By Amanda Painter
We’re entering a very rich couple of weeks of astrology right now. Some months, a Full Moon like we have today in Virgo might feel like the peak of energy, a big, dynamic turning point with which you can mark your life. And it still might be that for you personally — but it’s also part of a series of interrelated events that are feeding into something with potentially significant personal and collective ramifications.
The Education of Achilles (ca. 1772), by James Barry. Here Chiron is instructing the Greek warrior hero Achilles in music; music is strongly associated with the sign Pisces.
That “something” is the last of the seven exact contacts of the Uranus-Pluto square on March 16. Uranus in Aries and Pluto in Capricorn have been dancing in this square aspect for nearly three years — but were in effect long before their first exact contact in June 2012, and their aftershocks will unfold over the next several years.
If these two planets have defined our current era, this next phase of that era asks us to get some perspective on what just happened and build toward a common vision. Not an easy task when you consider how hard it is for even a small group of people to agree where to go for dinner.
Astrologically speaking, the cosmos is giving us some clues. From where I’m sitting, one layer of clues are pointing to a correlation between how we give space to and integrate our gender polarities within us, our awareness of that process, and how that maturation within us might correlate to processes around us. You’ve heard the maxim “As above, so below”; you can also think of it as “As within, so without.”
Here’s what’s suggesting this theme of maturing and integrating gender polarities (particularly our inner masculine) in our immediate astrology: Saturday, March 7, the Sun conjoins centaur planet Chiron in Pisces at 11:21 pm EST (4:21 UTC Sunday). Setting the overall emotional tone for the whole weekend, the Moon ingresses Libra at 7:52 pm Friday (00:52 UTC Saturday), traveling through this sign until Monday.
On one basic level, the Libra Moon indicates sensitivity to relationship partners and a desire for harmony and balance with others. For the last three years, the Moon in Libra has also meant that the signifier for our emotional bodies and intuition is in direct contact with the Uranus-Pluto square. Notice this weekend how you feel about some of the personal-is-political issues that have become emblematic of our times, because those areas of upheaval, struggle and innovation are your examples of the Uranus-Pluto square at work.
So how does the Sun-Chiron conjunction in Pisces fit in? Consider that the Sun represents your mature ego, your awareness of yourself as an individual in the world. Consider also that Chiron — an immortal healer and teacher who sustained a mortal wound in mythology — was a centaur: a half-man, half-horse warrior. His half-and-half, “both and” status points to the themes of polarity and integration.
In a piece on Sun conjunct Chiron that Eric Francis wrote two years ago, he stated, “Sun-Chiron aspects can represent the very conditions that allow an immature man to grow into an expressive and responsible one.” He notes in that same article how in a woman, Chiron aspecting the Sun can indicate how she defines herself through the man she is with — until a transit from Chiron as it moves through the sky (and zodiac) prompts that identity orientation to shift.
This weekend, as the Sun and Chiron meet in mid-Pisces, you have a window to explore that kind of integration. In the same article, Eric wrote, “One thing that stands out about Sun-Chiron in Pisces is how as part of this process, men must make contact with their feminine side and their emotional nature, but without sacrificing their maleness.” You could say the challenge for women is to recognize the strength inherent in their feminine, emotional nature. Then you use that recognition to reclaim the sense of purpose and achievement associated with your inner masculine side.
Now, other than Sun-Chiron and Uranus-Pluto being exact within about a week of each other, what is linking them? Thematically, it has to do with this masculine/feminine polarity showing up in the astrology in another form.
Earlier this week, Venus (the planet symbolizing the inner feminine) conjoined Uranus in Aries and squared Pluto. Early next week, Mars (symbolizing the inner masculine) does the same.
What does it mean to have Venus pass through the culture-changing and era-defining Uranus-Pluto square so close to Mars doing the same, and so close to the last exact Uranus-Pluto contact? On a macro scale (rather than the personal), does it represent a revolution in feminine identity (or of how feminine identity shapes society)? Is it hinting to us how to break a deadlock and open up the space for maleness to see itself and mature collectively (Sun-Chiron)?
If so, it will likely take significant time before we see the ripple effect of this astrology in the world around us. However, we won’t see anything of the sort if we don’t pay attention to these shifts and opportunities within us — beginning this weekend.
For some deeper reading about this idea of reclaiming masculinity in a way that is holistic and healthy, see Eric’s article The Radical Notion that Men Are People.
Spot on, Amanda! If there is indeed anything that is slowly but surely happening before our very eyes, it is the integration of gender polarities into a full spectrum of ways to be in the world. It is not accidental that rainbows have come to represent the freedom to live anywhere along that spectrum as one is moved to do in order to be true to oneself rather than be forced to fit into a distorted and highly polarized stereotype. Thank you for this truly great piece that provides any and each of us with a connection to the sky from which we came and a point of departure towards the diversity of choices and options we might increasingly make available should justice and conscience prevail.
Awesome Len, my eyes became clearer after reading Amanda and only then could I see what you meant. You guys are awesome. It makes me feel like I’m kind of in the dark. You guys see so bright!
Yes, thanks for this great piece, Amanda!
Amazing Amanda. I don’t know how you saw this. I now see it because you said so. So brilliant it shines.
I’ll say it again, this is amazing. This is way ahead of our time, it’s incredible that you saw this, especially what you suggest with that paragraph with questions and I believe it’s true what you are asking. Even more so, in that same paragraph those two last questions are really answers is what I think. I believe it will represent that and I believe that that is what it is hinting. I had an experience on Wednesday that suddenly, now after I read you here, just lit up, as in light not flame, that I see as proof of what you are saying.
I’m gratified to read these responses; thank you for confirming what my instincts were showing me in the charts.
Incidentally, I pulled one of James Wanless’s “Sustain Yourself” oracle cards before starting writing this — I was feeling a little uncertain about launching into such a topic that felt a little broad compared to what I’ve been trying to write lately. The card I got was Polarity – Balance — which made sense on its own, and I was heartened by how it reinforced the themes I was considering in this astrology. The I read his writeup for the card:
“You can’t have one without the other. For every North there is a South. For every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. Know the stronger your magnetic influence, the greater the repulsion. To live whole, integrated and complete, hold to the polar opposites. Maintain dynamic equilibrium by doing the converse of the usual and habitual. Be at variance yet unified, contrasting yet continuous. Do what balances you. Keyword: Embrace the ‘both-and’.”
spot on amanda :)) as was your key for 2015.
1. remember our goal
2. aim
3. keep focus
4. discipline
now, i’d love to offer anyone and everyone their male/female instincts. their core comes from our personal animal instincts (called totem animals). all i need is dob. that s the shortcut to our inner marriage so to speak. yin/yang working consciously together.
i will keep looking and answer any takers
namaste all!
Thank you, Amanda – this is brilliant. It really deepens the discussion I was having with Judith on the weekend (belated thanks for your response Judith!).
I had a quote from Mother Teresa running through my head for a while which is what actually prompted that dialogue (for and/or against) – she said that she would never attend an anti-war rally but if invited to a peace rally she would certainly show up. I’ve just assumed she held this stance due to ‘where the focus goes, the energy flows’ or, as some say, the Universe doesn’t hear the words anti/don’t/non etc.
Before she died, she said she felt that she had failed in her mission – that she hadn’t completed it. Perhaps attendance at an anti-war rally (or whatever integration of her polarity was for her) would have helped her feel whole and complete with her vocation.
i realized that i almost immediatly identify (stereotype) centaurs with the masculine.
seems like a no brainer.
My Chiron return year ripped wide open a bunch of challenging father relationship stuff.
Fun = NO , Grateful = YES
the thought came to mind about female centaurs, google told me they are Centaurides.
I’m not familiar with them as astrological archetypes.
anyone?
on a personal experience level these last several weeks, and peaking the past few days, I’ve been processing thoughts towards the polarization of what you have mentioned.
It’s like I’m staring at the water from above and put on those polarizing glasses and it all seems clear.