REVELATIONS FROM THE UNDERWORLD: Vesta-conjunct-Mercury trine Pluto – inconjunct Saturn, The Scorpio Full Moon, Mars-Pluto-Mercury Retrograde

Where do I even begin. I woke up this morning at 4 a.m. after a dream that revealed the time of my death (checks out astrologically, nowhere soon, don´t worry) and very specific pieces of information (key dates and such) that would facilitate my journey ahead. It looks like Shadow-Working and Priestess-ing is certainly The Big Theme for me this time round. As is working with the energies of the Lion Goddess – and potentially – down the line – a deeper form of Buddhism (I take a syncretic approach to religion).

Given current astrology, I would not be surprised if that struck a chord with many other facilitators at this time.

In my dream, and it was one of those dreams where you know you´re not really dreaming – I had chosen to die for some reason and had jumped the queue (there was a queue, yes). I was administered with Serpent Venom (Lachesis), but it failed to work. Within the dream I saw my etheric body travel to other spaces, to deliver messages it needed to. I was in a state of euphoria and giddiness. Then I returned to my dream-body. I realized I had a job to do, decided it was time to leave the hospice, and very joyfully decided to live.

Then I woke up. In this reality (to be clear).

What amazed me is the specificity of the information I received in the dream. I was guided to key dates matching profound astrological shifts in my life and in the lives of those nearest to me. I took down some notes, and now I´m writing to you guys.

Be it through a prophetic dream, a message from the world around you, writing you see on the wall, a book you read – this is the time to pay attention to messages as they seek you out. Mercury (The Messenger) conjuncts Vesta (The Priestess) at 16´58 Taurus (The Earth-Plane, Sensuality, Relationships with the Material world). Most of these messages will be related to the way you Serve on this Material, Earthly Plane. (Chimed in well with the messages I received).

I say this connects with the archetype of the Underworld, and related themes of Death, Transformation, Re-birth and so on because Vesta/Mercury also trines Pluto (17 Capricorn), Lord of that Realm (as per later Greco-Roman mythology). Pluto rules Scorpio, which naturally opposes Taurus´ energy – that only reinforces the balance between the Upper and the Lower expressions of Earth-energy. Think of green hills and pastures, mountains and meadows, trees, rivers and so on vis a vis the nurturing depths of a cave, the darkness of the Void beneath the Earth´s Surface, the fiery-red core.

So in other words, it may be a link between priestess-messaging-death/rebirth – be in in the physical or the archetypal way, or both. Or, considering Pluto´s position in Capricorn, a glimpse as to the legacy you are called to leave behind by way of the Service you perform in the tangible Earth-realm.

That question of legacy – what you are called into being to leave behind for future generations to inherit – is also reinforced by Vesta/Mercury´s inconjunct with Saturn Retrograde (15 Sagittarius). It means that the message we receive now tells us about the belief systems we need to either detach from, or consolidate our belief in. It tells us about the roads we need to take to get to our desired destination and need to cut away from things that ultimately lead us elsewhere.

For those of you with bodies near 15-17 Libra and/or Cancer will experience this as a powerful Yod (Finger of Fate). That is a current of karmic acceleration, bringing you to a pivotal decision point – where you choose to remain in one cycle, or to move to another. In my case, For me that meant that my South Node completed the Yod. It makes sense – a profound release or ´letting go´ (and a letting go of wanting to let go, to get meta about it).

There´s another reason why the Underworld is involved so strongly in this alignment. Multiple Retrogrades. Here´s a brief timeline (and other alignments as well, for context):

Mercury conjuncts Vesta – 16´58 Taurus at 22:10, UTC, 16 April 2016.

Mars Retrograde Begins: 8´54 Sagittarius at 12:13 pm, UTC, 17 April 2016

Vesta trines Pluto Retrograde – 19´29 Taurus at 2:29 am, UTC, 18 April 2016

Pluto Retrograde Begins: 17´29 Capricorn at 7:25 am, UTC, 18 April 2016

SUN SHIFTS INTO TAURUS, LEAVES ARIES: 15:29 pm, UTC, 19 April 2016.

FULL MOON IN SCORPIO: 2´30 Scorpio at 5:23 am, UTC, 22 April 2016

Mercury Retrograde Begins: 23´36 Taurus 17:19 pm, UTC, 28 April 2016

In a nutshell, there´s plenty of messages coming from the Shadow / The Darkness (in its Sacred, and less Happy forms) / The Underworld. You see this the Pluto-Vesta/Mercury trine, the Pluto Retrograde (5 hours later) and the Full Moon in Scorpio.

There´s also a strong reminder that – no matter how deep you get – the work you do is still meant to be drawn back to the Surface, onto this more visible manifestation of physical reality and the lives we lead within it. That comes from Vesta, Mercury and the Sun in Taurus´energies (especially after 22 April). Bear in mind that Mercury retrogrades in Taurus on the 28th of April, until May 21/22 (depending on where you are in the world). Mercury finally leaves Taurus on June 12/13.

Between now to mid-June – it is an excellent time to ponder the messages of service that come to you now. I would suggest against entering any new business / energetic mergers / intimate relationships or partnerships at this time – and to take the time to review, integrate and reformulate your own strategies. It´s also a great time to take stock of your energetic and material reserves and to thinking about ways you can ´give back´, be it through charity, investment in environmental conservation, you name it.

The Mars and Pluto Retrogrades are very different kettles of fish. And I´ll cover them in a different article. Essentially a time to slow down, pay attention to the health of the body (especially with regards to movement, the sciatic nerve, hips, thighs and so on – from – http://www.homeoint.org/morrell/astrology/medical.htm – just as a general guide). Essentially a time to look before you leap (check to see if there´s a cliff before taking the plunge into something new).

The Pluto Retrograde essentially asks us to take the time out to sit with the deeper substance of the Self. During the Dark Goddess workshop I held, many new techniques of doing so emerged spontaneously through the space held. I look forwards to being able to share them with you 🙂 As a general introduction – turn off all the lights, snuggle up with your favourite black and a nice grounding crystal (trying getting natural smoky quartz – some of it looks so dark, it looks black!) and observe.

More on all that when it´s time to write about them. I can see why I was told to take a timeout from sessions till the 21st 🙂

Keep dreaming, keep listening and stay tuned for the messages that come!

Blessings, hugs and Love!

Priestess Bairavee Balasubramaniam PhD

The Sky Priestess

Post © Bairavee Balasubramaniam, 2016.

Image: Fresh crater on the surface of Vesta photographied by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft OTD 63 full.jpg – By NASA/JPL [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

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Whoever said Rebirth was Easy?

Out of familiarity and into the Unknown,
An old self burns and another begins to form,,
It’s all new, and yet you’ve known it all along.

Parting pangs of what you left behind,
Anxiety rears its head as if to remind,
That there’s so much be explored.

Things to master, things to mess up with,
Things to enjoy, things to weep over.
There’s so much stuff that could wrong.

But, what if it went right?

That question is a bright light or deeper night
Than where you are now

What if things went a different way?
A new road,
A Pathway,
Beyond what you can imagine.

And so it is
The Eggshell broken,
Ashes spread around,
No sight of the old to be found.

It’s all new,
It’s all fresh,
But still a voice uncertainly asks:

What if it all went wrong?

And another, in a whisper replies:

What if it didn’t?

What will you have found?

That question is a bright light or deeper night
Than where you are now

What if things went a different way?
A new road,
A Pathway,
Beyond what you can imagine.

What will you have found?

Bairavee Balasubramaniam

 

Image: Mt Charleston Blue Butterfly.jpg – By Corey Kallstrom/USFWS (Flickr: Mt Charleston Blue Butterfly) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons [Digitally Enhanced by the author under license terms]

Poem, ‘Whoever said rebirth was easy’ © Bairavee Balasubramaniam, 2015. All rights reserved.

BURNT TO ASH – What Next?

We’re staring at the Big Void in ourselves, an aftermath of the colossal release precipitated by the Uranus/Pluto final square. Much that was no longer required was let go of, the garbage atop pure the black, soil of the Soul’s foundations finally discarded and laid bare.

We then set the seeds of a new beginning in the cleansed spaces of our being with the Total Solar Eclipse, and then the Equinox.

We celebrated that release of the old and seeding of the new with the fire, heat, passion and the intensity of pure transformation. The energies building now couldn’t be more of a contrast. At first we Danced with the Sun and its Fires, and now – we are called to Sit with the Dark Mysteries of the Moon.

There is a definite sense of emptiness – hollowness (and not in a bad way), some might call it a release, freedom, or going back to Nothingness. We’re looking at the Void where once a part of us resided. We begin to see the foundations, the soil we have cleared through years of intense transformation.

In so doing, many of us are actually beginning to see ourselves for the first time, in a long, long, time. Some of us need the time to grieve, to acknowledge, to process, to fully realize the impact of such release.

It feels silent, dark, and still. A place of rest and nurture as we honor the passage of what was, as we make space for what will be – as the seeds we planted, deep beneath the soil, mature in their own time.

I suspect it is a feeling that some of us quickly tuned into, whilst others will feel this way more so as we approach the Lunar Eclipse.

I was searching for the right metaphor to describe this experience when my friend Archana tagged me in a post of hers speaking of the Phoenix and its cycles. Talk about synchronicity, and thank you, my friend. Here’s how I see the metaphor fitting in with current energies:

We blossomed in the fires of the Phoenix and saw our own beauty, strength and purity till it reached an epic crescendo of light, colour and flame, building since the start of the Uranus-Pluto cycle in 2012. We glowed deeply and burnt fiercely at the Heart of the Self, with so much purity and love that our old ways and forms of being had to give way. What a celebration! What intensity and activity! What power and beauty!

And in an flash of lightning and fire, The Phoenix was gone.

All that remained was Ash.

And a seed, an egg of a new Self, a new Cycle buried under the layers of grey sediment.

We now rest. We observe. We wait in the liminal space between death and rebirth.

We enter the realm of the Dark Goddess and her counsel, as she pulls us into her Veil of Mystery. Many have already begun to feel her Call as she prepares us for the Lunar Eclipse of April 4/5, 2015.

Rest now, my friends – for there is work to be done 🙂

Many Blessings and Much Love to All,

Priestess Bairavee Balasubramaniam PhD

bairaveebalasubramaniam.com ; fb.com/theskypriestess

Astrology with Priestess Bairavee Balasubramaniam PhD ; The Dark Mother’s Children

P. S. – The Lunar Eclipse in Libra is strongly connected to the energies of Black Moon Lilith at this time (astro-info on that herehttp://wp.me/p4OUNS-pf )

Text & Image ‘Burnt to Ash – What Next?’ © Bairavee Balasubramaniam, 2015