Getting Unstuck
An excellent article from Eric Francis. It's long, but entirely worth reading. I know some of you think astrology is hogwash, so I'll protect you from it with this cut
Dear Friend and Reader:
LATELY I HAVE been hearing a lot of the word stuck. This feels positively strange to say, but there seems to be a trend of admitting you're not going anywhere in life, or like you feel like you're not going anywhere. Every other email I get from a reader is about how stuck they feel. I guess all these years of voting Republican and having lattes for lunch are finally starting to catch up with us.
This is not the ever-popular "Bugger off, I'm proud to be stuck" energy; it is not the eminently distinguished "Who, me? Stuck?" posture, either. This is, "Wow, I'm like really stuck. I want to be an artist, but the only thing I've used a pencil for in the past six years is to scratch inside my ear. I've had these paints in my closet since 1998, and the lids are stuck. Even the gas cap on my Ford Explorer is stuck. I hate my job and my bed feels like fly paper."
Eclipses, which are coming soon, tend to move stuck energy, stuck people and stuck things. That is to say, they move it (that is, us) whether we like it or not, and it's actually possible to have a lot of fun during this time of acceleration and adventure.
While it's far better not to be stuck when they show up, sometimes that's not an option. The beauty of eclipses is that now we know when they're going to happen. Back in the day, for example during B.C., an astrologer could get in a lot of trouble for predicting one incorrectly, or missing it altogether. Now at least we can look at the ephemeris and plan years in advance for when not to be stuck. There is an amazing eclipse on March 29, 2025 and I have no plans whatsoever of being stuck then.
There are closer ones on the horizon, such as Aug. 1 and 16. These soon-arriving eclipses involve Leo and Aquarius, two signs of the zodiac that astrologers categorize as fixed signs. The other two fixed signs are Taurus and Scorpio. These signs tend to contain energy, they tend to stabilize things and sometimes make life a little too stable. Fixed-sign people have to take special precautions to keep things loose. Whoopee Cushions work well. As Debbi Kempton-Smith says of people born with the Taurus Moon, if you want them to come over for dinner, send a car, and promise them a baked potato when they arrive. You need to bribe them.
The whole stuck phenomenon, combined with eclipses across the Leo-Aquarius axis, reminds me of some information about the Age of Aquarius that I may have neglected to mention. I must be getting set in my ways; usually I tell you way more than you want to know. One theory of the Age of Aquarius, an original, passed along to me from Dave Roell at the Astrology Center of America, is that it began around 1920. According to this theory, we know the Age of Pisces ended because art no longer needed to be beautiful for the sake of beauty; it could be conceptual and the aesthetics came second, if at all. It was the idea that counted. This shift in values was a kind of cultural marker that we had entered a "new age," and that age happened to be ruled by a fixed sign and that sign involves ideas.
Where beauty is presented, it is usually intended for another purpose (such as advertising); again, a conceptual association rather than aesthetic. Music in the official New Age genre is sort of beautiful, but it has a purpose -- helping you feel allegedly spiritual. If you ask me, most current music is pretty darned ugly, especially when a car stereo on the street is vibrating the North American tectonic plate. Books have largely become utilitarian devices, not objects of artistic creation. You look at a statue and you wonder, "What the heck is that thing? And what is it made of?" That is how I feel about a lot of books and websites.
(There are other theories of when the Age of Aquarius begins, including a scientific one more closely linked to the precession of the equinoxes. This says it doesn't start for several hundred more years. The Broadway tune says it begins when the Moon is in the 7th house, which happens for two or three hours every day. Let's take these other theories up another time, perhaps when the Sun is in Aquarius.)
One of the properties of Aquarius is the fixation of patterns. Every sign has its ups and downs, and each person born under a particular sign borrows a diversity of those properties (never really all of them). Aquarius is extremely good at establishing mental patterns. This is double edged. The patterns are fixed, but sometimes a pattern of perpetual change establishes itself, and that is one of the distinctions of Aquarian energy, particularly on the public or cultural level. So we can get trapped in change, which feels extremely stuck, particularly if that change is primarily about form and not about content: new inventions conveying the same message as the old ones, just costing more money.
A fine example of this is the way that technology (very Aquarian) has taken over our lives, particularly the people who check email 275 times a day. We just have to get the new iPod or the latest BlackBerry. When the new one comes out, we wonder how we can possibly live without it. Then when we have it, it kind of feels just like the old one. Except that you wonder how you could have ever used such a weird old relic like your prior BlackBerry...and the pace of this kind of change accelerates, but it's fixed.
Technology metaphors for this process abound. Your old laptop gets creaky and you can't take it anymore, but you don't want to give it up because it's so familiar and all your stuff is on it. But you finally have to, and you get a new one, and the first two months are spent establishing patterns (setting preferences, installing software, and so on). Then your pattern is enmeshed into that computer, which you identify with closely, and so on. You ride that fixed pattern as long as you can. It keeps repeating.
We know that the way to play the game in the Age of Aquarius is to establish a pattern and let it take on a life of its own. That pattern becomes a thing that's easy, even necessary, to get trapped in. We can even do this consciously; we teach ourselves a routine and typically find it very difficult to function without it. Patterns take on lives of their own, and they tend to live us as much as we live them. They nearly all involve technology, relationships or both. A couple may get into a pattern of relating, or sex, and it seems impossible to change; or a person may get into a pattern of being alone. And it can seem a huge deal to change that energy imprint; it can seem like nothing else is possible (but then of course it is).
Yet even strong fixed-sign people are getting sick of the patterns that have ruled their lives for so long: along with a lot of other people who are fairly well sick of the emotional distance, the insane rush and the lack of contact with one's core values that have been taking over the world.
The point I am making in a roundabout (fishy) way here is that being stuck is a necessary part of the lives we live, in the age we are living; and part of that game involves jumping the tracks and getting unstuck long enough to make some changes and initiate a new pattern; and then this proceeds till the next time. Has anyone noticed this?
Then come eclipses. Eclipses represent phases of time and specific events wherein we get to shift continuity and establish new patterns. Their ability to help us do both is about equal; we can be directly taken out of long-established patterns (this is usually passive, unconscious mode); we can lay down the grid and create a new method, approach, attitude or mode of existence (this is usually active, conscious mode).
The oncoming ones happen to be in fixed signs. The solar eclipse of Aug. 1 is in Leo. In the first astrology book written in English (called Christian Astrology, published in 1647), William Lilly writes that when an eclipse of the Sun occurs in Leo, if it was rainy for a long time, there shall be a drought, and if it was dry, it will rain a lot. The prior fixed pattern will exchange itself for a new fixed pattern.
Let's look at the human dimension, with a little help from the ideas of the Tibetan speaking through Alice A. Bailey in Esoteric Astrology. The Leo-Aquarius axis involves the way in which individuals relate to groups, which is one of the most important contact points of any social creature or any society. Leo is the sign of personal expression, which can represent itself as egotism on one end of the spectrum or as true individuality on the other.
Aquarius is the sign of collective expression, which can express itself as a kind of cultural fascism at one end of the spectrum or as freedom for individuals to both express themselves as such, and to freely relate in groups, on the other end. The structure is parallel. In a world where Leo is expressed egotistically, a culture will tend toward locked-in patterns and express mass consciousness (to wit, Nazi Germany). Where a culture allows individuals to be themselves, the social pattern will be more liberal, and the culture will tend toward group consciousness (quick, somebody name a place).
It is difficult for most people to tell the difference between the two parallel worlds, yet the difference makes all the difference in the universe. The purposes underlying the two sides of the equation are entirely at odds; the agendas are opposite. Currently, our society is attempting a long, painful transition from one to the other. Individuals who are undergoing the psychological process are moving from egotism to individuality. As this occurs, society will gradually shift from mass consciousness to group consciousness. The shift is extremely disorienting for many people, particularly where family relations are concerned.
We forget that the first group is the family, which is a version of the tribe -- a distinctly Aquarian entity. The family is particularly brutal about allowing individuals to be themselves. All of psychology, psychiatry, therapy, astrology and humanistic process work are basically devoted to undoing the damage of the family and encouraging individuals to freely be themselves. For example, in the majority of my astrological sessions, I work with people whose ability to express themselves was hampered or damaged by what they were told by their parents. And in the process, their (that is, our) sense of self or right to exist as an individual free to make choices was damaged or disconnected from its power source.
In the current sequence of eclipses, we experience a total solar event in Leo first, suggesting that the place to start is with oneself. What stories do you tell yourself about who you are? What do you want to believe about who you are? If you are stuck, do you recognize the extent to which this is on the level of ideas, i.e., in true fixed-sign form, "in your head"? If so, what is your model of your own psyche? How do you believe you make real changes, and do you even believe you can? Activity in Leo is encouraging you to go from being unconscious or self-conscious to fully self-aware and self-reflective.
The second eclipse occurs in Aquarius. It is a partial eclipse of the Moon, representing a softening of cultural mores and an energetic space opening up in society (in small groups and large) for the acceptance of individuating people who are willing to take the space to be themselves. The eclipse of the Moon to me also represents the weakening of what I will call tribal lies -- that is, the false things that your family believes about you, but which hurt you when you become subject to them.
We live in an age where we are able to have what is called family of choice -- a tribe that we create and choose voluntarily. It is only we who will teach one another a new set of values, and who will ultimately approve of one another's right to exist, and of our personal choices made to that end. It is we who will teach one another to say yes to ourselves and to life.
In Aquarius, the eclipse calls to focus two long-term processes which I will get to closer to that event: Neptune in Aquarius and Chiron in Aquarius.
Neptune represents an overwhelming influx of deception, carried mainly by television and the Internet. Chiron represents a tribal wound that many people (particularly those born in the 1950s, who are born with natal Chiron in Aquarius but in truth all of us) are inflicted with, and which we are now attempting to work out. Chiron's movement in Aquarius appears to be an attempt to raise awareness on a collective level. It's here to focus our attention on the nature of mass social deception, media mind control and the ways in which groups of people push down the awareness of individuals in order to preserve their own collective self-deception. I would call this the ultimate opportunity to get unstuck.
This of course puts a lot of responsibility on you, as an individual, to wake up and make up your own mind about your life.
But what else are you doing here?
Dear Friend and Reader:
LATELY I HAVE been hearing a lot of the word stuck. This feels positively strange to say, but there seems to be a trend of admitting you're not going anywhere in life, or like you feel like you're not going anywhere. Every other email I get from a reader is about how stuck they feel. I guess all these years of voting Republican and having lattes for lunch are finally starting to catch up with us.
This is not the ever-popular "Bugger off, I'm proud to be stuck" energy; it is not the eminently distinguished "Who, me? Stuck?" posture, either. This is, "Wow, I'm like really stuck. I want to be an artist, but the only thing I've used a pencil for in the past six years is to scratch inside my ear. I've had these paints in my closet since 1998, and the lids are stuck. Even the gas cap on my Ford Explorer is stuck. I hate my job and my bed feels like fly paper."
Eclipses, which are coming soon, tend to move stuck energy, stuck people and stuck things. That is to say, they move it (that is, us) whether we like it or not, and it's actually possible to have a lot of fun during this time of acceleration and adventure.
While it's far better not to be stuck when they show up, sometimes that's not an option. The beauty of eclipses is that now we know when they're going to happen. Back in the day, for example during B.C., an astrologer could get in a lot of trouble for predicting one incorrectly, or missing it altogether. Now at least we can look at the ephemeris and plan years in advance for when not to be stuck. There is an amazing eclipse on March 29, 2025 and I have no plans whatsoever of being stuck then.
There are closer ones on the horizon, such as Aug. 1 and 16. These soon-arriving eclipses involve Leo and Aquarius, two signs of the zodiac that astrologers categorize as fixed signs. The other two fixed signs are Taurus and Scorpio. These signs tend to contain energy, they tend to stabilize things and sometimes make life a little too stable. Fixed-sign people have to take special precautions to keep things loose. Whoopee Cushions work well. As Debbi Kempton-Smith says of people born with the Taurus Moon, if you want them to come over for dinner, send a car, and promise them a baked potato when they arrive. You need to bribe them.
The whole stuck phenomenon, combined with eclipses across the Leo-Aquarius axis, reminds me of some information about the Age of Aquarius that I may have neglected to mention. I must be getting set in my ways; usually I tell you way more than you want to know. One theory of the Age of Aquarius, an original, passed along to me from Dave Roell at the Astrology Center of America, is that it began around 1920. According to this theory, we know the Age of Pisces ended because art no longer needed to be beautiful for the sake of beauty; it could be conceptual and the aesthetics came second, if at all. It was the idea that counted. This shift in values was a kind of cultural marker that we had entered a "new age," and that age happened to be ruled by a fixed sign and that sign involves ideas.
Where beauty is presented, it is usually intended for another purpose (such as advertising); again, a conceptual association rather than aesthetic. Music in the official New Age genre is sort of beautiful, but it has a purpose -- helping you feel allegedly spiritual. If you ask me, most current music is pretty darned ugly, especially when a car stereo on the street is vibrating the North American tectonic plate. Books have largely become utilitarian devices, not objects of artistic creation. You look at a statue and you wonder, "What the heck is that thing? And what is it made of?" That is how I feel about a lot of books and websites.
(There are other theories of when the Age of Aquarius begins, including a scientific one more closely linked to the precession of the equinoxes. This says it doesn't start for several hundred more years. The Broadway tune says it begins when the Moon is in the 7th house, which happens for two or three hours every day. Let's take these other theories up another time, perhaps when the Sun is in Aquarius.)
One of the properties of Aquarius is the fixation of patterns. Every sign has its ups and downs, and each person born under a particular sign borrows a diversity of those properties (never really all of them). Aquarius is extremely good at establishing mental patterns. This is double edged. The patterns are fixed, but sometimes a pattern of perpetual change establishes itself, and that is one of the distinctions of Aquarian energy, particularly on the public or cultural level. So we can get trapped in change, which feels extremely stuck, particularly if that change is primarily about form and not about content: new inventions conveying the same message as the old ones, just costing more money.
A fine example of this is the way that technology (very Aquarian) has taken over our lives, particularly the people who check email 275 times a day. We just have to get the new iPod or the latest BlackBerry. When the new one comes out, we wonder how we can possibly live without it. Then when we have it, it kind of feels just like the old one. Except that you wonder how you could have ever used such a weird old relic like your prior BlackBerry...and the pace of this kind of change accelerates, but it's fixed.
Technology metaphors for this process abound. Your old laptop gets creaky and you can't take it anymore, but you don't want to give it up because it's so familiar and all your stuff is on it. But you finally have to, and you get a new one, and the first two months are spent establishing patterns (setting preferences, installing software, and so on). Then your pattern is enmeshed into that computer, which you identify with closely, and so on. You ride that fixed pattern as long as you can. It keeps repeating.
We know that the way to play the game in the Age of Aquarius is to establish a pattern and let it take on a life of its own. That pattern becomes a thing that's easy, even necessary, to get trapped in. We can even do this consciously; we teach ourselves a routine and typically find it very difficult to function without it. Patterns take on lives of their own, and they tend to live us as much as we live them. They nearly all involve technology, relationships or both. A couple may get into a pattern of relating, or sex, and it seems impossible to change; or a person may get into a pattern of being alone. And it can seem a huge deal to change that energy imprint; it can seem like nothing else is possible (but then of course it is).
Yet even strong fixed-sign people are getting sick of the patterns that have ruled their lives for so long: along with a lot of other people who are fairly well sick of the emotional distance, the insane rush and the lack of contact with one's core values that have been taking over the world.
The point I am making in a roundabout (fishy) way here is that being stuck is a necessary part of the lives we live, in the age we are living; and part of that game involves jumping the tracks and getting unstuck long enough to make some changes and initiate a new pattern; and then this proceeds till the next time. Has anyone noticed this?
Then come eclipses. Eclipses represent phases of time and specific events wherein we get to shift continuity and establish new patterns. Their ability to help us do both is about equal; we can be directly taken out of long-established patterns (this is usually passive, unconscious mode); we can lay down the grid and create a new method, approach, attitude or mode of existence (this is usually active, conscious mode).
The oncoming ones happen to be in fixed signs. The solar eclipse of Aug. 1 is in Leo. In the first astrology book written in English (called Christian Astrology, published in 1647), William Lilly writes that when an eclipse of the Sun occurs in Leo, if it was rainy for a long time, there shall be a drought, and if it was dry, it will rain a lot. The prior fixed pattern will exchange itself for a new fixed pattern.
Let's look at the human dimension, with a little help from the ideas of the Tibetan speaking through Alice A. Bailey in Esoteric Astrology. The Leo-Aquarius axis involves the way in which individuals relate to groups, which is one of the most important contact points of any social creature or any society. Leo is the sign of personal expression, which can represent itself as egotism on one end of the spectrum or as true individuality on the other.
Aquarius is the sign of collective expression, which can express itself as a kind of cultural fascism at one end of the spectrum or as freedom for individuals to both express themselves as such, and to freely relate in groups, on the other end. The structure is parallel. In a world where Leo is expressed egotistically, a culture will tend toward locked-in patterns and express mass consciousness (to wit, Nazi Germany). Where a culture allows individuals to be themselves, the social pattern will be more liberal, and the culture will tend toward group consciousness (quick, somebody name a place).
It is difficult for most people to tell the difference between the two parallel worlds, yet the difference makes all the difference in the universe. The purposes underlying the two sides of the equation are entirely at odds; the agendas are opposite. Currently, our society is attempting a long, painful transition from one to the other. Individuals who are undergoing the psychological process are moving from egotism to individuality. As this occurs, society will gradually shift from mass consciousness to group consciousness. The shift is extremely disorienting for many people, particularly where family relations are concerned.
We forget that the first group is the family, which is a version of the tribe -- a distinctly Aquarian entity. The family is particularly brutal about allowing individuals to be themselves. All of psychology, psychiatry, therapy, astrology and humanistic process work are basically devoted to undoing the damage of the family and encouraging individuals to freely be themselves. For example, in the majority of my astrological sessions, I work with people whose ability to express themselves was hampered or damaged by what they were told by their parents. And in the process, their (that is, our) sense of self or right to exist as an individual free to make choices was damaged or disconnected from its power source.
In the current sequence of eclipses, we experience a total solar event in Leo first, suggesting that the place to start is with oneself. What stories do you tell yourself about who you are? What do you want to believe about who you are? If you are stuck, do you recognize the extent to which this is on the level of ideas, i.e., in true fixed-sign form, "in your head"? If so, what is your model of your own psyche? How do you believe you make real changes, and do you even believe you can? Activity in Leo is encouraging you to go from being unconscious or self-conscious to fully self-aware and self-reflective.
The second eclipse occurs in Aquarius. It is a partial eclipse of the Moon, representing a softening of cultural mores and an energetic space opening up in society (in small groups and large) for the acceptance of individuating people who are willing to take the space to be themselves. The eclipse of the Moon to me also represents the weakening of what I will call tribal lies -- that is, the false things that your family believes about you, but which hurt you when you become subject to them.
We live in an age where we are able to have what is called family of choice -- a tribe that we create and choose voluntarily. It is only we who will teach one another a new set of values, and who will ultimately approve of one another's right to exist, and of our personal choices made to that end. It is we who will teach one another to say yes to ourselves and to life.
In Aquarius, the eclipse calls to focus two long-term processes which I will get to closer to that event: Neptune in Aquarius and Chiron in Aquarius.
Neptune represents an overwhelming influx of deception, carried mainly by television and the Internet. Chiron represents a tribal wound that many people (particularly those born in the 1950s, who are born with natal Chiron in Aquarius but in truth all of us) are inflicted with, and which we are now attempting to work out. Chiron's movement in Aquarius appears to be an attempt to raise awareness on a collective level. It's here to focus our attention on the nature of mass social deception, media mind control and the ways in which groups of people push down the awareness of individuals in order to preserve their own collective self-deception. I would call this the ultimate opportunity to get unstuck.
This of course puts a lot of responsibility on you, as an individual, to wake up and make up your own mind about your life.
But what else are you doing here?