Chaotic Times & Turning Points

 

July 28, 2006 (with chart)

 

http://cainer.com/ericfrancis/july28.html

 

Dear Friends, Near and Far:

 

WE ARE in the midst of a challenging, chaotic moment of astrology. However you look at it, whether emotionally, psychologically or if you dare to turn on the television, we have a lot to process and deal with. How do you do that? The first thing is to say to yourself, "Wow, I have a lot to deal with right now," or, "The world is in an overwhelming state and I have no clue how to handle it." Or just state out loud to yourself whatever you happen to be experiencing.

 

I'll tell you this, and anyone who wants is free to fling their copy of "Magical Mystery Tour" at me like a Frisbee, but we are in a time of history every bit as intense, tragic and rich with potential as the 1960s. But what's missing is a sense of potential, experimentation and the desire to change the world. I think lots of people feel it deep in there but have no sodding clue how to express it, that is, to express themselves, particularly when we look around a see just about everyone else acting more or less normal, following the instruction manual.

 

I assure you: Trust me: Listen up: We all have a lot of energy to let go of and create with, and "if we could say anything" there is a lot we would indeed say. We all have our ways we would like to change the world, and ways we would be more authentically ourselves in our personal expression. So, I ask you, my friends, far and near; I ask you, sitting at your computer reading this: what, exactly, are you waiting for? For the cosmic ice cream truck to show up and sell it you for two quid?

 

At a certain point, you must be the one who gives yourself permission to be who you are. Why are we so wound up? Well how about 25 years of being told to Say No and buy Pepsi? We are, to put it in a word, a repressed society. The way to get un-repressed is not to read another book. The way to do it is to give yourself permission to be free, then immediately dare to try something new and/or naughty. Heck, this is already the SIXTH year of the Naughties -- naught Six ('06). What exactly are you waiting for?

Everyone would feel better with a way to get together and vent energy.

 

For people who are moving through the current energy with some ease, and feeling pretty good, be aware that people around you may be struggling a bit, and there are many who have no built-in mode for having fun right now. The world needs help with this, and also needs a lot of healing energy sent out now to individuals who may be feeling the challenges, and to the Middle East, which is at the moment becoming engulfed in all-out war.

 

The most immediate aspect influencing everyone and everything is Mercury stationing direct in Cancer. For the past three weeks, Mercury has been retrograde, something it does about three times a year. This ends overnight Friday to Saturday in most time zones (during the day Saturday down in Oz). The exact moment is less important than the general phase of time we're in, which lasts about a week in total with Friday, July 28 as the epicenter.

 

Sometimes this is called the "Mercury storm," and it can be a creative time, a moment of seeing through reality, a moment of making up your mind, a moment of letting the past go. Much of the effect that planets have involves their daily speed; that is, how many degrees they move in a day. Generally speaking, the slower the movement, the more powerful the effect. When Mercury is stationing, it moves slower and slower till it stops, then it starts in the new direction and picks up speed -- but this happens in a concentrated time period. This little table will give you an example. It tells us how many arc minutes (fractions of a degree) Mercury is moving each day this week. An arc minute is 1/60th of a degree, so as you can see, Mercury is moving well under a degree per day right now, which is another way to say slow and powerful.

 

Daily Motion of Mercury

 

July 26 Wednesday - 14 arc minutes, retrograde

July 27 Thursday - 9 arc minutes, retrograde

July 28 Friday - 3 arc minutes, retrograde

July 29 Saturday - 3 arc minutes, direct

July 30 Sunday - 9 arc minutes, direct

July 31 Monday - 15 arc minutes, direct

Aug 1 Tuesday - 22 arc minutes, direct

Aug 2 Wednesday - 28 arc minutes, direct

 

Note the speed changes, in particular, the increase we're about to experience. By Aug. 7, the daily motion is up to one degree and still building. So, in a very short time, it accelerates from the speed of an outer planet like Pluto (3 arc minutes a day, very slow) to the speed of the Sun (1 degree per day, pretty quick), and it makes this change in just 10 days. This is why Mercury is, at times, such a confusing planet and why Mercury stations are so intense.

 

I summed up the effect pretty good in an old article: "Stations can be stormy times, but they are also beginnings, and represent clear interchanges where decisions lead to different outcomes than those to which we’re normally accustomed. They are times of accentuated change."

 

Mercury is what's termed a personal planet. When astrologers use this pharase, they usually mean Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars. The "personal points" (things that are not physical objects, but which are still very effective) include the ascendant, the midheaven (the angles) and the Aries Point.

 

The more these points are involved, the more we tend to feel and experience the astrology directly and personally. Of course, the outer planets have many different effects -- but they are usually the most effective when they are aspecting a personal point. The more emphasis there is on Aries, Cancer, Libra or Capricorn in your personal chart, the more intensely you're likely to be feeling this Mercury station.

 

Let's take a look at the chart for the exact moment of the station, put on the ground in Washington, DC. I'm not one of these astrologers who likes to cast charts for Washington -- no, no, not me. But every now and then, it comes time to track events from that lovely town.

 

Mercury is the little green guy on the left side, with the antennas. If you want to learn astrology, learn the glyphs. They are you’re a-b-c's. It still has the Rx next to the degree (in red, too small to read) but we are at the moment of the station with this chart. I post it, however, less for a look at Mercury and more for a look at the Saturn-Neptune opposition that happens to be angular, in the 1st and 7th houses at the time in question.

 

This opposition is the big one that's coming in. Neptune is an outer planet -- a big, slow, vitally important planet. Saturn is the most distant planet of antiquity -- for many centuries it was the last planet, the edge of reality. We've posted quite a lot about Saturn-Neptune at Planet Waves and over the months I've referred to it quite a few times here, but we are now in the vortex. The process started last summer, and its taken one year to build to exactitude, which occurs for the first time on August 31. The most recent conjunction occurred in 1987. We are now at opposition. This is a cycle that is a little like the New Moon and the Full Moon. The conjunction is the equivalent of the New Moon and the current opposition is like the Full Moon -- a peak in the 35-year Saturn-Neptune cycle.

 

It is fair to say that humanity finds this a troubling aspect. But we also live in the age of psychology, spirituality and other forms of potential self-awareness, so we have a new level on which to take this aspect. I will have much more to say in the coming weeks, but it really comes down to this.

 

Neptune in Aquarius is, for most people, about living with mass delusions. Call them whatever you want, account for it however you will, but right now much of society is living in a dream. Saturn in Leo is about an extremely well-formulated dimension of self-awareness taking over and confronting those illusions. This is a moment to wake up.

 

Since we all wake up every morning, we know how difficult and groggy that experience can be, especially if you were comfortable sleeping. But, we are getting wake-up calls coming on fast and furious now. We need to listen to them, but we also need to develop the skills to manage the changes that we're being called upon to go through. I would love to hear from readers about how you're adapting and what you're learning in this crucial turning point of history.

 

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Yours & truly,

 

ERIC FRANCIS