When you see our flag, can you see stars twinkling in a night blue sky? Do they beckon you to expand your spirit, to think large, breathe deeply and reach up to the stars?
When you see the red and white stripes, do they feel like bars, stopping you with the colors of the stop sign?
This opposition, between reaching forward and being or feeling held back, is at the base of the rhythm of life. We want to accomplish something, develop a skill or a relationship, but we meet obstacles. Some we feel we can wrestle with and grow from. Some derail us for awhile – they seem to bar the way, like the stripes on the flag.
This is also the situation astrologically in the sky right now, with the opposition between Uranus, that impels us toward freedom, and Saturn, that represents rigid structures that don’t want to bend. This is an especially powerful opposition this month because Jupiter stands at the side of Uranus, reinforcing its push for change, and Mars and Venus stand at the side of Saturn, reinforcing structural resistance. All of these planets are square Pluto, the energy of transformation. And the sun and moon as they pass through Cancer this month will also be square the Uranus Jupiter conjunction and the Mars Venus Saturn conjunction, making for a grand cross – a rare and enormous amount of energy pressing us to replace old patterns with healthier, more functional behaviors – to use our freedom to recreate better structures.
We can see such tension straining individuals, communities, families, companies, whole countries – and even the ecosystem, in the oil rig that blew apart and the oil that refuses to be contained, and the dilemmas of our responses, as a country, as people whose livelihood depends on a healthy gulf, and as oil consumers.
What can we do with such tension between opposing forces in our lives?
Psychologist Carl Jung described maturity as the capacity to hold the tension of the opposites. Not to get pulled out of balance in either direction is a feat of self control, ability to maintain perspective and keep one’s cool. It requires faith in the cycles of life, that what is an immovable obstacle today may be resolved over time, and that what is currently experienced as irreconcilable differences will in fact resolve over time, if we look closely at whatever adjustments we need to make and take appropriate action.
How fortunate that our national flag holds such a valuable message for us, and the energies of growth and stability are so well balanced in this image!
