The cosmic bulldozer

You know how sometimes everything that happens to you points in the same direction? Like you couldn't ignore the signs if you tried? This is one of those times. Witness the power of one pledge. The message? To tend to the roots.

(1) Partly, it's the astrological weather. Pluto has moved into Capricorn, though it will move forward and retrograde throughout this year, before settling in for the ride till 2023. We tend to be afraid of Pluto. He's the king of the underworld, after all. He rules death and transformation. Like death, he's impersonal. He doesn't care if a little destruction is going to mess up your plans. Whatever has outlived its usefulness has to go. Structures that no longer serve us are upended, no matter how attached to them we might feel. Practical Capricorn is firmly rooted in the material world: wealth, home, property, business, building, construction, management of resources. Earthly institutions: marriage, church, government, economy. Got one that isn't working? Pluto is gonna bust it up and break it down. For example, the last time Pluto was in Capricorn (November 1762-December 1778), there was this little event we call the American Revolution.

(2) My own challenges these last few months have been those relating to first chakra issues: home, survival, and money. Here is what Anodea Judith has to say about the first, or root chakra, called Muladhara, located at the base of the spine:

It relates to the element earth, and all solid, earthly things, such as our bodies, our health, our survival, our material and monetary existence, and our ability to focus and manifest our needs. It is the manifestation of consciousness in its final form--solid and tangible. It is our need to stay alive and be healthy, and the acceptance of limitation and discipline so crucial to manifestation. (Wheels of Life, p. 60)

My sister's illness, the trouble with buying a house, some issues with my finances; these all have to do with the first chakra, and with Capricorn.

(3) In my last post I mentioned something called the schizoid defense. That defense has to do with root chakra issues: physical survival, manifestation, living on the earth. Do I have a right to be here? Do I have a right to the things I need to survive (food, sleep, shelter, a job, medicine, health care, love)?

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Patterns. In the past I've had trouble grasping how my own schizoid defense works. It's been the one to elude my understanding. But now I'm beginning to see it in the parts of my life I try to fragment and hide from, the places where I practice denial because to broach them seems terrifying. One of the biggest areas, for me, is money. And the message I've been getting loud and clear these last several weeks is that my old way of (not) dealing is really not going to work anymore. Fragmentation and denial are becoming impossible. This is Pluto at work in Capricorn.

Because I'm a pretty grounded person in many ways, and I don't suffer a lot of anxiety, I've had trouble discerning challenges around my root chakra. The cosmic 2x4 has had to swing this way several times. The biggest hit was what got me to begin studying healing in the first place: surgery at the bottom of my lumbar spine. Yes, surgery on my first chakra. Three years later, I'm starting to understand the connections. Survival, support, money, home, earth, belonging, manifestation, deserving.

The structures have been threatening collapse for some time; a few years ago, they started to fall. I picture Pluto as this big bulldozer or backhoe. I imagine Arthur Dent waking one morning to find the bulldozers reflected in his shaving mirror, poised to destroy his house. He doesn't realize that bulldozers are the least of his worries, since his planet is also scheduled for demolition that morning. That's Pluto, blandly informing us that the plans have been on display at the central office for some time for those who cared to consult them.

But the other thing about Pluto? He guards all the earth's hidden riches. To discover them, to spy them glinting in the sunlight, you need only turn over some earth.