Phosphorescent Skeletons

Mercury stands direct on Wednesday, Mercury day, May 3, conjunct Uranus, in a grand trine with with both Saturn and the Moon in Sagitarius and with Mars in his sign, Gemini, approaching the the Bull’s eye, Aldebaran. There is some serious energy here, as well as vibratory energy to fortifications. For those of you whose cups resemble fortresses, to either plunder or explore, and you want to sip an electrified drink, this would be your beverage of choice. There is enough electricity in this juice to glow the skeleton phospherescent, if you like your tequila that salty or your martini that dirty, or simply salivate at a mouth stuffed with szechuan and spilanthes. But remember to let go of the handle if the stemware is too many volts DC, if you can, because Uranus doesn’t mind providing more of a charge than Saturn can bear, shaking skeletons until they shatter. Mercury couldn’t care less, the Androgyn phasing through forms fluidly amidst the vigorous buzz. Mars in Gemini might be able to target this energy, directing it to one particular bone or the other, for instance, a chronological bone, bracketing a duration, whatever the election (mine would be to put Aldebaran-Mars on the ascendant, if you mean business, and I mean business) Although, Aldebaran might be cycloptic (left-eye only) Mars tends to be a Siamese Twin in Gemini, so you have two left-eyes, even though one appears on each head. If you are planning any workings around these configurations I’d make sure your ceremonial knife is very sharp (this is actually a great time to make and charge your magical weapons), and carve your circle deep, because you might be juggling a Promethean vial with a pair of left eyes. The Sun, in Taurus, rears his head as this all occurs, squinting and sniffing, while plodding forward to sight and adjust his course, before he lowers his head and sprints in a short charge, the direct Mercury/Uranus, Venus in Ares, and Mars in Gemini scenario having him seeing red briefly with a torch to his ass. If you have an intellectual target this week, take a possible lucky shot. Take another at 11 pm on Wednesday the 10th as the Moon transits Fortuna. At this point the North Node ingresses Leo as the South Node enters Aquarius, setting up for the cycle of eclipses that extend into 2018, including the big one on August 21st, a total solar seen all across the US. Some snippets of volatility arising this week will be ingredients in August’s hot concoction, like newspaper clipped letters to form the mad message sent to the press. The Dragon’s Head takes the Moon’s place in the Grand Trine with Saturn and Mercury/Uranus, winking at the rebel Titan before belching some infernus and deviously spinning the dial on the bunsen burner up to full, converting the chemistry fair experiment into a full blown meth lab. It’s the defining moment when you transition from collaging the sinister note together at the copy shop to slipping it into an envelope and dropping it in the mailbox.

Heavy, Promethean allusions would be hard to swat away from this week’s set of configurations. Indeed, fire is the issue here. What is it, where does it come from, how does it work, what do we use it for and what does it want? All good questions, each deserving their own compendiums penned from every perspective, and that’s what you might be inspired to do when the Scribe pops out of the pit like a Genie from an ink well with Prometheus on the line mid Cyrano de Bergerac serenade, ready to transcribe a more inflammatory edict against Spiritual Nihilism than has ever been imagined. For those of you ready for Philip K. Dick level Gnostic direct transmission from an extraterrestrial ghost writer, this might be your week; but remember: reflecting on the examples of Aiwass and Jack Parsons, these types of Muses don’t tend to let their patrons and hosts fuck off and go to the ball so easily. This is no shit. If you want to call down the Hermes/Prometheus energy, it might be a permanent invocation. Sure, you could see it as Uranus shaking and cracking Saturn’s walls and barriers, but it might also manifest as Saturn binding your hands to the Promethean torch, or maybe your heart, as Mars in Gemini will be passing Aldebaran, a star often mistaken for Mars, and so a look-a-like twin from Earth’s perspective, that corresponds to a goring target in the upper breast, just missing the heart, the old seat of the mind. Indeed, where does the fire of consciousness burn? In our Hearts or in our Brains. With this weeks configuration we hold one in each hand, and as Jupiter in Libra trines Mars in Gemini while Venus now moves forward in Aries, we weigh the two organs against each other. The moon slips out of aspect and in the liminal light they become a pair of lungs, draped in a net of nerves, we ponder the oddness by the light of the Caduceus, illuminated like a slowly spinning barber pole, and a circle of torches, as if out of a long alleyway into the center of a feudal encampment, the Moon swells in Scorpio by the tenth and we are staring at a pair of ovaries, gonads, eyes, grapes… Are they real or formed from clay? Are these just cast offs, studies for Prometheus’ early work? They are silver grey like mercury and damp from the light of the Moon. We carry them to the crossroads and leave them there for some devilish little ghouls to devour. He stares straight across the road on his haunches, twiddling spindly, black fingers. Is this one of last weeks goblins, now vagrant and errant and looking for some way to spend the bright night? Probably, but asking such creatures what they are up to and if they want to play is always a personal question. It’s your decision.

Certainly, Mars in Gemini can cause us to try to do too many things at once, especially with Mercury conjunct Uranus in Aries, and Venus also in Aries, you might find yourself attempting to line dance with one group while dashing a flamenco with a single partner simultaneously throwing in moves from your own routine that are reflected in the mirrorball squares, the glint off the glassware above the bar, some desperado’s highly polished pistol barrel or some Señorita’s patent red stiletto. You’d stuff in more ear buds if you had more ears but have to settle for doubling up the two God gave you. If you don’t want the dance to end in Susperia I’d suggest talking to Jupiter, who is two thirds through his retrograde, and all about fortifying and stabilizing the territory we’re holding before we bolt off and take new ground. If you can figure out a way to bottle that Bull’s charge (like wearing red, passing some reddish agate and ruby through some flame and then dropping it into boiling water while you scorch onion, pepper, thistle, nettle and mustard on a rusty cast iron at 7:45 pm EST on Friday the 5th of May, then bottling the water and leaving it on an altar to the Mars and or Mercury. (The Moon in Virgo opposition to Neptune in Pisces should render the waters a receptive medium, if nothing else, but probably more.)) you can use it as an ablution after June 8th when Jupiter goes direct, at which point you’ll want to have your powder dry, canon loaded and chariot running because it’d be realer than Redbull. Most of us don’t approach the chessboard that way, but having marching powder (you could go with dust rather than water, sure) on hand is never a bad idea. You never know when your going to have only a few months to convert an abandoned house with no roof into shelter before winter rolls in or have to drive from Pittsburg to NYC for a six o’ Clock soundcheck on one of the last Sundays of tour.

I jest, but, the Hermes/Prometheus energy is extremely valuable to those that want to begin the Great Work. If deep, inner hermetic transformation has climbed to the upper rungs of your list, this is perhaps an opportunity to get your crucibles fired up. Not only is it a highly energetic moment of an incredibly dynamic and transformational year, but the chimerical synthesis of Prometheus and Hermes might well hold the right skeleton key (or cross of keys) that open a series of storehouse vaults whose arcane contents are necessary in the alchemical sequence. If your larder is not chock full with glowing manna then you might want to see if the God/Titan will lend you the passcode. The same goes for all the Fast-burners, and Continual-cleansers out there, as well as the classic charlatans, who are really just in it for coin of the realm, or the materia there of. I’m not here to judge motives, the proof is in the poison in the pudding, and if you like your jello-shots laced with speedy narcotics, this one’s for you.

Before we part ways, let’s discuss the Scorpio Moon. The Promethean secrets we learn this Wednesday, and the sudden charge of the Bull this week push and propel us toward the full Moon on the 10th. Here we are bathed in luminescence emanating before the dark curtain of Scorpio’s third decan, a heavy fabric of snake scales whose triple rhinestones sparkle like poison grapes, and the bottles of wine we neglect to finish, for their contents might drown us, pour into the earth as blood, feeding infernal worms that grow in our dreams. This Moon is latched into by the Scorpion’s claws (which predate Libra’s scales), slithering betwixt fixed stars Zubenelschemali and Unukalhai, we are subject to their dripping debauch. This is the lolling tongue of the wrathful Mahavidyas, and for the evening we feast on the five M’s of panchamakara: madya (wine), māṃsa (meat), matsya (fish), mudrā (parched grain), maithuna (sexual intercourse). It’s not lent anymore, and it certainly won’t be after this Full Moon, with a trine to Neptune in Pisces and a sextile to Pluto in Capricorn, don’t be surprised if you wake up with some blood on you after a hallucinatory night. If work obligations prevent you from indulging, then the stains will be on the purity of your mind rather than your sheets, residual secretions of silver succubae.

I’m reminded of “America’s Stonehenge” which I visited this past weekend, on Sunday, having been Walpurgis, in Salem, New Hampshire. A Neolithic era compound of dolmens perches on a hillside surrounded by cleared lanes and lobed standing stones whose points correspond to the setting of the sun at each of the eight cross-quarter sabbats. The central section is a spiraling system of caves, wells, drains, pits and platforms, all facing exact and specific cardinal directions. Carbon dating of materials found between stones in the walls has dated back to around 2000 bc and Celtic and Iberian carvings have been found in its construction, suggesting these were the Ancestors of the “Black Irish”, ancient people’s who had arrived in Ireland from modern day Spain and Portugal. Some Inscriptions are Ogham characters, where others, the Iberian variety, look similar to the sigils of the Grimoirium Verum. One of which has been translated as an invocation of Baal, often considered associated or equivalent with Oriens, the cardinal Spirit of the East; the direction homeward, to their ancestors. What is considered a sacrificial table, carved with a trough and drain, might have been that, but also a platform for grape stomping. There is plenty of infrastructure for moving fluid around, and the whole complex feels like the guts of a great being, a place to make and store wine within the womb and entrails of Mother Earth. The cleared lanes could be for vineyards, the directional vaults and holds for storing wine made of particular grapes, at particular cross-quarter points, sorted by the direction they were dedicated to. The tunnel-chambers beneath, lined in massive boulders of smokey-quartz, could have been the oracular portals to the Underworld, storehouses of familial skulls and bones, where the Spirits and Ancestors of the homeland were met, consulted, honored and petitioned. This is where the narcotic, visionary wine would have ben consumed, or at least experienced, and it is similar to how this Scorpio Full Moon will be experienced. I think you’ll know what to do.

Vegetal narcotics have been repeatedly coming up in my recent forecasts, no pun intended. It is not necessarily simply my preoccupation, it is the time of the year that the Vegetal Spirits awaken, and with tendril and vine, reclaim their kingdom. Their medicine as well as their poison begins to be on our minds, no pun intended again, whether we choose it or not.