Category: Spiritual Astrology

Cinco de Mayo – Powerful Full Moon

Saturday, 05 May 2012 07:54 0 Comments

There is a very strong Moon coming into fullness at 8:35 pm (PST) on May 5th. The Sun in grounded, earthy, sensual Taurus will shine its light to the Moon in Scorpio. Scorpio is known for its intensity, whether it is deep truth and honesty or wounding transformed into true power. Strong feelings are likely to be evoked in the next hours as we are drawn deep into our shadow material. The gift is the possibility of seeing and transforming our wounded patterns as we opening ourselves to solid emotional comfort and security. The shadow risk is that we fall into our wound more deeply, stubborn and stuck. This Moon is at 16 degrees and 01 minute. If you have fixed sign planets around the mid degrees you will be more strongly affected, yet we are all feeling this powerful build up even now.

I love to meditate with Full Moons, drawing in the energies deeply, consciously co-creating with the power of Light and reflection. This Moon is ‘perigee’ which means it is the closest it gets to the earth and will be large and bright as it comes up over the horizon at dusk, definitely worth looking at.

Although it would be appropriate to meditate any time during the day to connect with the positive energies of this Moon, I would suggest beginning around 8 pm or 8:15 pm through to 8:35 pm. Begin by calling in the energy of the Sun, feeling the solar qualities as you intuitively feel them, but perhaps guiding yourself to feel for strength, earth, sensuality, security, ease and flow to run through you. Then call in the energy of the Moon, drawing in depth, intensity, truth, transformation, integrity and power. Imagine these feelings and energies mixing within you, asking that you be a vehicle for their highest expression. Both signs are related to financial security and wealth. Gratitude for what you have and a wish for security and comfort for all sentient beings might be an appropriate affirmation as well.

Fear of Retrogrades

Sunday, 18 March 2012 18:55 0 Comments

Fear of astrological transits, and especially retrogrades, can be lurking below the surface of our general astrological dialogue, affecting our emotions and behaviors. For this reason, I’m often ambivalent about writing about future transits. It’s nice to know what’s happening astrologically, to feel like we’re in alignment with these symbolic weather patterns, but when we attach seriously to edicts of what to do or not to do, we begin to lose our sense of soul centered power, our ability to simply live in the moment intuitively. It can be challenging to balance the value of living consciously in alignment with astrological cycles and the trust to simply live consciously.

Recently someone asked me about the prospect of beginning a relationship in the current Mars retrograde cycle (January 23rd to April 13th). She had been told that initiating a sexual relationship in a Mars retrograde ‘would end up in disaster’. Followed strictly, that would mean not becoming intimate with someone she’d been seeing for awhile. They both felt ready to take things to the next step. Should they wait for three months? Does that mean every relationship commenced in this time period will end up in disaster? What actually qualifies as disaster?

We’re also in Mercury retrograde, also considered to be an inauspicious time for starting anything. With Mercury, conventional wisdom focuses on communications issues, equipment breaking and problems with traveling, To begin a relationship under Mercury retrograde is associated with problems with communication as if Mercury will somehow ’cause’ the problems.

And let’s not forget Saturn. We are in a Saturn retrograde that began on February 7th and continues to June 24th. Saturn rules business and the structures we create in the material plane. Most would suggest that we don’t begin new ventures during this time period either, but focus instead on working on what we’ve already committed to, setting boundaries to define what works and what doesn’t.

Should we just sit around and watch television for the first half of the year? I don’t think so. When we think of planets causing misfortune, calamities, disasters and problems because we began something in a retrograde time, we can feel paralyzed and then begin to manipulate our way through life feeling disempowered and disconnected from our intuition. This is not the best use of astrology, nor of our life force.

From an intuitive view, I would suggest that we are operating always in alignment with the planetary energies, because we are the planets. Looking at astrological forecasts and charts simply gives us a language to help explain what we’re feeling or what we feel compelled to do, the kind of flow, challenge or complication that might be within at the particular time.

One of the most intense relationships of my life began under a Mars retrograde. It was definitely not easy, nor was it a disaster. I learned about my own Mars and how it operated (or in fact didn’t operate) in my life. Anger, assertion, ego and physicality were highlighted in that dynamic and combustible dance that brought me into another round of therapy. The healing I accomplished was profound. I wouldn’t have been the same person without it. Was it a bad relationship because it happened to start it under the retrograde and would it have been calm and peaceful if we’d waited a couple of months? (I know absolutely not!) … or did the retrograde define the energy I was called to review in that cycle of life?

I’m not saying we should all completely ignore the current triplet of retrogrades and charge forward into projects and relationships. Probably most of us are in alignment with this review vibration internally anyway. I’m saying it’s not necessary to be afraid that planets are affecting us negatively and then putting our lives on hold. It’s a time to rethink, review and restructure the direction of our life force, our relationships and our business affairs. If that includes something that seems to want to start at this time, then start it. There is something you’re learning, healing or understanding here. Follow your gut instinct. Read documents carefully (always good advice!). In most cases, if there’s an problem you can do a re-start later. There are always more retrogrades and more reviews, and there’s never a perfect time in human reality. Life is complicated, messy, delightful.

Snap out of It! Aquarius New Moon

Monday, 23 January 2012 01:31 0 Comments

I’ve been pondering how people change. And whether we should even focus on change. Sometimes total acceptance and gratitude for every moment are really the answers.

Yet most of us are not completely in acceptance. We have issues and challenges we’d like to change, transform, or address in some way. We work on these ‘problems’, talk about them, process and perhaps debate whether they’re even changeable. The issues might be quite personal, like wanting to change jobs, lose or gain weight, find a relationship, have more money, eat more healthily. We might want to transform the glaring issues we see in our community or in another part of the world. We donate money; we volunteer.

What I notice is that most people circle around issues for quite a long time before they change. Most of us don’t change much at all in key areas or we change quite slowly. We end a relationship because we don’t feel it’s the right one only to pick another person, soon finding ourself in a similar relationship dilemma. We go on and off diets for various reasons. We donate money to a cause and then feel frustrated and dejected about its potential to really help. Intention becomes action and then fades to inaction.

And then it changes. Something happens and we snap. The friend we’ve been thinking about letting go of disappoints us just one time too many. We see a photo and are shocked at how we actually look. We see a community problem that hasn’t been fixed for years but we snap into an awareness that it really can be transformed.

One woman described her relationship snap. She had put up with several long relationships with men who weren’t really committed or present. Leaving the last one after several years of therapy and workshops, she was dating and feeling discouraged about ever finding a life mate. Then a man she was interested in called at the last minute to finalize details of a previously planned date, having left her wondering for days whether it was on or off. That was her snap moment. She told him she wasn’t interested in the date or in seeing him at all. That moment crystallized her sense of self worth to know she deserved and wanted a mate who would be reliable and committed. Weeks later that mate showed up and they are still married many years later.

We have a new Moon in Aquarius today. Aquarius is the sign of snap! Fast, unpredictable, lightning bolt change is possible when we tune into Aquarius. New Moons represent new starts. Aquarius is about authentic freedom and the ability to evolve rapidly.

What would you like to change? It may be that you’d like to not actually change anything, that your evolutionary goal would be to accept what you have and snap into gratitude and faith. That’s fine too. But if there’s something you’ve been thinking about changing, this Moon might provide a bit of an extra push.

Truthfully though, the potential to snap out of what we don’t want and snap into what we do want is always within us.

Astrology Highlights for January & February 2012

Thursday, 12 January 2012 18:47 1 Comment

We began the year with an opposition between Jupiter and Saturn that will last until mid February. Saturn represents the structure, stability and groundedness in our lives, what we’re working diligently on to create in the material world. It also may signal a time to look at where we feel blocked and challenged by the various brick walls of reality, sometimes leading to a feeling of discouragement or depression. Jupiter represents hope and optimism, an inner sense we can expand and accomplish anything in alignment with our beliefs. So this tension between the possibilities of who we are and the apparent limitations of the world sets the entry level stage of 2012. On January 1st significant planets are talking to Saturn (connected by aspect: Pluto & Sun by quintile, a creative vibration between the structuring principle and transformation and identity, Neptune by trine (flow between structure and higher love), Uranus by quincunx (hard to find a connection between the structure and the need for freedom and enlightenment), and of course that opposition to Jupiter.

Meanwhile Pluto is in Capricorn, continuing our ongoing saga of transformation of all structures. You might see how the opposition of Saturn to Jupiter is related. We have to transform the parts of our lives, and our world, that are no longer sufficient to hold a container for our expanded beliefs. As Neptune enters the sign of Pisces on February 3rd to stay until around 2026, we will be infused with a greater level of heart and spirit than we can probably imagine, although if we were paying attention last year between April and August we had a taste of this genuinely compassionate, intuitive, spirit infused field of consciousness that holds a good part of the key to our world’s transition. On the shadow side, we must be mindful of addictive and mind numbing activities. We are called to surrender to that we cannot control, each of us a conduit for unconditional love and compassion.

I’ve been feeling an interesting window of time between the full Moon we just had on January 8th and the new Moon on January 22nd. It feels like we’re still working with the energies to release old patterns during this time, and not ready for a real new year’s start until the new moon in Aquarius on Sunday the 22nd of January. This is a great time to get your life in order and slowly put your new year’s plans into effect. Yet, right with that new moon, Mars will go retrograde on January 23rd at 23 degrees of Virgo. The action planet in the sign of diligent work indicates there’s still more to review. Between this retrograde of initiating force and a Saturn retrograde beginning February 7th, we may feel like our plans are not generating the results we’re hoping for. The answer is to be patient, do the work, be conscientious about the details, and take the long term view during this period of time that lasts until April 13 (Mars direct) and June 24 (Saturn direct). It’s not that nothing happens in a retrograde period, it’s that there’s a great deal of internal work to do and the energies we are cultivating now will often pay off later.

The natural rhythm of things:
START ON NEW MOONS / COMPLETE ON FULL MOONS
January Full Moon: January 8 @ 11:30 pm PST: 19 degrees Cancer
January New Moon: January 22 @ 11:40 pm: 3 degrees Aquarius
February Full Moon: February 7 @ 1:54 pm PST: 19 degrees Leo
February New Moon: February 21 @ 2:34 pm PST: 3 degrees Pisces

Mercury Retrogrades – the year of the Action/Emotional (Fire & Water Sign) review
March 11 to April 4 – 7 degrees Aries back to 24 Pisces
July 14 to August 7 – 13 degrees Leo back to 2 degrees Leo
November 6 to November 25 – 5 degrees Sagittarius back to 19 degrees Scorpio

Reflection on Truth

Monday, 28 November 2011 07:34 0 Comments

In the United States, we are in a potentially meaningful period between two holidays. Thanksgiving invites us to reflect on what we are grateful for. Despite economic and political upheaval, we have much to be grateful for. Beauty is everywhere; possibilities for acceptance or change, conscious contraction or vibrant expansion are within us with every thought. Then we come to the winter holidays, from Solstice, Christmas, Chanukkah or celebrations of the New Year turning. Celebrated with gift giving and the sharing of food, we consider the families we were born into and the families we have created. Perhaps more than other times of the year we are encouraged to give to those who have less resources. Many of us have been finding creative ways to celebrate the holidays to create more balance and less stress, finding the kernels of wisdom and truth inherent in holiday celebrations and then taking actions that open our hearts. We can volunteer, donate our time and resources, or spend time in meditation or in a yoga class. We have endless possibilities to create new traditions.

The planetary alignments add extra symbolic meaning to our reflection this year. On the evening of November 23rd, Mercury went retrograde in the sign of Sagittarius. Then the next night on Thanksgiving evening, there was a solar eclipse in Sagittarius. Jupiter, the ruling planet of Sagittarius is retrograde now and turns direct on Christmas day. Let’s break this down into English.

Mercury retrogrades, despite their poor reputation for ‘causing’ equipment failures and plane delays, are really about thinking about issues more deeply, covering territory already covered. Eclipses are shift or starting points; I like to think of them as new moons with fire power. Sagittarius is about the meaning of life, from religions, philosophies and belief systems, to the meaning we find through higher education and exploring the world. With Sagittarius we range from wisdom and faith to expansion, greed and folly. So the astrological symbolism tells us we are pondering the choices we’ve made based on our beliefs at one point in time, and we’re also triggered to make new choices based on expanded or new beliefs. On the personal level this is about getting your life right … making choices that are in alignment with your truth, being willing to expand your consciousness and perhaps take a leap of faith. On the global level, we are contemplating the expansionist choices that have led us into misery, and with Venus in Sag moving toward Pluto as the Mercury retrograde unfolds we may be looking at the role of the feminine and right relationship to transform and heal our planet.

On Christmas Day, Jupiter turns direct from its retrograde in the sign of Taurus, about halfway through its transit of one year in this sign. Taurus is the sign of the human animal, what we know instinctively in our body — our need for security and comfort. Taurus is grounded, patient and practical. Jupiter in this sign asks us to know our higher truth intuitively through the physical and to carry out our beliefs and values in a grounded way.
Jupiter asks the question ‘how have I underestimated myself or sold myself short?’ and Taurus adds ‘in my need for security and comfort and in my connection to physical reality’, and perhaps even asks us to look more deeply at our connection with the Earth herself.

« Older Entries