While spiritual focus might be our best way to align with Neptune, another perfectly lovely response might be to connect to transcendent forms of creativity, from inspirational films that touch our hearts and minds, to music, dance and many forms of art.

The risk of Neptune in Pisces is that we will drift into a confusing fog, content to pursue addictive or mind numbing activities. These include socially accepted addictions such as endless television and gaming, unhealthy food used to stuff feelings, or simply allowing our minds to stay stuck in story lines, denial and delusion. When we find ourselves feeling the compulsion to zone out like this (and most of us do from time to time), it’s helpful to look at how we might be overwhelmed by various external energies. Perhaps we’re watching or reading too much news or mindless superficiality, or we’re hanging out with negative, energy-draining, complaining people — perhaps working too hard or succumbing to other people’s agendas and pressure. Setting boundaries and making new choices, however small, will help us feel centered in our own energy and less inclined to pursue numbness.

One simple mindfulness technique to stay connected to Spirit is to do things in a non-habitual way. The easiest starting place is to use your non dominant hand to eat, to brush your teeth, wash your face, or other daily tasks. Get out of bed from the other side. Change your morning routine. Even small mindfulness changes create powerful rewards.

Combining mindful actions with deep, meditative breaths throughout the day, helps us stay balanced. The gift of Neptune in Pisces is the possibility of boundless joy and bliss as we open our hearts. This true love of the compassionate open heart leads to healing in our personal worlds and in the world at large.

One of the finest gifts of healthy Neptune in Pisces is the ability to feel compassion for those who are ill or suffering, to surrender and trust in the power and perfection of the Universe, and to give whatever we are able to give without becoming a martyr or a victim.

Expect miracles!

What a great premise! How often do we wonder about all the people born on the same day and exactly the same time in our city, or corrected for location we could look at everyone in the world born with a near identical chart. Are we all the same? Are we all losing our job on the same day, or falling in love? Statistically it can’t be possible, so how can astrology be accurate and helpful and not be reduced to the same predicted events for everyone.

As I watched 5 Star Day I wanted to reach through the screen and grab Jake to explain how it all works so he wouldn’t have to go through the cross country flight and the search that began with a door slammed in his face. But of course if I could have explained to him the nature of sun sign astrology and the way karma, fate and free will unfold we wouldn’t have had an entertaining indie comedy/romance to watch.

So, dear Jake and others who wonder, here’s the cosmic truth:

1. Sun sign astrology that you get in the newspapers and magazines is based on the Sun sign and the rising sign being the same. There is a level of validity to this approach, but it suggests general trends and influences, not like your own personal astrological reading where you have your actual rising sign degree and the current transits of planets are definitely in the right house, or area of your life. When Sun Sign astrology says planets are on your Midheaven that is really only strongly true if your Sun and Rising Sign are the same… you were born around sunrise. Planets on the Midheaven indicates energies that affect your reputation and how you are seen by the world. Normally this is positive, but not always, especially at first.

2. The influences of the planets are energetic; in fact what is happening in the sky is a symbolic picture of what is happening inside of each of us. Depending on our level of consciousness, own personal karma and the exact way these energies interact with our exact natal horoscope, these energetic influences might affect us psychologically, spiritually or emotionally — or they may indicate events we will experience so that we grow and evolve. There is no way through Sun sign astrology to predict everyone born on a certain day is going to have a great day, but we can predict the types of issues and concerns that may be triggered — a forecast of the astrological weather.

3. As they say, you generally have to break an egg to make an omelette. Often in order to experience the fabulousness of an astrological transit you first have to let go of what isn’t working in your life. And if you don’t let it go willingly, it will generally be ripped from you, like that tired old stuffed bear no one could stand to see another minute (ah the trauma!). We humans don’t like change much, even when the letting go of the bad will allow the space for our dreams and wishes to come true.

Each of the endearing characters in 5 Star Day wasn’t ready for their new and highest visions and dreams to manifest because they were hanging on to at least some aspect of their old lives. Bad jobs, terrible relationships … when we learn to transform or let go more willingly we tend not to suffer the unexpected pink slips of life. Astrology tells us when it’s time for a change; we get to choose how by our level of inner preparation and the choices we make.

It’s a matter of perspective. We usually have to get a bit of distance from the losses of our life to see how a wave of destruction swept away our shattered dreams and castles built on shifting sands — to make way for not only a 5 Star Day — but actually to create a 5 Star Life.

I love to support art that supports astrology and metaphysical topics. You can purchase this film direct from Breaking Glass Pictures by going to their website and using the promo code 5starastrology to get a $5 discount. Or you can go to iTunes and prepurchase for the February 7th release or rent the film through iTunes too!

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.

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

So I decided today, January 8th would be my New Year’s Day. Seemed like that would give me enough time to get into the year and be ready. And yet as we arrive at this day I am noticing it is the day of the Full Moon, exact at 11:30 pm tonight, Pacific time. The Sun is in Capricorn, the Moon in Cancer. We are all triggered internally to find balance between structure, success and our goals, with our needs for love, nurturing and family (family includes friends and beloved pets too!). And, a Full Moon always has a quality of completion, of letting go. Intuitively, today is a great day to ponder the past month and what it has brought to us, and perhaps to consider the whole year of 2011: where we’ve felt success and accomplished our aims as well as where we’ve felt blocked. We might also look at where have our emotional needs been true, clear and met with healthy care and love, and where have we depleted ourselves in our mission to feel secure and loved. The chart for this Full Moon also inspires us to balance between caution and conservatism and a desire to expand our selves and our life, as well as an ability to think deeply about the transformational process we all find ourselves in.

The New Moon on January 22nd will in fact truly be the beginning of the new year energetically. At 3 degrees of Aquarius and forming a tense yet creative alignment with the forces of constructive conservatism and expansive optimism, after January 22nd will really be the time to initiate significant change, internally or externally, if that’s what we’re called to do. The first three weeks of the year give us much time to analyze, transform and slowly initiate the changes, letting go of old patterns and understanding ourselves and our shadow material more deeply.

We are meandering into 2012, unlike the obvious shift at the turn of the year that we feel in some years. I am honoring my internal call, and accepting the energies of each day as I perceive them, creating my own turning points and rhythm.

And since the Universe likes nothing more than a teaching story, I was given my personal version of Happy New Year today.

My lovely plan for a happy day was to wake up slowly, go to a special yoga workshop, work on a blog, finish cleaning my closet, journal and go for a walk or work out later in the day. In honor of the perennial New Year’s ‘and I’ll be more healthy this year’ kind of thought process I decided to cook a simple fish and salad dinner, but in honor of “it’s still a holiday” I wanted to also bake a cake, something I rarely do.

I did wake up slowly. That was kind of happy. And the yoga workshop was fabulous … and with an unanticipated result. The body ‘intention’ I set at the beginning of class was to release any old emotional energy I’m holding in the lower pelvic region, and about an hour into the class my back seized up with that lovely psoas muscle that goes from the back kind of around the inside of the pelvis and down to the inner thigh. Leading to a lot of crying (definite emotional release) not to mention barely being able to walk, stand, lie down comfortably or sit for the rest of the day. My plans mostly dissolved and released, along with emotion that felt old and deep, just like the muscle.

After hot baths, endless stretching and lots of massage I was able to hobble around to cook the tilapia and bake the cake. The accomplishment of two pans of cake in the oven was quickly diminished when I realized I’d carefully measured out two teaspoons of potato starch into the batter, not the baking powder I thought I’d used (Bob’s Red Mill … if you know the brand you know all those little bags look alike). So now my cake didn’t have leavening in it. I was beginning to see a theme. Happiness, Plans & Reality.

We metaphysical folks can be a little superstitious. Everything can be a sign from the Universe, especially when our day is not going as planned. I asked myself should I not do so much yoga? The inner voice said no, yoga is great, this is the release of old emotional energy I asked for. Should I not bake cake? Well probably, but I already knew that it’s not my superfood.

To me, the truth is when we imagine a good day, a happy holiday, a good life, a fabulous year, it’s not necessarily smooth sailing. There are steps to climb, ravines to cross, nasty people in traffic to consider in a new and different way. Wanting to release emotional energy isn’t always a quick breath and stretch leading to unbridled happiness. Sometimes release really hurts. And maybe we actually don’t want a consistently happy mellow existence every hour of every day. That might be boring and not very growthful. The bottom line is we don’t always see in advance exactly how our wishes and dreams will play out, or what needs to happen first, second and third before what we think we want occurs. Flexibility and surrender are often crucial ingredients in happiness.

We want to be able to meet each moment with an alive sense of who we really are, with skills and talents to handle what comes up, hopefully thriving. We want to feel deeply, both highs and lows, and not get caught or stuck in attachment. We need to be able to accept difficulties, intuitively aware of an approach or tactic to meet the challenge, cognitively clear and grounded, willing to soften and accept assistance and guidance when needed, willing to release and surrender, or to go to Plan B.

For me, my day revolved around the release of the emotional and physically connected energy and other wishes had to be postponed. On some level this must be my highest wish because that’s the way it happened. And it turns out cake not exactly leavened with potato flour isn’t all that bad!

I wish you a magnificent year, filled with life, love and authenticity.

I was pretty smug as I approached the end of this three week retrograde. Nothing had broken, no obvious errors. I’d made as many travel plans and other commitments as I could for 2012 the week before, careful to be sure that anything during the retrograde was double checked and had an escape clause. I had managed to submit my Canadian passport for renewal just a few days before the retrograde, knowing I was taking a risk with its Fedex arrival in Gatineau on the actual retrograde station day, November 23rd. Yet, I was delighted to receive the passport without a hitch a week later. Whew!

With the retrograde in the sign of Sagittarius, there was a noticeable focus on people’s grand plans, travel ideas, educational goals and philosophical leanings in session after session during the three weeks. Some people experienced major equipment and auto breakdowns, but in general a Sag retrograde won’t indicate as much of that as when it’s in Virgo or Aquarius or in your 2nd, 3rd or 6th houses in your personal chart.

As the Retrograde period came to its end and began to station forward around the 12th and 13th of December, just last week, that’s when its mischief came to light. For me I discovered I had written my rent check with the wrong checkbook and my rent had bounced twice in an unused old New Mexico account. I’d forgotten to pay a couple of bills and hadn’t checked some other numbers that came back to haunt me. The day of the 13th was filled with stories of last minute changes and confusing problems for many. For me, the big picture review of Sagittarius seemed to have a corresponding deleterious effect on the opposite sign of Gemini, the indicator of details, the ADD sign of the zodiac.

Why am I still talking about a Mercury retrograde that is technically over? Because it’s not over until it reaches the ‘Shadow Point’ — the degree at which it initially went retrograde. We’re still in the integration phase and it’s useful to continue pondering and rethinking our values and beliefs and how we’d like to integrate them as we move forward. Mercury will be back to that point on January 1st, an auspicious new start day for us energetically — and — Jupiter, the ruling planet of Sagittarius moves direct from its long retrograde on December 25th, so it will be just picking up steam around the 1st. Energetically I continually read December to be a great downtime period as we get ready for the dynamic potential of 2012. And, since most of us don’t take enough downtime periods without help, colds, flu and other viruses have been mowing us down into downtime these past few weeks, haven’t they?!

2012 is almost upon us. Being ready spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically will be at the heart of our lives during the next year. No time to waste — let’s approach it with joy and a deeply centered spiritual awareness!

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.

Mercury will go retrograde on the 24th just after midnight (Pacific time). This one begins around 20 degrees of Sagittarius and goes back to 4 degrees, then goes back direct on December 13th. Shorthand: Make your travel plans now if possible, and if you need to travel during the Thanksgiving holiday allow extra time for everything.

I’ve been traveling and just returned. First to the excellent SOTA conference in Niagara Falls, NY, where my lecture talks went well, and then a quick jaunt over the bridge to my homeland. Stay tuned for more writings and workshop postings for the new year

This new Moon is exactly at 4 degrees of Libra, the sign of relationship, balance and beauty. Mercury, the energy of communication, is right there at 3 degrees while Venus and Saturn sit off to the side in Libra as well. Venus is THE planet of relationship while Saturn represents accomplishing goals through hard work and discipline. This whole stellium is opposing the revolutionary energies of Uranus and in a challenging square to transformative Pluto. A very powerful dynamic, mimicking the radical energy set in motion in the summer of 2009.

Additionally we will remember that we had several eclipses at the beginning of this summer. The July 1st eclipse was at 9 degrees of Cancer (rounding out the t-square to a full, four legged table if we imagine its energy still vibrating) and this eclipse is coming to fruition now. So we have a transformative new start on top of the eclipse initiating energies, like a giant wave coming in on top of a previous giant wave.

Whatever you’ve been thinking about changing, it’s about to change! That’s the bottom line. Relationships, where you live, your work, the possibilities are endless. You know your choices, you’ve probably been weighing and balancing several dilemmas. Change can be challenging; we all like the comfort of familiarity, and the world has been feeling rather shaky lately.

Mars, the planet of action aligns with the key players of this transformative square adding even more energy to the mix. Mars says be bold and brave, feel your courage. I’ve got your back. Or, if you won’t jump, I’ll push you!

In a more metaphysical realm, I’ve noticed the energies of manifestation have been increasing another notch lately as well. Focus on what you believe to be your highest vision, your bravest role, your ideal model. Allow the Universe to surprise you with an outcome even better than you imagined. This is a time to get out of the way of the details, releasing anxiety and stress.

It’s birth time for our projects, dreams and relationship visions. Change is good.