All I can say is no wonder I spent the morning networking with people in other Bloomington neighborhood associations (see next post).
A mutable grand cross is an equilateral square that occurs when the four mutable signs — Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces — form a cross with 90° angles defining all four corners. This cross is created today, in very tight fashion — within 2° of exactness, 12° to 14° — when the Sun and Moon conjunct in the one part of the cross that has otherwise been missing, Gemini, thus briefly completing the Grand Cross. If, as I tend to say, “we are here to circle the square,” then with the T-cross in mutables (three points of the grand cross) starting in early April and going until the end of June, today the grand cross in mutables completes the T-cross, clicks it in to multidimensional view, by forming a Grand Cross. Today’s astrology emphasizes the need to practice differentiating the dueling functions of both left and right brains as well as learn how to hold them all at once as equals, integrating them in a whole-brained immersion/perception/communication of both inner and outer worlds.
Left brain seeks “points” to view. Right brain recognizes them as (mere) “points of view.” Left brain seeks to “pin things down,” to know what’s true and false, right and wrong, good and bad. Right brain accepts and celebrates the complex, paradoxical nature of what is and is becoming.
The mutable cross starts with the panoptic immensity of concrete details that need to be organized and analyzed and expands into ever-receding abstraction and the infinite invisible.
Gemini: governs the function of identifying and naming certain items and forms that one’s own language identifies as in the world. (Note: different languages identify different “features.”) Think of the child, learning how to talk; he or she starts with single words, usually nouns, pointing to various seemingly constant features in the outer world (Mom, toy, book, bottle, Dad, etc.) and then identifying, voicing, remembering and repeating sounds that stand for those features.
Gemini can get easily distracted by whatever is right in front of them, trying to learn everything they possibly can. But they often can’t absorb or integrate what they have picked up on, and end up “scatterbrained.”
Virgo: governs the function of discerning differences among similars, analyzing, and critiquing. Think of elementary school tests, where the child is told to “compare and contrast.”
Virgo can get so wrapped up in criticizing that he or she can end up nitpicky. Nothing is ever right, or good enough.
Both Gemini and Virgo are governed by Mercury, planet of communication. Both signify functions of the left brain. As we gather more and more information (Gemini), we have to sort it into categories, analyze what’s real and what’s not (Virgo), etc. Think of the internet, and what it puts us through when we try to “figure out” which “news” is worth picking up on! We might say that the internet is the apotheosis of the left brain.
Luckily, we also have the right brain, though now that art and music and playtime have been reduced or banished from school curricula, the right brain is not usually emphasized or valued in so-called “education,” which has devolved into robotic training.
Sagittarius: governs the function of deriving abstract values and principles from concrete particulars, seeing situations in context, expanding to ever -larger perspectives. Think of the “belief systems” we pick up as children, usually unconsciously, which then tend to put everything in its place, creating an illusion of certainty.
Sagittarius can become so ideologically driven that it refuses to open-mindedly consider alternatives or larger perspectives beyond what has already been decided. This leads to dogmatism and fundamentalism, the main drivers of conflict and wars.
Would that Sagittarius would remember that it is governed by Jupiter, planet of expansion! Keep on opening, folks; don’t just clamp a conceptual helmut on your head and say that’s it, I can’t, I won’t learn anymore. Unwind from the fetal position. Stand up straight, feet grabbing the ground, head open to the sky. Banish the fearful attitude that it’s all too much, that you must stay in your own little world — and open open!
Pisces governs the function of feeling, empathy, sympathy, imagination, and psychically sensing atmospheric currents, visions, dreams, the invisible, the spiritual, surrendering and dissolving inner and outer, material forms into the void.
Pisces can lose a sense of personal boundaries to the point where the material world feels beneath them or too much with them. Hypersensitive to what others cannot even pick up on, they often distract themselves with addictions, especially substance-abuse addictions, in an effort to stay in their preferred dream world.
Both Sagittarius and Pisces govern right brain functions, Sagittarius seeks Truth and Pisces loves Beauty. These two values can sometimes seem at odds with one another.
In today’s New Moon/Grand Cross, the Sun/Moon conjunction in data-driven Gemini is also tightly conjunct Venus, the planet of personal love and attraction.
The Sun/Moon/Venus conjunction opposes Saturn in Sagittarius, directly across the zodiac. So much data to absorb; how to assign it into meaningful wholes? It feels impossible; it feels necessary. I must figure it out!
Directly “square” (90° from) this opposition is the other opposition, between Jupiter in Virgo, offering massive amounts (Jupiter expands whatever it touches) of info to analyze and critique, and Neptune in Pisces, the sign Neptune rules, asking us to surrender all thought into feeling, to let go of all attempts at “figuring it out,” because we can’t; it’s always way bigger (Jupiter) and more mysterious (Neptune) than we can ever ever imagine.
Welcome to this Gemini New Moon. And notice how you are using it. Try to become more conscious of each of its functions, and how they intersect with each other. Ultimately, we are here to center ourselves and circle the square, smoothing out the hard edges into a continuous, spiraling, fibonacci curve. There, simply, is no end to it — and no beginning, either!
I like to think our absorption with the various forms of learning, knowing and feeling, as what we’re incarnated here for, to learn, know, and feel with both our five outer (left brain) and how many? inner (right brain) senses — picking up on, tasting, and enjoying the exquisite variety of creation’s forms in their infinite permutations, without having to come to any definite conclusions. Rather: feel the dizzy, celebratory whole, center in the beating heart, and simply, love. All the rest is play.
