Plutonic Full-Moon Opposition Station Solstice Fest

6.16.08


We'll be meeting up with a whole mess of astrological happenings this week, so I hope you're dressed for the occasion.

The full moon on Wednesday (Jun 18), for starters, is a doozy… conjunct, as it is, to Pluto and casting the usual 'full-moon crazies' in a noticeably edgier color scale.

Pluto does symbolize those uncomfortable urges and feelings we often prefer to keep hidden, to deny, to project onto others, or to otherwise reject as legitimate parts of ourselves. (Too ugly? Unsavory? Inappropriate or impolite? Fuck that!)

So think of this full moon as a giant flashlight aimed into Pluto's dark spiderwebby corners and long-neglected but terribly potent crevices, the psychological closet where we hide the skeletons. Click! and Wow! Now we can see deep into there: Dirty and dank, creepy-crawly creatures running frantically across the ground, hoping not to be caught.

Delicious. (It's also where the horny teens, adulterous nymphos, and super-sexy demon hotties slip away to, to do their nasty business, with the requisite 'ooh!s' and 'aah!s', the gasps and moans, the 'should we be doing this?'s, the ultimate realization of all those forbidden furtive glances exchanged wordlessly over so many days or months.)

Let's listen in as another one rifles through the junk: 'Oh, there's that unspoken hate for my very first boyfriend. I thought I'd already donated that to the Salvation Army. (I'd still fuck him, though.) Look, over there… it's the mirror that always makes me look really fat… and taped to it, the senior portrait of the class's pretty skinny bitch I detested (to the point of obsession) who now, I hope, is unhappily married, regularly beaten by her neckless brute of a husband, and saddled with three hyperactive learning-disabled brats who make her life a living hell. And all that squishy stuff beneath my feet? Guess I just stepped in the mounds of blame I hold toward my parents for trying to control me. It's hard not to step in it… it's all over the damn place…'

Our greatest self-recognition also resides in those creaky, scary regions of Pluto's basement—and, along with it, a tremendous chance to find deeper acceptance. Yes, it's true, we sometimes hate people… or at least qualities about them we find detestable. Why? Because they remind us of things we ourselves are or aren't doing. We envy. We project. We disown. And then we label certain bits 'bad', ostensibly in others… but really we're hating ourselves. Don't recognize this stuff? The flare-ups may be brief, barely conscious, couched in some supposedly 'evolved' language of 'understanding' while experientially evaded, and/or completely ignored. However, no one escapes. No one.

Gosh, don't worry, my darlings… I'm making this all sound so bad (guess that's just some automatic-writing Pluto release), but this current time being is much more fun than that.

Venus, now at the tail end of Gemini, is part of this whole shebang, too… opposing Pluto and tempting us to look the other way at whatever shiny this way comes. (Where's that shine coming from, incidentally?)

And consequences? They're for people who aren't any good at spinning stories that'll exonerate themselves on a technicality. (Gemini loves 'the technicality'.) Consequences are for the guys and gals who can't (or won't) suspend their Grand Narrative (with its good-and-bads, rights-and-wrongs, and sometime finger-pointing) long enough to loiter in the shades-of-gray (and have a helluva time doin' it!).

The rest of us, meanwhile, are drawn to these border areas—where some of the most resplendent bliss (and naughtiest fun) can be found, but where we must risk righteousness for humble humanness in order to get it.

Yes, Venus opposes Pluto (the peak's on Tue Jun 17), ratcheting up the levels of attraction between us and any one or more of the myriad individuals, ideals or experiences that pique our curiosity. We might find ourselves drawn to explore one district of the 'maybe' sector, just to see for ourselves. Or perhaps just being aware of possibilities could prove as effective as actually pursuing them (and putting too much on the line), so long as we come to understand the pull.

That 'pull' grows stronger as it flirts with that which is considered (legitimately or not) off-limits, against the rules, disruptive, upsetting or taboo.

Go on, grab for the cheese… with full knowledge that the trap on which it awaits could slice a fingertip off. Move the money around, shifting numbers from one column to the next to (as they say) 'free up capital'. When it comes down to it, you've still got the same amount of dough you had before. Plug your eyes and ears, and kiss the stranger—but if you are coupled and that's not part of the arrangement, you are cheating.

All the while, Mercury goes direct in Gemini on Thursday (Jun 19), further emphasizing the point that a whole bunch of fast-talking—no matter how suave, seductive or sophisticated—will not change the reality. In the worst cases, we may've became so smitten with our own version of the 'facts', we haven't even noticed its divergence from everyone else's (which is often not a good thing)… until we give ourselves away, facing fallout from our perfectly revelatory Freudian slips.

Maybe we need these periodic lapses of slippery meaning, exploited loophole, and catch-me-if-you-can to set us back on the righteous path of What's Right for Us. When Mercury stands still and returns to forward motion, we're liable to trip right over the thing we'd been looking everywhere for. We had to go way far in the other direction, however, to notice we left something valuable behind. So, were we really lost?

Speaking of 'lost', I haven't even begun to mention the week's other opposition, between Mars and Neptune, which holds the power to confuse us in the act of asserting ourselves, losing our direct line of vision to the goals we'd hoped to achieve by doing so. Thanks to Mars in Leo, we do that which we feel expresses our personal desires (included among them, the desire to reap notice and appreciation for simply being who we are). But with Neptune blocking from across the board, we cannot accurately determine how we're being received.

Mars-Neptune opposition (exact on Sat Jun 21): Do they love us, hate us, or worst of all, not even have an opinion? Will we get the job, the house and the girl… or did we just make a big fool out of ourselves? In lieu of clear answers, the bank of fog reflects our own rays back at us. We may feel ineffective or gleefully deluded, overly proud or unnecessarily doubtful. (We may not know how we feel.) Still, we do what we do, breath held and/or disbelief suspended.

To summarize, then, we have (1) a Pluto-powered full moon to put us in touch with our usually-shadowed forbidden emotions, (2) a Venus-Pluto opposition to heighten the appeal of all taboo topics and relationships, (3) a Mercury station to highlight whatever our thoughts and words have recently been 'leaving out', and (4) a Mars-Neptune opposition to obscure the full ramifications of any self-assertive actions. And, oh yeah, (5) the Summer Solstice (or Winter south of the equator), when the Sun moves into Cancer on Friday (Jun 20).

If that's not enough for one week, then you're a serious glutton for this stuff…