Tag: The Great Bull

Father Earth-The “Must-See” Film No One is Watching by Marcia Buchart


“You figure he’ll crack quick?”

“I figure,” Val Con said…”that the luck has favored us, in that Nelirikk has been so badly used… I take him for a man who possesses a strong and innate sense of Balance…If we are clever, and give him what he starves for—work, discipline, and respect—we may yet preserve him.”

from Plan B, by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

And so, I offer the solution before naming the issue, because it is all too easy to shudder at the issue and turn away before even asking whether there is a solution. On the very Friday on which I saved Venus’ sacred bee, I opened the Seattle Times to the top story of a father who had been killed by random gunfire while driving his children and parents from the airport. The very next day a man went postal in a downtown club and five more people were shot dead.

While all our eyes and minds are focused on the thrilling—but invisible!—dance between the Horns of the Great Bull, let us not forget the planets that are visible in the sky almost all the night.

Grief hangs over Seattle following senseless shootings 

Let’s think about Mars.

Night after night, since late March of last year He has kept an often lonely watch in the night sky; last May He met, all too briefly, with His Goddess lover, Venus near the baleful stare of Cetus—Rick and Ilsa sharing their last moment together.  

After their parting, only Saturn and Jupiter have kept Him distant company throughout His long months on patrol in the zodiac sign Virgo, against the constellational backdrop of the Lion.

Ewww! Mars?? Do we have to talk about Him?? Isn’t this whole time supposed to be about the special potential signified by the Venus dance?? Well, I hate to break it to you, folks, but lissen up. An ignored Mars is like the Bad Fairy at the christening: the one who has been dissed, intentionally uninvited, and who will therefore pronounce the Curse that it will take a loooonnng time for the Heroes and Heroines symbolized by all those multiple conjunctions  to resolve.(Remember those? See Preview of Coming Attractions post)

Quoting from that post:
This whole series of events is a mammoth sequence of conjunctions—Venus with the Pleiades, Venus with El Nath, Sun with Jupiter, the solar eclipse of May 20th, Jupiter with Mercury, Mercury with the Sun (where He sheds His worn-out Explorer’s leathers for His Administrative robes , Mercury with Venus, Venus with the Sun, Venus turning away from a conjunction with Jupiter, Venus with Aldebaran, Venus with Chi1 Orionis [the business end of Orion’s club].
OMG, this whole sequence will last until August 6!

To put it bluntly: if He is dissed, He’ll kill your ass, bitches. And there are very few zodiac signs that are more dissed than Virgo.

Mars began His long stay in zodiac sign Virgo in early November 2011. He spent a looooonnnng retrograde in Virgo and will finally leave Virgo for Libra on July 3rd. “Whew!” many may be saying. Even some archetypally oriented astrologers have shaken their heads over Mars in Virgo; Adam Gainsburg has noted a special tension in people with this placement. So it is perhaps unsurprising that, while all the shooting insanity was occurring in the Seattle area, (Dec 02 1869, 12 noon, Olympia, WA) while in hard aspect to that chart’s Destiny Axis (Midheaven and Lower Heaven).  What can the planet of direct, sometimes brutal action find at all convivial about supposedly picky, detail-oriented Virgo?

One thinks of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Coriolanus, of the warrior who cannot cope with civilized life

(“Who am I without my sword?”).

No swords in civilized life? Think again.

U.S. Air Force surgeons Dr. Patrick Miller (left), Dr. Michael Hughes (right), and surgical technician SrA Ray Wilson from the 379th Expeditionary Medical Squadron, repair the ruptured achilles tendon of a servicemember on March 11, 2003. The doctors are performing this surgey at a field hospital in a foward-deployed location. (U.S. Air Force photo by SSgt. DERRICK C. GOODE)(RELEASED)

Consider these deeply necessary, detail-demanding endeavors, at the mastery involved in bringing fire, sharp implements and brute strength (all ruled by Mars) under fine control…

Watching this mastery is riveting. I once stood for a half hour at a blacksmith’s booth in a Renaissance Faire, marveling at the precision with which this person struck the blade he was building.

At a granite finishing shop I watched a gnarled gnome of a man work for a solid hour on polishing the same two-foot section of marble slab.  I watched a physician with hands that seemed much too large for the task tease away the scars and scabs from the stitches in my husband’s hand before deftly drawing them. At dinner overlooking Elliot Bay, I watched two tugboats maneuver a monstrous vessel to berth.  Homely, ugly, battered little craft, ridiculous-looking tires lining their bows and sides, pivoting like dancers in the water as they passed the towing cable between them. The power implied by their maneuvers took my breath away. Watch Tugboats Working

No nobility in what used to be termed “honest work”? That’s certainly how it seems Governor Scott Walker and the plutocrats who back him see it. And wasn’t it interesting that a bid to topple him took place on the very day of the Venus Transit? “Way to go!” some of us (me) thought; “Get the Goddess (Venus) championing the Virgo Mars!”

Wrong.

That special conjunction of Sun and Venus was not only in challenging (90°) aspect to Mars. She did so while engaging in Sacred Marriage with one of the celestial bodies that Babylonian astrologers believed symbolized the King (Sun). Of course Scott Walker (the local king) won. BUT! the Martial underdog (Virgo) forces also won: Wisconsin’s senate wrested control from their King’s party.

If you click on this link to  you will hear a fascinating discussion between Adam Gainsburg and Eric Francis on Mars’ retrograde cycle “lassoing the Lion”. The Lion, of course is Leo, the actual constellational backdrop for this whole drama taking place in the sky. I watched those tugs lassoing the giant beast of a ship and turning it to guide it into its berth. Astonishing.

In another recent podcast, Adam Gainsburg asked with the new beginnings of Divine Feminine consciousness being forged in the heat of the solar transits—the Solar Feminine—where was the rest of the revolution: where were “Father Earth” and “Mother Sky”? Mother Sky has been with us since at least the days of ancient Egypt, in the magnificent depictions of Nut, the goddess who represents the entire night sky. See the following link to a lovely Visual Astrology Newsletter speaking of the return of this Goddess.

But where is “Father Earth”?

With Mars in Virgo, I would offer this idea: He is right under our noses, and we’ve ignored Him just as we so often ignore the daily details of our lives that require focus, precision and exactitude in execution. Chop wood, carry water. Even the most spectacular of Martial idols…Olympic athletes, perhaps?…have put in untold hours of Mars-in-Virgo practice to earn their right to compete for the prize.

Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration (thank you, Thomas Edison)? Believe it.

Don’t miss this opportunity, people: consider in what area of your own life you may need to apply that 99% perspiration to master focus, precision, strength, the symbolic cutting forces of fire and steel. (Contact Claudia and/or Carol for help in figuring this out.)

Consider it now, because, after July 3rd, your window of opportunity to honor and cultivate what we often dis—to give that part of yourself what He starves for: work, discipline and respect—won’t come again for another two years.

The world can’t wait that long. Neither can the Divine Feminine, riding the Horns of the Great Bull, Who longs for union with the Divine Masculine in Love:

“…the sense of having striven against an obstacle and survived is absolutely essential…It is our refusal to recognize this that makes Mars malefic. It is my opinion that only when your Mars has functioned at this level can you love. You can’t love if you don’t know who and what you are and you can’t find that out unless you have striven against resistance and measured yourself against it.”

– Robert Hand, “Handling the Malefics” in Essays on Astrology.

Music at the Wake for those killed in Seattle shooting in May 2012

Venus, me and the Honey Bee by Marcia Buchart

There may be those of you who were intimidated by the last post titled

Previews Of Coming Attractions

STAY TUNED!!

OMG…WTF?  Is this what we’re in for?  Let me find a hole, crawl in, and pull it after me.

Wake me when it’s over.

Let me, instead, give you two models of how to approach the terrific potential of this season’s endless Venus transits.

In Astrology: A Place in Chaos, as well as in her 2008 UAC post-conference seminar lecture (click here to view that lecture), Dr. Bernadette Brady offered a method to sensitize one’s self so as to make the most productive use of current astrological events.  One noted the approaching aspect of a transiting planet to a natal planet.  Then, one simply changed a detail of one’s habit: one switched the wrist on which one wore; one parted one’s hair on a different side; one put on one’s trousers using the opposite leg (what I did).  And one then remained alert, while in the unsettled state produced by the habit change, for signals for what one should truly seek to change.

The other model, offered by Richard Tarnas in a lecture at NORWAC 2010, asked one to keep track of planetary aspects occurring between the planets in the sky and one’s own chart (as described above).  But what one did, as the transit became (what we call) active, one simply watched, waited for a sign.  As preparation, one accumulated knowledge on the symbolic correspondences associated with (especially!) the transiting planet.

Ever since I noted significant transits (Uranus and Pluto) approaching sensitive points in my own chart (Brady method), I have assiduously put the other foot into my trousers when getting dressed, put on my earrings beginning with the opposite ear, opened pill bottles with different hands performing the different functions of handling the cap vs. the bottle (man, is that one hard to master).  This was four years ago.  I have attempted new things, tried to complete old things.  And the self-knowledge gained has been immense.  But “plus la change, plus la meme chose”: the more things change, the more they stay the same.  I have been forced into face-to-face confrontation with what I have always been, yet felt helpless to actually change what feels hostile to life and growth (especially spiritual).

Today, without first consciously realizing it, I experienced a Tarnas-style omen.  I received a signal that appears strongly correlated to the Venus activity referred to in the previous Previews post and am attempting to decipher what it might mean.  For ME.

This morning, about 7:30, as I sat sipping coffee and staring idly out at my backyard, I spotted something floating in the birdbath.  It was a bumblebee.  After my initial prick of sorrow, I decided to go pluck her out of the water.  I gently scooped her up in my hand…and her wings fluttered!  One of her legs extended in a “warding off” gesture.  After a few seconds I could see her sides heaving as she tried to clear her breathing spicules.  It was still chilly and the sun was not yet strong (nor is there a lot of it in our tree-circled back yard), so I heated our granite warming trivet in the microwave and placed her on it, with a paper towel beneath her to help her dry out.  Later, I had the inspiration to place one of our garden bells over her, to help retain the heat.  I could see her sluggishly cleaning her antennae, but she seemed not to want to do much but huddle.  “Ah, well,” I thought, “who knows how long she was in the water, how hungry she is, how old.  At least she might be more comfortable in her final hours.”  But about 9:00, I noticed a very bright sun patch that would be in that place of the yard for a good half hour; so I moved her to a small BBQ table and placed the whole contraption—bell, trivet, towel, bee—there.  In 5 minutes she was crawling vigorously around the rim of the bell, seeking exit.  I lifted it and off she flew, headed (I think) straight for my neighbors’ rhododendron bushes.  I stood, dumbstruck with wonder.  And wept.

I’m writing this on Friday and therefore Venus’ day—with bees associated with Divine Feminine mythology in a number of cultures (if you Google “bee mythology” you will find many, many sites in which to peruse the connection).

And then it hit me: OMG, I had saved one of Her creatures on Her day!

Here the goddess is attended by lion-headed guardian spirits in bee skins bearing her offerings. Libation vessels came in many shapes besides the one depicted here, including vessels in the form of a bull’s head.

There were some very significant connections to my own birth chart at the time I discovered her, ’til the time she flew away.  The most significant connection was between transiting Venus and what we Astrology Wonks call the Sun-Moon midpoint (a possible symbol of the sacred marriage of masculine and feminine).

I cannot doubt that I have received a Sign.  But what does it mean, Mr. Natural?  I have yet no consciously developed idea, but now I am on full alert.  I cannot help but contrast the outcome of this endeavor with other care-taking endeavors in which I tenderly cared for something (or some-one) as it/(s)he died.  There were times—12 years ago in the spring—when I watched a hoping-to-spawn-salmon—beach itself on a maintenance platform that was part of the very salmon ladder designed to help it reach its spawning stream.  I stood and watched it die, helpless to do anything.   Someone said, “Say, is this dinner?  Can we take it home?”  The people around laughed.  I cried for three days.

This time—was different.  Something is changing.  But what?  What might I be able to rescue and restore to life now?

Ask yourself these questions: what might you be able to rescue and restore to life?  If you watch Adam Gainsburg’s Vimeo of the Venus transit, you will see that She weaves a zig-zag pattern—just like a bee weaving her way from flower to flower—between the Horns of the Great Bull.

All these rites are present in the classical Greek myths of Dionysos, himself originating in Crete and called the Bull God. A bull was sacrificed with the rising of the star Sirius, and the bees were seen as the resurrected form of the dead bull and also as the souls of the dead. This festival for the rising of Sirius that initiated the New Year was thereby raised to the level of a myth of ‘zoe’ (indestructible life):the awakening of bees from a dead animal

This is the Gemini zodiacal season—the season of Alchemical Flutter and Buzz (see John Wadsworth’s site for a lovely tidbit) when bees pollinate like mad.  What can you rescue that will flit about from flower to flower, seeding new life?

These are not just rhetorical questions.  (Request a consultation with Claudia, Carol or Marcia. They can help you see those possibilities in your own birth chart and life.)

Stay tuned…

P.S.  You might also like to view a video preview on The Sacred Feminine website titled Honey Bees of the Venus Star

PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS by Marcia Buchart

On Monday, May 14, 2012, it began…a grand, extended spectacle of high astrological drama set against the stars of the Great Bull of Heaven.  Venus stationed retrograde in the tropical sign of Gemini while also conjoining El Nath, the tip of the Great Bull’s North Horn.

 She formally turned retrograde the next day — Tuesday morning. This is just one of the actions that forms a prelude to the Venus Transit—Venus actually moving across the solar disc—on Jun 5th, 2012.

This whole series of events is a mammoth sequence of conjunctions—Venus with the Pleiades, Venus with El Nath, Sun with Jupiter, the solar eclipse of May 20TH, Jupiter with Mercury, Mercury with the Sun (where He sheds His worn-out Explorer’s leathers for His Administrative robes , Mercury with Venus, Venus with the Sun, Venus turning away from a conjunction with Jupiter, Venus with Aldebaran, Venus with Chi1 Orionis [the business end of Orion’s club]. 

         OMG, this whole sequence will last until August 6! 

There seem to be so many energies mixing it up, it’s like being in a multiplex  with about a dozen movies playing.

Fox Theater Marquee, Detroit MI-from artistmac’s photostream http://flic.kr/p/9o8pvb

  —But these movies all have a common backstory featured somewhere in their plot lines: that of The Great Bull. 

There are observers who find this potentially menacing, especially cringing to see Venus on the point of the Horn.  We remember Queen Pasiphae (pronounced Pa-siph-ah-ee) of Crete, smitten by an angry Poseidon with lust for the bull her royal husband, King Minos, reneged on his promise to sacrifice;their union produced the monster, the Minotaur.

 And Minos himself was a son of Zeus by Europa, whom Zeus abducted and bore off to Crete while in disguise as—you guessed it—a bull.

 

Painting by Guy Ottewell http://www.redliongallery.com

But it’s important to remember that Venus is in the process of preparing to make Her inferior conjunction to the Sun to begin a new storyline—the “Gemini Journey”, as astrologer, Adam Gainsburg would call it.  And Adam’s read on the possibility for dramatic change in the way we live our Inner Feminine in the outer world is inspiring.

NOTE: You can click here to listen his Podcast on-The 2012 Venus Transit at his site: SoulSign.com  and we highly recommend this great video Adam made of the Venus Transit on Vimeo–it is stunning.

So: in that spirit, let’s imagine Venus taking the Bull by the horns—and perhaps even enjoying the wild ride! 

Which brings up the next point: is it possible that, with all these beginnings—symbolized by the succession of conjunctions—that there’s a way to view the whole scenario that doesn’t automatically spell death, doom and destruction? 

What if…instead of being caught up in a bullfight

 we’re caught up a dance?

We can take a hint from ancient Crete’s bull worship, which involved grabbing the horns, somersaulting over animal’s head (aided by its natural reflex effort to toss you off), landing on its back–and then sticking your dismount.

Hey, Venus is already showing us the way!  Dangerous?  Certainly.  Thrilling?  Yes!  Inevitably fatal?  No.

Don’t forget there are another couple of “bull dancers” up there as well: Mercury and Jupiter. 

Say what? How are they possibly bull dancers?  Heh!

Ever seen footage of a rodeo?

Bull riding is a major event where the point is not to kill or be killed, but to stay on the animal’s back longer than your competitors.  Jupiter, hovering around the Bull’s shoulders and back all spring, certainly seems determined to stay on as long as He can. 

Yippee Kiyay! Ride ’em Zeus!  

He is aided and abetted by His faithful rodeo clown, Mercury  whose main job is to distract the bull after the rider (inevitably) falls off.  The rodeo clowns have arguably the most dangerous job in the sport.  (Mercury a daring hero?  Who knew?)

So come to the multiplex with us as we peek into each theater over the coming weeks to check out all the storylines in play. 

Bring your popcorn.  With the butter .

STAY TUNED!!

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