Any story that begins “Once upon a time”… is the calling card of Neptune. Neptune rules the zodiac sign Pisces and his natural home is the 12th house. The part of the ocean you are swimming in, drifting in, or tumbling through attached to something you think is solid right now is your 12th house. Don’t deceive yourself – the 12th house is all around you, in all directions, at all times.
Once upon a time, I lived a taboo. I was in a apocalyptic religious cult, Jehovah’s Witnesses to be exact. It is a very strict and legalistic religion with its own court for transgressions and the highest penalty imposed is known as disfellowshipping (excommunication). Disfellowshipping is announced to your entire congregation and means you will immediately be completely shunned by everyone not in your household including your other family members and friends. Social ostracism is permanent until you convince the elders you are repentant and that is not straightforward or easy. The cult leaders constantly change the beliefs in small ways and everyone has to follow suit immediately. Breaking mind control is one of the hardest things to accomplish but I did it and I resigned from the cult. They didn’t remove me from the congregation, I removed them from my life. Shunning was immediate and complete. My wedding photos tell the tale – 10 people pretend I’m dead even when they see me, 5 people in the photo have died and the other 18 people are mostly aunts, uncles and cousins who were never in the religion or close friends I had before 1988. Every member of the religion who attended no longer speaks to us. The reason I chose to share this story is it is a perfect example of personal astrological timing.
For those that understand astrology well, this screams Neptune, Jupiter, and maybe Pluto and Uranus. That is enough to make anyone twitch. Those are the big boys the supposedly non-personal planets. Believe me they can get up close and personal. The story developed over 28 years almost an entire Saturn cycle and needs to be told in segments. This is part one.
Preamble – Before November 1988
My mother was Baptist, my father Lutheran and I was Presbyterian. The battle over my baptism as an infant or at the age of twelve was the first religious crises of my life. My parents took me to see my grandparents three states away. My mom pulled her mom into the fight. Grandmother Helen, raised a Presbyterian and a shrewd woman who knew how to get her way, told them I could be baptized as an infant in the Presbyterian Church but wouldn’t be a full member until I was confirmed at twelve. Oh, and by the way, the Presbyterian Church had burned down and they were using my mom’s childhood church for the time being so I could be baptized Presbyterian in my mom’s Baptist Church on Sunday. And so it was done with a pink rose that I immediately grabbed from the minister. He had to take it back to baptize me. Looking back everyone thought that was cute, I think I was trying to save myself.
I hated church with a passion. I used to sleep in the first row on the sloped wooden pews with my head on two hymnals. The minister told me I kept him humble. I realized there was something strange going on with our house chimney one Sunday and had to think for a few minutes on whether to wake my mom because I was really hoping she would oversleep and we would miss church. I woke her up, she threw a flare in the woodstove, the firefighters, with one of my mom’s 20 lb bags of salt, put out the chimney fire and saved the house and I got sent to church with two church ladies who came to see if they could help. Seriously, the chimney was on fire but I still had to go to church.
I liked some of the people at church but the sum total of the religious instruction that sunk in was the earnest warning from a Sunday School teacher that God didn’t want me to read Revelations because if I did my eyes would turn to blood and bleed out of my head (I worried about the printers so I decided they must be blind), if you held your finger on the back of the Bible to protect yourself from Revelations you could find the story of Samson, also eyeless, which was a heck of a lot more interesting than a sermon on why you shouldn’t watch the North and South miniseries and somehow I decided independently that God is actually love. The food though was amazing that was the only time I ever wanted to go to church; the pancake suppers and the Southern picnics.
A church is an organized religious building so it is the 9th house. My ninth house has Libra on the cusp (God is love). I also have Pluto conjunct Ceres and my north node there. The glyph of Pluto and Ceres together is Proserpina or Persephone. I didn’t know it then but from the moment of my birth it was written in my horoscope that my karmic path would be to undergo a religious kidnapping and I would be captured and descend to hell. Persephone is kidnapped by Pluto who wears a helmet of invisibility so no one sees him coming.
The Visit
In the fall of 1988 when I was eleven years old, the second major religious crises of my life was brewing. My mother was finished with the Presbyterian Church I had belonged to my entire life. They had accused her of secretly going through the minister’s files. Looking back I always believed in her innocence but with more time and experience, I do think it is possible she might have gone through the files and did not want to have to face everyone. So in November 1988, she told me we weren’t ever going back to “that church”. I immediately called my friend and neighbor Kathryn and told her I was free to roam the neighborhood as soon as she could come over. My mom, me and our terrier Jacques were all waiting for her on the porch. Kathryn had just arrived with her Doberman Pincher Delly and the second floor porch was already filled with the happy ruckus that occurred just before we set off for the day when a car full of people came down the driveway and pulled to a stop. Two big men got out of the car. Kathryn started holding Delly back because she could sometimes take a dislike to someone and be aggressive. They had parked halfway up the driveway so they walked toward us and then ascended the ten stairs and stopped on the last step. One stepped with one leg onto the porch with all of us. All of this caused me to pause, I didn’t want to leave my mom alone with all these strangers. We told them their friends could get out of the car but they said they were fine. It seemed strange.
They gave a short speech about the Bible. Then they asked her what God’s name was and she couldn’t remember. This was news to me as I didn’t know God had a name. They named God. Gemini Jupiter. She laughed a bit when they said it and said “I knew you were Jehovah’s Witnesses but I couldn’t think of God’s name.” That was the exact moment that I and I alone became mind controlled. My mom confirmed the name word. They had just become religious authorities to me. These folks were on a first name basis with God. I had just been captured. She asked if I wanted the magazines and I said yes. So she obtained two and politely said she didn’t know they had a church around here. They told her where it was in the next county and she said she knew the road. They told her the time they met and then left. Kathryn and I went about our day. I read the magazines from cover to cover and even took them to school with me to reread between classes. The next Sunday I got up early and got dressed for church and told mom I thought we should go to the church and we did. They met three times a week. I never stopped hating going to religious meetings but I knew I had to (my religious authority said it was a requirement of God) so I went against my personal tastes.
Unbeknownst to me, Capricorn Neptune and the Moon were conjunct my Ascendant, Venus the ruler of my 9th house north node was transiting my north node, and transiting Gemini Jupiter (twin preachers, name of God) was exactly conjunct my Gemini Venus. I won’t go into all of the details but I will follow the path.
There in the transit horoscope 12th and 1st house you see all of us standing on the porch (in red). This porch had to be climbed and then one displayed a leg. Capricorn. The deceivers were there as Capricorn Neptune speaking to my mother the Capricorn Moon. It is not there in the transit horoscope but, in my blue horoscope, I was standing just to their right. This is where my Ascendant intercepts the transit horoscope. Off to their left in the 12th house is Delly the Sagittarius Uranus being restrained by Kathryn the Capricorn Saturn. The porch was also one of my childhood playgrounds. It was large and had a roof so when it rained I played there. For me, it was a 5th house place and there the transiting Gemini Jupiter is exactly conjunct my Gemini Venus. The name of God was the trigger for me to shift my path in life and when I heard it I didn’t pause I put my feet on the path.
Finding Your North Node Path in a World of Infinite Possibilities
I have a 9th house north node. This is the natural house of Sagittarius. Sagittarius is ruled by Jupiter and it is the house of God. My path forward in life was always going to occur in 9th house places. These places include churches, university, supreme courts and long distance travel. One of the interesting things about the astrological timing to change my 9th house path is that it happened outside the 9th house. It started in the 1st house and actually occurred in the 5th house. Sagittarius is the fast moving centaur who looses arrows to follow them.
We don’t know where and how astrological timing will affect us because we don’t yet completely understand the mechanics of the 12th house. Astrological timing is ultimately a 12th house matter. I started this article telling you that the 12th house is all around you, in every direction, at all times. The aether. There is no direct connection between planets in my 1st and 5th house. There is no connection between Capricorn and Gemini zodiac signs in my 1st and 5th house. I cannot describe how but the sign posts to tell me where to go on my karmic path are connected in the realm of the 12th house. Neptune was represented by two men who climbed that porch and told me the Christian God’s name and I responded like I had heard a siren call. The very next Sunday I went to the 9th house and began to intensely study a religion they call “the truth”. It is a pack of lies. My karmic path was never about getting to the destination it was about following the arrow’s journey along the way. That is a 9th house north node.
This path change altered the course of my life. An astrologer will tell you the year or so when Neptune is conjunct your Ascendant to trust no one. That leaves the question could I have escaped. The next article will discuss fate.