Creativity Meets Common Sense

Today a stockbroker client of mine told me that she was having misgivings about encouraging people to invest in the market and wanted to know what l thought about it. I’m not a Financial Astrologer with expertise in money matters but said that the planetary indicators suggest that the crisis we’re in is not going to be resolved overnight. Of course, it doesn’t take an astrologer to see that the world economic system has been badly damaged and is in need of major alterations. Barack Obama said as much today.

Yet, like the President-elect, I believe that it’s vital to take a constructive approach during these difficult circumstances. Our choices as individuals sometimes appear to be limited yet our untapped creative potential is not. Think of the economic meltdown as a chance for us to alter our ways before we clog the oceans with plastic waste, blot out the Sun with carbon emissions or exchange our souls for more possessions. Revolutionary Uranus opposing Saturn may be toppling the towers of Wall Street and the fallout engenders pain in the present and fear about the future. Yet the shape of our world is no longer bound by the old rules. The U.S. government is no longer standing by and allowing market forces to be the final determinant of our cultural wellbeing. Some are opposed to this, with an understandable concern about concentrating power and damaging the engine of capitalism. Fortunately, though, we can and will make adjustments if we don’t let panic and fear cut us off from our creative channels.

The contraction that occurs when we are under pressure is natural and understandable. However, if the galloping forces of cosmic change are unstoppable (which they are), it is our job to join them rather instead of denying them. Invite change into your life in small, safe and controllable ways as an exercise in inventiveness and flexibility. For each time we break the boundaries of our own fear and blindness of our unquestioned habits we invite new ideas and discover unexpected solutions. It can be difficult to avoid a feeling of powerless when income is cut, yet as the metaphysical teacher Patricia Sun said, “It’s not our reaction that’s the problem; it’s the reaction to the reaction.” What she meant was that fear, doubt, anger, etc., are responses that cannot be repressed. It is the judgment we put upon ourselves (the reaction to the reaction) that locks us into a downward spiral of negatively. Acting as a neutral, curious observer of our reactions, though, gives us breathing room in which we find the freedom to let go of old patterns and make way for new worlds. There are real problems to address, yet emotionally-based blame, guilt and shame contribute nothing. Take a breath, then take another to appreciate whatever grace, peace or joy you can find in this moment. For it is from this open-minded and non-judgmental place of living in the present that Saturn’s dark hold on the psyche is broken and we take another step to self-discovery and human liberation.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 24th, 2008 at 10:50 pm and is filed under Astrology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.