writing

Pluto, Venus, & Mars in Aquarius

February has been deep with Pluto at 0 degrees Aquarius acting as a threshold for the Sun, Mercury, Mars, and Venus. At the moment I write this, Venus and Mars are meeting in Aquarius to seed their next two year cycle. There is renewal in the pleasure of experimentation and doing things differently for the thrill of making the unknown known. A realignment toward radical creation and new understanding of ourselves as part of the larger interconnected whole of the entire universe. Their meeting just after crossing Pluto’s threshold is an intensification and deepening of passion needing to be witnessed and expressed in a brand new way.

No matter how many years I’ve used the Thoth deck, I continue to be surprised by new messages that come through the portal of its elaborate art work. In this deck Strength is reimagined as “Lust” and is major arcana #11 not #8 as it is within the traditional Rider-Waite deck. This particular card recently elicited a new awareness within me. The horizon line of gold light revealed itself as a representation of skin with a wound about to break through the barrier. Snakes creating an intense pressurizing point, pouring their poison and medicine all into one focused spot. And then, this powerfully vulnerable naked figure, having tamed their inner demons, arrives to hold and soothe the wound with their presence. They have the courage and knowing that there is gold (lustre/light/lust), within the pain. It is a form of pleasure to meet their internal experience in this way.

There is beauty in uncovering the passion beneath our woundedness. The word passion means an endurance of physical pain or great emotional intensity and suffering. Over time it evolved to express where our instinctual drive (Mars) seems to meet our deepest desires (Venus). There is almost a possession like state that passion creates, bringing together a physical or emotional intensity that impels us into action. Pleasure and pain are how we enter into this world, fighting for our survival under the most intense pressure and contractions just to make it in alive. These contractions (Saturn) continue for our entire lives in different ways, revealing to us more and more about our soul’s essence. When we explore the wound, allowing the pain and desire to guide us through the subconscious, eventually what surfaces is not just the pain but also what Jung called the gold, the parts of self we repressed for our own survival which are also our most profound gifts to share and cherish.

We are shaped by our willingness to know thyself. And with Pluto in Aquarius, we are also shaped by our willingness to witness and know ourselves as part of the collective. What is our unique, incredibly valuable, integral response when we are in our lustre? Who are we—in our radiant beingness—as we witness and understand ourselves as part of a world where genocide, ecocide, and relentless intensifying polarization and oppositional states of being are to be expected and consumed by us as if it is normal, logical, and ok? [It’s not any of those things].

In all the reverberations of collective suffering, I keep returning to safety. Beyond the immediate external call to end the inhumanity of war and return of some extremely basic level of physical safety, there is also the question of internal safety underlying our collective consciousness. A collective internally starving for safety will uplift systems of power over, discourage experimentation, fuel intolerance of differing opinions and thought, and will even be moved to justify the annihilation of whole peoples. This path while it seems self serving and protective is one of self destruction and soul loss. Pluto’s transition into Aquarius is really reminding us that diversity creates thriving ecosystems and that anything less could and will kill us.

I am remembering an interview I did in my early twenties with Nancy Nangeroni, transgender activist and creator of Gender Talk radio back in the late 90s early 2000s. She said, “The fact that we have so much trouble with relationships also derives in large measure from the gendered system that raises us as if men and women are two different species. That isolates us from one another during our developing years…so that we imagine ourselves to be fundamentally different and we loose any sense of trust and understanding of one another.”

What she shared never left me, probably because it challenged my own belief of being inherently in conflict with the world for being myself which seemed to become an identity all its own tied to a deep righteous and permanent resistance. This endless cycle of opposition and finding a way to crawl myself out of it became a personal lifelong theme. When I began to recognize how it was its own self fulfilling prophesy to exist in this sate of resistant vigilance, I was forced to unwind the belief that who I am is somehow inherently in opposition to others—despite conditioning to believe otherwise. Experiencing the tension and discomfort within difference is not the same thing as believing our identities make us inherently in conflict with others. It is a strategic move against evolution to condition people into this state which is incredibly depleting of our life force and the potential growth that comes through recognition of our oneness and interconnectedness. It is easy to manipulate groups of people who are detached from their own safety with constant implied danger and a need to find protection, authority, and power outside of themselves.1 Gabor Maté said, “We get rewarded for our self betrayal.” Internal safety is just power with a different name.

Revisiting the old interview with Nangeroni and Gordene O. MacKenzie was such a wild full circle experience for me. Their willingness to support what I was doing at that time was really special to me as a young person full of passion and gender confusion. What they spoke on hasn’t lost its luster, sometimes it feels like the world takes so long to catch up. You almost have to stop wanting it to so badly and just live how you want, create what you want, act how you want others to act and let go of control to trust in the energy of your unguarded life force. This is where safety, passion, and our uniqueness come together to fuel innovation. Allowing yourself to be a piece of that diverse expression becomes the momentum, the beauty, and the power that births new worlds.

I will end this with this beautiful Aquarian infused wisdom from Nangeroni and MacKenzie.

Nangeroni: “If there’s one thing I would like to see the transgender movement be is a pro-diversity movement not just a pro-trans or pro-gender diversity movement but a pro-diversity movement. Part of a dawning recognition that diversity is the essence of health for our people and our planet…To the extent that we can make our movement a strong ally with the other movements that recognize this, certainly the environmental movement recognizes that and civil rights movements recognize this. To the extent that we can be a solid ally in that…I can’t image anything that would be a greater gift or greater way of sharing whatever we have with the folks we share the planet with.”

MacKenzie: “I couldn’t agree more because monoculture breeds nothing but a terrible inbred disease and sort of folds in on itself. And like Vandana Shiva, who is an amazing East Indian feminist and thinker—eco feminist—says, ‘Diversity is our hope.’ If we really want to move towards an earth democracy and if we really want to ensure the survival of the earth then we really need to embrace diversity in all of its forms.”

Nangeroni: “That includes wilderness and wildness. That is why we as a species need to remember to embrace a wildness in us, which means there is always going to be people setting off in new directions and defining new identities.”

[Interview excerpts from the documentary film, Embodied Revolution: A National Look at Gender Based and Body Conscious Activism – Dir. Evan Devovere 2007]

Thank you for reading, for treating yourself and others with compassion, and for having excitement for what is possible.

I welcome you to visit my website if you are called to work with me around creating greater self trust and connection to your higher knowing, or to explore your birth chart and how you might meaningfully embody and express more of your soul’s essence in this life.

xo,

Evan

We are a few days out from our annual new moon in Sagittarius and are well within the season as the sun has been traveling through this part of the zodiac since the end of November. The progression through the zodiac from sign to sign holds its own story arc. With the transition from Scorpio to Sagittarius, there is the unearthing through Scorpio which asks for our unflinching vulnerability toward all that we have personally and collectively kept from our own view followed by the untethered nature of Sagittarius, eager to discover again through new experiences and knowledge. Scorpio is where we release our fears and shame to the loving cosmic compost heap to be purified while Sagittarius holds the optimism and freedom that exists after our rebirth. With Sagittarius the life force is renewed and focused upon expansion, pointing its arrow toward new horizons. And through such dedication to freedom flows Jupiter’s generous nature.

Jupiter, the planetary ruler of Sagittarius, is well versed in gratitude. In a society purposefully manufacturing scarcity to keep us isolated and disconnected from our creative essence, it feels important to speak about gratitude. Gratitude is not a solitary expression or marker of personal wealth or success. Sadly, it feels like every concept needs to be unbound from the clutches of capitalism and gratitude is absolutely part of this. Re-learning how to experience gratitude as a connecting force goes hand in hand with allowing a larger range of emotions within our body, including positive ones, which can be more difficult than we may think.

Gratitude is found everywhere when we are open to feeling more.

Even in the deepest states of grief it shows up because the grief is telling us something about what we share/d with others.

For me in this moment gratitude feels like a powerful counterbalancing force to hold and honor the deep wells of grief running through the collective. We are witnessing at such an extreme the catastrophic result of trust and belief in authoritarian and militaristic governance to protect people. We have seen our emotional responses being used against us to fuel unprecedented violence. So many are being awakened at this time to the absolute truth that trauma is not healed by inflicting more trauma. The endless splitting and division of people into opposing categories is both heightened and crumbling in the same moment. And within this, it is crucial for us to feel.

Our emotions are rivers of energy that guide our lives whether we like it or not. A dam can only hold for so long and murky waters will remain through generations until someone is willing to feel. With Venus having just entered Scorpio, it is the reminder that we stay alive/awake to this life by learning how to be witnessed in our emotional bodies. This doesn’t have to come solely from human relationship, just acknowledging or asking for the presence of an ancestor or higher being to come witness and hold us through the emotional experiences that feel all consuming can be the level of intimacy that unblocks our hearts. And sometimes love is the all consuming feeling our system cannot take. This world deeply craves our love, our loving gratitude, our ability to embody and express love, just as much as it needs us to grieve.

Jupiter reminds us that generosity and abundance is unconditional within a universe which is always expanding. There is always enough and it is as natural as breathing to share. If we cannot base our actions on a belief that these things are true then I’m not sure how we can expect to evolve beyond the control of those who need us to believe otherwise. We are so conditioned to be disconnected and in competition with one another to the point that it becomes difficult to be trusting that experiencing love or joy won’t make us vulnerable to more pain. The problem is that it actually requires our willingness to feel differing states of emotions for pathways to form in our brain that allow these feelings to be more accessible to us.

I will admit that speaking about gratitude would have felt wildly unproductive and even offensive to past versions of myself. But that past self was not capable of being fully tapped into gratitude because they were significantly cut off from heart centered feeling (bless them and all their rage and resentments). If you doubt that your ability to experience the sensation of unconditional love or internal peace is important or productive, think about a younger version of yourself and ask if they might like to feel it. Consider how experiencing and having tolerance to embody these sensations could have changed the life of that younger self and the lives of others around them. Ask yourself if it is important to you that the world you are visioning be one where others can easily access these feelings? What do you think now?

One simple way that I’ve been called to practice gratitude as a connecting force is as follows:

1. I notice when I feel my being is experiencing a pleasing or peaceful sensation, feeling, or thought

2. I allow the feeling to get bigger until it starts expanding beyond my physical form

3. I visualize or ask that this loving sensation overflow infinitely into the collective to be shared by all

Learning how to be receptive to and embrace positive feelings (even/especially if they are arising from emotions such as grief) is one half of gratitude. If it is difficult to allow or stay with feelings of peace, solace, joy etc because of the wide range of reasons this happens; fear of loss, self protection, not feeling deserving, guilt because others are suffering, etc, try remembering connection which is the other half of gratitude.

What does it feel like to let a peaceful emotion grow and then overflow toward others? Emphasis on the overflow, gratitude is never about depletion but recognition of the truth that we are inherently part of a loving force which connects us to all things. The image this brings to mind for me is The Star card in the tarot. One foot on the ground, one in the water, the vessel is always pouring out and will never dry up.  That is how gratitude should feel and why it naturally impels us to act with kindness, compassion, and generosity.

The Star card is most commonly associated with Aquarius but I find the imagery ideal for reflecting on the theme of Jupiter’s generosity so take it more as my personal inspiration here in what follows. This last week has brought this card into focus for me in a newly profound way that I now wonder if I was setting myself up to realize all along.

I got this rendition of The Star card along with these words from the band Rainer Maria tattooed on me long before fully understanding its message. I even have Star card imagery up in my home as the first thing you see when you enter. It’s like I left myself clues because I knew enough to understand that it would eventually lead to some greater unfolding.

“To have without keeping” is Star mantra. We don’t need to have or to keep, we just are, always have been and always will be. Source intelligence is love, and gratitude is like breathing. The waters of The Star card remind us of this. I have been followed around by it all week, even ending up behind a car with “STARSTAR” for a license plate after I started writing. My various knowledge streams all started to collide with the waters of the card.

It is estimated that 30-50% of the water on this planet is older than the solar system and even the sun. We are literally bathing, drinking, and majority comprised of this primordial celestial substance. In alchemy, one of water’s correspondences is the substance Mercury and in turn the planet itself and all its characteristics. Mercury is known as a messenger and psychopomp who can travel between realms. Similarly, the water element represents the subconscious and emotions, both of which express as messengers, acting as a bridge to bring what is unconscious to light through dreams, visions, intuitive sensation, feeling and all that is experienced in this subtle realm.

Water is a bridge between the physical and eternal. The waters of The Star card express infinitely as the subconscious traveling from our higher selves down into conscious awareness. The flow of dreams and visions not yet manifest, forever exist as all potential within this cosmic stream. All of us come from and are made of these loving waters. The message of this card is an offering of trust that infinite potential is always available to us and the promise that whatever we are open to feeling can be healed. It is also a call to be vulnerable enough to love our own dreams so they might become the gratitude that overflows into the lives of others.

And with that, I send many blessing on this upcoming new moon. It will be trine the North Node which feels like a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with any dreams that are asking for your renewed excitement and encouragement. I hope this overflow of symbolic and emotional meandering was enjoyable, resonate, and holding at this time.

From the celestial waters with infinite love and gratitude

xo,

Evan

If you are desiring a witness or some guidance in the emotional or cosmic realms, I welcome you to explore my current offerings. Learning to transform and rewire our inner landscape can be lonely and scary. It is truly a calling of mine to support folks in building capacity to meet with openness and care all parts of self with the spiritual understanding that this allows more of our higher self/soul essence to be present within our being in this lifetime. 💜