Julie Simmons 4/19/24 Julie Simmons 4/19/24

Insights for Taurus

April 19
Sun enters Taurus 09:59 AM EDT
Mars sextile Jupiter and Uranus
Since before Ram Dass took upon himself to teach a generation to Be Here Now, the greatest wisdoms began with: “You are here and the time is now! There is no other reality and nothing lasts.” The past and future are real but they are not present. And yet our memory of past experience and apprehension regarding the future informs and suffuses each and every moment. As our perceived reality of culture and nature collapse and transform around and within us the realest agency comes in the here and now combined or connected to the imaginal realm. We are a lot like caterpillars making our way to becoming butterflies. This is why we sit and sitting we become aware of vast and empty reality within and around us as it spins, twirls, leaps falls, exults and despairs while we dance the only dance there is from morning till night, from first breath to last.
Mars affirms that all change is opportunity even or maybe especially if it isn’t the change you were expecting. We were born here. It’s all relatives.
As the Sun moves through Taurus it will most notably conjunct Jupiter and Uranus hopefully renewing our commitment to sustainability and equity… for all. A tall order but what else do we have to do?

April 20
Jupiter conjunct Uranus
A major astrological configuration has finally perfected (become exact). Even if it is not visible to the naked eye we have been feeling it for a while. It’s the tenor of the times, an indication of the zeitgeist, a cosmic meme, telling us what we already know: This chaotic world is all there is. You can grab it by the tail and it will swing you all over the place. You can dig in with your heels and say, ‘not on my watch’ or just plain ‘NO’. You can breathe and relax, open to life exactly as you find it, infusing all that you do, be it protest or rescue, getting the kids to school, getting lost or found, even making art or and love with focus and attention. If the greatest treasure of the age is our focus and attention and the way we live is unsustainable, then what?

April 21
Venus conjunct Chiron
Sun square Pluto
Life goes on. Even after yesterday’s conjunction and the recent eclipse. Even if it only goes on for some of us.
Astrological interactions between heavenly bodies are called transits. More reliable than your local transit system, they keep on coming and going, arising and passing. Perhaps ancient astrologers saw the planets as gods and goddesses because, just like all living things down here on Earth, they constantly move and interact with each other. Today these sky gods want us to take a good look at what cannot be swallowed or spit out. There is everything to learn but the only test will be in the living. This is it. No Planet “B”. Earth Day calls.

April 23
Full Moon: 04 degrees Scorpio: 07:48 PM EDT
The Moon in Scorpio likes a good mystery. There are mysteries everywhere: some to be solved and some to revere. At the Full Moon the Sun sets as the Moon rises. There’s a mystery for you.
Even before the world seemed unutterably chaotic and crazy we humans often suffered from a sense that there was never enough. Maybe the mystery has something to do with how it is we have become hungry ghosts in such an abundant world. Is this our given nature or how we have come to nurture life on our planet?

April 25
Mercury stationary direct
By now you might have forgotten all about Mercury retrograde. The big news is always when it goes retrograde. Even so, if you notice a spring in your step or an indication to enjoy the simple fact of existence don’t fight it. It’s awesome to exist. This awareness is an Aries gift. Mercury was retrograde in Aries, along with the eclipse and Chiron. Life itself is the teacher, the teaching and the student.

April 29
Mars conjunct Neptune
Venus enters Taurus
Longing and shopping make strange bedfellows if you aren’t aware of their differences. One is intrinsic to the soul. It draws its power from our inclination to connect, to help and to express the fullness of not just who we are but who we could be, who we are constantly becoming. The other is quite practical and requires us to balance our budget and make sure we’re getting what we pay for. Consumer protection for the soul is not an option, only our ability to feel fully, deeply into what the body knows before the mind grabs hold.

April 30
Mars enters Aries
Mars lives here, in Aries. It’s a kind of homecoming. Planets do what they do best when they are in their home signs. Mars’ best is questionable. Is it in its strength or in its ability to be aggressive? Is our goal to fight to the death or fight to gain skill and ability: To say with confidence, I Am Me? We love the feeling of strength and capacity. To separate it from a win/lose mentality is not easy. It falls to each of us as individuals to express this energy the way we see fit.

May 1, 2, & 3
Venus square Pluto
Pluto stationery retrograde
Mars sextile Pluto
The common astrological denominator in these few days is Pluto. Pluto the destroyer? The abductor? The transformer? The regenerator? The Great Composter? Pluto as it has been handed down from Greek mythology is the power that overtakes us, the all-powerful force of death, loss and violent domination of haves over have-nots. These stories we have been given are supports for a system that kills relationship and fosters alienation, greed and dominance. What story might we tell instead? One of loss which is inevitable. No one likes to lose. But it is the Great Lesson, that which makes us fully human, Nature’s ultimate incomprehensible gift.
For more about this you might imagine Pluto as Persephone and consider an alternative to the story that first comes to mind.

May 4 – 6th
May the fourth be with you… all of us. These days, between the 4th and 6th are the exact midpoint between the spring equinox and the summer solstice: the heart and soul of the season. Some call it Beltane which is the exact opposite of Samhain which happens in November. Life returns to the land. Celebration is instinctive. We may not frolic with strangers on the verdant hills or midwife cow and sheep mothers but the impulse to embody the natural wisdom of the wheel of the year lives in us all: An instinct waiting to be fanned into awareness, apprehended by our senses rather than comprehended with our minds. We are called to celebrate the gifts of the Earth. To do this, to actually ‘see heaven in a wild flower’, we must allow for its fleeting moment in this world.

Man was made for Joy & Woe

And when this we rightly know

Thro the World we safely go

Joy & Woe are woven fine

A Clothing for the soul divine

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine

May 06
Mercury conjunct Chiron
This is the third and last conjunction of these two heavenly bodies since March 20th; once before Mercury went retrograde (remember that?) once during the retrograde and now as Mercury is moving through the shadow of the retrograde soon to inhabit new realms. What have we learned in this time? What are we still learning? Life is the classroom and school is always in session.

May 07
New Moon: 18* Taurus: 11:21 PM EDT
Sun sextile Saturn
It’s alive and it’s real. Its appearance doesn’t last forever but it is powered by forever. Forms change whether we like it or not. Yet nothing dies. Mystical reality informs our intentions. Don’t believe in it. Perceive it. Don’t try to comprehend it. Apprehend it. We cannot truly understand what we don’t experience. Comprehension is fueled by what our senses tell us. In these times when so much is being born from chaos Matter matters.
Between May 8th and 12th there are no mutual aspects between planets. We travel by the wayfaring Moon as she waxes, encouraging us to join the dance, follow our enthusiasms, cultivate the intention we made:

·      In Taurus – carrying our intention to live in a world that matters;
·      In Gemini (7:20 PM May 8th) – activating the monkey mind, for better and for worse;
·      In Cancer (11:12 PM May 10th) – reminding us that we belong here. This earth is our home. And we share it with all manner of kin.

May 13
Sun conjunct Uranus
Venus sextile Saturn
Astrology is useful or meaningful because we use it that way. It invites us into the imaginal realms. What could happen will happen to someone, if not you. We have this amazing ability to cast our thoughts toward the world we know is possible even as we live in one that isn’t quite there. It’s a kind of magic to live as if the possible has already happened. Imagine a world in which we care for one another more and click less…

May 15
Mercury enters Taurus
The tension between what we are in the habit of wanting and how getting it effects the rest of the world: other people, the bees, the air, the waters, has never been so clear, so irreconcilable. Holding the tension without distraction or rationalization is a powerful tool for change.

May 17
Mercury square Pluto
Tension between wanting and getting is high. The effects of our consumption continues to demand our full attention.

May 18
Venus conjunct Uranus
Sun conjunct Jupiter
Radical shift can hit the fan. It can also excite and challenge us to be the change in whatever measure we have going at the moment. Think before you tap.

May 19
Sun sextile Neptune
Mars conjunct North Node
Be as still as you can be for as long as you need to feel yourself as part of the cosmos which includes our world. We, the All of Us, are being pulled through a portal of Great Change. May all beings be happy, peaceful and live with ease includes every-body, including you.

These insights, are meant as contemplations. Astrology is a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.

Julie Simmons 4/19/24 Julie Simmons 4/19/24

Insights for Taurus

April 19
Sun enters Taurus 09:59 AM EDT
Mars sextile Jupiter and Uranus
Since before Ram Dass took upon himself to teach a generation to Be Here Now, the greatest wisdoms began with: “You are here and the time is now! There is no other reality and nothing lasts.” The past and future are real but they not present. And yet our memory of past experience and our apprehension regarding the future informs and suffuses each and every moment. As our perceived reality of culture and nature collapse and transform around and within us the realest agency comes in the here and now combined or connected to the imaginal realm. We are a lot like caterpillars making our way to becoming butterflies. This is why we sit and sitting we become aware of vast and empty reality within and around us as it spins, twirls, leaps, falls, exults and despairs. Dancing the only dance there is from morning till night, from first breath to last.
Mars affirms that all change is opportunity even or maybe especially if it isn’t the change you were expecting. We were born here. It’s all relatives.
As the Sun moves through Taurus it will most notably conjunct Jupiter and Uranus hopefully renewing our commitment to sustainability and equity… for all. A tall order but what else do we have to do?

April 20
Jupiter conjunct Uranus
A major astrological configuration has finally perfected (become exact). Even if it is not visible to the naked eye we have been feeling it for a while. It’s the tenor of the times, an indication of the zeitgeist, a cosmic meme, telling us what we already know: This chaotic world is all there is. You can grab it by the tail and it will swing you all over the place. You can dig in with your heels and say, ‘not on my watch’ or just plain ‘NO’. You can breathe and relax, open to life exactly as you find it, infusing all that you do (be it protest or rescue, getting the kids to school or making art) with intent. If the greatest treasure of the age is our focus and attention and the way we live is unsustainable, then what?

April 21
Venus conjunct Chiron
Sun square Pluto
Life goes on. Even after yesterday’s conjunction and the eclipse on April 8th. Astrological interactions between heavenly bodies are called transits. More reliable than your local transit system, they keep on coming and going, arising and passing. Perhaps ancient astrologers saw the planets as gods and goddesses because, just like all living things down here on Earth, they constantly move and interact with each other. Today these sky gods want us to take a good look at what cannot be swallowed or spit out. There is everything to learn but the only test will be in the living. This is it. No Planet “B”. Earth Day calls.

April 25

Mercury stationary direct

By now you might have forgotten all about Mercury retrograde. The big news is always when it goes retrograde. Even so, if you notice a spring in your step or an indication to enjoy the simple fact of existence don’t fight it. It’s awesome to exist. This awareness is an Aries gift. Mercury was retrograde in Aries, along with the eclipse and Chiron. Life itself is the teacher, the teaching and the student.

April 29

Mars conjunct Neptune

Venus enters Taurus

Longing and shopping make strange bedfellows if you aren’t aware of their differences. One is intrinsic to the soul. It draws its power from our inclination to connect, to help and to express the fullness of not just who we are but who we could be, who we are constantly becoming. The other is quite practical and requires us to balance our budget and make sure we’re getting what we pay for. Consumer protection for the soul is not an option. Only our ability to feel fully, deeply into what the body knows before the mind grabs hold.

April 30

Mars enters Aries

Mars lives here, in Aries. It’s a kind of homecoming. Planets do what they do as best when they are in their home signs. Mars’ best is questionable. Is its strength in its ability to be aggressive or assertive? Is our goal to fight to the death or fight to gain skill and ability: To say with confidence, I Am Me? We love the feeling of strength and capacity. To separate it from a win/lose mentality is not easy and it falls to each of us as individuals to express it the way we see fit.

May 1, 2, & 3

Venus square Pluto

Pluto stationery retrograde

Mars sextile Pluto

The common astrological denominator in these few days is Pluto. Pluto the destroyer? The abductor? The transformer? The regenerator? The Great Composter? If we take Pluto as it has been handed down from Greek mythology Pluto is the enemy, the all-powerful force of death, loss and violent domination of those that have over those that do not. If we understand the stories we have been told as supports for a system that kills relationship and fosters alienation, greed and dominance then what story might we tell instead? One of loss. Loss is inevitable. No one likes to lose. But it is the Great Lesson, that which makes us fully human, Nature’s ultimate incomprehensible gift.

For more about this you might imagine Pluto as Persephone and consider an alternative to the story that first comes to mind.

May 4 – 6th

May the fourth be with you… all of us. These days, between the 4th and 6th are the exact midpoint between the spring equinox and the summer solstice: the heart and soul of the season. Beltane, the exact opposite of Samhain which happens in November. Life returns to the land. Celebration is instinctive. Life goes on. We may not frolic with strangers on the verdant hills or midwife cow and sheep mothers but still the impulse to embody this sacred geometry lives in us all, an instinct wanting to be fanned into awareness and apprehended by our senses rather than comprehended with our minds. We are called to celebrate the gifts of the Earth. To do this, to actually ‘see heaven in a wild flower’, we must allow for its fleeting moment in this world.

Man was made for Joy & Woe

And when this we rightly know

Thro the World we safely go

Joy & Woe are woven fine

A Clothing for the soul divine

Under every grief & pine

Runs a joy with silken twine

May 06

Mercury conjunct Chiron

This is the third and last conjunction of these two heavenly bodies since March 20th; once before Mercury went retrograde (remember that?) once during the retrograde and now as Mercury is moving through the shadow of the retrograde soon to inhabit new realms. What have we learned in this time? What are we still learning? Life is the classroom and school is always in session.

May 07

New Moon: 18* Taurus: 11:21 PM EDT

Sun sextile Saturn

It’s alive and it’s real. Its appearance doesn’t last forever but it is powered by forever. Forms change whether we like it or not. Yet nothing dies. Mystical reality informs our intentions. Don’t believe in it. Perceive it. Don’t try to comprehend it. Apprehend it. We cannot truly understand what we don’t experience. Comprehension is fueled by what our senses tell us. In these times when so much is being born from chaos Matter matters.

Between May 8th and 12th there are no mutual aspects between planets. We travel by the wayfaring Moon as she waxes, encouraging us to join the dance, follow our enthusiasms, cultivate the intention we made:

· In Taurus – carrying our intention to live in a world that matters;

· In Gemini (7:20 PM May 8th) – activating the monkey mind, for better and for worse;

· In Cancer (11:12 PM May 10th) – reminding us that we belong here. This earth is our home. And we share it with all manner of kin.

May 13

Sun conjunct Uranus

Venus sextile Saturn

Astrology is useful or meaningful because we use it that way. It invites us into the imaginal realms. What could happen will happen to someone, if not you. We have this amazing ability to cast our thoughts toward the world we know is possible even as we live in one that isn’t quite there. It’s a kind of magic to live as if the possible has already happened. Imagine a world in which we care for one another more and click our likes less…

May 15

Mercury enters Taurus

The tension between what we are in the habit of wanting and how getting it effects the rest of the world: other people, the bees, the air, the waters, has never been so clear, so irreconcilable. Holding the tension without distraction or rationalization is a powerful tool for change.

May 17

Mercury square Pluto

Tension between what we are used to wanting and how getting it effects the rest of the world is high. The effects of our consumption on (for example) other people, bees, air and waters has never been so clear and so irreconcilable. Holding awareness of these tensions without distraction or rationalization is a powerful tool for change.

May 18

Venus conjunct Uranus

Sun conjunct Jupiter

Radical shift can hit the fan. It can also excite and challenge us to be the change in whatever measure we have going at the moment. Think before you tap.

May 19

Sun sextile Neptune

Mars conj NN

Be as still as you can be for as long as you need to feel yourself as part of the cosmos and the world. We, the All of Us, are being pulled through a portal of Great Change. Like it or not. Affirming may all beings be happy, peaceful and live with ease includes you.

Julie Simmons 3/18/24 Julie Simmons 3/18/24

Insights for Aries

March 18
Sun enters Aries 11:13 PM EST
Feeling edgy (yet)? Defensive? Like you want to fight back but you aren’t quite sure who to take aim at? Or are you weary of the constant tensions: the weird weathers and the reckless waste of lives and resources proliferating across the planet?
Some say, with a kind of ignorant confidence, that war is an archetype, which it isn’t. The actual archetype is Mars and Aries (the sign it rules). War you might say is a pathological manifestation of the archetype. A reactive, knee jerk way of asserting dominance and amassing land and power-over. Like suicide it is a permanent solution to temporary problems. Homage to the least of our human potentials.
Aries is about identity and Mars is a singular kind of energy that enacts our ways of asserting our identities. We decide how and when to call on these energies. Indigenous wisdom speaks of the ‘original instructions’ which generally include reminders to overcome our aggressions in favor of collective good. To put our fierce, energetic warrior nature into life-sustaining ventures such as cultivating food, building houses, raising children and serving life in it’s diversity with our one precious incarnated self. All things considered.
The wisdom of Aries, particularly in 2024 asks us to dig out these original instructions, the ones we learned and understood when we were children: ‘Use your words’. Go sit by yourself till you can engage with others, and allow others to be their self as well.’
As the Sun travels through Aries there will be an eclipse (check out if it will be visible for you) and Mercury will be retrograde in Aries. All these things will add some fire to our lives even as we are cautioned to slow down our reaction time. For details you can follow along below.

March 20
Mercury conjunct Chiron
Here is an example of Chiron in Action
This is the first of three conjunctions Mercury will make with Chiron: Once in the shadow of the retrograde, once while retrograde and once after it goes direct. We will have time to work on whatever it means to us.
What kind of wisdom(s) are you privy to when you listen at the door of silence? How might that inform your actions in the weeks to come? How do you understand the wounds to our cherished identities which we all endure ? What does it feel like to bear your own even as you allow for those wounds in others?

March 21
Sun sextile Pluto
Venus conjunct Saturn
If the world you live in is made of a bunch of things, if this is how it looks to you, then you too must be a thing. About yourself you know this isn’t true. How, then, to shift your view of the world? If the world is not made of discreet and separate things how is it made? Could it possibly be that everything is connected? That it’s alive? And if it is how might we live in it? What might beauty mean or how might it give meaning to all our connections? Who is your community? Not just the people but the birds and the bees, the rocks and the waters: Much realer than a world of inanimate objects.
We are not here simply to “apprehend – and thus manipulate – the world;” but also to “comprehend it.”

March 22
Mars enters Pisces
War is not an archetype. It’s even a lousy metaphor. Consider ‘the War on Cancer’ or ‘the War on Drugs’. Either we lost them or it never was a war. Mars is the archetype. The deeper we delve into its meaning, messages and possibilities the less pathological its cultural expressions. War is, in fact hell. But Mars and its home sign of Aries can inspire us to something much greater and yet smaller than war. Mars is about virility. How we conceive of this makes all the difference. Humans are metaphorical creatures.

March 24
Venus sextile Jupiter
What does satisfaction feel like: this sensation that doesn’t last and which is as fleeting as any other moment in time? Are we even capable of savoring the sensation of ‘enough’ without clutching at it and wanting 'more' even as we are enjoying what we have? Can we really enjoy anything if we are worried about what will happen when it’s done? Catch yourself in the midst of the simplest satisfaction, notice the layers of feeling it evokes. Be human.

March 25
Full Moon: 05 degrees Libra: 03:00 AM EDT: Lunar Eclipse
If you’re an astrologer you might notice something interesting about this full Moon in Libra which is Venus’ home territory. This Venusian Full Moon is caught between two Venus sextiles: One to Jupiter and one to Uranus. You might then be interested in the possibility that this Moon is showing us something of the conjunction to come between Jupiter and Uranus in Taurus which is Venus’ other home place.
A wise fool once said “You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”
That's one perspective on Venus.
Venus is all that we love and cherish. The part of us that says ‘yes’ to the world. Venus is the beauty of art as well as nature. It matters that our ‘yes’ comes from a true place; that it pleases the soul.
Given that it’s an eclipse, not just a regular Full Moon we might also consult a poet who understands the beauty in a singing stream at a time when there is so much to do and the feeling that there is less and less to say ‘yes’ to:

It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

March 28
Venus sextile Uranus
Revelations come through our senses. The AHA! of scent recognition: The sounds of the world in your ears: The feeling of touch on skin and the taste of substance. Sight least of all, only because we rely on it overmuch. These gates of perception are the means of interaction with that elusive thing we call real-ity.

April 1
Mercury in Aries, stationary retrograde
Be a fool. Get it wrong. Dare to blunder along with all the other blundering humans. Some tricks are calculated and some just arise because Life must be someone’s joke. All are grist for the mill of our potential to earn some wisdom along the way. For this Mercury retrograde period action may speak louder than words but every action is likely to arise in re-action. If you can’t think twice before you hit send, if you find your foot in your mouth, you can still laugh at the joke or marvel at the power of the unconscious. You can still shake or wiggle and play your part in The Dance – the only one there is.

April 3
Venus conjunct Neptune
Venus again! Finishing up her journey through Pisces. Reminding us to say ‘yes’ to beauty, to love, to all that matters to the soul as well as The Soul of All Things. It’s quite likely that my soul or yours are actually each and all part of an Over-Soul which belongs to all of us, which connects us as surely as breath is connected to air or water to fish.

April 5th and 6th
Venus enters Aries and sextiles Pluto
Exalted as Venus is said to be in Pisces, she is considered to be in detriment in the sign of Aries. Planets in detriment (opposite the place they call home) are said to be uncomfortable in the cultural expectations which surround them. Venus in Aries doesn’t just say ‘yes’. At best she says, ‘Yes, but’. Maybe she has a point. Maybe we should listen as she sextiles Pluto and conjuncts Mercury retrograde or Chiron. Maybe a bit of detriment is exactly what is called for. Question authority! Just because you (still) can.

April 8
New Moon: Eclipse: 19* Aries: 2:20 PM EDT
In times of great change we look for portends, we want to know the future. But we would be much better off if we could only focus on and wake up in the present. I’m 100% sure you already know this. But to know the merit of such a thing has not much to do with practicing it.
Eclipses, unlike transits, are moments that demand presence, particularly if they are happening over your head. They are portals, not events. They allow energies to pour in and we may or may not feel helpless in guiding them. For what is astrology if not a guide to how we live? Not a cause of it, or even an effect. Astrologers used to love saying, ‘The stars (and planets) do not compel, they impel’. Some say they do neither of these things; they simply ‘tell’. You decide…
This eclipse, so closely aligned with Chiron asks us to look, not with horror, upon the world, as if it is happening somewhere else but rather to open ourselves to the rather radical sensation that our actions, our reactions are real and have consequence. We are all each first responders in a world of events over which we have only some small measure of agency. But that small measure makes a big difference.
If the eclipse is happening where you can ‘see’ it, don’t just look up! Look around. Virginia Woolf described her experience of an eclipse like this:

“We had fallen. It was extinct. There was no colour. The earth was dead. That was the astonishing moment; and the next when as if a ball had rebounded the cloud took colour on itself again, only a sparky ethereal colour and so the light came back. I had very strongly the feeling as the light went out of some vast obeisance; something kneeling down and suddenly raised up when the colours came. They came back astonishingly lightly and quickly and beautifully in the valley and over the hills — at first with a miraculous glittering and ethereality, later normally almost, but with a great sense of relief. It was like recovery. We had been much worse than we had expected. We had seen the world dead. This was within the power of nature.”

April 10
Mars conjunct Saturn
Whatever your responsibilities, reality has a way of unfolding throughout our lived realities in so many unique and diverse ways, not always in lock step with our perceived obligations. Perhaps the fundamental responsibility is to live willingly and with dignity as a human on this troubled planet with as much compassion and kindness as you can manage without burnout. Who are your 150 people?

April 11
Sun conjunct Mercury retrograde: 7:02 PM EDT
I love this aspect which happens about 6 times a year: three when Mercury is direct and three when it’s retrograde. ‘Cazimi’ is the word, a word that seems to need no definition. To say it is to conjure its meaning. In the heart of the Sun, Mercury is delighted and enthralled by all there is to learn, to play in, to uncover, discover and recover (even in some cases to cover up in covert ways…).
My sense is that we are meant to listen deeply when Mercury is cazimi.

April 15
Mercury (retro) conjunct Chiron
This is Mercury’s second conjunction with Chiron. If you add the eclipse which was conjunct Chiron and then the Sun conjunct Mercury you might think there is a story here and Chiron is the Key. One of Chiron’s meanings is in fact that it is the key as you can see by the glyph which represents it.
Chiron in Aries tells us, teaches us that suffering is a very personal thing. It is felt and experienced by individuals. Of course our wounds teach us everything but Chiron does not wound us. There is nothing inflicted when Chiron is at work in our lives. Chiron’s mandate is to teach. their textbook is the places that hurt, frighten and arises again and again in us. In our thoughts as well as our experience. Mercury first met up with Chiron on March 20th and these last days have underscored and highlighted their teachings. The last conjunction, after Mercury goes direct will be on May 6th. If life, yours, is a teaching what is the lesson? Open your book to the page called today. Class is in session.

April 18
Venus conjunct Mercury (retro)
This conjunction actually perfects at 4:59 AM tomorrow which is the first day of Taurus. I am including it because the Sun will still be in Aries and there has been so much Mercury in the astrological news recently.
This aspect suggests that we may be inclined to retort, to put our foot where it doesn’t belong, to take a shot at the status quo. All good. Perhaps this should include some poetry or art: Passionate, pointed and yet lyrical.

Julie Simmons 2/18/24 Julie Simmons 2/18/24

Insights for Pisces

February 18
Sun enters Pisces 11:13 PM EST
We give a lot of attention to the Age of Aquarius. We have dreams or perhaps nightmares of the future. What about the Age that is ending? The oceanic Age of Pisces which has brought us, among other things, to awareness of the collective unconscious. Even as we work hard to reveal the mysteries of outer, inner and local space we must accept that the unconscious is bottomless: unfathomable. There is always one more fish to catch or an unlikely encounter with a mermaid or two. On a personal level we have a dream or synchronistic experience, an eruption of feelings we didn’t know we had. We see a movie or a work of art and it carries us off inside to a place we didn’t know was there.
The same is true collectively. The collective unconscious shows itself through fads and trends, memes and collective actions including war and protest movements.
The Age of Pisces has been an age of extremes: Extreme cruelty and torture at one end and deep compassion at the other. Passion at its best and worst. You could say that the greatest god or symbol of the age was a man, tortured and murdered for his wisdom and compassion: an age of PTSD. No wonder the end of it is so chaotic. The human imagination is a great and unpredictable sea. The more rational and reasonable we have tried to become the more wild and uncontrollable is the shadow land of the unconscious.
Here in the death throes of the end of one Great Age and the birth pangs of the beginning of another we see and experience the holding on, the unwillingness to face the inevitable change. We struggle with the notion that we are all connected; everyone’s gonna get wet.
The wisdom of Pisces reminds us that we are not at the mercy of conditions when we are centered within; when we can tolerate our thoughts with equanimity. No time better than this time to practice.
As the Sun travels through Pisces it will conjunct Saturn, Neptune and Mercury reminding us to pay attention to our dreams and practice radical self-acceptance. It will also sextile Jupiter and Uranus as they move closer to each other. These are images of deep devotion to nature and acceptance of what we can’t control, all of which leads to right action: A great time to look for ways to Enjoy the End of the World.

February 22
Venus conjunct Mars
As Chiron hovers near the North Node give some consideration to how your greatest difficulties have been the things that have made you wiser, that have taught you the truth of what it means to be human.
Venus and Mars remind us that our ability to say ‘yes’ and ‘no’ is bred in the bone of human nature. About once a year they conjoin. This year’s meeting of the passionate pair in Aquarius points to our desire for knowledge. At best it reminds us that knowledge is a collective endeavor. As we struggle with our collective denial we might question our intellectual community. In a couple of days our knowledge will be tested by real life. What value does knowledge have if you can’t apply it?

February 23
Mercury enters Pisces
More Pisces! Astrologers say that Mercury is in its fall and its detriment in this sign. The mind is Mercury’s domain. The mind which, as the poet said, “is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven…”. Mercury in Pisces is considered unable to deal with the overwhelming tidal waves of thoughts that crash on the shores of our longings. In Pisces Mercury struggles to make sense of the world and the cosmos in which it resides. Perhaps the best strategy when we are overwhelmed is to dive under the crashing tumult of the world in favor of the still, small and mighty mind that lives within each of us. Even a nap will do the trick.

February 24
Full Moon: 05 degrees Virgo: 07:30 AM EST
Venus square Jupiter
What service do you offer your world? Whom do you serve? Why does it matter? And what obstructs your ability to know that it matters? What could it possibly mean for you to be a good enough human?

February 27
Mars square Jupiter
When the sky falls, when our ideals shatter or our ideas are not applicable to the lives we live, we are frustrated, even stunned. If “the master’s tools cannot dismantle the master’s house”, if “we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them” then the sky or what we think of as the sky which is to say nothing less than our assumptions about the way it is, will fall. Everything we think and believe and take for granted will hit a wall. We get the concept. More amazing would be to allow ourselves to live it. Some days there is no ground.

February 28
Mercury conjunct Sun and Saturn
Sun conjunct Saturn
A confluence of influences, where rivers meet the sea. Mercury and Saturn have arrived at the heart of the Sun. They have travelled far and are in need of rest and renewal. The wild storms of the world have exhausted them. They want new mandates, new instructions, and they need it to arise from connectedness and compassion. And you? Can you rest for a moment in your heart and let wisdom and strength born of compassion renew your purpose here in this one precious life you are living? Today we should all take a break when the Sun is at its zenith (noon). Consider the length of days, the cycles within cycles that create time. Receive instruction from the heart of the Great Mystery.

February 29
LEAP YEAR
Mercury sextile Jupiter
Leap year adds an extra day to the calendar and has nothing to do with astrology. It helps us to keep our calendar in line with the seasons and it is loaded with superstition. It teases the mind. A day to ask someone to dance, to put your clothes on inside out, to celebrate the incongruities of human perception, existence and will.

March 1
Sun sextile Jupiter
Venus sextile Chiron
If we are here to learn, who is the teacher? Sometimes it is you. Teachable moments are everywhere in the nursery school of life.

March 3
Venus square Uranus
Whatever upsets the applecart, yours or the other guy’s, it’s best to work together to get those apples back where they belong. Second best is to salvage what you can and move on.

March 4
Mercury sextile Uranus
Someone tries hard to understand why. Others sit in silence and wait for revelation. Still others sit but aren’t waiting. They are sitting and they simply want to know that they are.

March 8
Mercury conjunct Neptune
Whatever you’re awash in, whatever feels like too much probably is. Best option might be to sit with it. Dive under it. Feel it ripple out and fill the world. Just don’t try to make sense of it just now. The genius of the unconscious is at work. The best way to greet the fruits of this labor is with equanimity.

March 9
Mars square Uranus
Sun sextile Uranus
Mercury enters Aries
Heading toward a New Moon we take care to move slowly enough through the spinning world. We know that we feel the effects of violence and mismanagement wherever it occurs. If we feel the urge to DO SOMETHING. Today is well spent in preparation, even a bit of stealth as you approach an action. Denial doesn’t help. It’s hard to know how to fight against such enormous forces. Be aware of feeling. No matter what arises, wrap it in compassion. Right action will make itself known after tomorrow. If you are in a crisis of course, you must take action. From stillness.

March 10
New Moon: 20 degrees Pisces: 05:00 AM EDT
Mercury sextile Pluto
Daylight Savings Time begins
Let’s just agree that Daylight Savings Time is ANATHAMA to astrologers…
New Moons on the other hand are endless encouragement to start again; the promise inherent in cycles rather than lines of time. This one asks us to use our imagination, our creative intelligence to find ever new ways to handle our resources individually as well as collectively. Sharing requires taking as well as giving, being born as well as dying. The darkness around us may be deep but perhaps this sense of darkness is a warning not to ‘follow the wrong god home, not to miss our star.’ Poets know everything.

March 11
Venus enters Pisces
Venus is exalted in Pisces. Certainly some of that exaltation is because nothing makes patriarchy happier than putting women on pedestals and keeping them out of the game. But we’re onto that. Maybe the exultation of Venus is about the plain-as-day idea that beauty and truth are one in the same. Beauty is a necessity not a frill. The soul knows this even when the bottom line doesn’t.

March 17
Sun conjunct Neptune
A perfect way to leave the sign of Pisces, with the Sun conjunct one of Pisces’ powerful rulers. If we allow that a conjunction with the Sun is a moment of renewal, in this case for Neptune, we might imagine a soul exhausted from a year’s journeying has come to drink from the sacred well and nourish both its sweet and salty nature. As the Moon waxes toward fullness we aren’t inclined to hide out or retreat from our tasks. Better to go about them with a willingness to infuse your life with the kind of feeling that nourishes the soul of the world. Com-passion means to feel with. Maybe it’s less about infusing than radiating. Might it be possible to allow compassion to flow however it needs? Within you and without you.

Julie Simmons 1/20/24 Julie Simmons 1/20/24

Insights: Aquarius

January 20
Sun enters Aquarius 09:07 AM EST
Pluto enters Aquarius
You may think you know something about the Age of Aquarius that we seem to be thrashing our way toward. You may hold it out to be the crowning glory of humanity or the automation of the human soul. Both are possible… Pluto wants us to know that where there is light, there is shadow. We can ponder this over the next 9 months especially when reacting/responding to the little beep, interrupting your train of thought, telling you about something you don’t really need to know. (Pluto will dip back into Capricorn at the beginning of September for a short time.) Think about it in those moments when the natural world shows itself to you as a living breathing body. When you become aware of an angle of the light, snow on the curve of a branch, waves and light on water.
Aquarius reminds us that we have hopes and dreams, plans for the future. We are idealists. How else to survive the difficulties and dearth of winter? For many winter is not a season on the calendar but a continuing set of conditions. Aquarius reminds us that every living thing wants to live.
The Sun lights up the day. It is the guardian and perhaps the creator of consciousness. Pluto’s realm is the underworld where it’s dark and murky. As they meet on the threshold of Aquarius (auspicious points, these first degrees of a new sign) they are not in opposition. Together they signal the discomforts and fascinations of paradox. How to hold our existence in the light of our ideals as we witness the devastation of the effects of war and climate change. Doing this without rationalizing and normalizing the insanity of it all: That’s the hard part.
As the Sun travels through Aquarius this month it will square Jupiter and Uranus and, of course conjunct and oppose the Moon at the New and Full Moons.

January 23
Venus enters Capricorn
While Venus moves through Capricorn she reminds us to take stock of resources in the hope that they can be well used, managed wisely. During this time Venus will aspect Saturn, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune; each time reminding us that it is possible and necessary to manage what you have. From this vantage point you can realistically figure out how to then get what you need.

January 25
Full Moon: 05 degrees Leo: 12:53 AM EST
Mars square Chiron
The best way to pull our own weight is together. Trite but true. This is particularly challenging in a dominator society which stresses individuality to an extreme. We have been struggling with the ‘how’ of this since the 1960s. Celebrate those that carry the weight with you. It’s as good a time as any.

January 26
Mercury square Chiron
Who suffers? Who learns? Who carries? Who teaches? And who tells the story? The answer is probably something like, ‘all of us, some of the time but none of us all of the time’.

January 27
Sun square Jupiter
Uranus stationary direct
Mercury conjunct Mars
We journey deeper into 2024 with a sense that we are heading into new and greater changes than the ones that have already created so much disruption. There is no guarantee that it has to get worse. It just has to get different. Business as usual is not working. So what would? Think of it as applied chaos. Question how much is enough and what are the consequences of having it. Put thought into action if it helps create structure and orientation, even for a moment. Our bodies don’t last forever but they somehow last long enough to make a difference.

January 28
Venus sextile Saturn
Mercury trine Uranus
Venus trine Jupiter
(Mars at the bending (square) Nodes)
Nothing seems ‘unprecedented’ any more. Humans are ingenious adapters. We like to solve the problems, even in a maelstrom, even when the sky seems to be falling. There never was a better day than this one to consider an old situation from a new perspective. If you can’t work it out in your mind work it out as you engage the parts. Hold it in your hand, turn it toward the light. Do not be intimidated by apparent limitations.

February 2
Mercury sextile Neptune
Consult your soul even as you live your embodied life. Our longings are not meant to make us languish. We have this amazing capacity to sit, in our bodies and still our minds by focusing on our breath. We know how to relax, no matter what the circumstance. We just have to remember to use it.

February 4
Imbolc
Which is to say that today is the exact midpoint between the (winter) solstice and the (spring) equinox. In the north, it’s the time when seeds and all manner of life quicken deep beneath the surface as they prepare for birth in spring. We might also consider the seeds we are planting in our own ways for future generations. Ideas and aspirations that may not flower in these times but will possibly find fertile soil in times to come.

February 5
Mercury enters Aquarius
Venus square Chiron
Mercury conjunct Pluto
What does it mean to be reasonable at a time when extremely Un-reasonable things are falling like rain all over the world? Ask again: Who suffers? Who learns? Who carries? Who teaches? And who tells the story?

February 6
Venus at the bending (square) the nodes
Who owns the land? There must be other ways to live upon it aside from killing each other. How is it that the aggressive and rapacious inclinations of some keep the rest at their mercy? It’s certainly not how most of us live with our neighbors. Big questions. So many answers.

February 7
Venus trine Uranus
Mars sextile Neptune
There are so many ways to look at the same thing. Maybe one for each of us. How we think powers how we act. Today is a good day for right action, for building a world you know is possible. Small ways matter. Power does not have to be the driver. Sustainability makes more sense. Real world, here and now always for the good of all.

February 8
Sun square Uranus
We cannot control nature although we try. Too much power makes us crazy. Wealth becomes a weapon with which to exclude others. Might makes suffering, not right. Desire, one of Nature’s most blessed gifts becomes abuse. Let the wind blow, let the rain come down. Blessed Be. Tomorrow is a new moon, a new month.

February 09
New Moon: 20 degrees Aquarius: 05:59 PM EST
A good intention for this New Moon might start by aligning with your community. Even if it isn’t what you had in mind back in the day, this New Moon calls to us to gather with those who will accompany us as we negotiate the massive changes staring us in the face.

February 10
Mercury square Jupiter
If you’re the kind of person that looks for prophesy to explain what’s happening in these times you’re not the only one. Take your pick! Meanwhile, understand that the real message has always been written in our bodies, in the body of the earth, in what you might call (our) nature. Spend some time with your own inner universe, even if it’s uncomfortable. Breathe into the vast spaciousness that lives within. The still, small voice has so much wisdom. It might reveal something of the way through.

February 13 & 14
Mars enters Aquarius
Venus sextile Neptune
Mars conjunct Pluto
This is the first of Mars’ 2024 encounters with Pluto. More intense than usual because of Pluto’s relatively recent entry and the retrograde period of Mars much later in the year. It’s about power and vitality. We have choices. We do. Venus come in from the side, reminding us of this. What would it take to sit down and talk about things? To use power differently than simply to gain control or territory? Let’s never lose the Aquarian ideal of humanity working together to channel our amazing powers with kindness and inclusion, for the good of all.

February 15
Mercury sextile Chiron
Kindness and inclusion are the main ingredients of the best opportunities. Don’t kid yourself that it’s ok this once to do it the old way which only fosters greed and dominance.

February 16 & 17
Venus enters Aquarius
Mercury square Uranus
Venus conjunct Pluto
Venus enters Aquarius
Allow me to quote myself from the last day of Capricorn (January 20th): “Today is a good, maybe great day to stand at the cusp of Great Change.” Today I would add, ‘even if…’ - We don’t live forever. We never got rich and famous. We don’t think our efforts amount to a hill of beans. - Even patriarchy has a life span.

Julie Simmons 12/21/23 Julie Simmons 12/21/23

Insights for Capricorn

December 21 & 22
Sun enters Capricorn 10:27 PM EST
As individuals we do the best we can with what we have, we make ends meet. As a collective, a human race, we seem to be unable to accomplish this. Thousands of years of thinking of humans as the Crown of Creation have driven us insane. We can’t seem to stop wanting more. We seem to be at the mercy of …

A pattern that others made may prevail in the world
And following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

This inequity between humans and nature has driven Capricorn into deep archetypal distress. As the Sun is born again* into the coming year we know it will get stronger, as babies will. We count on the days getting longer, brighter and warmer. Hotter. Celebration of some sort is in order. If we want to rescue Capricorn from its archetypal perversion we need to reconstitute how we celebrate. It has become obvious to a lot more of us than it used to be that we, the living, are all better off when trees remain standing, when fossil fuels stay in the ground. In essence Capricorn is about the right use of resources. For thousands of years this notion of the right use of resources did not include every living thing. This notion has been seriously distorted as it diverted resources toward the top of the pyramid. You know this story. We all do, even the people at the top. May our celebration honor that we are wise enough and willing to manage what resources we have for the good of all living beings. Including Earth itself.
Oddly and interestingly Mercury retrograde is conjunct the Sun at zero degrees of Capricorn at this time; the solstice degree. Time for a deep dive into the mysterious way in which we are part of nature: A contemplation of how your animal body as well as your glorious, treacherous mind are aspects of the natural world, expressions of Life as it lives itself through you. Take a break from the preparations, the shopping expeditions, the anxiety of it all, and sink deeply if only for a moment into the mystery. It’s a good one. Imagine this: Your nature is a gift from Nature itself. (Best time for this is between 1 PM and 3 PM December 22nd).
As the Sun travels through Capricorn this month it will sextile Saturn, and Neptune, square Chiron. It will even manage a conjunction with Pluto at the last moment before they both enter Aquarius offering our imaginations a bit of celestial drama. We have lots to think about regarding how the world has changed since 2008 When Pluto entered Capricorn.

*Perhaps the greatest paradox of our planet is that it is a big round ball and what happens in the northern hemisphere happens in reverse in the southern. Winter solstice and summer solstice happen at the same time, on the same day. Boggles the mind. As it should. Astrology originates in the north. It is a way of telling stories of culture and the individuals who constitute it. If you live in the southern hemisphere and are the descendent of Europeans, the symbolism sticks. Long live the paradox of life on a big, blue ball…

December 23
Mercury (rx) re-enters Sagittarius
Having (just) crossed the midpoint of the retrograde period, our cosmic trickster and relentless storyteller is in a froth. Likely this will persist until it culminates on the 28th. Other, more supportive planetary forces are at work between now and then as well. We are not at the mercy of the mind’s restless wanderings unless we ignore them. Slow down and turn your awareness on the noise inside your head as well as the collective mind, the zeitgeist. We are a diversity of oneness. A bit of awe at the seemingly powerful and irreconcilable everything-everywhere-all-at-once-ness of the Holy Daze is in order.

December 24
Sun sextile Saturn
Stand in the stillness. Even a moment (waiting for the light to change crossing the street) will do. Coherence gathers around you. Suddenly you can do what has to get done. Best you can, good enough.

December 25
Venus trine Neptune
How would it feel to have everything you want? If you were living the dream? If here and now was the greatest gift? You do. You are. It is.

December 26
Full Moon: 04 degrees Cancer: 07:33 PM EST
Chiron stationary direct
For those who notice, the day starts a bit earlier, ends a bit later by now. The wheel spins. Time doesn’t march, it cycles. You and me and everyone we do and don’t know are cells in the Body of the World. It’s bigger, deeper, wider, more diverse than we can imagine. It’s always moving, always changing. It lives through each of us. It’s One Precious Life; dancing the dance, singing the song, telling the story. We don’t make it as much as it makes us. And we don’t always understand or like it. We are the change. Try drinking that in with your morning brew.

December 27 & 28
Mercury square Neptune
Sun trine Jupiter
Mercury conjunct Mars
Mars square Neptune
Mercury Rx is having a moment: Full of conviction, maybe a little sound and fury, sure of its vision, ready to defend and likely completely deluded. Scratch the surface of all that bluster, and you’ll find some powerful existential insecurity and doubt as well as profound wisdom - the wisdom of the Trickster - regarding the ever changing, shape-shifting qualities of reality. Stay with the wisdom of the Full Moon with your feet on sacred ground. It’s all sacred, even if it breaks your heart. Be strong in presence and attract coherence in a storm of confusion.

December 29
Venus sextile Pluto
Venus enters Sagittarius
Are love and desire the same thing? I don’t think so. When we can’t tell the difference we easily slip into addiction. Tell the difference. Save your soul. Walk out the door, if you must, to a better adventure.

December 30
Jupiter stationary direct
There is no point in using sky writing (astrology) if we don’t anchor it to our lived lives. Whatever you believe, however heavenly it is, the meaning is only found in the way you live it, the relationships you have with the world around you and most importantly, your own very intimate and personal relationship with your body. Jupiter in Taurus says so as it steps forward and joins the fanfare proclaiming that 2023 is over and 2024 is about to begin.

January 1
Venus square Saturn
Mercury stationary direct
Happy New Year and Mercury Direct! If you want this year to be your Big Win, wait no more. You just have to wake up inside the dream of the world. 2024 adds up to the number 8. In Tarot this takes us to the Strength card. It will take all our strength to wend our way through this year. So much and so many have been lost, so many in power seem to slow our ability to make the world a better place. Venus/Saturn reminds us that it is easy to feel overwhelmed; all too easy to sink into the slough of despond or to carry on in a business-as-usual manner. To wake inside the dream is to resist each of these options. Mercury direct suggests a kind of hell-or-high-water (it will square Neptune once again, soon). It’s time. You decide what it is time for. Every impossible task is ours to tackle. Strength and courage are the resources we bring to the task. As the gate to 2024 opens before us you might remind yourself that we live on a Big Blue Ball and nothing is as it seems. Everything changes even as it stays the same. Strength and courage is not the same as bluff and bluster. Faking it till you make it isn’t the same as reaching into the resource of your particular kind of strength and committing yourself to using it.

January 4
Mars enters Capricorn
Mars loves Capricorn, loves being boss. It’s up to each and every one of us to make sure Mars does a good job of being in charge. Capricorn is at its best when it considers and acts upon the notion of a sustainable world for as many living beings as possible. It perverts itself into a patriarchal pretzel when it puts personal gain over and above sustainability.

January 6
Sun square Chiron
Some heavy lifting might be required to accomplish your goals. The secret is in the Capricorn notion of sustainability. Ask yourself ‘if it harm none’. It may be impossible to do so much as brush our teeth without harming the world. When dealing with squares we often feel hopeless at first. Awareness changes everything. Don’t be afraid to know the difficulty before you roll up your sleeves and get to work.

January 8
Mercury square Neptune
The easiest way to dis-spell King Hopelessness and his courtiers is with wonder. Perhaps this has been the teaching of our recent Mercury retrograde all along. Wonder, if you must, about the insanity of humans. It will soon take you to awe given all the possible ways we could engage our various crises. Let it take you to the New Moon in a few days’ time. Then you might figure out what to do with all that awesome wonder.

January 9
Sun trine Uranus
Mars sextile Saturn
All that wonder takes us to possibility. Imagination is the Mother of Action… Be inspired by that which is possible. Not for the sake of ‘more’ or ‘better’ rather for the sake of the living, breathing, pulsing, flowing, embodiment of Life Itself.

January 11
New Moon: 20 degrees Capricorn: 06:57 AM EST
Venus trine Chiron
If astrology teaches us anything it must be that this world, this existence is always changing. One day it’s squares or trines and the next a New Moon. Life goes on even in the midst of it all. “Start again, no matter what”, says each and every New Moon. Shake off the dross. Make an intention. Focus your attention. This New Moon carries a bit of Uranus with it. If your life is a garden what seeds are you planting as the New Year gathers light? What resources will fertilize these seeds? If the seeds you are planting for 2024 fall in the category of New Year’s resolutions (it’s never too late) let it be something practical, substantial. Don’t give things up. Want what’s good for you.

January 12
Mars trine Jupiter
Yes! Cultivate that recently planted seed of yours. Yes! Because you know what is good. Yes! Because you know which efforts are worth making.

January 13
Mercury enters Capricorn
Rounding the bend, separating from the square to Neptune, applying to trines to Jupiter and Uranus, Mercury aims at finishing the shadow of the retrograde. There was confusion, dissatisfaction, restlessness, signifying not much besides the human condition: our out of focus over-mind. Part two is the clean-up, the stabilizing. Time to roll up our sleeves and turn toward what has to get done with commitment. Life may be finite for individuals but it goes on for the collective. It’s a wonder we struggle so much with righting the ship.

January 15
Sun sextile Neptune
We don’t need to escape the surly bonds of earth to be free. We actually need to be as firmly present as possible, to unlock the wonder and the presence of life’s inherent sacredness. Each and every one of us is a sacred offering on the altar of Life. The more we understand this the easier it is to be here for the long or short of our stay.

January 18
Mercury sextile Saturn
You knew it could be like this. Actions have consequences. And often they are wholesome and good.

January 19
Mercury trine Jupiter
Venus square Neptune
Here is it; Mercury’s parting wisdom: There never was pie in the sky. Delusion, misdirection, disappointment are built into the way we are made. We do it to each other as well as to ourselves. So is the ability to steady ourselves in the froth of it all and to learn from experience. Consider your favorite work of art. It starts with imagination but it is carried to fruition through effort and skill. This effort becomes skill because it is repeated over and over as they say, 10,000 hours. You get to enjoy it without too much effort. Perhaps it inspires you to put in your own 10,000 hours, to become proficient, to give yourself to love and life and spin the wheel. Something about today makes this simple, elegant wisdom obvious opening us to the wisest course of action.

January 20
Sun conjunct Pluto at the last degree of Capricorn: 8:46 AM
(Sun enters Aquarius 9:07 am
Pluto enters Aquarius 7:50 PM)
Seems like astro-drama to me… Thresholds are always Big News. The conjunction at the last degree, minutes and seconds of Capricorn suggests that we are not done with the past. We have not completed the task. Maybe it started in 2008 when Pluto entered Capricorn. That was a nightmare and if you recall, no one went to jail. The rich got richer and the demographic of the poor expanded and continues to expand. Perhaps a bit of serious reflection is in order. We were all a lot younger then. What have we learned and witnessed regarding sustainability and responsibility? Who are you’re your leaders? Pluto stepped into Aquarius for a few months in 2023 and immediately the conversation was about the glory and the dangers of A.I. Pluto will make one more, brief, backward sojourn into Capricorn in September of 2024. The best thing about today might be to see how it is to stand at the gate, the threshold. What does it mean when the world makes ‘non-binding resolutions’? Seems a lot like business as usual rather than the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.The canaries in the coal mines of our lives - the kids, the immunocompromised, the casualties of wars and climate disasters are not exactly canaries any more. They are more what we have to deal with, like it or not. 2024 strikes me as a year of continuing to walk into the jaws of our own worst possibilities even as all manner of green shoots sprout up around us as we go. 2025 is a year of astrological change. Today is a good, maybe great day to stand at the cusp of Great Change.

Julie Simmons 11/22/23 Julie Simmons 11/22/23

Insights for Sagittarius

November 22
Sun enters Sagittarius 9:02 AM EST
Venus opposite Chiron
Sometimes we’re tourists, sometimes pilgrims. It’s easy and pointless to make a value judgment in either direction. Humans are journeyers on this planet, doing our walk-a-bouts throughout our lives. We gather experiences even if the journey doesn’t take us around the world. It takes us around our world, the one we imagine we live in. The point, if there is one, is the getting of wisdom: To learn and teach. We don’t all become great sages but we so somehow become good examples, or horrible warnings. We express wisdom or ignorance through our actions. It’s no fun watching men (mostly) with guns wreck the joint. But even this can make us wiser if we have the fortitude to allow it.
Venus and Chiron indicate how we might gain a bit of wisdom today. We have become bystanders to a tremendous amount of violence and misdirection of resources. We cannot turn toward and we must not turn away from the needs of children and families. And then there’s the Earth itself. What can one person do? It’s hard to say but somehow it is wisdom itself to understand that we too, not just A.I. are learning all the time. Question is, how that learning can make us wiser, not smarter.
As the Sun travels through Sagittarius this month it will square Saturn (coming right up) and, toward the end, square Neptune. It will also trine Chiron and partner with the Moon at Full and New. See below for specifics.

November 23
Sun square Saturn
No matter how much you do there will always be more to do. And then there is Saturn’s favorite wisdom: ‘If it’s in the way, it is the way’. Making the effort to tackle the task will develop muscle and make you stronger. Whether we like it or not some things just have to get done. First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.

November 24:
Mars enters Sagittarius
As the wars of the world drag on, traumatizing us all, astrologers pay close attention to Mars, the warrior. I could write a book about Mars: About how it isn’t actually only about ‘men’ although it does include men as a group: About how it is affiliated with the Moon (sect ruler; nocturnal) and therefore is clearly meant to serve the nourishment and sustaining of life, not to destroy it. Mars at its best might be found in the symbolism of the Green Man or the athlete. In our patriarchal world, over many, centuries Mars has been disconnected from this original bond with the Moon and encouraged to act on its own impulse (terrorist) or to take orders (soldier) from Death Dealers not Life Givers . Mars is energy, vitality, pure life force. In Sagittarius it can travel and/or aspire to athletic excellence. It can also be conscripted or inspired to fight the Holy War. War as a metaphor, even for spiritual growth, has outlived its usefulness. As Mars journeys through Sagittarius over the next six weeks give some thought to how your reactions become actions and who they actually serve. Whose orders do you take and why should you do their bidding? It’s way past time for the Universal Soldier to wake up.

November 25
Mars square Saturn
If you know who you serve, if you are willing to focus and discipline your instincts, to apply your energy to a worthy task, you won’t mind this square. If you’re more inclined to kick the cat or bellow at the wind or your beloved, you might go for a walk amongst the trees and seek out the wisdom of the Green Man. See if it’s possible to put all that energy in service to a good cause.

November 27
Full Moon: 04 degrees Gemini: 04:16 AM EST
Mercury square Neptune
The truth will out. We hope this is true. But today’s truth isn’t necessarily going to be supported by facts. There seem to be too many conflicting ones. We have grown used to manipulation, misdirection and misinformation traveling along the airways and we can pay a high price for our assumptions. In the here and now the task is to be still and listen. It’s the being still that supports something akin to truth. And whatever comes from stillness may take time to figure out. Truth is not always obvious from one person to another. It does the best it can to express through each of us in its own unique way.

December 1
Mercury enters Capricorn
Time to think about structure and efficiency. As Mercury travels through Capricorn engaging various planets, it will turn up different variations of this theme.

December 2
Mercury sextile Saturn
Somehow humans figured out how to build bridges, how to sink supports into the earth below the water and make a stable structure to hold some pretty heavy stuff. Imagine the journey from a rope bridge over a rushing river to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. There are other kinds of bridges too. The kind between people, peoples. A good day for building bridges.

December 3
Venus square Pluto
As Venus prepares to leave Libra she has one more task. It is to challenge the royal presence that has dominion in the underworld, which holds the things we can or won’t see, the things we have lost or will one day, inevitably lose. Pluto is best understood when it is laced with the notion of mercy. Mercy is the quality that makes the power of change and loss bearable. Venus has dominion in the realm of grace and beauty. What happens when beauty encounters mercy?

December 4
Venus enters Scorpio
If everything we love will eventually be lost, what really matters? All that Venus does while she is in Scorpio has this question at its core.

December 5
Venus trine Saturn
What matters most is what we do best? What we do most easily? What we do for love? Out of desire? If one life is all you get, who cares? But if that one life is a thread in a tapestry, a stitch in a knitted garment, a link in a chain then it all matters because we are interwoven in the fabric of time in ways we can’t know. Do what you must, and do it well.

December 06
Neptune stationary direct
Stations are like solstices for planets. It appears, from the perspective of Earth, that the planet is standing still, which of course it isn’t. Nothing stands still. Even a rock moves, albeit slowly. We might time a station for the length of time it inhabits the actual degree of the station: In this case from about November 13th – December 27th. Long enough to feel the undertow of the collective unconscious pulling us all into the next wave, about to break. Some will ride it, others will be tossed about. Some will dive beneath and encounter mystery and soul stirring beauty. And of course things and people will be washed away. It’s always like that, you say. This is true. The station simply encourages us to pay attention to this aspect of life.

December 07
Sun trine Chiron
Mercury trine Jupiter
If you’re looking for a leg up this could be the day. A positive attitude never hurts so long as it doesn’t deny a reality that requires some depth. It is quite possible to be positive as well as sensitive to the feelings and wounds of those around us not to mention within us. There is always lots to do. We can take out the trash, pay the bills, do the laundry. We can organize the office, finish the project and, most importantly, welcome the unexpected visitor at the door of our guest house.

December 09
Venus opposite Jupiter
There is no point to accumulating the most toys, unless of course you crave accumulation. That’s just another word for addiction. All is already lost (says Venus in Scorpio). Let this powerful truth inform your pleasure, if only for a moment here and there. It’s a generous offering to those of us who have some ease with the notion of time passing, change happening. Of course, time passes and things change anyway.

December 11
Mercury sextile Venus
As Venus and Mercury arrive at today, each having recently encountered Jupiter, they have something to say, something of beauty or profound wisdom (which is generally beautiful). It being the day before a New Moon it might be an excellent time to go deep into your flow, expect nothing and listen for the song inside: the one that was there at the beginning and remains after the end.

December 12
New Moon: 20 degrees Sagittarius: 06:32 PM EST
We all want to be right. To be wrong is akin to shame. Even so, it’s difficult to hear the word ‘righteous’ without immediately thinking ‘self-righteous’. Sagittarius invites con-artists as well as true wisdom teachers and seekers. There is an inclination in us to be conned (go figure). Maybe it’s because we want things to be easy and the easiest thing is to let someone else figure out what we should do, or who we should be, or how we should live. If you’re inclined toward an intention or an affirmation for this New Moon make it about discernment, the kind of honesty that inspires righteous, not self-righteous action.

December 13

MERCURY RETROGRADE! 2:09 AM

This Mercury retrograde period is a bit cosmic. The midpoint of the retrograde period lands on December 22 at the solstice point. We all know the story of the solstice, one version or another. It’s the birth of the light. The Sun, which has been sinking lower and lower in the sky, making the days shorter and shorter is miraculously born again into a slow and steady rise which will brighten the skies and bring another round of spring and then summer (even if it takes a while). Even folks who live near the equator celebrate the season. It’s an archetypal moment in the human psyche. What can we take from Mercury highlighting such a moment with a conjunction to the Sun ? Could it be that we need to bring as much awareness and understanding as we can gather to the New Year that will take shape as the days grow brighter? This brief moment of Mercury cazimi, as it sits at the heart of the Sun (which is the heart of the heart of our solar system) seems to be a powerful reminder to listen to the still, small voice within, the one that is easily blotted out by the relentless barrage of noise and distraction. To listen deeply at the solstice is to hear the animals speak, all of nature in fact. Capricorn reminds us or tries that we are part of nature. We benefit from her abundance and we suffer when she becomes sparse or damaged. It’s that simple. To acknowledge this is to settle down in our bodies even as we once again, celebrate the miracle of the birth of the light.

As Mercury entered the shadow of the retrograde it was and will be again, in Sagittarius. It will square Neptune and conjunct Mars (which will square Neptune later in December). These are uneasy aspects. As it moves into Capricorn it makes more favorable aspects: a sextile to Saturn and a trine to Jupiter. This retrograde period has two parts: Reminding us in Sagittarius that even if there is a sucker born every minute it doesn’t have to be us. While in Capricorn it shows us that when we align with the natural world, when we overcome the distracting chatter and allow that we are embodied beings, we benefit. As it leaves the shadow it will square Neptune and conjunct Mars once again before finding stability again in Capricorn. There is a heap of information as well as misinformation in this world. Be mindful. And once you make it through the ‘fire swamp’ of the square to Neptune, as January turns to February there are things to be done if we are to be good citizens of the natural world. Tell that to your politicians.
For the exact dates of the aspects you can check the insights below.

December 15
Mars trine Chiron
There is action and then there is right action. Buddha suggested right action as one of the eight cornerstones of happiness: do no harm, do not cheat, steal or lie, avoid sexual misconduct and help others to do the same. Like all truth this is simple, elegant and harder to implement in this world of ours than it ought to be. Today is a good one for a strong intuition regarding the wisest course of action. And it harm none.

December 16
Sun square Neptune
If it’s too good to be true, it is.

December 18
Mercury trine Jupiter
There are so many solutions to any given problem. There are so many problems. Time pressure invites panic. It’s not the last bus. It’s how your best is good enough.

December 21
Venus opposite Uranus
Mercury sextile Saturn
Winter Solstice… 10:27 PM
For most of this day we are on the threshold of one season ending and another beginning. A moment of transition. However you find yourself in relation to the next few weeks let there be time today, in the midst of flurries of activity to reflect on any thresholds in your own life. This might include your perception of how the tremendous trials and tribulations of 2023 have changed the way you see your place in the world. Surely our shopping habits are changing (Venus/Uranus). Maybe we respect our ability to decide for ourselves what we will and won’t buy.

Julie Simmons 10/23/23 Julie Simmons 10/23/23

Insights for Scorpio

October 23
Sun enters Scorpio: 12:20 PM EDT
Here, in the North, where the prototypical astrological seasons happen, we are letting go. There is nothing we can do about the length of days or nights. Sure, we can get on a plane and go somewhere else but the sky will have its way. Scorpio isn’t just about letting go. It’s about feelings, particularly the feelings we have about letting go. The complicated ones, the ones you wish you didn’t have, the ones you hide, the ones you project on to others. It’s so human. There is no bottom to the well of feeling we humans hold. The truth of them will always out.
All this letting go and feeling is a kind of initiation, Scorpio’s home place. To turn away from it, to deny the rich complexity of how we feel always makes things worse as it fosters the mirror world of people we don’t trust, people we look down on who become our scapegoats. Damned if you do or you don’t: that’s one side of Scorpio. There is also the potential for ecstasy as we ride the intensity of feeling with an open heart, without interfering, without judgment, without action; just traveling the river of feeling now and again.
Watch out this month for projections coming at you or from you in a world so intent on war and enemies and hate. Fear is easy, love is the medicine that turns hell into some other place.
The Sun will be busy in Scorpio this year as it trines Saturn, opposes Jupiter and Uranus, trines Neptune, sextiles Pluto and conjuncts Mars. No matter which hemisphere you inhabit, what leaves are falling from your branches?

October 24
Sun trine Saturn
Water (Scorpio and Pisces) needs containment: the banks of the river, a shoreline of rock or sand, a glass, bottle or bowl. Water takes the shape of whatever contains it. Astrologically water represents feeling. Water is not passive or weak. The waterfall wears down the mountain. An excess will overflow the banks and wash whole houses out to sea. A lack makes things dry and hard, unable to absorb or receive it.
What contains your feelings? What shape do you allow them to have? Do you save them for therapy? Share them with trusted intimates? Fling them at random people and situations? Do you offer them to others (along with your attention) to be shaped and directed by outside forces? Do you project them like movie images on others or do you channel them through creative expression or deep service to those in need? Whatever the shape that contains your feelings, today and on until the full Moon on the 28th is a time to step up and use the power of your feelings for the good of all. It’s not about holding the line or making a stand more like strengthening our ability to feel, focus and sustain what matters most.

October 28:
Full Moon: Eclipse 05 degrees Taurus: 04:24 PM EDT
Mars opposite Jupiter
Mercury opposite Jupiter
Whatever this lunar eclipse brings we will be unpacking it for a while. In the not too distant future Jupiter will slow down and station at this same degree (mid-December through mid–January). Seems like Mercury and Mars (in Scorpio) opposite Jupiter (in Taurus) want in on this as well. Perhaps Jupiter holds the keys to this Full Moon. Jupiter has two sides: One you might say, is wisdom; the other is prone to excess, even an excess of judgment. Perhaps the question is, ‘How much is enough?’
The Full Moon lights up the sky like a silvery Sun. Shedding cool radiance and bathing the world in shimmer. Of course if you live in the city you don’t get to bask in the shimmer. Nevertheless the night is a little brighter. There is more that can be seen in the dark. Full Moons are oppositions, inherently challenging. They illuminate extreme ends of polarities. Taurus and Scorpio are about holding on and letting go: pleasure and pain: trust and betrayal. This Full Moon is strong because of the eclipse and two oppositions in the same signs. Taurus wants beauty, pleasure and value. Scorpio wants only the inevitable truth: What lives, dies: What becomes, transforms. In these times of radical polarization and the desperate need for integration, consider the shadow of your attachments. What needs to be let go? How can we surrender without fear to inevitable losses? Courage is not just the project of fire signs. It also lives in Scorpio when we acknowledge, allow and even celebrate endings which reminds us that we have ancestors who did the same. In this way, the past becomes fertilizer for the present and the eventual new beginning to come.

October 29
Mercury conjunct Mars
The intensity of the Full Moon continues. It’s a hot topic. Or maybe a very cold and calculating one. Scorpio goes both ways. Feelings, whether hot or cold are more powerful and closer to truth when we allow them time to cook, to connect with other parts of ourselves: Not to repress them. Time can seem like a luxury when fear is present. Slowing down can dispel fear (if danger is not coming directly at you). Distraction won’t help. Expression might. Take your feelings for a walk. Write them down. Sing or listen to music. Look inward. There is a deep well of feeling in each and every one of us.

October 31
Venus trine Uranus
We all know what today is. Or do we? Why the costumes, the candy? Why the gruesome graveyard decorations? Why is it one of the biggest celebrations here in North America? Step back for a moment and marvel at Nature’s power and relentless commitment to change. Here in the north we are deep into descending darkness. If you didn’t know better you might fear that the next six weeks of shortening days and lengthening nights is the way of the future: the way it will always be. Knowing better means acknowledging the ancestors. This might include your DNA relatives as well as the old oak tree that grew near your house when you were a kid or the glaciers that are melting. These ancestors were alive as they walked their path just like you. Nothing like a costume to allow a glimpse of another self, a slide in time. Trick or treat is one way. Dancing in a graveyard might be another.

November 3
Sun opposite Jupiter
Venus opposite Neptune
Oppositions require us to make choices about how we meet our challenges. These are challenging times – even on a good day. Do we project and polarize in an attempt to feel safe on our side of things? Is there a possibility to connect and integrate? Is it even possible to dialogue with someone who is stealing your resources or threatening your life? If someone is coming at you with a weapon you don’t think. You have been created over hundreds of thousands of years to protect your life. To survive. Good call. But if your life isn’t threatened in this moment, perhaps in the way of Sun/Jupiter you might consider how letting go of something you hold tightly is a sustainable option. For Venus/Neptune the consideration is about service. Whom do you serve? How is devotion a factor in your life?

November 4
Saturn Stationary direct
Mercury opposite Uranus
You know Saturn has you in its sites if you feel overwhelmed, responsible and confused about what you can do to alleviate the suffering in the world. The station has an arc that could be measured from at least October 12 and continues to resonate at least until November 28th. Stations are turning points. October brought us a terrible, tragic war, full of unspeakable suffering. We can’t say it will be over by the end of November (would that we could). Saturn shows us limits and by so doing encourages us to strengthen ourselves within those limits. Pisces is limitless. How do we bear the unbearable? What does it even mean to take responsibility? If you are overwhelmed by the sufferings in the world or even just your appointment book or people who expect you to show up in a particular way you are ready for some boundaries. This is not about R & R or a glorious distraction. It is time to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to obligations.
Mercury and Uranus inspire us to think outside the usual; to be open and accepting to a world that isn’t what you were expecting. Think revolutionary thoughts, not violent ones.

November 06
Venus trine Pluto
Mercury trine Neptune
How we do what we do matters. Caring for the manifest world is a sacred task: everything from sweeping the floor and feeding the children to demanding peaceful solutions from our leaders. The Temple is everywhere and belongs to everyone. We are individual cells in a living organism, so vast as to be unknowable yet nonetheless real. Call it Life. This awareness probably won’t change what you’re doing, just how you do it. Such is the nature of trines.

November 08
Venus enters Libra
Mercury sextile Pluto
Voluntary surrender to present conditions is profoundly relaxing. Involuntary surrender, call it capitulation, causes maximum stress responses. Surrender invites awareness, capitulation contracts us and breeds fear. It’s almost impossible to surrender or relax to a world on a crash-and-burn course of destruction. To turn away or pretend that it isn’t happening is not truly relaxing at all. In Libra, Venus suggests that we find the stance of a warrior which might allow us to stay centered (balanced) even as we take up the fight against extinction. Mercury reminds is that practice is the way.

November 10
Mercury enters Sagittarius
Mercury square Saturn
Redefining the notion of freedom isn’t easy. For quite a while now freedom has been the freedom to consume. We have become collectively aware that one man’s freedom often means another’s slavery. How much is more than enough? Think hard about this. As you do, anchor your intuitive leaps to the reality of other people’s suffering. It is as real as your own.

November 11
Mars opposite Uranus
The power of things we can’t control causes fear as well as awe. The power of a waterfall to wash away a mountain; the power of wind to generate electricity; the powers of love and loss; and, of course the power of people to be the masters of our own oblivion. There is a radical promise in today’s astrology. Coming at the waning of the moon we might consider that awe precedes action. Love not fear. Kindness not territorial imperative.

November 13
New Moon: 20 degrees Scorpio: 04:27 AM EST
Sun opposite Uranus
New Moons invite us to begin again. If you’re making an intention for this New Moon consider how you feel about the economy. Which of course means how much money can buy for all of us. What is actually within your control and what isn’t? Does this really surprise or shock us anymore?

There is no Planet B.

What if? What if this really is all there is? Is it even possible to meet it with our feet on the earth and our head aligned to the cosmos? If it is (it is) then we do best to meet it willingly; to be fully alive to the actual texture and rhythm of this moment which inevitably allows us to journey through time and space.

November 15
Mercury sextile Venus
Art, music, dance, poetry and sport all can speak to the soul. You choose, according to your inclination, what makes your soul sing. It’s a kind of love-making, personal, intimate and real, or it’s nothing. Our soul knows how to dance, to sing, to catch the wave and ride it to shore.

November 17, 18
Mars trine Neptune
Sun trine Neptune
Sun conjunct Mars
We are awash in a powerful mix of feeling and courage; compassion and action. The challenge (as always) is to be inclusive of all life forms. To be human is to be filled to overflowing with longing (at times). Consumerism has taught us to long for things. We have been at it long enough to see the empty promises in this kind of fulfillment. What kind of courage is required to allow ourselves to experience longing as a thing in and of itself? Not with the promise of satisfaction, rather the possibility of connection and perhaps a bit of bliss. Maybe bliss cannot be measured. In which case even a bit is as good as forever.
Humans are heir to some kind of divine paradox. The psyche is as real as our hands, our feet, our beautiful, unique faces: A tempest of rough magic.

November 20
Sun sextile Pluto
Mercury trine Chiron
Feelings are as real as rain, as powerful as Niagara Falls, as destructive or transformative as we make them. Feelings connect us as individuals to big things such as movements and trends that sweep through our world. Feelings allow us to be manipulated if we don’t know we have them. Feelings are the alchemical substance that enables us to transform hate into love, swords into ploughshares. Like all magics they are wielded most powerfully by the ones who know they are real.

November 21
Mars sextile Pluto
The call for transformation continues. Life offers endless opportunity for acknowledging and evaluating our feelings before we put them into action. It can take a minute or a few days. Feelings are always true but they are not always righteous. We may hate violence but it takes wisdom to know how to deal with that hate. Wisdom grows when we evaluate our feelings. Step away from the assault of lies and misinformation raining down on us all. They are fashioned by those who would tell us how we feel and fleece our pockets while they are at it. You alone know how you feel. Our collective feelings are a powerful energy source. Right action proceeds from true knowledge of feeling.

Julie Simmons 9/23/23 Julie Simmons 9/23/23

Insights for Libra

September 23
Sun enters Libra: 02:49 AM EDT
Venus trine Chiron

A new season, whichever hemisphere you inhabit. The metaphysical moment when light and dark, day and night are perfectly balanced. A symbol of equality here on Earth. Nothing lasts, as we all know, and immediately following the perfect equilibrium we descend (in the north) into the waning of the year as the hours of the night gradually overtake the hours of the day. It is all in our perspective whether we see a fight between the forces of night, dark and cold struggling to overtake the powers of light, warmth and day. Or if we ease into the yin/yang of seasons with night and day nestled into each other as they dance the raveling and unraveling of light and dark.
For astrologers this becomes a contemplation on things such as war and diplomacy, relationship and equity. Systemic injustices of all stripes are Libra problems to be negotiated and supported or deconstructed and reconstructed by law. Libra is the only sign of the zodiac that is represented by a human made object (scales). The ancient ones knew something as they determined this. Humans make the laws of the land, although Nature has laws of a different kind. Question is: What do we know about these Libran things as war rages and inequities proliferate? Perhaps we are at a perfect moment of change as we wake up to the absurd impossibility of a world that refuses to honestly strive to find balance. Maybe the chaos is really change moving at an alarming but necessary pace.
As the Sun travels through Libra this year it will oppose Chiron and square Pluto. It also begins the Aries/Libra eclipse season at the New Moon. You can find details below.
Today Venus and Chiron remind us that when we care about an individual we take on the system. The personal is indeed political.

September 24
Mars opposite Chiron

First Venus, now Mars: What do we need to learn about the way identity matters? When is it a call to action, a mechanism to defend? When does it demand that we turn inward and ask ourselves, ‘Who am I”?

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September 25:
Mercury trine Jupiter

Maybe a good idea has been trying to catch your attention for a while, starting back in the summer. Maybe it’s time to realize it: Manifestation is magic!

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September 29
Full Moon: 06 degrees Aries: 05:57 AM EDT
Venus square Uranus

What ever happened to the notion that negotiation is preferable to war? As the world falls into chaos on account of war machines and climate the overarching cultural glue that binds us also becomes vulnerable. How do we rise to meet our challenges and our challengers without sinking to the lowest common denominator of aggression? As Venus makes the last aspect of the retrograde journey and leaves the shadow of the event it’s time to consider what, if anything we learned since mid-June about where our expectations of our good life meets the nuts and bolts of real life . It’s enough at the moment to simply observe what has changed for ourselves and those around us. Has our ‘good life’ been reshaped in the harsh reality of circumstance? What was different about this summer? And, most importantly, how does that change your expectations for the future?

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September 30
Mercury trine Uranus

Each day offers a promise, comes as a gift, asks us only to be alive in and through it. This day is especially blessed with inventive ways to be alive. Good ideas, yes, which want to be put to use by someone curious enough to experiment with how to live in this new and chaotic version of reality which cannot be avoided.

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October 2 & 3
Mercury opposite Neptune and trine Pluto

Mercury is on a roll. We cannot, should not underestimate the power and significance of Mercury, the Great Connector, the Magician who sprinkles the dust of awareness on us. Mercury is the mind of life. From trivial to transcendent we need Mercury’s gifts to communicate not just with one another but with the world around and within us. Mercury translates. It isn’t simply the provenance of human intelligence. It is how flowers know to turn toward the sun. It’s the underground conversations of tree roots and mycelium. It’s how hormones talk among themselves and the intelligence of the microbiome. It’s how the biosphere talks to itself. The Sun gives life with fire and heat. The Moon stirs the tides. Mercury is our curiosity which enables us to learn about it all. Awareness. The Lord of the Dance is they. So when Mercury shows up in connection with the three original outer planets (and a nod to Jupiter) we might pay attention to lines of communication: for our health and well-being as well as the health and well-being of our planet: 2 leggeds, 4 leggeds, winged ones and those that live beneath the greater and lesser waters: the crawlers and the sliders even the amoeba. A good way to do this, today, is to sit still, right where you are. Hold center in the gentlest way and be in awe and wonder of the vast interplay of energies of which you are a small but vital part.

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October 4
Mercury enters Libra

Everything changes. Having completed its extended time in Virgo (due to retrograde motion), Mercury wipes its hands of Virgo, ready to take on a new perspective: Libra. Presently this is the sign of the Sun as well as the south node. Libra is inherently challenging although it can be found disowning this very trait. Libra is the sign that fights for peace. We think of aggression as the opposite of peace. Aries vs. Libra. Better than this split view is to understand these impulses as the extreme ends of the same issue. How is it we can live together as individuals and maintain a civil society? Optimism says that our civil society is falling apart in order to come together in ways that are more relevant to the world we have created. I say we hold out for this long view, tumultuous as it is in the here and now.

October 08
Mars square Pluto
Venus enters Virgo

Who we hate, who we fear: these can and often are projections of our own minds. It’s always good to look for triggers. Of course there are hateful things, fearful things afoot in this world. What matters most is how we act when we are faced with such strong, and difficult situations and people. One thing for sure: It’s never ever ok to blame the victim. That is a sure-fire indication of the most dangerous harmful projection of them all.

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October 10
Venus opposite Saturn
Pluto stationary direct

Consider the consequences of desire. The cost may be too high. The effects on people you don’t know and can’t see could be catastrophic. We live in a time of reaping the whirlwind. The effects of intergenerational trauma aren’t just psychological. The whole earth you might say is suffering from just that. A legacy of disregard and abuse from Mother Earth’s most cherished children with our remarkable (even if it’s just us doing the remarking…) cognitive abilities.

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October 11
Sun opposite Chiron

The beat goes on. The march of inequities. Daunting. Relentless. Overwhelming. Find the peace in your heart, not the escape hatch. Witness a tree with full acknowledgment that you are equally alive. Recognize the life force in birds and squirrels as akin to your own. Don’t do anything. Just be with it. Such are the great teachings of Chiron. The getting of wisdom isn’t always (or ever) heroic.

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October 12
Mars enters Scorpio

Mars is at home here. It knows how to get around in the world of desire. But how? Now? One way is to manipulate the undercurrents. Scorpio is a sign of great empathy. To the fearful this feels like an invasion of negativity and cause for paranoia. Which is to say these intense feelings give rise to the instinct of self-defense. Who wants to feel jealous or vengeful? The superpower that renders Scorpio most powerful is kindness. As HHDL said, “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.”

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October 14
New Moon: 21 degrees Libra: 01:55 PM EDT ECLIPSE
Mercury opposite Chiron

Often our greatest teachers are not standing at the front of the classroom. They are the ones who look us in the eye and demand we meet them as equals. Maybe it’s the bully doing their best to intimidate you. Could be the one who feels you are treating them unfairly. All relationships are balancing acts between self and other. A solar eclipse can make it shockingly clear. A good time to make an intention regarding how you intend to handle this.

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October 20
Mercury conjunct the Sun and square Pluto

Consider your persistent, unwanted thoughts. We all have them. Are they intruders? Do they have a message? Do you need to feel something that you are denying or ignoring? Pluto is a lot scarier when we push it away then when we turn toward it. Mercury loves a mystery. Add a conjunction to the Sun and you have the ingredients for a really deep mystery that wants attention. Science wants to manage matter, to shine lights in darkness. Some of us prefer to go spelunking in the nooks and crannies of our psyche. Not to shine a bright light but more to feel what it’s like. No judgment; maybe some awe, a bit of curiousity, even a bit of fear which is more like respect for the unsolvable.

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October 21
Sun square Pluto

As days become noticeably shorter here in the north and longer in the south we sense the change. Somehow it has become more and more difficult to anticipate change without fear. Whether it is the promise of summer or winter hanging in the breeze, the unknown, the unexperienced seems to loom rather than invite. That’s today but not necessarily tomorrow or the next day. Maybe it is how we begin to remember ways to engage with the inevitable unknown, the mysterious future that becomes present and then past. Find your fear, the resistance in your body. Drop your shoulders, release your fists. Meet the day because it surely is meeting you!

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October 22
Venus trine Jupiter
Mercury enters Scorpio
Mercury trines Saturn

Shift happens. In this case we descend more deeply into the dark of the year (here in the north). Feelings are stirred. We anticipate winter as leaves fall and nights lengthen. Life is cyclical. Cycles teach us so much. People say ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’. Actually it’s often the small stuff that gives us peace, offers us feelings of safety and connection: a smell or a touch, a familiar gathering with people you trust, a craft you return to now and again, the ritual of putting the garden to sleep for winter or taking your sweaters out for the chill days ahead. How are you blessed? What can you do to acknowledge these blessings? If only for yourself. No big deal.

These insights, are meant as contemplations of a sort: Astrology is a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.

Julie Simmons 8/23/23 Julie Simmons 8/23/23

Virgo Insights

When I
investigate,
when I discover
that the forces of the
heavens and the planets
are within ourselves, then
truly, I seem to be living
among the gods.

Leon Battista Alberti

August 23
Sun enters Virgo: 05:01 AM EDT
Mercury stationary retrograde Get aligned here.

Virgo is not what we seem to think about it much of the time. Not the sign of uptight, bitchy anxiety that picks away and overanalyzes everything it encounters. Who wouldn’t be anxious if they were inherently tasked to live in this world as if it is sacred? Virgo looks into the world and sees desecration of the body, knowing it as the temple for the divine. Virgo understands our embodied existence as something to be nourished and cleansed, adored and adorned. This awareness includes the entire planet as the body of all life. To be here is a gift we are given to be used mindfully and with an eye on best practices. Virgo seeks the sacred and often doesn’t know it. We need to respect anxiety as a kind of sensitivity, seeking wholeness in a world that only seems to honor the parts. Virgo is the canary warning us. Virgo’s impulse to heal and to use things as they function best is the enemy of dominator culture. Domination requires the violation of Virgo’s sacred trust. By robbing us of time it robs us of rest. All the various manifestations of anxiety from the despairing children to the rampaging men and of course the dying coral reefs show us that that we cannot throw Virgo into the junk heap. We might as well allow for the sacred turning of the seasons, the blessing of the harvest, the sacred trust.
Mercury retrograde on the same day and in the same sign as the Sun is an astrological clarion call to reflect on the ways we live and consider adjusting them toward wholeness and in service to the divinity contained and expressed in our embodied existence. We might need to sweat the small stuff for the next few weeks. In a good way. Take a period of time each day to meditate or nap, to rest, even as you consider landfills and sustainability. This will help you move into where your small but powerful contribution would be welcome.

August 24
Mars trine Pluto

Mars in Virgo (along with the Sun and Mercury) carries the Virgo themes along with vigor. Reminding us to walk our talk, put our money where our mouth is. Be the change. Trite but truisms for these days. How we live matters.

August 27
Sun opposite Saturn
Mars enters Libra

Consider the limits of matter along with the ignorance and belligerence of humans. Horrifying as that may be, refusing to acknowledge these things only makes them worse. Working within boundaries turns us into artisans, crafters. Acknowledging our ignorance and aggression helps mitigate their bad effects and can even render them as useful. Teaching tools in the Classroom of Life.

August 28
Uranus stationary retrograde

We are at a crossroads where expectation and aspiration toward our good life meets actual circumstance which is becoming more and more real and dire. This period of the Uranus station (August 15 – September 11) heightens the issues that Venus retrograde brought to light. Like it or not, believe it or else, reality bites: The cost of food, the quality of air, the apocalyptic experiences of fire and flood; the choices we have to make. It’s almost impossible to feel grounded in a world that is changing so fast. But Uranus in Taurus is just that. If the only constant is change, where can you stand? The answer is easier than the practice. Taurus (Uranus is stationary in the sign of Taurus) is the sign of here and now. The more we can stay awake in the swiftly shifting sands of the present moment the better is our reach toward more effective change. No escape.

August 30
Full Moon: 07 degrees Pisces: 09:35 PM EDT

What doesn’t kill us, doesn’t kill us. It only makes us stronger if we learn from it. And this strength only matters if we share it with others. This Full Moon asks us to take the measure of our difficulties. Who might benefit from our experience? We are the teachers, the wise ones (homo- sapiens means wise humans). We have all been here before and we can never step into the same river twice. Both things are true. Paradox and ambiguity: the stuff of life. Here there be dragons.

September 3 & 4
Venus stationary direct
Jupiter stationary retrograde
Mercury trine Jupiter

Are we desperate to have fun? To return to the ‘good old days’ of excessive consumption? Have we finally come to Last Chance Saloon?
Venus and Jupiter are like those proverbial ships, passing in the night as they change direction within 24 hours of each other in a square. Astrology comes to us or at us through geometric synchronicities. We can and do use them to reflect and guide (even predict) our experience here on Earth. The easiest predictions, the ones you can count on are based on knowing that humans resist change. History repeats itself. If we cannot be present, the past will determine the future.
Venus and Jupiter have been in this square for a while (August 22 - September 17th). Together in a square they suggest indulgence, excessive pleasure seeking, a devil-may-care attitude. Let the chips fall where they may. I’m just doing what I want. That’s how it goes down at Last Chance Saloon.
It’s quite possible to do something else with this square which Mercury trine Jupiter suggests. Consider all you have learned this summer about the conditions in this world. The climate, the kids, the wars and the losses. You know the details. Perhaps the best way to engage the energies of Mercury and Jupiter is in the small things that matter to you or someone you know. Even if you wake up in Last Chance Saloon you might find something to do. Sweep the floor, clean the mess off the bar counter. Talk to the guy who thinks they need one more drink. Flutter your wings and start a current of change as you challenge the habit of excess. Venus in Leo wants love, Jupiter in Taurus wants pleasure and beauty. Perhaps this square tells us of our struggle to love the earth itself. Maybe a heat pump is a better choice than a trip to Shangra-la.

September 6 - 8
Sun conjunct Mercury
Sun trine Jupiter

‘Cazimi’. Such a great word for when Mercury conjuncts the Sun. A direct connection between mind and heart. An infusion of vitality to the way we think. Add a measure of Jupiter and it’s a great time to open to all manner of inspiration from Nature itself to help solve the puzzles of life. Look or listen for messages; the song in your heart, the letter in the mailbox, the words to songs. Investigate Biomimicry. Sit still in silence and appreciate the voices in your own mind. No judgment.

September 14
New Moon 21 degrees Virgo: 09:39 PM EDT

This New Moon is in the same degree which Mercury was in when it stationed retrograde on August 23rd. Tomorrow Mercury goes direct. Today could be a powerful windup for tomorrow’s starting point. The radical individualism that has so imperiled the world doesn’t know how to value life itself. It seems stuck on the notion of MY life. MY one and only life. The stand-alone self is therefore obsessed with living longer, it can even imagine ultimately living forever. What a dead-end that experiment is turning out to be!

Time to reimagine the Madonna and her children?

September 15

Mercury stationary direct
Sun trine Uranus

We are reminded, inspired even, in these days of the New Moon and Mercury direct that it is never too late to begin again. Whatever conundrums you have been hard at work trying to understand or solve, here and now is an invitation to collaborate with other minds and find ways going forward from here. Maybe my life doesn’t last forever but life itself goes on. And on. The only cure for living is full-tilt engagement with life while we are here, where we are now.

September 17
Venus square Jupiter

This is the last square between these two for a while. Time to look back and see if we learned something or not. We might consider what if any excessive behaviors we have indulged over the summer. Maybe we ate or drank too much. Maybe we just worried too much or got sunburned. Are we any wiser on account of our experience? Alternatively… it might just be time for one more massive indulgence! Not generally my kind of suggestion! But sometimes we just have to let go…

September 19
Sun opposite Neptune

We are carried along waves of culture more than we know. A big part of our collective story that is undergoing massive change is that we exist in little power pockets of innovation and control. “If you’re so smart,” my rude mother would say to our hapless boyfriends, “how come you’re not rich?” This made perfect sense to her. As the waters rise and warm and the coral dies, this notion of the individual savior must give way to collective effort. “If we’re so smart”, you might ask, “how come we are killing our planet?”

September 21
Sun trine Pluto

The warm and rising waters of extinction are not the only thing happening. All efforts are empowering. Even the smallest things we do or try make a difference. The tide is ours to turn. We are the transformers.

Julie Simmons 7/22/23 Julie Simmons 7/22/23

Insights for Leo

These insights, are meant as contemplations of a sort: Each one fashioned using the astrological aspects of the moment. Astrology can be thought of as a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.

July 22
Sun enters Leo: 09:50 PM EDT
Mercury trines Chiron
Venus stationery retrograde
This year unlike last year or next, the Sun travels through Leo along with Venus as she descends. In fact today Venus begins her descent just as the Sun takes up residence in the noble hearted sign of summer. Of course it’s the beginning of winter, Down Under. But here in the northern hemisphere is where our astrology began where the meanings were born. For the north ‘down under’ is where the Sun goes at night: where there is just as much sky and the same planets, but different stars. At night you might think it’s a different cosmos: No Big Dipper or North Star to guide travelers. The Southern Cross is the beacon in the night down there.
As Venus begins her descent today we might give some thought to where the Sun goes at night. Those of us who live on Earth have a down under, an alternate sky, a different cosmos within: partly shadow but perhaps a parallel life, the road not taken, yet felt. A road that wants our attention from time to time. This summer being one of those times.
Mercury supports this today reminding us of our ability to learn from everything, be it positive, negative or neutral.

July 23
Chiron stationery retrograde
Mercury square Uranus
By now it’s pretty obvious to most of us that we aren’t going back to the way it used to be. Life is indeed ‘but a dream’. Some things change, some stay the same. If you think with your heart more than your head you know that what doesn’t change is change itself. It’s a mighty river and we ride it whether we want to or not. From the heart we recognize change as relentless creativity, not always art but always becoming. Always expressing. Absent the heart and it only sounds like clatter and breakage.

(July 25: Pluto is square the Nodes which recently changed signs. This is not the same as aspects between planets. It is more a suggestion that we are looking at life or we need to look at life through a different window. It has something to do with the cost of aggression, the threat of war and the failure of diplomacy at the moment. To sustain life on this planet (Capricorn) we need to transform (Pluto) our tendency to solve problems with aggression (Aries/Libra nodes). This aspect is not just for a day. It permeates the year).

July 27
Mercury conjunct Venus (Rx)
Express yourself even if only to yourself. From kindergarten to the great masters creativity calms chaos and the emotions which it generates. And it’s fun. Creativity has more expressions than the hairs on your head.

July 28
Mercury enters Virgo
Where there is art there is craft. To be good at something requires 10,000 hours. Practice, practice, practice. Mercury will be here longer than usual (until October 5th) because of its retrograde journey. It is a reminder that each of us has a particular genius, apart from the strange measurement of our I.Q. and we might as well use it while we are here. Life is a gift and it comes with a stamp of uniqueness which is yours and yours alone. Mercury in Virgo celebrates this aspect of diversity. Think of it as your particular offering to life itself which is the original gift.

August 1
Full Moon: 09 degrees Aquarius: 02:31 PM EDT
Mercury opposite Saturn
It’s the pinnacle of summer! How is your social life? Does it brim with frivolity and play? Is it full of people you enjoy? Or perhaps a bit sparse for your liking? If life is a celebration, everyone’s invited. If you’re taking to the streets bring something for someone who has no choice but those streets. There but for grace are we the ones who have something to give. Even if, somehow it is never quite enough.

August 6
Sun square Jupiter
Abundance was the given on Planet Earth. Greed and domination seem to have been the strange reaction of many humans. Times change. Generosity and kindness go a long way toward a remedy. Just like children in kindergarten we need to share. Perhaps we need to divest our portfolios from fossil fuels, junk food and the like. Otherwise there will be nothing left to cherish anymore.

August 9
Venus Rx square Uranus
Mercury trine Jupiter
There is a kind of stress in the way we feel these days even when we get what we want. Harder to feel satisfaction even though our packages are delivered faster. The shot of dopamine is still there but doesn’t last. For some this means wanting more and more. For others there is the possibility of taking what you already have and making it what you want. You still probably can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear but maybe it doesn’t have to be silk.

August 12
Sun trine Chiron
It’s easier to be part of the solution, the resolution, maybe the absolution of a problem when your heart is open to that all-pervasive quality we call love. Even just locating your heart in your chest can start the love-light shining.

August 13
Sun conjunct Venus Rx
Today is the exact midpoint of Venus’ journey of descent and return. She is nowhere to be found in the sky. We are reminded of loss and grief, of powers much greater than our own. We are humbled but not humiliated. ‘Naked and bowed low’ is Venus at this moment as the story goes. Utterly powerless. Today Venus, the heavenly expression of all that is beautiful, pleasurable and valuable is nowhere to be found. If you tap into this mysterious moment, you might sense the essence of transformation, how one thing, one reality becomes another. For 9 months Venus graced the evening skies as the evening star. This period was marked by a lot of smoky haze from forest fires, making it difficult to see the diamond twinkle of her light in the west. Venus will reappear in about 8 days (depending on your horizon) as the morning star. Forever changed. Life goes on for the living even after great loss. This is the way of it.

August 14
Venus trine Chiron
As if to affirm the significance of her Great Transformation Venus reminds us that we all will lose everything we love, sooner or later and even so we might as well participate in the Great Round of Life while we are here in embodied reality. There is so much to learn and where there is life, there is possibility.

August 15
Sun square Uranus
Whatever today’s energy brings we have been in it since at least the 9th when Venus was squaring Uranus for the second time. Tension between the good life and the realities of (unwanted?) change are strong and pervasive. What is success? All things Leo invite us to consider the quest of the Holy Grail and particularly the story of Perceval, the knight who eventually heals the Wasteland. Consider alchemists of old, hard at work turning lead to gold. We too are alchemists only we have got so used to gold we have come to disparage the lead, the prima materia, the base material and substance of life. We want the happily-ever-after ending, the good life but disdain the stinky clay out of which it is made. When Leo and Taurus get into a struggle this is often the issue. Either/or is not really an option. It’s a both/and kind of issue.

August 16
New Moon 23 degrees Leo: 05:38 AM EDT
Mars trine Uranus
If the last few days tired you out; if that exhaustion made you fearful that goodness will be overshadowed by forces of ill will, take heart. You are not being buried alive in a terrible place. Today is meant for dispelling the sense of powerlessness in the face of a world gone bonkers. Today your intention matters. Today we embrace it all and move toward the work, the effort, the application of energy that will create shift. The great alchemical mystery of life is understanding that shift (sounds like…) becomes gold. Shift happens. By aligning with it we co-create with the Universe, the Multiverse, Creation itself. Every New Moon is a reminder that we can start again. Leo offers the image of alchemy. Let your intention be to have courage in a world of radical shift. The greatest power is in service to life, in love. Isn’t that the world you want to live in?

August 22
Venus square Jupiter
Mars opposite Neptune
The band plays on or you might say the Moon waxes in light, all the while carrying your intention along with it. Like a stone in a calm lake creating ripples on the water your intention connects with the intentions of others. It’s a web. You might marvel at this. You might feel overwhelmed and anxious. Perhaps all of these things. Each of us is only one small drop in an ocean of movement. Overwhelm and anxiety melt in a kind of ecstasy (your version) when we relax and allow ourselves to flow in awareness of the vast ocean of life.

Julie Simmons 6/21/23 Julie Simmons 6/21/23

Insights for Cancer

June 21
Sun enters Cancer: 10:57 AM EDT
Mercury sextiles Mars as well as Chiron
Better than clockwork is the fact that each and every year on or about the same day, the Sun enters Cancer. Which is to say that it’s the longest day and the shortest night of the year in the northern hemisphere. We call it the summer solstice because it appears from the perspective of Earth that the Sun stands still for about three days. Of course, nothing stands still but that’s another story… This day is totally predictable. We can count on it. We know what to expect up there in the sky. Even if the sky is dark with ash, and rain is scarce it’s still the solstice, the same as it was for our parents and their parents, all the way back to our original parents. Through feast and famine, fire and flood, loss and gain we can count on the heavens to fulfill their cycles of movement. I could wax on (as I do) regarding what this means but better you do it for yourself. What does it mean to you that you live beneath a sky that holds us in a predictable pattern of cycles? How can you use this to orient yourself? Does it have anything to teach you? What will you do with so many hours of daylight?
Mercury, Chiron and Mars are playing tricks of the best kind up there. Reminding us that we can predict the movement of the Sun, Moon, and planets above us, but down here anything can, and does, happen. Some things change, some stay the same. We are the same and yet different than we were at the last summer solstice. Everyone is in on the joke.

The beauty of truth is that it need not be proclaimed or believed. It skips from soul to soul, changing form each time it touches, but it is what it is…

June 22
Mars trine Chiron
We are impelled to act on behalf of a troubled world full of troubled individuals. There is only so much one person can do. But this only-so-much can make a big difference in the life of one person which ripples out to all of us. Seemingly small kindnesses can reframe what seems troublesome into possibility, prevent crime, inspire a game-changing idea or simply ease life or circumstance for someone who is needs it.

June 25
Mercury square Neptune
Resist the urge to be conned, to believe everything you read or see. We long for a simpler world even as this one becomes more and more tangled with experts, pundits, and grifters whose main goal is to steal our attention. A little time-out goes a long way.

June 26
Mars square Uranus
Mercury enters Cancer
When an irresistible force meets an immovable object there is hell to pay. When we hold back on reactions and offer ourselves to the powerful forces of change something else can happen. Listen to the sound of your feelings without immediately turning them toward action. It’s a practice worthy of cultivation.

June 28
Sun trine Saturn
When we listen to our feelings; when we aren’t afraid to feel grief for all that has been lost, personally as well as collectively, we more easily allow for the feelings of others. Such is the root of compassion, the door to connection with all that will die because it lived.

June 29
Venus trine Chiron
Well into the shadow of Venus retrograde we are reminded to cultivate wisdom along with compassion, to learn from the wise ones who have come before us and to listen to what comes from the mouths of babes. Great wisdom can often be found in the greatest innocence.
(Venus will do what she does three times over the summer: once in the shadow before the retrograde – June 19 to July 22. Once during the retrograde – July 22 to September 4. Once in the shadow after – September 4 through October 7. Perhaps it’s true that the third time is the charm…)

June 30
Mercury trine Saturn
Neptune stationery retrograde
One moment it’s extinction and the next it’s electric cars and solar panels. Awash in these paradoxical tides it can be difficult to recognize our truths, the things we know in our guts: things that connect us to cycles and tides of becoming, losses and gains, birth and death: a world of mystery beyond comprehension: a world in which a mighty tide invites us toward compassion and connection, come what may. Could this be the human super power? The one you don’t often see enacted unless there is a catastrophe? Is this why we hurl ourselves at catastrophic conclusions? Are we seeking the one that changes everything?

July 1
Mercury conjunct the Sun
Mercury sextile Jupiter
Sun sextile Jupiter
Savor the texture and value of your world. Smell the coffee. Share the bounty. Cultivate growing things. We bring the world into being collectively. We live in a global village.

July 2
Venus square Uranus
Venus, in the shadow holds human selfishness up to the light of awareness. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the way we consume things we think we have to have and could easily live without. Possibly greed is our fatal flaw as a species. Look east at sunset and see the Moon rising. Look overhead as it culminates a few hours later. If you’re awake at dawn look west and see the Moon setting. Give deep consideration to the difference between need and want.

July 3
Full Moon: 11 degrees Capricorn: 07:38 AM EDT
Back before summer was synonymous with vacation it was a time to make provision for winter. The Full Moon in winter’s sign offers us that very reflection. As summer becomes the season of fires, you might shudder at the thought of winter or you might do something now that could ease the way then. Likely we can do this with satisfaction if not outright joy. But joy is good too.

July 6 - 10
Mercury square Chiron,
sextile Uranus,
trine Neptune and
oppose Pluto
Mercury is busy stitching the outer planets together, telling the story of interconnectedness, the inevitability of change, the existence of the soul and our capacity to turn the lead of suffering into the gold of awareness. We may feel at the mercy of a world spinning out of control or simply caught in the machinations of the Great Wheel of Time doing what it always has done. Think about everything as if you are part of it, not outside, looking in.

July 10
Mars enters Virgo
This placement of Mars was made for healing and organizing. It can be sharp and exacting. When it is not in service to kindness it can be cruel and cutting. Virgo at best seeks to integrate that which is diverse. At worst it lacks empathy which encourages cruelty. Fierce compassion might be its finest manifestation.

July 11
Mercury enters Leo
There are many possible futures. An open-hearted curious approach could be a good idea. Our genuine self-expression in the present creates the finest future, the one we are anticipating with so much angst.

July 12
Sun square Chiron
Sometimes it seems as if so many people are so very wounded and need so much care that the planet will never get to the end of insanity. We are all, by now, traumatized by the relentless assault of information (false or true) as well as the incessant attempts to control our attention. The minute we understand this, shift happens. Awareness lifts us out of reaction and into wise action.

July 14
Sun sextile Uranus
As the potential for collective change dawns we can get down to the business of turning chaos into change. it is easy to make an ‘Us vs Them’ scenario in our minds about our planetary problems. But humans are a cultural species. We share an over-mind, a zeitgeist, and this mind has a mission which is to know itself as connected not separate. There are definitely bad actors. In Dune we are told that ‘fear is the mind killer’. Actually greed might be the real culprit. of course there is no mistaking the notion that fear gives rise to greed. People who think their elite pod can survive while the rest suffer are supremely deluded with a mind sickness which we all have the potential to catch. Consider this deeply over the next few days as the Moon wanes and we are called to inner work. You might want to do this from the awareness of your W.E.I.R.D. (Western, educated, industrial, rich, democratic) bias.

July 17
New Moon 24 degrees Cancer: 02:31 PM EDT
Mercury square Jupiter
We all have wants. Some of what we want we actually need. Some, we don’t. New Moons remind us that we create this world in collaboration with other forces. Before you make an intention see if you can untangle wants and needs in your own mind. Needs should be met. Wants are another story. When one is collaborating with the Universe it helps to have clarity.

July 20
Sun trine Neptune
Mars opposite Saturn
You can consider the lilies who neither toil nor spin. You might alternatively consider the squirrels and the birds who are always hard at work moving toward or away from something we (observers) usually see. We are animals too and animals are generally engaged in the making and unmaking of their lives. Where is the joy or flow in the tasks of living? How do you make your life?

July 21
Sun opposite Pluto
The clock ticks time. In the old days clocks showed circular time. In the digital era time has become linear. Perhaps time is better understood through the ebb and flow of cycles such as the ones we observe in the heavens. From this we learn two things: Change is inevitable and what goes around, comes around (again and again). When the Sun opposes a planet it shines intense light at it. The opposed planet is revealed for a few days. Pluto doesn’t like to be seen above ground, so the story goes. Today we might catch a glimpse of something secret, something we didn’t know or didn’t want to know. Could be frightening or liberating. Or both. Approach with mercy rather than judgment if you can.
Tomorrow Venus goes retrograde and the Sun will enter Leo. Revel in the mystery of impermanence. Our lives are always becoming. Life is a verb, not a noun.

Julie Simmons 5/21/23 Julie Simmons 5/21/23

Insights for Gemini

If you need some real world, Jupiter in Taurus inspiration I heartily recommend this.

May 21
Sun enters Gemini: 03:09 AM EDT
Sun trine Pluto
When curiosity meets intense focus, amazing things happen. It is possible to see a world in a grain of sand. To get the most from this, clear away the distractions. Each of us benefits from putting our mind to work at solving the equations that we are most interested in or troubled by. Gemini reminds us that the world is always shifting, communicating with itself and perhaps the Cosmos. It’s a mad flirtation of birds, bees, words and trees, pollen and hormones, bodily sensations. We are all at the party, like it or not. Might as well dance!

Photo by James Wainscoat on Unsplash

May 22
Sun sextile Mars
There are opportunities in all situations but they aren’t always about getting ‘likes’ or growing rich. They might be about listening fully with our heart and guts or maybe just a simple offering of kindness. Any opportunity that fosters bonds between living things nourishes the world and is well worth engaging.

May 23
Mars square Jupiter
If you fostered and/or nourished some bonds yesterday, today requires a bit of discrimination in that some bonds are more worthwhile than others. If you are brought up sharp, finding yourself face to face with something you can’t tolerate or get rid of, stop right there; tune in to the ground below, the sky above. Measure your immediate reaction against the vastness of time and distance. This too shall pass. We are imploding and exploding at the same time.

May 24
Venus square Chiron
Triage is one of those words that sound better than the actual task. Picking and choosing which crisis wants attention first is a hard call. It’s easier to let the Great World spin when we position ourselves at the center of the wheel.

May 26
Venus sextile Uranus
As busy as we are, saving and destroying the world, there is also, for most of us room for an opening of the heart, a feeling of tenderness for life. In the dark wood there are shafts of sunlight that dapple green with gold.

May 28
Sun square Saturn
The tension between the brightest light (Sun) and the dimmest (Saturn) reminds us that friction is necessary to start a fire. There is such a thing as compassion burnout but if there is a flaw in your thinking it might be that it requires a dose of this magic ingredient which has the power to change everything. Results may not show for a while. Practice, practice, practice.

June 2
Venus trine Neptune
To be human is to have longings. Living as we do in Consumer-ville our longings are easily subverted into addictions. What if longing is actually a blessing? Not meant to be satisfied by some ‘thing’ but used to help us feel and express that rather ephemeral quality called soul? Write a poem; read one; listen to music; sing it; play it; love just about everyone. Encompass the cosmos with your deepest longing that all beings be happy, safe, at ease.

June 3
Full Moon: 13 degrees Sagittarius: 11:41 PM EDT
They used to say that a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for? It wasn’t good advice. Let’s just say. All that grasping in the hands of domination leads to things such as clear cuts, space junk, colonization, bigger and better weapons as well as continued appetite for fossil fuels long after we know better. Of course this mind set has also improved sanitation, envisioned public education, birth control and even the notion of liberty and justice for all. Still, it’s time for a new slogan: Man should stop grasping, or what’s an earth for? would be a start. Grasping, no doubt, is nothing more than a perverted manifestation of longing in which case we might appreciate those who reach for things other than profit and power.

June 4
Mercury conjunct Uranus
Looking for a new idea or way of doing something? Observe the natural world and consider how nature accomplishes a similar task. Given that we are aspect and expression of the natural world this should not be too difficult.

June 5
Venus enters Leo
Venus opposes Pluto
At times, the light of reason shines so brightly that it blinds us and the world goes dark. Too much head, too little heart creates real-world problems and yet, like rats in a lab we keep clicking on the T.M.I. button for our dopamine hit, letting the algorithm determine our choices. Venus will be in Leo for a longer time than usual (till October 8th) as she does her descent and return (retrograde). Pluto is about to regress back into Capricorn for the rest of this year and into January 2024 (see below). We could say their meeting is a short but intense dive into this notion of how reason and logic must be tempered with love. How can your mind bow to your heart, something an artificial mind (A.I.) could never do. Pluto in Aquarius has already begun to stir the question of what it actually means to be human and belong to the human race.

June 9
Mercury sextile Neptune
We can locate the heart in the the body, feel when it responds in joy or distress. But where does the soul reside? People have pondered this question for a long time. We know we have souls on a spring morning, wet with rain, birds and squirrels not to mention a host of other creatures hard at work in dances most of us can only marvel at. When I see stars in a black sky at night, or feel the warmth of the sun sinking into my bones after a chill I sense my soul responding. I’m sure you have your version of this. All it requires to access it is a moment of stillness and a bit of receptivity to the constant movement of the natural world. Perhaps the soul responds to our sense that there is a season for everything under heaven.

June 10
Sun sextile Chiron
Anyone remember, Free to Be: You and Me? A book for children of all ages, dedicated to the notion that everyone matters, that each of us has unique gifts which matter to the whole village. Times have changed. People haven’t. What will it take to appreciate our differences and grow a cohesive world? After all, diversity makes the world go ‘round.

June 11
Pluto Retrogrades back into Capricorn: 5:45 AM
Mercury trines Pluto: 6:26 AM
Mercury enters Gemini: 6:26 AM
Venus square Jupiter
Mercury and Pluto in a trine is a good combination for thinking deeply about anything that requires it. Don’t be afraid to look into the shadows or to research more than what’s obvious. It’s almost magical what these two can cook up together.
The astrological picture of Pluto crossing back into Capricorn while Mercury crosses into Gemini conjures the sorcerer’s apprentice or perhaps spies successfully exchanging secrets. One in the light, one in the dark.
Venus adds a bit of extravagance to this day. Try not to spend more than you can afford…

June 15
Mercury square Saturn
Mercury is quite busy this week carrying messages from the underworld and now being asked to prove they are not lies. For some it’s a test they will fail. For others a challenge to do the extra work to make your message clear. A wonderful day for editors to do what they do best.

June 17
Mercury sextile Venus
Saturn stationery retrograde
Be still and allow the stirrings of your soul to reveal something that lives in the depths. No matter what the circumstances, we all need a rest. In the gentlest of ways, what you turn yourself toward will turn toward you.

June 18
New Moon 26 degrees Gemini: 12:37 AM EDT
Sun square Neptune
Make an intention to attune yourself to the stories that you count on to guide you best through the froth of dis- and mis- information surrounding us all. Goes without saying that there are those who would purposely mislead or con us into or out of what serves us best. Everyone has a soul: True or false? The soul is smaller or bigger, depending on what? The soul cannot be measured (it does not weigh 21 grams). And your soul? What makes it ache? What does it long for? What purpose does it serve?

June 19
Jupiter sextile Saturn
Having solved the riddle of the soul… today’s question is about faith. Is it about believing in something? Are faith and hope related? Do you have faith in the invisible or is it grounded in the world you can taste, smell, touch, feel, see and hear? These days, with Jupiter in Taurus it seems if you want to believe in something it ought to be something real.

Julie Simmons 4/20/23 Julie Simmons 4/20/23

Insights for Taurus

Reminder: Astrology is a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.

A Mercury Retrograde month: Get aligned here.

April 20
Sun enters Taurus: 04:13 AM EDT
Sun square Pluto
Lest we forget: Shift is happening everywhere. Taurus hates that. Taurus must have invented the dream of stability, predictability and things you can count on. However this stops short of the deeper meaning of this sign which is presence; the unshakable stability that lives at the core and takes all that happens in without changing or losing its ground. It seems that the N.I.M.B.Y.s days are over. The entire world is my back yard. And yours. And it’s changing faster than greased lightning. The Great Leonard reminded us that the cracks are how the light gets in. It helps to have an image in the mind.
Taurus, of course, is not the mind. It’s the body and includes the mind only as much as its thoughts arise from the body. Consider your own particular body and the way it draws upon the earth’s energies for sustenance. We don’t mine this energy for profit. We draw upon it and thereby affirm our earthiness. Go stand next to a tree and you will see.
Mercury goes retrograde tomorrow, asking us to look back so that we can look ahead. You can read more about this here. (Scroll down a bit.) As the Sun travels through the sign of Taurus this year it will engage with Saturn and Uranus as well as Mercury. Jupiter will join in later in May. There is no point in debating what, if anything is real. Taurus is more about exploring what it means to be embodied in a world where absolutely nothing lasts.

April 21
Mercury retrograde
Back in the day… when I learned astrology we were taught that if you wanted to understand Mercury retrograde you could just put ‘re’ in front of any word you like. If you play this game you will realize that there is no need to freak out when this happens. Nothing to hide from. Here is a partial list. I am sure you can make one of your own. Re-member, re-store, re-flect, re-do, re-turn, re-ssurect, re-call, re-pair, re-fuse, re-tire. Re-arrange, re-write, re-read, re-kindle, re-do. And of course, if you must, re-gret.
Given that Mercury is in the earthy sign of Taurus you might want to re-invigorate your garden or re-turn something you don’t really need. Re-vise your budget or re-member how good something felt.
Generally speaking they say that Mercury retrograde is good for writers and writing. It’s a time to dive deeply and bring back some treasure. And yes, if you are involved in something that requires detail, measure twice and cut once. Always good advice.
You can read more about it here.

April 23
Mars sextile Mercury (Rx)
What kind of action (Mars) might offer an opportunity (sextile) to help you find some solid ground (Taurus) and feel more secure in the year to come? Even if you can’t do it all today you could consider what might be re-quired (Mercury) to accomplish a little bit of grounding.

April 25
Sun sextile Saturn
Venus sextile Chiron
What good are feelings? What purpose could they possibly have, even if it’s a swamp in there where they reside? Make a list. It might include the simple understanding that whatever they are, feelings are always true. We feel what we feel which is not the same as acting them out. Knowing what you know about the importance of feelings you might offer a hand to someone whose feelings need a witness which is decidedly different than a fix.

April 27
Mars square Chiron
Our insecurities make us reactive to the insecurities of others. So we grab more than we need off the grocery shelf and we give less than we can afford to those whose insecurities far outweigh our own. Let’s be honest, to be human is to be insecure. To rise above doesn’t always help. Diving in and exploring our watery interior realm is where real change begins.

April 29
Mars sextile Uranus
If you look back to as recently as April 23 you get a sense of the capriciousness of planets. Mars sextile this, square that. Just like life. If you have been diving in and looking around at how you are made with an eye to figuring out what it’s good for you might be ready for the Aha! moment: Not exactly a solution to human insecurity but more like a creative, inventive hack.

May 1
Pluto stationery retrograde
Sun conjunct Mercury (Rx)
A day to make a stand at the most profoundly inner and paradoxical layer of existence; Be it science, mysticism, psychology or planting your garden. Easier said than done. To be honest, I am not sure what I even mean but there we have the image of Mercury cooking at the heart of the Sun where renewal begins and Pluto, guardian of the Underworld, standing still as an angel on the head of a pin. Given that nature only makes originals (consider your fingerprints) you may be the only one who is qualified to know what this means for you.

May 4
Venus square Neptune
Stillness at the heart allows us to navigate the chaotic circumference of the world around us. Maybe it’s just about having the courage to rest.

May 5
Full Moon: 14 degrees Scorpio: 01:34 PM EDT
Venus sextile Jupiter
All things considered there has never been a better time than now to accept the world and your part in it as is. Full Moons offer light in the darkness allowing us to avoid potholes and pitfalls. This one asks us to look behind from where we came if we want to have a sense of where we are going. Once we believed that it was enough to do this for ourselves alone. Times have changed. Mercury retrograde themes are strengthened by this Full Moon which is to say, as you look back over the last few years or maybe a lifetime you would do well to appreciate all the times you landed on your feet or did something right. We don’t get to do it over but we are learning all the time. As we step into the future (always) we could apply what we have learned. This is the application of our Earned Wisdom. If we have learned anything it might be that for something to be worthy it needs to be for the Good of All or at least the many.

May 7
Venus enters Cancer
There’s a million reasons to love your mother – the one who gave birth to you or the one who gives birth to us all. But who needs a reason to love the supremely creative power that gives us life? All the neurotic triggers and hooks aside, let us love our Mother. (Even if Mother’s Day is not until next week.)

May 9
Sun conjunct Uranus
Everything we think we own exists in concert with everything that ever was or will be created. The whole earth belongs to us as much as we belong to Her. We own what we love, if only for a time. The rest is just stuff. We hold on and we let go. Chaos and creation have always been a pair. The difference now is that we are aware of this tension unfolding right where we stand: Beneath our feet, above our heads and at the grocery store.
Planets are renewed in the heart of the Sun, (conjunction): the way a Phoenix rises from the ashes of its immolation. Inasmuch as these planetary pictures are meant for musing, how can you embrace the chaos?

PhoenixFire Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

May 12
Mercury (Rx) sextile Saturn and Venus
You can only really be where you are at any given moment. Such are the wisdom teachings of many great traditions as well as just plain common sense. All awakenings occur in the here and the now. Be amazed but more importantly be present to the uses of love and healing wherever you find yourself. Everyone matters: the squirrel in your back yard, the bird in your front and the people everywhere. Nature is, has always been and will continue to be diverse.

May 13
Venus trines Saturn
On the verge of the unknown, the unknowable, call it the future, we drink deeply from the well of feeling within. In this way we experience the genuine web of connection of everything to everything.

May 14
Mercury stationery direct
Before you forge ahead, take a quick look back at what, if anything, you learned or have become aware of since April 21st when Mercury went retrograde. Looking back allows us to move ahead with confidence or at least willingness.

May 15
Mars trines Neptune
Spiritual warriors can be tricksters, tricking us into seeing the world from a different perspective. Worse is when tricksters pretend to be spiritual warriors. Discerning the difference is an initiation in its own right. To do this you have to trust yourself, your gut-level self; that inner part of you that knows what it knows and doesn’t need others to agree. In this world it is a radical act to trust oneself over and above the algorithm or the scam artist.

May 16
Jupiter enters Taurus
Big astrological news: More earth. Jupiter here could expand our desire to consume, to want, to grasp. Be on the lookout. Remember when everyone bought too much toilet paper? Scarcity mind is Taurus at its worst. A nobler and just as possible way to see this is to see the Earth as a living being, made of earth, air, fire and water, just like you. In fact we are made in the image of the Earth. With bones like mountains; breath like air; blood , sweat and tears the living waters; and spirit, a fire that burns with passion and the impulse to live the only life you can.
These first two weeks of Jupiter’s arrival will show us (by its aspects to Pluto and Mars) more ‘no’ than ‘yes. We are challenged personally and collectively to care passionately for what matters but to hold back on aggression. Restraint is the word.

May 17
Jupiter square Pluto
The gods are at odds with each other. The best laid plans seem useless in the face of the immediate here and now of things. This clash between ideal and real continues to upset our intentions. The fate of far too many lives and souls is at the mercy of a tight-fisted greed that no longer makes sense, if it ever did. Where does that leave us? We are not the greedy ones are we? We feel like pawns in the game. And so we are if we cannot fathom the complex powers that abide in our own depths. Time to dig right where you’re standing. A square like this, just two days before a New Moon suggests a time to hold the tension. Action will be more effective after the New Moon on the 19th.

May 18
Sun sextile Neptune
Take your part in the mad, mad, mad world. If you don’t know what that is take a nap, perchance to dream. Find the simplest manifestation of beauty that presents itself. This world and each of us living in it are powered by and connected to unseen forces. Call it the soul of nature. Soak it up. Take it in. It’s real.

May 19
New Moon: 28 degrees of Taurus: 11:53 AM EDT
Mercury sextile Saturn
Once again, as it does each and every month, no matter what the conditions here on Earth, the Moon is New. She glides into the heart of the Sun, the fire of renewal, and she says (if we have ears to hear) “Begin Again.” Make an intention based on things you can taste and touch. Matter is Mother. Mother is this world which our senses perceive (all 6 of them). We belong here for as long as we are here, even after. Get real. See if you can love yourself or someone or something enough to make it real.
Everything is possible when contained within the limits of matter. That’s the game. We will never sprout wings but we can fly.

May 20
Mars enters Leo
Mars opposite Pluto
Power: over others, empowerment from within. To light the way or to destroy the way of someone else. Special powers, magical powers, super powers. Power translated into action: Explosive, implosive. Why not for the good of all? Power + Action = Frustration when you add Jupiter to the mix tomorrow on the first day of Gemini.

Julie Simmons 3/20/23 Julie Simmons 3/20/23

Insights for Aries

These insights, are meant as contemplations: Astrology is a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same but any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.

March 20: Spring Equinox
Sun sextile Pluto
Sun enters Aries: 05:24 PM EDT
What does it mean to be born and born again every spring? Consider the notion of Resurrection; a sense of wonder as life shoots up through the cracks in the sidewalks as well as on the hills and in the valleys. All you need is sun, light, soil and water! This is truly the makings of a miracle.
We all like a story with a happy ending. How about a happy beginning? This equinox occurs in an interesting time: Just after the Sun sextiles Pluto at the very end of Capricorn and just before a New Moon in the very first degree of Aries. At the very least this reminds us that we are the dwellers on the threshold.

I'm a dweller on the threshold
And I cross some burning ground
And I'll go down to the water
Let the great illusion drown

What or where are your edges? What threshold do you stand upon? As the Sun journeys through the fiery sign of Aries it will meet up with the Moon and Chiron at the Full Moon on the 6th of April. Possibly in these times ‘Who am I?’ is a question that only gets answered when we ask ‘Who are you?’ A bit further on it will conjunct Jupiter, inspiring action in all things from gardening to protesting.

March 21
New Moon 00 degrees Aries: 12:01 PM
New lives, demanding attention and effort are being born all over the place. What will life be like for all these babies? Ready. Set. GO! Is the command. What’s your race? What new ground requires your courage and determination to meet it? Unlike the last degree of a sign, the zero degree indicates we have crossed a threshold. Zero holds the full potential of whatever sign it inhabits. In only two days Pluto will enter the zero degree of Aquarius. What possibilities live in the seed you hold in your hand? Old or young, optimist or pessimist, energetic or tired, you are a seed among seeds. How do you imagine your unfurling over the next month (in the case of the New Moon) or the next 20 years (in the case of Pluto)? How will your garden grow? Is there wisdom to be had by calling on ‘old ways’ for a new world? If this is a starting gate ask yourself; What am I at the beginning of and where am I breaking new ground?

March 23
Pluto enters Aquarius
Rally your dystopian fantasies. Scatter them to the four winds. This is the first time Pluto has been in Aquarius since it was discovered in the early 1930s. We are in relatively uncharted territory. Although of course, we do have some idea about Aquarius. This is a big story. A shift in the collective, promising 20 years of whatever it brings…
If you google Pluto + Aquarius you will find what probably amounts to TMI. Nevertheless it can be a fun and inspiring ride. I suggest this article as a starting point.
Pluto often inspires astrologers to look for the worst. It is a symbol of destruction but mostly of things that are already rotten. Some see it as the hoarder of great wealth. We all know how that’s working in our world at the moment. Pluto will definitely go after the power pyramid that enables such inequities. Aquarius is the sign of the commons. The easing of so many of our collective ills might be in our very Aquarian ability to share wealth.
Pluto seems to hate denial. It tends to breed all sorts of negative projections until and unless we acknowledge our deeper, more difficult truths. (Think #MeToo.) Perhaps Pluto’s greatest gift since discovery has been depth psychology (of course there was also Plutonium and the atom bomb). The problem with these great discoveries is of course is the patriarchal inclination to medicate and monetize that which arises from the depths. Astrologers and mythologists often depict Pluto as the Great Abductor: The rapist from below. This seems to allow for a kind of patriarchal sanctification of this behavior.
This has always seemed a great error to me even if it is an apt description of how Pluto has behaved in our times. A grave error because how we tell our stories is how we live. Along with the development of depth psychology at the time Pluto was discovered was also the rise of advertising which allowed wholesale efforts to manipulate people to buy things that they do not need and which may not be and do what they are advertised to do. In fact it is said that advertising began with cigarette ads and we all know what they lied about.
There is no mistaking the pain and suffering when we do in fact descend into the depths of our feelings, wounds, and traumas. But a great deal of that pain is caused by the fear that we will be harmed not healed if we journey so deeply into the nether regions of our psyche, personally as well as collectively. A certain amount of privilege seems to be required to journey safely through the depths not to mention enough education to allows us to know we are journeying at all. Artists take that privilege as their own. Otherwise it requires wealth to pay for the therapies or experiences that enable such exploration.
Rather than seeing Pluto as some kind of holy rapist, how about we honor this principle as the Queen of the Underworld? She who holds the gift of mercy and bears witness to our births and deaths.
Pluto in Aquarius might signify that it’s time to shift our fascination with horror toward healing. Between now and mid-June while Pluto takes first steps in Aquarius the strongest expression will be during the second half of May. Till then you might just rummage around in your own basement and see what might be retrievable or need some work.

March 25
Mars enters Cancer
Mars is said to fall in Cancer. Perhaps this is because it’s not in control when it overflows with feeling. There are those of us who have experienced the amazing kindness and care that first responders often have in situations that are fraught with feelings, not to mention their skill and command of a situation which we generally lack when it’s our crisis. Mars’ task in Cancer is to respond, not react to the welfare of those around us. It’s a bit like turning swords into ploughshares. Look for real-life expressions of this as Mars approaches a trine to Saturn on the 30th.

March 26
Mercury conjunct Chiron
There was that time when we were selfish: When we thought the only thing that mattered was me, myself and I. Like the sun rising after a long night the light is dawning: Everyone is a ‘me’ and an ‘I’; each human, each living thing for that matter, wants life, wants to live fully and express their unique identity. All we have to do is figure out how to do that together. This will require clever thinking and a willingness to try new things. Given the inherent aggression of human beings there may be resistance.

March 28
Mercury conjunct Jupiter
Mercury has pulled Jupiter and Chiron together again for the last few days. We may notice all sorts of clever alternatives to outright aggression and the urge to win at all costs. Likely we are tired of all the talking heads, the puffed-up pundits who spout theories and solutions to the problems of the day; the problem of being human. It seems our ability to defend and protect ourselves which has contributed greatly to our success as a species has, in these times, led us to the brink of extinction. Quite the opposite of success. Each and every one of us is a vibrant, vital singularity. Each and every one connected by birth to all that lives on Planet Earth. Is simply being human an oxymoron?

March 30
Mars trine Saturn
Venus conjunct Uranus
Refer above to March 25th for a refresher on Mars in Cancer. Be inspired to want what’s good for you as well as for others. Think values not economics. To be alive requires us to have the basic things needed for physical survival as well as to offer kindness and concern to others needing the same things. Is the body in the soul or is the soul in the body?

April 3
Mercury enters Taurus
Mercury square Pluto
Mercury, the messenger stands up to Pluto today. Truth to power? Circumstance to ideals? A test of values? Further on, in the second half of May, Jupiter and Mars will trigger this same degree. Zero is the seed carrying the full potential of a sign. While Pluto is at zero degrees of Aquarius (March 23 – June 11) these activations allow us to catch the scent, hear the promise of Pluto in Aquarius for the next 20 years. Consider the wisdom of these wise words:

April 5
Mercury sextile Saturn
Sun conjunct Chiron
What do you need to learn to help move you along your particular wisdom path? Where might you be instructed? May the path of your seeking acknowledge and foster your unique abilities. Push against places that have not been fully cultivated in you. We are unfinished works of art as long as we live. You could dare to be great but even good would be plenty. Themes of wisdom, learning and cultivation carry through the Full Moon tomorrow and beyond.

April 6
Full Moon: 16 degrees Libra: 12:34 AM EDT
My favorite keywords for this combination are ‘cooperation and/or competition. (A Full Moon is always an opposition of the Sun and the Moon.) We benefit when we choose to negotiate rather than negate the other. The challenger stands before us, personally and collectively. How we respond makes all the difference. It has been said that the greatest victory is that which requires no battle.

April 7
Venus sextile Neptune
If it’s not beautiful it’s not functional. Nature shows this to us in in the curve of a branch, the leaf of a tree, a bird on the wing, the pounding of the sea, sun sets and rises, the sky at night. It’s a symphony of functional beauty. Even at its wildest and most destructive it’s there. We are Nature too.

April 08
Mercury sextile Mars
Do something, anything, to foster functional beauty. Sing to your plants. Dance in the kitchen. Fertilize the seedlings. This is your world. How you live in it matters.

April 11
Venus enters Gemini
Venus trines Pluto
Sun conjunct Jupiter
Words have power. They convince and inspire us. They hurt like arrows to the heart and open us to love. They mediate between our inner and outer worlds. They are bridges between us – for good and ill. Words are a gift of magic, we the spell casters, creating the world.

April 14
Venus square Saturn
Test your words. Edit before you send. Consider the weight of what you are saying. Listen to the still small voice inside that knows better as well as to the voices of others who may challenge what you think or say. The bridge of words between us works best when we listen as well as speak.

April 20
New Moon Eclipse at 29 degrees of Aries: 12:12 AM EDT
Sun enters Taurus 4:13 AM
Sun square Pluto
Today appears as both an ending (New Moon in the last degree of Aires) and a beginning (Sun enters a new sign as well as a New Moon). It might be confusing to sort ends from beginnings; starts from finishes. And the square to Pluto twists it a bit further.
Here is an image you might use to help navigate such a puzzle:

You come from an old world, an old way of doing and being. Although you are familiar with this old world and know how to get around in it you are aware that this old world no longer quite exists. It fades in and out. What might be a new world (or what might be an old world pretending to be new) beckons to you but there is nothing familiar there.
As you stand between endings and beginnings you are inclined as people have been since the beginning, to seek the wisdom of an Old One. (An Old One could just as easily be a tree as a two legged: even a book you read when you were much younger.) You are aware that these times have been foretold by poets and pundits throughout history although being here isn’t the same as imagining being here. You wonder if it has always been like this. As you set out in search of an Old One you hear an old song in your head:

“When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the white knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen’s lost her head”…

Seems to fit. All those heroes dressed up as politicians and leaders, talking backwards. And Nature, the Red Queen has indeed lost her head. To be here at this Great Turning of the Wheel of Time in Space, with no idea how to navigate or where it’s taking us can make us fearful. Will our dreams of our own future crash and burn if we accept the invitation to a transformation. Do we have a choice? A bit of wisdom from an Old One might just shed some light on the journey.

Julie Simmons 2/18/23 Julie Simmons 2/18/23

Insights for Pisces

February 18
Sun enters Pisces: 05:34 PM EST
Those who don’t fit in, who don’t belong: the atypical, the convicts, the homeless, the refugees, the insane, the gender benders, possibly your mother and her mother, even you: Where in the name of Holy Oneness is anyone supposed to belong? Who do they belong to or with and why is it so easy to ‘other’ those who are not like us? This is not a rant or one more way to increase the guilt of being alive and having food, shelter and a place in society (however flimsy that seems at the moment). It’s a real Pisces question. Pisces has been referred to as the ‘dust bin of the zodiac’ where everything that doesn’t have a place or that can’t be worked out, ends up. Wouldn’t you know though, in the way of mystical comprehension, that Pisces isn’t some room for broken bits and unsolved mysteries; it is the place where all things come together as one. If we are awake to this we understand that compassion reigns in this place because we all belong in the heart and soul of the great oceanic consciousness of the Universe. Water (Pisces is a water sign) offers us solution. Water is solution, where we dissolve and connect.
This year as the Sun journeys through Pisces it will amplify the energies of Mars as it makes its last square to Neptune between March 13 – 17th. This is the final hit of the Mars retrograde period that started in early September. The Pisces Sun will also engage with Uranus and Pluto in earth signs. Like bookends they remind us that to live is to be embodied which requires us to be responsible with our resources because we share this planet with all living beings.

February 19
Venus sextile Pluto
The opposite of gravity is grace. Gravity is Earth’s embrace. She holds us here. She gives us ground. In that ground are untold riches, the most valuable being the things we grow and eat. She sustains us from below: Pluto in Capricorn.
Grace reminds us that we are upright beings. We who have the unique capacity for awe and wonder. Grace is the sky reminding us to look up, to straighten the spine and lift the crown as we do. Grace gifts us with awareness and the untold value of our ability to simply be present and to cherish life for the sake of the living not the getting, even in these times of terrible inequity and great suffering. Venus in Pisces reveals the blessings if we have eyes to see, ears to hear.

February 20
New Moon: 01 degree Pisces: 02:05 AM EST
Venus enters Aries
Mercury sextiles Chiron
Back in the day the Beatles said, “Let it be”. The Rolling Stones said, “Let it bleed”. Reverence and rhythm. It wasn’t one or the other. It was more like a yin yang or a Mobius loop. To hold it all is what is required: To be one with everything but don’t forget to dance, to move, to protest and demand on behalf of those who can’t do it for themselves.

February 22
Mercury trine Mars
Every good idea deserves consideration before it becomes action. If we focus our attention and apply a bit of discrimination regarding what IS actually worthy of action we will likely hit the mark. Clever is not always smart.

February 23 – March 2
There are no significant interplanetary aspects at this time. We are guided by the Moon as she moves through signs and phases, waxing toward full on March 7th. Guided by emotion we might pay attention to our preferences and antipathies: not to indulge them, more to take this subtle but rare opportunity to nurture our nature. If you made an intention at the New Moon on February 20th now would be a great time to cultivate and fertilize it. You the gardener, your lived life, the garden.

March 2
Venus conjunct Jupiter
Mercury conjunct Saturn
Mercury enters Pisces
We are back in the groove of planetary interactions. With all due respect for process and production we see that it’s time to put the finish on some projects and light a sacrificial fire under others. We are hell-bent for a new season as spring approaches. We feel more than ready for a shift toward brighter solutions for the problems plaguing this world of woe. Pisces reminds us that we are not there just yet. Preparation, getting ready to meet the new season is the thing for now.

March 3
Venus conjunct Chiron
Every relationship matters – to people, pets, plants, maybe even our relationship to the sky above our heads and the bedrock beneath our feet.

March 6
Sun sextiles Uranus
If you’re looking for an alternate route, a way out or a way through, there are many. They are just waiting for you to notice.

March 7
Full Moon: 16 degrees Virgo: 07:40 AM EST
Saturn enters Pisces
We are witness to impermanence, woven into every little thing: an observation as scary as it is liberating. The Full Moon reminds us that this is a world sore in need of help. Sometimes our service is practical and sometimes it’s simply offered as love.
Prognostications abound as Saturn changes signs. A new sign indicates a new agenda and perspective for the next two and a half years. Saturn is the old one whose wisdom comes from experience. They wag their crooked old finger in our direction reminding us to have compassion. The earth is shaking, waters are rising, people are forced to find higher ground. If we live on a hill we will have to make room. The more we accept this, the more wholesome will be the outcomes of such overwhelming displacement. Otherwise it will simply add to the chaos we already experience.
The conjunction of Jupiter and Chiron on the 12th has a part to play as Saturn enters Pisces. This conjunction underscores the need to learn new things, things that might challenge who we think we are and how we defend that perception.

In a very general way: Scorpio and Cancer will take this on with skill and competence. Pisces may feel heavily burdened and should be careful of compassion burnout. Sometimes it’s enough to pray for those in distress. It’s not nothing. Gemini, Sagittarius and Virgo will be challenged to work harder, build strength and do some heavy lifting. Aries, Leo Libra and Aquarius will watch from the sidelines unless they choose to get involved. Taurus and Capricorn will find opportunities in helping alleviate distress. These generalizations are meant to apply to all planetary placements, not just the Sun.

March 11
Venus sextile Mars
Mercury sextile Uranus
On this day we might wake up, jump out of bed and know exactly what to do with the day. There are perhaps a million things worth doing from sweeping the floor to demanding that our elected officials walk their talk. A day, a time to speak and act from your deeply rooted, undisputable nature as an earthling.

March 12
Jupiter conjunct Chiron
Let the passionate, outspoken defenders of Earth raise their fists and demand action. Look around, not just within and join the living burning flame of life. This flame burns as strong for seemingly small and immediate things as well as larger issues that inspire the rest of us to take action. It will be another 12 years + and a different sign altogether before these two meet in conjunction again.

March 14
Mars square Neptune
We could call this the official end of the shadow of the Mars retrograde period that started in early September. Where have you been? What have you learned? Here is your chance to apply your new found wisdom. At a collective level you might think of all that has happened regarding our local environments, our streets and neighborhoods from potholes (always noticeable as winter winds down) to random acts of violence on public transportation, protests in streets that may not be local to you but they were/are to someone else, not to mention the aftermath of an earthquake and even the resignation of a mayor.
Perhaps this is a culminating moment of awareness for you, regarding a whole lot of confusion. Possibly you have learned something significant in your own life about when to speak and when to listen. Maybe you had a really good idea and you still can’t tell if it was such a good one after all. Whatever your personal story, move slowly enough to avoid blind alleys and con artists. Mars and Neptune together can show us the world which used to seem familiar but now seems wild and unpredictable. If you find a bargain, look it over a few times. Generally speaking: measure twice, cut once is good advice. The rest isn’t up to you.

March 16
Mercury conjunct Neptune
Sun square Mars
Venus square Pluto
Venus enters Taurus
It’s a condition of being human that we have longings .That we want something we don’t have. The mistake we make of course is believing that longings are meant to be satisfied. In that direction are insatiable hungers which lead to so much destruction.
Longing is a thing in itself. To sit right where we are and feel it fully can turn it into bliss: the bliss of presence. It’s hard work which can create a world of kindness and wholeness. But you would never know this if you didn’t try doing it.

March 17
Mercury square Mars
Mercury conjunct Sun
Venus sextile Saturn
Voices on the wind can sound like chattering monkeys, speaking a language you don’t understand. Or: You could slow down and listen. Maybe it is a mean old world but it is what it is. Nobody is going to make lemonade out of these lemons just now. To slow down, listen until you hear something and then to give it your best is plenty good enough.

March 18
Mercury sextile Pluto
The deepest wisdom comes from that irrefutable place of knowing, a feeling that we can kiss the ground on which we stand. To combine this wisdom with acceptance absent of the urge to force this wise knowing on others, leads to a kind of luminous intelligence.

March 19
Mercury enters Aries
Here on the last day of winter, with spring in the wings of tomorrow, the messenger (Mercury) reminds us to open to the hum and thrum beneath the surface. We live on a world that turns through each day and each year; each of our lives unfolding as a microcosm of even greater, vaster turnings, even when it feels like a churning mess. So be it! Step lively. Let your thoughts carry you forward into the fray. Kismet.

Photo by Patrick Perkins on Unsplash

Julie Simmons 1/20/23 Julie Simmons 1/20/23

Aquarian Insights

January 20
Sun enters Aquarius: 03:29 AM EST

Are we there yet? At the Age of Aquarius… Some days it seems we should just be there already. If the mind can conceive of it why are we so very far from living the ideal(s) which Aquarius promises? It’s not enough to imagine the New Age, not in a world where one person’s paradise is another’s hell.
There’s the rub. We can’t get to the Age of Aquarius, unless and until everyone gets there together. It’s that simple and that complex. Aquarius is the sign of humanity and as we are discovering, humanity includes all living things in an intricate web of interdependence. We have some work to do.
The Sun will be busy as it travels through Aquarius this year: Affirming Mars and Jupiter with some “Yes we Can!” enthusiasm, yet at odds with Uranus, its ruling planet, reminding us what a mess we have on our hands; reminding us that even if we stop destroying our environment right now, we still have a crisis on our hands. Maybe Aquarius prompts us to think as clearly as we can about the goals we have all the while drawing on the archive of experience from the past even as we look toward the unknown future. The challenge is to do this with ‘beginners mind’ and not to think we know it all already. We don’t need to lower our sites, rather it’s time for re-visioning in a way that includes the awareness of all living systems and individuals. Something to practice in your own little corner of reality.

January 21
New Moon: 01 degree Aquarius: 03:53 PM EST

Used to seem obvious that if God loved you, you would be rich, famous, beautiful, even white skinned and male. Others need not apply. In this mindset we came to believe that everything was possible if we just put our mind to it. Now we understand differently. It’s not exactly God that loves us, more like the system favors some over others, based on some alarming parameters. We have woken as if from a dream into a reality of systematic inequities. We understand that those with greater powers of manifestation are the ones who are housed, fed, employed and paid a living wage. May this inspire us at the New Moon. May we find ourselves full of ideas and ideals for a better, more inclusive world. Between now and the 24th when the Sun will sextile Jupiter, cultivate an intention as big as you can imagine, bigger. Cultivate the belief that we (not me) can and will do it. Because we must.

January 22
Venus conjunct Saturn
Uranus stationery direct

Off to the races! Let ’23 begin (already). All the planets are now direct and even the Moon is New. As the way leads on you might straighten your hat, square your shoulders and take a good look at your itinerary for the year ahead. It’s good to have a plan, even if things will undoubtedly not be as we expect.

January 24
Sun sextile Jupiter

A bit of optimism is a good thing. Even more than a bit. It’s contagious. Hopefully you have been stoking this fire since the New Moon a few days ago.

January 26
Venus enters Pisces

Beauty uplifts the soul. It opens us to compassion, to love, tenderness and awe. Which is not the same as glamor. Not at all.

January 27
Mercury square Chiron

One person with one desperate, unresolved trauma can create a lot of damage which ripples out, like waves in a pond. That same person, healed can do the opposite.

January 29
Sun trine Mars
Mercury trine Uranus

A great idea whose time has come cries out in joy at the efforts to make it so. Here on Spaceship Earth, to get where we are going, requires us to be here and now rather than then and there.

February 1
Sun sextile Chiron

As we were saying, the ripple effect of one person, one kindness is unknowable. Might as well…

February 3
Sun square Uranus

The bull in the china shop of our best ideas is crashing into them. If you’re feeling it, know that it lasts (at least) through the Full Moon on the 5th. Think of it as a necessary part of the process of manifestation. Accelerated change feels chaotic. As we step down from having worn the (imagined) crown of creation and come to terms with our interconnectedness to all that lives (including one another) we find our best plans and ideas against the backdrop of ‘the full catastrophe’. These are our times.

February 4
Venus square Mars

If you want a bit of astro-drama and the sky is clear enough, look for Venus, setting after the Sun in the west . As the sky darkens, look up (facing south) and find Mars on the mid-heaven. Invite your mind to wander into a story about desire. Desire spins The Wheel of Life: making babies and art, inventing better mousetraps and propelling us to the Moon and beyond. We want! And what of thwarted desire, aborted desire, addiction and war? Can desire even begin to be reasonable? Craving (Venus) and aversion (Mars) top of the list of guilty suspects when it comes to suffering yet we continue to spin the Wheel because sometimes it feels so good. Go figure.

February 5
Full Moon: 16 degrees Leo: 01:28 PM EST

Consider for yourself the difference between a cross of matter and a crucifix. One reminds us of the four directions, the seasons, each an equal part of the whole. It’s organic. The other reminds us of suffering, torture and suggests that man’s inhumanity to man is all that can be expected. A crucifix is the dominator version of the cross of matter. Truly we live in a world riddled with man’s inhumanity to all that lives. It’s time to restore the cross to its original shape.
Do what you do. Express yourself fully for the sake of the doing and the joy of expression, rather than the glory or the gain. Here, at the crossroads we might lay down our pride and open the door to our heart. Teach the children (inner and outer) about simple pleasure, real satisfactions and presence, even in the face of accelerating change.

February 6
Mercury sextile Neptune (for the 3rd time)

The choice has never been if we live or die. It has always been only how we live. Mercury made this sextile to Neptune before, during and now, after its retrograde journey (December 24, January 2 and today). A gentle reminder to choose the best ‘how’ for your life.

February 8
Venus sextile Uranus

Pleasure is most genuine when it is simple. Glamor and fancy wrapping doesn’t enhance pleasure. It only adds a kind of inflated value which has no substance. Taste what you are eating, feel the texture of the clothes on your skin. Like they say, smell the coffee!

February 10
Mercury conjunct Pluto

Where Capricorn meets Aquarius, where earth meets air, where mastery or at least circumstance becomes information for others to use. Mercury will move across this territory today as it leaves Capricorn and tomorrow when it enters Aquarius. Pluto will do the same next month. Borders are where shift happens; where we change perspective. In this case from the absolute limits of matter, (our very collective and increasingly oppressive crumbling infrastructures) to the possibility of using change itself as a resource which invites the collective sharing of ideas: From the pyramid to the commons.

February 11
Mercury enters Aquarius
Mars sextile Chiron

“Think globally, act locally”, has been a battle cry for futurists for years. As the world becomes smaller some say we should think globally and act globally as well. it’s common sense to attune and tend to the situations in our midst with an eye to the whole. No one wants the Age of Aquarius to happen somewhere else. Listen to the distressed young activist in your midst. (Be they inner or outer.) What rites of passage do we offer the young? If this is relevant to your life, here is an opportunity to do something. Listening is always a good place to start. The journey into adulthood has always been somewhat precarious and difficult. It falls to the adults and elders to encourage and lend a supportive, helping hand.

February 15
Venus conjunct Neptune

A day for beauty, poetry, and possibly compassion of the sort that conjures the joyful sorrow and the sorrowful joys of a lived life.

February 16
Sun conjunct Saturn

Evaluate the plan. Your focus could be the blueprint for the year or simply something more immediate. Bring in your allies, the best and brightest, to keep you from getting stuck in the box of your own thinking. Widen your perspective. Everything we do jostles the web that connects us to each other.

February 17
Mercury sextile Jupiter

Thinking through our issues and situations collectively is not so easy for us but has the potential to bring more possible futures into being. Reach out to others and reach into the archive of knowledge (not information) that could foster your best ideas into something encouraging for all, especially the kids.

Julie Simmons 12/21/22 Julie Simmons 12/21/22

Insights for Capricorn

As the World Turns and Turns again…

If you need some astrological guidence for reading your way into the new year, try this.

December 21
Sun enters Capricorn: 04:48 PM EST
The downside of Capricorn issues have been front and center since at least 2020, actually since 2008 for those with the eyes to see. Essentially Capricorn is about the right (or wrong) use of resources. Perhaps the actual problem began much earlier, when corporations became legal entities with the rights of individuals. That was 1867. You, most likely have your own litany of things you judge to be falling apart: the economy, the climate, health care, supply chains, housing and more. These are the innumerable cracks, letting in the light of possibility for better, more honest management of our resources: Capricorn’s better nature. As the wheel of the year turns, as we step into Capricorn, we instinctively want celebration for the hard work we have done as well as the work that awaits us in the coming year. Some of us continue to struggle with the notion that if the cornerstone of celebration is consumption maybe it’s not celebration at all. Traditions change, they are meant to change to reflect the times.
Then there is Jupiter who wants in on the celebrations.
Today is the actual birthing of the Sun into a New Year. Yesterday, today and tomorrow we experience the subtle, silent mystery of the Sun appearing to stand still. And then it is no small miracle that it will begin (again) to wax or grow in light as the days, weeks and months of the year unfold.
Imagine that this new baby of the year is swaddled in its cradle around which stand the Blessings for the year (the ‘good’ fairies). Jupiter, the uninvited guest joins them. He is not happy, not full of blessings, but rather like the 13th fairy in the story of Sleeping Beauty, the uninvited guest who presents the challenge that will make or break this new being.
What challenges you at the gate of the coming year? Jupiter may feel like a push toward action but so close to the New Moon we might hold back on impulse. We might instead imagine ourselves as stewards of valuable resources. As we do our best to manage in these times of unsteady social supports how will you manage, given what resources you have? Is there a way to do that which benefits others as well as yourself?

December 22

Venus trine Uranus

It can make your heart lurch to witness the gap between abundance and poverty and yet they seem to coexist. Is it possible that for the rich to feel rich requires there to be the poor? Are we so polarized that we only know ourselves in contrast to something else? Today the greatest gift appears when we share our bounty outside the usual circle of those we know we care about: not in the spirit of charity which looks down upon those less fortunate, more in the spirit of common sense and mutual respect. To share resources is to manage them correctly. To ease the way for one individual benefits us all.

December 23
New Moon: 01 degree Capricorn: 05:16 AM EST
Chiron stationery direct
If you share in the wonder of the winter solstice as the birth of the New Year, the return of the light, you might appreciate that a New Moon on the heels of a New Year promises the earliest glimmer of hope for the way forward into 2023. It’s not the gun at the starting gate, more of a seed beginning to sprout; fragile and in need of cultivation and nourishment. A time to let your little light shine. Time and space converge when a whole lot of little lights, little seed lights, shine together at the newest moment of a new year. People everywhere are lighting candles tonight and all this week. You could light one too.

December 24
Mercury sextile Neptune

Be kind whenever possible.

It is always possible.

December 25
Re-read December 23 and 24th.

December 28
Venus sextile Neptune
Kindness isn’t condescending: Not something to be bestowed upon poor unfortunates. It is recognition between equals that there is no one on this earth more or less deserving of kindness and compassion than anyone else. Including you (and me)! It staggers the mind and opens the heart, if you let it.

If the night is clear and you have a good view of the western horizon just after sunset take a look for Venus and Mercury conjunct.

December 29
Mercury stationery retrograde (sextiling Neptune)
Venus conjunct Mercury
Neptune’s theme continues: We have a responsibility or maybe, an ability to respond to the sentient world, which may include the entire earth, with kindness and compassion. It’s a love story. Mercury’s retrograde journey seems to want to take us to the practical applications of kindness and compassion, this love.

January 1
Venus conjunct Pluto
Some things matter more than others. Out of these matters evolve our values. From our collective values arise the economies of the world. And damn it if it doesn’t seem that someone ran off with what matters and turned it into a commodity! So we step back and ask, “What really matters? What is the matter? How will we manage what matters?” These can be heavy questions but even so, there is no requirement of a heavy heart to explore them.

January 2
Mercury (Rx) sextile Neptune (again)
Sun square Chiron
Venus enters Aquarius
Mercury has been hovering around the sextile with Neptune since the 24th of November. In the midst of which it stationed retrograde. This gives us an idea of what this particular retrograde is about. In Capricorn, Mercury is turned toward ‘real things’. Perhaps the most real is nature itself. Even if you aren’t living in a forest, even if you’re surrounded by too much concrete, too many right angles, you are part of a living organism. It’s alive. Our mandate is to care for it responsibly, to use and replenish it according to the cycles of life. To do that we need to shut out or at least dampen the voices telling us that consuming one more thing is the solution to a broken world. It’s not broken. It’s in transition and we are in the process of giving birth to it. We do well to listen without expectation to the world as it is in the here and now. In this way we learn from our losses and widen the scope of who we acknowledge as part of this great circle of life.

January 4
Venus sextile Jupiter
Get used to the notion of inclusion. The more passion we bring to our compassion the quicker we can get on with the business of bringing the Age of Aquarius into being.

January 4 - 9
These days are of a piece. The planets seem to be working together even as we are called to do the same with each other. At the start, a blessing with Venus sextile Jupiter. At the end Venus trine Mars offers encouragement to take action in a reasonable but firmly focused and idealistic manner.

January 5
Sun trine Uranus
Radical shift on our swiftly tilting planet which appears hell bent on changes both terrible and wonderful to imagine. Diving into the ‘full catastrophe’ seems the best advice. There is no going back.

January 6 & 7
Full Moon: 16 degrees Cancer: 06:07 PM EST
Mercury conjunct the Sun
Last month the Full Moon was all about Mars, this month it’s about Mercury. The heart of the Sun where conjunctions take place is the ultimate haven of renewal, where planets go to die and be reborn: just as humans are said to do. Listen, with all your heart for the story or the message or the simple expression of living things. Imagine renewal in the mind, in the body. Imagine it touches and changes everything. Epiphanies are everywhere.

January 8
Mercury trine Uranus
Fling open the doors of perception, your senses, and invite in your recent revelations, your latest ‘Aha!’. Open your mind to new ideas. Sometimes, not always, a new idea might improve upon an older one. Mercury retrograde loves a revision and Uranus is some kind of awakener.

January 9
Venus trine Mars
Fly your best idea, like a kite on a windy day. It may get tossed about on the wind but that’s what makes it fun.

January 11
Mercury Rx square Chiron
It can be scary to realize that all the things ‘I’ go through, all the things ‘I’ feel, everything ‘I’ react to is something I have in common with someone else on this planet. This awareness is a revelation of connection and responsibility to all that lives. Do not turn away from the sufferings you see around you. Let this touch you inasmuch as it is real. Narrow your focus. See what you can possibly do.

January 12
Mars stationery direct
Venus sextile Chiron
Some little idea that started like a trickle high up in the mountains of your mind has meandered into a waterfall or mighty river aiming for the sea. In Iran it started with the murder of one woman and surged into a mighty protest. In Ontario there is outrage regarding broken promises and lies about the Greenbelt. Some of us worry at the erosion of democracy as its glaring insufficiencies stare us in the face. On a bad day it looks like the end of something but perhaps it’s the inevitable turning and churning of an idea that needs to be exercised regularly to be any good. Whatever your good ideas are, the time for action, the time to bring them to the people around you is now and over the next two months.

January 13
Sun sextile Neptune
An arroyo is a gully, a kind of river bed that gives water an opportunity to flow rather than flood. We don’t have to live in the drylands of the southwest to make use of this image. Give the flow of emotion, grief, compassion any and all feelings, a container and make things easier. (Photo: Arroyo)

January 14
Venus square Uranus
When do we ever learn that thinking inside the box of an old idea even as changes spill over the edge of such a box cannot work? Don’t throw your hands up and walk away. This is not a ‘my way or the highway’ moment. A bit of awe, fear and amazement might be in order till you can stretch your perspective to meet the change. (Remember the tumult of the bodily changes of adolescence? There was no figuring it out back then, we just had to ride the waves and one day we had a new body and a new outlook to go with it.)

January 18
Mercury stationery direct
Sun conjunct Pluto
If the planets had a highlighter, some garish neon color would underscore today’s message: Something akin to “There is no planet B” or “Get real!” , how about, “Don’t waste my time with promises of how it will be some day in the vague future”. If not now, there is no when.

Julie Simmons 11/22/22 Julie Simmons 11/22/22

Sagittarius Insights

November 22
Sun enters Sagittarius: 03:20 AM EST
Are we tourists on this planet, hunting for souvenirs to bring back to some other place we can’t remember or return to? Are we pilgrims, here to learn; reaching beyond the grasp of understanding in the hopes that we may grow wise? Is the point of journeying simply to collect memories or to learn that what is assumed as ‘the way’ in one place, by one people is not necessarily true in another?
That could be one Sagittarius theme. Another more specific contemplation might be the link between sport, war and religion. We seem to love sport, believe in religion and abhor war. In the relatively recent past it has become clear for all to see that in each of these realms violation (sexual and otherwise) of the weak, defenseless and trusting simply goes without saying. In the last century after the horror of WWII the notion of crimes against humanity became something we could name, identify and prosecute. Eradicating the energies that give rise to these destructive urges is another thing.

Sagittarius, at its best is visionary: An archetypal invitation to learn from diversity. At worst (every archetypal construct has a best and a worst) it is dogmatic, fundamentalist and exclusive and only considers its followers as fully human. As the Sun moves into Sagittarius, as we descend, here in the north, into the darkest, most troubling and mysterious part of the year we might give some honest consideration to these themes. As a mutable sign Sagittarius is dualistic which is to say incredible paradoxical: Wisdom and vision on one hand, socially sanctioned war and violation on the other.
It might be worth noting at this moment that astrology itself is a north-centric construct for gaining insight into what it means to be human. Its meanings arise from observation of seasons and the rising and setting of the sky at different times of the year. We cannot separate astrology from culture. As the western world, the dominant world, dare we say, the First World? comes apart at the seams astrology must also find new ways to tell it’s stories. This has always been a fascinating and compelling challenge for me. You as well, I imagine, if you are reading this.
As the Sun travels through Sagittarius this year it’s most powerful aspect will be the opposition to Mars at the Full Moon. This is a powerful reminder to question authority (especially the authority inside your own mind) and to refuse to follow the command if you don’t understand or agree with why it has been given. It will also sextile Saturn and square Neptune. Two very different energies. The New Moon will trine Jupiter – a wonderful time to affirm your path in wisdom rather than dogma.

November 23
New Moon: 01 degree Sagittarius: 05:57 PM EST
Jupiter stationery direct
Jupiter is right at home with the energies of Sagittarius and so a New Moon combined with a change in direction reminds us to make a powerful intention and, at the very least, not to despair. At the very most we might consider sharing our vision for the future with anyone who might gain some strength from it.
As you must upon your visions for the future you might consider what was stirred up as Jupiter journeyed through Pisces, starting at the end of last year (with a dip into Aries between May 10 and December 21st, coming up). Of course Neptune is in Pisces as well and has been on about the same things since spring of 2011. You might consider if and how you have become more aware of the waves of chaos, breaking over the world. And if your heart has been stirred to feelings of compassion as a tool for navigating such extraordinary times. Humanity, which might just include more than humans, is a sea of individuals, each of whom is not more or less deserving than anyone else of food, shelter, freedom, respect and a healthy environment in which to live. As Pluto edges its way toward Aquarius and Saturn to Pisces in March of 2023 this notion of humanity as an ocean of individuals will become more not less important. Some see this as an ocean of resource to exploit for personal gain. That’s old-story. The rest of us either feel like pawns in that game or part of the dawning of a new story, a new age. It doesn’t happen in an instant.

November 25
Mercury and Venus trine Chiron
The stories we tell ourselves matter. Be creative. Pay attention to the story nattering away in your head at any given moment. Give it a tweak toward a new story if you can. A story of wisdom to share that could benefit those around you.

November 27

We have been through a lot in the last while. The days are getting dark in the north where I live, and short. The circumstances of the world are closing in on us as individuals. We are feeling it. As the Moon opens to crescent, look for the impossible sliver of light and remind yourself about faith. Even though this poem is speaking about the waning crescent I offer it because as the Moon waxes and the days wane it’s downright mystical!

I want to write about faith,
about the way the moon rises
over cold snow, night after night,

faithful even as it fades from fullness,
slowly becoming that last curving and impossible
sliver of light before the final darkness.

But I have no faith myself
I refuse it even the smallest entry.

Let this then, my small poem,
like a new moon, slender and barely open,
be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

-David Whyte

November 29
Mercury enters Scorpio
Given that our attention has become a commodity, bought and sold by forces we cannot quite believe are real, now and over the next few weeks, would be a good time to take it back. Own your focus. Pay your attention toward the things that empower you to live your life from the inside out, not the other way around.

December 1
Venus opposite Mars
Mercury square Neptune
Venus sextile Saturn
Today we might begin asking some hard questions even as a fog hangs over our fears for the future. ‘What is the matter and why?’ ‘Whom do I serve (not whom do I work for)?’ That life is meaningful and worthy of our efforts is not the question here.

December 3
Neptune stationery direct
Neptune on the move, reminding us perhaps that relaxing into all that does matter will allow us to navigate better than thrashing through the frenzied mind of chaos.

December 4
Sun trine Chiron
Venus square Neptune
Imperfection all over the place. Nothing is good enough but for whom? Who is this unwise judge who believes in perfection as if I might be the one and only person who gets it right?

December 6
Mercury square Jupiter
Mercury enter Capricorn
There is a saying, ‘if you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind’. It seems we are doing just that. Even so there is a still, small point at the center of each and every one of us. You can find it by simply standing still; feet on the ground, imagining the roots of a big tree, head aligned with your guiding star. When we knowingly stand between heaven and earth we are a kind of lightning rod for all that it means to be human.

December 7 & 8
Full Moon: 16 degrees Gemini: 11:08 PM EST
Sun opposite Mars Rx
Questions are more powerful than answers. Ask yourself and anyone who assumes they have answers, the hard questions: Why should I? or maybe, Why shouldn’t I? And maybe even, Who is the boss of me (really)? To question is to quest.
If you’re following along with Mars retrograde we have come to the exact midpoint of the transit: the most powerful time to grapple with what it means for you, for us. Think back to whatever it was that called to you in September. Evaluate with curiosity the difficulty or ease you have had as you have attempted to accomplish the task. Here we face the challenge of continuing along our path; a time to reach for that pearl of great price: an unruly thing of value. You are indeed the person for the task. Fear not! Speak truth to the power of your will. Be curious regarding all that might seems to block the way.

December 9
Venus square Jupiter
Venus enters Capricorn
Following in Mercury’s footsteps just a few short days ago (December 6th) Venus reminds us that the best strategy when reaping a whirlwind is presence. For Venus this comes through our senses. Don’t just do something. Stand or sit there and smell the moment, taste the tang, feel the sensations of embodiment. Beneath the restlessness: the itching and twitching, is our ability to be present, to sit and know that we are sitting (or standing): A true gift.

December 12
Sun sextile Saturn
Settle into the task at hand. Do it simply because it needs doing. Like it or not you are here and now. The more ease you bring to honoring this the more calm you bring to the swirling winds of this world, especially the ones in your mind.

December 14
Sun square Neptune
Every picture tells a story. Here is a story of ‘lost’: A babe in the woods? A pilgrim seeking a teacher and a teaching? A truth obscured by a lie? Or simply a time to rest from the endless striving of ‘more’ and ‘better’. To float and marvel at the stars in the sky or even the mere anarchy that has been loosed upon the world.

December 17
Mercury square Chiron
Do not turn away from the sufferings you see around you, the immediate ones as well as the ones that overwhelm even as they proliferate out of control. Let this touch you inasmuch as it is real. Notice the impulse that arises when you do. From this you might narrow your focus and do something that is within your power to do.

December 19
Venus square Chiron
Mars sextile Chiron
People in the privileged world are in the habit of thinking that they somehow deserve their good fortune. This often amounts to permission to consume. Of course if we believe we deserve our good fortune this implies that others must deserve their bad. Wisdom teaches us that we are made of conditions that are handed down to us for generations before we are born and continue like waves in water for generations to come. That no one is deserving of cruelty or the grace. What mighty, although perhaps small, action could you take, in the dark of the year when despair is easy to find, feel and step into, that just might shift the legacy for future generations? How might the heartfelt impulse teach to the broken heart above show itself? Not only for the children but for the cosmos. Think big or don’t think at all, simply offer yourself to the only dance there is.

December 20
Jupiter enters Aries
Tomorrow, just after solstice, Jupiter will square the Sun as it enters Capricorn. Restrain the manic impulse, even as you step into the celebration of what you know to be true: Light is returning: The year will be born anew. But not just yet. On this side of that change is the sacred silence. Quiet. Listen. Remember. A god who only loves his own people is by definition, not God.

These insights, are meant as contemplations of a sort: Each one fashioned using the astrological aspects of the moment. Astrology is a kind of sky writing which invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same. Any of us can find insight through the images if we look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.

Julie Simmons 10/23/22 Julie Simmons 10/23/22

Insights for Scorpio

These insights, are meant as contemplations: Each one fashioned using the astrological aspects of the moment. Astrology invites the muse. No two perceptions are exactly the same and any of us can find insight through the images if we but look. These are mine, happily offered for you to reshape and fashion into something of your own. Follow the links, where you find them for further musings on the planetary aspects.

October 23
Sun enters Scorpio: 06:35 AM EDT

Scorpio is the cooking pot, the shredder, the compost bin. It’s where we meet everything that is not true. For many this is untenable so Scorpio becomes the shadowy realm which contains our greatest fears. It’s a fixed sign and therefore dedicated to storing, holding and containing power. It is a water sign and therefore dedicated to feelings. It is not emotional, which is to say it is not reactive to the slights and discomforts of the moment. Rather it is deep and profoundly aware of the inner landscape, the nuance, the felt sense. It can be profound and yet it can be controlling, manipulative and grossly insensitive to social cues. It suffers terribly (and creates suffering for others as well) when it lacks empathy. In a world that does not leave or make much time for honest processing of feelings, a world of instant revelation and stolen focus Scorpio has a hard time achieving its best self.
As it journeys through Scorpio this year the Sun will encounter two eclipses (Solar and Lunar): A stirring of powerful energies. We might think of these energies being released at the solar eclipse on the 25th and hitting their peak between the 5th of November and the 11th. During this time the Sun, Moon, Venus Mercury Uranus and Saturn will engage with one another. Many eyes will be on the mid-term elections in the USA but there are many other areas of transformation on this planet that will resonate with these energies. It’s so important as the year (in the northern hemisphere) descends into the darker period of shorter days and longer nights to remind ourselves that endings and beginnings are the front and back of all change. The pregnant woman becomes a mother, the old person dies and the baby gets born, we leave home and find a new one. All this change takes time and has moments of deep grief as well as empowered success. This is what Scorpio teaches us, or reminds us that we already knew.

October 25
New Moon: 02 degrees Scorpio: 6:48 AM EDT
Something small and mighty begins. Something that will reveal itself over the next two weeks as we approach the Full Moon. On one hand, an invitation to chaos and power grabs. On the other a serious invitation for change and transformation. Either path is strenuous: One leads to misery and the other to greater wisdom and mastery. We fear letting go (change) even as we know without having to be told that change is inevitable. This too shall pass and new realities come into being.

October 26 & 27
Mercury trine Mars and square Pluto
There are some amazingly life affirming ideas flying and floating through the air of this wildly fluctuating world; ideas that could ease suffering and make life livable for the many not just the few. There are forces that would manipulate and destroy these notions for reasons of greed and ill will. Change will come just as truth will out. Transformation of culture generally starts with a good idea. Something like “Liberty and justice for all.”

October 28
Jupiter retrogrades back into Pisces
What makes (us) humans unique may be that we stand on two legs and can look up. What arises from that is our capacity for awe and wonder, the ability to appreciate the beauty of that which we do not understand. Some say and I agree, that this capacity is fed by our ability to look up, to see the stars at night, to marvel at the Sun and how it wakes us up and travels across the heavens each and every day. This awe and wonder is also present when we look down: When a new life is born or a seed sprouts into a flower. It is not enough to have faith in some higher power, we must combine it with reverence for our lives lived beneath the sky. Above and below there is wonder and awe. Therefore let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.

October 29
Mercury enters Scorpio
Given that our attention has become a commodity, bought and sold by forces we cannot quite believe are real, now would be a good time to take it back. Own your focus, pay your attention toward the things that empower you to live your life from the inside out, not the other way around.

October 30
Mars stationery retrograde
Look back to the beginning of September. Was there something that called to you: Some idea or project that pulled you toward it? This was Mars in the shadow, a time to hear the call and take it on (Mars represents action and actualization). Now we enter the period of grappling (until December 8th): No turning back. We learn all we can about where our intention might have taken us. We may be frightened but we do it anyway. We muster courage. We proceed with care, deliberation, perhaps a profound commitment to learn and grasp information that can support our worthy intentions. Many people on this planet are too anxious, scattered, frightened or greedy to truly hear a call in the first place. But not all. Not you. (If you are interested in our workshop on this topic you can find the information here

November 2
We enter, collectively a zone, a patch of thin ice, a fire swamp, lasting until November 11th. (Details below). Take a deep breath, feel your feet on the (sacred) ground of Earth. You are here and now. There is no Planet B. All these truths are useful. A good time to consider why you use astrology as a guide anyway.

November 5
Venus opposite Uranus
Why does any of it matter? Why do you want what you want so much? What if life is art and you don’t create it with your will alone? What if it’s always a co-creation with mysterious forces we feel and sense but cannot fully control? If you feel overpowered, let go into the feeling (even just for a few minutes). Allow yourself to be fully engaged in the feeling. Like the poet said, It’s life and life only.

November 6
Standard time. Turn back the clock. The world a little darker, a little earlier. What is time? How do you measure it?

November 7
Venus square Saturn
We are not only one with nature, both denizens and expressions of the natural world. We are also part of culture. Culture isn’t just about art: It’s inflation and farming practices, banks and oil prices as well as how we educate our children: It’s what we do with the elderly and how we care for the sick. Lately it’s become a lot easier to talk to your local tree then to get the bank to answer the phone when you have a problem or to see a doctor who might know something about you: A glass-half-empty moment. Evaluate it from both the perspective of nature and culture and you might find you understand something about your place in it. We live here. In fact we are living the myth we have created.

(PS: Today is the actual midpoint between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice which is the moment of decent into the waning of the year that Halloween derives from.)

November 8 & 9
Full Moon: 16 degrees Taurus: 06:02 AM EST
Mercury conjunct the Sun and square Uranus
Sun conjunct Uranus
Hot button days, upending the way-things-have-always-been. The ever-present is in free fall. Maybe it’s politics (especially in the USA). Maybe it’s what we used to call weather but now refer to as climate. Maybe it’s an inner sense of not being in control of the part of your world that you could count on. Somewhere, deep inside, we know the difference between surrender and capitulation. One requires that we relax and be fully present. The other is permission to quit, a tightening of the body and a shuttering of the mind. Empowerment is in surrendering to what is, without giving up.

November 10
Mercury square Saturn
Venus trine Neptune
Move at the pace of guidance is good advice. We cannot be commanded to still the mind. We can only still the body and allow what is to be. As if this stillness isn’t already a fact, a reality within. Stillness is the teacher, awareness is the lesson.

November 11
Sun square Saturn
These days, astrologers like to say that the Sun and Saturn are enemies. But consider that without shadow we cannot see what light reveals. Without resistance we can’t build muscle. And how the even a tiny candle flame can dispel the dark.

November 12
Mercury trine Neptune
In the depths of each one of us is a wisdom so great as to heal our wounds and soothe our fears, a kind of gut level knowledge, deeper than fright, fight, freeze: Knowledge that speaks the language of the soul rather than the amygdala.

November 13
Venus sextile Pluto
There is a quality of inevitability when actions take us to consequences. We often rush to judgment in these situations, quickly followed by guilt. It’s definitely ‘all my fault’. Might it be more honest to simply accept the consequences as the fulfillment of a previous action? Assuming, of course that this is not a matter for the Law of the Land. That’s a completely different set of symbolic messages.

November 14
Mercury sextile Pluto
Sun trine Neptune
When planets in Scorpio (Mercury and the Sun) make favorable aspects to the powers of trans-personal planets (Pluto and Neptune, invisible to the naked eye) the best idea is to live into the circumstances of the realities of your life even as you are fed and watered by a deeper river of the kind of truth that knows what it knows and is guided by this knowledge. In this way we might access the sacred happiness which is sorrowless.

November 15
Venus trine Jupiter
No one believes that money isn’t important or that the economy is fair. Permission to ignore these issues for the moment and take a look at your greatest resource, the thing no one can take from you that is uniquely your own. Feel how this connects you to an underground river of rich resource in others. Not just humans either.

November 16
Venus enters Sagittarius
Mercury trines Jupiter
Astrology suggests (keep in mind I am writing this before the date in question) that we have recently passed through a raw and wild time. The effects are not to be ignored. Still we are inclined to aim for the best possible outcomes. To envision a better way. Might as well.

November 17
Mercury enters Sagittarius
Think about big things but don’t forget the smaller details that help us navigate the big picture. Dot your ‘i’s and cross your ‘t’s. Check your grammar. We think we are writing well when we spill the passionate contents of the mind but it can sound incoherent and ignorant when others read or listen to what landed on the page wrote. Writing and reading are the front and back of each other. To do one well, it helps to do the other.

November 18
Sun sextile Pluto
Investigate the layers. Unearth a mystery or two. Mull it over. Muse upon it. Feel into it. It’s always true that we live only in this real and present moment. We can’t actually move forward into the future because we are always here and now (except maybe in dream states, but most of us don’t change the world in dreams states). From the vantage point of presence, our investigations of Great Mysteries offer opportunity for the process of Great Change that is upon us. (What this might boil down to could incline us to simply feel the sensations in the body, or allow for the behavior of another person. It’s already happening anyway.)

November 19
Mars square Neptune
This aspect has been lurking since mid-October. If you’ve been feeling disoriented and out of focus give some attention to soothing, resting and nourishing your nervous system. It’s as though the nervous system of Gaia Herself is stressed. Of course if you’re in a storm you have to deal with it but the best way to do that is from a strong center in the body. We all benefit from sinking our chi (qi).

November 20
Sun trine Jupiter
Maybe at your core is some kind of faith. Surely it is possible to have faith, to believe something, and allow others to do the same.

November 21
Mercury conjunct Venus
A day for storytellers. The rest of us can sit back and enjoy the telling. We are made of stories.