Liberating the Zodiac Within & Without with Caroline Casey

The Great Wheel of the Zodiac begins with Aries, on the first day of spring, the vernal equinox. Aries answers the question, “What kind of energy does it take to be born in spring?” The answer is Mars energy — heat, dynamism, adolescent bravado. Green Fire!

Aries is the Ram, butting its way into whatever seems exciting. In order to be successfully intrusive, an Aries must learn the Libran skills of charm, including how to flirt and how to challenge others diplomatically.

Fundamentally, Aries is the hero or Heroine who follows the Path of Desire.

We all have Aries somewhere in our charts, and the Sun sign Aries helps to stimulate that exuberant, full-on, confident embrace of life.

And we have learned from recent entheo research that psilocybe mushrooms decrease fearful reactivity, and increase confidence and kindness — which are great leadership qualities…

We’ll begin by:

• Animating (honoring the soul) the qualities of our ideal inner heroine/hero “The hero with a thousand faces,” is a great guiding book
• Gathering our woof to begin those things we ’ ve been meaning to do for ages… “Let’s go, let’s go!”
• Receiving inspirational guidance from the animals with which we feel most affinity

The first of the fixed signs, Taurus’ purpose is to harness and consolidate the wild energy of Aries by providing it with a vessel in which to take form. As Venus incarnates through those born in late April to late May, she encourages cooperation in the conspiracy for ever-increasing pleasure.

In the Venusian Taurus world, there is no split between the material world and the spiritual. Rather, when we make something beautiful, we invite the invisible magic represented by Taurus’ opposite sign of Scorpio to come live there.

Taurus is the best of all the signs at acquiring and consolidating wealth by cultivating all available resources.

Taureans flourish by understanding that tending, caring, nurturing, and mating are their true tasks.

We’ll:

• Cultivate Democratic Animism (and find out what the hell that means) — Collaborative wheel and deal spirituality, as Coyote gudes us
• Make altars to magnetize the desirable
• Engage in dedicated acts of Beauty invite power into the world
• Animate our Wise Money Animal, whom we can send out to bring back opportunities for wealth, however we choose to define wealth (includes, but is not limited to — money)
• Discover animal fables throughout time

The wing-footed Trickster and messenger god Mercury incarnates through those born from late May to late June. The first of the Air signs, Gemini emerges from the heavens of Taurus with a desire to soar into the lighter, more spontaneous world of abstraction, concepts, and open-ended plans.

Geminis are in love with words, language, ideas for the sake of ideas. They are considered poets, bards, and storytellers, but not the philosophers (who are found in the opposite sign of Sagittarius).

Geminis serve the function of nerve synapses in the culture, connecting and coordinating disparate parties by facilitating information flow. The symbol for Gemini is the Twins, of two minds about everything.

Geminis are communicators; their choice is whether to apply their gift to waffling, wit, or wisdom. To talk, to say, to name is to invoke. Wherever Gemini is in our charts is where we are assigned the task of understanding the magically creative power of words.

We’ll:

• Embark on serious play with the power of language — “The world will converse with us in whatever language we cultivate”
• Participate in call and response, to discover what wants us to be its messenger
• Do practice exercises that allow us to have refined nervous systems, capable of enhanced superconductivity, without fraying our circuits

The Moon incarnates through those born from late June to late July. Cancer begins on the summer solstice, the longest day and shortest night, which is the consummation of a journey that began on the winter solstice, the longest night and short day.

The Cancerian feminine force responds to Gemini’s extended romp. The nights begin to grow longer and Cancer’s lunar tide pulls everything into the womb, to home, to family.

The Moon’s phases reveal the manifold manifestations of Cancer as the Great Mother: nurturer, protector, devourer. Indeed, every aspect of your relationship with your own mother will in some way be played out in your relationship with Cancers. Cancers are everyone’s surrogate mom, and everyone’s surrogate child.

Cancer is the Crab who lives in the sea, which is ruled by the Moon — oceanic, menstrual, emotional, the mistress of all tides. Together, the Moon and Cancer rule all growing life, natural cycles, shifting tides, introversion, and brooding — in both senses of the word. All living things incubate in their own watery sac, their personal ocean; they emerge into a larger one.

We’ll:

• Investigate our relationships with all Great Mothers in our lives
• Understand our actual Mothers, as research projects, exemplars of what does our culture encourage or discourage in women throughout time
• Explore what our culture encourages or discourages in women, and how we may break those spells and take new more expansive vows

The Sun seeks its most radiant expression in this time of year and in those born in late July through late August. Leo is the child who bursts forth from the confines of Cancerian gestation. In Leo’s passionate theater of life, pageantry and ceremony celebrate everything born of love, whether offspring of the heart, the mind, the body, or the spirit.

Leo is both “fixed” and “fiery,” adamant and impulsive, and always emphatic. Creative certainty, absolute edicts, and provocative proclamations are its basic modes of expression.

Leo’s job is to produce, direct, present, and stage life’s richness. The pitfall can lie in its singular vision of what is important now.

Like Taurus, Leo is fixed and wants to leave a structure behind, a really great show against which the creatives efforts of all others will be measured. Like the other Fire sign, Aries, Leos are leaders.

Mature Leos understand that the creative energy they emanate does not originate with them, but flows through them. The flory that enlightened Leos seek is not for the aggrandizement of the struggling child ego. Rather, it is an offering to ignite the spark of the marvelous in all of us.

We’ll:

• Create theatre or live melodrama — cultivating creative theatre and the art of ritual
• Be willing to be agents of illuminating what is hidden
• Liberate laughter-cultivating play and laughter (we are meant to be a laughing species)
• Curate a festival of humor

Here we have the mercurial mind in its analytical incarnation. Where the Gemini incarnation of Mercury was excitedly diffuse, Mercury’s expression through Virgo is polished and focused.

Traditionally, Virgo is the critic, the analyst, the healer who cures society’s ills by reintroducing the standards of quality and purity into the culture.

When the symbolism of the Virgin first arose, the attribute of virginity has less to do with chastity than with the idea of a woman in full possession of herself, an oracle, a priestess, or a muse. The sheaves of wheat are emblems of disciplined sexuality that also refer to the abundant harvest that must be sorted and refined at this time of year. The poignant wafts of autumn air remind the Virgo that all must be put in order for the approaching winter. Virgo appreciates both the beauty and the necessity of order.

Virgo’s task is to harness its attention to detail, and its consequent critical insight, to the sense of service and healing proffered by its opposite sign, Pisces. Then pragmatism can wed with mysticism.

We’ll:

• Cultivate discernment (Whoa! so important) activating our bogus detector
• Allow small things tell big stories
• Cultivate linguistic eloquence
• Find and express our inner Hermes Messenger/Magician
• Learn to use the invocative power of language — “invoke” means literally “to call in” or “to give voice”