through the sign in June, giving us insights into what we need and can do with our increased sensitivity.
This would certainly be a challenge by itself. But when we add to it Uranus and Pluto, which have taken up long-term
residence in Aries and Capricorn, a lot of connections are being made beneath the surface to bring about the
effects we have been working hard to create for so long. The Rite of Mars on Tuesday July 2nd took place not in
the originally slated Kandahar Air Field in Afghanistan but rather in the Lower Bottoms in the heat of the
California Sun.Fireworks resulted, quite literally, with a series of piercing truths that reverberated deep into the soul, then exploded in a flashing display of life realignment. Hello Kiddies, the IAO Core Pop Up Store, which was made manifest on the physical plane on the streets of Renaissance Oakland (specifically the corner of 24th and Valley, between Telegraph and Broadway) for the First Friday Art Murmur on the 5th. What was so cool about the IAO Core Pop Up Store? 30 of ya'll bought the brand spanking new issue of The Core (#147) and otherwise got their mitts on the largest selection of IAO Core memorabilia available: Tour Posters, Tour Shirts, rare IAO Core CD's. Special guests performed requests of your favorite IAO Core tunes and watched the new videos
from this Summer's Rites of Eleusis Tour on the big screen.....Next up, the Rite of the Sun which will take place
Sunday, July 14th at Pine Bottom Park in Oakland, right across the street from our
This Mercury retrograde, how's that been treating you, huh? Most of Mercury's pass is bassackward through an
empty patch of sky we like to call an "Empty Patch of Sky" in stark contrast to where it was in February-March,
when it was caugh in flagrante with nearly all of the planets. What happens when Mercury meets thin air? Mercury is
the Messenger of the Gods (planets), and when he doesn’t run into any of them in the course of his
backward travel, he has no packets to carry to us. There are no special messages about how to adjust to make things
flow more smoothly, by direct action. In Cancer, this has to do with our feelings and “instinctuitions”, which our
mind often blocks. During the retrograde the mind (Mercury) is disengaged, and we may find ourselves compelled
to take certain actions, perhaps even unconsciously. We may respond to long-standing dilemmas in a new way.
Ray Bolger, the essteemed actor who played the scarecrow in the original MgM Wizard of Oz, once dated my
grandmother (knowing her I can't beleive they didn't respond to long-standing dilemmas in a new way by having sex!)
Ironically, just like a special Aquarius friend of mine. (Yes, I know all Aquarians are special friends of mine),
but anywho, lets get back to my Grandma and the Scarecrow. Ray( a Virgo) had two versions of Brain Damage, but no
Eclipse! I might expose my special friend to the phenomenon now affectionately called.
"The Dark Side of the Rainbow" as she is still a virgin in that regard.) Mr. Bolger used to call everything names,
and when he ran out of names he called them numbers, and when he ran out of numbers he called
the police. They gave him a series of classified numbers in exchange for a suitable amount of disinformation,
and off he went again, railing spools of numerals at countless items, some of which he had to hallucinate in order to
satisfy the quota he’d been granted. In the end he expired with a single number on his tongue – the number of duality, 2 –
and it was this number which served as the only designation on his tombstone. A sad footnote: the engraver (some say a Taoist, some say a student of the occult) rendered the number as a horizontal line overlain by a broken line (the ‘yang’ and ‘yin’ of heathen theosophy).
Around the year 2000 AD, some vandals scorched a circle around the lines, reducing the binary epitaph to a mockery of
the vulgar hedonistic pictogram of orthodox latterday hippiedom: a ‘happy face’ with deadened eyes and slack smile.
Have a Morose day. A skink rolled across his grave in the form of a pentacle. I can't help but think he would have
gotten a kick outta that! In case you didn't catch the timing (Timing is Everything) on this years Metaversal
Lightcraft Tantra Workshop, it coincides with the performance of the Rites of Eleusis by my band of time-traveling
sex magicians, IAO Core... and I/We, there is great wisdom in our instinctual knowing, our irrational senses,
and our intuitive insights, because they give evidence of the soul’s true desires and purpose. This is the time to
let them come forward and become firmly ensconced in our core, where our purpose and intention lie. If you are celebrating
birth cycle (solar return) chart. Lucky you! You’ll be learning about something you never knew before, treading
in unfamiliar territory. The years when Mercury is retrograde in your birth-cycle chart (once every eight years)
are exciting and memorable. (Cancers, think back eight years to see if that isn’t true.) How can we use the new
four-month Mercury season for our greatest benefit? For each person, the effects are individual, especially when
Mercury encounters none of the planets we hold in common (the transiting planets). If your birth chart carries
placements at 13-23° in any Cardinal sign, a spotlight will shine on those planets, prompting a transformation
involving a situation symbolized by those placements. You will experience an unfolding of personal growth, with
inner transformations during the retrograde. While we can introduce outer changes during this time, they will
dealwith the past until July 9, when we enter the next four-month Mercury cycle. We turn to what’s new on July 9
(the Sun-Mercury conjunction or New Mercury), and we have the next 3½ months to bring those changes forward in
our visible world. To use this energy well, do not hesitate to take action during a Mercury retrograde if it is
called for, but don’t contrive anything just to get a response.
We are tempted to do this especially when we feel like nothing is happening. Other planetary milestones came as
Saturn’s retrograde finally ended on July 7, and Uranus’s commences on July 17.
Venus in Leo challenges us to use Saturn well by outlasting the obstacles and masks of separation.
In these Fixed signs, we succeed by using attrition (to dissolve the old energies) and perseverance
(to build the new). Doubts must be cast out. If you want it, stick with it unwaveringly.As Uranus enters
its retrograde, we get to see what seeds we planted at the end of March, whether we’ve been tending them well. They carry the gift of love, and the nurturance we give them will not be wasted, even if success seems unlikely now. With flighty and reactionary Uranus, a light touch is all that is required to bring the right amount of fertile shock into the situation that needs shifting. Above all, Uranus wants freedom, and in Aries he stands up for the sanctity of individuality. Stand up for yourself without impinging on others, and you’ll have the balance right.
Our selfhood is a work in progress that Uranus will help us see in a more nuanced form that has been
evolving since 2010. Before we can reinvent the world, we have to reinvent ourselves.
We have to make up new stories about ourselves, and rewrite the tales we tell about our past in terms
of the “wins”—the lessons we learned—and our inner reality, not the way others see and judge what occurred.
As we get our doses of “Full Pluto”—the awakening to transformation throughout June-July, we understand with
growing clarity what we stand for, and how we need to reimagine who we are. When we are doing well in society’s
terms, we tend to hang on to the structures we have built around us; but when things aren’t going so well,
we often feel have less to lose and are willing to step more fully into living by what we know to be
