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Spiritual Company Newsletter
By Steffan Vanel • Astrologer • Tarot Reader
Author of:
The Astrological Karma of the USA
Charles & Diana: The Inside Story: An Astrological-Karmic ViewNow on YouTube:
The Astrological Karma of the USA and The New Presidency
Bridging Heaven & Earth Show #238Looking at 2011
In looking ahead at 2011, Astrologically, we can see there are some themes that will continue, some that will/have ended and some completely new ones that will come into play.
In my book, The Astrological Karma of the USA, I predicted that during this time there might be some intense energies bearing upon our relationships with our allies. That has been evident in some of the testiness in our relationships with allies such as Afghanistan and Israel. The latest manifestation of the inner realities of our government’s feelings and attitudes about our allies has been in the revelation of classified government communications by Wiki Leaks.
A continued stress in our relationships with allies will continue, with some peaking aspects at the end of the year.
One theme that has played itself out is the two-year period of five Uranus/Saturn oppositions, the freedom (Uranus) vs. responsibility (Saturn) battles, which I related last year to both sides of the healthcare debate. The last big performance of this tension was the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Those oppositions have ended, but Saturn went on to conjunct the natal Saturn of the U.S. (the infamous Saturn Return) and square our Sun in Cancer. This tension between a caring, nurturing Sun in Cancer and a restrictive, limitation in our house of ‘role in the world’ is something that I have used to explain such American conflicts as the North and South in the Civil War, and the conservative and liberal elements of the U.S. This tension and conflict, and the need to find a way to heal and integrate this conflict, will be a major challenging theme in the year ahead, although 2012 is where this tension gets really testy. Obviously the conservative and liberal political elements are becoming more and more polarized and this is likely to continue.
One nation that has been in the news recently that bears some consideration in 2011 is North Korea. (and our ally South Korea) The planet in their chart which I am watching is their Neptune in the Fifth House of parent/child relationships and love affairs. Their Neptune is square to their Venus and I think this is relatable to their glorification of their leaders as Father figures, presently Kim Jong-Il and his father before him.
It reminds me of what Hilarion says about Communism. He says that Communism will never work because men will never recognize that they are truly brothers until they recognize a common father. My own comment is that the only times that Communism seems to work for a time is when they have a 'father figure' where Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, but human fathers always let you down in the end, even if it is just by dying.
In looking at North Korea one can see that there has been Saturnian tension on their Neptune over the past couple years and this is relatable to having to be real with the Saturnian limits of their great leader, i.e. his ill health and impending death. There has been some speculation that their recent belligerant behaviour towards South Korea has been some internal posturing relating to the transition of power to Kim Jong-Il’s son.
In June and July Uranus will oppose this Neptune which leads me to think that there could be some sudden change or impulsive action on the part of North Korea at that time, perhaps the demise of their great leader or some other sudden freedom from old patterns. Something to watch.
The planet Neptune is also the planet which is presenting the one new and highly significant Astrological theme arriving in 2011.
In the midst of Plutonian intensity on our allies, Saturnine responsibility and restriction, and Uranian needs for freedom, all of these being at some point in tension with each other in recent and approaching times, there is the entry of the second slowest moving planet, Neptune, into the sign that it rules, Pisces.
Neptune was 'discovered' in 1846 at 26 degrees Aquarius. Earlier this year Neptune completed its first observed orbit around the Sun, returning to its point of discovery. In relation to this first cycle of completion Astrologer Barbara Hand Clow has stated: “Once we have experienced the full orbit of a new planet, the archetype of that planet is then fully integrated into the human psyche.”
Essentially humanity is beginning a new relationship with the energy and potential of the planet Neptune.
The last time that Neptune entered Pisces was in 1847. Pisces and Neptune are both related to either victimhood and suffering, or to compassionate, unconditional love. 1848 was the year that the Communist Manifesto was published, a document whose purpose was to address the inequality and suffering of the world’s poor. Astrologer Adrian Duncan has noted these other events during the last period of Neptune in Pisces:
"This was the period when Charles Dickens wrote his novels of social realism, and social democratic demonstrations shook the capitals of Europe. This was also a time when painters like Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cezanne and Monet made their impressionist paintings, expanding the world of fantasy and imagination. On the scientific front Darwin’s theory of evolution completely undermined Christian tradition. The first photographs were taken, ultimately leading to the coming world of the movies. Anesthetics were used for the first time in hospitals. Opium became a socially acceptable drug. The accepted reality of the day was undermined and new spiritual, emotional and political realities took form."
So it seems quite likely that themes of compassion for humanity’s suffering, or the suffering of the Earth herself, or spiritual ‘tests of faith’, new flights of imagination or escapism will come much more into play in the coming years.
To understand the deeper karmic reality of Pisces and Neptune it is useful to know the specific karmic lesson for someone who is born with the Sun in Pisces. The Ascended Master Hilarion says that someone who is Pisces is someone who has, in some previous lifetime, gone through an experience of emotional pain that was so great that it lead them to having taken their own life. This gives the Pisces, in this life, an echoing memory of a certain sadness that doesn’t have to relate to anything in this life, although we are always given additional baggage. Hilarion also says "the Piscean is allowed to tap a deep wellspring of compassion and sympathy for others in the hopes that by occupying himself with the concerns and sadnesses of others, he will forget the melancholy of the self and make of the life a shrine of dedication to others."
Pisces have to avoid two temptations, one is to avoid Neptunian temptations to try to escape the harshness of life through things like drugs and alcohol, or sleeping too much, or watching TV all of the time.
I just heard that with the advent of Internet based television we are soon about to have access to over 2000 TV channels. This is one manifestation of this coming time of Neptune in Pisces.
The other temptation that a Pisces individual must avoid is due to the fact that this is a hard world to be a Pisces. Pisces are very emotionally sensitive, and therefore vulnerable. This is a hard world to be emotionally vulnerable. Whenever I interpret an Astrology chart for a Pisces, very often I will see that if there is anything else in the chart that they can identify with instead, they will, whether it is their Leo Moon, or their Capricorn Rising, anything to pretend that they are not a Pisces.
Of course this is not who they really are, and it is not what their true gift and beauty is, and, they often end up marrying alcoholics and drug addicts to get them to live their Piscesness for them. Pisces men are more prone to this kind of denial and projection since socio-culturally it is more difficult for men to get into the compassionate aspect of Pisces. It is also more common for Pisces men to have problems with alcohol or drugs.
One person in the news to watch whose chart will be significantly triggered with Neptune's entry into Pisces is Michele Obama. She has her Moon and Venus in the first degree of Pisces. Some deep sensitivity or vulnerability will be likely to be there. This could be a bit tricky for a self-reliant Capricorn, or Michele Obama could really bring that ambitious, hard-working Capricorn energy to bear with Piscean sensitivity and vulnerability, both within herself and in the world at large.
On April 4th Neptune will make its first dip into the Piscean waters, until it retreats back into Aquarius on August 4th, returning for 13 years in Pisces in February 2012.
So, this spring and summer will be a first taste of this vulnerable, mystical, compassionate, perhaps at times overly fantasiful and escapist God or Goddess of the Sea in its own sign.
There are ways in which Neptune in Pisces may have a large effect on the United States. First of all, the movement of our identity through the birthchart, the Progressed Sun, is now in the 7th degree of Pisces. It entered Pisces the day before the Bush/Kerry election in 2004 of which I made this comment:
“The Progressed Sun of the United States going into Pisces for the next thirty years, the day before the election, is highly significant. Pisces is a watery emotional sign, ruled by the planet Neptune, which can represent emotional sensitivity, healing compassion, and spiritual faith and surrender in positive aspect. And, in difficult aspect, it can represent illusion, confusion, delusion, victimhood and martyrdom. I pointed out that these energies would be in play no matter who won the election.”
Our movement of identity through the sign of Pisces will continue for another 23 years. Pisces is a water sign, in harmony with the Sun sign of the U.S. namely Cancer, which is also where we have our Venus and our Jupiter. Neptune entering into Pisces and affecting our Progressed and Natal Suns could mean some quality of spiritual awakening, healing and compassion could emerge over the next several years, helping us to own the caring, nurturing qualities of Cancer potentially within our Astrological make-up.
In the years following Neptune’s last entry into Pisces in 1847 there were a lot of utopian spiritual movements coming to birth in America. This could happen again. It was also the time of the explosion of the 'Spiritualist' movement, those who believed in and practiced communication between the living and the dead. Here is a quote I found about the movement on the Unitarian Universalist Association:
"One event that precipitated "Modern Spiritualism," as it was called, was the 1847 publication of The Principles of Nature, composed by Andrew Jackson Davis, a young entranced seer from Poughkeepsie, New York. He claimed the spirit of Emanuel Swedenborg had dictated the book, an airy speculation on the evolution of the cosmos, culture and religion. In 1848 three young sisters, Margaret, Kate and Leah Fox, generated public excitement with their claim to have contacted spirits of the dead through telegraphic rapping in their home near Rochester. From the Fox sisters' experience came the pattern for the séance, or spirit circle. Soon many "mediums," especially sensitive to "impressions" from spirits, guided hopeful participants.
The number of spiritualists in America grew rapidly in the decade of the 1850s. Just before the Civil War spiritualists and non-spiritualists alike estimated the number as two to three million (out of a U.S. population of 30 million). Estimates varied wildly since spiritualism was never a systematically organized phenomenon. It was pervasive into the early 1870s and then began to fade, though never dying out completely."
Of course today we call this channeling. Nonetheless there could again be a major uptake in a faith in the non-physical realm throughout the world and especially in the U.S.
I always call Pisces individuals 'closet mystics,' until they 'come out.' I think in this time period the ‘closet mystic’ of humanity will need to come out of the closet.
I am finishing up this article on Christmas day and would like to close with a quote from Jesus that author John Jocelyn associated with Pisces in his book, Meditations on the Signs of the Zodiac:
"If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life will lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it." (St. Matthew 16: 24, 25)
Blessings,
Steffan Vanel
December 25, 2010
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