I had some quiet evenings, as the year turned, where a few people instinctively gave voice to Janus, the god of doorways and thresholds, and asked everyone about their most memorable experiences of 2011. It was surprisingly appealing to glance backward and scan the calendar year. I’m sure many of you had similar moments of marking the passage of time.
The media are full of reports looking back on the astounding series of mundane and geopolitical events of the year. As the Uranus-Pluto square becomes precise, astrologers know that the “astounding” and “unparalleled” nature of recent events is a harbinger of what is to come. (1)
Truly, events of the year were exhilarating (the Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street…Your Heart…Your Higher Self, etc.); daunting (joblessness, under-employment, millions of Americans with no health care, etc.); incomprehensible (Fukushima and the resultant uncontained radioactivity); impressive (a halt, temporarily, at least, to the Keystone XL Pipeline); sobering (the ongoing brutality of the repression of such exhilarated and empowered human beings), and everything else.
Many of us have thought deeply and written predictions about 2012; there are many wonderful words and interpretations about what Janus is seeing just over the horizon.
Right now, having just come back inside from seeing the Moon, Jupiter, and Venus, all visible in the evening sky outside my front door, it seems this blog will be simple (and personal).
To Venus, I want to always remember to give loving appreciation to those around me. I have had some very kind and unexpected gestures come my way in the past few days and that is a gift beyond measure.
And to Jupiter, may your rolling thunder continue to guide us all in keeping unshakeable faith and boundless joy close at hand in 2012.
And to Luna, the Moon — Queen of Heaven, purifier of the soul, holder of unconscious powers, dreams, the One Thing referred to in Hermetic texts — may your mysterious allure always keep us drawn towards the potency of union within ourselves and with all that is.
Looking farther out in the planetary spheres, Neptune is in its waning days in air sign Aquarius. The interconnectedness made phenomenally and elegantly possible through technology is about to move into a different element and bring another quality of experience.
The transparency carried by Neptune moves into the tender sphere of water (Pisces) on February 3. Human intimacy and personal connection prevail in the world of water.
Saturn in Libra is now in trine aspect to Neptune, both at 28 degrees. This suggests the bridging of heaven with earth; the mystical life (Neptune) becomes an ordinary reality (Saturn).
Although I see in myself (and clients and friends) the connection between the two planets now, I will also defer to geometric exactitude and say that we haven’t fully seen the perfect, elegant, easeful and graceful power of that alignment yet.
The absolutely precise to-the-minute trine doesn’t perfect until October 10, 2012, in the water element, when Saturn at 0°37’ Scorpio will trine Neptune at 0°37’ Pisces. (The exact trine will also repeat in June and July 2013.)
The transparency and luminosity of Neptune shifts from air — the conceptual realm of thought, our global nervous system being wired to a frequency of interconnection — to water and the knowingness of the feeling function.
Associated with the dissolution phase of the alchemists, water softens the hardened places. There may be places inside where a metallic, slight numbness of soul melts into the emotional flow of the water element. “Dissolution works on the heart and id to release buried emotions that conceal or distort our true nature….. this means showing our pain and revealing our wounds, which is where the gold of our being is often trapped but still intact.” (2)
Neptune is protected by Saturn’s calm containment; there is safety in this melting, open vulnerability; proper guardians are witnessing and we won’t get too far lost in the vastness of Neptune’s boundarylessness.
For some of us, dissolution comes with a bit of a feeling of moisture, or a hint of sentiment. For others there are great floods of tears cleansing all corners of the heart and memory. As I wrote in a blog a few months ago: “The ‘breakdown of crystallized thought (or the altering of belief systems) is the primary objective of the first two operations of alchemy.’ To alchemists, ‘the release through the eyes of dissolved salt in tears signified that dissolution really broke down thoughts and feelings.’ ” (3)
Jnaneshvar, a 13th-century Indian mystic, wrote similarly: “When salt dissolves, it becomes one with the ocean. When my ego dissolved, I became one with Shiva and Shakti.” (4)
Spanish poet Antonio Machado (1875 – 1939) also writes beautifully of such matters. (5)
Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
That I had a beehive here inside my heart.
And the golden bees were making white combs
And sweet honey
From my old failures.
In yoga traditions, there is an association with bees and the heart chakra (anahata). The bee’s honeycomb is a hexagon, a six-sided figure that can be viewed as two interlocking triangles, symbolizing union of the masculine and feminine (Shiva and Shakti). The heart is sometimes called “the cave of the bees,” and there are specific breathing practices to open the heart. (6)
However we move forward from here, many are suggesting that an open heart is a reliable ally.
Welcome to 2012, everyone. I’m so happy to have your warm companionship on the way!
References:
(1) To say it in a few words: “Pluto lets us look directly at what is most ominous, difficult, threatening, or dark, and experience a hint of the eternal radiance that that fearsomeness is masking. Uranus takes us — wildly and willfully, fearlessly and fiercely — to let shock have its moment, and to respond to life’s strange newness with reverence and openness.”
Return to Basics
(2) Dennis William Hauck, The Emerald Tablet, Penguin Arkana 1999, pg. 159
(4) One True Name
(5) Last Night As I Was Sleeping
(6) Bhramini Pranayama is known as the “Humming Bee Breath.”