It's not what you do, it's how you live…
I start
this column by honoring the passing through the bardos to dimensions beyond of
two pioneering spiritual teachers and calendric wizards Jose Arguelles of the
Dreamspell and Ra, creator of HuMan Design. Thank you to their souls for
their wisdom and may their passage be safe and blissful.?
From March 30 to April 23, tongue-twisting trixter Mercury goes retro
once again, while four other planets prance and play and go crazy in Aries.
The New Moon in Aries occurs on Sunday April 3rd, asking you to intend boldness
and courage in your new ventures. Mercury retrograde in Aries should make
us really consider our desires and goals.
Although tempted to commit to projects or risky ventures, we should be
very careful with so many planets in Aries, and with Mercury retrograde, it's the
least ideal time to make commitments or contractual agreements, but the best
time to reflect and plan ahead. Evaluate and strategize, like any
intelligent general would.?
Aries
is very aware of the impermanence of life and lives by the motto of "seize
the day." And it lives this through bold, pioneering manuevers,
willing to take risks and lead the way. This is one of the major Aries
predicaments — its "mission," its self-directed impulses allow little
space for depth or strategy. The "dive-in" mentality, although
exciting, can put one into some precarious positions, but fortunately, Saturn
may get us to think twice about diving head first.?
Over the next month, Saturn will be opposing most of these Aries
planets. Any of those pesky practicalities — money, work, even family and
relational obligations — may frustrate our desires to burst into the next level
of our personal self mastery. We are asked, especially with a
Venus-Chiron conjunction the week of March 28th to communicate compassionately
the healing needs of the self while honoring the others we relate to.
Saturn in Libra is helping us focus while providing us important relationships
which act as guides to instruct us just where and how to direct all of our
creative fires.?
For Aries, the world is your adventure. If you're planning on
doing some summer travel, the Aries month is a great time to study your
relocation maps. This can help get your antennae up for the power places
and evolutionary vortices on the planet for you, as well as the best time to
visit and activate yourself in those places.
Uranus in Aries
(2011-2018): The Cult of the New and Now
For the first time in 84 years,
Uranus has moved into Aries (amidst the mideast turmoil and the Japanese
tsunami), promising a potent decade ahead of us. Aries is the first, and
fastest sign in the zodiac. Uranus is the lightning strike. Combine
the two and you get one of those Bugs Bunny cartoon moments, when the Coyote is
chasing the Roadrunner, and Coyote runs right off the edge of the cliff and
falls SPLAT!! on the ground. Or Coyote ignites a special atomic bomb trap
for the Roadrunner, but through his impatience, steps right onto the dynamite
and then it's KABLOOEY!! ?
In the wheel of the zodiac, the first house and the rising sign is
associated with Aries. This is the most instinctual place in our birth
chart. We have a certain amount of foresight in this location and with
Aries. Like the Coyote, we can smell the next steps of the Roadrunner.
But with Aries, our primal hunting ethic often catapaults us too quickly into
chaos and crisis. If Uranus, the Great Awakener and Liberator, reflects
that Promethean urge to steal fire from the gods, we must consider the kind of
cunning and skill it takes to steal, and not just any object, but the potent
flames of fire–all of its spirit, wisdom, and intensity. And how do you
steal fire from of all beings, the gods?! You must act with stealth and
with power. As Nietzsche stated, "We are all of us growing
volcanoes that approach the hour of our eruption, but how near or distant that
is, nobody knows."?
This is that hunter-hunted anxiety that raises our hair and tenses our
muscles with Uranus in Aries. It's like we're in Stephen King's Running
Man, a game we cannot escape; our only have to learn how to play it better.
Don't some of us feel this now with staying current with our technologies,
gizmos, information, and friends' statuses? Always about to
explode, electro-reactive, combustible, as we try to surf the cult of the New
and the Now??
As an author, I've had to learn
about the rules of the online game called Blogging. Google's little
spiders will only crawl in your direction if you consistently blog, which means
adding new content constantly. This new content and
"popularity" of websites is the means by which an online author
will receive traffic through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). On a
certain level, in order to be found, to even be "present" as an
"I" in the online world, I must 'compete,' offering up my content as
something universally important and consistently fresh. If I do not follow
these rules, my voice will not echo very far through the infosphere.
Culturally, we become obsessed then with speed and competition as
Uranus moves through Aries. There is something of a "necessary
evil" here, with its own rules for evolution. Conveniences are sexy,
slick, and seductive, but at what cost? The "always on" mentality can
create an exacerbated level of stress and anxiety. While on the high
side, the combination of speed and competition compel the innovative spirit in
each of us. Again, following the dictums of our favorite Uranus in Aries
persona, Nietzsche: "Genius has its source in instinct." This is
gut-level decision-making. This is Maverick in Top Gun reacting to his
instructors, that as a fighter pilot, "I don't have time to think up
there. If you think, you're dead."?
Sports such as downhill skiing, horseracing, and stock-car racing all
began during Uranus in Aries cycles, reinforcing the motivating factor of speed
and competition during this cycle. The speed of light was even discovered
during Uranus in Aries.
In all of your Aries doing, may you remember to take a deep breath and
also, "Get
Busy, just Being."
Image by buglugs, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
