Aries’ Wisdom

Spring Equinox, 20th March 2023, 21:26 GMT

(Goethe)

The Spring Equinox occurs fourteen days after Saturn enters Pisces, eight days after Jupiter meets Chiron in Aries, less than 24 hours before the New Moon (on the equinox degree) and two days before Pluto moves into Aquarius.  This is the pivotal time of a pivotal year! 

Pluto entered Capricorn in 2008 heralding the banking crisis; it seems fitting that its exit is ruffling the same feathers, witnessed by the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Crédit Suisse.  Pluto enters Aquarius on 23^rd March, leaving in 2044.  Gear change.  Aquarius rules technology and already there is increasing coverage of AI, robotics, the digitisation of everything – and we can expect a lot more.  Pluto will deepen the reach of tech in our lives and expose the fraught relationship between humanity and tech products.  We all have decisions to make about how we navigate this personally, but as we are finding, resistance to adopting tech solutions is increasingly excluding people from activities and social spaces.  This is likely to intensify.  And as Pluto’s MO is to reveal toxicity and corruption, we will be looking at the seamier side of tech and its reach into all aspects of our lives. 

Aquarius also rules humanitarianism and rebellion.  Pluto’s last sojourn through the sign (before its discovery in 1930) took place in the revolutionary period of the late-eighteenth century.  Pluto’s instincts are nothing if not radical, and we are going to see many grassroots movements gaining traction as people power moves into the derelict lots left by retreating national political systems.  Innovation is key to Aquarius, and ways of doing things differently will proliferate as Pluto settles in.  It is up to us whether this ends up looking like Brave New World or brave new people.  The pandemic showed us the powers that can be exercised in the control of personal freedom and bodily integrity.  Our co-operation with or resistance to those powers is crucial to their effectiveness.  This is something to be mindful of when next we are lured into crisis.

At the Spring Equinox all the planets fall within 148° of arc, bookended poetically by outliers, Mars and Pluto in a stressful quincunx, whose midpoint  is 15° Aries, where Jupiter and Chiron meet.  This is significant; this conjunction is fomenting Arien intelligence for our assimilation.  As the Sun enters Aries, already occupied by Mercury, Jupiter and Chiron, and as Neptune approaches the sign (to enter finally in March 2025), we are being asked to reframe our understanding of Mars/Aries and find its wisdom.

Crudely speaking, Mars/Aries denotes aggression, anger, impetuousness and individualism; war, masculinity, the self-involved baby of the zodiac.   So what is Mars/Aries for?   Aries is the first sign of the zodiac: the beginning.  It governs the energy of birth and emergence.   Its glyph is reminiscent of the fallopian tubes and birth canal.  Birthgiving is a great power, a breaking open that ushers a new being into the earth realm from the undifferentiated, unconscious place of gestation –watery Pisces.  Aries’ ruler, Mars, enacts the will to be and to become.  Life is a process of evolutionary pressure in which each of us is designed to evolve and to serve life by becoming ourselves.  There is not a pattern we can follow.  There is no model.  There is only the summons of the Self to the self.

Mars issues this summons.  It is the fuel in the tank to take us to who we are: self-actualisation.  A bit of healthy aggression is required to respond to the impulses of our own beings.  Mars is the motivator, its energy strong and outwardly directed – a sword and shield.  When we curb ourselves, hold back or camouflage our true desires, we hit the brakes and thwart Mars’s directional energy.  The emotional effect of this is anger, lethargy, depression; over time the physical effect is pain (especially pain in the head and face and pathologies of the brain).  Pain in any part of the body is an indicator of a restrained Mars: holding in what needs to be discharged, for whatever reason, creates distortions and blocks in the energy field.  This often happens when we judge our impulses as unacceptable.  And of course we do this because we need to belong and we fear isolation.  And yet, we also need to become distinctly ourselves and stand alone without the rubber stamp of validation from others.

Strong energy, drive and a sword and shield demand that we know what we are about.  What are you trying to do?  If intent remains unframed the great power of decision that marshals our forces cannot be deployed and our actions are random, ineffective and habitual.  Aries readily becomes the berserker! We need to know what we want.  This sounds easy but is quite the art!  If you don’t know and are in a state of confusion or frustration, decide on a task and do it to the best of your ability (you could do a lot worse than spring-clean your home).  This will satisfy your Mars by allowing your directional energy to flow into activity.  Effectiveness and attainment are key to Mars’s wellbeing.  And by the time you’ve done your spring clean, you will be closer to knowing what you truly wish to do.  Our talents and pleasures are guidance for authentic becoming; following our heart’s desire is the Good Path.

Neptune is now in the last four degrees of Pisces and although it is two years away from entering Aries it is ever more strongly in aspect to the Sun at the solstices and equinoxes.  As the ruler of Pisces, its proximity to Aries signals a need for us to blend within ourselves the antithetical energies of Pisces and Aries.  This is foreshadowed at this Spring Equinox with its strong emphasis on both signs (tenanted by seven out of eleven planets).

Non-differentiation, generality, the collective, interconnection, sacrifice versus differentiation, the particular, individuality, isolation, war.  The idea of the separate, isolated individual plays into the lower frequency of Aries (defensive and aggressive); but if we can see that we are each individualised expressions emerging from the One Life of Pisces, we can retain a crucial sense of connection with the whole.  Yes, we have to go our own ways, but we do that not in service to individualism but in service to Life, which requires our particular expression for the satisfaction of wholeness.  When we can hold our belonging to the whole with the impulse of our individuality, we begin to let Pisces and Aries meet and mingle in us.

This mingling brings forth the higher frequencies of both signs.  The martyrish collapse of Pisces is vitalised, showing us a complex vision of interaction and interconnection that inspires activity.  The afflicted self-assertion of Aries is raised towards courage, agency, motivation and the willingness to serve the vision of life supplied by Pisces.

It is good to remember that planetary forces are not “happening to us”.  Rather, we are co-arising, becoming together.  All of life experiences these subtle cosmic resonances.  What results from these soundings is for us to determine.  Will we respond at the frequency of joy or pain, of love or fear, of faith or anxiety, of hope or despair?  The mental–emotional field we cultivate within ourselves is the crucible of the future.  Love begets love; fear begets fear.  The conscious intent to meet the circumstances of our lives with joy, love, faith and hope is a fine project for the courageous warrior, Mars.

Alchemy

Winter Solstice 21st December 2022, 21:49 GMT

The astrology of the Winter Solstice is the chord that resonates for the next three months.  The resonance of this moment creates a portal to shift into a new level or variety of experience, depending on which register of the resonance we are responding to.  Solstices and equinoxes occur when the Sun enters the first degree of the cardinal signs: Aries, Cancer, Libra, Capricorn.  Cardinal signs initiate, opening us to new levels of consciousness, and each solstice and equinox holds out the possibility of initiation.

This is particularly so with the Capricorn Solstice, for Capricorn rules initiation, so let’s focus on what the nature of this possibility is and how we may take hold of it.  The energy of Capricorn, reflected in the natural world and the beginning of winter, is slow, hard, contracted and inward.  At this time of year the forces of growth withdraw to the roots of plants and trees, as light dwindles and the air cools.  This is not a time for planting and growth, nor for outward activity.  It’s the midnight point in the year: a time for resting and dreaming.  The need now is for stillness, to allow the alchemical process of digestion to take place.  What is being digested?  The entire Sun cycle of outward ascent, growth and harvest now needs to be internalised to enrich and nourish the roots of our being.  This is the process of ensoulment, for the Sun is a star, not a planet, and it refers to a level of being beyond that of our mundane personalities (for which our mundane lives are the vehicle).  The alchemy of ensoulment is the making of “gold”, bringing the numinous, luminous power of Sun/Soul into the realm of dense matter.

The Sun refers to soul force and soul intentions; it is the source for life on our planet; it is stepped down into everything we eat and drink to some extent or other – we are physically and spiritually fed (literally) by the light and warmth of the Sun.  It is worth reflecting on how the Sun is reaching us through our food and activities, for it is something we can seek to maximise for physical and spiritual wellbeing.  At the Winter Solstice, outwardly the Sun is at its weakest point in its cycle.  Inwardly it is at its most powerful – hence the initiatory potential of Capricorn, which allows the gold of the Sun to be brought to the inmost parts of ourselves, our deep roots, our foundations.

Thus alchemised and fortified by the Sun, in restfulness and suspended activity, we can, when Spring returns, use our solar (soul) force to move into a new cycle of growth with creativity and inspired intent.  So, this time of Solstice, is a seeding time, as the Sun-seed is planted in the still, quiet depths of ourselves.  Looking at the astrology of this time will give indications about what may unfold as we approach Spring, and what the seed may become in the future.

The Winter Solstice this year is marked by very strong cardinal energy, underscoring what I have said about Capricorn’s initiatory potential.  This feels like a step-change.  Saturn, the Solstice ruler, is the sole dispositor of all the planets in the Solstice chart, except for Neptune in its own sign, Pisces (the only drop of water to be found).  While Saturn weighs us down and challenges us, like a strict and unyielding guide, to take responsibility for ourselves, it also confers upon us the capacity to do this: the gravity of mind, the commitment and self-discipline necessary to step up.

Saturn ever brings us the message, “As you believe it, so it is.”  What you believe to be true, will, effectively, be truth for you.  In this way, Saturn brings us the effects of our conditioned minds – our expectations borne by the tracks of our mental attitudes that we, unthinkingly and habitually, run along.  Saturn reflects to us the kind of reality we are creating for ourselves from our mental patterns and emotional scripts.  There is strong encouragement in this Solstice moment to raise our game: raise our frequency so that we may create a reality less from fear-based habits and more from a faith-based focus on love and hope. 

We may bemoan the state of the world and our seemingly hopeless future, but the future is woven from the threads of our present consciousness.  We are cooking it up right now.  We have some considerable power in creating a future in which love and life thrive.  But this does require us to take responsibility for our creative capacities: to choose to create realities that are more conducive to the wellbeing of ourselves and “all our relations”.  Saturn empowers this choice.  Saturn empowers our beliefs and thoughts, giving them form in the world of our experience.  Sobering.

Saturn and the Moon refer to the habits and scripts of past realities that tend, by default, to run the show in the present.  The Sun, as I’ve said, refers to soul intent.  Our work is to bring Saturn and the Moon into the service of the Sun – the vital power of the present moment: authenticity. At the Solstice, its ruler, Saturn, is making “occult” aspects to both the Sun (by septile) and the Moon (by quintile).  Occult aspects suggest special opportunities for integration and for actualising new potentiality.  I think this allows for a kind of defragging of the information that holds us in the grip of obsolete realities. 

Our sense of reality (both personal and collective) grips our minds, emotions and bodies.  It shapes our beliefs, opinions, feelings and our bodily processes.  Every cell of our beings resonates with this perceived “reality”.  What we are being gifted with this Solstice is an opening, an opportunity to lay down the weight of our inherited conditioning, to allow a new and more spacious sense of reality to be born … if we choose.

This opportunity is greatly buoyed up by Jupiter, occupying the very first degree of the zodiac, 0° Aries: the birthplace of possibility.  It makes an exact square to the Solstice Sun, issuing its challenge as it opens the door to the future.  It places a rock on the tracks of our conditioning.  Will we react from fear or faith?  “Scramble up out of the pit of your fear-thinking, and see what may be.”  Jupiter is a great enabler by sheer force of its optimism, its faith in life and its longing for bright horizons.  This may not be an easy challenge to rise to, but Jupiter is a wise, protective guide: we are assisted.

The year ahead will see solar system heavyweight, Pluto, begin to move from Capricorn into Aquarius.  It entered Capricorn in 2008, releasing its depth charges to our financial systems, social structures and governing institutions.  It enters Aquarius for the first time on 23^rd March 2023 and will be in permanent residence from November 2024 until January 2044.  This shift is massive.  Aquarius emphasises communitarian values and commonwealth in its truest form.  Pluto’s last sojourn in the sign saw the French Revolution and the American War of Independence, as the notion of the divine right of kings was radically interrogated and overthrown.  Pluto will empower popular rebellion and technological innovation as old systems exposed as obsolete during its transit of Capricorn collapse, and solutions that serve humanity and the future are sought. 

What we are involved in here on Planet Earth is beautiful beyond belief.  What we are, as beings, is powerful beyond belief.  The One Light of the Sun shines through each of us in a unique way and each of us is bringing a gift, something that only we can bring, to create the wholeness of life.  The wholeness of life can only be created together, by each part simply being itself without distortion.  We are powerful; we are assisted.  Let the inner gold of the Sun nourish the foundation of your being as you rest into the long dark night.