April 2015 Astro-Energy Report
Keeping It Real
This month’s astrology has the feel of Fresher’s Week at university, when arriving students are oriented to their new life. Choices abound and the air is heavy with potential and possibility. Excitement is everywhere, fuelled by a new-found freedom alongside anxiety, homesickness and sometimes a hefty dose of fear. We are those students and life the university. Last month’s solar eclipse on 20th reshaped our future by shutting off paths not chosen and potential not realised, not as punishment for our not grasping the nettle but because life itself must move in cycles of becoming, fulfilment and demise, whether or not we join in. What was once an option becomes out of reach, hopes not yet fulfilled begin to fade, potential once vibrant becomes jaded. Last month saw an unequivocal completion of a cycle begun in 1997. This month sets the new one off on its travels. Where will it take us? Who will we become? What will be asked of and offered to us? April 2015 is a month of questions and learning to live with them is key to how it unfolds for each one of us.Pluto and Uranus bring their influence to bear upon the Sun as the month begins. They remind us that wherever we find ourselves now bears the hallmark of who we are, whatever we make of our current circumstances. Astrology teaches that the life which ebbs and flows around us is characteristic of the life which dwells within. We each bear our own unique energy signature which we both offer to life and receive from it. The better we know the particular ‘key’ in which is played our life’s music, the more able we are to shape our experience into one of authentic fulfilment. We must know every note and every tone to be in alignment with the sacred field as it runs its hand across our strings, bringing to life their melody. Discovering and claiming as our own the harmonics of our unique key is the central task of human incarnation. Bringing into consciousness every subtle harmonic nuance and each discordant clash, we become ever more deeply anchored into our life’s special melody, playing it with insightful intention not the desperate need of an ego under siege.
The first week of April is a good time to review the landscape of our life: material circumstances, relationships, activities, anything and everything which populates the space of our everyday existence. Having done so we can ask ourselves ‘What of me is reflected in this?’. It is no longer enough to point the finger out there, be it at other people, fate or plain old bad luck and divest oneself of agency in one’s own life. What we see when we look out reflects aspects of what we see when we look in. The more willing we are to observe in this way the greater the insight gained into what this new cycle asks of us in the coming years. We encounter nothing in life which does not have the capacity to wake us up to who we are, to reveal and unfold aspects of both our false and real selves. Whatever we encounter, be it welcome or otherwise, can be used as a mirror to show us something of who we are and how we can edge ever deeper into the field of the sacred in which true power resides. Power to relinquish all that holds us back from expressing our authentic self and allowing others to do the same.
A Lunar Eclipse in Libra on 4th April bids us reflect rather than respond. It highlights instinctive behaviours born of old habits and past experience. The discomfort of not quite knowing where we’re headed at the moment, the blank slate of possibility or a sense of restlessness that demands a response, can all seduce us into action now, regretted further down the line. Temperance is needed, patience, and a willingness to allow life its own timing. This is a time for deep listening not rash decisions. A time to sit in the silence and allow inner wisdom to bubble to the surface, for it knows all that we need and is the most compassionate arbiter of our life. This new cycle, so fresh in its infancy, will require a deep and abiding relationship with our inner sage and this eclipse is our first opportunity to demonstrate just how committed we are to our side of the bargain!
Jupiter stations direct in Leo on 8th April, after four months retrograde. This time has offered ample opportunity to observe ourselves as both ego and divine, to embrace the fact of both and discover our true identity as a fusion: ego shot through with divine essence, sacred presence filtered through the self in all its unique richness of personality and identity. As Jupiter prepares to move forward once more we can more powerfully commit our egoic self to sacred service. The eradication of ego is not the agenda here, but instead its purification, bringing it into alignment with a deeper source of wisdom that shapes its expression and activity for a greater, more transformational end. This integral aspect of conscious evolution will be under an increasingly bright spotlight in this new creative cycle. Too long has ego either held sway to its own ends or been battered into submission by itself! The evolutionary imperative now is one of offering ego up to sacred service, allowing it to shine a light on the path ahead, enabling us all to walk it together.
We may encounter inner resistance to change this month, alongside an internal imperative to do exactly that! This paradoxical state reveals how our minds work when we’re not really sure what’s going on! We either want things to stay the same, affording the comfortable familiarity of the known, or we want to be at the outcome of the change process, fully fledged into our new life. We don’t, however, feel quite so excited about the process inbetween! It confuses us. We feel lost, especially at the start when old ways are no longer possible but the new path has yet to reveal itself. We are uncomfortable with being a work in progress unless we know what that work will look like eventually. Trouble is, right now we simply cannot know that. It is way too early to envision where we are headed from here. So abide in the confusion and unknowing we must, resting there in faith, allowing the questions, anxieties and fears born of uncertainty to rise up and speak before fading once more into the silence.
Between 12th and 15th April a Yod formed by Neptune, Mars, the North Node and Black Moon Lilith alerts us to the power available when we anchor deep truth into our every day consciousness. Together, Neptune and Mars exhort us to commit to the long haul of conscious evolution, not seeking a short cut to escape the fray of challenge and change. By embracing exactly where we now find ourselves, whatever form our present takes, we are signalling to the cosmos our willingness to do what is necessary to further the interests of the global community as a whole; to honour Mother Earth and all her creatures, and to walk this path together for ourselves and each other. Power lies now in recognising that we simply cannot do this alone, that we must each do our part for the continued awakening of the Sacred Self in the everyday. It is not necessary to escape elsewhere to realise our divinity. We can know it fully, here and now, in physical form in this material world. The duality of this paradoxical realm is fuel for the fire of awakening not a distraction from it. Its rough edges and sharp corners serve to remind us where work is still to be done, truths to be uncovered, wisdom to be lived and breathed as we do the very oxygen needed to survive. When Pluto begins a five month retrograde passage through Capricorn on 16th April we will be left in no doubt that escapist tendencies will get us nowhere and getting to grips with the world in which we live, its environmental challenges, interpersonal struggles and practical paradoxes, is now paramount.
A New Moon in Aries on 18th/19th April reiterates the importance of knowing the ‘key’ in which the song of our life is played and the ability to recognise when something or someone is in tune with it. We can know this by just the kind of deep listening required at the lunar eclipse. This practice of careful attention to our inner knowing must continue as a feature of our everyday life if we are to navigate the coming months with the level of discernment necessary to liberate the Real Self further. This new cycle of becoming requires deep anchoring into the earth plane even as we expand our knowledge of life’s multi-dimensional nature. The ability to know what and who will assist us in this process is vital. Identifying those places, circumstances and people who will support us to ‘keep it real’ rather than live a spiritual lie, has never been more important than it is now.
The final ten days of April provide ample opportunity to get back down to earth if we still need it! With the Sun, Mercury and Mars in Taurus it is time to feel our feet on the ground and honour the deep and abiding support that our planetary mother provides us every day. Ultimately we do this for her. All of it. For if we cannot live in a manner that honours and supports Mother Earth we cannot live, end of, and past exploitation and disrespect is coming back to haunt us now. So whilst we may not know on a personal level quite where we’re heading, on a planetary one we can be very clear: we are heading further into crisis if we do not own the part we play in the protection or destruction of our beautiful home. If we focus on nothing else at this time, we can focus on that: loving our Mother, thanking her, honouring her, recognising her awesome power and heart-wrenching beauty. As we do this we bring ourselves back home, extricated from future fantasy and self-deception into a vibrant, earthed relationship with the circumstances of our lives and all beings within it. Only once we have done this can we truly know where the next step needs to be taken, for it is in the present moment, earthed and grounded, that we now receive the deepest guidance from the divine within.
© Sarah Varcas 2015. All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted
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This message was originally posted here