The Great Illuminant

Shortly before 4:45 am EDT (08:44:44 UTC) Thursday, the Sun will enter tropical Gemini. That will mean you are two-thirds of the way through the season that started on March 20, when the Sun entered Aries only hours after a total solar eclipse in the last degree of Pisces. It also means the great illuminant of sky and astrology is bringing its light to what’s going on in Gemini.

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The actual Sun is inseparable from the light of day. The symbolic Sun of astrology brings a similar light — that of consciousness. Whether in actuality or in astrology, that light is reflected by other objects in our solar system.

From your perspective, the actual Moon (in Gemini today, in Cancer for most of tomorrow and on Thursday), appears to reflect solar light most brightly most of the time. That’s because the Moon is, of all objects in the solar system, routinely closest to the Earth.

For reason of its brightness most of the time, the Moon is classified as a luminary along with the Sun. Actual planets, because of their distance, appear less reflective of the Sun. Even so, it is because of the actual Sun that you are conscious of the rest of the solar system. 

The symbolic Sun serves a similar purpose in astrology. It is the point of reference that determines our relationship to the Moon and planets. For example, Saturn’s opposition is now peaking not only because Earth is moving between actual Saturn and the actual Sun, but also because the glyph for Saturn is in the process of being opposed by the Sun’s glyph on the zodiac circle. The same is true with all oppositions, defined both literally and emblematically by the Sun’s position relative to the rest.

In analog, the symbolic Sun of astrology illuminates your consciousness of all of the zodiac. Most of the time, the greatest degree of emblematic enlightenment will be received with regards to the sign occupied by the Sun and any planets in the immediate vicinity. Such could be the case for you with Mars and retrograde Mercury, two planets already in Gemini. First, however, you must realize something about yourself.

You must realize that you are part of astrology, not separate from it. You must also acknowledge that the enlightenment you seek is what you are most likely to find.

You can always find reasoning (however out of proportion, context and scale) to support what you want to believe, even if what you believe is demonstrably not true. As soon as the Sun enters Gemini, it will rapidly move towards a separation of 90 degrees (a square aspect) from foggy Neptune in Pisces as if to prove the point. As with all square aspects, you must act to resolve the tension. Veracity can only be gained after you have acted to resolve discrepancies and demonstrate (rather than simply assert) the truth. 

Hence, you might want to discard your hand-me-down notions of what Gemini, Mars and Mercury retrograde “mean” by the time you wake up on Thursday. Avail yourself of an opportunity to awaken to a greater degree of truth. Give yourself (and the great illuminant) a chance to get your consciousness out from under any attachment to prejudice.

Give the Sun, in Gemini until the Cancer solstice on June 21, a chance to shine light on your experience and banish the shadow of hearsay. Let Saturn (in Sagittarius opposing the nascent Gemini Sun) restructure your awareness. Allow yourself to navigate through fog (Neptune) to reacquaint yourself with life’s energy (Mars) and regain mastery of your mind (Mercury).

All that and many other adventures await you in solar Gemini. Just remember, it will all begin with and ultimately depend upon you and the Sun.

Offered In Service

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

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About Len Wallick

Besides endeavoring to be of service to all of you here at Planet Waves, Len strives to live in Seattle while working as a professional astrologer. To contact him for an astrology reading you can send an e-mail to: lenwallick@gmail.com. His telephone number is 206-356-5467. In addition to his profession, Len contributes to the Seattle community without monetary compensation by serving as a Reiki practitioner and teacher through classes and outreach offered by the Seattle Reiki Mastery Series modality.

32 thoughts on “The Great Illuminant

  1. Bette

    Most helpful, Len – thank-you.
    I had anticipated all this activity in Gemini would constitute much within-ness for me, as it’s all in my 12th – Mercury’s station being close to my natal retro Uranus & within orb of opposing my sun. I recall your words reminding me that I needed to be mindful of taking what developed “within” out into the world.

    Seems much of my within work right now is about staying out of angry-poor-me while almost ALL my efforts at outer activity, including crucial ones like getting my garden planted, have been delayed or otherwise stymied. Help (paid & otherwise) has not arrived; topsoil arrived a week late, by which time the one person with a machine to spread it had become too busy to do so until who-knows-when; promised assistance with some work on my house has also not arrived. Other efforts are equally log-jammed.

    So I’m working on acceptance, on bearing in mind (& heart) that those who I could perceive as having let me down are also dealing with some difficult astrology, each in their own way. I’m reminding myself how fortunate I am to HAVE my home, ample garden space, & a beautiful weather forecast ahead, trying to focus on the smaller things I CAN do.

    Thanks also for the heads-up on the imminent Neptunian potential for fogginess. Neptune’s hanging around my midheaven, squaring my sun; I hope I can see clearly.

    1. Cowboyiam

      Bette I feel you
      (Seems much of my within work right now is about staying out of angry-poor-me while almost ALL my efforts at outer activity, including crucial ones like getting my garden planted, have been delayed or otherwise stymied.)

      I identify with what you allude to. I have the feeling that nothing on the outside of my inner world really matters to me. But things do seem to be closing in on me, and it seems all my fault. So I swing from total abandon to dire stress. Not sure how the pendulum is going swing next. Confusion and despair followed by enlightened dreams. Simi bipolar for sure – but I won’t take medication. And in really it is worse just the last couple of years. So not always this much drama with life, but now it is the reality I try to navigate. So naturally I communicate it.

      Its hard for others to count on me lately. But still I have the realized experience that this too shall pass. That very experience, which has proven its truth hundreds of times in my life, is very intriguing to my witness. Do I – think myself into great places – and then – into hard places? Or is this cyclical nature some how a gift allowing for us to perceive the imperceptible?

      1. pam

        cowboyiam do you have a hobby like writing or art or dance or a martial art or model making or dress making where you can bring together every aspect of yourself. Piano does it for me…. Not always when I’m completely distressed: then i do nothing and sit in the woods beside a tree.

        Since reading 4.48 psychosis I don’t think our current medical definitions are useful – you can hold up a roof from outside in – but in side out seems easier. These yurts for example use the ‘freestanding’ roofing techniques used in football stadiums – http://heliyourte.blogspot.fr/ aren’t they beautiful

        Mostly the rebalancing/integrating factor is quite small. Or a question of getting to know yourself and in context. if it is something huge – either structural, or in passing (like Neptune going over the top of your chart) of course you need professional advice. Just choose your professional, and don’t go in further than you can get yourself out or seek another opinion. Martha Beck’s books aren’t everything, but they are something?!

        I’m so glad I read Mr God this is Anna by Fynn (how to think outside the box), Dibs in search of Self by Virginia Axline (the way I said I wanted it the way you said you wanted it the way we said we wanted it), and The Almond bough in Twice seven Tales (sometimes the Lady of the Linden tree) by Barbara picot (‘I have seen a miracle and how softly they fall…’ tho that phrase is from The Scarlet Seed by Edith Pargeter)

  2. Michael Mayes

    This reminds me, on the new moon Monday I started a daily astrology observation journal. I’m going to start regularly recording my observations in life, while noting the astrology going on at the time. The way I’m doing it is designed to “get out from under any attachment to prejudice”. I want to open my mind to different possibilities, and find out what astrology means to me, using my own observations. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel. I recognize the importance of the knowledge that’s been handed down, and there’s ample foundation to build from.

  3. Barbara Koehler

    Good idea Len, getting out from under any attachment to prejudice – esp. to Mercury retrograde – and seeing the light of Gemini in a whole new way could be a lot of fun too. This is going to be a holiday weekend and on Saturday, Mars will conjunct the U.S. Sibly chart Uranus and trine the transiting North Node in Libra at the same time. Maybe something unexpected could lead to a new relationship or a new way of interacting within an existing relationship. Then on Sunday Mars will trine Ceres in Aquarius and that sounds like a picnic on the patio or poolside party to me. What could be jollier than a grand air trine between Mars, North Node and Ceres? Maybe some fireworks?

    Have fun whatever you decide to do everybody.
    be

  4. Pisces Sun

    Thanks Len for the reminder about how we think about things influences our reality: “what you think you become.” That is why it is always important to think your highest thoughts towards becoming your highest potential!

    Also good point about finding reasoning to support what you want to believe, which when I read this line, I immediately thought of Fox News and the conservative agenda and the vicious cycle they employ of playing on people’s fear of change: fear of expanding the neighborhood (social justice), fear of sharing wealth (economic justice), or fear of adopting environmental protectionist policies directed toward a broader collective social agenda (fear of belonging to something bigger than themselves and sharing). Thus, they are what they think and their thoughts get reinforced with the conservative agenda, which is “hold on to what you got!” Except of course, “share with us, so that we can help you, hold on to what you got!”

    Hopefully, communications (and consciousness) will illuminate and expand and get a bit shook up during this astrological time frame, by others who bring attention to their thoughts through their actions (and maybe even mother earth herself), since the earth, too, is an illuminant? Don’t the Sabian Symbols suggest a bit shaking up in the communicative perspectives during this Mercury Retrograde timeperiod? I guess I am moving from the personal to the global but I can’t help but wonder given how, tracing back from the solar eclipse, to the lunar eclipse, full moon, to the shadow effect of Mercury and and now new moon this all seems to have astrologically asserted itself in drawing attention to the plight of the human condition that has been grappling with things ignored in the foreground illustrated by train wrecks, African migrants heading towards Europe capsizing off ships and dying in the Mediterranean Sea, Nepal earthquake, climate change examples all around us, kayak protesters against Shell oil gearing up for the Actic, and presidential campaigning in the background.

    For my part, I am busy researching material that will require meticulous factual checking and analytics, with final writing and publication immediately following this retrograde period. I am heeding your, (Eric’s and others here) advise to be as open as I can to perspectives that are broader than my pre-conceived notions (hard) about what the facts might reveal hoping that I can keep my biases in check as any good researcher would.

  5. Cowboyiam

    Len I don’t know what to say because I am seriously lost in the fog lately where it comes to my experience. But you seem to be telling me its going to get worse…Uggg!
    I do appreciate so how you always express the coming energy from the deepest perspective – and I appreciate the heads-up.

  6. Cowboyiam

    Even though it seldom seems to help me. I seem a stubborn soul. I guess I am made that way. LOL.
    Even so I have noticed a general progression of my thoughtfulness over my past couple of decades, and that encourages me to see farther into the possible.

    I feel often that I am like the Canary in the mine, but unlike those fragile souls, I seem to be squawking up a storm as the gas is released. Not ready for prime time TV but certainly in my little neck of reality.

  7. Len Wallick Post author

    Bette: Thank you. Seems as though what you are going through (and how you expressed it) is resonant for others besides you at this time. Hence, it appears as if you have had success (at least here in Planet Waves comments) bringing your inner work to the world. Believe me, i also have grounds to empathize with much of what you have shared. i’m also in concord with, and inspired your approach (which seems very healthy and appropriate). Of Neptune conjunct the mid-heaven, Robert Hand addresses man of the themes you have touched on, concluding “Much of what you learn now will later prove to be of permanent value.”

    cowboyjam: Thank you for working it all out and getting yourself complete through your three comments here. In reply, please allow me to begin with a clarification: nothing of what i wrote in service here today (either expressed or intended) is in any way meant to say “…it’s going to get worse…” I did not say that. You said that. i do not make it so. Astrology does not make it so. Yours is the power to make it so – or not. In taking what i have written and making it worse, you have made my point. Astrology is not what happens to you in perception or in reality. Astrology is a natural resource for you to use in keeping your perceptions of reality sound and your responses to reality appropriate. Astrology is a beautiful resource – too beautiful to be made ugly. Please accept my sincere and compassionate encouragement to make yourself beautiful through what astrology offers. Based on what you have written, you are already more than the proverbial “half way there”. Of course, astrology is not the be-all, end-all. It’s no substitute for what other healing professions can offer to help you count on yourself and appreciate how beautiful you are. At the very least, please do not make yourself (or astrology) ugly and you will be on more solid ground.

    Michael: Thank you for sharing about your journal. It’s a great idea. It may not be for everybody, but given how astrology consists of observation and correlation as a first principle, you should derive great benefit. Thank you for allowing others to benefit as well by your always-cogent comments here.

    Barbara (be): Thank you for the heads-up regarding the Mars transits for the weekend. Your in-depth knowledge of the United States (Sibly) natal chart is always gratefully received here.

    Pisces Sun: Thank you for your teachings. i do not use the word “teachings” lightly. In your comment here today, you have given us a very useful, compassionate yet practical sermon in the very best sense of the word “sermon”. Your approach toward gentle persuasion is something i’m very grateful to have you share as a valuable addendum to my service here. You are deeply appreciated here.

    1. Pisces Sun

      Len, I am humbled by your comment but also moved by all that I see and feel which often shows up being expressed in writing, but thank you. I often tell those around me to be careful not to get caught up in “ear candy” that is, not to favor hearing what they want to hear, otherwise, they will not learn anything and only reinforce their own biases.
      Occasionally, I have to remind myself of the same thing. There’s comfort in surrounding yourself with those that think like you but as Einstein says, you will not solve problems with the same sort of reasoning that placed you in the problem in the first place! I’d rather learn new perspectives while standing, meaning before I loose everything and have been so humbled and down on the ground that only then do I see things differently. You have reminded us to move out of our comfort zone, watch setting boundaries of thought or to to follow a line in the poem, Ullysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson: “To seek Knowledge beyond the utmost bound of human thought.” We can’t do that if we bind ourselves with our prejudices and preconceived perceptions of “what is.”

  8. Cowboyiam

    Len your words are taken to heart. Something I actually already know but seem unable or unwilling to implement consistently. I keep reaching and that simple truth holds me higher. But I desire freedom. You speak such wisdom. I am compelled to keep reading and responding.

  9. Len Wallick Post author

    Cowboyjam: As the late, great Nelson Mandela discovered during his long years of incarceration, freedom is to be found within. Astrology can help. Other healing modalities can help. But you must first want to release yourself. Believe me, i’m not perfect. My own inner cages and self-imposed limitations make me no better than anybody else. At least, however, i’m determined to be no worse. Please join me in that determination.

  10. Yoniyoganidra

    Oh to the Great Illuminant, Len…Thank you for “the enlightenment you seek is what you are most likely to find.”

    I am going for the great beyond and the cosmic Wow… and inspiring the rest of the astrological
    posse – Saturn, Neptune, Mars and Mercury – to help bring then down to earth.

    Happy Gemini-ing Everyone!

  11. Len Wallick Post author

    Yoniyoganidra: Thank you for bringing the enlightenment and inspiration of your own cosmic aspirations here to share with us. May the Gemini Sun shine gently upon you.

  12. Len Wallick Post author

    Pisces Sun: Thank you. Each of the issues your response brings up resonates with the astrology. On the one hand, the sometimes lonely maintenance of boundaries in order to rise above group-think.
    On the other hand, doing as Tennyson and all great writers have done – pushing boundaries so as to express what words have never captured before – to grasp what no minds had heretofore understood. We love you here at Planet Waves.

  13. Barbara

    Len….I’ve been reading and re-reading your writing….and what I’ve come to appreciate about your work is how you intuit and (pace) the patterns…..the whisper I have been hearing from the universe…is to “PAY ATTENTION”…..” INTENTION”….. your writings/readings since the Scorpio full moon have resonated remarkably…..thank you once again

  14. Len Wallick Post author

    Barbara: My thanks to you in turn. It is immensely gratifying to know that my service has been resonating for you so continuously and so well. Thank you also for picking up on my intent, or at least part of it. Helping readers to see and set their own pace with the patterns of the sky is one of my most important objectives.

  15. pam

    Len I notice lots of people seem to be writing cowboyjam but i see cowboy I am – maybe part of the jam is how other people are ‘reading’ you cowboyiam (but in life rather than here)?

        1. pam

          (still meandering….) Also perhaps it isn’t others who are missnaming you but a pointer to you yourself. Is cowboyiam precise enough ie cowboy can mean almost ‘rogue’ outfit can’t it. So there is the idea of a safe pair of hands to incorporate. And cowboy I am is that really who you are – might be truth seeker or way finder,or the romance/nostalgia/simplicity/big spaces/moving on/’working class roots/real men… (whatever you associate with cowboys)

          (for instance I’m less and less interested by definitive ‘truth’ these days. What is ‘the’ truth for any given situation at any given moment is looser and ‘more’ true (live, a true note), I’ve found.

          A couple of people speak of constructs and I find I prefer a true note. What is a true note. What is sound?

          (still meandering…)
          xxxp

  16. Len Wallick Post author

    Cowboyiam: If i have not been spelling your “handle” properly, please accept my apology for that.
    Unless you say otherwise, it will be “cowboy-i-am” from now on.

    pam: Thank you for the kind words and correction.

  17. Christine Kilavos

    Give the Sun, in Gemini until the Cancer solstice on June 21, a chance to shine light on your experience and banish the shadow of hearsay. Let Saturn (in Sagittarius opposing the nascent Gemini Sun) restructure your awareness. Allow yourself to navigate through fog (Neptune) to reacquaint yourself with life’s energy (Mars) and regain mastery of your mind (Mercury).

    Wow this is so powerful and resonates with what is shifting. And I do mean shifts, the universe has provided and awareness is what is needed to harness this dynamic energy.

    Thank you Len for your masterful and feeling language.

    Christine

  18. Bette

    cowboyiam, I too am inclined to dump “fault” on my own head often – as in my current obstacles wouldn’t exist IF I had acted sooner on one thing, dealt with someone else on that….all of which I know (intellectually) just keeps me stuck. We do the best we can with what we have at the time – but I really struggle to bear that in mind & not get overrun by the blame feelings.

    My dear, late friend used to tell me, “just pick one little thing you CAN do, & begin…” I hear her voice often.

    Used to have a sticky note on my cupboard which read “When you can’t work outward, work inward.” True – yet the outward contains many necessities. Perhaps patience (with myself AND others) is step one, the context I need to contain the process?

    1. Cowboyiam

      Bette – a while back I woke slowly one morning and as I lay there half awake wondering what the day felt like, how my mind was focused, I had this cool experience where my thoughts went from negative to positive and then back again and again. I had feeling I was controlling it and I think I was. So then I focused on the center and found the place of equilibrium where thoughts weren’t loud, it felt peaceful and I lay there practicing holding that space. It was the coolest sensation as I found center. From that spot with a cool blue feel to I was quiet in my mind – the thoughts were felt but unformed and they were twitching back and forth and up and down around that spot but they would sit on that spot because it was “no thought” but they were allowed to form, so I had no thought but I had to relax focused on that spot. The more relaxed I remained I was able to just witness how nerves’ my mind is in a visual way. It just jumps around all over the place but pulling it toward the center narrowed the gyrations to something manageable.

      I woke up with a wonderful sense of well being. that lasted all day. I have tried to do it since but to little reward.

      I know that’s what meditation does so maybe I will finally find a way to stick with meditation. But forcing myself into alone time with my mental over reactive mind has always been something I cant force myself to do. Music or art works or just staying focused on one task but just doing nothing!#@$%

  19. Cowboyiam

    I have to redact this mess I just wrote
    (the thoughts were felt but unformed and they were twitching back and forth and up and down around that spot but they would not sit on that spot because it was “no thought”. but they were trying to form, so I had no thought but I had to relax focused on that spot.)

  20. Bette

    cowboyiam, I don’t feel that your comment was a “mess” at all – rather, a wonderful example & reminder of how much control we really DO have over the thoughts that can lead us up or down, not to say it’s easy. But thank-you.

  21. Lizzy

    That’s it Cowboyiam! I’ve only just started to understand what you experienced. The mind hates being shifted from its seat of power – so will hold on tightly, and keep us in hell at times. Check out Rupert Spira’s free videos on youtube . I discovered ths teacher through a friend – and have never looked back! No time to write as much as I’d like to….

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