by M. Kelley Hunter
The present moment is one of power, of magic or miracle, if we could ever be wholly in it and awake to it.
— D.M. Dooling
Sacred space-time technology gives us the capacity to alter reality. Science is currently monitoring the decrease in magnetic fields, which hold the grids of concensus reality in place. As the magnetic fields are decreasing, the heart beat of Earth is pulsating more rapidly. We are dancing to a changing rhythm, a new frequency, reality is shifting more rapidly. When we are bring our full attention to our presence in the present, spirit incarnates through us. There are particularly powerful moments and places for this to happen. Working with sacred space, one becomes aware that if the space is powerful enough, time becomes a less important factor. The reverse is also true: that a particularly potent time can focus power in any receptive place. The combination of both is the juiciest.
Earth is our sacred space and home center, the greater body and ground of our experience. Intimately related to this unique planet, we are wrapped in the glittering atmosphere of larger cosmic space. The sky is our sacred clock, timing the celestial choreography that spirals in longer and shorter cycles. As members of the local solar system, we on Earth are Sun dancers along with our planetary neighbors. The Sun as our common center and vital light, and our Moon, which reflects that light in inner and outer rhythmic tides, are primary factors in sacred timing. We know how powerful new and full Moons, Solstices, Equinoxes and eclipses are in ceremony and ritual.
In addition, various geometric angles made between planets from our perspective define powerful moments with particular dynamics. These planetary patterns can be smooth or active, yin or yang, receptive or dynamic. The flavor of planetary angles is defined by sacred geometry, dividing the 360-degree circle into various harmonics with a base number. A 90-degree angle is based on number 4, making a Cross right angles in the circle, and indicating that action and manifestation are in order. Other angles, like120 degrees, based on 3, or 60 degrees based on 6, are smoother in their flow. An opposition of 180 degrees based on 2 is a heightened polarity like the full Moon. We can divide the circle by any number to find corresponding harmonics in the planetary patterns. Time, as defined on Earth, is closely affected by the planetary hands on the cosmic clock. The more distant backdrop of fixed stars plays also plays a role, timing longer cycles.
Astrology
Astrology, the language of the stars, is a language of the soul, a stellar poetry. Its power is in the potent imagery and energy of the astral bodies that inspires our imagination and offers transformational awareness. Let me share with you a vision of current of celestial choreography to incorporate into your inner and outer work this fall.
The New Moon on last July 4 was aligned the star Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Known as the star of Isis by the Egyptians, this alpha star of Canis Major, the Big Dog, is considered the star of their origin by the Dogon people of present day Mali. Thousands of years of their oral tradition have been confirmed by modern science in determining that Sirius is indeed a double star, as they have always known, with a 50-year cycle. This star of the Goddess sparkled its exquisite light into the seeding of the New Moon in July, and may come to fruition beyond one Moon cycle, birthing its radiant gift in April,1998. This 9-month gestation time is confirmed by Saturn, the planet of manifestation, structure and form, which completes a mini-circle in its orbit in that same time period.
Chiron & Pluto 
Another body with a 50-year cycle is Chiron, a new and particularly potent player in catalyzing sacred space/time moments. This 1977 astronomical discovery was named for the Greek centaur who was famed as a teacher/healer. His name is intriguingly close to both Charon, the ferryman who rows souls across to Pluto's underworld (and the name of Pluto's single Moon), and to kai ros, a Greek word for time. This is not ordinary linear kronos time, ruled by Saturn; this is extra-ordinary time. Kairos means "the loaded time" or "the time of bursting potential," master teacher Jean Houston tells us, when "we have extraordinary access to the sacred principles, powers and creations that are yearning at the Crossroads of existence to enter into time."
This liminal threshold is very kairotic/Chirotic, allowing a new level of consciousness to manifest in the immediacy of our daily lives. Chiron is shamanic in its capacity to alter our time/space reality. It is the quantum leap that evokes synchronicities as it brings our multidimensional bodies into alignment. Chiron fuses the psyche with soma, integrating the psycho-spiritual experience in the here-and-now. Chiron transits accompany souls moving into and out of incarnation, at impregnation/birth and at death, as well as other profound life altering passages. These are the crisis times when the soul is calling for imminent manifestation of the spirit in the present.
In his book, A Sense of the Cosmos, philosopher Jacob Needleman describes Chirotic time as being "In front of the unknown: that means, when explanations break down and for a moment I am suspended between dreams. It is a moment of relative awakening." He continues:
"The real unknown is an emotional unknown....The real question of the momentbetween dreams is whether we can bear the vibration of this new feeling of the unknown which carries with it the taste of a different quality of intelligence, but which at the same time utterly exposes all our illusions about ourselves. We awaken to darkness.....Do I fear the darkness more than I love the awakening?"
Scientists are monitoring an increase in the frequency of the Earth's heart beat, called Hertz. Are we willing to pick up our pace to awaken from one dream and lucid dream our way into another reality? Are we ready to align with our Soul vibration, with the Soul of Earth?
Chiron is a key dancer in the celestial choreography this fall and indicates the healing key to a higher consciousness. Chiron has a penchant for unique moments and gives a special accent to other planetary patterns. Chiron stepped firmly across the Scorpio threshold on September 2, the day after a new Moon eclipse. In Scorpio, the sign of the deep underworld of mystery, passion and power, Chiron will plumb the deepest fears and desires that motivate our actions. It is a sign of letting go--of old resistances and fears that interfere with the emergence of a higher potential. Here we truly stand "in front of the unknown." We are tested in our capacity to tune into the sub-atomic energy fields, to align our desires and will with the higher Love and Will. To desire, to imagine, to will, to create. This is divine conception, from the darkness of the cosmic womb into the light of consciousness.
Scorpio is Pluto's sign. The energetic connection between Chiron and Pluto heats up, as we move toward a conjunction of these two powerful bodies at the threshold of the millennium, December 31, 1999, their first meeting since1941. Pluto, the deepest gong of archetypal experience, entered Sagittarius in November of 1995, sounding a new tone in our collective experience that lasts to 2008. Pluto in the sign of the Truth Seeker increases the creative and emotional intensity of what we might call erotic intuition.
A fiery Sagittarian form of wisdom, intuition is defined by educator Margaret Blanchard (in The Rest of the Deer) as a "realization of wholeness, a kind of insight which simultaneously connects both internal and external ways of knowing...." We tap this intuitive capacity by "entering an experience; viewing it, as if it were the interior of a globe, from all sides; understanding the vitality which illumines it; expressing that energy symbolically; and allowing that symbol to tell its own story." This approach allows us to enter new dimensions of emotional/creative expression and relationship. This is the essence of ceremonial and ritual work, of sacred time/space technology, which gives birth, manifestation, to new awareness in the moment.
Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune
The week of October 9-15 brings direct stations of Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune. These planets are apparently stopping and turning to forward motion--from our point of view. These are potent moments, as each planetary energy is focused in a heightened way. These planetary stations can be used to direct attention on our experience of that particularly planet, in this case the energies of expansion, awakening and illusion vs. dreamtime. A week of three such turn-arounds is a rare opportunity for relignment of our space-time reality.
And that same week, Chiron squares Uranus, forming a 90-degree relationship. This square will manifest events that represent the new vibrational frequency. Uranus is like lightning that can bring sudden and unexpected insights into view. It is the Higher Mind, the Witness that awakens us with its electrical charge. With Chiron we have the potential for synchronicities that seem magical, but are based on the deeper undercurrents that have been gathering. In Scorpio we will learn to work more intentionally with our desire bodies. As our emotional bodies are brought into a higher vibration, we face our deepest fears and our deepest desires. Relationships between individuals and circles of people will click in to further the changes already resonating at higher frequencies. We cannot depend on the old ways, as the energy field is being reconfigured. As Neptune trims the edges of late Capricorn, it, too, has been working with a Chiron square much of this year to thin the veil of illusion and refine reality. Neptune changes sign in January, moving into Aquarius for 14 years. The opening of this new phase is worth celebrating itself.
Mars & Venus 
Bearing further witness to the theme of deep emotional exploration, Mars and Venus, the emotional polarity planets, are both Crossing transformational Pluto--Mars on September 28 and Venus on October 11. We cut the cord of outworn responses in both our male and female psyche. On October 19, Mercury joins Chiron in Scorpio, squaring Uranus, to seal the alchemical vessel for the union of Mars and Venus on October 25 in Sagittarius. The truth of love is the greatest mystery. Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore wrote a mystery play, called The King of the Dark Chamber--very Plutonian, as Pluto is the god of the underworld!. Listen to this love dialogue between the King and his Beloved Queen Sudarshana:
Sudarshana: Why do you not allow me to see you in the light?
King: So you want to see me in the midst of a thousand things in broad daylight! Why should I not be the only thing you can feel in this darkness?
She: But I must see you--I am longing to have a sight of you.
He: You will not be able to bear the light of me--it will only give you pain, poignant and overpowering.
She: How can you say that I shall be unable to bear your sight? Oh, I can feel even in this dark how lovely and wonderful you are: why should I be afraid of you in the light? But tell me, can you see me in the dark?
He: Yes, I can.
She: What do you see?
He: I see that the darkness of the infinite heavens, whirled into life and being by the power of my love, has drawn the light of a myriad stars into itself, and incarnated itself in a form of flesh and blood. And in that form, what aeons of thought and striving, untold yearnings of limitless skies, the countless gifts of unnumbered seasons!
She: Am I so wonderful, so beautiful? When I hear you speak so, my heart swells with gladness and pride. But how can I believe the wonderful things you tell me? I cannot find them in myself! He: Your own mirror will not reflect them--it lessens you, limits you, makes you look small and insignificant. But could you see yourself mirrored in my own mind, how grand would you appear! In my own heart, you are no longer the daily individual which you think you are--you are verily my second self. She: Oh, do show me for an instant how to see with your eyes!
How do we see with the eyes of Pluto in Sagittarius?
In the bright crystal of your eyes Show the havoc of fire, show its inspired works And the paradise of its ashes. --Paul Eluard
In love, much goes on in the dark erotic realm of the unconscious that is difficult to speak of. This is why intuition is important. Our souls make a contract, and the power of this love reveals to us the wounds to be healed. In love we enter the unknown, as we seek new paradigms of relationship. We must trust our intuition and our deepest, truest instincts to align with the soul vibration in ourselves and with each other.
Samhain
The cosmically busy month of October ends with a New Moon on Halloween, one of our holydays. This New Moon in Scorpio is conjunct Chiron--Chiron does love these special moments. This Moon squares Uranus, indicating another month of deep healing on the emotional level, as we prepare for yet another joining of Venus and Mars. In December, around Solstice, Venus and Mars conjunct in Aquarius, very close to Uranus. This repeat conjunction of the two planets so soon is unusual and is happening because Venus slows down, preparing for her retrograde journey below the horizon. It is as if the Goddes s of Love bows to Neptune, the God of the Oceans, as it Crosses the threshold into Aquarius, saying, "Mars and I have merged to the highest level possible at this time. Now teach us to flow in the currents of Universal Love and Compassion."
The Sky Dance is a true mirror of our lives, giving witness to the ancient axiom "As Above, So Below." While sharing some of the celestial choreography of this fall, I have introduced several ways that stellar cycles signal sacred time: fixed star alignments, planetary stations, planets changing sign, planetary angles and interactions, and Chiron as a shamanic catalyst of altered consciousness.
Issue No. 6 >>