Here’s part of another Featured Article from Cosmophilia, where you can read the whole piece. Author and hospice volunteer Kemp Battle poignantly reminds us that even the dying still belong here, with us — and if we can remain with them in their journey, they can teach us much. — Amanda P

by Kemp Battle

There is one fact none of us want to talk about. Not only do we not want to talk about it, we have collectively agreed to insist it is not even true: we are all dying. However robust our health, or confident our outlook, each of us is moving toward our own death every day. As the Buddhists say, we are all burning houses.

Photo by Eric Francis

How reluctant we are to acknowledge either smoke or flame! We rely on one another to act as if our lives are never-ending narratives. We cram our calendars with urgent tasks and hoard our grievances and triumphs as if they are meaningful. We demand the future will be a promise that must be kept, while on and on the noiseless clock ticks.

Each day, however, some learn that their life is coming to an end. In a doctor’s office or a hospital room or even in the stillness of their own homes, they are told that they can no longer pretend. They are thrown out of Eden into the pitiless world of visible time.

In that singular moment, at the start of the most momentous journey they will undertake since birth, something unexpected often happens — something worse even than the prospect of impending death. As the spontaneous laughter around them fades, as singing gives way to whispers or pity is offered instead of presence, it becomes clear that everyone around them is acting differently. Interest in what they might be experiencing is suffocated by newfound sorrow, concern and compassion from those around them.

And so, at the one moment common to all of humanity, they find themselves alone, banished from the tribe. They no longer belong.

How did this happen so fast? Who turned them out into this lusterless land of diminishing horizons?

We did.

Yes, us. We the very family, caregivers, friends who tend their afflictions with kindness, who offer them comfort and devotion. And how do we do it? We tell ourselves we cannot go where they are going and so we send them on alone. And we hold a prejudice so deep that we ourselves will not acknowledge it: we resent them.

Continue reading here.

It appears we have recently entered a period distinguished by departure. A notable number of people and patterns have discontinued of late. For instance, a handful of well-known media personalities left their their posts for various reasons only last week. Fortunately, astrology offers a time frame to anticipate or (even better) precipitate even more departures likely to follow.

The implied time frame begins with the second Aquarius New Moon in a row at 6:47 pm EST (23:47 UTC) Wednesday, and continues through the entire lunation (the period from one New Moon to the next) well into March.

Our first Aquarius New Moon saw the luminaries (Sun and Moon) share the very first degree of fixed air last month on Jan. 20. This week’s merger of the Sun and Moon will depart from a pattern of five consecutive luminary conjunctions in the first degree of successive signs. That pattern started with a Scorpio New Moon and solar eclipse on Oct. 23, 2014.

Instead, the Sun and Moon will briefly share the very last degree of Aquarius this week just before both depart for Pisces. Meaningfully, it will also be both Ash Wednesday and Asian lunar new year — two culturally significant points of departure in many parts of the world.

Appropriately, that new pattern will both repeat and conclude next month with yet another New Moon on March 20 in the very last degree of Pisces, just before the Aries equinox. That New Moon will also be a solar eclipse.

Until the vernal equinox, and following on the heels of tomorrow’s Aquarius New Moon, a cascade of notable departures will take place on the zodiac and in the sky. Implicitly, the events of your life will either find a way to follow suit or be made to.

Mars departs Pisces and enters Aries on Thursday. Venus makes its own departure from Pisces to ingress Aries Friday, closely followed by the Moon.

Then, this weekend Venus and Mars conjoin for the first of three times this year. It begins a remarkable departure from the usual pattern of Venus and Mars merging in the same degree of the same sign only once every other year.

Come March 3, Mercury will depart from the narrow arc of Aquarius in which it has been pacing back and forth since the beginning of 2015. (That is, it leaves its ‘echo’ or ‘shadow’ phase.)

Saturn’s station retrograde March 14 will eventually lead to its brief departure from Sagittarius in June. After taking care of several months’ worth of unfinished business in Scorpio, Saturn will return to Sagittarius for the long run in September.

Finally, on March 16 or 17 (depending on your time zone), Uranus in Aries will make the last of its seven exact square aspects (separations of 90 degrees) to Pluto in Capricorn. After that, Uranus will begin a long, drawn-out departure from Aries while permanently moving away from its three-year pattern of oft-repeated and functionally continuous squares from Pluto.

It’s all nearly enough to make you want to sing “Auld Lang Syne” for St. Patrick’s Day. But don’t plan on crying into your green beer.

Instead, you should probably contemplate how to participate with what the astrology indicates. There appears to be an entire lunation chock-full of successive departures now at hand, to be either undertaken or completed. Assuming such appearances are valid, it would probably be best if you took matters into your own hands.

At the very least, you will want to prepare for familiarity to depart. It will mean releasing attachments where appropriate. It will also and ideally mean creating new routines to replace what you had gotten used to. Even if the life pattern in question was not something you were particularly fond of.

For we tend to be creatures of habit, and even the most cursed of customs leave a vacuum that needs filling once departed. Hence, a very good reason for you to initiate departures of your own accord, so as to mindfully and intentionally replace old with better, rather than simply new.  

Even as millions begin the ritual repentance of Lent, you might want to consciously choose your own abstentions rather than have some arbitrarily thrust upon you. Additionally, while millions more clean house in order to entertain not only family and friends but also a more benevolent ambiance, you might want to do some cleansing of your own.

Indeed, in some ways, tomorrow’s Aquarius New Moon might even feel something like an eclipse in advance of the real thing. Based on what is going to be happening for astrology over the next month or so, that might be a good feeling to go with. Especially so if you want to end up where you want to be, doing what you want to do when the next season auspiciously begins.

Offered In Service

Len is available for astrology readings. You can contact him at lenwallick [at] gmail [dot] com.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

I think we’d better admit the obvious: truth isn’t what it used to be in America and that’s undoubtedly a good thing. For a very long time, our narratives about who and what we are have been two-dimensional, much of it fantasy and nationalistic mythology, played out on a 3D screen. Now truth has become something more than just stories we tell ourselves, it’s becoming something to inhabit.

With everything speeded up, with so much coming up to meet the air and light, we’re moving into a fuller discussion, headed (hopefully) for 5D — a different way of seeing the whole of us — at a quickening clip, but we continue to hit the speed bumps, for sure.

We’re trying to navigate our way through this chaotic chapter of our becoming — stumbling over suspicious Pinocchios (with every political story Brian Williams ever personally inserted himself into) when we’d do better kicking over the walls of truthiness (examining every story, personal OR political, that George W., Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney ever told) — to knock at the gates of the corporate-owned infotainment industry that sells us the nightly news it wants us to hear.

Oh, I know. “Lyin’ Brian” might not have met the Pope or shared his Wheat Thins with a Navy Seal out in the desert. He’s lost credibility, income and respect for embellishing his personal narrative to make himself look a bit more heroic. Perhaps we should admit how human that is, how many of us have done the same — and while we’re at it, let’s agree that George W. really did run away from his duties in the National Guard, John McCain evidently did spill his guts to the Cong and St. Ronnie the Reagan actually never left the U.S. of A. during the Second World War, which means he didn’t liberate any death camps.

Two of those mentioned are honored as past presidents and one is respected for his military sacrifice, all fibs, exaggerations, outright lies and cover-ups long behind them. That first guy, though, the one we like so much that we’re greatly disappointed he turned out to be an actual establishment news employee? Williams is in limbo for six-plus months, maybe more. A pundit suggested that he and Stewart might switch jobs, both equally up to the task. NBC said they’d happily have Jon, whose lack of response was decline enough. Williams? I suspect he’s still in shock.

There’s something wrong with the picture, though. In a similar political arena, Rand Paul continues to mention his degree in biology, when in fact he didn’t finish college or earn a degree. He was evidently able to enter medical school without one, so his continuing “off-hand comments” are the kind of short-cut in truth-telling that earns him three Pinocchios from The Washington Post (and a slew of unanswered questions that could fall like a ton of bricks on a presidential candidate — or not, if nobody sends up a flare.) So why aren’t we buzzing about Lyin’ Rand?

Is the lesson here that all lies are not created equally? Williams, as the charming, likeable newscaster squandered our trust and hurt our feelings, but Paul, too complex to define as merely Libertarian, is still too much of an outlier to have earned our ire? Or perhaps this is that moment when we look at how we just don’t pay much attention to these things until some bulldog somewhere attaches to the seat of their pants, and then we all pile on.

Does Sony co-chairman Amy Pascal’s hacked e-mails make her less fictional and more human, or do they prove her to be occasionally insensitive and bitch-slap funny, hence ‘fire-able?’ She has endeared herself to some by admitting that there was some relief in having been knocked off her powerful perch, and advises that we should tell people to their face what we honestly think — although I can’t picture her telling Angelina Jolie that she’s a talentless brat without dire provocation. But who knows, maybe she would. She’s weathered this storm pretty well. What’s the ‘female’ for mensch, anyway?

When we talk about being authentic, I wonder how many of us are willing to take that kind of risk. How many of us are, in fact, willing to be that visible, to tell the whole truth? I had reason to love Ruth Bader Ginsberg even more this week when she told on herself, citing the reason she nodded off at Obama’s State of the Union as not being “100% sober.” She pleaded a bit of excellent wine with a good dinner, and it was her own granddaughter that tweeted the world when her head dropped.

RBG has her big-girl panties on. She’s not afraid of the chattering class, but then she’s 81 and has a lifetime job. She’s also signaled — Spoiler Alert! — that the nation is ready to take gay marriage in stride, and she’s come down hard on the conservative justices for their judicial activism, which she believes endangers democracy (although they all seem to remain friends; Scalia was her dinner, hence drinking, companion on the evening of Obama’s SOTU.)

The President caught hell from the right this week (yawn, same overkill outrage for the last six-plus years!) over a YouTube video he made promoting the ACA. He obviously isn’t afraid of this kind of risk, pretty much at ease in his skin. Noting the flap on the right, HuffPost Hill sent their daily comments under the title, “President Uses Selfie Stick; Articles of Impeachment Ready.”

The conservatives demand more dignity from the black fella because what? Because Dubby was a monument to decorum [sic], never goofy, cranky or cringe-worthy? (Do open these links — it will make you feel better about everything, I promise!)

Reading the day’s news gives us the impression that the pendulum is swinging wildly — left and right, back and forth — in front of our very eyes, but it seems to me that the great confusion of opinion IS the news of the day. We’re in the thick of a larger conversation — as yet unresolved — about the really big social issues like police brutality and religious wars, government policies surrounding income inequality and corporate dominance, even as the cultural issues that are used to pit us against one another are beginning to lose their influence.

The truth is just bare bones facts buts the story we tell ourselves about them shapes the change we’re after. Today lying is the story, and it’s a good one to examine because we’ve not been very good at sorting out lies. We need to develop an ear for what’s truthful and what isn’t.

It would be productive if the political parties could find some commonality, but that’s still in limbo with Republicans doing everything they can to poison the well on net neutrality, and refusing a ‘clean’ Homeland Security funding bill that would allow Obama’s immigration plan to proceed. Still, as we ready ourselves to lose Jon Stewart as Fact-Checker-In-Chief, we seem to have developed a bit of talent at finding and redefining the core issues ourselves.

This week the Director of the FBI, James Comey, responded to racism within the police force with unexpected candor. In a pitch to encourage an accurate body count of those that the police kill nation-wide — not reported, at this point — Comey urged law enforcement to overcome lazy thinking and subconscious bias. In short, he encouraged (without naming it) empathy, the same attribute Obama took fire over when he discussed his decision-making process in picking Sotomayor for SCOTUS:

We must better understand the people we serve and protect — by trying to know, deep in our gut, what it feels like to be a law-abiding young black man walking on the street and encountering law enforcement, we must understand how that young man may see us. We must resist the lazy shortcuts of cynicism and approach him with respect and decency.

Credit where it’s due, that was something of a risk for Comey, considering the conservatives’ usual paranoid howl that lawlessness is just around the bend, with those soft on crime soft in the head. But Comey is a ‘Pub, one of their own, so there has been little backlash at this point. Time will tell if this is to be met with a defensive posture, although it appears that the needle may have already moved on this issue — and if that’s so, think how quickly things have changed since the heat of Missouri in August.

I read several articles this week — at least three, one from NYC — indicating that quick-on-the-trigger cops were being charged with some degree of murder. Accountability is suddenly in vogue. Sadly, most of those cops noted in unfortunate killings were rookies, undoubtedly made paranoid by their Gung Ho training and let loose without a restraining hand. It takes time to make change and there are always sacrificial lambs along the way. Let’s hope this change “takes,” for ourselves as well as the lambs on both sides.

Regarding the viability of the culture wars — giving way to gender equality, like it or not — this week a Supreme Court justice in Alabama decided that while SCOTUS may well approve gay marriage for the whole nation, Alabama had no such directive from God. You may remember Justice Roy Moore from a case that made waves back in 2004. He was removed from serving as Alabama’s chief justice when he refused to remove a 5,300-pound monument to the Ten Commandments he’d placed in the rotunda of the judicial building.

Last month, a federal judge found Alabama’s ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. SCOTUS was asked to intervene, and so a hold was placed on counties issuing same-sex licenses. The high court decided to pass on this ruling, with the federal judge giving a green light to licensing but Justice Moore would have none of it. He is in violation of federal law, but refuses to give, acting ‘on principle’.

CNN host Chris Cuomo earned his day’s pay by taking on Moore with an admirable level of candor, including an exhortation that, “Our laws do not come from God, you know that.”

When you take the rules of your religion and you put them on everybody else, that is not what we do in this country. Your definition of marriage is based on your faith, you’ve said it a hundred times, that it is derived from God. That is not how it works here, and you know that. Equal protection applies to all by compromise. And you would even need to have a rational basis for why it would need to be only between a man and a woman, and all you can say is, ‘Because God said so. It’s always been that way.’ That’s not enough.

I’m quite sure there is no argument that will turn Justice Moore’s head, nor that of any of the Klan members who have applauded and backed his regressive stand. I’m quite sure none of them has developed enough compassion and tolerance to note that love itself is patently unable to diminish itself enough to be contained within so limited a concept as the old law has proscribed. It may well have endured that way for centuries, but it can never be trapped there forever, unable to expand itself. I suppose we should celebrate that Alabama is usually last to go, and that’s where we find ourselves now — at the last of it.

In other news, Kayla Mueller, the young U.S. woman killed by ISIS, has been remembered as a tireless volunteer, someone whose idealism had taken her into dangerous places. She was being held hostage in Syria where she’d gone to assist with displaced refugees; Obama’s team had been working on a rescue operation when time ran out. Her work with the Palestinians set the conservative community into a tizzy of celebration when she was killed, tweets and conversation too mean-spirited to repeat.

Those who are so dark are the baggage we drag behind us, slowing us down. We simply cannot allow that kind of behavior to go unaddressed. The human cost is not just to Kayla and her family, or to those who so badly needed her ministrations. The human cost is to those who attempt to diminish what she sacrificed, to that pinpoint of Light they carry that cannot widen when they are lost in the energy of judgment based on fear. The cost is to the whole of us, because we are not energetically divided; each of us is connected to the rest — and we are waiting for those dark ones to join us.

They will not help us help them. We will have to do that for them, with non-violence and love. We can no longer remain an organism at war with itself, and so each of us — adding our piece of the puzzle — must take care not to fall into the trap of hating, fearing, judging. Those of us who have taken a lower path must be lifted up. We must love our way out of hell. We must forgive ourselves and one another.

So here’s the question: in order to take a leap of consciousness — in order to stop the insanity — does the pendulum have to come to rest at some point? Don’t we have to step into one another’s shoes to see where we might find agreement? Don’t we have to stop counting coup on each other? Stop pummeling scapegoats while hiding our own warts from public view?

The competitive model that demands a zero-sum game denies us that intuitive core of compassionate existence we yearn for. Win/win has to be the name of this human game, and until we badly want that win for one another, we remain in competition and strife. We remain the problem, not the necessary answer.

There is much, politically speaking, to remain uncomfortable about (go here and here for necessary reads and activist/ops) along with a lot of cultural confusion, some of it engendered from those very ones who have outgrown the old templates while still searching out the new. Despairing in what we find does not help us help ourselves. Have faith that where we are is exactly where we need to be, and what we’re experiencing is that thing we’re completing in order to take a remarkable leap. It may feel as though we’re crawling along toward needed change in slow-motion, but we’re moving quicker than we think.

Open the links and remember what it was like just a decade ago, how clueless we were, how horrified and frightened of what was to come. Understand that the sorrows were evidently deemed necessary to break the hold of nationalism, of competition and tribal taboos. Even now, as the clashes seem never-ending, remember that we cannot finally put them to bed unless they have exhausted themselves and, evidently, us along with them.

But we are lighter, aren’t we? Recall how much of what we no longer carry was back-bendingly heavy, sucking at our energy and keeping us from necessary risk, with much of that behind us now. Hug yourself for how far you’ve come!

I grant you, most days it seems like chaos reigns, as if there were 7 billion voices around the planet all yelling at once — and there are, actually. A good many of them are not tech-savvy nor engaged in more than the limits of their own little village and are unaware that their energy signal is registering in the collective to sway the whole of civilization. We need to remember that when we despair of how small we are, how limited our influence.

And remember that not all conscious expression is created equally; remember to aim higher in thought, word and deed. One open heart shines like a beacon among many too shuttered to risk loving, to risk authenticity or the audacity of public error or scrutiny — also known as learning, here on planet Terra.

When we live opened to love and its myriad expression, all things are possible. When we love fearlessly and without expectation, blessing follows. And here’s a reminder: all of us are Valentines, this long weekend, because even the scratchiest and most belligerent of us is a part of the larger body known as the Beloved. So offer up a heart-felt Valentine’s Day smile to everyone you meet today and let your Light shine, because what blesses spreads like ripples in a pond to touch us all.

By Amanda Moreno

First of all, that Mercury Retrograde period was a doozy and I’m just so glad it’s over! Second of all, I’ve officially become a stone fanatic.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

By “stone” I am referring to stones and crystals and gems. I’ve been increasingly using them in the past few years as tools — for healing, or grounding, or balancing or protection (typically in the form of jewelry. It’s become a thing, I’ll admit it. The goddess must be adorned.).

I tend to choose the stones I’m working with based on instinct; whatever color or shape calls to me is what I go with, and my decisions are usually validated with further research.

I’ve recently found an increased ability to tap into them in a way that is more like hearing than guessing. There’s also been a big shift in the types of stones I’ve been attracted to. So much of the focus has been on heart-centered healing and protection — fluorite and green turquoise and chrysocolla and selenite. Now I’m suddenly drawn to lapis and moonstone and obsidian, among others.

I’ve been working with moonstone for years, but its energy has suddenly become far more ethereal than I’m used to. In combination with the lapis, it seems to bring me into my head with some calm, cool, calculated feeling that is not separate from the heart, but it’s such a different experience. It reminds me of some Atlantean priestess standing on a cliff, staring out at the ocean, gathering energy for some storm to come. Or something.

I’m also aware that as I use these stones, the way that energy is moving through my body is changing. Not to say that’s necessarily because of the stones, but there are correlations.

The thing is that I really like the heart centered stones, and I’m somewhat hesitant about these new choices. Part of this is because I’m feeling increasingly called to some part of my path that I’m also wary of, even though I’m not quite clear what it is. All signs point to an intensified focus on self-discipline, structure, and the further deconstruction of beliefs I’ve held for some time, all in support of continuing to come into my power. It’s triggering this instinct I have, largely supported by experience, that tells me walking the ‘healing’ path has to be a solitary adventure — that I cannot have love and relationship (with other humans, at least) as well, at least not in any form that lasts.

My immersion in the heart realms has had me slightly off balance. I’m aware of a pattern I have of focusing all of my energy on others, especially while in relationship, not leaving enough space for ‘the work’, and for that actual day job thing. However, I can feel my powers of perspective and objectivity filtering back in after these years of heart-work and I’m curious as to how the connection between the head and the heart will blend together.

My instinct is that this new crop of stones are helping with that. I just don’t entirely trust them yet. And how strange it can feel to have thoughts like, “I don’t quite trust this rock.”

My birthday just passed, and the rising sign of my solar return chart was 1 Capricorn, with Saturn (ruler of Capricorn and my Aquarian Sun) in the 11th. A look at the Sabian Symbols for these degrees seemed to get me a bit closer to contextualizing the energies I feel ushering me into the year ahead. (If you’re new to astrology, the Sabian Symbols are a system of images applied to each of the zodiac degrees; Dane Rudhyar’s version is one of the most popular.)

Capricorn 1: An indian chief claims power from the assembled tribe. Keynote: The power and responsibility implied in any claim for leadership.

Something about this one speaks to a feeling I have that I should be concentrating more on teaching classes and being a part of like-minded groups this year — and the part of me that feels like I’m not worthy of that or an imposter, even though other parts of me know I’m good at that kind of work. This also refers directly to Saturn in the house of tribe.

The Sabian Symbol for the Libra Moon, then, speaks to what I sense now as a blending of head and heart that can help me in the year to come:

Libra 10: Having passed safely through narrow rapids, a canoe reaches calm waters. Keynote: The self-control and poise necessary to reach a steady state of inner stability.

Perhaps that’s what I feel most keenly right now, a more increased state of inner stability. Four days into my 35th year, and there has already been one episode of ‘crisis.’ But I was able to hold my center and have begun the process of objectively examining what happened.

Coincidentally, the Sabian Symbol for 2 degrees Aquarius, where Mercury just stationed direct — and holy hell, what a Mercury retrograde period that was — reads: An unexpected thunderstorm. Keynote: The need to develop the inner security which will enable us to meet unexpected crises.

As for the connection to the stones, I’ve noticed that using lapis and moonstone together tends to result in me running a lot of energy between the heart and head chakras. For the most part I have felt unable to ground the energy. I have to focus on drawing it down, and have difficulty breathing into it.

It’s all so fascinating, and so much weirder and more mysterious — and fun — than I ever thought it could be. Here’s to continued work with stones, even if I have declared a jewelry buying hiatus for the foreseeable future.

By Sarah Taylor

Ah, Disappointment. There you are again! But, hey — what’s that? You want to come closer? Just so you can help us experience and understand whether we’ve really got it this time? Why, thank you!

Eight of Disks, Five of Cups, Strength from The Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl-W. Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.

Yes, I’m being a bit flippant, but the paragraph above holds the gist of the three-card reading in front of us. The Five of Cups is with us again, but with a significant shift in the quality of its appearance from this past Wednesday and the Sunday before that. This is connected both with its changed position in the layout, and the cards that accompanied it on its prior excursions, as well as the ones today.

First, the position. On February 1 and February 11, the Five of Cups was in the third-card position, which more often than not equates to something that’s coming up. It was felt, yes, but the reckoning of that feeling was yet to materialise fully.

Today, Feb. 15, it is in the centre-card position, which puts it at the heart of the matter. In other words, it is in the process of materialising — and by that I mean that you are increasingly becoming conscious of it, rather than there being an objective increase in its intensity. This difference is subtle and important. It is moving into focus; and what you focus on seems to become larger. Keep perspective: know that you are the one who is calling this forward — calling it out. Whether you are aware of it or not, whether you want it or not, a part of you has been waiting for this. You have unfinished business with it.

Second, the accompanying cards. I’m going to focus on two from the two prior spreads, and then the two that are here today. On Feb. 1, we had The Fool at centre. Its presence heralded your stepping into the unknown — taking a new route in the way you negotiate Disappointment. On Feb. 11, we had The Tower at centre. Its presence indicated the dismantling of something that had been built on the false assumptions you were making about love. This dismantling may have felt, and continue to feel, like a loss, a release, or both. Whichever, it was heaven-sent — which has less to do with heaven than it has with a part of you that is connected to an understanding that there is something greater at play than your human wishes and desires. Something that you might not recognise has the capacity to feed you in ways your previous choices may never have offered you.

So, through The Tower, the ground is being cleared for a new reckoning with the Five of Cups. Now that it’s materialising more concretely in your awareness, can you approach it differently? Key to this approach are the qualities available in the two cards flanking the Five: the Eight of Disks, and — another Eight card — Strength. There’s balance in them from the start.

First, the Eight of Disks, or Prudence. You are nurturing something into fragile, beautiful existence that has the ability to sustain not just you, but a group, a community. This asks for dedication and attentiveness. Staying power and a light but firm touch. What you are growing into life is both tangible and magical. It is infused with light while being practical. It could be your tour-de-force.

Bring this awareness to the Five of Cups — the ability to stay the course, to nurture, to sustain — and the sheer rigidity of that central card is shown up for the outdated and unyielding thing that it is. Look at the Eight of Disks and the Five of Cups side-by-side and you’ll understand the contrast, and the felt-sense of the choice available. With Disks and Cups, you’ll be able to tap into your body’s wisdom to discern what is true for you.

And finally there is Strength, card VIII of the tarot’s major arcana.

“Lion,” “Passion (emotion),” “manifold, creative talents,” “power,” “integration of animal forces.”

As a major arcana card, the presence of Strength aligns this reading with the two previous ones (with The Fool and The Tower) and suggests that what you are dealing with is very much part of your life’s journey, your soul path. This is not just about what is happening on a mundane level. This is about how you are negotiating the business of answering the call to grow into yourself — to become the person you were born to become, uniquely you.

The Disappointment you now face is familiar; it is something you have encountered time and again; and it takes you, and you alone, to face down what remains of it and to square it away — perhaps once and for all. Each time you have come round, another layer has been chiselled or blasted apart. Each time you have come round, there is less of a pull into the sense of loss that once seemed second-nature to you. Each time you have come round, you have found more space, inside and out, to nurture something of exquisite beauty and value to you and others.

The Five of Cups, representing here what has haunted you for so long in matters of the heart — well, it doesn’t stand a chance. Step into your ecstasy — the wisdom of your untamed heart — and roar the remnants of disappointment away. ROAR! Bring the animal into the sacred. I have a feeling you’ll be surprised that you know what you’re doing, at the heft you can wield, and the result you achieve.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Eight of Disks (Sun in Virgo), Five of Cups (Mars in Scorpio), Strength (Leo)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

Astrologer Dale O’Brien (“Doc Chiron”) weaves a pun-filled tale of chi-ronic outsiderhood and indigenous wisdom to help us see how the wisdom of the outsider is necessary, valid and heard most clearly outdoors. You can read the full article on the Cosmophilia website. — Amanda P.

by Dale O’Brien

Dear Kindred Spirits,

Dear Prudence, greet the brand-new day!
The Sun is up, the sky is blue,
It’s beautiful, and so are you!
Dear Prudence, won’t you come out to play?
…The birds will sing that you are part of everything…
Look around, ‘round … (Lennon/McCartney)

Do you, like me, ever feel like you don’t belong in this ever-increasingly insane, intolerant, wickedly cruel and violently destructive society? We all need to belong to something bigger than ourselves, but we can’t belong to any group unless that group accepts each of us as who we are.

Photo by Eric Francis

The voice that astrology calls Saturn is the ‘bouncer’ at the door who won’t let anyone in who isn’t acceptable according to his rules. That bouncer Saturn also throws out anyone inside who doesn’t accept and obey Saturn’s rules. So where does that leave someone like you or me? Saturn’s rejection leaves us outside, but that’s not a bad place to be.

Everything orbiting beyond Saturn is invisible to the naked eye. In astrology these objects are called ‘outer planets’, and each corresponds in different ways to the ‘outsider’ part of each of us. The first object out from Saturn is Chiron, whose multifaceted mythic story tells us where unseen and unacceptable outsiders belong.

As astrology’s and Greco-Roman mythology’s first Divine/animal hybrid, Chiron, unwanted bastard son of Saturn, does not fit neatly into any ‘either/or’ judgment. Unlike most of astrology’s mythological high-and-mighty Olympian V.I.P.s, Chiron was said to live simply and humbly outside in Nature in the last Greek stronghold region of shamanism — ‘wild’ even into the twentieth century.

Cultural anthropologist Robinette Kennedy, during one of her Trance Postures experiential workshops, said that various peoples around the world lived in tribal and shamanistic communities for at least 25,000 years, if not perhaps ten times that long. Even the most conservative time estimate of the length of the shamanistic era is far longer than ‘civilization’s’ recorded history. In tribal/shamanic/indigenous cultures, ‘Ch-ironically’, everyone and everything in Nature was seen as related to everyone and everything else. Everyone and everything had a unique role to play. Clearly, holism and ecology are nothing new!

The wise purveyor of such truths was the shaman (male or female) who lived just outside the community, even closer to Nature than other members of the tribe. Of course the shaman healer-and-more played an essential role in such a culture. Similarly, at the other end of the modern spectrum of experience, any apparent ‘victim’ of illness or wounding was considered to be playing out a role for the tribe. However, in original holistic communities, each member of the tribe and all species nearby were also involved in the wounding and healing process.

Continue reading here.