Me versus You - How to be your best 'I' so that you can thrive being 'We'

On the 9th March we have a Full Moon in Virgo.  Full Moons mark times when we can see in full light exactly what we hold in our harvest ‘pot’.  It’s only when we can see clearly that we can gauge what bits of our lives we should hang on to and what no longer serves us.  This could be in the form of things, people or, possibly more commonly, sub-conscious behavior patterns that influence how we function on autopilot – and that can unbelievably be 95% of the time as our buttons get pressed.  Moreover our sub conscious behavior patterns are not so easy to see or to change – that’s why we need to be really honest with ourselves, which often requires a greater degree of real consciousness in order to ‘unlearn’ our sub conscious patterning.   

 At the Full Moon the Sun and the Moon are opposite each other and astrologically the opposition is seen as a point of tension in the horoscope.   An opposition very often manifests in terms of relationships and can be experienced in terms of how we ourselves relate to another, to a group or to society as a whole.  An opposition can increase our awareness of how we relate because it encourages us to see both sides.  However, it also represents two extremes which pull tightly against each other as each vies for prominence.   I often liken this to a see saw – what we really need is to see the seesaw weighted evenly at either end.    If one side is heavily weighted down then we only adopt the energy of that particular end.   We may only see the opinion of that one end or we may even project out the energy of it on to others in a negative fashion.   So the opposition may well be experienced as a stress factor, bringing indecision and extreme feelings. 

 It’s an energy of me versus you, head versus heart, Sun versus Moon, me against anyone who doesn’t hold the same opinion as me.  This is particularly noticeable in today’s world of having to follow the ‘belief of the day’.    Those who disagree are very often branded as bigots or just plain ridiculed.   Before ‘the belief of the day’ became the ‘only way’, we had tolerance of all sorts of beliefs – i.e. either end of the opposition was not only tolerated but discussed and debated.   

 But man needs to live as part of society and in cooperation with society.   My current read is a book called ‘Winning not Fighting’, by John Vincent, the founder of the food chain Leon, and Sifu Julian Hitch[1].   In this they discuss how we can find a way of winning but without fighting.  The book has at its core the ethos of the ancient martial art Wing Tsun Kung Fu, which teaches us how not to create conflict by putting aside fear and ego.  The purpose of Wing Tsun is to address conflict with the minimum of force in the fastest time whilst focusing on ‘nonfighting’.   Sifu Julian Hitch emphasizes that winning cannot be achieved by fighting.   Wing Tsun has a unique feminine influence and combines three elements – enjoying the present, achieving longevity and being authentic.[2]   

 We have to lose our Darwinian indoctrination that life is about the survival of the fittest.  As I have said many times, that might work in some areas of nature but for Man to function at his best he must form societies and learn to be part of a co-operative group.   That doesn’t mean that we lose our sense of ‘I’ – in fact we must find our best sense of ‘I’, and that is the point of our horoscope.  It’s a map of how we can find our best sense of ‘I’.    But we need to work out how we reach our best sense of ‘I’ whilst managing to also be ‘We’.  

 This Moon/Sun opposition pulls us between the elements of Earth and Water and the signs Virgo and Pisces.     Earth seeks tangible realities and practical solutions to bring security.   Water meanwhile is the realm of the emotions.  Water also seeks security but it is really searching for emotional security, whereas earth seeks more financial and tangible security.  Water is sensitive and impressionable and if it doesn’t feel that sense of containment and security given by Earth, is likely to go into free flow.    Pisces becomes emotionally needy and requires the Virgo practical, analytical energy to feel safe.  Virgo needs the salvational and sacrificial energy of Pisces because Virgo wants to be useful and to improve situations.  Virgo is perhaps the least ‘earthy’ of the three Earth signs, mainly because it has as its ruler Mercury, the planet of the mind.  This leads Virgo to worry more as it tries to seek perfection in everything it does.  

 The energy of Virgo and Pisces is a very fluid energy which means there is the opportunity for flexibility and adaptability, although indecisiveness and stress are increased, simply because so many different opinions can make sense to the Virgo/Pisces.

 Opposites attract like iron filings to a magnet.  In some cases though the sheer difference between the opposing energies can quickly drive them apart, but equally there are many ways that one can support the other.  Pisces is prone to dreaming and Virgo’s talent for attention to detail and its discriminatory and analytical ability can make sense of those dreams and make them happen, if they are rational dreams.   Today’s dreams can indeed be tomorrow’s reality.  

 Pisces can easily descend into chaos and Virgo will love to put this chaos in order, although if the chaos is too great for Virgo’s stress levels then the union may not last.    Pisces loves to free flow with creativity, imagination and intuition, but without boundaries can easily drift and become goalless.   Virgo might be able to sift out which idea is genius and which to cast away, but by the same token Virgo may get too caught up in the minutiae of details, leading to overthinking and over worry.  Pisces needs Virgo so that dreams don’t turn into illusions and fantasy and Virgo needs Pisces to provide the ‘chill’ factor so that it is possible to just take time out to meditate or listen to music for instance – to appreciate the beauty of life.

 Neptune is the ruler of Pisces and is currently in Pisces, so we have the potential for huge leaps of intuition, creative ability and free flow thinking.   Neptune energy, however, can undermine, deceive and bring false illusions.  Neptune can cloak everything, just as Harry Potter could when he donned his invisibility cloak.   This means we really must use Virgo’s analytical ability to intuitively sift out what is true and what is not.  Neptune seeks a world without boundaries and we can see this now with our trend towards globalization.  Pisces, with no boundaries, is the whole world, whilst Virgo is the craftsman who is perhaps more artisan and more local in his range.  But even the artisan craftsman has become used to a global market for his goods.   

 We are conditioned to a world where we can go anywhere, be in contact with people in any country at any time and trade according to the best value in the world.  However, becoming more reliant on importing everything we need and becoming unable to be self-sufficient can bring obvious problems.   Right now we have an issue with the Coronavirus.   With the energy of Pisces so heavily in the frame, this virus is likely to spread everywhere.   And it’s energy is very Piscean in nature – it has no respect for boundaries, it overwhelms and undermines - its origins are very deceptive, it mutates and it just generally ‘seeps’ in.    Personally I am of the view that it is a bio-weapon of some kind and that it was hidden by an invisibility cloak for much longer than we realise, until it could no longer be kept under wraps.   The astrology would suggest that it has been out there since the end of October or early November.   So what can Virgo do to contain it?  The one thing that Virgo does very well is being systematic, methodical and analytical.   The fastidious side of Virgo encourages us to pay attention to hygiene.  And Virgo is very much a sign concerned with health and wellbeing – so bolstering the immune system and the use of anti-viral and anti-bacterial essential oils, as I mentioned in my last newsletter, can help.  

 This Moon in Virgo is making a very harmonious aspect to our Earthy Capricorn line-up of planets right now.  Capricorn brings sustained effort, responsibility and order to the whole ‘shebang’, but we must be reminded that at the moment the Capricorn line up of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto are closing in on each other in what I might term ‘a shit hits the fan transit’.  It has perhaps never been more important to take responsibility, to ‘see both sides’ but to be discriminatory (Virgo) and to not just follow the approved belief of the day (Pisces).    

 We are presented at this Full Moon with the opportunity to really see how becoming dependent on others for all that we need (globalization) can in some circumstances be very undermining.   In the UK we fly in vegetables and fruit for instance from here, there and everywhere because we don’t want to face the reality that in some seasons we can’t have exactly what we want.   We ourselves have quickly become disconnected with our Universe and our children even more so.    If we are to find our best ‘I’, then our best ‘We’ has to be one where we are part of the Universe we inhabit where we understand how to care for our planet Earth.  So we are back to finding the I in We. 

 The discovery of the laser in the 1960’s enabled the production of the hologram.    If you cut up a hologram into the tiniest of pieces you would still find the hologram in the smallest bit.   If we think of the Universe as a hologram then we are each a part of that hologram.   We are part of the Universe and we are the Universe.   The Universe is written through everything just as the word Blackpool goes through every stick of Blackpool rock.  So what we think and what we do affects not only ourselves but the whole Universe.   This Virgo/Pisces axis highlights what is tangible and what is not, what is real and what is not, what is visible and what is hidden within the invisibility cloak, what we actually say and what we feel.   Right now we can go to watch a stage show featuring a hologram of Whitney Houston who died 8 years ago.  On stage she will look real and seem real, but we know she can’t be real.

 Mercury is just finishing his retrograde period and is ready to go forward in the last few degrees of Aquarius where he can put his mind to technology and thinking how best to move forward – this hopefully will give impetus to finding cures for this coronavirus.  Remember though that, although we are only hearing about the coronavirus, there are also two strains of bird flu and one of swine flu knocking around the Far East.  We have floods, fires and swarms of destructive locusts – how many more messages do we need that we are off balance?  Mercury also will quickly move into Pisces which tends to leave him almost swimming without armbands.   So maybe we will be promised a vaccine for this coronavirus, but I’m not sure about its efficacy or indeed its side effects.   

 Astrologically my concern is that 2020 heralds the beginning of new socio-economic cycles and new cycles generally, but the energy is of breakdown before we get to the ‘new dawn’.    If you get a ‘black swan’ event on top of this ‘breaking down’ energy then the ferocity of this latter energy could go from bad to severe.   So is the Coronavirus the black swan event that tips the balance?   I think it is inevitable that this virus takes some kind of hold, but it is the fall out of sheer panic and fear which could do more damage to our lives than the virus itself.  It’s not hard using Virgo logic to work that out either.   If we shut countries, cities, places of work down then nothing will be produced, the shelves will be bare, there will be a knock-on effect for others who rely on supplies from around the world to earn their money.  You don’t need me to tell you how that story ends.   So here we perhaps need to employ Virgo’s best quality – common sense!

 So how do we not just survive but thrive.  Life is a risk every day.  We might walk out of our door and get run over by a bus, flattened by a meteor or trampled by a running bull.  Of course, we must contain this virus as much as possible but we must also be realistic.   Everyone must take responsibility because health authorities are going to be quickly overwhelmed and with the best will in the world slow to react.   Yes, we may catch the virus but if we are generally healthy it is probably going to affect us like a bad case of flu or not even that.   We will recover and we will develop our own antibodies and we will get on with our lives.  Some may not, but equally some may not survive a trip to the takeaway.  But we still go out.  Perhaps this sounds harsh reasoning, but we cannot remove all risk from life.   Now this new cycle could be as small as the Industrial Revolution in the mid 1800’s – and that wasn’t exactly small.   But the Industrial Revolution had a positive effect on the lives of many.   And so can this if we allow ourselves to really ‘deep listen’ to the messages and if we are really prepared t adapt and change.

 So take the best of each end of these opposite energies at this Full Moon so that we can be our best ‘I’.    Use the common sense of Virgo to take the best care of our physical health but use the transcendence of Pisces to harness meditation, music, dance, yoga to be able to switch off the mind and retreat briefly from the harsh realities of this world for the sake of our ongoing spiritual health.

[1] Winning not Fighting, John Vincent and Sifu Julian Hitch, Penguin, Random House, UK, 2019

[2] Winning not Fighting, pp.15-19