Aspects for the week beginning 5 June 2011

I have become fixated about cucumbers lately.  If you have been following this blog, you’ll know that a phobic party of four went to the Eurovision Song Contest in Duesseldorf in mid-May, at the time of the E-coli outbreak in Northern Germany.  So we had a lucky escape, considering we all had a salad at Cologne Airport on 15^th May before flying home.  As the only vegetarian, I was presented with a huge Greek Salad dominated with huge chunks of what must have been a whole cucumber on my plate, which I did my level best to do justice to.  As an aspiring raw-fooder, this E-coli crisis has been a blow to my aspirations, and how much I can trust the raw food I have come to regard as the pinnacle of my daily intake.  This week I have been haunted, and pursued in my dreams, by raw foods and in particular cucumbers.  I have scanned the website of Karen Knowler (dubbed “The World’s Premier Raw Food Coach”) http://www.karenknowler.typepad.com/ to find her take on this dilemma, but cannot find any guidance there on the matter, despite some interesting articles on her blog.  I need to know how to reorientate myself spiritually on this issue.  Mercury is square to Chiron today, so healing dilemmas continue, in search of that spiritual reorientation which will reward the effort and settle the personality, until the next crisis which might be Wednesday.  The next two days is suitable for finding the right consciousness to match a new level of physical and mental health, for Mercury represents conventional healing (as represented by the Caduceus symbol) and Chiron represents alternative healing (as represented by the symbol of the Centaur).  These two may be at odds over the next two days, and our task is to bring them together.  A new plateau of stability is reached on Tuesday (7^th), when Mercury (representing conventional healing) trines Saturn (representing stability and consolidation).  This is a foothold on the new reality that you need right now, which appeals directly to your left brain rationality and to your practicality.  For instance, you may find a reliable local source of cucumbers, which comes as a relief.  If you are meeting over coffee or tea on that day, suitable conversations on the agenda would be serious topics, e.g. about coalition politics and its effect on the NHS, or how to proceed with your new healing philosophy recently hatched from the struggles of Mercury square Chiron.  Wednesday (8^th) brings a reorientation of Chiron, going stationary prior to retrograde.  There may be U-turns in the area of alternative health, which is unusual.  We have U-turns and contradictory research all the time in the area of conventional health (this is good for you, this is not good for you, this is now good for you again).  But alternative health is often based on ancient and intuitive wisdoms, which don’t change much, except in their modern application.  So this is part of the process of a shift, which happens from time to time, to incorporate the new energies and vibrations and update alternative views and our spiritual systems.  Keep your inner and outer ears pealed for new information or the recycling of old information, on the subject of healing.  By far the most important aspect of the week occurs on Thursday (9^th) and here, with a sparkling sextile between Jupiter and Neptune, there is a real opportunity for a spiritual shift.  If you are involved in any religious ceremonies, you will see the spirituality behind them.  If you are involved in any spiritual ceremonies, you may be able to see how the religious structures sit within them.  This major aspect is an exchange of unity on a higher level, and a vision of hope.  If you are not involved in any spiritual or religious ceremonies on Thursday, anything you are engaged in can be used to sense the energies of hope, unity and spirituality.  If you are celebrating a birthday, you can ponder and wonder at the mysteries of bringing a soul into incarnation.  If you are wandering around an art gallery, you can see the connection between the inspiration of the soul of the artist and the practical production and depiction in colour and form on canvas.  Preferably do this in the morning, while Venus is still in Taurus, for in the afternoon in the U.K. (with respectful mindfulness to my U.S. and Australian readership) Venus (art and harmony) enters Gemini.  You could go round the art gallery again, and see it from the Venus in Gemini perspective, less on the feeling plane and more analysis on the mental plane (“What was the artist trying to achieve?  But is it art?”).  You may evolve a more rounded perspective that way.  So whatever you were doing in the morning, if you have the time and leisure to repeat the performance in the afternoon, you’ll end up with a holistic perspective.  Feelings could change during the course of the day, and different social scenarios and populations could emerge later.  If you are a tour guide, you would be herding buffalos in the morning, and butterflies in the afternoon and will need a different approach.  Finally, by Friday, socially and artistically, you’ll be confused by a square between Venus and Neptune.  You’ll find a flaw in the painting you bought yesterday, you’ll be pondering an artistic dichotomy digesting your activities of the previous day.  And as Venus also represents food and cooking and Neptune represents toxins, you need to select carefully what you are putting on the menu.  The cucumber question remains.