Astrologer OPA ’ s Quarterly Magazine V24-02 JUNE SOLSTICE 2015 page 28
Spiritual Impact
Ram Dass has been obliged during his life to live the polarity between the fierce ARIES and demanding CANCER archetypes locked in a mythic square that pits the fire against the water energies , challenging the expansive self- generated imperative against the collecting , yielding and preserving ones .
Moon in Sagittarius aspected by Mars / Leo and Neptune / Virgo
Adding to the spicy conundrum just referred to is a can-do MARS / LEO / 1st trining an expansive MOON / SAG / 5TH . There is considerable go-for-it energy in those individual elements alone and exponentially more so with the facilitating trine connecting them . These fiery , confident dynamics have , during his career as an explorer of liberation , spurred him into action mode towards the various experiments in the mystical domain , which the transpersonal influences have relentlessly and unconsciously proposed to his nimble psyche .
The Moon in Sagittarius , the ruler of his turbocharged Cancer Asc , is highly activated in his chart . Beyond the MARS trine , it is in powerfully strengthened by mutual reception with Jupiter / Cancer / 12th .
Additionally , Neptune Rx in Virgo and the 3rd house figures in with a flooding square to the Moon . We have then in Ram Dass a SUN , ASCENDANT , & MOON each with significant contact from the transpersonal planets . The NEPTUNE square , rather than serving as a dreamy and artful infusion from the lord of other worlds , lends to his emotional expression a dissatisfaction with the mundane and routine : welcome Lady LSD , and an experimental life on the edge .
Egging him on as well with an edgy urgency to his fierce explorations is the Aries Sun / Uranus / Nodal combo loosely squared by Saturn / Capricorn , on the 7th house cusp . No smooth ride for Richard Alpert , however rich Dad was .
Neptune , Venus & Mercury in natal aspect
. Richard Albert was an excelling student and turned his practical researches from the grounded Taurus Mercury more to the ‘ inspired ’ side of life , with the help of Neptune trining it from Virgo . Such an aspect is a most excellent inner cocktail for researching experientially the hallucinogenic effects on the physical body and psyche .
Neptune / Virgo / 3rd offers yet again her transpersonal influence in the form of an opposition to Venus / Pisces / 9 th . This blessed blend of transpersonal influences in the VIRGO / PISCES axis marks the quintessence of an evolving soul the compassionate state of mind . It is a likely call to devoted service , to the activation of the inquiring heart , and to a love of higher learning in its most spiritual dimensions . Harvard University is not enough here , but rather the Cosmic Universality .
With so much grit to transform amid the grace , there is scant room to easily bliss out , or go delusional , as some of the Neptune action might suggest . Given the ubiquitous transpersonal stream flooding little Richard Alpert from day one , there was very little chance that the young fellow would simply get out of this life as Richard Alpert , PhD from Boston and a few notable research papers .
He is Here Now as Ram Dass , - Compassionate Servant , Conscious Mensch .
DESCRIPTION OF 3 LIFE-ALTERING EVENTS AS RICHARD ALPERT AND RAM DASS LSD : Loosening the knot , - at Play in the Fields of the Lord ( strawberry fields ) - May 5 , 1961
Just before the age of 30 and coming to the end of his Capricorn Saturn return , Richard
Alpert and Tim Leary blew open the doors of perception with their initial LSD experiment , the first of many unpredictable excursions into the inner landscape . The profound astrological context of that day included :
- Transiting Nodal axis had been conjunct Pluto and then natal Neptune / Virgo / 3rd for some time , all of which opposed natal Venus / Pisces / 9th - a signature invitation to altered states .
That Neptune / Nodal formation is in a T-square to his Moon / Sag . The transiting NN / Pluto also trines natal Mercury / Taurus . This is a set-up for a radical re-visitation to non-rational realities and emotional habit patterns , as well as a natural flow to the imaginative mind .
- Also on that particular day , and acting as triggers is a rectangle formation involving transiting Uranus / Leo / 1st opposing Mercury / Aquarius , then trine to Venus in Aries , and sextile Moon in Libra / 4th )
From this geometry , one might say that Richard Alpert was destined to have his emotional mind quite literally blown , courtesy the outer planets , the nodes , and the electric revolutionary astro-weather of that day .
Following these interior revels were 6 years of active experimentation that involved chipping away at neurosis and prestige , and ego de-construction . Still dis-
The Career
Astrologer OPA ’ s Quarterly Magazine V24-02 JUNE SOLSTICE 2015 page 28