Once again, I invite you to have a look at the current edition of Nova for my regular column about this months Astrology Chart.

Even though eclipses create tsunamis that last many months, and even though there are natural after-shocks as the tectonic plates within each of us shift and move, it is with some relief that I announce the recent eclipse season over. (Well, at least until January!)
It helps tremendously that September’s chart is dominated by the Sun and Moon in an Earth grand trine, representing a period of relative calm that should allow us to be able to take slow deep breaths and long exhalations. Obviously though, many of the processes heightened by the eclipses will continue, and we will need time to be able to integrate any significant recent changes.

Virgo Sun opposite Neptune in Pisces

While not exact at the beginning of the month this rather tricky opposition will colour its two weeks, presenting a challenge to the Virgo in preferences for creating order, focused thought and grounded action, from the oceanic, often boundary-less realms of Pisces and its accompanying ruler Neptune.
Such an opposition often produces confusion, uncertainty and that spaced out kind of feeling that makes it difficult to remain focused and motivated. Neptune tends to open people up psychically in ways that flush out unresolved psychic emotional residues that can flood the rational sides of our intellects and produce strange emotional states for no apparent reason.

As unpleasant as some of this can feel, it is a part of the planets grace, to face us with the unfelt, flush out psychic garbage that is unhealthy for us, all in the name of opening us spiritually, and correcting balances between hemispheres of the brain.

Basically, if you are having trouble getting things done, it’s good to review what emotions you might not be allowing yourself to feel and use the time to meditate in ways that help you maintain your centre, while assisting the psychic flushing that is going on.

The energies of this opposition can contradict the grounding support of the grand trine in the earth signs, which in some ways it is true. However, turned on its head, we can look at this is another opportunity for grounding and manifesting the subtleties of our spirituality and the capacity for inspired vision and creativity.

Neptune trine Jupiter in Scorpio sextile Pluto in Capricorn

Easing and softening the above challenges, is another powerful form of grace described by the benevolent Jupiter. This trine is traditionally one of the very best aspects for emotional, spiritual and creative development, the two planets sharing your desire to expand our awareness beyond the day-to-day business of life, the demands of physical reality, the rigidity of the conditioned intellect and the orthodoxy in our spiritual and religious beliefs.

This is also an important transit emotionally, as in accentuating the water signs it reflects a time when we can allow our emotions to be more fluid, where we can trust the wisdom and intelligence of the non rational and more easily release and let go of pent-up feelings not honoured or expressed.

I am reminded of what one of my teachers declared to us, that all emotions are forms of Shakti, that is, expressions of the sacred feminine. If we disown, suppress or rationalise a feeling, then we dishonour her, creating unfortunate consequences down the track.

This is not meant to be justification for spewing our emotions over others that simply encouragement to feel and acknowledge one’s feelings as they arise. It is then up to our own discrimination as to what we do with them.

Joined by the trans formative power of Pluto then, all our spiritual and emotional processes are greatly empowered, giving far more lower chakra juice to the upper realms of Neptune and Jupiter, and enhancing our capacity to be agents of real change, combined with expanded awareness, in the outside world and the lives of others.

Mercury in Leo conjunct Pallas Athena

Given that there is so much earth and water in this month’s chart, it is good to report that we also have quality fire energy to balance things out. In this case having the planet of the mind, aligned with the tremendous and focused intelligence of the feminine represented by Pallas, is another transit that stretches the expressions of our intellects. Even though she is known as a warrior goddess, Pallas’ energy can be very refined, in ways that can allow our minds to be used with greater subtlety and yet penetratingly focused. (Or, at least when Neptune is not doing his mind dissolving trick!)

Mercury/Pallas in grand trine with Kali in Aries and Shiva/Vesta in Sagittarius.

The fierce Kali will obviously raise the stakes, stoke the fires and bring greater passion and at times ferocity to the way we express, think and communicate. She shares with Pallas the capacity to cut away, and cut through, bullshit, denial and the veils of ignorance, to get to the truth of things in any situation.

Where the two differ is that Pallas has more sociability, diplomacy and lives energetically on the divide between masculine and feminine, while Kali is more of the raw, primal layers of the deep feminine and at the core of our emotional selves. Connecting well creates an awesome power line that the day-to-day intellect, represented more by Mercury, can be aligned with and be used in the world with great effectiveness and clarity.

Shiva/Vesta conjunction in Sagittarius

Here’s another seeming contradiction in terms; the detached Yogi hanging out with an earth priestess. Certainly, those of you who know the mythology of Shiva, he can appear very unworldly and will often disengage from normal life to pursue his spiritual practice. And it often takes a potent woman to draw him back down to earth, so that he can continue to contribute his transformative power, as a co-ruler of the death and rebirth cycle, to the world.

Traditionally this is in the form of his consort Parvati (who just happens to be in the earth sign of Taurus!) but this time it is Vesta, goddess/priestess of the hearth, the sacred fire and of service to humanity and the earth.

What Shiva and Vesta do share is a connection to the still deep core or centre of our being. Whether in meditation or dancing with his wild freedom, Shiva represents our ability to stay centred in the middle of the chaos and changeability of life. In our subtle bodies this is most apparent in the form of the sushumna or the central channel paralleling our spinal cord in which our individual chakras are found.

Whereas Vesta represents the same stillness, also apparent in the core of Virgo, whenever we can drop deeply into our bodies or into the sacred feminine at the core of self.
This goddess also represents our ability to gather, concentrate and direct energy, something she shares with Pallas Athena. She also has ancient pre-Christian connections with the temple priestess, often known as the so-called “sacred prostitutes” whose roles were to initiate man into the mysteries of the deep feminine, representing the Shakti in order to awaken the Shiva in such men.

The Shiva/Vesta combination then repeats the theme of grounding, focusing and directing spiritual power currently, and clearly is another form of the Shiva Shakti union between sacred masculine and sacred feminine.  Their combined juice feeds into this awesome, dynamic grand trine in fire.

Go well, with love and blessings,
Daniel Sowelu