Atlantis: The quest for power

Mercury represents thinking, learning, communicating faculties. It imparts the capacity to rationalise, imagine and mentally identify with the world. It represents our ability to express abstracts as well as facts. It drives physical movement, learning of skills and mental and physical dexterity. This planet represents the drive to use verbal, mental and negotiating skills to express ourselves imaginatively and factually. It governs all forms of communication - the urge to do so as well as the way we do it. Physical mobility is also shown by Mercury and the planet also connects to health of the body and mind. Its principle is 'exchange'. The connection between the mind and the mouth is a Mercury function. As the 'messenger' its function is dual - it carries information to and from the mind, in a constant flow of impressions, facts, reasoning, sensory experiences and analyses that information.

Venus represents pleasure, relating, evaluating, loving and caring. It helps us to decide what is relevant to well being and happiness, what is irrelevant and what is bad. It is the urge to seek companionship and love to feel good about ourselves, so has to do with self esteem. It enables us to judge and appraise. Venus is the subconscious desire to form unions with others, and is our willingness to cooperate. It also allows us to enjoy the things that bring pleasure - aesthetics as well as physical . It is not a highly energetic drive, but one that enables us to seek relatedness.

Mars represents the energy used in asserting, ourselves, in fighting for what we wish to achieve and in taking decisive action. If any one word sums Mars. up it is 'action'. It is the drive and ability to take up challenges. use initiative, force and effort, stand up for ones self, defensively or aggressively. It urges competitiveness - to take chances. Daring, courage and leadership are all connected to Mars. It represents self will and spirited expression of ego. Mars can also be expressed as anger, frustration and rage, so it is essentially a primitive instinctive energy. It empowers us to be bold in anything we seek to achieve, but does not have much to do with tact or diplomacy!

THE SOCIAL PLANETS

Jupiter - This is energy used in expanding, growing, enlarging and exploring a wider scope in life, to challenge existing norms in society. It represents the ability to set our own ethical, moral and legal limits and to achieve a higher level of awareness, education, power and experience. In broadening ourselves we broaden our horizons so it also expresses a desire to venture beyond the known into the unknown,through travel, philosophical matters and extend life experience to its ultimate and beyond. It enables us to grow beyond boundaries set by 'norms' of family and society, to develop and flourish. Because this is a very vital urge, similar in some ways to the Sun and Mars it also tends to urge us to spread ourselves too thinly, to amplify and exaggerate our abilities, but even in doing so, we grow in wisdom and prosper through the driving power of this planet.

Saturn is the compressive energy of discipline, limiting and structuring. It empowers us to apply self -regulating habits and is the desire and ability to achieve maturity and status by living our lives according to set norms and paradigms. It is connected to family and the feeling of security that traditions bring. It has a negative side too, as do all the planets, because in the desire to conform to standards set by time and hierarchies it can make us fearful of change and self defeating, limiting growth, through conservatism or fear of change. We use this planetary model in establishing routines and goals that are comfortable, so that it works to balance some of the expansive drive of Jupiter. It is the side of us that is law abiding, rather than challenging the law and enables us to build solid worthwhile structures in life that allow us to prosper through preserving and regulating life. Ambitions and goals that are established with the Saturn side of the psyche are usually attainable but demand hard, slow, sometimes laborious application of set routines and standards. Negatively it can express as pessimism.

THE TRANSPERSONAL OR OUTER PLANETS

Uranus is the urge to 'make waves' and change things in a radical, sometimes disruptive way. It expresses self will and the urge to upset the status quo by shattering the structural norms of society. As an 'outer' planet, it's orbit means that it will stay in one sign for 7 years, so many of the people born in a 7 year period will have this planet in the same sign. Astrologers view it as 'generational' or a 'collective' energy, and it is notable as the rebellious side of our natures, often expressed in similar ways to our peers. It drives us to seek others who are in some way unique and is the model on which we seek perfection by challenging and improving on the present, through "futuristic' ideas. So it is the part of us that is progressive, inventive and insubordinate! Negatively it can manifest in instability, knee jerk reactions to life, highly strung nervous reactions and chaotic thinking. It can make us inspirational and reformative as well as unrealistic and bizarre! It creates a desire for excitement and change by being eccentric, perverse, original and brilliant.

Neptune - the dreamy, deceptive, illusionary and imaginative, escapist side of human nature. It is a model for feeling that are intangible, romantic, magical and mystical, altruistic and unconditionally loving, but can also express in feelings of being victimised, living in world of unreality, avoiding facts and embracing fantasy. It gives us the capacity to role play, to create illusions, to express its energy through music, art, spirituality and imagination. This planet empowers us to shifts in consciousness, to express ideals and visions, and is a 'generational' model, staying for 14 years in one sign. All that is self deceptive and deceptive towards others is connected with Neptune. It can bring escapist tendencies, trigger addictive behaviour and emotional hypersensitivity. It enables one to cope or change by transcending life's difficulties, enables a subtle acceptance that we do not always get what we think we deserve, and imbues us with faith that we have a higher purpose in life and will attain it by maintaining faith. It brings religious fervour a belief in a higher power and is often prominent in those who have mediumistic or clairvoyant tendencies.

Pluto is the drive to transform, completely change, and understand the deepest, darkest parts of the self. It can urge us to be destructive, but also to bring about positive reformative and complete changes. It connects to the deepest unconscious side of the personality, where there is a connection with the realms of the collective unconscious, so through Pluto we can be swept along with the flood tides of collective change. This occurs outwardly through death and destruction but there is a part of us that is compulsively attracted to the darker side of humanity so it often experienced as an urge to investigate and uncover the complex issues of the human condition. We might call it the urge to turn life into something entirely new by completely destroying old habits, old relationships, old affiliations, so as to effect rebirth of some part of the psyche. It represents our fascination with evil, and dark forces, but is an instinctive understanding that freedom is found by getting rid of and eliminating parts of the self and life that tie us too close to material life. Thus is represents the highest and deepest form of death and rebirth to a spiritual dimension. It can evoke violence and forceful passions in people and as a collective energy can have a mass effect as much as a personal one.

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