The Left Angle Cross of Upheaval (Version 1)

Full breakdown

With Juxtaposition, we were dealing with fixed destiny and its own private line. But cross into the left angle and you land in transpersonality, where an actual exchange takes place — this is where Upheaval lives. There's a Canadian expression Ra loved, roughly 'the shit-disturber,' and it fits this cross perfectly — these people wander around pressing buttons, the great button-pushers. They stick their noses in where they don't belong and generate more tension than almost any other cross on the planet — that's simply their job.

Every left-angle cross has two variations across its fifth and sixth lines, and the fifth line here is especially interesting. Gate 18 is the only line out of 384 connected to therapy — meaning you either become a therapist yourself or end up thoroughly dependent on therapy, one or the other; you're either the mental patient or the one helping them. So Upheaval can be genuinely disruptive — it turns everything over. It troubles some people badly, but it's always provocative.

The fifth line always draws projection, and here others project onto these people that they cause trouble — you could just as easily call this the Cross of the Jinx, since it carries a reputation for bad luck, simply because these people turn everything over. But stirring the pot is a healthy act. Drop into a town like Sedona, where half the population is quietly waiting to die, and it's genuinely good to shake things up and wake everyone up.

Looking at any of these configurations, you're looking at genetic aspects of the whole — the people living them out are living necessary components of the total picture. Our small moralizing means nothing against that. We may not like the provocateurs who disturb our comfortable status quo, but they can be enormously useful. When people live their false self, meeting one of them isn't pleasant — they're provocative, upending, powerfully influential.

The sixth line of gate 18 is the sweetest thing imaginable, the Path of Buddha. Gate 18, the gate of Oedipus/Electra, means these people have unresolved issues with a parent — and remember, arriving in the world with a sixth line means being spoiled. In other words, people who arrive in the world with Upheaval and 18.6 can only really operate in the lives of people who let them. 'Please, come stir up my life. Please, come bring me trouble — you're wonderful at it.'