading or writing of any kind. I mean, go down the list of attitudes and behaviors I’ve used to define myself, and each needed to be shelved for the duration of the course if I wanted to give myself the chance to suceed with the technique.
But in the face of the opportunity to take better care of myself, and to get to the bottom of a couple of personal issues I wanted to heal, I was willing to do a little Saturn-in-Virgo…which was, I desperately need to tell someone mean, a lot of Saturn-in-Virgo. A lot. I’ve never worked as hard as I did during the course. Never. As a matter of fact, I realized while I was doing it that I can’t remember even a handful of times I chose to challenge myself and work extremely hard in order to achieve something I wanted. When I chose to sideline the rules I’ve developed for myself and submit to someone else’s program (that Mars-Uranus in the 1st bristles at the notion of someone else’s rules, and my Rx Saturn in Gemini/9th and Jupiter in Capricorn/3rd are pretty sure I know what’s good for me and probably that no one else could).
When I studied music, it came easily to me. When I studied philosophy, I couldn’t find the point of most of it and didn’t work very hard, until I found Albert Camus’ brand of life-affirming existentialism and was armed with something eminently useful. When I began writing poetry and satire, it just poured out like you wouldn’t believe (it took a while to bring out my own voice in each, but that was less a matter of hard work than one of doing it enough that other people’s voices played themselves out in me and fell away). When I began with astrology, I dove in and it was, frankly, pretty easy. I seemed primed to incorporate it into the vocabulary I had already been developing about the meaning of life, etc. (building on my work with Camus, in fact). There have been questions and issues along the way in my astrology education that have caused more perplexation than others, but, generally speaking, it was just sitting there and I drank it in in giant gulps.
Okay, so, channeling class was difficult, but in a specific way. I simply had to make sure I didn’t turn down the opportunity every week for four months to confront my fear of doing it; I had to make sure I showed up to do the work and chose to be willing to learn what I needed to learn. And those four months, each weekly installment of which I dreaded like nothing else, were nothing compared with the challenge of sitting still to meditate for ten days and not communicating with anyone.
Do you know many people with Pluto in Libra (those born 1971-1984) who are willing to sit still for 10 days and not communicate with anyone at all? I realized that that in itself was a healing opportunity for me, giving myself the chance to develop a stronger relationship with myself. The soul wound in these people is in relationship, the relating function: the area of fairness, equality and balance - in the area of dealing with others as equals. To learn to sit with one’s self and get grounded in a deep understanding of and relating to that self is Pluto-in-Aries work, or Pluto-in-Libra polarity point work. Doing this is precisely what a Pluto-in-Libra person needs to do when stuck in cycles of Libra misfirings, malfunctionings and junk…which I admit to being prone to be in my more robotic, unaware moments.
The shiny experience worth noting here in terms of Saturn is that the eclipse at 18 Virgo squared from the 12th my own Saturn, Rx in Gemini/9th. I learned something critical about owning up (Virgo) to having compassion (12th house) that I allowed to override (square) an extremely fixed guiding principle I’ve carried (Rx Saturn in Gemini/9th) that no longer serves me. Okay, I’ll just say it: It hasn’t served me for hundreds of years. Even in a past-life regression taking me back to the 1080s, I had this fixed idea! It’s what I’ve known about myself, what I understand as me. I haven’t known any other baseline. So, understandably, I can’t wait to see what will happen next - it’s anybody’s guess.
I work with an archetype I’m introducing to astrology, associated with asteroid 20300, Arjunsuri. This asteroid is in my chart at the first minute of Virgo, so when Saturn entered Virgo, I was in need of some hard work of figuring out to whom to listen. The basic story of Arjunsuri has to do with the process of seeking Truth externally and ultimately learning to listen to your conscience as your guide, allowing the inner voice of knowing to be your final authority. “Finding Conscience on the Path to Truth,” the title of the article I’ve completed describing the archetype, is a good summary of the process.
The meditation course for me, then, had to do with doing some real, some hard Saturn-in-Virgo work, but also with developing a closer relationship with my conscience. One of the conditions students agree to before taking a Vipassana course is to refrain from killing anything, which includes eating meat (as I understand it, if you eat it, you’re participating in a process that began with the killing of the animal). I found myself yesterday on the way home from the course at a restaurant, evaluating the excitingly extensive omelet list. (Omelets with the trimmings are my favorite meal these days, and if I’m going out to eat, I’m going to gravitate toward homey places that serve such things.) Aware that the meditation technique is built on a foundation of vegetarianism, and aware that I’m presently beginning a practice of that technique, I opted not to choose a meat-ridden omelet. I recognized this choice as a Saturn-transiting-Virgoan-Arjunsuri choice: My conscience, with its commitment to giving the technique a real chance in my normal life, overrode my love of meat-riddled omelets. And this asteroid is in my 11th house, indicating how I look to the future and realize goals. My mouth was a little disappointed, but the rest of me felt great in making an informed, healthy choice (Virgo) that supports achieving my goals (11th house).
If you’re interested in learning more about Vipassana meditation, check out: http://www.dhamma.org.
If you’re interested in learning more about asteroid 20300 Arjunsuri, sign up for my mailing list at http://www.tdjacobs.com. It’s the best way to keep up with my activities in introducing this archetype to the astrological community. Within the next few months I’ll be doing a podcast interview about it, and I’ve written an article that will in one form or another be published in the near future, both of which will be announced via my mailing list.
Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.
September 17, 2007 By Tom Jacobs
Shadow Suppression: Lilith, Lucifer and the Dark
It takes a lot of energy to keep out of your consciousness things you don’t want to see. This is the heart of the healing work surrounding wounding associated with Pluto, but it’s also associated with any archetype’s natural expression that we attempt for any reason to suppress.
Pluto’s the obvious example, but we’re talking about every archetype. There are varying levels of social sanction for the different sorts of explosions stemming from an individual’s inability to continue suppression. But all such expressions (explosions following suppression) are seen by society through the lens of Saturn, the glue that we use to hold ourselves in a meaningful sort of structure. They will therefore be seen rather one-dimensionally, as they would if viewed through the lens of any single archetype.
Associated with every archetype are shadow elements we’d rather not see. Mars offers an obvious example in those who use violence outside the structures of the military/police/civic rescue arenas and sports. Uranus offers the terrorist, Venus offers the heart-breaking and deceptive seducer, Sun offers the fascist and the tyrant.
But there are archetypal shadows for which we don’t currently have a vocabulary. Those offered by Lilith, for example, are what come to mind. As a matter of fact, everything about Lilith is made into shadow, leaving people with strong Lilith energy often terrified to again receive the brutal punishment they’ve gotten in the past from embodying the natural energy of this dark goddess.
What’s happened in our history is that we’ve forgotten how to face the dark. Which means that we have come to attempt to deny our true natures. We are light and dark. Each of us covers the whole range of possibilities. If this idea frightens you, take a moment to find out what part of you is conditioned to be afraid. I guarantee you that you have Lilith in you and she wants to find expression, and that there are parts of you that tell yourself that you’re bad for having this part.
Recently I understood that going deeply into Lilith requires me to give up my idea of what love is. I’ve had to confront my assumptions of what it means to support, honor and love others. Specifically, on one level, there are times when not helping someone is helping them more than they know. This is pretty obvious, but on another level entirely, one from which the journey of life is seen as the point of it (and not the pursuit or attainment of happiness, pleasure, ease or goodness), that I try to help you is absurd. No one but you can help you - your journey is in your hands and there’s nothing in reality that I do that actually helps, even if it looks like I do.
This is the level from which we can come to know Lilith. If we assume that destruction is always negative, we miss the point of what she would teach us. Who’s to say what’s good and what’s bad? Is there any such thing? Or is there just creation and destruction and the aftermath of each that forms the bulk of our lives?
So, this is the kind of stuff that makes a deep part of you nervous. Having a relationship with the dark doesn’t destroy existing relationships to moral systems, it only puts those moral systems into context. Perhaps they’re then dropped, but what follows isn’t automatically anarchy, as our conditioned fear of the dark tells us.
Similarly, stepping into Lucifer work doesn’t take us to a higher moral ground, but in truth tends to evaporate the boundaries of specific moral systems. Deeply meaningful Lucifer work takes one to the threshold at which it’s seen that all one can do about developing a relationship to the divine is to choose to do it or not to do it. To either manifest our idea of the divine through our actions or to manifest the opposite.
The path that takes us there is very often informed by the (conditioned) expectation that God is to be found somewhere, if only we were doing the right thing, looking in the right places, or trafficking in the right lingo. The darkness we find in Lucifer work is facing the terrible fact that we can choose to turn away from our idea of God - and there will be no penalty from an external power for doing so. The darkness is in accepting responsibility for ourselves by facing the truth that we have the choice to work for or against what we know is good.
Suppressing Lilith leads to all manner of destructive expression surrounding anger at not having power or being recognized for our true natures, or being forced to deny them. Suppressing Lucifer leads to all manner of destructive action to one’s self and to others, in varying kinds of expression based in anger of feeling abandoned by God and being afraid of aloneness. All these archetypes have in common is that we teach each other to be afraid to look them in the eye, leaving us afraid to look ourselves in the eye. We tell each other that expression of them brings darkness, oblivious to the fact that expression of any archetype can bring darkness.
The truth is that each of us has choice in how to use any energy. This truth is what we as defined as larger groups can’t handle, can’t deal with. That there is choice in each individual terrifies anyone in any sort of conventional seat of authority and power.
And yet, I write again, people will always have access to their true natures. No one will ever truly forget the truth of their nature. And they will in time figure out that the whole human suit game is about choice, and they will in time learn to decondition themselves and exercise free will, which will in fact require looking at these darknesses we carry, getting to know and accept them, and love ourselves for having them. Accepting your self fully, which is creating wholeness in your life and the only true measure of health, means seeing, integrating and loving each part of your complex, multihued nature.
Tom is available for consultations and lessons. See http://tdjacobs.com for more information and to book a consultation.
September 3, 2007 By Tom Jacobs