In the wake of an astrological configuration called a "grand cross," which happened over the course of this past weekend, here in the USA we saw yet another mass public shooting. There are so many different things to say about this from the astrological point of view, and so many obvious things to say otherwise.
The news didn't sink in for me until almost twenty-four hours after the shootings. There is undoubtedly a numbing that happens through the drone of media coverage and the repetition of the same old images and voices: shooters, police, news anchors talking for a week straight, trauma, gun control, the president saying it must stop, and still again…
The first thing to say about these grand cross configurations from the astrological point of view is that they are unfortunately predictable. At the same time, the planets do not make things happen. This is important to understand. The planets in their respective angles and signs correlate on the level of psychic symbolism to the current manifestation patterns happening here on earth. The free will choices of many billions of individual beings go into creating each symbolic series of events that erupt onto the collective stage.
Astrology predicts what the themes will be, on the level of the symbol and meaning, with the presupposition that all events carry harmonic resonance (like musical notes). Astrologers will therefore look at the arrangement of the planets and tell you what kind of notes will be played, in what general sequence, and with what kind of meaning. When we know this in combination with what kind of world we live in, what's been happening in the current events, and what the overall "mood" or "feeling" is in the general population (much of this we draw from seeing many astrology clients, following the planets daily, and noticing the way that patterns repeat themselves while changing face from one story and person to the next), then we can then make general predictions.
As current predictions go, for the first time since the 1960's, the planets Pluto and Uranus are currently making a hard aspect (angle) to each other. Outer planets are long and slow moving, which means their themes of meaning, or their resonance patterns, last a very long time and are therefore connected to major trends in human consciousness (what we might call eras of history). Each planet has a vast set of possible meanings that simultaneously never lose their core definition…each planet is like a God from the Hindu or Greek pantheon in this sense.
Or you could think about the planets like styles of music…if Uranus is jazz music, then we have a vast set of possible sounds or songs while the underlying connective "genre" of jazz remains the same. In this current period of time, Uranus and Pluto are the lead "gods" on the stage. Uranus, among many other things, represents sudden and unexpected changes, advancements of our understanding, technological breakthroughs, revolutions, and sudden actions that strike down like lightning to awaken us. Pluto on the other hand represents the deep and underlying issues that are waiting to erupt like volcanoes. Pluto rules the underworld and the subjects we tend to deny as taboo, but also the subjects that must come up eventually. Pluto represents the raw unrestrained power of life and death in nature.??
When we put these two forces together, as happened in the 1960's, we get massive upheavals of unconscious material being released in unexpected and revolutionary ways: the civil rights movement, the psychedelic era, assassinations, rock 'n' roll, the Vietnam war and war protests, etc. Now to begin this new era of Uranus/Pluto activity, we have seen the initial collapse of a traditional banking system, worldwide revolutions (especially in the Middle East), the first black president of the USA, co-opted government manipulations, mass public shootings, but also breakthroughs on gay rights issues, intense public debate about gun laws, the continued worldwide spreading of psychedelics and consciousness studies, the discovery of the 'god particle,' etc.
This past weekend we saw two more major planets get involved with Uranus and Pluto, forming what astrologers call a "grand cross." The other two planets involved (they are still in tight orb right now) are Mercury and Jupiter. Jupiter is a planet related to victory, conquest, and success. Jupiter represents luck, expansion, long distance travel, and exaggeration. Jupiter is the sage and the guru, and Jupiter is also a planet that inflates things to the level of being "larger than life."
Mercury on the other hand is the sign of the communicator, the guide, and the messenger. Mercury is a magician and trickster. Mercury negotiates between things and solves riddles.
In order to understand the total astrological "resonance pattern" of this most recent mass public shooting at the DC Navy Yard, we have to look at the events leading up to this moment from the perspective of all these planets involved in the grand cross. The role of the astrologer from this point is to harmonize a message of some kind…a message that not only explains or analyzes but also creates a feeling of connection between the meaning of these outer events and our inner worlds. (I issue this explanation because one thing that people commonly assume about astrology is that there is one particular astrological interpretation or one way of understanding events. This is no more true of astrology than saying there is only one way to sing the blues.)
The first level of interpretation might come from an understanding of where the shootings occurred, and the symbols resonating from the event's place in time and space. The event took place in our nation's capital, at the Navy Yard. Is there any connection to the planets or to some greater story unfolding in the collective right now that can help us make a connection symbolically? You bet. Recently we sent ships from our Navy toward Syria. The ships have been poised to attack for some time now. The shootings this week, meanwhile, took place on our own home soil, at the Navy Yard. The planet Jupiter in Cancer (a water sign related to home and a planet related to foreign lands) resonates very clearly here. Troubles and violence abroad are also troubles and violence at home. The guru Jupiter's karmic teaching couldn't be clearer.
But then what about the shooter? He was a young man with an anger problem. A military contractor who had issues with his employer. He didn't feel he was being paid fairly. Is there any connection to the planets or the recent current events in Syria here? You bet there is.
While Mercury, the negotiator and trickster, is in the sign of Libra (the peacekeeper, lawyer, judge, and counselor), it opposes Uranus in Aries (sudden aggressive, violent breakthroughs, protests, or rebelliousness). Our country has been vacillating between peaceful negotiation in Syria on the one hand and taking sudden military action on the other. We are also likely being dishonest (the trickster) about our economic or political motivations in the middle east right now, and everyone has the feeling as though we might end the peaceful negotiations and "pull a gun" on Syria whenever we feel like it. Coincidence? Not from the astrological perspective.
Or how about the massive issues of race, security, and gun control? Are there connections there? Most definitely. The young man had a history of violence and yet was allowed to buy ridiculously powerful weapons at the drop of a dime. Meanwhile the USA, with a history of its own, wants to launch cruise missiles to assault a country's government for using inappropriate weapons. Coincidence? No way.
And of course there will be racial fallout given that the shooter was black, yet it is likely we will do little if any reflecting on our nation's history with violence, armed warfare, genocide, or prejudice, let alone the obvious lingering international hypocrisy with regard to weapons use.
Why all of this immaturity? Because we haven't created a healthy adult ego as a country. Without a healthy adult ego, as a people, our security measures are built on fear and control. Pluto in the sign of Capricorn, currently opposing our Nation's Sun sign, signifies the need to mature or die. It's like having a limb that has gangrene. We can hide it under our suit coats for a period of time, but eventually it's either got to come out and get cut off, or it will poison the whole system, and we will die. ??Summing it all up, the headline from the astrological perspective after the shooting might have read: issues of recent and historical war contracting, and economically motivated battling, shoot up from the darkness for everyone to see. Now turn that headline over and over, like a jewel, and consider all of its double meanings, its contained symbolism and irony, and even hypocrisy…
A very natural questions that come up after something like this happens is: did this HAVE to happen? Was it fated? And again the answer is "no it didn't." It wasn't "fated." The planets don't cause things to happen; they simply correlate on the level of symbolic resonance with the way things unfold. So in one sense it was "fated" that a grand cross configuration would play out, and that all the themes of the planets in their respective signs would be part of the events, but in another sense there are as many possible ways in which the planets could express themselves as there are people and life forms on the planet. To return to the music metaphor–there's an almost unlimited number of ways to play jazz music.
If we were more conscious as a nation or species, the exact same configuration could have been used for an amazing humanitarian breakthrough of some kind.?? While these massive changes are happening in the collective, they are also happening for each one of us personally (for some more intensely than others). ??
For example: as the grand cross was pulling through this weekend I got into several arguments, and on several occasions felt as though my head was on fire or that I had drank too much caffeine (when I barely had one cup of tea to start my day). At the peak of the grand cross I was writing about something and had a personal epiphany that was very striking and emotional. Just as I had the epiphany a light bulb flashed and blew up loudly about two feet away from my head. While out in public Sunday evening both my girlfriend and I turned to each other and said, "gosh the energy feels so charged and unstable right now. Let's go inside," and the next morning the shootings happened.
The degree to which we are conscious determines the degree to which we can feel and sense these things coming through right now (studying astrology, meditating, practicing regular prayer or mindfulness, yoga, or just being a highly sensitive person, etc). As these planetary waves come through they also have the effect of waking people up. It's a little- by-little process, and unfortunately the level of unhealthy "unconsciousness" blocking us from being awake runs parallel to the weightiness of the events bursting forth.
So, for me, personally the things that came forth were consistent with the astrological configuration, but they were nowhere near as dramatic or violent. This has to do with my own karma, in part, and also the fact that astrology operates both at the level of the individual and the collective. They key is to understand that the two are in fact intimately related.?? Going back to my personal story–one of the arguments I had during the grand cross was about race and gender and how to have a healthy conflict on these very complicated subjects…if and when it was necessary to fight for something or to always make peace on principle. I found myself both on the receiving and sending side of a very personally charged argument that was clearly related to some of the exact same subjects that unfolded the next day in the Navy Yard shooting. Because of these moments I was able to get clear about an area of my own unconsciousness. At the moment I got "clear" a light bulb literally "burst," like a miniature gunshot.
All of this is to say that we have to wake up. I know it's clichéd, but it's getting truer and truer as our consciousness is evolving faster and on a more globally seen and felt stage. We have to look at these symbols and the resonance patterns more deeply–no matter what lens we use: intuition, prayer, meditation, animal spirit symbolism, shamanism, astrology, tarot, the IChing, it really doesn't matter what tool we use.
The overall question to ask ourselves right now, and whenever any of these unconscious eruptions occur, is: what is my personal headline, and how does this collective event mirror or speak to where I'm at and what I'm being called to become more conscious about?
If we don't do this homework on an internal level, and all we do is keep the news station droning and our facebook posting about "senseless violence" streaming, then we haven't done the very least amount of work we can do to help humanity wake up. So that's our astrological challenge for today: as above, so below.
What is the universe saying to me personally through these events and through the concurrent events of my own life stories? There is always a connection to be made if we do some digging and reflecting, and it's the least we can do to lend our support.
A prayer: I see the world waking up. I am part of the process. Thank you for the recent teachings. Help me not become numb to them. Help me to stay awake. Please help me look inward and understand my place in this moment. Please let my inner work right now go out and be of supportive to the souls passing over…not just here but all around the world. I call on the rivers of life to heal and restore us. I call on the elements to heal and transform us.
Image by loupi-lou, courtesy of Creative Commons license.