Island Word December horoscope
I write a monthly horoscope column for the Island Word here in Courtenay, and I’ve been meaning to post them here but haven’t gotten a round tuit yet (remember round tuits? Everybody needs one).
Here’s December’s; late, I know, but the month’s not over yet.
Down-to-Earth Astrology
by Phoenix Wolf-Ray
The Saturn-Pluto square took a terrible toll last month. Hornby Island’s beloved singer-songwriter, poet, performer and free spirit Tempest Gale was murdered on the day the transit was exact. Many people are reeling in shock at such a senseless loss.
Saturn-Pluto events have a profound effect on our collective emotions, impacting deeper and deeper, rocking us right to the core. 9-11 took place during the previous Saturn-Pluto transit.
This transit remains in close effect this month; be careful, friends. If you are scared, pay attention to your fears, honour them, avoid dangerous situations. If you need to cry, then cry.
Don’t swallow your tears or deny your fears, instead love, embrace and evolve them. Difficult though it is to embrace our dark sides, it’s necessary now. Saturn-Pluto says, the only way out is through.
December Forecast
Earth’s sign (always opposite the Sun’s sign) is given in parentheses. Read both as well as the forecast for your Rising sign (Ascendant) for the full picture:
Aries (Libra): You are impacted this month, not sure what is happening but called to be very aware, very careful. Listen to your dreams, write them down if you can remember, and let creativity awaken you.
Taurus (Scorpio): Truth and justice are important to you this month. Your ground is porous, yet you are strong in love and curiosity. Expand your boundaries, grow ever more inclusive.
Gemini (Sagittarius): Your perceptions are dark, yet coloured by love. The finger of the past is pointing straight at you; you are called to be responsible in a new way. Go deeper than you used to.
Cancer (Capricorn): A spotlight is on you this month, highlighting your vulnerabilities, as past pains are stirred for all to see. Hang in there, your experience is meaningful and you can learn from it.
Leo (Aquarius): You are working hard this month, with a new project on the go. Your own personal muse provides the inspiration and the work feels significant, important, your legacy.
Virgo (Pisces): Things are stirring for you this month, catalyzing your every fibre into further wakefulness. You are coming alive! Yet you sometimes feel like Frankenstein’s monster, awkward.
Libra (Aries): Your dream of true love has never seemed so close, or so far away. The expanding limits and endless surprises in store keep life mysterious, yet you hunger for certainty. Impossible.
Scorpio (Taurus): You are ready for a new start this month. Wishing for new love, yet you long for continuity and longevity. The old can be renewed, the stale can be freshened. Stay the course.
Sagittarius (Gemini): At first glance, nothing seems to be changing this month. Emotionally, it’s same-old, same-old, and you’re not seeking social time. Yet your work is golden to you.
Capricorn (Cancer): All those people who told you to lighten up will get their wish this month. You are rising like a great balloon with a heavy weight in its basket, the uplift stronger than gravity.
Aquarius (Leo): The past is rippling the waters of the present, and forgotten emotions have you simmering in a soup of feeling this month. New levels of understanding are ready to break through.
Pisces (Virgo): You are ready for action this month, Pisces. Change is in process and your creative juices are flowing. As soon as you find a direction, momentum will carry you forward.
Phoenix Wolf-Ray teaches ongoing astrology classes in Courtenay Sunday evenings at 7pm. Email phoenix.wolfray@gmail.com for information. Phoenix is available for private astrology readings by appointment and does card readings at Winds of Change every Monday, Tuesday and Friday between 12 and 5 pm.
December 24th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
I had some bizarre dreams the night after I read this. In one of them, I looked into space as this giant, all white hand was carrying ant size people to safety, like moving them to a new world. Then I found myself, possibly in that world, riding in the back of a bus, but seeing out the front of it, where a truck pulls in front of it, and the bus swerves and just misses it. There were other interesting dreams, but I forgot them.
December 26th, 2009 at 7:02 pm
Gary, wow… that’s cool, do you think there was a connection between what I wrote here and your dreams? Or just a coincidence?
December 29th, 2009 at 8:15 pm
I don’t know – probably there was a connection, since I was thinking, hmm, let’s see what I dream tonight. I don’t often write down my dreams. Sometimes I just want to stay in conscious process of them rather than try to turn them into “left-brain” words.
Recently, I had one where some guy was among a group of us standing around a table, and I had either asked a question that would give him away to answer, or I had deliberately caught him in a lie. He then assaulted me by putting his mouth right up to my left ear and saying, “Foul wind! Thou ___ ____ ____. I woke up in terror, actually shrieking a little out loud. I remember that the three words after “thou” didn’t make syntactic sense, but they gave the impression of either an accusation or a curse. I got a strong sense that this guy was a demon or denial spirit manifesting in my dream. A voice wants to say, “unowned part of yourself,” but that’s guilt; it didn’t feel like that at all. This guy didn’t have any feeling tone to me at all before his verbal assault on me, except a sense of creepiness. It didn’t feel like he was seeking revenge for some hurt done him that he blamed me for; he was just out for power to do mischief. It’s a different feeling altogether when it’s a part of myself; then, it feels more personal.
I have a different perspective on it after reading a chapter by mystic author Wilson van Dusen. Van Dusen interviewed many hallucinatory psychiatric patients and speaking to their hallucinations. Most of these were what he termed, “lower order” spirits who always sought to do harm of some sort. They had no personal identity but could take on any identity the patient assigned to them, lied, bragged without being able to back up their claims, and attached themselves to the patient, sometimes tormenting him or her with repetitious taunts about the same thing for years, sometimes dangling twisted sexual imagery in front of them and then berating them for allowing themselves to think of such things, and even causing pain and/or loss of function in specific body parts.
I feel that I’ve been fending off such spirits all my life, but often giving up and giving in to them. Moving emotion sometimes helps free me from their grip, but sometimes I need more. That chapter strongly resonated with me in a sense of terror, and I responded by clearing the back of my aura of a large number of white bubbles which seemed to represent those spirits.
Van Dusen also spoke with some “higher order” spirits, who were always there for the patient’s best interest, never overriding them, but when received, guiding them out of madness and towards sanity or wholeness. These spirits tended to be religious in the sense that they considered themselves “emanations of the Divine,” but not the divine themselves, and didn’t appear to be attached to a particular religion. By contrast, the “lower order” spirits were always antireligious and hated any mention of the divine. The higher order tended to communicate through symbols and imagery, whereas the lower order was extremely verbal. Now van Dusen undoubtedly was coming from a spirit polarized place, where strongly emotional and/or sexually charged imagery or thoughts were suspect. But I found in myself a great desire to be free of invasive spirits and to be in contact with something like the “higher order” he describes, for the soothing and peace they could bring, along with the expanded intellectual and psychic powers. I feel like will polarity seeking its spirit side. And it’s no wonder that sexual and emotional energy is mixed up with the lower order – the twists of denial have made it seem like that’s the natural place for such energy, but also, we’ve been instructed not to go into it recklessly. I was terrified when I read those instructions, but I’ve since realized that the terror I’ve been feeling into is the terror that my spirit felt but denied to have the experiences before all aspects of the self were ready, and also the horror and terror of subconsciously remembering these types of experiences and not wanting to have any more of them.
Wow that’s an awful lot stirred, and I have even more to say about it but that’ll have to do for here and now. Except that I might add, for what it’s worth, that the people being lifted in the earlier dream by the giant hand were orange and red.
December 29th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Oh and we’ve also had a failed terrorist attack on a plane during this transit.
December 30th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Really (failed terrorist attack)? Wow, I hadn’t heard, I haven’t been listening to the news since solstice or a bit before.
Intense dream, Gary… I’ve heard of van Dusen but I don’t know anything about him, though I am familiar with what he’s talking about.
Thanks for sharing