Roerich’s Buddha in repose
One of my new, professional muses, Giselle, the alternative PR empress, was waxing about how the most effective blogs are always the most personal. She says it’s what she likes about my site. So, with that little nudge, it gave some push to write a post that I had been thinking about for a while and that is how certain aspects are affecting me personally and how I can share them with you from the front lines of my psyche.
As some of you might know, I am recently removed from my marriage of nearly seven years, which included a beautiful, five-year-old son that continues to enlighten and amaze us. There were many triggers for this transition on the personal level, but make no mistake, there are definitely some major astrological factors in play as well.
At the end of April, transiting Jupiter moved into opposition with my own natal Uranus. Uranus sits in my ninth house in Leo, while Jupiter transits my third house, which is probably why I’m writing about this experience. But when this opposition occurs, as it is for many folks this year who are born with Uranus in Leo, it’s a time for newness, fresh starts, reboots. For me, this impacts how I interact with the qualities of the ninth house, one of which for me, has always represented the upper room, the way station between the body and the soul. In the upper room, we ascend to meet with wisdom, purpose and greater meaning.
As it relates to my sub-generation, it is impacting me in the following way; Here in the nape of the eternal, tantric, process-fille-Bay Area- life, I have noticed that my peers are constantly talking about “transformation” and “processing.” The Uranus in Leo aspect is having me question this reality that we all so readily share and mostly agree upon. Whether we’re shedding the skin of past lives, reformatting our DNA, or preparing our subtle bodies for 2012, there’s always a feeling of moving, churning, crunching, transiting, but rarely, if ever, one of arriving. What would it take for an individual to authentically claim that “I have arrived?” How would it feel to say that “I am through with the navel gazing and am ready to live?” Most people in my neck of the woods would claim hubris, arrogance and excess of pride. Normally, I would agree with such sentiments, but as Uranus opposes Jupiter, it’s making me think along different lines. My thoughts are evolving towards completeness and completion. I am entertaining what it would feel like to be done as much as I can be done right now.
We’ve grown a multi-billion-dollar industry around being a culturally creative society; from yoga and kirtan, to raw foods, to green ideologies, to self-help books, DVD’s and seminars. We have in some ways become obsessed with the search, the idea that we’re not good enough, positive enough, abundant enough, multi-dimensional enough, green enough, clean enough . . .you get the picture. I’m not disagreeing with the idea that we can re-define ourselves against our cultural milieu and find our authentic selves, but here, in The Bay Area, the search seems endless, eternal and ultimately can take us away from our most present states. Sometimes and this is where my next biggest aspect kicks in, we substitute the reality of our lives with the mythopoetic quest for our souls, which seems so much more glamorous than the reality of our grind. In essence, in the intense need to search for ourselves, are we in reality, hiding from them? If so, are we creating a psychic schism between the real and the imaginal? Are we actually splitting ourselves from ourselves through our continual questing?
It’s too late to turn back now, but what is the alternative to the alternative? For me, it’s a sense of knowing who you are right now. Accepting everything about yourself, both positive and negative and to turn your talents, gifts and skills into actualities, not potential. You are here now. 2012 might happen, it might not. It might happen in ways that none of us are truly prepared for, but the reality is, is that 2012 is nearly three years away and a lot can happen between now and then. There is no place to arrive at, no sense of getting clearer or closer to perfection. You have arrived. How does it feel? Can you handle that fact? What is the gnawing sense that this cannot be? What more can you accomplish or need to do? You have everything you need right now. What will you do with it?
Uranus opposing Jupiter is just one aspect that is coloring my perceptions. The other is a major Venus/Saturn square, which is doing a real number on my relationships. Here I am, somewhat isolated, out near the point of The Bay, and my closest connections seem to be getting pared away from me. Just like last week, one of my closest and dearest friends went sideways on me. I’ll spare the gory details, but to suffice it to say, we are no longer on speaking terms and I am more okay with this than I am not. Not because of the toxic aftertaste the interaction left in my mouth, but it’s because such a severe severing means to me that who and what he represents to my life is no longer pertinent. His struggles, his pain, his shadow all of which reflected my own in some way are gone and I have to believe that it is as powerful for him as it has been for me. I don’t know, nor do I care to speculate who or what I have meant to him on a symbolic level, but I hope that the remnant is positive, that he can move on from the stuck place I’ve seen him in since 2000.
If we are both liberated by this disconnect in what has been a mutually supportive connection for years, then it was worth it. If there is more of us available, then I will rejoice for being plucked by the roses thorn.
I wish him well.
For someone that has a stellium in Libra in the 11th house, friendships have been vital for me. But now, as Saturn and Venus square off, I am realizing and getting more at ease with my aloneness as it leads towards new realizations, one of which feeds into the larger tributary of my life; it may not look the way that I would like it to, I may have erred, may have made choices that weren’t always in my best interest, may not have fully embraced who I am to the extent that is was painfully clear to others, but I cannot change that. For better or worse, I have arrived.
8 thoughts on “Getting Up Close And Personal With My Transits And The Deception Of The Endless Arrival”
Navel gazing and the spiritual quest is a self-indulgent by-product of the uber-narcissim of our era. But I do think that as a society in transition from a generation of programming and brainwashing (that we’re not lovable unless we’re beautiful, rich and own status symbols), the spiritual path helps us deprogram, detox and purge the addiction to extreme materialism, so we’re ready to make the sacrifices that can take us on a new path of voluntary simplicity. This journey has been a necessary — to get us off the fast lane of knee-jerk consumption, full circle back to the rediscovery of the simple things that really matter — with more time and presence of mind to appreciate the moment and not be so busy striving that we miss it. While I think it would be great to say: “Stop the quest,” I also think the quest serves another important role in the greening of the planet. In the future, instead of getting our status from a car, a big house or possessions, we’ll get status from the skills we’ve learned and the workshops we’ve taken. One benefit of workshops, therapy, massage, yoga, Reiki, etc. is that most of these activities stimulate the economy without really generating any “product” that pollutes or takes up space in a landfill. As we shift into a service economy, I think this trend of self actualization and workshops will accelerate rather than diminish.
I agree with you partially. I think the idea that we need to experience “voluntary simplicity” is a culturally and economically biased one. What about all of the people in this country that have experienced involuntary simplicity, also known by other names, such as poverty? Are we to determine their spiritual relationship to things? Perhaps voluntary prosperity is what they need.
I also think that we are made manifest through our creations and that while God is more than willing to co-create in a light touch healing session, I think that she would also be thrilled to be infused in art, food. gardens, clothing, et al. As Pluto in Capricorn opposes the US stellium of planets in Cancer, necessity will become the mother of invention as they say and creating things of quality versus that of quantity will likely prevail. As far as workshops go, I’m sure that the club of billionaires that just met in New York would be happy to fund an economy based on workshops and seminars . . .well at least Oprah would.
Hi Robert,
Well I have to say I am so relieved to feel that I am not alone. In December last year I had a realisation that it was time to go my own way; I have been involved with a ‘spiritual development’ organisation for over fifteen years now and got increasingly fed up with this attitude that we all have to live in the Higher all the time. It’s not natural – all that is High is given life on this planet and in the human by dwelling in the Lower, which means to me that unless what we learn and access in the Higher is given life through our daily activity, it can never access and therefore change the human race. The thing is, I know and feel that I have learned so much, and been in the company of the most amazing essences and presences, but the fundamental problems that I face as a life have not really changed – I never felt that I had overcome my ‘stop situations’, rather that I had been lifted out of them for a time. It seems that at this stage in the evolution of human life, at least for me, it is time for us all to face off the demons of fear and lack of self-belief, not by fighting them, or by avoiding them, but by finding and living the expression of humanity which is our own unique individuality – be that through music, art, even business. Because if what we have learned in our spiritual quest has been real, it will infuse those activities with which we engage and then flow to the rest of humanity. I too, have found myself severing ties with pretty much everyone to whom I’ve been connected, but it feels as if something else is driving it, creating situations where I have no other choice. It’s almost like being put into a confinement while pregnant with some other possibility. If a new human is to emerge, it seems to me that this is one of the ways the process will manifest. Imagine a world where we are all doing the things we love to do, don’t you think Creation will love that too?
Hi Opal,
Thanks for reading and commenting. Yes, a lot of us have been searching and journeying for years, always with some expectation that we are going somewhere, processing, arriving and while there is a lot of merit in exploring these other dimensions of self and refining our relationship with life on Earth–I’m all for it–is life pasing us by? Are we missing out on some fundamental experience that we are really okay and that the only thing that we have to learn is to unlearn a certain level of social indoctrination, see ourselves apart from consensual reality and then begin to choose how we want to live, while letting the magic of creation inform us through inspiration and dreams?
What you say about creativity and art is something that really speaks to me. I have long felt that creation is in love with complexity, innovation, imagination and creativity. It knows itself through the multiplicity of invention and supports it in our lives, because ultimately, it is selfish (in a good sort of way). In fact, there is even a growing movement in physics, which supports this.
I wish you all the best on the reclamation of your humanity.
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
—Mary Oliver
Mmmmmmmm
Hi Robert,
I think what you say about unlearning social indoctrination hits the nail on the head, actually. I have often wondered if the whole point of the spiritual quest is to get us to realise simply that we are so much more than our society and education has allowed us to be, or stopped us from being. There’s a saying ‘Stand still, for truth cannot be fetched, it comes when you make demand of it.’ I don’t believe that religion or spirituality is something apart from life, that you have to go to a special temple or centre or whatever to get it, I really believe that it is about the attitude you carry in yourself from moment to moment every day of your life, that gives you a radiation which something higher can respond to and say ‘yes he/she’s one of us, let’s help them’. And this way of thinking and way of life excludes all dogma, and makes it forever new, forever unique, forever creating. Because if a new human possibility is emerging, it cannot manifest in old forms, surely it needs people who are fluid, right-brained, open to new creation. ‘Multiplicity of invention’ – yes please!
The great thing about awakening is that you don’t have to be the “smartest guy in the room” to do it and in fact, that may actually inhibit the process at times.