Ixion inconjunct Varuna

I hope you are enjoying today's sextile between the Sun and Varuna, our new planet of mastery consciousness and supreme sovereignty, which is at 9 degrees of Leo. This is a good day to hang out your shingle for any endeavour where you are taking a new step in some area of your life, or claiming a greater sovereignty in some way.

Bliss, Sovereignty, and a Fated Life

There has also been a quietly compelling tension in the sky for the last few months as Varuna has been forming an inconjunct to Ixion, our planet of seeker consciousness — the wild, passionate, lawless inner force that asks "are the rules we're playing by actually the right ones?" - which is currently at 8 degrees of Capricorn. In the 150-degree space between them, something genuinely interesting is being asked of us.

A big thank you, first, to everyone who downloaded the promotional Kindle edition of my new book The Astrology of Ixion: Pluto's Lawless Brother, Our New Seeker Consciousness last week. We had almost one thousand downloads — which is wonderful! If you enjoyed it, please spread the word, write a review on Amazon, or simply tell a friend. It means more than you know.

Ixion is all about following your bliss. He is the part of us that has the joy and inventiveness and sheer passionate urgency to pursue what we are most authentically called toward, even when — especially when — it requires pushing the envelope, bending the rules, and asking for forgiveness rather than permission. He is not asking us to be reckless; he is asking us to be real. To own the inner seeker who knows, in the gut, what our authentic path is, and who has the courage to walk it.

Varuna asks something complementary but different. He asks us to build mastery — to claim our sovereignty through persistent, devoted, visible offering of what we do best over time, until our notability creates its own gravity and others willingly give us the authority we have genuinely earned. Sovereignty for Varuna is a dance between our intention and the collective psyche: we step forth and say "I can do this," and we keep doing it until the world agrees.

The inconjunct between them is a fated aspect which has been in effect since the beginning of March. During this time it has not been forcing a confrontation nor offering a smooth, easy flow. Instead, it has been moving between these two modes — sometimes allowing Ixion and Varuna to work together in a beautiful, organic way, and at other times creating a disconnect that we feel in our bones: a gap between who we most authentically are and the sovereign position we most want to hold in the world. We cannot force this aspect into resolution. We can only feel into which mode it is operating in on any given day, and respond with intelligence and honesty.

The invitation at the heart of this aspect is to let the two energies genuinely inform each other. When they flow, we discover that following our bliss is not in tension with building sovereignty — it is the very path toward it. Our authentic passion, expressed persistently and with integrity, is exactly what earns us the standing that Varuna represents. The seeker and the sovereign turn out to be the same person, approached from different angles.

And when the disconnect arises, that too is teaching us something. It is showing us where our sovereignty as we currently hold it is not yet grounded in our genuine authentic nature — where we are performing mastery rather than living it, or conversely, where our bliss is pulling us away from the sustained, visible, engaged presence that sovereignty actually requires.

In either mode, our lives are being shaped in a fated way by this interplay. Something is being formed here that we could not engineer deliberately. The inconjunct works slowly and beneath the surface, and what it produces over time is a deeper integration between who we truly are and what we are genuinely here to offer.

At the unconscious level of both planets, this aspect can manifest as a troubled relationship between authenticity and authority. If we are not genuinely being ourselves — if Ixion's energy is still operating through compulsion, broken promises, and the disregard of others' needs — we may find that disreputable people begin appearing in our lives who challenge our sovereignty in uncomfortable ways. This is the aspect's signal that something needs to be brought into alignment. The external challenge is mirroring an internal inauthenticity.

For those of us on the spiritual path, the practical guidance is to sit regularly with both questions that these planets pose. Ixion asks: am I actually following my bliss, or am I following the version of my path that seems most acceptable, most safe, most likely to earn approval? And Varuna asks: am I doing the sustained, visible, engaged work of building my mastery — am I showing up where the body politic needs me, as well as where my passion leads me?

When we can hold both questions at once, the inconjunct begins to reveal its gift. We learn to be authentically ourselves in our sovereign role, and to build our sovereignty through authentic expression. We learn that the dance between Ixion's passionate individuality and Varuna's impartial, thousand-eyed knowing is not a contradiction but a creative tension — one that, over time, produces something that neither planet could generate alone: a life that is at once genuinely ours and genuinely offered, in full sovereignty, to the world.

This aspect will go out of 1 degree orb in a week, so you might ask yourself this week: where in my life am I most authentically myself, and is that the same place where I am most visibly building my mastery? If not, what would it look like to bring those two places closer together? The inconjunct will not resolve in a single insight, but the question itself — held honestly and returned to — is the work.

Exploring Varuna In Your Own Chart

If this Ixion inconjunct Varuna has illuminated something about the relationship between your authentic self and your sovereign path, our Varuna 101 Online Course is a rich and practical place to deepen that exploration. I have a few last scholarships to encourage you. Be quick to grab one.

Over six weeks, in this course you will discover exactly where Varuna lives in your personal chart and what his house position, aspects, and transits are asking of you specifically. The consciousness exercises are designed to help you onboard Varuna's mastery energy into your actual lived experience — not just as an intellectual understanding, but as a felt, embodied sovereignty.

Varuna 101 - Scholarship

NZ$270.00NZ$100.00

Buy Now

Because I will be traveling through this period - teaching workshops and giving talks in the US, the UK and Canada - this course is only being offered at the 9pm GMT Zoom time, which fortunately is the session that works for everyone. There also will be a weekend off for the UAC conference on the weekend of the 5th and 6th of September, which will turn the Aspect fortnight into a 3 week period, giving you extra time for your aspect assignment.

May your bliss and your sovereignty find each other, and shape something fated and real in your life. I hope you can join us on Varuna and thanks for your work embracing these new aspects of consciousness. 

Love and laughter

Alan

I absolutely loved the class! As a first time student of astrology, I can honestly say that aside from Alan  (a wonderful teacher and guide), every one of the students in the class was a teacher for me. I learned so much and can’t wait for the next class to begin. - Mary Anne Pitt, USA