How to look for the good in life when things can look so grim? I believe we all have an ability to look on the bright side, it’s a choice we make. I have heard people tell stories of their most painful experiences and yet they can be told with a positive outlook.
I am aware that life comes in cycles and that we are currently experiencing the planetary orbital return of Uranus, that takes eighty-four years to travel around the sun. Looking back to the beginning of this cycle brings us right back to the thirties and a rise of political extremism.This shadow looms once more.
A few weeks ago, we entered the astrological sign of Scorpio and here Pluto, the God of the Underworld, is asking us what are we going to do with this. Are we going to bury our heads in the sand and return to old response patterns or are we going to face our fears and choose new paths?
In these times of polarised views and our ability to create ambiguity between truth and illusion with comparative ease, knowing who to believe can become increasingly difficult to fathom. We need to look at this more closely.
Hallowe’en, or Samhain in its Pagan form, is the time when we are invited to follow Pluto into the Underworld and look at our demons, stop limiting ourselves to just the physical view of the world, but look beneath the surface and see what lies beyond the veil. In order to do this we need to block out the noisy external sounds in our life just long enough to feel what's within. This is a subtle energy field, where the feminine sensual aspects of ourselves come alive, a world lost to most of us, as we are bombarded with the harshness of modern day living.
This invitation to slip beneath the surface of our awareness and allow ourselves to connect with vibrations that pervade our every moment with nonverbal, non audible communication can be a revelation when we allow it in. There is a wisdom here that cannot be so easily twisted, that teaches us how to listen and respond with a depth most of us are not used to.
It seems to me we have all settled into the idea that things have improved hugely since the terrors of the Second World War. What if that was also an illusion? It seems to me that all the improvements have only been made in our physical lives. Yes most of us in the West now live more comfortable lives, however, as the wheel turns once more I believe we are being asked to question if that’s enough. Are we only engaging with what goes on above the surface? Pluto, who isn’t so interested in the individual, is showing us what still lies below, what still lurks in the shadow of our culture.
When we truly pull back the curtain we see how the many of the improvements are just superficial, how racism is still a huge issue for those of us who are not white-skinned, how the power of the masculine stills rules with a tight rein over the feminine.
- It is also important to remember that it is not the power and beauty of the sacred masculine that holds the power here but the fearful, domineering aspect of the masculine which is out of balance. This is the male energy which resides in us all. This is not a gender issue, this is the division that splits our heads from our heart, our actions from our feelings.
We just have to look around to see how we, through our consent, our non-action, allow so many people on this Earth to be harmed and so much of our environment to be destroyed.
This is what Pluto is asking us to examine with eyes wide open.
It’s time for real change, to choose a positive outcome, and have a sense of command over what that could look like, rather than choosing to do nothing so we then have no choice when change is forced upon us.
Photo Mark Brookes
