Day 16/100

Squares 33-37 + Grand Cross Part 4/4

Today is Day 16 of The 100 Day Project! For my intro, see 100 days of creativity.

I’ve skipped a couple days of posting, and in the meantime I caught up on the five squares I needed to make between Wednesday and Sunday. Instead of posting each individually, I’ve decided to give a look at how the blanket has progressed so far, and I’ll post a new progress photo each week. In five more days, the third strip (out of nine total) will be complete!

I love how this project is teaching me about the beauty of welcoming imperfection, because each square is totally individual in terms of exactly how it comes out. While generally the same size, the tension tends to change ever-so-slightly with each square. I’m also enjoying the slow, methodical pace of this project. Knowing that I’m at March 9 and the project won’t be complete until the beginning of June helps me to physically embody the truth that not everything has to be done in a hurry, and that small progress day by day can lead to big results.

Grand Cross Part 4/4

Today we’ll wrap our exploration of John Coltrane’s birth chart by diving into the squares in the grand cross we’ve been looking at in four parts.

The two oppositions we looked at are the Mars-Saturn 3/9 and the Neptune-Jupiter 6/12. There are four squares in this configuration: Mars square Neptune 3/6 and Mars square Jupiter 3/12, plus Saturn square Jupiter 9/12 and Saturn square Neptune 9/6. Where might we start? Perhaps the best way is to examine each planetary energy and try to characterize how it might interact based on the square, or tense, dynamic. The energies would flow more easily if they were to interact in a sextile or trine aspect, because they would share the same polarity (active/receptive) or the same element, respectively. In the square aspect, the signs are in different elements so they inherently don’t see eye to eye on how they want to accomplish their aims.

Mars in Taurus (earth) 3rd and Neptune in Leo (fire) 6th

Mars wants to take action and get things done, while Neptune wants to flow and feel its way intuitively through things as it seeks to dissolve into the transcendent All in All. Neptune clouds things, Mars wants to move forward clearly. Imagine driving through the fog without the proper headlights—you’re moving, but you can’t quite see where you’re going. What can Mars and Neptune learn from each other? Mars, especially here in Taurus, can help Neptune try to get its head out of the clouds and come back down to earth to accomplish things in the real world. Neptune in Leo can help Mars learn how to take action not only from a place of force and conflict but also by looking within and seeking to find courage through trusting intuitive impulses. This square can feel like wanting to take action (Mars) in a grounded way (Taurus) to communicate ideas or knowledge (3rd house) and feeling confused or disillusioned (Neptune) when trying to lead, express the self, or perform (Leo) on a daily basis in mundane work (6th). There’s a dynamic tension between energetically acting and receptively knowing—both have their place but here in the square they don’t really understand each other.

Mars in Taurus (earth) 3rd and Jupiter in Aquarius (air) 12th

We’ve already examined Mars, so what happens when it meets Jupiter in Aquarius? This Jupiter has the lens of rational, freedom-loving Aquarius, which wants to find ways to innovate and revolutionize society for the greater good. It’s an intellectually driven sign that likes to think things through and find solutions. Jupiter wants to expand and find meaning, and in Aquarius it focuses on growing this expansion through the collective. In the 12th, that resonates with what we saw in Coltrane’s liner notes for A Love Supreme: “During the year 1957, I experienced, by the grace of God, a spiritual awakening which was to lead me to a richer, fuller, more productive life. At that time, in gratitude, I humbly asked to be given the means and privilege to make others happy through music.” In these two sentences alone, we see Jupiter expansion, 12th-house spirituality, and Aquarius’ desire to serve the collective.

The tension comes when this transcendent spiritual desire to grow and expand runs into Mars in Taurus in the 3rd, which wants to be practical in the way it takes action. How do the high spiritual aims for the collective of Jupiter in Aquarius reconcile themselves with the need for Mars to take practical action in the physical world in a way that remains grounded in the local community?

Saturn in Scorpio (water) 9th and Jupiter in Aquarius (air) 12th

Now this Jupiter meets Saturn in Scorpio in the 9th. Scorpio water is intuitive and emotionally intense, Aquarius air is rational and analytical. Saturn wants to create boundaries and structure and limits, while Jupiter wants to expand, so they have to find a compromise. Jupiter wouldn’t mind the 9th house, where it can explore and broaden its horizons, but Saturn there wants to keep things under control and possibly even inhibit these adventurous tendencies both geographically and intellectually. Saturn can lend structure to a very expansive Jupiter, helping it to make its spiritual ideals more concrete, while Jupiter can give Saturn the courage to go beyond its comfort zone. If they don’t find a way to work together, it can feel similar to the Saturn/Mars dynamic of an accelerator hampered by a brake pedal, except in these houses it would look more like an inhibition of the natural inclination to expand spiritual boundaries and travel widely.

Saturn in Scorpio (water) 9th and Neptune in Leo (fire) 6th

Now this Saturn meets Neptune, so we have the desire for boundaries and restrictions meeting the need to dissolve and transcend.

The tricky part of a grand cross is that there are so many moving parts that it can be hard to synthesize them all. That’s why it’s important to look for overall themes that keep repeating themselves. In this grand cross we see spirit and matter as a theme—there’s a struggle between wanting to produce something concrete, tangible, lasting and useful in the “real” world while at the same time a desire to serve a higher ideal and purpose that transcends the physical world. There’s also a tension between trusting deep, intuitive, emotional impulses and pushing forward with analytical and rational reasoning. We also see expansion and restriction as a theme—how is it possible to spread creative artistry to as large an audience as possible without any limits, dissolving into the collective, while also staying faithful to the need for discipline, structure and boundaries? The fixed nature of this grand cross means that the tension is so inflexible it becomes nearly unbearable without finding outlets for compromise (which, luckily, come by way of those trines to Saturn from Uranus and Pluto as well as the Mars-Venus trine and Mars-Pluto sextile; Pluto, Mars, and Venus form a minor grand trine.)