The Full Moon was conjunct Neptune, opposite the Sun and Mars, trine to Pluto (with Mercury conjunct Venus not far from the Sun), and square to Jupiter. This Full Moon asks us to find mystical truth in the world, rather than in the attempt to transcend it. That means amid all the details, all the chaos, all the drudgery of daily life (Virgo). But it also means in the sadness, the frustration, the difficulty, the pain, the injustice (Pluto). Pisces is The All. Not some mysterious All outside of life. But all of life in every detail (Virgo-Pisces).
One of Virgo’s great gifts is for discernment. Noticing fine details, distinguishing one from the other, defining this versus that. But Pisces, as Virgo’s polarity, knows in its bone marrow that all is one. And both are true. It’s true that there is difference and variety and that’s important. And it’s true that all of that is all interconnected in one big whole--the Universe (or Multiverse I suppose)--all of existence itself. Virgo strives for perfection. Pisces surrenders to what is--and even dares to say it’s all already perfect as it is.
But how can that be? How can all of this be perfect? How can you possibly say there is perfection, when there is so much outrageous oppression and injustice? (This is the classical objection to religion, right? How could there possibly be a God, given all the suffering in the world?)
The astrology sometimes really challenges me. And this is one of those times. I keep thinking about the symbolism of Mars in Virgo opposite Neptune in Pisces, and the image that keeps coming to mind is the warrior on his knees, humbled by so much suffering, praying to God, surrendering to divine will. This image makes me so uncomfortable! It’s both too Christian (though interestingly, the Pisces-Virgo axis is associated with Christianity), and too reliant on symbols of war. And yet I feel like my resistance is reflected by the square to Jupiter in Sagittarius--the beliefs I hold that are challenged by this Pisces-Virgo message; the beliefs I hold that are thwarting my evolution.
We could avoid the symbolism of the warrior in our desire to abolish war. And yet it’s an archetype that is very alive inside of us; some of us more than others. I’m an Aries, with a prominent Mars, and I feel that warrior part of myself very strongly. I don’t believe in war. I entirely belief there is a possible future for humans in which there is no war. Yet there is a part of me that’s a fighter for sure. That has such a strong will. That can be forceful and even violent--mostly toward myself. And I’ve seen glimpses of the deeper truer power that arises when that part surrenders to the higher will--to my higher self as aligned with God, for the good of all.
We could avoid the symbolism of Christianity and the axial religions in our desire to transcend them. And yet, for many of us, that is our history. And the only way to change, to evolve, is to grapple with the history and the thought forms and the patterns that we’ve inherited, and to see the way they continue to shape us even when on the surface we may have disidentified from them (Pluto). We may open our eyes and realize that the ground beneath us is littered with dead bodies, but cutting off our feet won’t get us very far.
Similarly, I tend to avoid the word “God”. It is so damn loaded and means so many different things to so many different people that it hardly means anything at all anymore. And yet the problem with not using it is that we cut ourselves off from all the deep and resonant meanings that it does hold. But call it what you will! I know it’s not a word for everyone. Pisces knows better than anyone that words aren’t what they refer to. And that God in particular is not a thing that can be named. It’s a tricky, slippery word, that inevitably leads us astray. God can’t be pointed to. It’s the source of all that can be pointed to. God can’t be named. It’s the source of all that can be named.
Hence the famous silence of so many mystics.
But you can’t write a blog in silence (though I was tempted to send you a blank page, believe me). So here we are.
Using this language, these words, is not to say we ought to accept what we’ve inherited as is--not at all. But we can’t let go of or transform or change that which we don’t even see we are holding (Pluto). And not only are most of us holding many ideas that have filtered through the religions, but we are also holding the reactions to those ideas. And reaction is not an alternative. It pits us in a battle of either/or, left/right, thesis/antithesis and those polarities stabilize each other, holding each other in place.
I really value the mystical traditions. I suspect they represent deep truth that was then taken up by deeply flawed and power-hungry humans who contorted those ideas in order to control and oppress others (in exact contradiction to the original teachings of love and freedom). Of course we want to do away with what was used to control us. But there has been a trend of throwing out those mystical babies with the religious bath water (apologies for that image). Humans tend to think there are only two options. Yes or no, good or bad, right or left. But there are literally infinite options if we can only get out of this dualistic way of thinking. So maybe there is a way of approaching “God” and mystical truth without the violence of religion.
When I bring in the square to Jupiter in Sagittarius, it’s like God saying to the warrior, you can go forward only if you grapple with your deeply cherished beliefs, those ideas that you are so certain of, that you have come to identify with. That is what’s holding you to this old way. That is what is keeping you locked in a never ending battle. There is no spiritual growth without big change.
If we really take seriously a spiritual journey, then we have to be willing to change. Otherwise, we won’t change. Right? Like, we want change in our lives, but we aren’t willing to change. It’s funny, right? We think the change will be given to us, like we’ll get a new job or the political landscape will change or we’ll build a house or people will stop being evil and then everything will be alright. But that’s all external and doesn’t represent change at all. Change means changing from the inside. And that is so hard.
And so one particular belief I’m grappling with now is: does everything happen for a reason? Is there some divine plan for us? Is there an order of things beyond what our will can comprehend? This idea is central to all mystical traditions. And I think if we take our spiritual lives seriously, I don’t see a way to avoid it. And yet, the difficulty with it is that is seems to imply that there is a reason for injustice and suffering. Are we supposed to think that people deserve to be oppressed? That is clearly wrong.
But the more I struggle with this, the more I think the problem isn’t the idea that there is a reason for everything, it’s the assumption that those reasons must conform to some base idea of reward and punishment. That is another deeply held belief for many of us: that punishment is necessary. Is there a way we could understand even suffering and oppression and injustice as holding meaning, without also implying that it is just?
When I feel into Neptune, this is the (difficult) answer I receive. We have choice. In that way, we are free. Freedom (free will), doesn’t mean we have all options available to us all the time. It doesn’t mean we can do whatever we want, it doesn’t mean anything and everything is possible. It doesn’t mean we are free, in the sense of not having restrictions or limitations. It means that no matter the situation, we have some choice. No matter how dire it gets, we at least get to choose how we respond, how we think about the situation, what we say, etc.
It’s this choice that makes human life a journey of learning, and evolving. We make choices, we witness their outcomes, and over the years, over the millenia, we--hopefully--learn things. And one of the things we learn is that some choices cause others to suffer. And that some of other people’s choices cause us to suffer. And that it’s not always fair. And it’s precisely the lack of fairness that may jolt us into caring and feeling for others, and wanting to do something about it.
This all brings to my mind a quote from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche:
“Hold the sadness and pain of samsara in your heart and at the same time the power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Then the warrior can make a proper cup of tea.”
I take this to mean that perfection can only be had when we can, with an open heart, feel the pain of the world-- of others-- and still stay fully awake, fully aware, without closing ourselves off, or shutting down. That we can keep an eye on the divine perfection on that higher order--God--The Great Eastern Sun, while taking very seriously the pain and imperfection of the world. Only when we can hold both will we be able to be in the world--make a cup of tea--perfectly.
So when we say that everything is perfect, that doesn’t mean everything is fine, and we have no obligation to do anything about it. And it certainly doesn’t mean that people deserve their suffering or oppression. It means that when we really zoom out, and try to glimpse all of it all it once, over all of time (which is of course impossible to do, but it’s the Picean ideal), then there is reason to the suffering. There is a point to it. Which is to wake us up to pain we cause others by our actions, or by our silence in the face of oppression, or by our complicity with systems that cause suffering--so that we will change. (And there are probably also many other subtle, complicated reasons for suffering that have nothing to do with punishment).
Change how? We’ve tried so many ways of remedying the pain and suffering in the world. My inner warrior has been at it for millenia. He’s tried fixing and controlling and fighting and killing and saving and rescuing and helping. He’s had missions and quests. He’s had righteous anger and fought holy wars and then thrown out religion altogether. And none of that worked, and so he’s also tried suppressing his anger and strength, he’s tried denying his own impetus to act. He’s done it all and he’s humbled and tired and on his knees. And finally, finally, he’s surrendered to a God he’s long forgotten, and he prays.
And what he receives is an even more difficult idea. That choice is not what we think. It doesn’t even quite mean what I wrote above, that we have choice in how we respond. The freedom God offers is the freedom NOT to align with God. Because if God is The All, then when we surrender to God, we give up acting according to the ego self (which is not to say we give up personality or a sense of identity), and we align to The All, the greater flow of things, we become part of the whole, the infinite, beautiful, constant swirling of things, the magical dance of existence, that, when we zoom out, we see, we are not within and separate from, but a part of. And when we deeply truly allow ourselves to be within the whole, rather than holding ourselves separate from it, then we naturally care for our neighbours, we naturally are generous, and loving and in that paradoxical mystical way, it’s when we give up our freedom of will that the warrior so desires to execute that we become truly free, as in alignment with the divine we experience transcendence which paradoxically is to be in the world and not of it or above it or outside it or separate from it.